Russia also have opec alllies that will do its work in opec but i think it will go beyond that.
Again Russia is not Soviet Union that it will back down in any case where its national interest. have u seen its recent business dealing with EU/India/China/japan. Multiply that behaviour by 100 for future.

You dont need to multiply anything – just look at USA. Russia would behave very alike.

The human is the most vital part of the system. Making this system “unmanned” does not make sense. The life of the pilot is not more in danger than that of the soldiers on the ground. In the end, there is no point in saving the pilots life while wasting the infantrymen.

That is only partially true.

1. Pilot is much more expensive to train and replace.
2. Pilot severely limits payload and flight performance – for example, it cant withstand more than 7-9 G, and even 3+ G badly affect pilot abilities.
3. Pilot is subject to usual human weakness – like fear of death, slow reaction to unexpected danger, inability to learn quick, inability to learn from other experience and mistakes, etc.
4. It is still human life or 2.

Resume? If manned aircraft could be replaced by unmanned without fatal performance degradation – is must be done.

Which assumes that there is always 100% control of the situation, enough batteries for the “NC-hardware” and generally the enemy behaves as expected. The low flying CAS aircraft is not only a provider of firepower, but also a pair of eyes, a psychological factor and it can deliver even low-tech ordnance with reasonable precision.

Current prices for guided ammunition suggest what using unguided ones is not economically effective. Aircraft sortie costs more than cheap guided bomb or missile. Main problem with dedicated CAS aircraft is what they are TOO specialized. Common fighter-bomber can perform almost as well in CAS role (low-alt penetration) as dedicated CAS aircraft, while being much more universal.

The best bet would probably have been to look for more Kfirs, just as Colombia has done; and probably some other cheap kit too.

– Buy some proper airbase defences, preferably something like the ZSU-23-4 from Russia/India or M-163 Vulcan from the US (though less capable).

– Build proper shelters, as already said, simple roofed revetments would be more than enough to do the job.

– Buy cheap light strike aircraft, by which I mean something like the Pilatus PC-9 or Embraer ALX, able to stay aloft for a long time, and carry modest loads.

– Replace the King Air based HISAR system.

The problem, as usual is budget, or lack thereof; the solution, in part, is to mitigate your losses, and this means making it more difficult for the bad guys to hit you on the ground. Good revetments and airbase defences would go a long way towards this goal, otherwise, as JBritchford said, you may as well paint bullseyes on the new aircraft.

How much would Kfirs cost? And with which capabilities? Decently upgraded Kfirs, i’m sure, wouldnt cost much less than Mig-29SMT…

ZSU-23 is not enough – it is too short range. Something like Tunguska or better S-125/75/Krug/Kvadrat would be more wise.

With current dollar value more like $30-35 mil..

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May be for foreign costumers. But SMT upgrade for RuAF cost about 3-4 mil $$. Old Mig-29 from stocks cost as i said about 12-15 mil $$. Make numbers add up…

I think u should only stick to Naval Form & there i have doubts now about since that Carrier episode.
Let do the maths.
Soviet Union = 5 Million Troops.
Russia= 1 Million troops.
In theory Soviet Union looks very powerful but in practice Russia is far more powerful. Soviet Union troops were mostly for colonizing 20 to 25 countires & protecting that huge border with China.

This is like big LOL. Is USA now much, much less powerfull than Russia? Because, you know, USA now occupy whole EU, Korea, Japan, Middle East and dozens other countries around the globe? Nonsense.

Vietnam/Afghanistan/Middleast/Africa/Iran was additional burdern.
I doubt that had surplus operational troops/resources to occupy any more countries in Western EU.

They perfectly had. You know, these 5 millions troops were not needed in Sibiria or near Moskow. They werent even needed in DDR or Poland. These could be perfectly well used for attack on France f.e… ofc, if war happens.

Now look at situation now. Troops are better much trained, housing is taking care of.

Even bigger LOL. Troops are MUCH, MUCH worse trained, comparatively (with West) MUCH worse equipped, moral is MUCH lower. We could f.e. see flight hours for pilots or drive hours for tankers… 3-4 times less than in USSR time. What happens with infantry i cant even imagine…

More precesion weopons like Iskander missiles. Forces are much stratecally positioned to guard natural resources and can strike at short notice on key energy/supply routes from Middleast to North Sea and completely freeze Western Military. And this is not limited to Weopons/natural resources. the rise of Asian enabled Russia to sell its Scientific knowledge to Asian Industrial corporations from SK/China/Japan. It is not in need of Western capital.
Above all they have more than 50 years of experiance of crushing anykind of resistence.

Eh… What good can do few Iskandre missiles? And now, USSR had much greater PGM weapon capability. Srapped Mig-27, much reduced SU-24M, much reduced Tu-22M3 numbers… Nearly scrapped Tochka and Tochka-U (predecessors of Iskander…) While West done HUGE step in the last 25 years developing own PGM capabilities… It is not even funny.

It was the Soviet Fear that British-French abondoned Suez canal war. U simply have no history of fighting on mass scale against decent opposition in modern times. thats why EU has to act under US leadership otherwise future under Russia is very dark. Now all Russians forces are free to invade EU but there is no economic point for them.

Such naive ignorance…

the airforce has higher living standards so fairs better in the suicide rate figures but i’m curious as to how you know its an outright lie that 4000 or so Russian service men commit suicide a year, ive never come across anyone who’s tryed to de-bunk it – which i would imagine people would if it wasn’t true…

May be because there are official numbers released? You know, by russian MOD?

For a guy who claims to attend conferences, why don’t you explain it then? Adding a dual engagement mode is a big thing because the existing FCS cannot handle the demands of such. You think that any of the current modes on the unmodified N001 are big things? The N001 can only track a single target with a fire quality information, and I am pretty sure anyone with a common sense can see that doubling that capability is a big thing.

Wake me up when one program finally succeeds. Its already 2008 now.

To be fair, even basic N001 can track 2 targets “with a fire quality information” for R-77 purposes. It can illuminate 1 target for SAR missilles – but same is true for ANY mechanical radar. Only ESA radars can illuminate more than 1 targets.

First off, I wasn’t necessarily agreeing or implying that the 0.0001m2 figure is accurate.

Secondly, the canopy glass has been treated and is not exactly radar-transparent, alleviating the effects of the internal reflectors.

It cant be threated the same way as other parts, requirements to achieve excellent vision contradicts with effective anti-radar coat or measures.