Forum: Military Aircraft of the Cold War

This article appeared on www.milparade.ru (I am sorry if the translation is not very good because they don't have this article in English so I had to translate it):

Quote:

The MiG corporation and the Rosoboronexport state company are in the process of offering some Middle Eastern countries the MiG-31. The countries that will be offered the MiG-31 are those who already operate an earlier verison of this aircraft- the MiG-25. Potential buyers will be offered to trade in their obsolete MiG-25s for modernized MiG-31s from Russian arsenals. The aircraft is armed with modern avionics and a wide range of missile armamanet. MiG-31- the fastest interceptor in the world is armed with R-33E air-to-air missiles which are capable of shooting down crusie missiles, fighters, AWACS, UAVs such as Global Hawk and other types of aircraft at long ranges.

interesting to note that this is probably one of the only Russian articles where they publicaly admit that the MiG-25 is obsolete.

I don't see how will the Russians benifit from this (except in terms of political relations).

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Well, it could be a stealth move against the United States. Think about it, if Middle East Countries got MiG-31's for every MiG-25 they trade in, thats a threat to U.S. Air Superiority. For example, rising tensions about Iran's nuclear power program. If that starts a conflict and the U.S. got involved and Iran as a bunch of new MiG-31's, then its a bad thing for the U.S. Its kind of the same thing with USSR giving the Northern Vietnamese S.A.M.s to counter our Air Campaign. Its about relationships and politics. When USSR invaded Afghan. in the 1980s we supported the Afghanis. just to get back at the USSR. The loss of the war resulted in the collapse of the USSR in '91. So, it could be just be a stealthy move from Russia against the United States. But this is only my theory and I don't know that much about this event. Laughing

Thanks for the answers F-4Phantomflier.

I also think the reasons are political, but I don't think its because Russia wants revenge for the collapse of the USSR. The reason the USSR collapsed was not because of the Afghan war (even though it was an important factor, the main reason was because of inner political affairs). Russia's relations with the west has greatly increased and Russia has carried out joint excersice and training with the USA and other NATO members. Russia also offered western Europe its S-400 for missile defence.

I think that the reason Russia is trading new MiG-31s for old MiG-25 is to keep good deplomatic relations with countries like Iran and China, because Russia depends on these countries for money- which makes it an economical reason aswell.

The reason could also be because its very expensive to maintain MiG-31s so Russia might be trying to get rid of them. Now I don't know what is Russia going to do with those old MiG-25s that it gets in return, but it would most likley save Russia alot of money.

Well it was a theory Smile

little imaginative but still a theory. As for the MiG-25s they could be updating them, and then selling them to some of the low tech countries, that still use say the MiG-21s (if there are any left). Either way politics is envolved somehow.

Russia is not selling anything - all possible Mig-31 deals are still cancelled and Su-30 is offered instead.

MiG-31 is very expensive to buy and maintain, plus this is pretty limited as a tactical aircraft.

Russia is just raising tensions to earn from rising oil prices. For russians is cheaper to give Iranians some oled reactors and maybe 10 modern planes and earn this money back from raising oil prices.

Tensions in Gulf raise the oil price and will give russians big money. And till americans and europeans are stupid enough to support arabs and russian oil business (by not working seriously on alternative energy sources), all will pay. Soon world will depend on how many oil rigs and oil tubes arabs will blow.

Source: AirForces monthly, september 2006 issue

"Russian Defence export agency Rosobornoexport and manufacturer MiG are proposing to supply MiG-31 fighter aircraft to a number of Middle Eastern countries in exchange for trade-in of their current MiG-25s. Revealing the proposals at Farnborough, Russian officials said that countries wich already operate the MiG-25, Algeria, Libya and Syria, would be offered the deal to acquire Mig-31, drawn from surplus Russian Air Force stocks."

Ergo no sales to Iran.

MiG needs sales and money, so they try to sell second-hand aircrafts of the Russian AirForce (wich has plenty of MiG-31s stored). To make the offer more attractive, they propose to take back the old Mig-25s, wich aren't in a flyable condition anyway (at least most of them). The MiG-31 is more capable, more reliable and less expensive to operate than the MiG-25.

Forum: Military Aircraft of the Cold War

Trade in your old MiG-25 for a new MiG-31