Su-57 Stealth Fighter: News #8

I think the main issue is that using plasma for stealth makes the airplane less visible in the radio spectrum, but lights up the aircraft in the IR spectrum.

Not very logical I would think as any missile travelling at Mach 9 or Mach 10 is going to be visible in the IR spectrum whether they are using plasma stealth or not.

You can buy plasma balls for less than $20 these days and while admittedly they use exotic gasses through which rather high voltages are passed, they are not particularly hot... but even if they were the surface temperature of a missile flying at 3km per second is going to be a bit higher than room temperature.

It is not actually friction, it is more about compression of the air in the normal airflow in front of the missile.

They lost quite a lot of them. Maybe 10-20% of the whole fleet in Ukraine. They have to increase the production.

Su-57 will follow normal planned deliveries.

Yeah, of course they did, but they also have to make lots more Tu-160s to replace the 15 they lost of those... and they have to be real quick before the western media notices...

Before the contract for 76 Su-57 aircraft, Russia was not in conflict with Ukroshitstan, and I would not be surprised if the production of Su-57 aircraft was accelerated. And not only that, but I believe that there will be more than 76 by the end of 2027.

With regard to the Su-57 I rather suspect they will want rather more than 76, but they need to fully test it and Ukraine offers their best opportunity to check its sensors and weapons and its performance against a genuine enemy, but I would suggest there are other things they will be increasing production of first that will be rather more useful during the conflict... the production of the Su-57 is more long term.

BTW I read that before feb 2022 russia had no ability to produce gallium arsenide and gallium nitride domestically and had to import it from South Korea which sanctioned them after and delayed mass production of the GaAs and GaN byelka. Is this true?

I would think such materials would be considered strategic and that South Korea would not be allowed by its US masters to sell such material to Russia, which doesn't have a lot of non military uses...

(So I call bullshit... that Russia can't produce such materials themselves...)

GarryB wrote:

BTW I read that before feb 2022 russia had no ability to produce gallium arsenide and gallium nitride domestically and had to import it from South Korea which sanctioned them after and delayed mass production of the GaAs and GaN byelka. Is this true?

I would think such materials would be considered strategic and that South Korea would not be allowed by its US masters to sell such material to Russia, which doesn't have a lot of non military uses...

(So I call bullshit... that Russia can't produce such materials themselves...)

Limb asks and says dumb stuff all the time.

Ausairpower even showed Russian GaAS modules, using their own material, as far back as around 2005. If anyone cares, NPP Istok makes the GaAS and GaN modules. But since this whole conflict started, I cannot access their webpage. I tried looking through their parent company Ruselectronics which mentions them as a company they own but still cannot access. I am assuming they locked it down since it is all about their sensitive equipment used for production of their radar systems and other stuff.

I do wonder though where he gets such stupid questions from?

I do wonder though where he gets such stupid questions from?

He seems to have access to lots of western propaganda sources that I suspect he reads and thinks on the surface that they make sense... he appears to be a pessimist who believes negative things about Russia because he knows Russia isn't perfect.... which is fine... who can live their lives thinking the west is perfect when you live there and know it isn't...

There are a lot of posters who read stuff on other sites and lets face it... if it is a western propaganda site then it wont be challenged so they might think it is true.

We have had posters in the past coming here with such posts and getting criticised for asking such questions, but personally I think it is about growth.

There is one particular poster here who started out worse than Mr HD in his hard core pro west views but over the years I have noticed he has realised what he thought he knew and what he reads in the west is not so obviously true anymore.

Wont embarrass him by naming him though but I would say someone who keeps saying teh same things and asking the same questions or making the same false statements despite being corrected over and over... they are the lost causes... who want to speak but don't want to listen.

Russia retained its core industries and tech. While yes, it isn't as advanced, it's usually pretty much on par what is required for modern systems. That said, they been working on the wafers since 2005 or so and have various examples. Fact that Su-57 and Nebo SVU is testimony towards that they still retain the ability to produce it.

I watched the interview with Larry Johnson on the Duran and it was good and one thing he mentioned is how Russia kept its core industries intact while west destroyed theirs, all the while the west kept saying Russia is backwards gas station. One thing that I noticed is people here repeat such lie, that all Russia is, is a screwdriver assembly plant. That they make nothing but just assemble. What's funny, is if that was the case, Russia would have their own jets all using Chinese radar and thus all their jets would have "AESA" at same performance that comes out of China. Yet they don't. They have their own characteristics and composition.

Anyway, it's a moot debate.

Arrow wrote:

They are currently working on ROFAR radars.

Currently yes, Russia is working on rofar and has working prototypes of ground based rofar as well as skin based radar. But there is still quite a bit of time till it becomes a real reality. I think rostec is still building the two testing facilities.

Add to that, performance of the n036 is same as Irbis E while being lighter to Irbis.

You can't just easily retrofit same radar to the older jets, doesn't work that way.  And in the end, why bother when performance is relatively similar and doesn't require the needs to be in stealth mode when the jets in question aren't stealth?

What limb said was absolutely retarded, that's for certain.

A lot of what is achieved with current tech isn't exactly needed for current structures of equipment. Advancement is purely in the newer equipment (Su-57, Armata  etc).  AESA TR modules are already en mass production and use on nebo svu which is already in large quantities, AESA TR modules used on Su-35 wingtips, used on Polimont Redut system, used in various applications.

Maybe Russia imports raw material, but to make the wafers, well, as Lancelot said, doesn't require modern or even 20 year old lithography equipment

Now, last bit, Limb mentioned lack of GaA but just links to GaN. Because, in reality, GaN investment in Russia is very recent and has mostly to do with 5G tech they are looking to get involved it.

R-37 on a MiG-31 also achieved a long range kill against Ukrainian target.

Sorry, I meant that russia doesnt have domestic lithography machines to manufacture GaN wafers at all, and Lithography machines for GaAs are very limited.

I thought the Dutch had a monopoly on that technology, which means most countries don't have that capacity.

I have read that China and Russia are not happy about that and are working together to find solutions to that problem.

This article claims that the UAC sources gallium arsenide transistors from south korea.

That is fantastic.... because when Putin ordered a ban on cheap food imports from the EU Russia did not starve... they funded and developed their own food industry and are now exporting to the whole world... if Russia thinks it needs these then it will do the same and set up its own development and production and can then export to other countries too.

Is there any evidence that Chinese foundries are willing to risk secondary sanctions in order to ship the transistors to russia?

The US is escalating sanctions against them... they will be put under sanction eventually anyway.

The US is already ordering companies in Taiwan and South Korea to stop cooperation with China and Russia...

If everything was just peachy with GaN transistors, why isnt the byelka being mass produced to be retrofitted onto the Su-27 family, just like china is putting AESAs on its Su-27? Why isnt the seeker head for the R-77M still not in mass production?

Well couldn't you turn it around and ask why the MiG-35 and Su-57 have AESA radars and also they put AESA radars on their ships and major SAMs and even, as you point out, their new standard AAMs if the supply of the material they will be made from is at risk of sanctions?

Right now BARS is doing a great job at a fraction of the price of an AESA radar... but eventually the prices will come down and the performance will improve and it will make sense to introduce the new type to widespread service.

Give me 3 reasons grounded in materials science and electrical engineering knowledge that ROFARs aren't vaporware and not "just 10 years way" like nuclear fusion or quantum radar.

How about one reason grounded in economics.... Russia is cut off from western money and western influence... from their end, its military budget is tiny and is not increasing even at the rate western military budgets are increasing collectively, so it is pretty safe to assume a few things... first that they will invest their money carefully and not wastefully, second they always get excellent value for money in everything they buy, and third if ROFARs are made up, why are western companies trying to make them too?

Are hypersonic manouvering missiles made up?

And what came of it, other than lagging behind china, israel and the US by 10 years in terms of mass Aircraft X band and S band AESA radar procurement?

Yeah, all that amazing US superiority in radar and drones and stealth... it is having devastating effects in the Ukraine right now, those western wonder weapons are shining so bright it blinds to the point some people can't see clearly any more.

Around 12 byelka radars and the stillborn piece of shit that is the Zhuk doesnt prove russia has "retained" diddly.

That is funny.

Take the example of Javelin... when it came out it was going to make Russian armour scrap metal... tanks were suddenly going to be obsolete. Russia could never develop and ATGM with a thermal sensor because Russia can't make thermal sensors...

But as usual the truth is rather different.

Cheap simple laser beam riding missiles like Kornet and Vikhr are devastating western tanks and Soviet tanks in the Ukraine and because they are cheap they can be carried and used and PRODUCED in enormous numbers which also makes them effective... having thousands of Kornets makes them more useful.

But of course where it makes sense Russia does use high tech, like LMUR with a high quality IIR sensor with a two way datalink... a bit more expensive than Kornet obviously but able to destroy a much wider range of targets with a warhead close to the all up weight of a Kornet and a range of 25km.

It is everything the Javelin was supposed to be, but they also have suicide drones of a fraction of the price of any other weapon that can also get the job done too.

And you fanboys have no logical reason to claim chinese aesa is somehow underperforming when russia's own Zhuk AESA is such a worthless piece of garbage in development hell that not even the MoD cares about.

We have no idea how the Chinese AESA radars perform... though the Turks could have bought Chinese versions of the S-400 but chose the more risky Russian option despite the Chinese system being cheaper... big air defence systems are more effective if there are more of them so cheaper is important because for a given budget you can have more.

In some cases there is just no point in developing intermediate technologies if you know that itself was obsoleted.

Reminds me of a lot of people who said that the Russians can't develop EM catapults for their aircraft carriers because they haven't mastered steam cats yet.

Well China seems to have done the same thing... no steam cats... straight to EM cats...

That would be like saying China is going to develop a new sniper rifle so they are starting by making a really good matchlock musket and once that is working well they will upgrade it with rifling and the improve the weapon by replacing the match lock with a flint lock...