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Mig 29s-Su-27s third world wonder toys

Discussion in 'Air Warfare' started by Robinson phpbb3, Jan 1, 2008.

  1. Robinson phpbb3

    Robinson phpbb3 New Member

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    Hey guys,

    with the russian hunger for cash and there abundance of user friendly, cost effective, and capable weaponry available it makes sales to all sorts a given.

    Here in Australia we are still operating our small force of F/A-18s and F-111's, these have given us alot of good years and flying hours and will go on to do so until we recieve the JSF or F-35 which is already years over due.

    Yet our neighbours Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and so on have and will continue to receive the capable Russian fighters.

    Now many have argued that they Mig 29 and Su 27 are equal to or inferior to the F-18 ... perhaps. BUT in regional exercises our F-18s have come short and have been downed. Now considering our pilots are better trained, have more flight hours and have been in the Hornett longer than the Malaysians have in there 29's this is concerning.

    The strike fighter or multi role concept is great and works well for the budget, but having a 'jack of all trades' fighter plane dog fighting with a dedicated air defence or air superiority fighter leaves the F/A aircraft wanting.

    With the growing ranks of Su -27s and Mig 29s flooding the regions it potentially has the ability to de-stabilise the power base not to mention to potentially lead to some saber rattling from certain nations known to be 'anti-west', who now have the toys to be a threat.

    Indonesia has just signed an arms deal with Russia which will see its military take order of a great range of tactical and strategic hard ware, meanwhile with our reliance of US weaponry, we are still awaiting our Seasprite ASW helo's which have been a disaster, our F-35 wonder jets, as well as M-1A2 Abrams to replace our Leopard AS1's.

    What we are lacking is sufficent air defence, AAA (this is currently MG-3s and FN MAGs on AFV's), and SAMs (we have RBS-70 and Rapier's) enough to last 5 minutes in war.

    I think the Mig 29 and Su 27 are a very capable, cheap (5 Mig 29s for one F-35) weapon system which gives developing nations a serious boost in capabilities both defensive and offensively.

    Looking at it from an Aussies perspective whose 'closest' regional ally New Zealand operates a fist ful of hand downed A-4K's and some strike-trainer Strikemasters. This is perhaps a compacent situation we now find ourselves in.

    Thank you
    for allowing me to rant.
    Kym
     
  2. Skua

    Skua New Member

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    I have noticed that you've opted for the Super Hornet to replace your F-111s instead of the F-35, maybe they will do better in excersices against your Malaysian adversaries?

    Are you sure you will receive the F-35 by the way? As you're already operating Super Hornets by the time comes to replace your Hornets, wouldn't it be more sound from a economic and logistic point of view to replace them with Super Hornets as well?
     
  3. TISO

    TISO New Member

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    Maybe Oz should opt for buying Su-27's and MiG-s themself? ;)

    Recently i ecountered an interesting site on Indonesian AF. According to them one of their Tu-16 was making a statment flight over Oz during the 60's:
    http://www.angkasa-online.com/09/12/english/english1.htm
    Do you have any info on this?
     
  4. Robinson phpbb3

    Robinson phpbb3 New Member

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    The Super Hornets are an interim purchase to replace the F/A-18s and the F-111's because the delivery of the JSF has taken so long.

    The reality is, the shift in balance is dangerous and that alot of these guys are buying ALOT of these capable aircraft while we wait and pay alot for aircraft like the JSF.

    That is scarey and interesting regarding the Indon Badger flight. I remember reading some where they have there TU-16s in moth ball for when they need to use them in the level bombing and anti-shipping roles.

    Kym
     
  5. TISO

    TISO New Member

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    Badgers are inoperative since 1970 t.i. year of destruction/retirement of all soviet produced eqipment used by AURI. I seriously doubt that any of them survived until today.
     
  6. Commando

    Commando recruit

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    The solution to the problem is; we should start buying Migs, and Su's as well as the F35.
     
  7. Skua

    Skua New Member

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    The last thing you should do is buying the F-35 in any case, buy more Super Hornets instead. The Super Hornets are good enough for the U.S. Navy, and it's the avionics and weapons systems which determine an aircrafts capability in most cases, not fancy aerobatics.
     
  8. sinissa

    sinissa New Member

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    F-18 is multi role craft,not pure fighter.Allways,pure fighter will had certan edge over "crafts maded for all jobs". MIG-29 can pull more from any western fighter (including a F-16) but it can punish any mistake by rookie pilot,what is not so expressed in western planes. Croats tryed to use MIG-21 in ground attack roles,and they did not had much success there,alot of them was shooted down,when Serbian made J-22 "Orao" subsonic fignter/ground attack ,same as G-4 "Super Galeb" had more succes.

    Bottom line is,that u can buy 5 migs for 1 JSF,as u sayed. Instead to buy 100 JSF buy 250 MIG-s,and 250 SU-25 ,and u will had much bigger strike power :)

    And about useless acrobatics on plane....USAF made that mistake once,when they made speed planes with poor maneuverability and no guns (idea was come fast,shoot the rocket,run fast) what was not much successful...
    Maneuverability is still highly needed for fighters.It is mistake to consider it suficient.
     
  9. Robinson phpbb3

    Robinson phpbb3 New Member

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    We are buying the F-35 for political reasons based on hand shakes and smiling friends. The Super Hornet is a better solution, as our crews and aviators are familiar with it already and it as the name suggests super charges our current bird.

    The Mig 29 is also a multi role fighter. And it is a dog fighter. It certainly has its faults, and is a risk to rookie pilots. BUT alot of the developing asian nations are not your average arab air arm. These guys are getting better, have good education, have an aggressive entrance and training structure and have no delusions as to what there job is.

    To say that the F-35 is worth one Mig 29 is silly, cost wise yes. BUT...is its tech capabilities that much superior to the humble Fulcrum.

    Its almost a throw back to the 1960s when sub sonic gun-cannon armed Migs were able to tangle and bloody the noses of better trained and technologicaly superior super fast jets in the hands of the US pilot-aviators.

    Well the Mig - 21 is a light weight short range fighter, any other roles is second to that. Off course a specialised close support bird is better at its intended role. Thats like being shocked that an A-10 is better at close support than a bombed up F-16.

    I was never talking about the Su-25.

    The thing that the Mig 29 and Su 27 have going for them is that they are a fighter pilots plane. They are nimble, agile and made to be flown. So in well trained hands they are dangerous, especially when the odds are 5 to 1.

    In regards to the F/A-18 and Mig 29 incident I mentioned first is that some of the RAAF Hornets were flying CAP and escort while the others were in strike mode, with ground attack ords. The Mig-29 were flying air defence and intercept. The Mig 29's were out numbered, and still managed to embarras our pilots. Who normally always without fail go home, with heads high and with the knowledge that they are the best in the region flying hot birds.

    Kym
     
  10. sinissa

    sinissa New Member

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    Australia will newer buy any Russian weapons,coz that can piss off their good friends USA,and when u buy a planes,it is not just planes,but spare part,instructors,maintenance , ovkors they will go to their old friends for higher cost.

    Remember that F-35 is plane made for compromises...Maybe too much compromises. US next generation doctrine is to go undetected,shoot a rocket and return to base.But wnat when F-35 is no longer stelt for radars? F-117A is not stelt anymore ,except for 3-rd world country,and believe it r not,old radars,dated from 50-s' detected F-117A who was shoot down over Serbia,with SA-3 Goa missiles dated from early 60-s'.

    For me,it is still betther to use planes special maded for they own task (intercept,fighter,ground attack,etc,etc) then to get one for all that,especialy if price of that 1,is like 5 specialised planes.
     
  11. Robinson phpbb3

    Robinson phpbb3 New Member

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    No one ever suggested that Australia buy russian.

    The specialist air craft is great if you are a super power. BUT when you are a small country, with a small professional DF your aircraft have to be versatile and adaptive.

    This is a concept that the Israeli DF and AF caught onto very early in there formative years. Hence why they use multi-role aircraft for barying tasks. The key is that your pilots LIVE inside the cockpit whether in a simulator or real.

    The F-117A like most late cold war weaponry are things that sell models and make the public smile with pride. The reality is that the Cold War was going to be a general war, a 3rd world war if you will. SO alot of the mission specs are obsolete in the surgical low intensity conflict world that we live in.

    The F-117 going down over Serbia back in 1999, was a case of one in what....100 or so. Which is pretty damned good. The fact remains there is NO weapon system out there that is 100% perfect. So many factors play into things.

    The F-35 is I am sure a superb machine and a war winner, BUT at what cost ? Who really can afford to operate it apart from the USAF. The point I was raising is that while our neighbours are already operating there next generation aircraft. We are experiencing delay after delay and dealing with stop gap after stop gap while we await delivery of our super weapons.

    I find it interesting that for political reasons we over look Sth Africa and Israel. Yet militarily they operate in similar enviornments and have experiences that breed through in there hardware that would benefit the Australian situation. BUT we are happy to be the good ally and buy all American.

    Kym
     
  12. canambridge

    canambridge Member

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    The F-117 is still a very stealtjy airplane, even to modern radar sets. The ONE F-117 shot down over Serbia was due to unique set of circumstances, not the least of which was arrogance, complacency and more than a little stupidity. We had an extensive thread on that event. It is pretty clear that the airplane was not shot down because it lost it's stealth advavtage.
     
  13. Robinson phpbb3

    Robinson phpbb3 New Member

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    Indeed. And it was one of those long shot deals. Sadly it happened and it gave the Serbians a propaganda coup.
     
  14. TISO

    TISO New Member

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    I did.

    Acctualy i can be detected by older radars with longer waveleghts.
    I belive it was old P-18 radar that detected it. The battery was of mixed nationality but well drilled in the procedures. AFAIK they had only 2 minutes from first detection to fire at target (significantly shorter time frame that ussual). Also Yugoslav Goa rockets and targeting systems were little upgraded not standard 60's eqipment. According to article in our military magazine Obramba (Defence) they did have problems with locking the missile to the target but were succesfull becouse of active (radar) and passive (IR) lock on the missile itself.

    The author of that article interviewed the battery commander and bought a small piece of the plane with external coating (yes Belgrade aviation museum was selling pieces a suverniers ( i belive in clear palstic boxes as keychains)) for testing in physics lab of Institut Jožef Stefan. According to tests short and microwave radar pulses were absorbed but long wave radar pulses were not absorbed or not in the % that would significantly lower the radar silhuette of the plane.
     
  15. Robinson phpbb3

    Robinson phpbb3 New Member

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    TISO,

    I doubt we would for so many reasons, though no doubt we would get our value for money on some things. I also think should we look back to Europe, and over to Sth Africa and Israel for weaponry and munitions we would be making a smart and economical investment.

    I think it is lazy and expensive to buy straight of the shelf straight from the US Embassy every time without fail as we have been in the habbit of doing of late.

    One plus is we have selected the Eurocopter Tiger for an attack-recon helo, this was selected over the A-129, Longbow and Lynx upgrade apparently the Super Cobra was also looked at. The only trouble is the DF looked at getting an attack helo and started trials from late 1996 through to 1998. And today in 2008, we still are awaiting on delivery (we have only a handful at this time) of the Tiger.

    Defence procurement seems to take way to long these days, especially for Australia who has a naive, and complascent government (whether liberal or labour as it is the departments who stay unchanged) who take defence matters as a nuisance and budget waistage.

    That is damned interesting about what you said in regards to the SAM batteries.

    Kym
     
  16. smeghead phpbb3

    smeghead phpbb3 New Member

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    I would disagree and say that Energy (not to be confused with aerobatics) has a very large bearing on the effectiveness of a fighter plane... A successful missile hit will require more than just a big radar and an impressive computer, it needs speed and altitude to close the distance with the target... A missile launched at a high speed from a high vantage point will trump any missile launched from low-&-slow, due largely to the effects of gravity and the limited space for propellant inside a missile... The amount of energy the missile is able to expend in seeking its target relies very much upon the capabilities of the aircraft... More speed means less propellant expended getting the missile to optimum speed, and more left for the important job of intercepting the target... An aircraft which can put more energy into its missiles, is better for it.

    An aircraft which can fly faster and higher will also be more able to escape a missile... Missiles have very little fuel, and like a torpedo, they can only turn so tightly... A faster plane might get enough distance from the missile before it runs out of fuel, and can no longer turn... Or it might very well escape the maximum area which the missile is able to reach with its turn...

    The problem is not with the Russian avionics being better (they are probably not), it is that both the Su-27 and the Mig-29 have got energy up the wazoo. They can fly faster and higher than an F-18, and they can get there quicker... And so their missiles go 'faster' and ours go 'slower'. Their missiles are launched from up above, and then come down with more speed while ours are battling it out with gravity.

    The F-35 is supposed to be quite average in the energy department as well, but I stand to be corrected, and I'm sure the avionics are state-of-the-art... Personally, I don't see why some F-15C's (like the ones South Korea got) would not suffice, as they can have very similar performancewith the Su-27 and Mig-29 and, like Robinson said, we have the technology, the training and the flight hours on our side...
     
  17. TISO

    TISO New Member

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    Smeg you forgot to mention a turning radious of the missiles. Only with new missiles (like german IRIS IMHO improved and a bit larger copy of R-73) west got something like good old R-73 (AA-11 - surviving 50+ G's in turn)) in this regard. Only comaprable missile was Israeli Python 4 which had extremly short range (60+ G's in turn and 6-10 km range comparing to 30+ km range of R-73). Russians ( together with Israelis) were also the first to use HMTS (helmet mounted targeting system- basicly targeting with movement of the head) which was not super Hi-tech realy but still significantly improved capabilities of their fighters ( 180deg angle i.e. 90deg to either side from the axis of the plane). One also has to consider that MiG-29 and Su-27 family are not exactly youngsters as both types are in use for last 25+ years.

    Regarding the weapons deals it is a dirty world and i know how pushy sometimes Americans (and not just them) can be. A good case was our buy of 8x8 Patria AMV APC's. Another contender which was subsidiry of subsidiary of Lockhead-Martin lost and made one hell of a political stink. It seems that same story is now unfolding in Czeh republic in their 8x8 tender as well ( it seems that Pandur is now not an option there either and 1,4 billion USD deal fell trough).
     
  18. lynn1212

    lynn1212 New Member

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    lets not forget-

    if the other guy "sees" you first and gets his shot with a slammer energy, speed, and agility becomes a lot less important. stealth allows for a lot of first shots.

    people forget that no stealth system provides for never getting detected. the main object is to delay the detection until its too late to get off a good shot and to allow you to be targeted by the stealthed plane first.

    the F-117 only got a very small part of its stealth from absorption of the signal. the major part was provided by the faceting of the aircraft and shaping and shielding of intakes and exhausts.

    5 times the aircraft means 5 times the pilots, ground crews, ramp space, spare parts, fuel and other consumables, and 5 times the number of targets you provide for opponents you cannot see or lock up until he has already fired.

    the comparison between vietnam and now is suspect. vietnam was fought with more in common with WWII than with modern air combat and the viets had the advantage of the insane ROIs the US fought under. removal of those ROIs would have changed everything. for one most of the NVAF would have been killed on the ground and those not taken out there would have run out of fuel and spares quite quickly. the US pilots were forced to fight in such a way as to play into the NVAC's strengths rather that exploit their weaknesses.
     
  19. smeghead phpbb3

    smeghead phpbb3 New Member

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    Re: lets not forget-

    Balderdash, if that was true then the F-117 would have untill recently been the most capable fighter-interceptor in the world... However, it is not because it simply lacks the energy to get an AA missile to perform to its optimal potential. It is about as fast, and less nimble than an A-10 warthog, and any missile it launches at a fast & high flying bird will be 'stillborn', (and it will give away the nighthawks position)... All the stealth in the world will not help unless you have the proper platform to launch the missile...

    Energy is always the most important factor in determining whether a missile will do its job, stealth is just a futher step taken to ensure that a fight is made more difficult for the enemy... The F-22 and F-35 are fighters first and foremost because they can attain the speed and altitude necessary to make a missile work properly... Even without its stealth capabilities, the F-22 would kinematically outperform the F-15 and Su-27 by an impressive margin, the stealth is just a further advantage it possesses...

    Kinematic performance is not redundant at all, because, stealth or no stealth, you cannot hit a fast and high flying enemy unless you can get up there with him in the first place...

    Yep, bore-sight is another advantage the Su-27 has over the F-18, but it is reallly only useful in WVR combat, which people seem to be saying is redundant these days... With missiles and stealth and computers and all that...

    I also find this a bit dubious... WVR kills have not exactly proven uncommon in the air wars since Vietnam, and the same faulty logic was applied with the F-4 Phantom, and once put into combat it was quickly fitted with a gun-pod the rectify the problems it had with WVR combat... If your enemy has an advantage in WVR you can bet your left bottom cheek he's going to try and use it! :D
     
  20. Robinson phpbb3

    Robinson phpbb3 New Member

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    Lynn

    and the attitude you are showing in regards to lessons learned in the past is interesting as it is the attitude that cost the USN and USAAF initially in Vietnam.

    Sure the first guy to see and shoot the enemy down wins, but when you are facing more foes with hot rides the element of suprise is decreased in its over all effectiveness and what happens if they happen to get the jump on you...which may happen even if you have the better AWACs, avionics, intel and sat's. Air Supremacy is still about good dog fighting, especially in a general war.

    For a nation like Australia which does not have any AWACs or any real sufficent radar stations we do need a capable airborne dueler that is nimble and has good range on its side.

    To me the F-35 is a movie weapon at this time, looks good in CGI but has yet to be tested, it is introducing alot of sophistication to service which is great, but a risk when peace time defence mentality is at work.

    Nations like Israel who are at the front line and have to maximise everything they have, fly PROVEN dog fighters in the F-15 and F-16 not to mention there Lavi and Kfir upgrades. They are going to be facing the lates Russian fighters flown by aggressive and motivated Arab air forces who are determined to fight and kill IDF/AF pilots.

    To me Australia should look to nations like this, who face 'similiar' threats in terms of growing ideologies and capabilities, we like the IDF have limited over all resources and we must meet the threat over there territory to protect our land.

    I still think that the nimble cost effective light weight fighter in the F-20 or F-16 mould updated is still a intelligent alternative to costly american super weapons.

    kym
     

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