Russian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

They are talking about a DIRCM Directed Infared Countermeasures . That’s not a point defense laser it’s a laser countermeasure. It projects a laser beam into the guidance seeker of an IR guided missile to try and blind it. As such optimally you want the ability to cover the fighter’s whole aspect with it. Northrop Grumman was working on a system that would fit in the DAS/MWS windows along side the DAS cameras.

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Correct. Actually the laser for the F-35 DIRCM is to use two retractable turrets with placement above an below the aircraft similar to the Su-57 though. As far as I can tell it's the internal boxes which share space with the EODAS avionics.

Viktor Jav said:

And the so called laser point defense system is as the poster above me had pointed out, still vapourware at this point. It might be a laser dazzler system like the Shtora, but China already has the equivalent of that in production.

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Why's it vapour ware? Calling it a laser point defence system does make it sound more grandiose than it actually is, but laser-based DIRCM systems are long established and perfectly effective on many platforms, the one on the Su-57 is just the first to be designed for a fast jet. Nonetheless, that's a difficult and creditable achievement or everybody else would already be doing it, considering the proliferating threat of IIR-guided SRAAMs against which laser DIRCM is by far the most effective countermeasure. It's definitely real and definitely one of the Su-57's selling points - it potentially shatters the paradigm that with modern AAMs "everybody dies in a furball" and dogfighting is therefore deprecated and to be avoided altogether.

Inst said:

Stealth is purportedly three parts shaping, one part material. The situation has definitely changed, but dumping RAM on an LO aircraft like the Su-57 isn't going to do that much to its RCS.

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No dumping the RAM the ram will bring it’s RCS back up big time. Fighters like the F/A18E have a reduced cross section but no RAM they have a RCS akin to a human being this enables detection out to a few hundred miles. This means that it’s going to be visible to potential adversaries and intercept or attack.
Basically one of the major points of the design is lost.
It may be three parts shaping but skimping on that last part will cost you.
Raptor and Lightning are RCS measurements on par with insects for a reason. So saying they simply ditched the ram means they may as well have ditched the fighter.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

No dumping the RAM the ram will bring it’s RCS back up big time. Fighters like the F/A18E have a reduced cross section but no RAM they have a RCS akin to a human being this enables detection out to a few hundred miles.

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Err...



It is true though that the Super Hornet deploys a lot less RAM than Rafale with its serrated strips all over the place, thanks to the planform-aligned door and panel edges. Both take advantage of OML shaping to moderate basic head-on (as opposed to all-aspect) RCS, but differ in how they handle small hot spots due to surface discontinuities. Rafale just smothers them in RAM, the SH attempts to design them out with appropriate geometrical shaping as far as possible.

The RAM is to control the emission around the edges, on short wavelengths.

The surfaces behave like mirror, on magnitude shorter wavelengths than the length of them , but the edge behaves by complicated ways.

The actual "stealth " characteristic of the plane easy to calculate, the full height from edge divided by the wavelength of the radar, and the inverse of this number gives the portion that has to be managed by RAM.

With long wavelength, like S the ratio volt be 10%, and the RAM will be not so effective, but with X it can be few %, with very effective absorption.

Inst said:

Stealth is purportedly three parts shaping, one part material. The situation has definitely changed, but dumping RAM on an LO aircraft like the Su-57 isn't going to do that much to its RCS.

As for the rest, there's two separate sources claiming this. I poked the Popular Science figure first, but it's possible the Su-57 is sold at an operating loss (i.e, it doesn't cover the degredation cost of the manufacturing equipment) just to make sure the Su-57 actually gets into production. As seen with other posts on this thread, the Russian military industrial complex is a shambles and it'd be important for the Su-57 to achieve exports to keep the industry alive.

Assuming that the PLAAF will eventually fly 600 J-20s (aiming for 2:1 K-D vs the F-35), there's evidently a place for 200 Su-57 to specialize in strike and attritional dogfights. Chinese engine technology is relatively behind (if the American next-gen missiles are so potent, they represent as well American advancements in missile engine technology), but Russian engine technology is less so. This implies that the Chinese will want access to Russian missiles while their own engines and munitions design catch up; the R-37M, for instance, has about the same capability as a PL-21 / PL-XX interceptor missile, but in a shorter package that might be able to fit in an internal weapons bay.

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And which article or scientific research supports that contention. As far as the reports can tell us, for a 5th gen fighter to be truly stealthy, it requires both an angled design and RAM, the latter to compensate when the aircraft is not angled in the correct direction due to various factors (manuevering, vector of attack, etc,etc)

And it will make even less sense to sell the Su-57 at an operating loss (and to a foreign client no less) just to keep the production line alive. We have already seen such examples in the USSR beforehand and it ended with them promptly bankrupting themselves. Money is money no matter how one splices it in the end. If they could afford to sell the Su-57 at such a pittance, the Russian Air Force would be seeing more of them already.

And it is extremely amusing to see how this all winds up with the J-20 being the less capable aircraft. With all the crap heaped on the engines, while a good powerplant is a strong point of an aircraft, it is not the end-all be-all in the equation, seeing as the J-20 is way ahead of the Su-57 in terms of avionic integrations and radar. And with current developments, it is high time to put the idea that China makes crappy jet engines to rest. They may not be the best on the line, but they work well enough. And the J-20 is at the very least a fighter than China knows it can get on time and in the specific quality, rather than the Su-57 which is still languishing in perpetual R&D.

And China can already afford hundreds of J-20s, then why would it pour money to get the Su-57 anyway?

"the R-37M..........."

The missile which insofar we have yet to see an credible photo or video of it actually being deployed from a Su-57, but we are to believe can be done. We don't even know if the dimensions of the missile would allow it to be fitted on a J-20.

Tirdent said:

Correct. Actually the laser for the F-35 DIRCM is to use two retractable turrets with placement above an below the aircraft similar to the Su-57 though. As far as I can tell it's the internal boxes which share space with the EODAS avionics.



Why's it vapour ware? Calling it a laser point defence system does make it sound more grandiose than it actually is, but laser-based DIRCM systems are long established and perfectly effective on many platforms, the one on the Su-57 is just the first to be designed for a fast jet. Nonetheless, that's a difficult and creditable achievement or everybody else would already be doing it, considering the proliferating threat of IIR-guided SRAAMs against which laser DIRCM is by far the most effective countermeasure. It's definitely real and definitely one of the Su-57's selling points - it potentially shatters the paradigm that with modern AAMs "everybody dies in a furball" and dogfighting is therefore deprecated and to be avoided altogether.

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Then let me know when Russia actually has a working system on the Su-57(edit: A production model, not some protoype), instead of making statements such as "slated for the future" or "in development".
I can make the proclamation that in the near future a big purple T-Rex is gonna descend from the sky and gobble people up, does not make it any more credible.

EDIT: And the whole idea of dogfighting being dead is nothing more than a fantasy setting dream up by some NATO generals and air theorists, the latest being the hype of the F-35. With recent experiences showing that even modern IR AAMs like the Sidewinders can be spoofed by simple flares or even succumb to mechanical failure, a potential DIRCM does not make or break a fighter's chances in a furball, though it does inevitably helps.

Viktor Jav said:

And the whole idea of dogfighting being dead is nothing more than a fantasy setting dream up by some NATO generals and air theorists, the latest being the hype

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Your wrong on this.
The claims of such were generated by a smear campaign against the F35, Using as evidence a flight test of an unloaded F16 and a X35 test article loaded with sensors and test gear with a highly restricted fly by wire flight control regime.
Pushing a narrative that the USAF was buying a “Turkey”. That the USAF had become entrapped in the supposed flawed logic of the F4 Phantom. Rather then the purest dogfighter of the YF16.
However even the Russians built fighters with the missile truck mindset the Mig23, Mig25 and Mig31 Interceptors.

Use of missiles in close engagements is a fully expected and standard weapons of choice. The counter to spoofing of IR will be the triseeker using a combination of IR with a Radar fall back and datalink.

Why is everyone so sure the Russians are even capable of getting such a laser "point defense" system on Su-57? Why does there need to be pages and pages of speculation and doubt when it comes to the effectiveness of Chinese systems that is not only fielded but fielded in large numbers (e.g. AShBM) but we haven't seen one source suggesting Su-57's laser point defense system is a concrete future upgrade.

Having said that I'd be willing to bet the Chinese are certainly not lagging behind the Russians in making use of lasers to introduce on existing platforms along with novel ways of weaponising lasers. In fact I'd personally lean towards China being ahead of the Russians in this field but that's pure conjecture. Certainly we aren't waiting for the Russians to develop it so we can buy it and/or copy it for J-20. What wishful thinking that it. It is no longer the 90s.

As for purchasing Su-57. We don't know the real price tag, at least the export price tag. Some sources suggest $35M USD and if that truly is the price, we can be sure PLAAF will buy dozens maybe even hundreds. But truly that is an impossibly unrealistic price for a twin engined 5th gen fighter. That number may have been determined by politics and economics that are specific to the Russian AF order. For China's purchase, it'll most certainly be more expensive than whatever price China's bought the Su-35s for.

The Su-57 would be a great addition to PLAAF if opportunity cost is ignored and assuming PLAAF gets the same level Su-57 as the RuAF (both impossible). It does come with the latest and greatest Russian equipment and is possibly the most maneuverable 5th gen in subsonic flight, supposedly an area where the J-20 could use a fellow 5th gen platform to supplement.

ougoah said:

Why is everyone so sure the Russians are even capable of getting such a laser "point defense" system on Su-57? Why does there need to be pages and pages of speculation and doubt when it comes to the effectiveness of Chinese systems that is not only fielded but fielded in large numbers (e.g. AShBM) but we haven't seen one source suggesting Su-57's laser point defense system is a concrete future upgrade.

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Because in this case the Russians are leaders in DIRCM. They introduced one of the first. And have been to degrees combat proven.