Posted on 07/23/2017 10:23:14 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Russia's biannual marquee air show and weapons expo (referred to a MAKS) is about to kick off outside of Moscow and it never disappoints when it comes to aerial acts. In recent years, the star of the show has been the Su-35, Russia top-of-the-line Flanker derivative that features a digital fly-by-wire flight control system, three dimensional thrust vectoring nozzles and uprated AL-41F1S engines pumping out roughly 32,000 pounds of thrust each. All this adds up to an aircraft capable of astonishing aerial feats, regardless of their relevancy in most modern air combat scenarios.
In 2015, the Su-35S did some awesome maneuvers at MAKS as well. I posted on the jet's unique flying abilities at the time and the gif I made went viral. People were just amazed a fighter aircraft could accomplish such maneuvers, and especially an operational one as big as the Su-35, which weighs over 40,000 pounds with its tanks empty and stores stations vacant.
Those are some amazing maneuvers that seem to defy the laws of physics at times, and you have to give it to the Russians, they make the best air show aircraft around bar none. But not that much of the Su-35's acrobatic capability is relevant when it comes to modern air combat.
Being able to maneuver at the post-stall end of the envelope may be an attractive capability when taking on a single aerial opponent within visual range—one that is willing join in a dwindling speed, "groveling" knife fight. But many just won't, as they are trained to engage in a "rate fight" not "radius fight" to maximize the positive attributes of their aircraft and minimize the negative ones. But either way, an advanced Flanker pulling off post-stall tricks turns into one big vulnerable target hanging out in a highly depleted energy state when other enemy fighters are present.
This type of extreme super-maneuverability holds less value than it did a decade or so ago when many western fighter aircraft still lacked a high-off boresight (HOBS) short-range air-to-air missiles and a helmet mounted sight for cueing those missile towards aerial targets far off the aircraft's centerline.
Today most of these aircraft now have these systems, and the best HOBS missiles, like the latest iterations of the AIM-9X, are able to engage the enemy even when they are located over the pilot's shoulder. The pilot turns their head, and the missile's seeker turns too. When their eye is pointed at the target, the missile will lock on if it can and the pilot can then fire the missile and take evasive action. The latest variants don't even require the missile's seeker to be locked on before launch, instead a data-link guides the missile towards the target and then the seeker locks on once pointed at it. In other words, who wins and who loses during within visual range combat is no longer dictated by who can "point their nose" at the enemy first.
And of course, air show performances must be taken with the proverbial grain of salt. Once you add a practical fuel load and some weapons to any combat aircraft, its agility quickly erodes. Also, the routines performed are full of carefully tested and choreographed "edge of the envelope" sequences, many of which are flown by highly experienced pilots. So it's not like the guy or gal up there has 200 hours in the jet and is chasing down another aircraft over a war zone and pulling these maneuvers off on the fly to make a kill.
Still, the Su-35, and many other Russian aircraft, are incredible crowd pleasers, but they are far from being just dancing bears. When paired with experienced aircrews and the right tactics, and considering that roughly 2.5 Su-35s can be bought for the price of a single F-35A, not to mention that they are already being actively exported, the type is a threat to be concerned with.
But regardless of what you see on youtube or on some Flanker obsessed websites, these aircraft stand little chance of surviving an encounter with similar numbers of F-22s or F-35s. And comparing them to 5th generation western fighters really isn't fair to begin with. But rules of engagement in some scenarios, or when fighting over a tightly compacted battlefield, mean that there is no absolute guarantee that these types of aircraft will never make it to the merge with the F-35 or F-22.
AP
Su-35S is currently the most advanced operational fighter in the Russia's inventory.
The F-35 in particular may be vulnerable. Considering the Lightning's limited internal missile carriage capability, just four air-to-air missiles at this time, a formation of F-35s could become overwhelmed with targets, especially during long-range expeditionary operations against a near peer state foe. Running or standing their ground is not as good an option as it is for the F-22 as the F-35 lacks the rear-hemisphere low-observability that the F-22 possesses, nor its agility or ability to supercruise at high speed out of the combat arena.
When it comes to other 4th generation fighters, but less so for ones equipped with modern active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars, the Su-35S is a much larger threat even in the beyond visual range combat environment. Within visual range the jet should be feared, but once again, its super maneuverability is not highly relevant in a multi-aircraft engagement, and tactics are developed to degrade its slow-speed performance advantage.
Above all else, when any US or allied aircraft are operating in networked battlespace backed by various strategic intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and command and control assets, as well as other "force multipliers," their lethality and survivability improves exponentially no matter what opponents they face. But there are also vulnerabilities in relying too heavily on lumbering support assets or complex communications networks to win the day.
With this in mind, for current fighters, a good degree of maneuverability is still a good thing to have, but new designs would likely be better off with trading it for other key advantages. In fact, dropping the whole fighter moniker and mission set altogether seems like a good idea.
I have been a proponent of throwing maneuverability requirements out the door entirely for future manned assets. The ability to carry far more fuel and thus more range, have lower observability (better, wider-band stealth), larger and more capable internal electronic warfare systems, more expansive missile magazines (especially being able to carry missiles with far longer ranges than what is available today) and in some cases enhanced supercruise capability would be far more advantageous than the ability to turn harder or to tumble around at zero forward airspeed. Additionally, the coming age of air-to-air lasers, which will be defensive in their application at first, is also likely to make slow-speed super maneuverability irrelevant and being able to avoid initial detection will have greater importance than ever.
The truth is, manned platforms, for many missions, including some counter air ones, are increasingly irrelevant for high-end combat environments. As many of our readers know, I would immediately take the pilot out of the equation totally for many mission sets and unleash a quantum leap in air combat capability altogether via fielding scores of advanced unmanned combat air vehicles. Agility and speed come very low on the list of capability priorities for such a system, with long-range, modular adaptability, affordability, broadband stealth and especially the ability to act as a networked and highly redundant autonomous swarm filing out the top of the list.
The great F-35 agility debate may also come to mind here. The F-35's ability to maneuver as good (if not better) as a 4th generation fighter is an issue because it was something that was promised and repeatedly touted by the aircraft's manufacturer throughout the aircraft's development, and that goal impacted its design and overall capabilities. Considering its magazine size, stealth and speed limitations, it needs a certain degree of agility to survive in the within visual range environment for the missions that will be thrust upon it.
As for the F-35's own performance at the Paris Air Show this year, something the aviation press seemed to swoon blindly over, I thought it looked about right for what we knew about the aircraft previously. Some claims from raving reviews seemed to be accurate and some claims from harsh critiques also seemed to be accurate. In the end the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle. And once again, this was a canned air show performance flown by a Lockheed test pilot, not a real-world combat simulation of any type.
What was certain of the F-35's showing in Paris was that Lockheed's PR blitz worked, with mainstream press quoting contractors' soaring claims with unabated glee—never seeming to contemplate the fact that these were the same people who stand to make literally hundreds of billions in revenue from the aircraft. In the end I really wasn't too disappointed with the jet from the videos I saw, it was clearly operating at the very edge of its capabilities and if anything else, it was a ballsy move by Lockheed. But I was let down many reporters who should have challenged contractors' claims and unabashed hyperbole, or at least invited other voices to chime in with contradictory perspectives.
On a personal note, I have heard directly from crews from both branches that have flown against the F-35 in training maneuvers or are close (as in very) to the program. Their comments have ranged from "good enough I think" to "she's a pig but who cares I don't plan on seeing the enemy up close in it" to "we need new jets OK, and this is what they are giving us." I have never heard a rave review directly from anyone about the F-35's kinematic performance or agility. On the brighter side, by all accounts the pilots say the airplane is easy to fly generally speaking, which is great because it allows them to concentrate on the tactical aspects of the mission and not on aviating. The avionics are all also impressive, some more than others, when they operate properly.
Back to Russia and their super maneuverable jets. The Kremlin claims it is going to be designing and testing multiple new tactical fixed wing aircraft in the not so distant future. If this is fiscally even possible is a debate worth having, but regardless of this aspect of Russian officials' claims, if they do indeed test even one new tactical jet in the foreseeable future, it will be interesting to see if they stick to their super maneuverability playbook or go for a much more balanced design approach.
We have begun to see such a philosophy in the Sukhoi T-50, where some stealth elements and advanced sensors are mixed with thrust vectoring and high-maneuverability, but the aircraft cannot move around the sky like the Su-35. China has gone for range and low observability over raw agility as well with its J-20 stealth fighter/interceptor, and the country's smaller J-31 doesn't feature thrust vectoring or hyper agility either. If the US moves forward with a 6th generation fighter, by all accounts it will likely also put a major premium on range and low observability over nimbleness.
If these trends are any indication, it is likely that we have reached peak manned fighter low-speed agility with the Su-35.
Every Monday there is a new Russian Wunderwaffen. One week it's a ship. One week it's a tank. One week it's an airplane-doesn't matter. Every week the Ruskies are just about to go on-line with something that will put the West to rest.
Then on Tuesday or Wednesday we get another story about the Russians having to steal fuel from their aircraft carrier to put in the tugboats that are needed to push the carrier around or their new radar array that can't identify Eurasia.
They sure do "dream up" some nifty make believe stuff though.
From 1950-1954 the NORKs and ChiComs found out that bullets were a lot cheaper than people.
It's a good thing that TPTB are doing everything humanly possible to keep deliverable nukes out of the hands of the Norks who might be willing to take a 2% chance.
And it's double plus good that TPTB are doing everything they can to keep nukes out of the hands of the mullets in Iran who want to end the world as an article of faith!
Methinks it won’t be too long before Europe finds that muslims are cheaper than bullets.
And if they sell the technology to the Chinese, who have just as much money as us, and a bigger manufacturing base?
Cross that bridge when we get there. For now and the foreseeable future, China must have trade with us or their economy would implode so a full-on conflict with them is not in the interest of either. China also has NO real logistical ability to project force outside of their immediate region.
China is a potential and likely threat. Russia is pretty much washed up - an economy completely dependent on energy for income.
The 4th generation Russian aircraft are beautiful and impress at air shows, but they likely lose to our current aircraft and most certainly lose to our 5th generation. I don’t think they would even have a 10-1 ratio and that means 6 F-35’s and they have no more Su-35’s even counting those ready for export.
It will certainly change, but at this moment in history, our military is without equal. As others have pointed out - it is our national will that I question.
Using the reliability of the AK-47 as a benchmark for modern combat aircraft is an exercise in futility. Imagine if you had one decent belt-fed machine-gun at Gettysburg. Would it matter which side had the more reliable musket? Technology eventually drives tactics - not the other way around. This is true no matter how much resistance the old guys put up.
On today’s battlefield or airspace - technology wins. If they can’t see ours, but we can see and track theirs they will lose. Period. Dogfights are as antiquated as advancing in a line with muskets across open terrain. We went into WWII with a Navy totally committed to the battleship. We came out completely committed to aircraft carriers and submarines. The tactics were set, but technology changed everything. Today the aircraft with the best computers, radar, and missiles wins and few very planes would ever get close enough to ours to “switch to guns.”
The evolution of warfare never stops. As robotics and AI become more common the wealthiest nations will become even more powerful. That is my best guess.
* Wayne Handley in the 90's with his highly modified Stephen's Arko and his "Agrobatic Routine"? It would make you sick to your stomach watching what he did.
* Or Sean Tucker with his latest mount with the eliptical / Shark wingtips as he hangs off the prop?
* Or any current generation R/C acro aircraft, ICE or electric behaving more like a helicopter than a fixed wing?
What the Ruskies are doing is cool, but with enough thrust ( vectored ) to cover your butt when your are at the edge of the envelope when normally, you did run out of thrust, you can do anything, and they have.
Will it beat our Gen 5? Heck If I know. However think of this... If this thing has the typical Ruskie robust landing gear and rough field air intakes, why not mount a center pod with A-10 type weaponry and you have a later day A-10 with that maneuverability. It could use more of a high bypass type engines, but that can't be done, lets face it. If it did and they went the A-10 / Su-25 route, I'd be worried, that would be one kick-ass support bird....
Interesting posting. I enjoyed the read!
“...Who wins a air battle between 25 F-35s with 4 missiles each or an opponent who has 500 aircraft that can outrun the F-35s but only have machine guns with 1000 rounds each?...”
Wrong comparison. But it illustrates a mindset Americans cannot shake free of, one that went out circa 1800: the militia mindset. The conceit that sufficient masses of citizens, armed with flintlocks and bursting with republican virtue (the small-r sort) but otherwise untrained and unorganized, can best any invader. A holdover from victory in AWI, and the no-clear-win rematch that was the War of 1812. Most of it was dumb luck, with a dash of strategic imagination.
When I wrote that quality beats quantity, I was not writing about one-one-one with same-type armaments.
F-35s (and a number of aircraft of slightly earlier generation) will eradicate any opposing fighter force because they will (if developed correctly) be equipped with capabilities no earlier combat aircraft possess. Doesn’t matter how many, how fast they can fly, nor the size of their ammunition load. It will be over before they are even aware the F-35s have arrived.
It’s the wrong comparison for other reasons: no fighter enters air combat one-on-one without ground control (though no fighter pilot can admit it); hasn’t been the case since before 1940. No matter how speedy, no matter how maneuverable, no matter how many guns it lifts of any caliber, a single fighter is helpless.
Who wins any air-to-air encounter? Whoever gets the drop on the other guy. Another truth fighter pilots are loathe to admit. Only about three percent of the average engagement is the visual-contact, hard-turning portion. It make no sense to design a fighter to exploit that segment, if it has no capability to fight during the other 97 percent (though you can watch the execrable Pierre Sprey claim the opposite, a couple times a week on American Heroes Channel and Smithsonian Channel. He also takes credit for designing the F-16, which he didn’t. Not really a standout in terms of the fighter mafia and their propensity to tell fibs).
If NATO had gone into battle with neutron warheads, it would not have mattered how many Red Army soldiers were swarming across the Oder-Neisse Line with their Kalashnikovs (decent ones cost more than $50.00, by the way).
In similar vein, no militia armed with flintlocks - nor Garands, nor even M14s - is going to meet with much success if ICBMs rain down on their heads.
That’s the edge quality enjoys, over quantity.
It is my opinion from my experience in the Navy that the next major war will be conducted with low tech sensors. The Mark 1 Mod 0 eyeball will rule. Along with other passive sensors like passive sonar and IR. Why? The old saying you radiate you die is still true. For example as soon as an AWACS starts transmitting 10 AARM come homing in on it....
“...If everything went according to the Germans’ plan, their telephones worked far better than US phones....the German phones were far superior. ... But ... of little use when the phones didn’t work. The US phones worked well enough in real-world battlefield conditions. The German phones were overengineered, ... Good design is about making compromises on a continuum of choices. ...” [null and void, post 16]
Hand’t heard about German field telephones before, but the inclination of Third-Reich development folks to over-engineer stuff is legendary among systems engineering types, weapon designers, and technically oriented historians.
Maximizing individual performance of one weapon in isolation was a very German tendency. Doing so without reference to who’s going to use it, or how, against whom, or where, doesn’t necessarily meet with success. It was more of a Third Reich organizational quirk.
But it misreads what actually happened in the Second World War: The Germans did not lose because they overengineered weapons while the Allies refused to. They lost (at least to the Western Allies) in part because the Allies devised integrated logistics systems to supply the best stuff they could produce, to the right places at the right times, in overwhelming quantity. And the logisticians worked hand in glove with the tacticians (overseen by the senior strategy types) to help the combat troops get the most out of what could be supplied. No one carried on in isolation.
The field-telephone arrangements are a great example: looped wire-stringing and simplified repair are in some measure tactical adaptations, to deploy a more resilient network than would be otherwise possible - even if the Americans had enjoyed engineering superiority in that case.
Superior organization for supply, repair, and the flexbility to adapt when the unforeseen happened (as often happens in action) greatly magnified Allied (especially American) capabilities to keep in the fight, and to return battle-damaged items to the fight with a minimum of down time.
“...The Germans did not lose because they overengineered weapons while the Allies refused to. ...”
Lest the forum find fault with this approach, let me emphasize that overwhelming logistic superiority, brilliant intel exploitation, organizational adapatation, and industrial prowess would have meant nothing, had not Allied soldiers gone toe-to-toe with the Germans: when all else was said and done, real determination and grit - fighting spirit - were still indispensable (so wrote the late Stephen Ambrose, in the preface to one of his works on the deeds of American troops in the Second World War).
“...The Mark 1 Mod 0 eyeball will rule. ...”
This has not been the case since before the Battle of Jutland in May 1916: by then, the range, power, and accuracy potential of the weaponry had outstripped the ability of ships’ crews to see targets and direct gunfire onto them - and exceeded the ability of commanders to perceive the total battlefield or devise & command maneuvers against the enemy forces.
Every advance since then has come in the area of sensors, and communications.
Whatever the US Navy will or won’t do in the next conflict, I do not believe they will give up on any of the modern sensor systems. I spent almost 29 years wearing a USAF uniform, but I stand second to none in my admiration for the courage of sailors, and the imagination and tenacity of their officers. Working with them in a Joint billet was a surprise and a delight: from junior rating all the way to four-star admiral.
The M4 Sherman versus Panzer VI (Tiger) example is of less importance than Americans believe. Though encounters with Tigers were very hard on individual Sherman crews, there were never enough Tigers to lend the Germans a decisive advantage. And though Tigers were difficult to beat in a standup fight, once knocked out there was little chance of recovery and repair (mechanically, they were breakdown-prone as well).
In contrast, the Sherman was reliable, easy to operate, easily repaired by crews in the field. Many analysts and some veterans (some from the Red Army itself) rate the Sherman as equal to or better than the vaunted T34.
Every technological innovation in weaponry has been opposed: too costly, too fragile, will never work. Goes back a long ways, well before radar, well before aircraft: back to the days of smoothbore muskets and probably farther than that.
Sometimes the objections are valid: every device conveys advantages and introduces drawbacks of its own. But many more innovations than not ultimately prove workable: belligerents decide to adapt as needed, and bear the expense, bullying or coaxing their military forces to find ways to succeed. Thus the character of armed conflict is transformed, within limits that are only partially mapped out, imperfectly defined by broad truisms and basic principles.
As far as air-air and air ground warfare is concerned I am sure it is the same.
“You’ve never been in the military? Turning on radar is like asking to be sunk. Radiate and die is how we used to say it...”
Spent 29 years in USAF uniform, as aircrew and in various technical support staff billets. Radar was a central concern. I devoted 13 years to various aspects of operational testing, of anti-air systems and defensive countermeasures. Worked closely, with all US service branches and several allied armed forces teams. A never-ending problem. The neat, clean, speedy, sweeping, techno-whiz-bang, politically painless solutions Americans believe in, and yearn for, rarely happen.
What central_va writes about is a serious limitation of surface warships. They cannot hide nor run away quick enough. The same limits do not apply to aircraft.
There are very large aspects to the problem that haven’t been broached here, yet. Radar is just a single facet.
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