I dont think EF is that much cheaper than F-22 in fly away price considering the production run difference.
EF has smallish nose. which may not hold 2000+ T/R modules of larger fighters. Internal fuel is also short. i havent seen heaviest weopons it can carry.
once small aircraft price reaches big fighters. it lose its competitivness.

Firstly, because my knowledge is limited what is the Antey-2500 ? is linked with the S-400? Has any relation? Secondly I want to ask if the Russian navy has under development a universal VLS system equal to MK-41 & MK-57 of USN for installation to Nakhimov, Project 22350 and future DDGs. Lastly if someone have linedrawings of the project 24 Battleships please to poste me.

apart from strategic submarines and some other minor programes. I dont see any major effort on russian part for conventional Navy untill 2015. most of news development are related to Airforce.
1. giving bomber fleet conventional strike capability and Tu-160 procurement.
2. Su-34, Yak-130, PAK-FA, .
3. Su-24/Su-25/Su-27/MIG-29/MIG-31/A-50/IL-76/IL-96 upgradation.
and Russians may be right. u need long range hypersonic missiles with supersonic bombers to react fast at any corner of the world and big bomber can carry as big self protection and radar as ship and can visit the same target again and again. so interest in conventional navy is low.

Add up all the actual flying hours achieved by the E-3 and the B-1B and then compare with the actual total hours flown by the MiG-31 – we can then perhaps say who has the real experience with airborne PESA…

and than u add flying hrs of 50 to 60 MKI also. the fact is they have made lots of radar. and how is E-3 Pesa? than what is A-50 than? or u wan to go further with immigrants in other countries.
Incase russians are chasing commercial standards. and Military are alteast 2 generation behind than commercial in application.

http://sst.pennnet.com/display_article/284630/5/WNART/none/UPFRN/ISS-EU…
Of particular note were bold predictions that Russia’s semiconductor industry is quickly catching up to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), metrics for efficiency and productivity driven by leading-edge manufacturing technologies, and the need for innovative new substrate materials to take over for traditional scaling
Impressive progress is being made in Russia’s semiconductor segment, and within three to five years Russia could be only one or two generations behind the ITRS, boldly predicted Alexander Kalinin, deputy chairman, Russian Federal Fund for Electronics Development

So did MiG dump the wingtip R-73 rails?

there is brochure of MIG-35. I think Jai posted it. it says 10 underwing weopon stations.

The APG 79 will become operational this year. If you think that the Russian AESA will become operational only 2-3 years after this, you are way to optimist, IMHO

they are going to certify it by 2008 with full multifunctional capabilities of communication, EW, recon etc.

you don’t use logic, you only have one debate strategy, that is straying off the topic. See, you are doing it again by bringing IL-76 into this. You are doing this again by bringing things that are not immediate to the argument into the argument.

this thing is completely on the topic. It shows the arm purchase behaviour of customer where Cheapness is important factor at expense of capability.

Yeah, and how long did it take to go from the first deployment of S-300 to S-400?

This just show the depth of ur understanding. S-400 was developed during 90s. the worst period in modern Russian history. alot of things were slow to operationalize like Su-34. Now they have budgeted 5 Trillion Roubles ($192B) untill 2015. and the way rouble is appreciating it is not hard to imagine that it will be equivalent to $400B by 2015 and again convert this into PPP terms it is equal to $1 trillion in arms procurement. so 5th generation SAM with Antisatellite/ABM capability is perfectly under economic means. Remember they have unlimited intellectual capital.

well, I got a source stating the other way. Here is the thing, you have 25 m as your minimum altitude, yet most modern AShM fly below that.

25m at 25Km. there is nothing to suggest it cannot intercept below this heights and shorter ranges. and this may only be for export purpose. there is no point for them to publish there operational systems.

so now you are saying that the Russian system can intercept missiles because it got the upgrade? We were discussing the anti-missile capability of rif before the upgrade, remember? Like the baseline rif.

upgrade was available since 1990 and one of the ship was equipped with it since begining. but it is irrelevant to Chinese system which was sold a decade later with less capability.
and old missile could do also but there maxium intercept speed was Mach 4. which is perfect for cruise missles but not for billistic missiles.

if they can advertise 9M317’s anti-missile capability, then they can do the same with rif.

Rif is strategic SAM but much more expensive and nothing prevent Russians about falsifying its capabilities. they have to keep secrets of its largest customer and deceive the rest of the world.
Just read the recent press conference on Feb 27. China is still the largest buyer ahead of India and u cannot see this in public. and they called it Militarytechnical cooperation.

again, find anything that shows the older rif has anti-missile capability.

S-300 has capability against cruise missles right from the start. it can hit targets at 5m height. so what is preventing it from antiship missiles.?

what? They can’t buy S-300 for its effectiveness against other aerial targets now? I’m not talking about the real ABM S-300V here.

we are talking here about cruise missiles which are more analogous to antiship missiles. S-300 system has capability against billistic targets but not like Anti-2500.

lol, S-500? S-400 has finally officially joined service and you are raving about another design that’s still on the drawing border?

S-400 operational testing started in 1999 and it took 4 or 5 years of operatinal testing. S-400 is now cleared for export and number of countries are already negotiating for it. S-500 breakthrough was achieved in 2004.

I have shown that a newer version of rif using tombstone (instead of top dome) and longer ranged S-300 missiles (than the original) does not have anti-missile capability. Now, you two are trying to tell me that older version, using less capable missiles and a previous generation radar does have it. Maybe you should show some evidence?

what is the capability of 80s era land based S-300 for russian domestic versions against cruise missles.?surely u dont know the answer.
heck Russian claimed mid 70s R-33 has anticrusie missile capability. and u think there most important SAMS does not have it?

Care to go through the media outside US. You’ll know what are the facts on the ground. Even the CNN you listen to in US is different than the CNN you see in Europe and Asia. Again, insurgency is not in Baghdad alone, it is all over Iraq. And this going to be another pretext for the war against Iran (thank God we are back to the topic). And the democratic Govt you are talking about has no say whatsoever outside the green zone that clearly shows how ‘democratic’ this puppet govt is. By the way Muqtada al Sadr is not Sunni and openly criticez the Iraqi invasion. British are not pulling their forces out from Southern Iraq for no reason. And growing pressure on the US administration over this misadventure is not for fun.

I have yet to see any evidence for that. may be he is referring to plan US crackdown on him because of pressure on US from sunni world. u simply have no understanding.

You are right. And they thought they were doing them a favor because they thought they were better, their values were better, their race was better and their religion was better. And that is why they are hated in countries where they forcefully introduced their ‘civilisation’.

Agree or not, but todays politics is’nt much different from colonial era. Still revolving around race and religion.

First Japan directly attack US without major reasone. so there is element of Punishment to deter future aggressors. Germany hadnot. and second point. the whole modern world that we live is developed by West alone. Starting from Aeroplanes, Cars to modern Industrial and agriculture machinery. and there are millions from so called third world that immigrated to West. I havent seen the reverse.