Su-57 Stealth Fighter: News #6

Isos wrote:You can look by yourself on the net about awacs ranges. They are not greater than ground based search radars.

You don't make the claim and send the other side to look for the proof. Either you have real detection range of a determined radar against a given target or you don't.

Yes it can. The search radar can be at 500km but the launchers and tracking radars can be at 300km. They will also have buks and S-300V4 on the front which can be coordinated by an S-400.

The distance between TELs and radar / command post is hundreds of meters, not hundreds of km. You seem to imply there is not EW in place complicating the communications inside the IADS, that is the reason why you have several radars in each battery in the first place.

You use the one that is ready. S-400 doesn't seem to carry 9m96.

Yes it does, but it does not really matter

And then what they will notice the launch but once it gets horizontal it will disapear from radars because it becomes a mach 7 50cm target.

By then the side under attack has already been alerted and can concentrate in identifying the threat / start evasive manoeuvrers.

Radars have a target limits speed after which they can't process the "detection".

Do you know the speed limits for all applicable radars that could detect the launch? What impedes a modern digital radar handle a bit bigger Doppler displacement and represent that in a display or track / calculate interception points accordingly? You talk as if it was an intrinsic technological limitation when it is not, specially now the buzzword is "hypersonics" and tracking such aerial target is a must.

You can't win a war with S-400.

Of course you can, if you have more aircraft in theater than what the IADS can ultimately repel... but that is not a small amount in the case of Russia.

The best way to destroy an AWACS is on the ground. Either long range BM. Or a small suicide drone with 30km range operated by spies ir special forces operating inside enemy country.

They are easy to spot on satellites. And can't be hidden.

The number of available AWAS is very low. Only US have one or two hundreds. But any other country has a few of them.

I have not limited the radars to those on board of AWACS, any modern fighter has very capable radar and ESM equipment, F-35 has very modern EO equipment too. All I am saying and I stand by it is that long range SAMs are not your best tool against fighters unless you get the rare chance to use them while the target is unaware. But I would like to move on since this is the Su-57 thread...

Isos wrote:I know it can use that missile but I don't think it is deployed on them in active service. That what I wanted to say.

Ok, I don't know how they will use them in the long run. I would of course use the S-400 for the long ranged missiles and leave the 9M96 for the S-350.

I said you can't win with only S400 abd AD in general. They are good systems but you still need fighters and cruise/ballistic missiles to win.

Ok, agreed

If you use the alone then yes. But what you don't understand is that in IADS their radar will gives you an advantage and can direct smaller AD or fighters in the air to attack those targets detected by S-400.

I am aware, certainly.

48N6 missile are very good at intercepting fighters. They are far more advanced and complicate to deal with than a buk or pantsir missile.

Of course the bigger S-400 missiles are dangerous and more sophisticated / with bigger warheads and seekers than the smaller missiles you mention (though I am unsure they manoeuvrer very well, for sure not better than the 9M96). The issue is that a short ranged missile leaves way less time to the target to react. For instance, the time to turn 180º for a fighter plane at 10 km can be in the order of 20 seconds, that is the time a 3 M missile needs to cover 20 km, so the pilot will have the time, in the best case, to be warned of the launch, roll, accelerate, turn, engage countermeasures and pray. If the launch happens 250 km away, the pilot and the plane have the time to think and execute a strategy to defeat the shot, including turning and accelerating, hiding from the radar doing the mid course guidance or even getting lower, if that helps in that particular case. And on top of that, ECM will be much more effective at long ranges than at shorter ones. It is a matter of compared time constants of the missile and fighters. A tanker certainly will not make much use of the few minutes an inboud 48N6 would leave it, but with the fighter is a different game.

I think the issue is quite more complicated than that, and frankly I find those competitions largely irrelevant, not only because the numbers are simply made up but also because they don't represent the realities of combat. If a F-22 is detected on the runway by a Konteyner and its route and probable goals are being monitored in real time, what is the relevance of exact head-on detection range for a fighter radar? If AWACS are being shot down by MiG-31 and their radars are being jammed by ground based EW, how is the stealth fleet going to keep their radars off? How broad is this frontal spot of reduced RCS in those planes? What is the value for other frequencies under other illumination aspects and possibly under several illuminations at the same time? Just to name a few issues that would apply in reality...

That is currently the focus even for tactical fighters, to be turned into ISR assets themselves with very sophisticated sensors and automated threat classification / data sharing provisions. I guess there is nice incentive for an attacking force to detect a possibly concealed S-400 battery, even more when they start launching interceptors...

Great, so they will all be operating their radars and transmitting information...

The AWACS is quite likely not going to put itself in range of the S-400,

And in that sense probably the best vehicle to kill them with is probably the 150km range S-350 with ARH missiles and 30km ceiling, on a relatively light small vehicle that could have 6 long range SAMs and the other 6 tubes loaded with 24 IIR guided  9M100 missiles for self defence...

AWACS needs to provide an air picture for aircraft working in that air space and wont be able to be too picky as it where it operates much of the time.

If the AWACS wont fly where there is a hint of S-400 then the Russians have effectively defeated AWACS and HATO aircraft can only fight Russia using their own sensors...

that is, they will not go beyond the point that is considered safe / has been already cleared by the SEAD teams, or so it should be.

SEAD operations normally work best when enemy air defences are busy and the enemy air force is also busy... the vast majority of Russian air defence forces... whether Air Force or Army or Ground forces Navy can shoot down anti radiation missiles and the aircraft that launch them rather efficiently and effectively... if they are going to attack then they need to bring their A game which includes AWACS and JSTARS and inflight refuelling aircraft all of which will be horribly vulnerable.

Therefore the first planes to be in risk are attack planes and their escorts, not AWACS

Without fighters and fighter management from AWACS they will get slaughtered.

You think an A-10 could just fly over a Russian armoured unit and just pick off targets with Mavericks after using Sidearm to take out the Shilka?

In the case of a fast plane attacked by a SAM at maximum range, four minutes are more than enough to turn around and defeat the missile.

With no AWACS there and presumably this aircraft is not blazing away with its own radar... their first warning they are under attack will be when an S-400 comes roaring down in a steep dive having just turned on its ARH radar at mach 4-5.  Hello... and then 150kgs of HE and fragments explodes in a rather large fireball...

OK, makes sense since this is a MiG stationed in Kamchatka. The face mask is the normal one isn't it?

It is the standard one that is not and cannot be attached to a pressure suit... the visor makes that clear... this plane might go fast but it isn't going higher than most planes fly or the pressure suit would be needed.

Sure, but at 500 km the S-400 cannot hit the AWACS.

It can detect radar emissions and the direction... without using its own radars, and S-400 batteries all along the front line can also record radar emissions and direction... so someone at HQ can use those bearings and times to estimate the location of the target... so a battery of any kind that is near the location can listen for radar emissions from the AWACS aircraft an confirm its existence and presence... most of their new bigger missiles are ARH so launch to an interception point where they normally turn on their active radar to look for the target but in this case they could just listen for radar signals...

Between this guess of yours and Russian officials' statements that "no AWACS can detect it" I guess we have quite a window of uncertainty...

AWACS is intended for tracking aircraft and directing aircraft to intercept those aircraft. Tracking missiles is more for JSTARS isn't it?

All I am asking is a source to back those claims.

He is making rough guesses to fill in blanks no one can tell you the correct answer to.

If you are not happy with his estimates come up with some of your own and argue why you think yours are more accurate.

There will be no genuine sources for this sort of thing... and certainly no accurate ones either... because I suspect neither side actually knows until an Su-57 tries to fly towards an AWACS aircraft...

What is the detection range of a APG-83 or 77 vs a S-400 missile then? Such missile directly after launch is a huge vertical metal cylinder with corner reflectors attached to it and several sqm RCS, it will probably be seen from hundreds of km away. The simply huge IR flare of the boost stage is likely to be visible from hundreds of km away, too.

Climbing vertically it will not be closing with those radars and would be as tough to spot immediately at launch as a hovering helicopter but without the signature of the rotor blades. A lamp post is a cylinder and would not have a large RCS... and why do you think it would have corner reflectors fitted to it?

The IR flare is not enormous and the missile will be rolling over in your direction which will hide the IR flare with the body of the missile and also angle the body so RCS would become rather tiny.

There will likely be lots of smaller missiles being launched to shoot down anti radiation missiles and bigger missiles taking down jammer and wild weasel aircraft too... and talking of IR signatures... look at that MiG-31 just turning away after having launched three R-37Ms at the AWACS you are protecting...

I am aware they would not activate the active radar seeker until the last moments, that does not mean a 7.5x0.5 m missile, almost 2000 kg flying 7 M is a stealthy target or can be launched without nobody noticing.

If HATO are invading Russia there will be more than a few being launched rather rapidly and lots of other missiles as well... once it is up and flying towards its target it will fly very very high and very fast... detection or otherwise... why do you think it would matter if the AWACS sees it or not? What are you expecting its supporting fighters to do? Accelerate to mach 5 and climb to 50km altitude and shoot it down with guns?

In which case you would use a 9M96 missile and not a 40N6, as I keep saying.

It doesn't really matter a huge amount as to what missile takes down the AWACS... just as long as one does.

And to carry on from the aircraft carrier threads that is not a good reason for the Russian Air Force to not have AWACS platforms or the Navy not to have CVNs and AWACS aircraft... the Soviets developed the S-300 and S-400 because AWACS platforms are force mulitpliers... which is why dealing with them is such a high priority.

If they are stupid data you can insult me without problems.

If the data is wrong they can make fun of the data, but no personal insults...

GarryB wrote:Great, so they will all be operating their radars and transmitting information...

ESM is passive, as is the operation of EO/IR sensors. Data links are now highly directional.

AWACS needs to provide an air picture for aircraft working in that air space and wont be able to be too picky as it where it operates much of the time.

AWACS is and will be always some hundreds of km behind the combat planes it is controlling, that is why it has a huge very powerful radar with huge field of view and extremely long range.

BTW I am not making this a "who is stronger" contest, just making it clear that in principle there are ways to keep surveillance of the battlefield and that very far SAM shots give enemy fighters some critical time to defend themselves. All the rest of this discussion has gone very far from the original claim.

With no AWACS there and presumably this aircraft is not blazing away with its own radar... their first warning they are under attack will be when an S-400 comes roaring down in a steep dive having just turned on its ARH radar at mach 4-5.  Hello... and then 150kgs of HE and fragments explodes in a rather large fireball...

If there is no external guidance or tactical information and the plane's ESM detects enemy radar emission focused on itself, it is not very wise to keep its own radar off is it? This is like the surface combatant with radars off... one would think going to war would be enough adrenaline already, without needing to do that.

this plane might go fast but it isn't going higher than most planes fly or the pressure suit would be needed.

True

AWACS is intended for tracking aircraft and directing aircraft to intercept those aircraft. Tracking missiles is more for JSTARS isn't it?

Aerial targets are a matter of AWACS, ground troops are monitored by JSTARS, as far as I know.

He is making rough guesses to fill in blanks no one can tell you the correct answer to.

He is creating a whole story around made up figures, so off they go both, the figures and the story...

There will be no genuine sources for this sort of thing... and certainly no accurate ones either... because I suspect neither side actually knows until an Su-57 tries to fly towards an AWACS aircraft...

Exactly the reason why making wild guesses does not bring anything. Estimations can be done, but they need to be backed by data and proper calculations / reasoning. I can say I "think" the detection range of the Su-57 is 50 km, you "think" it is 250... who cares what we think?

Climbing vertically it will not be closing with those radars and would be as tough to spot immediately at launch as a hovering helicopter but without the signature of the rotor blades. A lamp post is a cylinder and would not have a large RCS... and why do you think it would have corner reflectors fitted to it?

So the detection range is?

The fins make 90º angle with the body of the missile, that reflects radar rather effectively.

The IR flare is not enormous and the missile will be rolling over in your direction which will hide the IR flare with the body of the missile and also angle the body so RCS would become rather tiny.

It is just a 20 m tall fireball, who would notice it?  

If HATO are invading Russia there will be more than a few being launched rather rapidly and lots of other missiles as well... once it is up and flying towards its target it will fly very very high and very fast... detection or otherwise... why do you think it would matter if the AWACS sees it or not? What are you expecting its supporting fighters to do? Accelerate to mach 5 and climb to 50km altitude and shoot it down with guns?

Battle management systems are indeed expected to understand how many missiles are being launched, from where to where, point one. Point two, I was not dealing with AWACS vs SAM scenario, I was just saying properly supported fighters will normally be able to stay away from very far SAM shots... I find it rather surprising that this claim can be so controversial, actually.

And to carry on from the aircraft carrier threads that is not a good reason for the Russian Air Force to not have AWACS platforms or the Navy not to have CVNs and AWACS aircraft... the Soviets developed the S-300 and S-400 because AWACS platforms are force mulitpliers... which is why dealing with them is such a high priority.

Yes of course

They are not computing RAM and there can be all kinds of inaccuracies in the study the authors did, but still...



The model shows a substantial reduction of RCS in X band, but as said many times by the Russian designers, there are no problems to detect current VLO designs in VHF and lower frequencies. Not only is shaping for fighter-sized planes almost useless at such frequencies, but also RAM.

Mindstorm, how ROFAR radars can change the air battlefield? Apparently, it will completely eliminate the stealth technology?

Mindstorm wrote:It show a tactically releavant dispersion area reduction only in the first segment of the X band and unfortunately majority of the latest -12-15 years- X band fighter aircraft radar (conceived obviously much after the design of F-22 and F-35 prototypes) operate instead mostly between 9 and 10,5 ГГц therefore only a very small part of theirs operative bandwidth - over 10,2 ГГц- will see a reduction in visibility of F-22 in the frontal aspect and at 10 ГГц - even at 9,7 - 9,8 in domestic computations - a spike of 2-3 aquare meters.

Certainly, I just found interesting that the study duly reflected an apparent intent to optimize the radar signature of the plane at those frequencies. I am always weary of these kind of analysis for several reasons:

- The deep, realistic knowledge of the involved phenomena is not trivial and in fact I assume, as you say, that the best models for modelling them are classified in any country.
- There can be serious inaccuracies in the physical models of the aircraft used
- RAM / RAS are unknown, both in dimensions and in material properties.

Equally remarkable is the huge RCS increase in the higher frequencies of the X band as you point out, maybe the RAM is designed with those wavelengths in mind. Are you saying those Russian calculations show similar values? Are they considering RAM? It would be a complete failure if those planes truly have 2-3 sqm RCS in the upper X band... the authors justify the difference between their results (min value of -20dBsm vs. claimed -40 dBsm) with inaccuracies of the model and RAM... maybe a bit too optimistic in general, but maybe possible for a RAM designed for a specific frequency.

As said several times a lot of people when examining domestic computations of the real scattering area of F-22 and F-35 -but also Су-57 imaged those was figures relative to the average scattering area of the aircraft while instead those was the tactically relevant frontal scattering area when illuminated in the most common part of the X band electromagnetic spectrum used in fighter aircraft frontal radar.

What is the difference then? Are the Western models so bad? I mean, they can certainly check them against real measurements, and in fact Ufimtsev ended up working in the US. Or you mean that they are referring RCS at low X band frequencies but not those used by current radars? VLO design should be more effective in higher frequencies, so even if F-22 was not designed for say 10 GHz radar, F-35 indeed should have been.

Is radar low visibility an useless feature ?

Obviously not.

An aircraft with the most efficient reduced visibility features (in the 0,1-0,5 square meters ballpark) all the rest being equal enjoy a significant tactical advantage against fighter aicraft in the 5-15 square meter level effective scattering area; very often this unilateral advantage could allow at least a part of air squadrons to circumvert the radar field of view of the enemy formation allowing so them to conduct the fist attack by complete surprise reduced range and in the most favourable geometrical conditions for the interception by part of the missiles.

This is the way, in the REALITY, that low observable aircraft manage to attack enemy aircraft without being seen at all.............and not proceeding head-on up to missile release "so to maintain frontal aspect golf ball RCS " against the enemy formation.

Yes, I don't really believe those triumphalist stories either... somehow reality always offers proof they are not that invisible as they claim. Somehow they still manage to fool some quite intelligent people though...

stealthflanker wrote:
I found the relationship between RCS and frequency detailed there to be extremely useful and far outweigh the RCS simulations in that paper by Mindstorm.

That, along with other relationship allows actual comparison of a radar based only on simple 4th root rules. I developed an equation for it.

I don't think you can establish some kind of monotonic relationship between frequency and RCS... at all. There are resonance effects, and there are structures designed for destructive interference at certain wavelengths, those are highly non linear effects... maybe you can clarify further?