Like I predicted you have failed to answer every single question I posted and relied upon wordplay.
The issue is all your ‘analysis’, is on paper analysis. War is a lot more different than comparing two fighter jets based simply on who has a longer missile = wins (example).
And same way you can integrate a future BVR on Kowsar, you can integrate a larger future BVR on SU-35.
Thanks for agreeing that a hypothetical IRIAF SU-35S will have nothing to combat LR-BVR in the region.
By your logic, we should pay some 10 Billion USD for "Hopes" that a magical BVR on the lines of a meteor will somehow appear in Iran in the future that will make the 85 million USD aircraft relevant ... that's some strategy right there.
You are obsessed with Kowsar for whatever mental reason. Its a light CAP fighter for ~15 Million USD like FCK-1, F-20, FC-1, F-50, Tejas. None of these are designed for long-range interceptions. They have their roles. Get over it.
Literally as we speak US is integrating its missiles on to Ukrainian (Russian) fighter jets, so it can be done.
So US will integrate AIM-120D/AIM-260 on Iranian SU-35S like they are integrating it on Ukrainian jets? What kind of ***-clownery is that?
We know Russia does not export R-33/37, so which hypothetical Kingdom will do it for Iran? Please enlighten us. CATIC China ran away from Silk Route II program, they ran away from the Dowran upgradation program. Russia would not give their LR-BVR so who would?
I am not rehashing the SU-35 RCS discussion again. Believe what you want to believe.
Because you have no argument against it.
Eat this video. IRBIS-E PESA tracking a 1 m2 target at 100 KM.
In "actual combat" like your own words above, the system being PESA will be jammed by potential adversaries like DSS ECM of EF2000, ALQ-214 of F-18E/F or Thales Spectra ECM of Rafale from 100+ KM. Do you have an answer to that?
F-14 has an RCS 25+ by the way, that didn’t stop it from continuing being a deadly plane even in this era.
Deadly plane against whom? sure it can fight large RCS 1970s airframes like Tornado, F-15, SU-27/30/35, MIG-29, and MIG-31 tracking them at some ~110-130 KM and delivering Fakour-90s but pit it against smaller RCS modern crafts like euro canards with ECM heavy AESA packages, its AWG-9 will be blinded from 100+ KM while it will be tracked and shot at from LR-BVR ranges. World has changed, wake up. USN retired it to move to ~1 m2 RCS F-18E/F. Can you guess why?
Look what Peter Grinning, USN historian is saying about RCS recorded by USN itself here.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dheb/2300/Articles/PG/PGSA.htm
SU-35 is for defending Iran’s airspace and more important IADS. It will have the benefit of fighting on home turf and being backed by an array of air defense systems and radar.
I have written an entire para on the integration of SU-35S into Iranian IADS. Yes, it can do that but so can 3 x MIG-29 SMT/M in the same price. Are you telling me by some miracle 1 x SU-35S+IRBIS-E+R-77ER is somehow better than having 3 x MIG-29M+ZhukM+R-77ER? What kind of bozo thinking is that?
Yes if you try to use it to penetrate Israeli airspace or Centcom in PGCC then yes it isn’t going to survive long. On neutral battlefields it is at a disadvantage to fully loaded western planes fetching higher $ per hour cost. Compare cost of 1 Rafael to 1 SU-35.
Let us compare,
100-120 Million Rafale vs 85 Million SU-35S.
Rafale has ~1 m2 RCS, RBE-2 AESA, Thales Spectra ECM jammers and Meteor with 200 KM ARH range. SU-35S has a 10-15 m2 RCS, PESA IRBIS-2, Russians won't give Khibiny ECM and a 100 KM ranging R-77ER.
You were saying?
The need was simply not there for a majority of foreign buyers who mostly were either rich Arab countries or countries that did not have the industrial capacity to upgrade the plane themselves.
Among India (MIG-29, SU-30MKI), Iran (MIG-29, SU-24), Vietnam (SU27, SU30), and Egypt (MIG-29) which nation is a "Rich Arab" with no industrial capacity to upgrade their 4th generation Russian aircraft?
India, Iran (and Egypt to some extent) are industrialized nations. Iran and India have a robust domestic military industry. India is still paying 62 Million USD for CKD kits of SU-30MKI, Even in their SU-30MKI upgradation Russia is still a partner.
https://idrw.org/iaf-needs-4-billion-to-upgrade-the-su-30-fleet-into-super-sukhoi/
I am still waiting for Russian 4th generation fighters to be upgraded locally by any country except China whose case is just different.
Take for example Egypt that was poised to get SU-35. Who were they going to realistically fight that they would need to upgrade the platform beyond export requirements? And even if they DID want to upgrade the platform, do we honestly believe Egypt has the capacity to modify fighter jets without foreign assistance?
So because Egypt has no actual war going on, they should not even have a large airforce that they have. RIP logic. Egypt has fought more wars in last 60 years than Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia. Military strategists are not idiots. If they are arming their country they know the threats.
Considering Iran is one of the few counties (maybe only) that is able to keep a fleet of 50+ year old fighter jets flying with zero foreign assistance by its maker (USA).
Iran smuggled parts from US, replicating them at home. People were even caught by FBI for that.
Do that with Russia and you will lose the only weapons market currently accessible to Iran.
I am confident if provided with the necessary resources, Iranian engineers can improve the platform. The industrial capacity is certainly there in Iran. The issue has always been funding and project management.
Why Iran has not upgraded its obsolete fleet of MIG-29 9.12 then? We know the plane flies on MIG-23ML radar+avionics package. It would not track an F-16 before 50-55 KM and won't be able to leave the arena since it's only armed with R-27R1 SARH so it will need illumination. it has no ECM package so would probably be jammed from BVR ranges. Does not have TDL either.
If Iran can pull an indigenous Kowsar-I avionics package that rivals FCK-1 or Dowran upgrade that enables an F-4E/D to track and shoot at a surface target from 300 KM away then what's stopping Iran to upgrade its 4th generation interceptor fleet of Russian origin?
Neither Israel nor USA operate Rafales or EF2000, so it’s the equivalent of having a discussion on how SU-35S will fight Turkish TFX or Chinese J-20/J-31. Irrelevant and unlikely.
Persian Gulf Arabs operate EF-2000, Rafales in bulk and the quantity is increasing. Forget the Eurocanards, please explain how IRBIS-E being a PESA will dodge jamming from ALQ-214 of F-18EF, AN/ASQ-239 of F-35 ? US operates those right lol
As for F-18E/F, in a neutral battlefield with APG-73 it should be able to track SU-35 at ~100KM assuming your claim of 10m2 frontal RCS (which I dispute but alas).
It's not my claim, its SU-27 printed data on Flanker family RCS.
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/stealth-aircraft-rcs.htm
and SU-37M = SU-35S, same airframe
Yeah right, thats the same "HUGE" difference in RCS right there.
So Please tell us how the same airframe managed to lose 10-12 m2 of RCS like magic? Even if RAM are applied, they do not pull down the RCS figures like a magic potion. There is no frontal difference between SU-35S and baseline SU-27.
In Iranian airspace or borders that becomes a different ballgame. Just as F-18 activates ECW, so will Iranian IADS. It’s not a paper to paper comparison at that point on who has the fancier toy in the air.
Your entire argument is that it will be Iranian IADS gaurding the SU-35S against F-18E/F jamming the shit out of IRBIS-E. So what is the 85 Million USD/Unit plane for if the hopes of gaurding Iranian skies are at the mercy of IADS?
Again, I am not advocating for SU-35S to leave its own airspace. The limitations of the system are well known. Just like F-16 wouldn’t survive - very long flying around the conflict lines in Ukraine with S-400s scanning the airspace constantly. Neither would your F-18 or hypothetical Rafael in Iranian airspace
an F-16D or Rafale having APG-83 and RBE2 AESA radars, Strong ECM suites, long range BVR packages and with their own RCS ~1-3 M2 ... they have a much LARGER % of survival outside their IADS covered zone compared to a truck from 1970s with Huge azz RCS, PESA radar and a basic ARH BVR.
….as long as Iranian IADS remains intact, which is the sole purpose of an Iranian SU-35 —to keep Iran’s air defense systems and radars safe from destruction.
The same job can be done by MIG-29M/SMT + MIG-35 with actually same armaments and avionics package. Only the fleet will be three times larger for same $$
This is opinion not fact. We live in extraordinary times. Assuming the deal goes thru (big if), then it opens the gate to a new era of cooperation.
That's now how the Russian mindset works. They do not share key tech unlike Western countries, they do not allow their top-notch exported products to be domestically upgraded otherwise they will never sell you a single screw again. If you want an upgrade, you pay their front companies sitting in Eastern Europe and the money must reach Moscow, we do not have a single example of MIG-29, SU-27, SU-24 undergoing domestic upgradation by countries even with an industrial base.
At least a couple foreign buyers of MIG-35 were not impressed and its quality. I believe going off memory, one of them returned the planes and got SU-35 instead.
MIG the company was just absorbed into Sukhoi after years of trouble with project mismanagement and funding issues. If it’s 5th Gen fighter reportedly in development flops, then it’s probably the end of an era.
Yet MIG-31 is the frontline killer of RuAF delivery Khinzals, MIG-29 is more marketed in the entire world than Sukhois.
Besides who cares if there is some hypothetical "made up" mismanagement going on in Mikayon offices? Plane comes to Iran from storage then its ours, we get it upgraded by Russian companies and its modernized. MIG company does not matter here. Do we care if F-14A/D plants have been closed for decades, ours can still massacre F-15 of KSA over Persian Gulf. Your logic is entirely at fault. Plane matters, companies do not.
I have been saying this longer than you have. Realities of the ground make it so SU-35S is the logical choice.
The logical choice is not just SU-35S, at this point, it is "
Any New Airframe". Even if Russia decides to retire its legacy SU-27 fleet from the early 80s and give it to Iran it will still be an upgrade for IRIAF.
The actual choice was MIG-29 and MIG-31 some 30 years ago when Rafsanjani himself went to Moscow to sign the deal for 72 MIg-29 and 24 MIG-31. Still today ~80 x new MIG-29M airframes + 19 local upgrades can turn IRIAF into a menacing interceptor force with F-14AM and Kowsar-I gaurding points within the IADS. Su-35S will do same but it will only be 5 fold expensive and will therefore be less in numbers. For a price of 24 SU-35S, IRIAF can have a fleet of 48 MIG-35 or 70-80 Mig-29M.
You keep talking about AL-31 class engine for Kowsar, you must be high or naive if you think Iran can make the leap from J-85/J-79 to AL-31 class sitting around playing with old airframes. Or that Russia will just drop 100 engines off to Iran to build.
History tells us otherwise, Russia has provided Iran with ~50 RD-33 Turbofans in early 2000s on which the 30 years old Mig fleet is still flying. But they have not transferred a fighter plane to Iran for the last 30 years. Besides, Iran has announced domestic turbofan under supervision of Manouchehr Manteghi who we know is a reliable man. If its a AL-31F TOT then it will change the fortunes of IRIAF/IRGCAF. I do not see the problem here.
You are just plain lying now, I have never talked of fitting a Russian AL-31F on Kowsar, if you go to my thread on Local HESA fighter program I have advocated use of 2 x Jahesh-700's driven FJ44-4 like turbofans with afterburners. A Kowsar size airframe with 10000 lbf dry and 14000 wet thrusts.
The best way to see improvements in Air Force is to get exposed to newer aircraft. Reality is the SU-35S is the only newer plane ever going to land in Iran.
I doubt China would ever supply J-10, J-17, FC-31 to Iran in this geopolitical climate. So that leaves Russia.
Who talked about China here? They helped IADS, Azarakhsh/Kowsar program, AShCM but that's their limit.
Until SU-75 is built in significant numbers (if it is ever built) Iran’s only shot to a modern foreign fighter jet is SU-35.
or MIG-35 (1/2 - 1/3 the price), same interception/ECM/BVR capabilities.
Exactly. I am not against Kowsar I or II or III or 100 for a light attack plane and advanced trainer with some very minor air defense capabilities. But I am completely against making it the future basis of an Iranian interceptor or Iranian “F-20 2.0”.
Every country is going for low RCS, high-end avionics carrier light fighter. If you like huge RCS Bomb-trucks from 1970s that's your problem but the world is moving towards light fighters. F-16I, Rafale, Gripen-E, FC-I Block III, T-5, F-50, Tejas MKII, EF-2000 they are the present and future is even more stealthier and electronically heavy. You keep on licking posters of F-14/15, SU-27 in your room but the reality would not change.
The issue with Kowsar is as you continue to advance the platform and plane with new engines/radar/missiles/avionics the price of that plane will rise and it will start entering $25M+ territory and higher. So it’s not like a future Kowsar is going to be dirt cheap to make.
A 25 million USD Kowsar will mean the plane will have AESA radar, Turbofan, Even better ECM, TDL package with high-end BVR/WVR missiles. With a 12-15 million USD tag (armed one) it already has the most advanced electronics in the entire IRIAF fleet. A 25 million USD augmented design will murder the entire IRIAF including the MIG and F-14.
What I have been saying all along.
MIG-29 is a cheap and dedicated interceptor SU-35 is not. Its expensive and has nothing over a MIG-29M in an interception role.
See here is where you continue to be childish. I support local production, probably said it longer than you been posting here in this very section. So you can keep repeating this line, it doesn’t make it true.
I do still believe that there is an Iranian fighter jet development program based on information we have seen of a heavy fighter jet engine and leaks here and there. However that plane given the evident speed of Iranian seriousness in the field of Air Force could be 15-20+ years away. If IRGC-AF decides to throw their weight behind such a project then the timeline (and quality) advances rapidly. Compare 6 Solemani ships estimated to be in service by IRGC-Navy by end of next year to not even 1 IR-Navy mowdj frigate being completed in 5 years. The difference in project management, funding, and capability is night an day.
You are back to your obsolete thinking of "heavy fighter" "big engines" "speeeedyyyy n shiiiiet". World has moved on to electronic warfare and armaments, nobody cares about "heavy jet engines" anymore. HESA can create a F-4 replica but it will still be a huge RCS, flying brick that will serve no aerial role but according to your logic the plane is "heavy" so must be amazing.
And how is the incompetence of IRIAF connected to the capabilities of a plane? IAIO makes planes in Iran IRIAF does not. If IAIO is not receiving $$ to make new planes then its the fault of IRIAF or their people in MODAFL, not the plane or IAIO's.
Anyway from 2025-2040 what is going to defend Iranian airspace? Less than 20 F-14’s? Some Kowsar? Some old Migs? I simply do not support Kowsar being the end all solution for a stop gap. Absolutely not. Never going to happen.
You are a silly man. Nobody in the entire world has ever talked about Kowsar playing the role of long-range interceptors Kowsar-I's job is to retire MF-1, F-7N, F-5E/F fleet and it will apparently do so. Any sane person will take 60 Kowsar-I over a fleet of 120 F-7N, MF1, F-5/F. Its a generation above all of them and currently has the best electronics and flight suite in IRIAF. The problem in IRIAF is lack of long-range interceptors because F-14 is gonna die in modern combat and IRIAF does not have some 100s of them lying around. So new planes are required but the question is which ones? My hopes were a large fleet of MIG-35, MIG-29SMT because they can just land in Iran and be inducted into the service. Some 120 of them became parts of Iranian IADS. IRIAF instead went for SU-35S which is 4-5 times expensive. Am I happy with this? I am indifferent, IRIAF is like that starved dying person who will eat anything at this point.
I don’t hate the Kowsar platform, I accept it for what it is. A test bed keeping engineers from leaving to other more lucrative fields or potentially even the country (brain drain). It’s a good platform to teaching a newer generation of engineers and allowing them to experiment a little. It can be a great light air patrol, CAS, advanced trainer. That’s about it.
Kowsar Kowsar Kowsar, how many times do you obsess with this plane in the entire day? It's a light fighter manufacture + rebuilding program on lines of Kfir-C which has demonstrated that Iran can locally build a light 4.0 generation CAP fighter if it needs to do so. Thats about it. You are somehow under the false impression that discussing its electronics or its FBW or whatever automatically means that it is intended to replace your F-14. Lol its not built for that. I told your understanding of combat aviation is weak and your mental fixation on Kowsar is proving that.
In fact, I would have supported them taking all this knowledge from Kowsar and in cooperating into F-313. I like to believe when things started, IRIAF engineers originally wanted to take the F-5 class fighter jet and envision a 5th Gen version of it. I believe F-313 wanted to be that. It similar in size and could be fitted with F-5 engines to start. With serious will could have entered mass production by 2020 considering project was unveiled 10+ years earlier.
A true F-313 could have been F-5 class fighter maybe even larger (to fit a larger radar) with an RCS under .5m2 with all the bells and whistles you wish to see in this so called “Kowsar-2”. It would have fit into Iranian doctrine and capability and been a decent plane. I mean if the Turks can design a 5th Gen airframe, I’m sure Iranian engineers and designers could have as well.
F313 was a stunt. I highly doubt the airframe even had working aerodynamics. If they somehow fly a loyal unmanned wingman with black RAM coats, and internal bays on it and call it F313 to wash away the "wound" Ahmadinejad gave us then I will be happy, but its not a real thing. Grow up.
Anyway, that’s my whole opinion on the Iranian airforce. I continue to wait to see the results of medium/heavy fighter and medium heavy engine project.
"Heavy fighter" "Light fighter" again
Gripen-E is a light fighter, it will behead the entire "heavy engine" fleet of Russia. In modern combat aviation, fighters have no weight category, they have e-warfare and armements that matter.
.........................
List of my questions and your answers (or lack of)
My Question: Please explain how a 100 KM ranging R-77ER fights against 160+ KM ranging AIM-120D, AIM-260, and Meteor.
Your Answer (Summarized): Some magical BVR will appear in Iran out of nowhere because oh look how the US is integrating BVR on Ukrainian planes. That will make SU-35S relevant, before that, God saves the expensive fleet against regional adversaries
My Question: Please explain how do you hide a 10-15 m2 RCS against AESA radars on enemy 4+ generation fighters that can track its huge azz from 200+ KM?
Your Answer (Summarized): Flanker's huge RCS does not matter because F-14 also has a similar RCS and IADS will help.
My Question: Please give examples where 4th generation fighters of Russian origin are being upgraded locally by any customer out of major nations (except Superpower China) ?
Your Answer (Summarized): None
My Question: Please explain how the IRBIS-E PESA will dodge DRFM jamming illumination by DSS ECM of EF2000, ALQ-214 of F-18E/F or Thales Spectra ECM of Rafale from 100+ KM?
Your Anwer (Summarized): SU-35S will not leave IADS
My Question: Please explain which is better for 85 Million USD price for cash-strapped IRIAF which needs numbers more than anything in its fleet ... 1 x SU-35S or 2 x MIG-35 or 3 x MIG-29M?
Your Answer: Mikayon Gurevich OKB is mismanaged
Btw you sound like a child in the way you talk. Unhinged and smashing the keyboard.
