Exports of highly advanced technology weapons

Some highly advanced technology Russian weapons maybe shouldn't be exported?

S-400, PAK-FA, Iskander

Can always dumb it down to acceptable levels, while remaining potent enough for customers.

I wouldn't export the hardware above however to Chinese who are specialized in reverse engineering and copying

Eh, I don't know how I feel about the Chinese. On one hand, it is the most egregious example of lack of respect for intellectual property, but on the other hand:
1.) All nations engage/at some point in recent history engaged in liberal "application" of foreign ideas to their own industries.
2.) Despite all the hooplah about China copying Russian equipment, Russian companies still benefited greatly (and still do!) from the Chinese market, especially when times were rough. No reason to lose a lucrative market, China will advance its military industry either way.

But deals should only be made for economically viable numbers, or rejected, just like China's attempt to buy several Su-35s (hilarious CHina-bot refusals aside).

Everything has a price.

I wouldn't mind selling one single PAK-FA (with full specs) for 5 billion dollars to anyone. Yes, they will be able to extract the secrets and make copies, but that 5B will be used to create a much better PAK-FA.
If the customer wants to pay less, they well get a "tuned down" model corresponding to the price they will pay.

Technology moves on, so as long as the exported item is suitably downgraded and also different enough to give the local stuff an edge...bearing in mind that once it is sold they could simply upgrade things themselves anyway using israeli or french or stolen technology, or indeed something they might have come up with themselves.

At the end of the day denying them access to certain things will simply make them turn elsewhere, and with the warsaw pact now part of NATO looking to the west and the US for their military needs Russia needs to develop and cultivate new customers... and that includes talking through issues like illegal copies.

As long as the money made is directly invested into getting more into Russian service and further upgrades I have no problem.

Turkey receives the S-400. NATO will know Russian S-400 systems very well, which are the basis of their anti-aircraft defense. Russia is acting irrationally.

Arrow wrote:Turkey receives the S-400. NATO will know Russian S-400 systems very well, which are the basis of their anti-aircraft defense. Russia is acting irrationally.

NATO struggled against Slovakian S-300's (which they had in their possession for a decade) in exercises in unrealistically favorable conditions. There's a reason why they're going to sanction Turkey for buying it, it has something to do with NATO's IFF system.

Slovakian S-300 is old system. S 400 is most modern.

Arrow wrote:Slovakian S-300 is old system. S 400 is most modern.

Which is exactly the point! They had a decade to study S-300's, and they performed miserably against an older system that didn't have digital electronics, in unrealistically favorable conditions.

I still say its a terrible idea to provide S-400 to a Nato country.
Until & unless Turkey leaves Nato they can't be trusted to keep any secrets of that system.
Even then I wouldn't trust them until at least several years after they made a big purge of any Nato-friendly officers.

It is a terrible idea yes, Even if Ero doesn't plan to give away any details the guy who replaces him may.

Not to mention Ero cannot keep everyone from handing details out.

This has always been a weakness of Putin to try and use weapons to get good relations.

If relations come at the cost of your weaponry more then likely being studied in a way you wouldn't like or want by someone you don't like Say like the US.

Then better off without those relations, sure these are exports versions but even export versions will provide very good know-how into the system.

But hey the deal is done, imo Putin screwed the Pooch here.

hoom wrote:I still say its a terrible idea to provide S-400 to a Nato country.
Until & unless Turkey leaves Nato they can't be trusted to keep any secrets of that system.
Even then I wouldn't trust them until at least several years after they made a big purge of any Nato-friendly officers.

It's amazing how people still think like this....its already been discussed a million times before Domestic =/= Export. If it was such an easy opportunity like your suggesting they wouldn't be sanctioning every country trying to buy S-400s. If the secrets was so easily accessible they would've never struggled against Slovakian S-300's they had access to for decades. Almaz Antey could just as easily introduce a new series of command posts and completely unravel the so called 'secrets' they've obtained.

dino00 wrote:What secrets? The stage of Russian long range air defense systems in the late 90's? This is not the S-400 the Russian mod have, 48N6E3 is not the same as the 48N6MD, etc...
Some Russian official said they would even sell to the USA if they wanted.

I hate Erdogant but today was a historic victory for Russian diplomacy, technology and military.
That money will be well used by Almaz Antey.

Even if they gave right now the S-400 export secrets, how many years will the Americans need to have an Patriot-400E?
Russia in 2020 will have S-500.

Funny you mention this, Yeltsin sold parts of S-300V to the US, and it resulted in the Pac-3, a system with digital electronics (from the mid-2000s) that has inferior overall characteristics to the non digital S-300pmu (the export version of the ancient S-300ps).

Best part is that all western media is now saying that with the radars of the S-400 system Russia could spy on the murican stealth planes. For 30 years the murcians told everybody that there fantastic stealth planes are invisible for radars and now that!

Isos wrote:The goal is to make money with weapons they produce. Nato won't attack any russian S-400 for its entire lifetime. So they don't really care about the secrets of the export version.

On the other side Turkey is more likely to be attacked by nato. They have 0 reason to give details of a system that is supposed to protect Ankara and that was never supposed to be integrated into nato network.

They're more likely to wage covert war against Turkey....like they've been doing all this time with the PKK.

SeigSoloyvov wrote:It is a terrible idea yes, Even if Ero doesn't plan to give away any details the guy who replaces him may.

Not to mention Ero cannot keep everyone from handing details out.

This has always been a weakness of Putin to try and use weapons to get good relations.

If relations come at the cost of your weaponry more then likely being studied in a way you wouldn't like or want by someone you don't like Say like the US.

Then better off without those relations, sure these are exports versions but even export versions will provide very good know-how into the system.

But hey the deal is done, imo Putin screwed the Pooch here.

I agree strongly, Turkey is still a NATO country and an enemy of Russia. You never sell excellent weapons to an enemy even an export model.

I read somewhere that Vann7 said that Brazil and Russia were going to have a joint collaboration with a Brazilian aero company and Sukhoi to build the SU 57. With this new right wing reactionary president in power who professes to be a fan of Trump and America; he could have sold the secrets to the Pentagon and Russian air force would be compromised.

There is no plan for Brazil and the SU-57, never was such a thing could happen in the future but that's just Vann being well Vann.

Putin DID offer the SU-57 to the Turks tho, if the F-35 deal falls apart.

Which is just utterly ridiculous, has a guy who works for the US.

Selling your Stealth fighter tech to a NATO ally is just beyond stupid.

We have said IF the turks touch an S-400 we will not deliver any F-35's.

Assuming the bosses stay true to those words.

Putin may very well soon be selling Russian Stealth technology to a NATO ally. Which I hope his defense minister will tell him "No, that's a terrible idea we may has well just give Washington the data at that point".

Turkey is a component builder of F-35s so there are secrets to be had both ways.

The Russians are not idiots... they wont be including secret components and they certainly wont be including secret operational codes that could be used against them.

What they are doing is undermining the trust between the US and Turkey, which might pay off dividends in the future... if Russia can lure a few countries in NATO to buy their products then that is a huge plus because planning and fighting against stuff you are familiar with is much easier because you have a better understanding of how it can be used and what its strong points are.

The US started this by telling all its NATO allies not to buy Russian equipment and that they need to get Soviet equipment out of their inventories... preferably by buying US shit.

If Turkey buys Su-57s it will almost certainly contribute a lot of their own equipment in its design.

Russian experience with the Su-30MKI with french and israeli components and systems being added certainly contributed to making their own effort... the Su-35 and ultimately Su-57 better aircraft... they raised the bar...

Some technology and secrets might have been compromised but secrets get out whether you sell the equipment or not... MiG-31 secrets got into western hands without a single export sale...

Equally a good example is the sale of Tunguska to Britain and S-300V to the US... they didn't get the complete battery with all the sensors and systems and decoys and jammers and support equipment, so they have an idea of the performance, but not really enough to say they can defeat them...

SeigSoloyvov wrote:Putin may very well soon be selling Russian Stealth technology to a NATO ally. Which I hope his defense minister will tell him "No, that's a terrible idea we may has well just give Washington the data at that point".

The entire process of metallurgy and manufacturing these devices is a secret. You won't be able to gain much from having one as an example, asides from some operational knowledge of how they work (~ish. The code isn't open-source either, you know).

nero wrote:

SeigSoloyvov wrote:Putin may very well soon be selling Russian Stealth technology to a NATO ally. Which I hope his defense minister will tell him "No, that's a terrible idea we may has well just give Washington the data at that point".

The entire process of metallurgy and manufacturing these devices is a secret. You won't be able to gain much from having one as an example, asides from some operational knowledge of how they work (~ish. The code isn't open-source either, you know).

That is looking at it in an extremely limited view.

The Turks could easily hand over data and specs that would severely compromise the aircraft and their stealth tech. They are ways to get more than enough from one sample, sure you can't get EVERY single thing but you can get close to 90 percent of the details.

But hey if you think that's a good idea, then Let Russia sell their stealth fighter to a NATO ally, when we get our hands on all the information and we will just makes the airplanes worthless

I agree strongly, Turkey is still a NATO country and an enemy of Russia. You never sell excellent weapons to an enemy even an export model.

Well what about the fact that a NATO country is buying S-400 missiles in preference to the US equivalent of Patriot or THAADS, and also the fact that this sale of S-400s might knock Turkey out of the F-35 programme which they built components for so it will cost the US 100 aircraft sales of a 120 million dollar aircraft, and lost revenue for operational costs and maintainence, not to mention it will put Turkey into the market for a new modern fighter they might consider joint modification of a new Russian type... none of this would be possible without the S-400 sale... which might in turn encourage other NATO countries to look to Russia for military equipment too.

At the very worst Turkey cheats and lies and stabs Russia in the back and Russia cuts off trade and gas supples and makes things really uncomfortable on the Turkey/Syria border... they might even change their minds about support for the Kurds perhaps...

But lets let Turkey make its decisions first...

That is looking at it in an extremely limited view.

Not really. Chinese and Soviet experience of reverse engineering has proven it is not easy or quick or cheap, and most of the time they don't get it right anyway.

The Turks could easily hand over data and specs that would severely compromise the aircraft and their stealth tech. They are ways to get more than enough from one sample, sure you can't get EVERY single thing but you can get close to 90 percent of the details.

But why would Turkey hand over the secrets of the air defence system they intend to use for the next few decades... do you think they might hope to get some Patriots in return... they already rejected them...

But hey if you think that's a good idea, then Let Russia sell their stealth fighter to a NATO ally, when we get our hands on all the information and we will just makes the airplanes worthless

The plane the Turks get wont be an Su-57, it will be more like the Su-30MKI the Indians got... the Russians are upgrading their Su-57s with new equipment all the time... the stuff they put in first will be what they show Turkey and Turkey can look at it and decide whether they want that old stuff or to make their own replacement material... Turkey are not backward and quite a few things they will likely want their own equipment used instead, and certainly their might be a few other European countries who might think contributing would be benefical in terms of selling kit and perhaps even offering their own airforce a better alternative to the F-35 currently on offer. They can NATOise the aircraft to make it more NATO compatible which will make it rather more attractive to NATO members who don't immediately leap when washington says they should...

Would be funny if Germany joined the programme too... and if Le Pen gets in in France who knows what might happen...

And all for the price of selling S-400 to Turkey... and I might also point out that Russia is also selling S-400s to China and India... do you think their might be a chance of a leak there too? And if there is then why are you so upset where the leak comes from... the point is that Russia needs to assume there will be leaks and that upgrades and improvements in design are the only solution to the problem... in the meantime... 5 billion each means 15 billion dollars in the fund to make some improvements...