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Hornet VS. (Raptor) or (Sukhoi Flanker)
- Thread starter Praying4OCS
- Start date
interesting website
Very interesting. One site with Flanker analysis, Raptor analysis, Flying the Hornet and even "How to build your own SAM" 
What more could an aviator, or in my case a wannabe aviator, ask for?
What more could an aviator, or in my case a wannabe aviator, ask for?
SIPRNET.
So, can we talk about this in any depth, or no? Realities?
I had gotten the impression that Flankers / Fulcurms would be more dangerous post merge, but that we still owned the game (on paper, not factoring the pilot) in mid and long BVR.
One can dream.
I had gotten the impression that Flankers / Fulcurms would be more dangerous post merge, but that we still owned the game (on paper, not factoring the pilot) in mid and long BVR.
SIPRNET.
One can dream.
JWICS
How correct you are my friend, I am reading a very interesting SPEAR article with relevance to this thread right now........
And there, folks, is the essence of articles like this. Those who talk, don't know. Those who know, can't talk.How correct you are my friend, I am reading a very interesting SPEAR article with relevance to this thread right now........
I read the whole article, then some of the rest of his website to get an idea where this guy is coming from. He is obviously a very smart guy, with a lot of book knowledge and convenient facts. After looking at everything though, I get the feeling that he is one of these armchair experts who think that most decisions made by military and defense leaders are blatantly idiotic and he knows better...........Alas, if only they put him in charge.......:icon_roll
He uses convenient facts and assumptions, like pointing out that this proposed system or that proposed upgrade in reference to the Flanker. Well, being dependent on the Russian supply, engineering and developmental programs, which are not the best in the world at this time, those things don't always pan out. We should not underestimate them too much but since the end of the Cold War the Russian defense industry has atrophied to a fraction of its former size. Weapons deveploment has largely been confined to relatively minor and incremental improvments to existing weapon systems, with very few 'new' ones coming on-line. They simply cannot afford it anymore, and defense is not too high on their priority list nowadays.
The Flanker is an excellent basic design with a lot of room for modification and improvement, a testament to its designers. But eventually the improvement possibilities will be exhausted, then what? The same might be said about the Super Hornet but not the F-35, which is a brand new aircraft. But right now, Kopp makes many assumptions of what might be with the Flanker, not what is presently is the Flankers in the region.
And finally, he makes a huge leap in assuming that neighboring will make the huge investment in the supporting systems that he claims they will, like ISR and AEW aircraft. As Australia has recently found out with its Wedgetail and K330 buys, acquiring those weapons systems is expensive and maintaining them with the trained personnel to effectively use them is even more difficult. I don't see Malaysia or Indonesia, two coutnries pointed out in other parts of his webiste and operators of the Flanker, getting those systems anytime soon. If they did, I don't think they will make the necessary investments to make them vable weapon systems for very long, if at all. Fighter jets are a lot cooler and more glamorous to just about everyone, especially third world military leaders and politicians.
Also, he doesn't take into account the most important factor, the human one. I don't think I have to point out on this site that the pilot is the most important system in an aircraft, one that I think Australia realizes but that its potential adversaries do not. There are other human factors as well when it comes to weapon ssytems though. How often are Australia's potential adversaries going to practice live firing their weapons, especially in real world conditions? How good is their maintenance and availability rates? Are their maintenance people any good? Does the radar work as well as advertised? Salesmen never lie, do they? Also, how often does the radar work at all? What about the supply of spares? That is of particular concern with Russian systems. This is unglanorous stuff, nitty gritty stuff that the US and competent allies like Australia are really good at compared to the rest of the world. That kind of stuff can make all the difference in the world sometimes. Just look at Israel vs its enemies, past and present. And the Brits in the Falklands.
So his biggest flaw is that he is only looking at one part of the picture. Lots of 'armchair' types like to look at the cool stuff and that's it. They talk about possibilities of what may or may not happen with this or that weapon system, and there are whole boards that have these debates all of the time. But I like to think of the whole excercise as a kind of Dungeons & Dragons for grown ups. All of these scenarios are great on paper but time and again the real world has proven the worth of the American/NATO/western model of training and weapon systems employment. We should always keep a wary eye on potential adversaries and try and have the best weapons sytems possible, but alarmist articles by armchair experts who don't have access to all the information should not be taken as gospel.
He uses convenient facts and assumptions, like pointing out that this proposed system or that proposed upgrade in reference to the Flanker. Well, being dependent on the Russian supply, engineering and developmental programs, which are not the best in the world at this time, those things don't always pan out. We should not underestimate them too much but since the end of the Cold War the Russian defense industry has atrophied to a fraction of its former size. Weapons deveploment has largely been confined to relatively minor and incremental improvments to existing weapon systems, with very few 'new' ones coming on-line. They simply cannot afford it anymore, and defense is not too high on their priority list nowadays.
The Flanker is an excellent basic design with a lot of room for modification and improvement, a testament to its designers. But eventually the improvement possibilities will be exhausted, then what? The same might be said about the Super Hornet but not the F-35, which is a brand new aircraft. But right now, Kopp makes many assumptions of what might be with the Flanker, not what is presently is the Flankers in the region.
And finally, he makes a huge leap in assuming that neighboring will make the huge investment in the supporting systems that he claims they will, like ISR and AEW aircraft. As Australia has recently found out with its Wedgetail and K330 buys, acquiring those weapons systems is expensive and maintaining them with the trained personnel to effectively use them is even more difficult. I don't see Malaysia or Indonesia, two coutnries pointed out in other parts of his webiste and operators of the Flanker, getting those systems anytime soon. If they did, I don't think they will make the necessary investments to make them vable weapon systems for very long, if at all. Fighter jets are a lot cooler and more glamorous to just about everyone, especially third world military leaders and politicians.
Also, he doesn't take into account the most important factor, the human one. I don't think I have to point out on this site that the pilot is the most important system in an aircraft, one that I think Australia realizes but that its potential adversaries do not. There are other human factors as well when it comes to weapon ssytems though. How often are Australia's potential adversaries going to practice live firing their weapons, especially in real world conditions? How good is their maintenance and availability rates? Are their maintenance people any good? Does the radar work as well as advertised? Salesmen never lie, do they? Also, how often does the radar work at all? What about the supply of spares? That is of particular concern with Russian systems. This is unglanorous stuff, nitty gritty stuff that the US and competent allies like Australia are really good at compared to the rest of the world. That kind of stuff can make all the difference in the world sometimes. Just look at Israel vs its enemies, past and present. And the Brits in the Falklands.
So his biggest flaw is that he is only looking at one part of the picture. Lots of 'armchair' types like to look at the cool stuff and that's it. They talk about possibilities of what may or may not happen with this or that weapon system, and there are whole boards that have these debates all of the time. But I like to think of the whole excercise as a kind of Dungeons & Dragons for grown ups. All of these scenarios are great on paper but time and again the real world has proven the worth of the American/NATO/western model of training and weapon systems employment. We should always keep a wary eye on potential adversaries and try and have the best weapons sytems possible, but alarmist articles by armchair experts who don't have access to all the information should not be taken as gospel.
Mayday
I thought that was the recline!
Quote from the article:
Kinematically? What, did he observe them with comparable weights and loadouts in pitched battle? Way too many variables to make an educated assumption based on a bunch of number crunching, I think. I've seen many of these articles and article-induced threads over the last couple years, and the discussion trend is always the same (and more or less true), and it always finalizes with "Okay, so the Ruskies have better raw performance and more cool factor, but we have better training and a better economy, so we win." Agreed up front. :icon_smil
On those two aspects:
Exactly.
"Though the armies of the world trust in the technology of their machines, the Marine Corps trusts in their Marines."
Can be applied more broadly than that too. Read the life and works of John Boyd. It's the training, imagination, and overall caliber of the warfighter that wins the war. We learned that lesson at least once the hard way (see: Vietnam).
I've ensared myself in endless conversations with several of those types, most of whom are actually entertained by this armchair warfighting. Amusingly, I've yet to meet one younger than the Babyboomer generation, and the most blatant explanation is... Command and Conquer, Playstation, and Nintendo Wii. :icon_tong I think the younger guys don't talk about it, they let greater conglomerates of imagination (the videogame companies) gin up vehicles in which they can do all the armchair fighting they wish (the videogames).
Kinematically? What, did he observe them with comparable weights and loadouts in pitched battle? Way too many variables to make an educated assumption based on a bunch of number crunching, I think. I've seen many of these articles and article-induced threads over the last couple years, and the discussion trend is always the same (and more or less true), and it always finalizes with "Okay, so the Ruskies have better raw performance and more cool factor, but we have better training and a better economy, so we win." Agreed up front. :icon_smil
On those two aspects:
Exactly.
"Though the armies of the world trust in the technology of their machines, the Marine Corps trusts in their Marines."
Can be applied more broadly than that too. Read the life and works of John Boyd. It's the training, imagination, and overall caliber of the warfighter that wins the war. We learned that lesson at least once the hard way (see: Vietnam).
I've ensared myself in endless conversations with several of those types, most of whom are actually entertained by this armchair warfighting. Amusingly, I've yet to meet one younger than the Babyboomer generation, and the most blatant explanation is... Command and Conquer, Playstation, and Nintendo Wii. :icon_tong I think the younger guys don't talk about it, they let greater conglomerates of imagination (the videogame companies) gin up vehicles in which they can do all the armchair fighting they wish (the videogames).
The author, Carlo Kopp, has been around for some time in online forums. He publishes here and there, and is pretty much exactly as Flash describes him. I fit him in the category of "Thinks He's A Lot Smarter Than He Actually Is".
For better or for worse, the number of people I fit in that category keeps going up at an alarming rate....
The internet seems to give folks that keyboard expert knowledge.