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.
Like the Kh-59MK2 cruise missile (larger and about twice the weight), which had only been seen as a plastic airshow mock-up for 3 three years straight, until in 2018 suddenly we get video footage of a launch from the Su-57 rear bay. No preliminaries such as confirmation that the Russian air force will be buying it in the first place, no reports of manufacturing progress, no photos of external captive carry tests on other aircraft. All of which will have happened in the meantime of course, it merely wasn't publicized.
It was vapour ware until one day, just like that, it wasn't anymore...
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.
This is silly. How am I supposed to show you a production model of the DIRCM system when not even the first production example of the aircraft itself has emerged? That said, a working instance is pretty easy: all of the Su-57 prototypes fitted with clear domes aft of and/or below the canopy have a functional system installed. It's not "slated for future development", it is planned to enter service as soon as the aircraft does - you must be thinking of the F-35 counterpart there (where DIRCM is only tentatively part of the upgrade road map).
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.
Because the term "laser point defence system" (which suggests a hard-kill system) is a misnomer, it's actually "only" a laser-based DIRCM (i.e. a soft-kill measure). Perhaps this is an erroneous translation of a Russian source by somebody who is not technically literate or at least not familiar with the existence and function of DIRCM systems. Let's just stop calling it a point defence system - it isn't, so you can relax and believe.
That said, I put the only in quotes for a reason - it's still no mean feat and is one of only two such systems which are known to be making tangible progress. The Su-57 has every chance of becoming the first fast jet to enter service with DIRCM (even with all the delays in getting it operational, the equivalent on the F-35 keeps slipping to the right too, it's only a company-funded initiative by N-G so far).
What makes DIRCM combat proven? Because it's Russian and the Russians have said so? Sure some people claim some bubbles on the Su-57 is certainly warfare changing laser systems designed to blind or even burn through incoming missiles.
If by "some people" you mean the developers of the Su-57 EO sensor suite... putting it this way that kind of undersells the credibility of the claim though.
Hyperbole is universal, and you can bet the Chinese engage in it too. Americans, ditto.
Successful fighter DIRCM is difficult to test and credit as "combat proven". It's been alleged in the past for the F-35.
No it hasn't, Northrop-Grumman have announced (5 years ago) that they were developing a DIRCM system for the F-35
as a company-funded project. There is no firm date for entry into service AFAIK.
In any case, DIRCM is considered far less effective against modern missiles which are able to home in onto the source of the emission.
That's where the laser-based part comes into play. A laser saturates the detector chip in the missile IIR seeker so it sees a completely "white" picture - there is no information to be obtained from it any longer that would allow guidance to work out the direction to the source/target. With a low-power system some IIR seekers (scanning systems like IRIS-T or Mica-IR, as opposed to staring seekers) might be able to do better because the detector array sweeps in and out of the beam, but given sufficient power there's not really anything you can do.
That AIM-9X was spoofed by conventional flares over Syria is a clutter rejection failure in the image processing software, it can be remedied fairly easily by upgrading the algorithms. Laser-based DIRCM works by defeating the very principle on which the seeker operates and is therefore very hard to counter.
