Interfax-AVN/militarynews.ru reported about the laying of the 4th Project 20380 keel today at the Amur shipyard, anyone with a subscription care to post the article?

according to this http://shipbuilding.ru/rus/news/russian/2006/06/20/klinok/

the Russian navy is planning on upgrading all the klinok equipped ships to klinok-M3, basically its a new computer and new radar antenna that allows the system to engage lower RCS targets like UAV’s. The old ceiling and speed restrictions are still in place.

Belarus is getting S-300PS’s not PMU-2’s

I question whether China will be allowed to export the L-15. The technology came from the yak-130 and if its anything like the J-11 agreement the Chinese will be barred from competing with the Russian jet on the export market. Even if the Russians dont sue, the Italians have every incentive to sue if the Chinese try to market the jet.

With the exception of the Dimitri Donski it is highly unlikely that any Typhoons will be kept in service past 2010. Really only one other Typhoon is left, plans to scrap boat three have already been announced.

at 1.5-1.6 mach it doesnt matter whether you are supercruising or on afterburner the laws of physics are the same and modern IRST will see you 90+km’s out, by modern Im really thinking of PIRATE and to a lesser extent the latest incarnation of the OLS-31 (It isnt actually clear to me what the differences are between the 6 or 7 odd varients of the OLS-30 and 31 the Russians are selling). In 2001 the Russians claimed a 40km head on and a 90km from the rear effective range for the OLS-30M, its been 5 years and at least 3 different varients since the 30M was first stuck on the MKI, I would suspect the Russians arent to far behind the Pirate now.

From the account I’ve read the F-22 simply jammed the F-15C’s and the F-15’s werent able to get a lock even when the F-22 was well within visual range. This would make sense since all the F-15C were carrying “old” versions of the APG-63 and lets face it, every jammer and ECM trick box built over the past 10-15 years has been built with this radar in mind. I wouldnt be surprised if an F-4 equipped with some of the ECM toys on the F-22 could kick the crap out of 5 F-15C’s.

MiG-25’s in Gulf War 1 took off and immediately landed because the second they took off they were totally jammed, their pilots realized it was useless and got back on the ground and ran away. The F-15C was in a similiar situation.

There are several problems with the arguments presented in this thread so far. A lot of people claim that super cruise is going to give you this big kinematic advantage. Well it will give you an advantage, but non-supercruising jets have afterburners so this kinematic trick is not an F-22 exclusive, supercruise just means the F-22 will have an easier time utilizing its speed.

The problem is if you are indeed moving at mach 1.6, afterburner or not, your stealth advantage is basically gone against an IRST equipped fighter, modern IRST’s will pick you out 90+km’s out astonishingly quickly because you will way hotter than any .8 mach fighter and easier to pickup even from the front, they wont need to be behind you at speeds like that. The F-22 has not changed the laws of physics. IRST’s today search and track way faster than they did in the past.

BVR missiles at there maximum ranges are effectively bullets, they are not capable of maneuvering, it is highly questionable whether even the 50% number talked about here is realistic. It is probably lower at the ranges F-22 fans love to talk about. Dodging an AMRAAM at 100km’s is not going to take a very skilled pilot, very simple maneuvres should render the missile useless.

At the ranges where an AMRAAM has a serious (greater than 60%) chance of a kill you are almost at the point where IR missiles are at their best.