GarryB Thu Jan 24, 2019 11:06 am
Think of the Su-34 as being an F-111 and the Su-30 as being the F-15E.
The Su-30 is a good aircraft that can be a fighter or a strike aircraft, but in terms of performance the Su-34 is a strike aircraft first and foremost and has systems the Su-30 does not have... they simply would not fit.
Also when you are flying a deep strike mission in the Su-34 you can stand up and stretch your legs... even go to a toilet or have some hot food... in the 30 you are strapped into your seat and no matter how comfortable it is after 3-4 hours it might not be so comfortable.
Now a truck driver can drive a truck for 10 hours or more at a time and think nothing of it and I am sure there are pilots that could do the same... but in the Su-34 they don't have to.
Also a very simple thing like communication... a rally car driver and his navigator sit side by side and communicate constantly using both hand signals and radio communications... it is easier to communicate accurately with someone you are sitting next to than someone in front that can't see you... even with radio communication...
And don't underestimate the Su-34 in terms of its air to air capability... its radar is not that bad and it can carry plenty of missiles... it would certainly not be a great dogfighter, but with R-77 and R-73 missiles how much dogfighting would they need to do?
In combat the Su-30 will mainly be air to air combat, while the Su-34 will be mainly strike missions but able to defend itself to the point where it does not really need dedicated escorts.
Su-35s are multi role too... but Soviet experience tends to favour swing role aircraft... a MiG-21 or MiG-23 with a bomb and AAMs... flys in and drops its bomb and then climbs and provides air cover for the planes coming in next.
The MiG design bureau offered multirole MiG-29SMT upgrades for years to the Russian AF... but they just wanted a short range interceptor because the guided air to ground munitions were too expensive so they didn't buy very many and the ones they did went to Su-24 units rather than frontal aviation which tended to use dumb bombs and rockets.
Training generally didn't cover multi tasking either so the extra expensive of a more sophisticated multirole fighter was not interesting to the Air Force either.
The Su-30 actually evolved from the PVO (air interception units) concept of using big aircraft with big radar as airborne mini AWACS type platforms where an Su-30 with its radar on scanning for enemy targets would operate with a group of MiG-29s or Su-27s with their radars off operating closer to the enemy positions.
Enemy aircraft targets were handed to the closer flying radar silent MiGs and Flankers who would launch their missiles and then retire to rearm and refuel... the Su-30 would monitor the interception and mark the target for SARH missiles so as far as the enemy was concerned unless they used their own radar there was only one Su-30 there but it seemed to have an enormous number of missiles...
India liked the idea of a two seater to share the workload, but the Russians actually preferred to automate a lot of that... so the Su-35 has sub 5th gen stuff to allow a single seat fighter/bomber.... good testing for stuff going into the Su-57.
Su-30 is cheaper than an Su-34 for a reason... the Su-34 has more expensive more capable systems than the Su-30SM and is optimised for the strike role.
For most export clients having a specialised strike aircraft is a big of an extravagance... only the US and major NATO countries could afford that sort of thing (F-111/F-15E, and Tornado).
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