India Finally Says to Hell with the Russian Su-57 (PAK FA).

[lummiuster]

But I also didn't say anything about that at all.

This is a thread about

(1) India quitting Russia's bad jet fighter program.

(2) Why that jet fighter is bad.

(3) Why doing advanced technology on the cheap with technology as advanced as the F-35 / F-22 doesn't isn't a thing. This is particularly interesting because this is not the only "F-22 peer" program around the world that's spectacularly failed. It calls into questions countries even trying (from a policy/funding standpoint).

(4) Why "if you're in a race, you have to keep running".

Nothing to do with 'America fuck yeah" or anything because of that.

I mean, here's a list of nominal 5th Generation Fighters:

F-22 Raptor (USA)
F-35 Lightning II (USA)
J-20 (China)
J-31 (China)
Su-57 (Russia)
HAL FGFA (India-Russia Su-57 improved variant)
HAL AMCA (India)
X-2 / F-3 (Japan)
TAI TFX (Turkey)
Saab 2020 (Sweden)
KF-X (South Korea)



-> Most of these have have been talked about for a decade or two, at the very least (and the list is missing some).
-> Only the bolded ones actually exist in a flyable form despite years of talk and money.
-> Only the italicized ones exist in number exceeding a handful of samples.

The failure of the Su-57 and the FGFA program illustrates that doing 5th generation fighter technology on the cheap is REALLY bad policy, and doesn't produce any kind of meaningful results despite still considerable investment... investment that isn't nearly enough to make a true 5th generation fighter. Because of the list above, only the F-22 and more advanced F-35 really qualify.

And then there is the industrial base angle for Russia. They won't be able to export Su-27 variants forever. What happens when the Chinese J-31 eats their market share and they can't defend it with the Su-57? That's an existential problem for Russia's defense industry, which depends on exports to a degree the US, European and Chinese industries do not.

F-35 lool. You mean the jet that was supposed to be functional years ago but still has hundreds of critical problems? Can't fly, no oxygen, radar can't detect nothing and...
Even worst, it is not even stealth. So they have to rework on all the components (which literally means they have to re do it from scratch) and nobody knows which parts will be changed (ranges from few to all) and so nobody knows how much it will cost. It is now the worlds most expensive weapon program by far and they have to restart from scratch. The governments and Pentagon don't even know what is the current state of it because the producers are scared to say that nothing is working.

[Mavett]

F-35 lool. You mean the jet that was supposed to be functional years ago but still has hundreds of critical problems? Can't fly, no oxygen, radar can't detect nothing and...
Even worst, it is not even stealth. So they have to rework on all the components (which literally means they have to re do it from scratch) and nobody knows which parts will be changed (ranges from few to all) and so nobody knows how much it will cost. It is now the worlds most expensive weapon program by far and they have to restart from scratch. The governments and Pentagon don't even know what is the current state of it because the producers are scared to say that nothing is working.

That's odd, i have seen a few fly by from the Israeli Nevatim base last week during a parade just fine, beautiful machines.

[Deleted]

I didn't realize there were people who genuinely get off arms contracts and military spending policies

[lummiuster]

That's odd, i have seen a few fly by from the Israeli Nevatim base last week during a parade just fine, beautiful machines.

Yes they delivered many to some countries but they keep returning them or grounding them waiting for a fix. Google F-35, you will see hundreds of critical issues and returned planes. Lots of emergency landing, operator fading due to lack of oxygen and... They aint combat ready at all.

[Corvus]

Russia kind of needed India in this to bankroll the project.

The thing with any big ticket item like this is that the more units are ordered, the lower the cost per unit and Russia was counting on this so they could afford more than a handful of their own units. But with Indian money no longer available they aren't going to be able to afford as many as they'd want. And there is no one else who has the money or desire to team up with the Russian now. Who are they going to try to partner with now? The Brazilians?

And 5-gen fighters are tricky beasts to design. The problems with the F-35 are known. The SU-57 has many problems. Even the J-20 has them, despite Chinese attempts to prevent much being known about them. And it has a big one. The engines designed for it don't work. As in explode while being used on the ground don't work - not what you want to happen when flying. So for know they are using an older model engine which has its own problems. Namely that it looses all stealth when going supersonic. The only way the J-20 stays stealthy is by flying sub-sonic. Which sort of limits its usefulness.

[Mavett]

Yes they delivered many to some countries but they keep returning them or grounding them waiting for a fix. Google F-35, you will see hundreds of critical issues and returned planes. Lots of emergency landing, operator fading due to lack of oxygen and... They aint combat ready at all.

Nothing that cannot be fixed then, contrary to Russia that will struggle to continue without Indian money.

[Skroe]

I'm aware what you said and didn't say - but that's the reason you posted it in the first place.

With all due respect, it most certainly is not. If I wanted to make a thread about that, I simply would.

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Oh, Princess Peach is back.

To me it seems you are haunting Russia like Maiev did with Illidan. Let's say your wet dream comes true and russia is no longer a military threat, where will your overabundant aggression go? Who will be your next Nemesis that you can direct all your hate towards?

I mean, you're perennially weak on US security, so I wouldn't expect you to quite get this thread. If you actually had the US's best interests at heart - and let's be clear you don't - you would be deeply concerned by all the things Russia has done and would like to do. But you're not, because you'd rather downplay all things Russia to protect your President. How patriotic.

Russia is our enemy. Deal with it.

Regardless though, they're not even the main event of the US's security issues in the 21st century. They're the warm-up. The pre-game show. They're the problem of the now. They're not something we're going to be focused on 20 years out. The problem of the future is China, and they're a threat to us that dwarfs Russia on its best day. But it's also 20 years out.

And by the way, if you disagree, nobody cares. No one less than Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, the man put in that job your President, has made it US policy that the threats to US in the following order

(1) Nation States: (in order: Russia, China, North Korea, Iran)
(2) Domains: Space, Cyberspace, Information Warfare
(3) Non-State groups: Islamic Radicalism / Jihadis / ISIS / Al Qaeda.


The War on Terror is officially over. We're back in the age of great power competition.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN1F81TR

In presenting the new strategy, which will set priorities for the Pentagon for years to come, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis called China and Russia “revisionist powers” that “seek to create a world consistent with their authoritarian models.”

The “National Defense Strategy” represents the latest sign of hardening resolve by President Donald Trump’s administration to address challenges from Russia and China, at the same time he is pushing for improved ties with Moscow and Beijing to rein in a nuclear North Korea.

“We will continue to prosecute the campaign against terrorists that we are engaged in today, but great power competition, not terrorism, is now the primary focus of U.S. national security,” Mattis said in a speech presenting the strategy document, the first of its kind since at least 2014.

It sets priorities for the U.S. Defense Department that are expected to be reflected in future defense spending requests. The Pentagon on Friday released an unclassified, 11-page version of the document, which did not provide details on how the shift towards countering China and Russia would be carried out.

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F-35 lool. You mean the jet that was supposed to be functional years ago but still has hundreds of critical problems? Can't fly, no oxygen, radar can't detect nothing and...
Even worst, it is not even stealth. So they have to rework on all the components (which literally means they have to re do it from scratch) and nobody knows which parts will be changed (ranges from few to all) and so nobody knows how much it will cost. It is now the worlds most expensive weapon program by far and they have to restart from scratch. The governments and Pentagon don't even know what is the current state of it because the producers are scared to say that nothing is working.

Nothing in this post is accurate. The F-35 is entering serial production and it is a stealth aircraft period.

For crying out loud the F-35B is operating off the USS Wasp Amphibious Assault Ship in the West Pacific, as we speak.

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I don't wanna be a dick and understand the desire for domestic aviation industries (the ability to build jets, airliners etc seems to be the benchmark for a fully modern industrialized nation, a benchmark that even China with its massive manufacturing base and near endless investment hasn't hit yet, tho small Western nations like Canada and even Sweden are capable of manufacturing jets and airliners and the engines that seem to be the key element), but if you still aren't capable to domestically manufacture 4th generation jets or more specifically the engines for them, why are you trying to leapfrog and imitate (poorly) the 5th generation jets that basically only really one country pulled off reliably so far?

And even there it required decades of incremental development, the entire tech base of the western world to draw upon for components and manufacturing systems and near endless amount of money poured into that one program over the years.

If you are India and China and you want to leapfrog what you should be aiming for is the ability to build 4.5 gen jets. Like something that could compare and maybe match or outmatch things like the Saab Gripen or the Typhoon. Once you have that figured out you might have the tech base to actually build the engines for the more advanced generations.

This is a very good post, and is pretty much the only one to actually get the entire point of the thread. Yes, part of it is pointing and laughing at yet another Russian wonder weapon turning out to be hysterically bad at everything it was billed to do. But the larger part of it is actually about the very interesting industrial issues at work here.

Sweden (SAAB) and the US (Lockheed/Boeing/Northrop) can build great aircraft because they've really never stopped building them. There is profound institutional knowledge among engineers and factory floor workers that is priceless. My favorite reverse example of this is how, a few years ago, Boeing estimated it would take them 5 years and at least $1 billion to create a US version of the Russian RD-180 engine on the Atlas V rocket. It's not that there is any great mystery in it's design, but that the engineering team and the workers on the floor in Russia who make the RD-180 know aspects of the design and metallurgy that aren't in the spec, and all of that would have to be figured out through trial and error if we were to make a US knock off.

Another example is how, a decade ago, when the US shut down the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer production line for what it thought would be forever (in favor of begining production of the Zumwalt class destroyer, prior to it being reduced to 3 ships from 29), it let a lot of electricians and wielders and engineers go. And then a few years later, when it was decided to cancel Zumwalt production past the 3rd ship and restart the Burke line with upgrades, it took 3 years longer and billions of dollars more than anticipated to rehire everybody, rebuild the subcontracting industrial base and materials pipeline. It's up and running now, and is going to be building at an even faster rate (3 ships a year), but even rebuilding what was dismantled is a non-trivial task.

China trying to develop an engine comparable to the best the US and Europe has to offer for commercial aviation has been in their 5 year plans going back to the 1980s. They're still no where close, despite some considerable (and deeply unwise) technology transfers. They have the spec. They don't know how to use it though. ANd they aren't getting any closer. China's new big entry to the civilian jet market, the Comac C919, uses US/French CFM Leap engines (the direct successor to the historically important an highly successful CFM56 used on the A320, A340 and 737).

You hit the nail on the heed. Russia and China would be much better off building things comparable to the Typhoon, than it would be the F-22. Even the Chinese J-20, which experts agree is a lot more legitimate claimant to a "5th generation" moniker than the Russian Su-57 ever will be, is a bizarre contradiction of design features and immitation. I mean... a stealth aircraft with Canard foreplanes? That's like putting a racing fin on a minivan. It doesn't make any sense at all. You can do stealthy canards if they have planform alignment (leading and trailing edges having identical sweep angle with the wing), but in most modes of flight they'll always be significantly less stealthy than a traditional wing-horizontal stabilizer design, which is why Boeing and Lockheed abandoned the design 25 years ago, (after experimentation) in the first place. The J-20 is a very pure example of an industrial base that can imitate and duplicate, but it has yet to understand "why".

[Gorgodeus]

Oh, Princess Peach is back.

To me it seems you are haunting Russia like Maiev did with Illidan. Let's say your wet dream comes true and russia is no longer a military threat, where will your overabundant aggression go? Who will be your next Nemesis that you can direct all your hate towards?

China is next in line. They are the actual threat going forward.

[Skroe]

I think all that Stealth fancy pancy research is a waste of money.

The F-35 program now costed 400B Dollar.

For that price you could have bought: 4444 EuroFighter Typhoons instead.
(That have active counter measures for incoming missiles)

It's $400 billion replacing at least 3500 aircraft in a many countries, and offering vastly improved capability. Furthermore the spin-off technology is itself worth that investment. The B-21 Raider stealth bomber is largely expected to be what amounts to an F-35 inside a smaller-B-2 air frame. Even the F135 engine of the F-35 are expected to be the basis of the B-21 The US's replacement for the F-22 will likely be an upgraded F-35 foundation in a new airframe.

This is not any different than the megaproject that lead to the F-15/F-16/ F/A-18.


And the Typhoon is an aging design in the prime of it's life, but it can't go where stealth aircraft can go (more on that in a moment).

I am not a military expert, but if you look at wars in History, quantity over quality often wins.
Just think of the puny Sherman Tank VS the Tiger Tank.
Tiger being vastly Superior, but for each Sherman disabled 5 others showed up.

Things are significantly different than that in today's world, especially in the air.

Just making up numbers here, but to give you an idea:
You have a fleet of 100x F35's, not many for your enemy to disable when they are grounded.
Compared to having a fleet of 2000x slightly inferior planes spread around all over.

The US is buying over 2000 F-35s.

On a final note, you don't need a 120m Dollar plane to bomb a tent.
Lots of the wars fought now can be done with a retrofitted singe turbo prop engine plane.
And I believe some armies were even conciddering that: Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano

The Super Tucano is perfect for bombing tents, but the focus of US military spending is against Nation States. We need Stealth aircraft to bomb China, Russia and whoever else, if we need to. Or bomb areas where those country's put air-defense up.

EDIT:
And if you really want to take down a hard target, just develop a stealth cruise missile, much easier as it is small already.

The US has a very good long range stealth cruise missile, in the form of the JASSM-ER Air launched cruise missile. It has a range of around 700 miles (well over 1000km, the number is classified). But cruise missiles have two problems:

-Their expensive compared to bombs.
-Their warhead size is small compared to most bombs for the purposes they'd be used for.

The JASSM-ER costs $1.4 million per copy. Basically it is $1.4 million to deliver a 1000lb explosive from 1000km away. A Mk83 general purpose bomb, by contrast, costs $12,000. With a JDAM kit, $30,000.

A year ago when the US fired several dozen cruise missiles at a single Syrian air field, people remarked at the limited damage. And they're entirely correct. It's the wrong tool for the wrong job. Those cruise missiles are best for destroying air defenses, non-fortified buildings and high value targets. What the US would have done, had there been no Russian element there, is likely send in a bomber to drop a bunch of Mk84 (2000 lb) bombs. It would do the same job, cheaper, but at slightly higher risk.

This is why the most important program the US has today is the B-21 Raider stealth bomber. Because a fleet of 100+ of them will allow the US to bomb places like Syria using a couple of them with their bomb loads at a cost of a couple of million dollars, rather than spend $100 million launching dozens of stealth cruise missiles from standoff ranges.

The F-35 fills this role too, albeit with a far smaller bomb load.

It all comes down to the fact that even the best cruise missile in the world is insufficiently destructive (especially on a cost-per-pound-of-explosive basis) against hardened targets compared to many guided bombs. The JASSM-ER is ideal to destroy S-300 and S-400 air defenses, should the US need to. And it's cousin, the Long Range Anti-Ship missile, will severly damage enemy warships from a huge range. But to blow up a hardened aircraft shelter? Or a a bunker? Or a runway? You want a stealth aircraft with a load of big, cheap, bombs.

[Deleted]

Almost any Gen 4/Gen 5 fighter can take any other fighter in, let's call it, an arm wrestling match with fighter aircraft. Pilots are trained to fly their aircraft to maximize its strengths and minimize its weaknesses, and all aircraft are intended to operate with respect to other platforms (such as jamming aircraft, AWACs) that are also there.

For example, an F-22 will in most circumstances, wipe the floor with a Eurofighter Typhoon, but if the Typhoon gets in real close and establishes an energy advantage over the F-22, it's over for the F-22. So the Typhoon will try and do that.

Similarly if an F-35 gets in close with anything, it's pilot screwed up and is probably dead. But at long ranges and armed with an AIM-120D or MBDA Meteor, it's powerful sensors and radar plus frontal stealth make it easily the most deadly thing in the sky.

And yeah, a Rafale could shoot down an F-22 in certain modes of flight, with the right conditions. The F-22 is superior in the sense that there are more of those where it will "win".

The problem with the Su-57 is that it's basically good at nothing at all, at least compared to the alternatives and the promises made by Russia. I mean, is it better than a Su-35s? Probably about the same considering it is essentially the same aircraft internally. But the Su-35 is also a 40 year old design (its actually the latest model of Su-27).

But all of this is kind of academic in the end. Why? Fighters are so good that the next generation of air superiority "fighters" are very likely to be large, probably sub-sonic bomber-like stealth aircraft with powerful electricity-generating engines and with enormous range that carry dozens of multi-stage A.I. guided missiles that can fire from 300-400 miles away. Why? Because missiles are so good and lasers on aircraft so important to 6th generation plans that in close maneuverability is going to be impossible for any aircraft.

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No. It's just you saying "I don't believe this!"

Your assent is not required.


Did you not actually read ANYTHING at all in the OP? Not even the image.

It's too little because it falls far short in every way what India is looking for.
It's too late because India expected to be in the middle of serial production by now, taking orders of dozens to per year to replace the legacy aircraft it is having retiring due to age. It is "too late" because now India has to cut it's Air Force fleet size without a replacement.

This is a real concern for them. They can only keep flying old aircraft by overhauling them, which in itself is a major expense that takes away from investing in new platforms and drives up cost of ownership. This is similar to what the USAF when it cut the F-22 order from 400 to 182. It has a requirement of 400 Fighter aircraft, so now it is going to keep 220 F-15Cs in service for years to come and upgrade them to a new standard. But that has dramatically increased costs in its own right.

Basically India got screwed by listening to Russia's promises.



Russia is always "finalizing" it's programs. It's been finalizing the Borei since I was in high school and that was a very long time ago. The thing still has done like one patrol ever.



Pretty bold statement for a country with essentially no robotics expertise of note. And I say that as a robotics by the way. That's my career. Russia is a non-entity in this field.





RC cars aren't robots.


Should be about $50 billion higher, most of it going to building up the industrial base, ship building and accelerating the B-21 bomber program / accelerating B-2 and B-1B retirement.

But the 2018 budget that incresed it by $120 billion was a very good start.

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Rafale would have been a fine aircraft to buy, 10 years ago. It's a bit late for that now. It's an aging design. I mean, it's in the prime of it's life, but if India signed a contract tomorrow, it would get its first Rafales probably around 2023 (2026 or later if it sets up a domestic factory), and then would have ownership of dozens to hundreds of rafales through at least the 2060s.

This is kind of the hole the USAF found itself in last year when it re-examined restarting F-22 production. If it it did it and bought another 100 aircraft, it wouldn't get them at a rate of around 20 a year for five years until around 2024, and then be stuck with them until the 2070s, when it wanted to retire the F-22 (an 1990s design) around 2045. The USAF needed to buy those F-22s in the mid 2000s, not the late 2010s.

No it's literally them saying they are still on the project. What part of that does mystify you?

No india would have to do that anyways. They need 5th gen jets, french are not an option. They are in a mini-me cold war with Pakistan n need tech edge and china just gave advanced ballistic missile tech to Pakistan which I found troubling as well.

Russia from the start were going to make project for Russia first n india 2nd. Get in line

But 'murica is the last country that should complain considering the shitshow that has been f22 35 development n taking forever...and u being the biggest excuser is the last person telling Russia about being on time. Ur like a guy always late for work telling others to come on time...

Maybe i should be more clear about us budget being bloated. Its like a 5star restaurant n mcdonalds at the same time...can produce some advanced tech on one side while on the other massproduce old cold war stuff like ur old tank models n simply park them in the desert to rust en masse simply to make mil ind complex happy with orders. Large pařt of us budget is waste on tax money.
Maybe u wouldn't need to increase budget if u stopped wasting cash? U need to halt producing old stuff, maintain spare parts n onstead develop a new tank n at least some decent artillery.

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Rafales with the right missile could probably take any fighter China has, including the J-20.


Not true.
-Lockheed Martin is moving the F-16 production line to India
-The US gifted India it's electro-magnetic catapult and naval nuclear reactor technology in 2016.
-The US would very much like to bring India into the F-35 program.

The question is, to what degree will India get technology access. At some point though, it will probably be full, just like everybody else. The F-35 is designed to replace the F-16 after all. It's supposed to be the workhorse fighter of the Western world and friends. It's stunningly advanced compared to other aircraft, but the F-22 successor, the B-21 and other later platforms will all be more advanced than it.

The F-16, for example, was at one time considered "too advanced to sell", until Reagan orderd a reverse course on that. Because of that Boeing came up with the F-20 Tigershark, a highly advanced variant of the F-5, that's been called "the best fighter that nobody ever bought". It offered the F-20, until the F-16 went up for sale 2 years later.

Eventually the F-35 will be the lower end aircraft that the US has.


I don't know what to tell you at this point. Indian is plainly done with it's partnership with Russia on this. You're just in utter denial about this humiliation. Again, your beliefs are not reality.



Nevermind this is a baseless, bizarre and racist slam on India and Indian culture, it also isn't true whatsoever. India is pulling out, because the Su-57 is a failure, end of story.



Buy the F-35. Buy the Eurofighter Typhoon. Co-finance a program with Japan. It has options.

Rafale taking down a jet it can't even see probably n its speccs u don't even know anything about... LOL

Who cares about f16 this century?

Sure u want "cooperation" with india.
On ur terms.
Meaning uwant to make them only buy US stuff. You are currently threatening turkey with sanctions over S400...U threatened Germany with sanctions over north stream II. U have annoying habit making threats to ur "friends"..A country size of india n memory of British volonialism will only do things on their own terms n won't put up with ur bs. So u don't trust them.

Bollywood isn't indian? Silly drama? India doesn't mass consume it? Lol funny u trying to go all sjw...

Japan is developing their own 5th gen fighter last i looked.

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Russian Army planned to order 2,300 T-14s in the period 2015–2020, thus far no progress.

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Economy is not everything. Nobody cares about Italy in worldwide geopolitics. Their opinion is irrelevant.

2 dozen are apparently going through factory atm.

I have not kept tabs on it n instead read about the new long range artillery that has shocking accuracy. Old school artilly used to be horrible weapon often missing targets, now u can scope it down very close n move vehicle once fired n before hitting target to avoid retaliation. Tomorrows artillery wont be dumb weapons.

[Skroe]

No it's literally them saying they are still on the project. What part of that does mystify you?

LOL. No. They actually left. You're just lying. If you know something different, alert India and Janes.

No india would have to do that anyways. They need 5th gen jets, french are not an option. They are in a mini-me cold war with Pakistan n need tech edge and china just gave advanced ballistic missile tech to Pakistan which I found troubling as well.

Everything about this is wrong.

First, while India needs 5th gen jets, it wants them for the reason I said - it doesn't want to buy something that was designed in the 1990s and own it until the 2070s after getting them in the 2020s, which is why the FGFA program was launched in the first place. But now the F-35 is pretty much its only option, or a forthcoming all new design.

The want 5th gen fighters principally because of China. Pakistan is not really the issue here due a far more limited defense threat from them. Pakistan will be flying export-variant 4th Gen fighters for decades to come. The carriers, the missiles, the fighters... they're about China.

Russia from the start were going to make project for Russia first n india 2nd. Get in line

The Indian Variant was supposed to be superior to the Russian version. And Russia is not "making it perfect". Russia is not making it anything. The entire design is fundamentally wrong, as the original post, which you didn't read, goes into very specific details about,

Fundamentally, it comes down to this. The Su-57 is a disaster of an aircraft. Russia knows this. India knows this. It's not being fixed. And you hand waving otherwise doesn't change that fact.

You want evidence of this from Russia. Here it is: Russia is buying dozens of Su-35S per year. Now i'm sure you're going to handwave your way into some other excuse but let me explain why this is a terrible idea for any country. Armed Forces need indepnedent industrial bases and matiance crews, parts and everything else to support every single vehicle or platform they own. So when you have two jets doing the same job... what does that mean? You double up on everything. It is far smarter and more economical in the long term to retire the legacy platform en-masse, and buy the modern platform.

For example, the last F-16s the US bought were delievered in 1996. Far more advanced derivitives have been developed and exported since then. The US could have bought them at any time. However it hasn't because it wants to mass retire the entire F-16 fleet by the mid-to-late 2020s in order to have to budget only paying for the cost of the F-35 fleet that is supposed to replace the F-16s. The US did similar things with rapidly retiring its Spruance class destroyers, some helicopters and other vehicles.

I mention this, because this is the known (most of all by Russia) bane of their military budget and the clearest signal in the corruption and malfeasence that permiates Russia's defense-industrial aparatus. The US has one ballistic missile submarine class and one sub-missile type. Russia has four and three respectively. The US has one ICBM class. Russia has at least five. Russia has no less than three different main battle tanks in nominal service. The US has exactly one. So on and so forth.

Per your comment below, you think that the US should do something about it's budgetary efficiency? It's a model citizen compared to Russia. Russia buying new Su-35Ss, which will be flight worthy for 45 years with good care, only to nominally a decade from now buy Su-57s (let's say that happens), will doom Russia to support even more air frames, engines, and whatnot, for years to come.

You will come up with some kind of fake-excuse for this. There isn't one. If you haven't paying attention, the current US Air Force plan, by contrast, is to retire the B-2 bomber in 2028 and the B-1B by 2035, so the US can fly JUST the B-21 Raider and the B-52 past 2060. Because supporting two very different types of bombers is better than supporting four, and the gains of supporting two out weight clinging on to even the vaunted B-2 forever. Were we Russia, the B-2 would fly until the end of time.

But 'murica is the last country that should complain considering the shitshow that has been f22 35 development n taking forever...and u being the biggest excuser is the last person telling Russia about being on time. Ur like a guy always late for work telling others to come on time...

F-22 development took as long as it did largely because the end of the Cold War and declining defense budgets and unclear need at the time. I'll remind you that Obama canceled the F-22 in 2009 at 187 aircraft, instead of 400, because the thought was by his naive administration was that the time of wars between Nations States is over.

The F-35 took as long as it did largely because of the revolutionary technology involved and the complications with the Marine variant, which was the most important one to field first considering the state of the Harrier fleet. Also funding issues related to the War on Terror / Iraq War pushed it back by years.

The Su-57 possess no revolutionary technology. It's an Su-35S in an angled costume.

Maybe i should be more clear about us budget being bloated. Its like a 5star restaurant n mcdonalds at the same time...can produce some advanced tech on one side while on the other massproduce old cold war stuff like ur old tank models n simply park them in the desert to rust en masse simply to make mil ind complex happy with orders. Large pařt of us budget is waste on tax money.
Maybe u wouldn't need to increase budget if u stopped wasting cash? U need to halt producing old stuff, maintain spare parts n onstead develop a new tank n at least some decent artillery.

We don't waste money. Our funding is not in line with our commitments. We need about 120 more warships than we have today to meet 100% of combatant commanders requests. We need about 50 more bombers than we have today to stage a 180 day air campaign over Russia according to the Air Force. We need to grow the Army ground forces by about 150,000 troops to put an end to extended deployments.

This is functionally a matter of resources.

In terms of "waste' though, it's not clear what you're talking about at all, beyond the thousands of obsolete M1 tanks the US Army will likely never drive again that are in storage. On paper the US Army has 9000 M1 tanks (of all Variants) while Russia has some 15,000 tanks. But in actuality, the US only operates about 2000 M1A2s and 2000 M1A1 advanced variants, while Russia only about 2000 T-72, T-84s and T-90s. Those other 13,000 tanks Russia claims to have? Most haven't been taken out of storage since the 1970s... if they're even there at all. Time and again, it's been shown that it's more expensive to "regenerate" or remanufacture laid up platforms than it is to simply buy new.


But in actually as far as the US is concerned, the second biggest driver of military spending is not procurement, but human resource costs. Pay, healthcare and retirements, only after Operations/Maintenance. Procurement isn't a big cause of growth.

[yetgdhfgh]

I doubt its the fighter more like its the electronics that go into it!

When you buy a fighter from a country that could theoretically put in back doors to your fighters software making a hack easy sometimes you need to take a step back and say OK is this something i wanna buy?

Fighter planes are now almost obsolete and iam surprised any country today is investing in them unless they are fighter bombers which is designed to drop bombs on a bunch of terrorists but then drones do that job quite nicely now.

[Skroe]

I doubt its the fighter more like its the electronics that go into it!

When you buy a fighter from a country that could theoretically put in back doors to your fighters software making a hack easy sometimes you need to take a step back and say OK is this something i wanna buy?

Fighter planes are now almost obsolete and iam surprised any country today is investing in them unless they are fighter bombers which is designed to drop bombs on a bunch of terrorists but then drones do that job quite nicely now.

The War on Terror is over. We're in the time of nation states being the principal security threat once again.

Terrorists don't matter anymore. It's yesterday's problem.

[yetgdhfgh]

The War on Terror is over. We're in the time of nation states being the principal security threat once again.

Terrorists don't matter anymore. It's yesterday's problem.

I know that but this is India we are talking about whos only real enemy is Pakistan who is also a Nuclear power.

But India is also a ally of the USA and the UK cause India is a commonwealth country so it would be unwise of them to buy jets from Russia who is known to use cyberwarfare.

Also though you are right the war on terror is almost over its not for India who still engage in terrorists in the Kashmir but thats for another thread.

[Deleted]

Russia kind of needed India in this to bankroll the project.

The thing with any big ticket item like this is that the more units are ordered, the lower the cost per unit and Russia was counting on this so they could afford more than a handful of their own units. But with Indian money no longer available they aren't going to be able to afford as many as they'd want. And there is no one else who has the money or desire to team up with the Russian now. Who are they going to try to partner with now? The Brazilians?

And 5-gen fighters are tricky beasts to design. The problems with the F-35 are known. The SU-57 has many problems. Even the J-20 has them, despite Chinese attempts to prevent much being known about them. And it has a big one. The engines designed for it don't work. As in explode while being used on the ground don't work - not what you want to happen when flying. So for know they are using an older model engine which has its own problems. Namely that it looses all stealth when going supersonic. The only way the J-20 stays stealthy is by flying sub-sonic. Which sort of limits its usefulness.

Uhm...india paid for development n that is mostly done incl new engine. India wasn't paying Russia to produce for Russian air force. Basically don't need india anymore.

[caervek]

The Su-57 possess no revolutionary technology. It's an Su-35S in an angled costume.

The first point is correct but the second is a bit disingenuous, I feel you're stretching the truth to try and take a shot at Russia (which is pretty unneeded IMO and just detracts from the good factual nature of your post).

The Su-57 is not an Su-35S in a new suit, the Su-35S is an Su-27 airframe with the engines, MFDs and many of the systems from the Su-57 bolted on to extend the platform. In fairness it's understandable why they have done this, it's much cheaper to build an Su-35S than an Su-57 and while it would be even more useless against the USA/EU than the Su-57 would be, it would also be even more overkill against a second rate opponent.

A comparison can be draw to the MiG-29 which was effectively a cheaper/shitter alternative to the Su-27. Or to the T-72 tank which was effectively a cheaper/shitter alternative to the T-64. Russia have always liked to boost their numbers by running "less capable but still capable against the guys we're likely to fight" units alongside their top units, it's a practice that started in WW2 where it served them very well.

[Mormolyce]

Man look at all the Russia shills, do they have to spin Russian military tech too? That's pushing shit uphill lol.

Let's say your wet dream comes true and russia is no longer a military threat

Russia hasn't been a military threat for decades.

[Mormolyce]

Cyberwarfare and information are also fields of war and they seem a credible threat there still.

Even with that seriously stretched definition of "military threat", they're pretty unimpressive.

[Deleted]

@Skroe, shouldnt the west also spend more money on cyber security / warfare, so we wont get hit by russia / china / nk again, like we have in the past?

I mean, russia fragged the US presidential election, which is without a doubt the only election in my entire life, I have ever stayed glued to, since its inception, in late 2015.

They also tried to mess with the french election, but Macron's people, had a ton of disinformation ready, that the hackers downloaded, and didnt know what to do with.

And IF russia attacks a country, any country in the west, wouldnt it pretty much be the end as we know it. Putin wouldnt back out, neither would we, so it would end with atomics in some way or another, or a new East/West germany situation again?

russia knows this, so they take the fight to the web, where they at the moment, pretty much have a free reign alongside with china.

[Noomz]

Read the first jpg again.

Its not that hard.

India wanted a two seat plane other role, basically wanting 2 sets of fighters to be built for the price of one...U dont see the US customizing their fighters for others to the extent india wants?

This isnt their first temper tantrum. They'll be back like they have been before.

Unless they want Pakistan in on it they would be more than happy to accept the Russian standard of the jet.

Its funny u wrote wall of text for nothing.

Why are you so toxic?