The discussion in this topic would be about the aerial warfare that has some capabilities or is designed to work in contested areas.
Also like in the case of the land warfare, the people has the chance to talk in the poll of the topic with their votes. In this case multiple vote is allowed too to make possible that every reader can select all the aircrafts and helicopters that can have a longer future in the Russian armed forces avoiding a total decommission before the end of this decade, according to his/her opinion.
In the family of small combat aircrafts with different roles (fighters, interceptors, land attack,...) the Su-25 seems to be the less modern aircraft. It is also the smaller and less powerful, it is the alone that reach not supersonic speed and it is one of the oldest in service from this family. Today the armed forces of Russia continue interesed in this open family of aircraft with intensive work in the development of new aircrafts.
In the family of long range bombers, called also strategic bombers, the introduction of shipborne unmanned aircrafts of different sizes (all significantly smaller than strategic bombers) for reconnaisance, surveillance and maritime patrol roles, makes more clear that the concept of strategic bomber must share the same philosophy to deal with land or sea targets (including submarine targets). The entire concept of the strategic bombing has been discussed many years. Some people considered it outdated after the introduction of the modern air defense systems, but also the evolution of the ammunition used by the bombers makes unnecessary for the strategic bombers to fly over a target in order to hit it. This detail gives to the concept of the strategic bomber a longer life than expected, and today are appearing new projects for the future. Today, the oldest part of this family of aircrafts in service would be formed by the Be-12, Il-38 and Tu-95/142. It would be the oldest in age but also in concept. They share to have big crews, and some weak technological details like to be subsonic, and in the case of the B-12, even to have a range under the current standards for strategic bombers. It makes to think that the Be-12 can be the first aircraft totally decommissioned between the aircrafts of this family.
Today the family of the helicopters are the lightest aerial combat vehicles. Without protection and with lower speed and altitude than the combat aircrafts, the concept proved to be more vulnerable than the previous concepts to new armament, even man-portable, but at same time is appreciated by its performance. Surely the entire concept of helicoter needs a review for combat roles, and it is likely that the future can go to unmanned helicopters that keep the combat capabilities but avoiding the human loses when they are shut down. Today, helicopters with human crew continue being produced.
In overall terms, the Russian reserves of combat aircrafts and helicopters seems not satured. It seems that there is room for new units in everyone of the previous chapters. If there is some total decommission (from active service and from the reserve) in the following years, it will be surely because the aircraft decommissioned as concept is not useful for combat operations at the time of the decommission.
Then, the following aircrafts and helicopters would be most in the discussion of this topic:
Tu-95/142
Il-38
Be-12
Su-25
Mi-8/9/13/14/17/18/19/24/25/35/171/172/177
Mi-28
Ka-50/52
At the time the Ka-27/28/29/31/32/35 was included in the poll, because of a little antisumarine role, but it is mainly an auxiliary aircraft. In the case of the Mi-8/9/13/14/17/18/19/24/25/35/171/172/177 it was not included as an single type despite to share a unified technollogical basis.
Which is your opinion about them, do you think some of them (or maybe all) will contiue serving in the next decade? Which of them can remain active for longer time?
PS: Feel free to add news refered to possible or real decommissions in the sort-term or in the mid-term.
Last edited by eehnie on Sat Sep 09, 2017 8:33 pm; edited 7 times in total