First serial produced Mig-35's delivered

[madrat]

Meteors offer leverage over Pakistan. Do they over China?

[wrightwing]

The Su-30s have a more powerful radar, but that doesn't mean that they have a first look advantage over an F-16. The Su-30 In a combat configuration probably has a RCS of >20m^2. The F-16 is likely closer to 3m^2. When quoting radar ranges, it's helpful to know not only what they're talking about, but what you're talking about.

Physical size shouldn't be used to determine RCS. Are you sure F-16 has 3m^2 RCS with weapons? I don't know why you're just assuming an F-16 with combat load would automatically have lower RCS.

I wasn't using physical size. Clean Flankers have a huge RCS even before you start adding weapons. An A2A configured F-16 is going to have a huge RCS advantage over a Flanker, which goes a long way in mitigating differences in radar performance.

[milosh]

I wasn't using physical size. Clean Flankers have a huge RCS even before you start adding weapons. An A2A configured F-16 is going to have a huge RCS advantage over a Flanker, which goes a long way in mitigating differences in radar performance.

RCS isn't problem, problem is missile. Both planes will detect each other on much longer distances then what is missile effective range and effective range is where F-16 with AIM-120C have advantage over Su-30 and R-77.

Btw for armed F-16 you don't just count missiles you need to count fuel tanks, and fuel tank RCS is huge if it isn't ideal scenario (head on scenario).

[wrightwing]

RCS isn't problem, problem is missile. Both planes will detect each other on much longer distances then what is missile effective range and effective range is where F-16 with AIM-120C have advantage over Su-30 and R-77.

This was the point I was making. The difference in RCS negates the differences in radars, making the missile performance the determining factor.

Btw for armed F-16 you don't just count missiles you need to count fuel tanks, and fuel tank RCS is huge if it isn't ideal scenario (head on scenario).

I was including fuel tanks. The point here is that a clean Su-30 likely has a larger RCS, than any F-16 configuration. Once you hang weapons on an Su-30, it only gets worse.

[Tiger05]

Read this:

NEW DELHI: In some of the most intense international air combat exercises ever featuring the Indian Air Force, IAF pilots flying Sukhoi Su-30 MKI fighters had a resounding 12-0 scoreline in their favour against Royal Air Force Typhoon jets in Within Visual Range (WVR) dogfighting operations.

Nice chest-thumping story. The reality, however, was quite different and the IAF itself backed down on those claims:

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... 426394.cms

But hey, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

[swiss]

I was including fuel tanks. The point here is that a clean Su-30 likely has a larger RCS, than any F-16 configuration. Once you hang weapons on an Su-30, it only gets worse.

I would said your figures for the Su-30 and F-16 sounds realistic. Indian Mod said the MKI has an RCS of 20m2. And there are several sources confirming a clean F-16 has an RCS of roughly 1m2.

And the APG-68 and Bars are roughly on the same level range wise. Although the f-16 Radar has the far better resolution in SAR Mode.

But as milosh pointed out, the main problem for all Russian fighters is the short Range of their BVR Weapons. Compere to the western missiles.

[XanderCrews]

Nice chest-thumping story. The reality, however, was quite different and the IAF itself backed down on those claims:

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... 426394.cms

But hey, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

From "Dominating" to "no one really wins or loses"

[Corsair1963]

You think India would have learned from the last couple of exercises???

[marsavian]

https://www.forces.net/services/raf/raf ... ash-claims
https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p= ... count=1031

In real combat the Typhoons would spear the MKIs at long range with Meteors or Amraam at high altitude long before it got to any 'funky' TVC manuevering .

[knowan]

If you compare an early version of R-77 with a later version of AMRAAM, of course AMRAAM is a better missile.

That AIM-120 chart is for the AIM-120A, introduced in 1991.
The RVV-AE/R-77 was introduced in 1994.

Further, Pakistan was using the AIM-120C-5, introduced in 1996, only 2 years newer than the RVV-AE, and over 20 years old in 2019.

The original R-77/RVV-AE was quite awful, the Indians were NOT happy with them at all. Russian Air Force didn't even bother with it until the improved R-77-1/RVV-SD came out which was only recently.

R-77-1 is not that much better than the original; it is still substantially shorter ranged than AIM-120C/D.

And given Russian jets in high priority areas like Kaliningrad and the Black Sea are still flying with R-27s, it looks like Russia is struggling to produce a useful number of the missiles.

[Corsair1963]

R-77-1 is not that much better than the original; it is still substantially shorter ranged than AIM-120C/D.

And given Russian jets in high priority areas like Kaliningrad and the Black Sea are still flying with R-27s, it looks like Russia is struggling to produce a useful number of the missiles.

Yes, not uncommon to see Russian Fighters flying around armed with R-27 /AA-10 Alamo Missiles. Which, are equivalent to later models of the AIM-7 Sparrow........

[milosh]

R-77-1 is not that much better than the original; it is still substantially shorter ranged than AIM-120C/D.

And given Russian jets in high priority areas like Kaliningrad and the Black Sea are still flying with R-27s, it looks like Russia is struggling to produce a useful number of the missiles.

Same company is making R-37 and R-77 seekers so R-37 is probable priority especially if you check R-27ER1 capabilities. With PESA radars there isn't some huge benefit of R-77-1 over R-27ER1. In fact I would even say R-27ER1 is probable better in terminal phase if missile speed is low (grid fins aren't efficient when speed drops below Mach 2) To me R-77 wasn't design to be excellent BVR missile (Soviets were working on R-37 and R-27ER) but to be jack of all trades (excellent low BVR range capability which grid fins provide at higher Mach numbers).

[vladimir]

My country is also ordering extended-range R-77s (R-77-1/RVV-SD, 110km range), like the Indians, for upgraded MiG-29s (along with unknown number of Pantsir-S2s, 4 MiG-35Ms helicopters and training of our Air Defence crews for S-400 - currently, no one knows what does those S-400 trainings mean exactly), but perhaps it would be smarter for us to wait a little bit more till the end of the development of AESA radar for MiG-35 and K-77 AESA/ramjet version and then buy it for our 29s, instead of Zhuk-ME (or PESA Zhuk) and R-77-1. We have territorials disputes with some of our neighbors and it is better that we are better armed than them, it is nice if we have decent Air Force, Air Defense Forces and 285km range ballistic missiles (Sumadija MLRS).

Here is data from the producer of those missiles:
Air-to-Air Guided Missile RVV-AE
http://eng.ktrv.ru/production/military_ ... vv-ae.html

Launch range, km: max, in front hemisphere 80 km

Air-to-Air Medium Range Missile RVV-SD
http://eng.ktrv.ru/production/military_ ... vv-sd.html

up to 110 km

[vladimir]

I was including fuel tanks. The point here is that a clean Su-30 likely has a larger RCS, than any F-16 configuration. Once you hang weapons on an Su-30, it only gets worse.

I would said your figures for the Su-30 and F-16 sounds realistic. Indian Mod said the MKI has an RCS of 20m2. And there are several sources confirming a clean F-16 has an RCS of roughly 1m2.

And the APG-68 and Bars are roughly on the same level range wise. Although the f-16 Radar has the far better resolution in SAR Mode.

But as milosh pointed out, the main problem for all Russian fighters is the short Range of their BVR Weapons. Compere to the western missiles.

140km ragne of N011M Bars PESA radar (against a RCS=5m2 aircraft) vs 85km range of APG-68(V)9 is not a small difference.

Also, read this:

http://mil.today/2019/Science35/

Vega Group Presented Air-Based Mini Radar

At the MAKS-2019 airshow, designers of Vega presented the synthetic aperture radar RSA 0.1. The company’s representatives told Mil.Press Today that the distinctive features of the radar were its weight/dimensions characteristics: the compact transceiver weighs only 9.6 kg, and the antenna tips the scale at 1.2 kg.
Mikhail Kaplin, an engineer at Vega assures that the radar’s small size do not affect the scanning accuracy.
"Its resolution is 0.1 meter. That means if the distance between two objects is more than 10 cm, we can classify them as different assets even from 20 kilometers", explained the engineer.

So from publicly available data we see that 0,1m is the best SAR resolution of a Russian-built radar, not 3m (or 1m or 0,5m at best) like some of you claim on this forum.

We can realistically expect AESA radar in MiG-35 will have ~0,1m SAR resolution and ~200km detection range against a RCS=5m2 aircraft. Compare it to APG-68(V)9's 85km range against a RCS=5m and 2 feet (0,6m) SAR resolution.
So MiG-35 will be a way better aircraft than F-16C Block 52 and comparable only to F-16 Block 60/70/72.

Also, Okhotnik-B UCAV will probably have some kind of AESA radar with 0,1m SAR resolution (from 20km) and 0,25m (from 80km). Not bad at all.

[Corsair1963]

R-77-1 is not that much better than the original; it is still substantially shorter ranged than AIM-120C/D.

And given Russian jets in high priority areas like Kaliningrad and the Black Sea are still flying with R-27s, it looks like Russia is struggling to produce a useful number of the missiles.

Same company is making R-37 and R-77 seekers so R-37 is probable priority especially if you check R-27ER1 capabilities. With PESA radars there isn't some huge benefit of R-77-1 over R-27ER1. In fact I would even say R-27ER1 is probable better in terminal phase if missile speed is low (grid fins aren't efficient when speed drops below Mach 2) To me R-77 wasn't design to be excellent BVR missile (Soviets were working on R-37 and R-27ER) but to be jack of all trades (excellent low BVR range capability which grid fins provide at higher Mach numbers).

Point is near Russian Missiles are effective counterparts to Western Types. Just ask India...