AWACS/Command post aircrafts of RuAF

Either an LEO cluster spread over the right orbits or a specialized GSO satellite can track targets. The notion that satellites do not
track ground objects originates from the sparse LEO spy satellites, which move away from the scene too fast to track anything for long
(an LEO orbit is about 90 minutes). Nothing prevents a smartly chosen cluster of LEO satellites to have at least one of them observing
most of the same grid box all the time. They just have to hand off the observation task in the right way to maintain this continuity. GSO satellites do not leave the scene but are very high up so that observing small objects becomes more of a pain.

Is it the A-100 without the radar ?

Looks like it...

Isos wrote:Is it the A-100 without the radar ?

A-100 is supposed to have PS-90 engines, the one shown in the picture still has the old turbines.

Systems test-bed?
Or the first A-50 upgraded to A-100 standard?

A-100 with A-50 in the back.

They risk losing half of their AWCS fleet while they have huge airfields to park them with security distances btw each other. One take fire and all are destroyed.

Isos wrote:They risk losing half of their AWCS fleet while they have huge airfields to park them with security distances btw each other. One take fire and all are destroyed.

They would probably be doing that during a conflict. Its not like somebody is about to do a sneak attack on them right now.

2 of them r missing radomes- this tells me they r being worked on.
I saw a similar pic on Google Earth a few years ago of the Beriev plant in Eisk where they r being modernized. Now some A-50/100s & Tu-142s r parked on the same spots:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/47%C2%B011'56.4%22N+38%C2%B050'42.0%22E/@47.1935506,38.8704595,383m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d47.198989!4d38.845?hl=en

The active A-50/100s not waiting for maintenance/upgrades wouldn't normally be parked that way.

owais.usmani wrote:

Isos wrote:They risk losing half of their AWCS fleet while they have huge airfields to park them with security distances btw each other. One take fire and all are destroyed.

They would probably be doing that during a conflict. Its not like somebody is about to do a sneak attack on them right now.

Not talking about attack even if ISIS/alqaida are a big threat now.

But Russia has many incidents involving big fires inside their military bases. There is no need to park them this way.

owais.usmani wrote:

Isos wrote:They risk losing half of their AWCS fleet while they have huge airfields to park them with security distances btw each other. One take fire and all are destroyed.

They would probably be doing that during a conflict. Its not like somebody is about to do a sneak attack on them right now.

Typical Russia really.

Never recognize a possible problem in advance until it finally happens and ends in a disaster.

These planes are out of order.

Hole wrote:These planes are out of order.

Exactly, scrap parked in the "typically American" fashion seen in Arizona.

Hole wrote:These planes are out of order.

I doubt Russia will phase out the few awacs it has. They are just not used but very likely in service.

If they are not phased out, well, they should use their brains and sell them to Egypt which has plenty of russian air defence or Venezuela or Egypt ... even 10 million per aircraft is better than leting them rust there.

4 or 5 are already upgraded and based on other airfields. The construction of new A-100´s will go faster then upgrading these old A-50´s.

Never recognize a possible problem in advance until it finally happens and ends in a disaster.

International civil aviation works the same way... investigate and suggest changes... expensive changes normally require proven deaths to make the rules stick... and even then sometimes not even that will make changes.

That plane with Russian gifted children flying to Europe and a cargo plane with two crew on board collide and it turns out the Russian pilot listened to the air traffic controller, despite the auto collision avoidance system on his plane telling him to do the opposite of what the ATC told him to do.... the pilot in the other plane that also had the auto collision avoidance system followed the instructions of his system and they collided. The rules were unclear... follow the safety instructions of onboard collision avoidance systems or follow the instructions of the ATC... people have died and lots of collisions narrowly averted but I don't know that this problem has been fixed yet...

I always wondering why US Air philosophy depends on AWACS ,but Russia is not .

Money talks here ?

ahmedfire wrote:I always wondering why US Air philosophy depends on AWACS ,but Russia is not .

Money talks here ?

Using AWACs for fighter control means that you can move it anywhere at little notice. This is perfect for the US (always attacking not defending) as it means that it doesn't have to have ground based fighter control when it is operating against lesser opponents in strange parts of the world so has the same operating procedures regardless of where they are. It has worked brilliantly but when up against a proper opponent it has flaws.

Whereas Russia, defending its known territory, can rely on ground based fighter control as part of its IADS so doesn't have the same primary need.

In Russia such planes are there to fill gaps in the air defence/radar network.

In the west they are there to be send to 3rd world countries to guide the planes that bomb them.

JohninMK wrote:

ahmedfire wrote:I always wondering why US Air philosophy depends on AWACS ,but Russia is not .

Money talks here ?

Using AWACs for fighter control means that you can move it anywhere at little notice. This is perfect for the US (always attacking not defending) as it means that it doesn't have to have ground based fighter control when it is operating against lesser opponents in strange parts of the world so has the same operating procedures regardless of where they are. It has worked brilliantly but when up against a proper opponent it has flaws.

Whereas Russia, defending its known territory, can rely on ground based fighter control as part of its IADS so doesn't have the same primary need.

But Russia could go for air fight hundreds miles away over the Pacific or Arctic oceans because they will not let US aircrafts to come close to their terrorities . At distances far from air defences ,they need more AWACS .

But Russia could go for air fight hundreds miles away over the Pacific or Arctic oceans because they will not let US aircrafts to come close to their terrorities . At distances far from air defences ,they need more AWACS .

Why would they go that far where US has the advantage ? Protect the water from US bombs ?

They will let US come close to their shores where they have the advantage with air defence, diesel subs, corvettes armed with UKSK and land based aviation. A-50 will fly above all that and look for low cruise missiles or f-35 trying sneaky attacks at very low altitude.

For US base in the pacific they will just send some tupolev armed with 2000-4000km missiles.

Russia is busy improving its radar coverage of its own airspace and the airspace around it... the AWACS it does have help fill gaps and also support operations... an AWACS is not just a radar... if it was just a radar like a Ka-31 then it is technically called and AEW or airborne early warning aircraft... AWACS includes command and control which includes communications... in other words it doens't just look for low flying targets... it looks for all flying and ground based targets and passes that information to aircraft and ground forces... it effectively manages the air battle by assigning targets to groups of friendly aircraft providing them with target information so they don't have to use their own radar and give away their positions or presence. The AWACS manages engagements and ensures the defence and attack succeeds.

The west will talk about ground controlled Soviet and Russian air power, but the west is not really any different... they just have their ground controllers sitting in AWACS aircraft... it makes them more mobile but to certain weapons it also makes them vulnerable.

A ground controlled sitting in a van near a very large ground based radar system uses the information it provides but the ground based radar can't see low flying targets at great distances or behind hills or mountains... a controller in an AWACS can see cruise missiles from much greater distances and can see down in to valleys and behind mountain ranges etc etc

The main difference is that with Russian defences they can use AWACS to fill in any gaps in the ground radar view... the gaps are static and known so they could position some mobile radar or airship based radar to fill the gaps to save aviation fuel and get better coverage... a lot of their long wave radars bounce off the atmosphere and have no radar horizon though they can't see targets up close they can detect sea skimming targets from thousands of kms...

What Russia has that HATO does not is a fully integrated air defence network that is being unified with airforce, army, navy, and aerospace defence forces so that all their air defence capacity from fighters and bombers and SAMs and radar and optical sensors and other detection equipment including over the horizon enormous radar sets and even satellites can combine information and show what is out there so they can decide what to send against it.

Before such management you needed aircraft to patrol all the time looking for enemy incursion which burned a lot of fuel and used up lots of flight hours of aircraft and was rather inefficient... if you went too early or too late you could miss an incursion or an attack.

The current system means everything works together and can be much more efficiently and effectively used.

But Russia could go for air fight hundreds miles away over the Pacific or Arctic oceans because they will not let US aircrafts to come close to their terrorities . At distances far from air defences ,they need more AWACS .

They have over the horizon radar that cannot detect targets within 100km, but beyond 100km they can detect targets from high altitude down to sea level out to about 3,000km... so no, they don't need AWACS for that.

The Russian Army has bought some Ka-31s for battlefield management so they can see the aerial picture over the battlefield more accurately... perhaps in time when they launch a new CVN with an onboard fixed wing AWACS platform they might go for one of those to improve endurance and reduce operating costs, but knowing what is happening in a piece of airspace is valuable and worth a reasonable cost...

Rob Lee
@RALee85
·
7 min
According to Izvestia, Russia plans on building a second A-100 AEW&C aircraft for testing by 2024, after which serial production should begin. The A-100 will be able to track up to 300 targets at a distance of 650 km.

Isos wrote:Rob Lee
@RALee85
·
7 min
According to Izvestia, Russia plans on building a second A-100 AEW&C aircraft for testing by 2024, after which serial production should begin. The A-100 will be able to track up to 300 targets at a distance of 650 km.

Very late in the game. China KJ-2000 got AESA way back in the early 2010s and now have dozens of KJ-2000.