Tu-22M3: News

KEPD 350 Taurus, Storm Shadow,SCALP, Delilah, SOM cruise missile etc. A lot of precise equipment with a range of several hundred kilometers.

Russia has air defence missiles with effective ranges of 400km at the moment, and soon 600km with the S-500, therefore in terms of stand off range you would need the weapons to have standoff ranges of these distances at the minimum to reach the actual targets and not just penetrate the borders of Russian airspace...

Russian equivalents really don't have similar problems...

I knew you could do that Very Happy that's why I said built from scratch, KH-50 has a flattened profile, KH-55SM doesn't, I think that even if they are the same length TU-22M3M couldn't launch kh-55SM, obviously KH-50 has a stealth profile that KH -55SM doesn't have, and in subsonic cruise missiles that's important.

The Kh-50 is not supposed to be a strategic cruise missile.... it is not supposed to be carried on strategic missions... it is supposed to be the sort of missile they would fire at Syria or other similar conventional attacks from aircraft like the Backfire, but also the Blackjack and Bear on such non strategic missions.

The Kh-59MKK2 was not really designed from scratch... it just has a reprofiled shell for internal carriage... they could easily do that with the Kh-555 if all they wanted was a stealthy weapon.

I really really doubt that...the export version has a range of 290 km...from Tass: Russia to develop cruise missiles capable of striking targets at 1,000km range
The missiles will be developed before 2020

Have you not followed the family history of the weapon?

The original Kh-59 was a rocket powered weapon with a 150kg warhead and a range of about 40km and an all up weight of about 750kgs.

It had inertial flight to the target area and then TV command guidance for terminal attack.

This was replaced by the upgraded Kh-59M which added a complicated propulsion system... instead of a solid rocket booster and a rocket sustainer, it has a solid rocket booster to rapidly accelerate the missile to out in front of the aircraft so it can be captured by the guidance pod and then a turbojet engine sustainer starts up and powers it to 115km range... limited by the range of the datalink... the warhead is doubled but the all up weight of the weapon goes up to about 930kgs.

The Kh-59MK has the MMW radar seeker of the Kh-35 fitted and is an anti ship missile and because it does not use a datalink its flight range is not restricted to 115km. Its range of course is restricted by the size of the target... a small boat it has a range of about 145km, while a large boat (5,000 sq metres) it has a range of about 285km. The Kh-59MK doesn't need the solid rocket booster to launch it rapidly ahead of the aircraft to gather with a datalink pod so the solid rocket booster is replaced with more fuel for the turbofan engine extending the range.

The point is that the Kh-59MK has a body diameter of about 38cm, while the Kh-59MKK2 is a square 40cm by 40cm... so there is more room for fuel.

I think KH-59MK2 is the 1000km range, Mindstorm said that the former concedes to JASSM-ER, that's probably, But Jassm-er has a lot more than over 925km.

But the Kh-59MKK2 is wider than the older models it is also shorter... it is only 4.2m long while the Kh-59MK is about 5.6m long, so I would think even guessing at a range of 500km for the Kh-59MKK2 is already being rather generous.

I would suspect if they have a family of weapons with ranges of 200km 400km, 600km, and 1,000km, that they will likely be either a scaled group of missiles... all the same but of different sizes and weights of fuel, or perhaps a single size that has a different mix of warhead and fuel weight, so the 200km missile might be with a 1 ton warhead and the rest fuel, while the 400km range missile might have a 750kg warhead and the rest fuel, while the 600km range missile might have a 400kg warhead, and the 1,000km range missile might have a 200kg warhead perhaps... or they might all have scaled weights and sizes so the 1,000km range weapon might be carried by Blackjacks and Bears and possibly the Su-34, while the Tu-22M3 might carry the 600km range models, and the Su-35 and MiG-35 and Su-57 might carry the 200km and 400km models....

But I don't think it has, the stealth shape will reduce the range, the diameter looks small than KH-101, it all depends on the weight of the warhead, but I won't be surprised if it has more than 3000km range with a conventional warhead.

A stealthy shape is generally very low drag with all its sharp angles so I really don't think it would reduce range on its own. Nuclear warheads are much more compact and lighter than conventional warheads... HE is not very dense so to carry 200kgs means it takes up a lot of space. The Kh-101 conventional missile is supposed to have a 400kg warhead and 4,500km range, while the Kh-102 with a nuclear warhead will have a range of 5,000km or more depending on the flight profile... A strategic missile can often fly at medium to high altitude without using high throttle settings for hours to greatly extending flight range...

A new Russian air-launched cruise missile 6 mt long, a completely new design engine, build with different materials that the Kh-55 family, the best solid fuel available, and it has 1500km range

If it is subsonic then high energy fuel does not help unless you can get it to super cruise at supersonic speed... the Kh-55SM used large saddle fuel tanks to get a flight range of 3,000km, and the motor it used wasn't a bad motor... You add range by adding fuel, which adds weight... you can't double a fighter jets flight range by adding external fuel tanks.... the extra weight and drag means the extra fuel doens't directly add to flight range... the extra fuel reduces fuel efficiency and increases drag and reduces thrust to weight ratio and slows you down.

The easiest solution is to make the missile longer which allows a serious increase in weight without a huge increase in drag because you have the same cross section. Larger heavier missiles need bigger wings which means higher drag too...

It will, KH-50 and GZUR were built especially for the Backfire.

Well it would make more sense to make them short enough to be carried internally on the Backfire... so either make the missiles less than 5m long or make the Backfire internal weapon bay able to take 6m long missiles.

I can see the shitstorm from the US now because an enlarged internal weapon bay makes it a strategic bomber, so making the missiles smaller I think makes much more sense all round.

Now we are talking attack and what a great replacement! They could have 6 GZUR and 6 Kh-101/2.

But Gzur uses a ramjet so it does not need to be 6m long to travel 1,500km to its target... it will be moving at mach 6... which is about 1.9km/s... that means it will be covering 1,500km in about 781 seconds or about 13 minutes... in comparison at subsonic speeds flying that distance would take 4687 seconds or one and a half hours... now for a missile intended to clear the way ahead of a strategic bomber having your clearing away missile move at a speed very close to the speed of your bomber makes very little sense. It is likely easier to fit fuel to run a ramjet for 13 minutes into a 4.8m long missile than to fit the fuel to run a turbojet for an hour an a half in a 6m long missile.

If Gzur is 4.78m long you can have the same loadout as with Kh-15 on both the Backfire and Blackjack... the Backfire could carry 10 (four externally and 6 internally) and the Blackjack could carry 24 though normally it would carry 12 Kickbacks and 6 long range cruise missiles.

If the 1,000km range weapon in that new family is 6m long then the Blackjack could carry 6 in each weapon bay (total 12 weapons) plus 6 x 4.8m Gzur self defence missiles in each weapon bay too... which means 12 precision land attack 1,000km range missiles and 12 x 1,500km range ramjet powered self defence missiles... of course by default Gzur would be nuclear armed like the Kickback missile so perhaps 12 x 1,000km range weapons plus 12 Kh-50s if they were 4.8m long for a totally conventional load out of precision guided cheap weapons.

Since France has OTH radar, they see air traffic in quite a large part of European Russia.

Do they see drones... do they see stealthy aircraft... what exactly do they see?

The entire F-22 fleet is a powerful force

It could be a powerful force... so do you think it will be deployed to Europe to defend their European allies, or will they be held back to confront the Blackjack and Bear launched land attack cruise missiles that will be on their way?

In addition, the F-22 has better parameters than the F-35 and the has supercruise capabilities. Su-57 has better characteristics? but there will be much less of them all the time. The only hope is to destroy the F-22 at base with a hypersonic missile. Slow subsonic missiles will be quickly detected by the French OTH radar. There will be time to react?

Well when will the F-22s be deployed... and when they are wont they be a fairly obvious target for their new hypersonic ground and air launched missiles?

Do they see drones... do they see stealthy aircraft... what exactly do they see?

French OTH radar tracked a f-117 or B2 through France when they send it bombed somewhere in the ME or Yougoslavia. I don't remember the story but it is a very capable radar.

The thing is that french air defence can't protect it against cruise missiles flying low btw mountains and France is not really a flat terrain. Plenty of routes to stay undetected.

GarryB I will answer your post without quotes...

I think we will have to agree to disagree  

I sincerely don't understand why you doubt even the 500km range of the KH-59MK2, look at the improvement of the KH-59MK2 export version from the MAKS-2015 vs the missile with the same name http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/aerospace-systems/air-to-air-missile/kh-59mk2/ obviously the improvement was not using more fuel, but the materials used in the new missile, the new engine, and probably better solid fuel, they made all this effort to export.
If the KH-59MK2 for SU-57 has only 500km range, or even less, they are giving away advanced technology...for me try aren't.

The KH-55 family is obsolete, their improvements were "only" from different engines and conformal tanks(more and/or better fuel) KH-101 with only more 1.45 mt achieved more 50% range... better composite materials, aerodynamic, engine, fuel.

I disagree with more things that you said, but the possibility of the different ranges of the new missiles being from different warhead sizes is a good point that I didn't thought...I think the 200km range missile could be the small kh-35 missile that we saw a few months ago, just a guess.
I think KH-102 has a lot more than 5000km range. It could have the double of the KH-101, in my opinion.

GarryB do you have any source that the weapons bay of the TU-22M3M aren't 6+ mt long?

If they had made GZUR and kh-50 4.78 mt long for me that would be a big mistake, they would have a bad missiles for TU-22M3M ( compared with what they could achieve if it is 6 mt long) and a not so important missiles for a platform (TU-160) that they only had 16, and is the more important air force strategic plane.

The question is the 2 missiles above were developed with TU-22M3M or Tu-160 in mind?
Their development begun before the decision to produce more Blackjacks.
If they want 24 subsonic cruise missiles to be launched from inside the Tu-160 they have the kh-59mk2, if they want the same number but supersonic they have KH-58USHKE, if they want the same number but Hypersonic they have the missile from the SU-57, all with ~4.2mt, they probably just need to adapt, or develop a new revolver.

Weapons bay of a Tu-22M3 with Kh-15. Not much room left.

Mindstorm wrote:

Isos wrote:The su-57 with a kh-59mk2 may have the range but it would be suicide mission to send it attack US bases in Germany because even if it is stealth and all that it will be dead alone so deep in enemy territory.

Well that is not the informed opinion, as result of extensive simulations, among MoD planners.

The model take into account 4 main points :

1) The almost complete absence, in western military architecture, of high-gain, multi-band radar with integrated signal processing (the development of which was an almost two decades long affair....).
2) The lack of high performance very-long-range air defense systems to the level ,such as C-400 or С-300В4.
3) The lack of any high mobile modern medium and short range defense, with optronic tracking back-up channels, capable to possibly ambush incoming Cu-57 passing in theirs defended area or to neutralize the delivered missiles at the target's position.
4) The commitment by part of western Air Forces ,within the next three decades, for interception and air denial missions   , on a fleet of almost exclusively subsonic tactical aircraft - F-35 -



The chances that ,even already-in-the-air squadrons of F-35A  (having much lower altitude limits that hinder the kinematic performances of theirs air to air missiles and lower theirs authonomy) will be capable to intercept a similar stand-off attack group of Cu-57, maintaining reduced RCS configuration, would be abysmally low., those F-35s would moreover not receive any guidance from any multi-spectral long range radar or space-based surveillance systems.

The most complex situations and scenario would be the one taking into account the deployment of the entire fleet of F-22s in the European theatre ,that will obviously complicate thosew kind of mission and operations in the South Western European sectors for the effect of French Nostradamus OTH radar.    

 

Point four is an utter and complete BS.

France has no F-35, Germany neither and Italy and UK would take them as mere substitutes of  A2G planes of the like of Tornado, Harrier and AMX and not as AD fighters.
The rest of tiny European AF that would acquire F-35 even all together would have less planes than the least of the above listed ones.

Deploying more than a group of F-22 in Europe would mean leave continental US defenseless against long range bombers.

French OTH radar tracked a f-117 or B2 through France when they send it bombed somewhere in the ME or Yougoslavia. I don't remember the story but it is a very capable radar.

I don't doubt that it is a good radar, but there will be hard limits as to how many targets it can track and within its field of view there could be millions of drones right now flying about the place let alone low flying cruise missiles weaving between trees and hills... not to mention thousands of civilian and military aircraft...

The thing is that french air defence can't protect it against cruise missiles flying low btw mountains and France is not really a flat terrain. Plenty of routes to stay undetected.

And that is what makes cruise missiles so valuable and dangerous, and why enormous investment in IADS and air defence systems has been so valuable to Russia.

I sincerely don't understand why you doubt even the 500km range of the KH-59MK2, look at the improvement of the KH-59MK2 export version from the MAKS-2015 vs the missile with the same name http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/aerospace-systems/air-to-air-missile/kh-59mk2/ obviously the improvement was not using more fuel, but the materials used in the new missile, the new engine, and probably better solid fuel, they made all this effort to export.

The solid fuel is irrelevant... on the first few models that used it it was only used to fly the missile out to 1km ahead of the launch platform quickly so it could be gathered by the datalink pod so communication could be established... it would only burn for a few seconds and didn't accelerate the missile faster than high subsonic speed.

The limits on the early models was datalink range, while the later models added extra fuel in the place of the solid rocket booster to reach almost 300km range... the export model wasn't allowed to reach further than that anyway so any extra potential would be used up making the warhead bigger most likely.

The point is that the domestic model has a range of about 550km... which I have no huge problem believing... but suddenly turning that into 1,000km plus range is not likely... the turbofan engine used was rather fuel efficient already, and even if you replaced the entire missile with composite material that weighed nothing you still wouldn't increase range by that much...

If the KH-59MK2 for SU-57 has only 500km range, or even less, they are giving away advanced technology...for me try aren't.

The Kh-59MK2 is smaller and lighter than previous missiles that had ranges of just over half its reported range... the export model of the Kh-59MK2 is described as being a 290km range missile... which makes sense because export limits its range to 300km max anyway, but with a 310kg warhead and a total weight of 770kg and a length of 4.2m it is actually smaller and similar in weight to the AS-13 or Kh-59 which has a 147kg warhead, a 40km range, and weighs 760kgs and is about 5.4m long.

I appreciate its range is not limited by its potential, but by international export agreement, but 550km sounds a reasonable distance for a weapon to carry on their new stealth fighter... at 4.2m it could also be carried internally by the Backfire which has a 5m weapon bay for weapons up to about 4.8m long like the Kickback.

I don't think they could do anything to magically make such a weapon reach 1,000km...

Remember these are subsonic cruise missiles and the altitude they operate at is going to effect their flight range and speed too... the Kh-59MK2 can operate at altitudes from 200m to 11,000m over land... it flys at 10-15m over water till it gets close to its target and then descends to 4-7m depending on the sea state.

At low altitude its flight speed will be about 700km/h and range will probably be 250-300km, while at 11,000m altitude it will fly at 1,000km/h and reach full range of 550km or so.

The KH-55 family is obsolete, their improvements were "only" from different engines and conformal tanks(more and/or better fuel) KH-101 with only more 1.45 mt achieved more 50% range... better composite materials, aerodynamic, engine, fuel.

First of all the Kh-55 and family is no where near obsolete. Second the Kh-101 is longer, but it is also a ton heavier... the standard Kh-55 is a 1,210kg missile with a flight range of 2,500km... the Kh-55SM with saddle tanks is heavier at 1,500kg and wider because of the external conformal tanks and with the extra weight basically being extra fuel its range is 3,000km.

The Kh-101 is longer and as wide as the Kh-55SM with its external tanks and weighs one ton more than the heavier Kh-55SM and that extra ton is basically extra fuel... which gives it better range. The Kh-102 is about 200kgs lighter because the nuclear warhead is about 200kgs lighter than the conventional HE warhead of the Kh-101, but because it has the same fuel weight it gets a longer flight range of about 5,000km instead of the Kh-101s 4,500km flight range.

All down to increased fuel weight and extra length meaning less drag in flight.

I think KH-102 has a lot more than 5000km range. It could have the double of the KH-101, in my opinion.

If they flew at 12km altitude all the way to the target at a low thrust setting to improve fuel consumption they might both fly much further, but for their roles they need to fly faster and they need to follow way points to take them around danger areas... they might need to drop down to 20m altitude and fly through mountain passes to get to their targets in secret... all of which will effect range and performance.

GarryB do you have any source that the weapons bay of the TU-22M3M aren't 6+ mt long?

Information about the Tu-22M3M is vague... they did mention extending the weapon bay but no hard details...

If they had made GZUR and kh-50 4.78 mt long for me that would be a big mistake, they would have a bad missiles for TU-22M3M ( compared with what they could achieve if it is 6 mt long) and a not so important missiles for a platform (TU-160) that they only had 16, and is the more important air force strategic plane.

Actually being 6m long missiles means having 6 weapons in each weapon bay on the Blackjack... a 6 metre missile sitting on a rotary launcher 11.35m long... if they had another 4.78m missile they could load that on there too in tandem but the only missiles I have read about that is that length or less in that category is the Kh-59MK2 and the Kh-15 which has been withdrawn from service.

By making them shorter they can be deployed in much greater numbers by a much wider variety of aircraft... mounting a 4.8m long missile on an Su-34 or Su-35 or even a MiG-35 would be easier than mounting a 6m long missile... and having say 65 Tu-160M2s in service eventually means a potential for 1,560 Gzur near hypersonic 1,500km range land attack missiles, with another 10 per Backfire you are operating. At 6m long those 65 Blackjacks could only carry 780.

Making them smaller makes them more flexible and increases the number that can be carried.

It is like Granit vs Zircon.... Granit is a 7.5 ton enormous missile only carried on Oscar and Oscar II class subs, Kirov class cruisers and the Kuznetsov CV. Zircon is about 5 times faster, with more than double its range and 1/3rd its weight and can be carried by any Russian ship fitted with a UKSK launcher which includes corvettes and subs.

As for reduced performance... the Gzur is replacing an already withdrawn rocket powered missile with a speed of mach 5 and a range of about 250km. A shortened Gzur should be able to match the mach 6 speed and might perhaps reach 1,000km instead of 1,500km which is fine... put a slightly smaller nuke warhead in it...

For the Product 715 it is supposed to be a short range tactical cruise missile with a range of at most 2,000km... having a range of 1,500km is not a big problem.

Being able to be carried internally on the Tu-22M3 greatly improves the flight performance of that aircraft by reducing drag.

The question is the 2 missiles above were developed with TU-22M3M or Tu-160 in mind?
Their development begun before the decision to produce more Blackjacks.

The two missiles are for two specific and different jobs... GZUR is a short range attack missile to help a strategic bomber penetrate enemy air defences... so the Blackjack would use it but likely not all of them... perhaps one in a flight would have one internal bay with 12 missiles and the rest would have long range cruise missiles. The Backfire would use the Kickback and therefore also the Gzur to penetrate hostile enemy airspace protected by air defence systems like Patriot and THAAD and AEGIS Ashore, but they would also use it like Kinzhal.... ie against ships which have their own IADS. GZUR II will be a mach 12 missile with strategic features and will likely be carried in the Blackjacks internal weapon bays... 6 per bay....

The Kh-50, sometimes called Product 715 and occasionally called Kh-SD is a reduced size reduced range stealthy cruise missiles for theatre operations for a similar role to JASSM-ER, and as such could be carried by the Backfire or the Blackjack or Bear or PAK DA.

In fact if the Kh-50 and Gzur are both less than 5m long then you could carry them in tandem in a Blackjacks bay... 12 air defence targets is a lot for a penetration, but also having them all in the same plane is a risk... perhaps having every plane in each flight with four Gzur missiles and the other 8 missiles on that rotary launcher could be 1,500km range cruise missiles... so the loadout for the Blackjack would be 4 x Gzur, 8 x Kh-50, and 6 x Kh-102... so they can penetrate air defences... which could include AEGIS cruisers in the Arctic ocean for instance... A loadout for an attack on Europe could be 4 Gzur and all the rest Kh-50... ie 4 x Gzur and 20 x Kh-50...

They could step it up... a subsonic cruise missile is a tricky little bugger... but imagine replacing the turbofan with a ramjet and making it a supercruising mach 1.8 target that does not have an AB and therefore uses dry thrust, so you get long range and a missile that an F-35 can't chase down...

If they want 24 subsonic cruise missiles to be launched from inside the Tu-160 they have the kh-59mk2, if they want the same number but supersonic they have KH-58USHKE, if they want the same number but Hypersonic they have the missile from the SU-57, all with ~4.2mt, they probably just need to adapt, or develop a new revolver.

Kh-59MK2 has a range of 550km... not really enough. The Kh-58 has half that range...

Point four is an utter and complete BS.

It was the US intention to replace all existing 4th gen fighters with the F-35... you can call it BS, but only because it is clearly nonsense... you see that and I see that but who is going to tell Trump... or the next US president to drop a 1.5 trillion dollar programme...

Deploying more than a group of F-22 in Europe would mean leave continental US defenseless against long range bombers.

Which suggests he is right and the primary fighter in Europe will be American F-35s that are ineffectual in defending the US so Europe can have them... how generous...

Tu-22M3 bomber will receive another hypersonic missile?
https://regnum.ru/news/polit/2955599.html

Arrow wrote:Why ? Since France has OTH radar, they see air traffic in quite a large part of European Russia.

Nostradamus do not have such a detection range, it is very efficient and ,for the technology of the time of its construction, also surprisingly accurate, significantly more than what initially computed by Federation's specialists, (like someone has highlighted here it in 1999, a still in development Nostradamus, constantly detected and followed F-117 and B-2 operations against Serbian targets) ,but its range barely reach Warsaw - and therefore would be incapable to early warn an attack against a target placed at this distance -.

As said deep air operations, like that previously described, in the Western and South-western european targets would be very difficult to carry on because interceptors could be cued toward the incoming aircraft by Nostradamus and therefore would require a level of corollary asset for the strike squadrons very big and also with them the success would be seriously in question.

Gzur, Kinzhal, and Kh-32 are the missiles we are discussing here and are in that article.

I wonder how accurate the OTH container is. Apparently he was observing the F-35 in the Middle East near the Iranian border. With the fact that F-35 is easier to detect than B-2 and F-117.

As said deep air operations, like that previously described, in the Western and South-western european targets would be very difficult to carry on because interceptors could be cued toward the incoming aircraft by Nostradamus and therefore would require a level of corollary asset for the strike squadrons very big and also with them the success would be seriously in question. wrote:

So all that remains is hypersonic missile attack? Kindzal, Gzur, Zirkon. Zircon is a little short range.

Arrow wrote:I wonder how accurate the OTH container is. Apparently he was observing the F-35 in the Middle East near the Iranian border. With the fact that F-35 is easier to detect than B-2 and F-117.



So all that remains is hypersonic missile attack? Kindzal, Gzur, Zirkon. Zircon is a little short range.

Enough to maintain track of the area and the vectors of motion of several thousands of incoming aircraft (and/or UAVs and cruise missiles) and guide supersonic interceptors, proceeding in perfect radar silence and possibly outside the frontal angle of coverage of radar such as AN-APG-70 or AN-APG-81, toward them so to allow theirs engagement using exclusively passive optical tracking systems (aided by the beam or rear aspect angle of inception).

Ironically what will happen in the reality is that those wester "supposedly" VLO aircraft will be attacked from short (DAS range) to very close range by enemy tactical aircraft or interceptors with way better kinematic performances and superior missiles and moreover completely by surprise.

It is just for this "mirror thinking" that all the latest domestic radars incorporate always constructive measures aimed to obtain very wide angle of coverage; examples of that are the very wide 3D steering capabilities of Н035 Ирбис or the distributed arrays of the Ш-121.

Ironically what will happen in the reality is that those wester "supposedly" VLO aircraft will be attacked from short (DAS range) to very close range by enemy tactical aircraft or interceptors with way better kinematic performances and superior missiles and moreover completely by surprise.

Awacs can track at very long range su-27/30/35 or mig-29/31 and mig-31. There won't be surprise attack by any side.

The mini aerial war between india and pakistan shows what new wars will be: everyone sees everything and the one with more fighters/missiles at the right place and right moment wins the battle.

Radars have expended and they are much better than during cold war.

If Russia wants to take advantage of the irbis they need to include r-77M on the su-35 quickly. Because right now even if it can spot an f-15 400km away the engagement zone are matched by both aircraft with their respective missiles with max theorical ranges of ~100km. At such distance both aircraft will have spoted the other for a good time.

Isos wrote:Awacs can track at very long range su-27/30/35 or mig-29/31 and mig-31. There won't be surprise attack by any side.

E3 Awacs with a low observable strike group ? Maybe in area denial missions well within OTAN territory and against.  

It would not only represent the absolute negation of the whole concept of low observable tactical aircraft but would not resolve in any way the situation; leaving even a part the chances of survival, close to zero literally, of a similar aircraft in area defended by any domestic long range air defense systems (and against a similar trivial target theirs effective engagement range would be significantly greater than the, already understimated publicly, available.....) merely a pair of МиГ-31БМ, to assure the overkill, would proceed at very high supersonic speed at very high altitude  toward a point of delivery of theirs Р-37M, literally at hundreds of km from theirs DCA squads .....if present.....it would not survive a minute ,not in enemy airspace, but at hundreds of km from the border.

The same idea of penetration in enemy air space with independent, supposedly low observable, tactical aircraft was conceived purposely to adress those kind of unsolvable problems,, in reality the proponents of those idea was very efficient, long 25 years, in allowing the US military industrial complex to absorb titanic amount of resources from the Congress; but nowdays not even the most deceived people with specidfic technical knowledges in the US MIC still believe that similar concepts would really have a single chance of success in an open conventional conflict against an enemy of the level Federation or China, but would achieve acceptable results against much less sophisticated enemies that are the real targets of USA expeditionary doctrine for expansion of its sphere of influence.

Isos wrote:The mini aerial war between india and pakistan shows what new wars will be: everyone sees everything and the one with more fighters/missiles at the right place and right moment wins the battle.

That is not true for war between most advanced nations.

AWACS type of both sides would be near to unemployable except well deep in friendly territory in defensive mission behind the protection of several layers of IAD nodes and DCA screens and also so theirs average survival rate would be marketedly low.

AWACS has been, in the latest 35 years of western type of air warfare, the single "allowing element" for the realization of operational routines that appear almost expected by default in western Air Force mindset: from Israeli operations in middle East to US Air Campaigns around the world capabilities to be guided toward enemy aircraft avoiding where possible the area of coverage of its nose radar (just what we are debating here...) has been an expected pre-condition at the beginning of the hostilities.

It was not thanks to secret magical capabilities of western aircraft or theirs pilots that fought in the latest 35 years, even if only against incomparably less advanced opponent, that the loss in air to air engagements was very low, but merely thanks to 16-17 people in a clumsy modified civil aircraft with a powerful high-gain radar mounted overhead that through radio communication guided each pilot toward its targets providing all the commands necessary to circumvent enemy aircraft's radar footprint allowing to attack them usually by surprise.  
Eliminating this single element you would have obtained very likely a negative exchange ratio in air to air engagements even against the outnumbered outdated enemy aircraft when operating in theirs airspace.



In an air war without AWACS ,  , like that between great powers, the detection advantage shift immediately toward the aircraft that can boast the wider angle of coverge of its sensor suits and at today western aircraft are anything except prepared ,in its constructive technical architecture, to comply with similar necessity of hiigh-end conflicts.....

You are killing me Garry I hope you are not doing on purpose

GarryB Kh-59MK2 has a range of 550km... not really enough. The Kh-58 has half that range... wrote:

If the kh-58 you are talking about is this http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/aerospace-systems/air-to-air-missile/kh-58ushke/. You are saying that the Russian version only has more 30 km range...

GarryB wrote:Kh-59MK2 has a range of 550km... not really enough. The Kh-58 has half that range...

Well the Kh-59Mk2 is .4 meters wide, and the mid-section internal bomb bays are 1 meter wide. They should make a modification, call it the Kh-59Mk3, where instead of 2 missiles, it's just one missile that's .8 meters wide (with comformal drop tanks), probably giving it more than double the max range at something like 1,600-1,800km. The range could be more than doubled because as it stands the Kh-59Mk2 design has to share space for electronics, warhead, engine and fuel, while the drop tanks that doubled the width (and spans the whole length) of the missile only has to store fuel.

Of course by making it wider it'll be more prone to drag, however less so due to the fact that the Kh-59Mk2 (and the Mk3) missile would be subsonic. To mitigate the additional drag caused by doubling the width, as I mentioned they could instead of having a uniform .8 meter wide munition, they could take the existing Kh-59Mk2 design, and add .2 meter wide conformal droppable fuel tanks on each side that could be bolted on. Kh-59Mk3 will have ports on each side to mount the fuel tanks, and fuel veins that lead to the engine. When the fuel is spent, they would be jettisoned leaving largely the same shape as the Kh-59Mk2 design (but with additional side ports), simultaneously shedding dead weight and reducing drag.

Future iterations of the Su-57 should, ideally speaking have more modular mid section bomb bays. Ideally speaking in my opinion the 2 door bomb bays should be replaced with a modular revolving door system, which would degrade RCS significantly less, and reduce drag when launching munitions. To further reduce RCS degradation, they could have an electro-magnetic opaque aersol gas (aluminum-silica nanosphere aersol like the AFV smoke grenades) be injected in the bomb bays before launching munitions, which could possibly help mask the munitions from detection too (if it coats the munition).

The revolving door bomb bays could be designed where set piece revolving doors could allow different sized munitions, like for long missiles (sub, super, or hypersonic) that fits the whole length (and the space between) of both bomb bays combined!

So all that remains is hypersonic missile attack? Kindzal, Gzur, Zirkon. Zircon is a little short range.

Zircon is a surface launched missile with a range of over 1,000km, while Kinzhal from a high speed high altitude launch from a MiG-31 has a range of 2,000km, and the Gzur is supposed to be much slower than either of those weapons (only mach 6) but with a range of 1,500km.

I would suggest that from an air launch above 12km altitude and perhaps just supersonic speed the Zircon should be good for a bare minimum 1,500km range which would be plenty for most targets as it would be flying at mach 9.

Awacs can track at very long range su-27/30/35 or mig-29/31 and mig-31. There won't be surprise attack by any side.

AWACS can be engaged at maximum range from any AAM or SAM... including the R-37M and any new missile that replaces it, and of course S-400 and soon S-500.

The mini aerial war between india and pakistan shows what new wars will be: everyone sees everything and the one with more fighters/missiles at the right place and right moment wins the battle.

Honestly India actually seemed a bit confused in that incident...

Radars have expended and they are much better than during cold war.

They have indeed.

If Russia wants to take advantage of the irbis they need to include r-77M on the su-35 quickly. Because right now even if it can spot an f-15 400km away the engagement zone are matched by both aircraft with their respective missiles with max theorical ranges of ~100km. At such distance both aircraft will have spoted the other for a good time.

I rather suspect Su-35s will be soon fitted with R-37M or perhaps the Product 810 they talk about for the Su-57...

But lets be honest... the real long range missiles are going to be the hypersonic scramjet powered AAMs they will be developing right now.

If the kh-58 you are talking about is this http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/aerospace-systems/air-to-air-missile/kh-58ushke/. You are saying that the Russian version only has more 30 km range...

I am saying the Kh-58 has a long history in Soviet and Russian service and for most of that time its range was 120km from most of the platforms that carried it.

The exception was the MiG-25 that could launch it from high altitude and high speed and it could reach 200km in that flight profile.

For the new Kh-58 that is largely changed to be carried internally its flight range is about 250km from aircraft can can get to 15km altitude and mach 2 speed.

If you think the Russian version can reach 500km then you are being very optimistic...

I am impressed it can reach 250km.... it has a 150kg warhead which is huge for such a weapon.

They should make a modification, call it the Kh-59Mk3, where instead of 2 missiles, it's just one missile that's .8 meters wide (with comformal drop tanks), probably giving it more than double the max range at something like 1,600-1,800km.

If the missile has that sort of range you might as well carry it externally...

Triples on external weapon racks would be interesting for the Tu-22M3M... the intake mountings for multiple ejector racks for carrying large numbers of iron bombs could be upgraded to carry twin or triple mounts with tandem missile load outs for heavier conventional payloads...

AWACS can be engaged at maximum range from any AAM or SAM... including the R-37M and any new missile that replaces it, and of course S-400 and soon S-500.

Yes but they will see the sukhoi. Maybe not the su-57 but all the other have big rcs. So the Awacs will tell the other jets where they are before beung destroyed or retreating.

Honestly India actually seemed a bit confused in that incident...

Pakistan couldn't do anything against indian big wave of fighters and bombers. They saw them on radars but were overwhelmed and had no chance.

Then during pakistani attack pakistani had numerical advantage and indian couldn't do much even if their MKI had all the jets on their radars.

I rather suspect Su-35s will be soon fitted with R-37M or perhaps the Product 810 they talk about for the Su-57...

It is indeed.

Isos wrote:Yes but they will see the sukhoi. Maybe not the su-57 but all the other have big rcs. So the Awacs will tell the other jets where they are before beung destroyed or retreating.

Isos we must try to remain focused when we reason.

An AWACS can indeed detect at very long range an aircraft such as Су-30CM ,Су-27СМ3 or Су-34 ,let put even in total absence of jamming (that in an offensive missions ,like those we were examining, would very likely come from ground based EW having power output and band agility absolutely unavailable for any air based one), but how that would come into play in the scenario we were debating ?

We were debating the material measures in forces and the military thought behind the Federation and western approach to the deep strike missions against enemy command structures, radar structures, weapon depots and above all air bases.

 
I had highlighted 4 points of analysis of western military structure that has been at the basis of technical choices made by part of Federation's MoD in the requirements for its offensive and defensive systems.

I recall that the aim of those missions is to degrade progressiively faster the potential of enemy forces ,in this instance the enemy Air Forces, up to the point where it cannot cope anymore with the potential of friendly IAD and therefore is doomed to annihilation, the air bases targets of those operations are those hosting not only tactical avaiation armed with substrategic munitions but just fuel tankers and also AWACS, the number of which are very very low and incredibly difficult and slow to produce.

Western approach ,that must take into account the enormous amount of long, medium, short range and point AD systems, ground based EW and masking elements and specialized interceptors available to Federation defensive structure.....and all lacking in theris defensive structure.....and therefore the very low chance of success of stand off missions, has been to bet anything on a fleet of supposedly "low observable" networked tactical aviation .

Those networked "stealth" aircraft should have been supposedly capable to penetrate undetected for 600-800 km in the enemy air space passing through the holes of the supposedly reduced radar footprint of theirs IAD elements so to deliver from close range (because theirs overall size and the volume of theirs internal weapon bays do not allow to host stand-off long range munitions) the PGMs on those deep targets.

That mission ,that is the same reason of existence of the entire western air doctrine centered around very low observability do not foresee any role for AWACS, or J-STAR or any other not low observable platform for the simple reason that those few aircraft, to avoid to be transformed in few minutes in a burning and twisted amass of falling metal should remain at, at least, 500-600 km from the first echelon of enemy forces and therefore could provide zero aid for the stealth aircraft squadrons that should supposedly endanger the Federation air bases hosting the platforms and weapons that should be emplyed to destroy theris air bases.

At this point the debate turned around the important role played by some of the most advanced OTH radars in guiding defenses against enemy deep strike groups.

I have pointed that domestic OTH sensors, such as 29Б6 Контейнер, even leaving a part the considerations about the total fallacy of the western assumptions on low observability of those aircraft against modern samples of domestic air defense that by itself would render useless any further elaboration, is perfectly capable to guide interceptors ,proceeding in toal radar silence, around the frontal radar footprint of those stealth aircraft so to attack them by total surprise using passive optronic systems, opening fire with medium range missiles delivered at supersonic speed from relatively close range to increase the Pk and then proceeding to very close range to destroy the remaining of the sqaudrons.

What majority of scarcely knowledgeable people or enthusiasts ignore is that it is just in this way (turn around the angle of coverage of enemy aircraft's radar) that low observable aircraft attack enemies aircraft remaining undetected , not proceeding head-on against those targets and opening fire.

In substance the postulate of low observability has been to allow western aircraft to attain in a modern air battle what AWACS guidance (that could be not assured anymore against adavanced opponent) had permitted to achieve in the past : catch the enemy aircraft by total surprise attacking it from outside the angle of coverage of its radar.

The almost totality of the air to air downings in the latest 35 years, included the latest ones, has been achieved against enemies totally unaware to be under attack simply because the enemy was outside the angle of coverage of its sensors, very often through third part guidance.

In substance an aircraft attain real invisibility against an enemy aircraft when it manage to manoeuvre around the angle of coverage of enemy radar and attack from there.

That is what happen also today in exercise such as Red Flag with aircraft like F-35 and F-22: low observability ,in its real effects and parameters, give simply the spacial edge, in the struggle against radar footprint, to manouevre around it and attack from a blind spot; in this way the enemy is downed without even knowing from where the attack come from.

But if at Red Flag you provide an F/A-18 with the overall uptdated position and vector of motion of an F-22 , you can bet anything you have that this F-22 would be downed (at least in those exercise where medium range missiles launched down always theirs targets ....in reality it would be very different) without even knowing what hit him.

I'm not debating about how good awacs are but only saying that they will see older sukhoi pretty far away and the surprise attacks are very unlikely.

But then like you say it depends of what you do. R-37M is a dangerous weapon for them.

Yes but they will see the sukhoi. Maybe not the su-57 but all the other have big rcs. So the Awacs will tell the other jets where they are before beung destroyed or retreating.

But most european jets would also see those non stealthy Russian aircraft if they used their own radars.... the value of the AWACS is that they don't normally have to look or think for themselves... once the AWACS are taken out or forced to withdraw then HATO fights one plane at a time with little or no coordination... can you not understand how much less effective that makes them in a single stroke?

Pakistan couldn't do anything against indian big wave of fighters and bombers. They saw them on radars but were overwhelmed and had no chance.

Well put Russia in Pakistans position with all those HATO fighters and bombers and they wont be so overwhelming.... they have plenty of SAMs and air defence forces and while not as many aircraft as HATO does, being a defender you only need to send them up to attack incoming enemy aircraft... no need for constant patrol looking for targets.

Then during pakistani attack pakistani had numerical advantage and indian couldn't do much even if their MKI had all the jets on their radars.

Of course... a direct analogy for a European conflict... what was it... a MiG-21 shot down and an Mi-17 helicopter... right...

It is indeed.

And Object 810 is reported to have a range increase of between 1.6 and 9 times over the R-37M... (the variation depending on launch conditions).

I'm not debating about how good awacs are but only saying that they will see older sukhoi pretty far away and the surprise attacks are very unlikely.

But then like you say it depends of what you do. R-37M is a dangerous weapon for them.

Air to air missiles are a long way from 100% kill probability, but it is not an accident that the R-33 was intended to hit targets pulling up to 4 gs, but the R-37M is able to deal with targets pulling 8gs.

With its lofted trajectory the R-37M will likely be coming down at a very steep angle at perhaps mach 6... one second before impact it will be a tiny dot at a 60-70 degree angle upwards about 1.5km distant and one second later boom the 60kg HE warhead will be spraying the target with fragments... would be tricky to dodge even if you saw it coming...

Mindstorm wrote:
That is not true for war between most advanced nations.

That's true. But it's only because NATO and Russian pilots are way better trained than third world AF pilots from India & Pakistan. Moreover, NATO and Russia will also have access to far more resources, military hardware than any third world country.

Mindstorm wrote:AWACS type of both sides would be near to unemployable except well deep in friendly territory in defensive mission behind the protection of several layers of IAD nodes and DCA screens and also so theirs average survival rate would be marketedly low.

If AWACS are indeed not that useful then why is Russia using the IL-76? AWACS at least in the US were never designed to enter enemy airspace. But we did enter enemy airspace in Iraq, Afghanistan once our fighters established air superiority.

AWACS, JSTARS operate from inside friendly airspace and provide real time information to blue forces.

AWACS, JSTARS operate from inside friendly airspace and provide real time information to blue forces.

MiG-31s/Su-34s, J-20s & S-400/500 (land &/ ship based) can shoot them down deep inside "friendly" airspace.
The 40N6 missile of the S-400 has a claimed range of 400km and uses active radar homing to intercept air targets at great distances. It can be launched against AWACS, J-STARS, EA-6B support jammers and other high-value targets.
https://www.army-technology.com/projects/s-400-triumph-air-defence-missile-system/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-400_missile_system

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-500_missile_system

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/who-cares-about-s-300-or-s-400-s-500-could-be-real-killer-32697

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrYjL0QnSUg

Some H-6s & Tu-22Ms can also be modified to carry long range AAMs & act like the Soviet AF Tu-128s long range interceptors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xian_H-6#Current_operators

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-28#Specifications_(Tu-128)

RTN wrote:If AWACS are indeed not that useful then why is Russia using the IL-76?.

You mean А-50У and in future A-100 ?

Just for the reasons previously named

- Against an advanced opponent: Remain well within friendly airspace to provide search/detection/ and guidance against mostly enemy cruise missiles and coverage of area not densely covered by IAD.
- Against an inferor opponent : Employ it in a very similar way to western AWACS in the air campaigns in the latest 35 years.

RTN wrote:
AWACS at least in the US were never designed to enter enemy airspace. But we did enter enemy airspace in Iraq, Afghanistan once our fighters established air superiority.
AWACS, JSTARS operate from inside friendly airspace and provide real time information to blue forces

The fighter aircraft of USA established air superiority in Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan with active guidance of AWACS; in all the pasted wars the USAF was stationed in very close air bases in neighboring countries and AWACS operated practically from the borders of those attacked nation providing guidance for the USAF squadron.
Those very close air bases in Arabia Saudita or Italy where USAF was amassed in a war against a major enemy would have reduced to hot powder in a matter of minutes and those AWACS would have not get a single chance to guide USAF fighters within the enemy airspace simply because those kind of enemies is equiped with long range air defense that would force AWACS to operate at hundreds of km of distance from the border.

If you remove the friendly voices of AWACS operators from those USAF's aircraft cockpits those aircraft in enemy airspace become suddenly from hunters to preys of enemy fighters and the losses ,even against those widely inferior enemies, increase enormously.

US won't send AWACS inside enemy territory. They will try to clean step by step enemy airspace from the front line. They are not stupid.