Su-57 Felon

[madrat]

Who in modern times - other than the United States - has displayed anything resembling Air Superiority during an armed conflict? The U.S. is pretty unique in that regard.

[Corsair1963]

Who in modern times - other than the United States - has displayed anything resembling Air Superiority during an armed conflict? The U.S. is pretty unique in that regard.

You can't win on Land, Sea, or in the Air without "Air Superiority".

[madrat]

Russia didn't bother with it over Georgia. Didn't affect the results at all.

[milosh]

Russia didn't bother with it over Georgia. Didn't affect the results at all.

WW2 bloody lesson. USSR in 1930s did focus on massive air force and so on air superiority then Germans wipe out most of their airforce and airfields in first months of war. So Soviet generals go to table and think new strategy, bloody one but effective.

Germans had decisive air superiority in operation Typhoon, also in operation Fall Blau and we can say even in operation Citadel.

First time Soviets have deceive air superiority was in operation Bagration in which they annihilated army group center.

[marauder2048]

Russia didn't bother with it over Georgia. Didn't affect the results at all.

They did but without meaningful results. There just wasn't a classic SEAD effort.

[marauder2048]

Germans had decisive air superiority in operation Typhoon, also in operation Fall Blau and we can say even in operation Citadel.

The Germans certainly didn't have air superiority at Stalingrad or later in 1943 when the Russians were able to
lift the siege of Leningrad.

The German fighters disappearing in order defend against Overlord and the strategic leveling of Germany might
have a lot to do with Bagration.

[gideonic]

Russia didn't bother with it over Georgia. Didn't affect the results at all.

WW2 bloody lesson. USSR in 1930s did focus on massive air force and so on air superiority then Germans wipe out most of their airforce and airfields in first months of war. So Soviet generals go to table and think new strategy, bloody one but effective.

Germans had decisive air superiority in operation Typhoon, also in operation Fall Blau and we can say even in operation Citadel.

First time Soviets have deceive air superiority was in operation Bagration in which they annihilated army group center.

On the off chance that you're actually interested in learning something (rather than citing soviet propaganda) I really suggest you read (in russian) Mark Solonin: На мирно спящих аэродромах ISBN 5-699-15695-X. He sheds some light on the absurdity whole issue quite thorougly (and unlike Suvorov actually knows his stuff and is an aviation engineer by degree. Therefore unlike Suvorov he and is being totally ignored by Russian mainstream historians)

Here is a summary in English on his webpage: (unfortunately English translation is abysmal, the original text is very well written in Russian):

http://www.solonin.org/en/book_airfields

There are free chapters listed at the end of the article that still give a good overview. The reason for German domination quite different from what's usually circulated around, Having been born in the Soviet Union (and remembering what it actually felt to live in the monstrosity) I'd say they are multiple times more believable than the "official party-line".

The book is not very long, but is very well written (as long as you read in russian), has good citation, even if you disagree 100% will still broaden your view on the subject.

Let me quote a few parts of the subpar translation here (Chapter 1):

This monograph was only published in the end of 1992 under authority of the General Staff of the then "United Armed Force of the CIS" with a label surprisingly modest for works of this scale ("for official use only"). Chief of the scientific team is Doctor of Military Science senior researcher Major General V.P.Nelasov. There are hundreds of links to CAMD (Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense) holdings in the end of the book. So, the authors let fall an interesting phrase on page 151 in a subclause:

"…of the 250 thousand air missions made by Soviet air forces in the first three months of war…"

Two hundred fifty thousand air missions in three months.

We are talking of destroyed air forces, aren't we?

This fact is from official document from the central archive ... for comparison:

Cognition comes through comparison. To see the true value of the figures above, let's recall that French air fighters made about 10 thousand missions in the five weeks of May and June, 1940 (that is, almost all the period of war and defeat of France) (21). German fighters made approximately 8 thousand air missions in the first three weeks of the "battle for England". German bombers only made 22 thousand air missions in the three most dramatic months of the colossal battle in the skies of Britain (August, September and October of 1940) (78).

Chapter 27

The problem is that the "destroyed on the airfield" words can conceal events which would be very different. For example, enemy bombers strike at an airfield "in peaceful sleep". That's something that should never happen in military air forces, because not a single air unit ever "sleeps peacefully" – each of them has a duty officer, an orderly man, guards and so on. It is even far less possible that anything like that could happen in air force fighter regiments of western border districts, with all the necessary instructions to raise combat readiness, to deconcentrate and mask aircrafts, etc. received on June 18-21, 1941. Moreover: almost all of them were alerted at 2 or 3 in the morning on the 22nd of June. If the reality was different from what it should have been, then it should be admitted that the reason for the defeat was not a "sudden enemy attack", but rather criminal negligence of the command.
...
It's extremely important to note that overplaying achievements of German air forces was convenient for both opposing sides! It's obvious that it was more convenient for the Germans – starting with an air regiment commander and up to Dr. Göbbels himself – to tell stories about a "devastating blow of Luftwaffe" than stories of a rear sergeant-major. It's obvious that commanders of Western front air regiments which had been defeated and "redeployed" 500 and more kilometers deep rearwards did not want to admit having abandoned tens and hundreds of working combat airplanes on empty airfields. In a situation when the battlefield was taken by the enemy and higher command had no practical way to check the trustworthiness of their reports, the "materiel was destroyed on the airfield with consecutive strikes of large enemy air units" formula was most convenient. It's obvious that Soviet "historians", with their academic ranks and positions given to them for vivid depictions of "unprecedented mass heroism", did not check trustworthiness of these reports.

How aircraft went MIA in 1942:

Figures for fighters are just as well surprising. Half (47.4%, to be exact) of all air missions made by Soviet fighters were guarding land troops and rear targets – that is, something happening at the sight of tens of thousands of people. 37% of total air missions made by fighters were covering up strike aircrafts – that is, the very Pe-2s and Il-2s at the front line. The only situation when a couple (a "wing") of fighters could disappear without a trace is a "free hunt" in the enemy's operative rears. These missions were only 2.7% of the total number of missions – which would probably be the ratio of fighters "failing to return" in the loss structure. In fact, it turned out to be 10 or 20 times as high.

What was that? The author does not have any answer to that question. For lack of anything better, I'd like to offer my reader a hypothesis. Namely: the slushy "failed to return from combat mission" formula was a euphemism that replaced the 1941 euphemism of similar credibility in the 1942 reports: "destroyed by enemy strike on the home airfield". This wily figure was used to "make ends meet" in reports, masking negligence of the command, the terrifying accident ratio, as well as the phenomenon which Stalin called "latent desertion" in simple and plain words in the order he signed. The most convincing argument for the hypothesis that the great number of aircrafts "missing in action" is not a fundamental war law is the time history of this figure (see Annex 9). With aircrafts "failing to return from combat mission" making up 70% of total combat losses in 1942, this figure decreases to 25% in 1944 and to 23% in 1945...

Last Chapter:

13. The "sudden attack" myth which had been cultivated in Soviet historiography for years is fictitious from soup to nuts. Apart the fact that all field manuals effective in the air forces at that time provided a system of measures which made "sudden strike" at home airfields impossible, all the Western districts, all the troops of military air forces were ordered to get themselves fully operational before the war.

14. The very first days of war made it obvious that Soviet air forces were not capable of effective air combat. The great flying stock was being used "with the efficiency of a steam locomotive" - few air missions, lack of coordination and communications with land troops, unsatisfactory operation of the materiel and technical supply system, weakness and lack of will in the staffs. Panic rearward "re-deployment" started in the areas of the front (Byelorussia, Baltic states) where enemy land troops made their main blow – and it was actually mass desertion.

15. Lack of action (of stampede) of Soviet air forces let the enemy bomb formations of Red Army land troops almost unpunished, which was yet another reason for panic retreat - which, in its turn, gave air force commanders another impulse to make a decision for an urgent "re-deployment". That’s how a system with "positive feedback" formed with lightning speed, which finally resulted in most part of the flying stock at Western, North-Western (and partly South-Western) fronts being left on airfields.

Unfortunately this is just a shadow of the original works (and lacks all good citation that he has in multiple other books as well) so it comes off a little like a poorly written conspiracy theory. This is really unfortunate as the data is really thorougl the original well written and sources directly from Russian national archives.

TL;DR: The reasons for soviet loss in the summer of 1941 had very little to do German superiority or a surprise attack, rather there was a univeral lack of will to fight for the regime, which only really changed once it became apparent, that however bad Stalin was, what Hitler had in store was even worse. The much cited "destroyed airforce" flew 250 000 sorties in the first three months of the war (with the main focus of just flying around randomly and avoiding the enemy at all cost, not flying meant capital punishment, facing germans meant possible death)

[ricnunes]

Yes, I'll concede one incident isn't indicative about the capability of a jet. However, Iraqi Mig-25's put up a hell of a fight before succumbing to USAF Eagles, and in at least one instance outran them (and their Sparrows). It was clear the Mig-25 was the best Iraqi performer (air to air) of the war, and was no easy mark.

Yes indeed. A (Iraqi) Mig-25 also managed to damage a F-15C and actually won this same engagement where a flight of two Mig-25s forced a flight of two F-15Cs (one of them damaged) to retreat.
So yes, I fully agree that the Mig-25 was Iraq's best performer during DS. However it's curious that during the Iraq-Iran war this didn't seem to be the case where Iraqi Mirage F-1s and even Mig-21s armed with French Missiles seem to have performed better, if I'm not mistaken.

If you'll check the accounts of (Dawood?) Iraqi pilot who downed Speicher's F/A-18, its pretty clear that F/A-18 squadron knew they were under attack. In fact, if I'm not mistaken Speicher's wingman (or perhaps an E-2C) tried to warn him a Foxbat was in the area, closing in. Problem being, his ECM reportedly malfunctioned and the AA-6 that hit him did so with incredible force, shearing off his wing tank (and I think other weapons he was carrying). The poor A-6 that the Iraqi Foxbat then ran down certainly knew he was under attack, saved when the Iraqi GCIO told Dawood not to fire - for fear of fratricide.

That was not exactly the case.
It was not clear that the (entire) F/A-18 flight/squadron was under attack. What happened was that one of the F/A-18's from the same flight as Speicher (it wasn't a wingman but rather someone from another section of the same flight) detected the Mig-25 quite before it was able to attack Speicher and this same F/A-18 pilot asked permission to AWACS (which was an USAF E-3) since it was the only way that he could attack an enemy aircraft in BVR during DS (since the F/A-18 lacked a NCTR mode at the time) but never got any reply from the AWACS. This same pilot VID the aircraft as a Mig-25 when it passed near his F/A-18 and this because the Mig-25 was flying with the AB "turned on" (since this happened during the night).
Had this F/A-18 got the permission from the AWACS to attack the incoming Mig-25 then this same Mig would never be able to attack Speicher's aircraft. But that's war...
After this it seemed that the Iraqi Mig-25 was able to surprise Speicher and ultimately shot him down (where the failure of his aircraft's ECM suite may have helped).

It was expensive to maintain yes, but in the end you usually get what you pay for. It was big, fast, with a good radar and obviously effective missiles. Not a dogfighter, but here it was dogfighting with F-15C's and giving them fits after it decoyed both Sidewinders and Sparrows. I dunno... to me it did exceptionally well, especially considering all of the advantages coalition airpower had over it/its pilots.

Yes, I agree with the above.
The Soviets back then and even the Russians today were and are way behind the US in terms of miniaturization of electronic components so the only way for the Soviets/Russians to be able to develop radars that can 'compete' with US ones is to build bigger but in order to equip fighter aircraft with bigger radars bigger fighter aircraft are needed and IMO that's where the Mig-25 and later the Mig-31 came up. As already mentioned in this thread the Flanker series are or seem to be much better than the Fulcrum family something that IMO is also related to the size of each aircraft where the Flankers due to their much bigger size compared to the Fulcrum are able to carry bigger and therefore better and more powerful radars.

Also IMO, I believe that the Mig-31M is or could be a quite dangerous aircraft against current 4th gen aircraft. I can only imagine how much more dangerous a lower-RCS or 'stealthy' sort of Mig-31 would be. I wonder if the J-20 could be some sort of such aircraft?

[weasel1962]

The Chinese put HOBS PL-10s (AIM-9X equivalent) on the J-20s. The J-20s are training to dogfight, if needed.

I don't know about the effectiveness of AA9s but the other russki BVRs don't exactly have a record of success.

[madrat]

gideonic-

Nice argument. I've never heard that argument before. It would put a spin on the early days of the invasion.

[wrightwing]

The Chinese put HOBS PL-10s (AIM-9X equivalent) on the J-20s. The J-20s are training to dogfight, if needed.

I don't know about the effectiveness of AA9s but the other russki BVRs don't exactly have a record of success.

I'm not sure the PL-10 is an AIM-9X equivalent. It likely falls somewhere between AIM-9M and R-73, but the rest of the statement is accurate.

[weasel1962]

AIM-9X equivalent in terms of role, not about effectiveness/performance. Unofficially the PL-10 has been claimed to have a 90 degree off boresight angle with a marketed short range of 20 km (for the 10E export version), the numbers are taken with the usual dose of salt. Don't think there is enough to make a decent comparison but that's the context of the post.

[madrat]

Russia didn't bother with it over Georgia. Didn't affect the results at all.

They did but without meaningful results. There just wasn't a classic SEAD effort.

How can you say they did? Georgia flew sorties largely uncontested on the first day. If they had more SAM's they would have been able to get another sortie up. The problem was they abandoned the air war just they walked away from getting pummeled by 50 divisions of armor and motorized rifle companies. The Russians failed to operate at night and lacked reconn assets to actually get the job done in a limited engagement, hence the overwhelming land force demonstration.

[marauder2048]

Russia didn't bother with it over Georgia. Didn't affect the results at all.

They did but without meaningful results. There just wasn't a classic SEAD effort.

How can you say they did? Georgia flew sorties largely uncontested on the first day. If they had more SAM's they would have been able to get another sortie up. The problem was they abandoned the air war just they walked away from getting pummeled by 50 divisions of armor and motorized rifle companies. The Russians failed to operate at night and lacked reconn assets to actually get the job done in a limited engagement, hence the overwhelming land force demonstration.

The Georgians stopped flying after the first day as a consequence of the Russians repeatedly attacking airfields.
Even the Georgian helicopters weren't much active beyond day 3.

I think most of the Russian fixed-wing losses were due to fratricide.

[weasel1962]

The links below might help.

https://mwi.usma.edu/wp-content/uploads ... of-War.pdf
https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/130048/pub1069.pdf
http://airpower.airforce.gov.au/APDC/me ... t-2008.pdf

P.s.
Russian air did operate at night (not talking about effectiveness)
It wasn't 50 divisions
Only 1 loss was attributed to fraticide