This might get interesting,Soviets deploy SU-57

[Torch]

Looks Like Russia Has Just Deployed Two Of Its Brand New Su-57 Stealth Jets To Syria

 

[SuperFire]

Indeed! We (USA) have to do away with our current Officer Corp and promotion system. It is positively 19th Century and has destroyed our defensive initiative. That's a really good plane.

The 22 & 57 are roughly equals--having different advantages and dis-advantages over one another--so it's a Pilots game. That said, the 22 should have been operational by 1992, and we should have a 6th Generation Fighter by now. The red-tape and leadership is to blame.

Errata: The fascination with Stealth is a boondoggle. Have-Blue and the F-117 were designed to attack 3rd world national coastal instillation. Piloted air-to-air combat flight is over. It's a drone game now. However, CAS is still a pilots domain. Judgement calls are needed there. I really wish we'd just scrap the F-35 and go to Combat Drones and buy a whole lot of Super Tucano's. The 22 and 57 will probably never meet on the battlefield in any serious way, but it's just a crying shame we have squandered our advantage over "stealth fascination."

 

[tomo pauk]

Thanky you.
Those funky Soviets

 

[SuperFire]

I respect the Russians; always have, but allowing them to get this close to our level of tech is the result of careerism, cronyism, corruption, and lack of focus on our part. We promoted the wrong kind of people in the USA. They are more Soviet than the Soviets were. We traded our pragmatism for an image. I'd rather see a high-school drop-out genius in charge than these polished and image conscious scum-bags in the drivers seat at the DOD. God bless us with another John Boyd!

 

[newst]

I am reminded of John Kennedy's "Missile Gap". At a time when we had more, and more capable missiles deployed around the Soviet Union Kennedy was fear mongering to the American people about how far we were falling behind.

Wasn't it last year that Putin was bragging about some super torpedo that was capable of defeating the U.S. Navy without even needing to be launched. Heard anything about that super weapon lately? I haven't. Its deployment must have been postponed while the Russians towed their super carrier back home from Syria.

So now Putin is bragging over some super, nuclear powered missile that is so fast it can't be shot down. How can a nuclear engine small enough to be carried in a missile lift its own weight, the weight of the necessary shielding, and the weight of the missile + warhead off the ground, let alone travel so fast a Sprint missile can't catch it? This, from the wonderful people who brought you Chernobyl? If the Russians had that level of technology they would be building power reactors all over Europe to create electricity and they wouldn't need to worry about oil and gas exports.

I expect that this deployment is another propaganda move. I doubt the Su-57 is combat ready yet, and the Russians will be embarrassed if it ends up in action against us or the Israelis.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Indeed! We (USA) have to do away with our current Officer Corp and promotion system. It is positively 19th Century and has destroyed our defensive initiative. That's a really good plane.

The 22 & 57 are roughly equals--having different advantages and dis-advantages over one another--so it's a Pilots game. That said, the 22 should have been operational by 1992, and we should have a 6th Generation Fighter by now. The red-tape and leadership is to blame.

Errata: The fascination with Stealth is a boondoggle. Have-Blue and the F-117 were designed to attack 3rd world national coastal instillation. Piloted air-to-air combat flight is over. It's a drone game now. However, CAS is still a pilots domain. Judgement calls are needed there. I really wish we'd just scrap the F-35 and go to Combat Drones and buy a whole lot of Super Tucano's. The 22 and 57 will probably never meet on the battlefield in any serious way, but it's just a crying shame we have squandered our advantage over "stealth fascination."

I just now saw this gem of a post...

 

[tomo pauk]

I just now saw this gem of a post...

What happened to him?

 

[Grateful nephewj]

What happened to him?

Guessing he didn't live up to the intellectual and integrity standards of these forums.

 

[Grateful nephewj]

Russians are ecstatic to have a combat theater to try out their new toys. SU-57 is a great plane...all they need are pilots to match.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

What happened to him?

In the Spitfire Camo thread he started an argument that turned personal. He was told to stop, and continued to get more and more aggressive and insulting to members and the forum staff. He then crossed the line and basically insulted every fallen soldier who paid the ultimate sacrifice in a conflict not titled WW2, as the rest were not "real conflicts" as the body counts were not high enough.

 

[Token]

Errata: The fascination with Stealth is a boondoggle. Have-Blue and the F-117 were designed to attack 3rd world national coastal instillation. Piloted air-to-air combat flight is over. It's a drone game now. However, CAS is still a pilots domain. Judgement calls are needed there. I really wish we'd just scrap the F-35 and go to Combat Drones and buy a whole lot of Super Tucano's. The 22 and 57 will probably never meet on the battlefield in any serious way, but it's just a crying shame we have squandered our advantage over "stealth fascination."

Stealth is in no way a "boondoggle". To develop or deploy any new platform that will go in harms way without consideration to the detection signature of that platform, in multiple technologies, is to start that platform at a disadvantage. At the most basic level stealth does not exist to increase the pilots survivability, it exists to make the platform a more capable addition to the fighting force. The easier a platform is to detect the easier it is to prevent that platform from completing its tasking, be it reconnaissance, CAS, CAP, etc.


The F-117 was not designed to attack 3rd world anything, although naturally it was very capable in that role. The driving force of the F-117 development was the increasing sophistication and capability of Soviet SAM systems. It was designed for "day one" entry into airspace protected by advanced air search and defense systems that would have otherwise denied entry to any other attack platform.


The Soviets were (like the Russians today) major arms exporters, and so their systems could / can be found in many nations, from 1st to 3rd world. From 1962 until 1990 they were, on average, the number one world arms dealer in terms of value of sales (the US exceeded them a few years in that time period, in 1968 and from 1974 to 1977), and they exceeded the US every year of that time period in terms of number of systems / hardware sold. From the time of initial concept until its retirement the F-117 could be expected to encounter Soviet air defense weapons systems in most locations it might be deployed.


The discussion of manned vs unmanned combat aircraft is a different discussion, and there is no simple answer to that one. The political ramifications alone of robots fighting each other are a biggy. If any major power becomes willing to engage another major power with little fear of the negative press of bringing home its sons and daughters in flag draped boxes, can that really be a good thing? Don't get me wrong, I understand that unmanned is the way it absolutely is going to be, but I think that psychologically this will be a slower process than technology could push.


T!

 

[buffnut453]

'Fraid you're wasting your electrons, Token. SuperFire was banned a few days ago.

I do agree with everything you wrote, though!