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ESM is passive, as is the operation of EO/IR sensors. Data links are now highly directional.
Russian borders are covered by radars that are not passive but are also well defended. Being an IADS some S-400s could have some or all of their radars operating while other platforms in the network listen with their radars turned on but no emitting... it is a game both sides play.
AWACS is and will be always some hundreds of km behind the combat planes it is controlling,
That is OK... on full AB a MiG-31 can cover 700km in about 14 minutes and then launch long range active radar homing missiles with a range of 300km at the moment. The fact that they are working with India on new scramjet powered anti AWACS missiles suggests that this is only going to get worse for the AWACS platform over time.
that is why it has a huge very powerful radar with huge field of view and extremely long range.
Which makes it a huge and obvious target for those looking for it...
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.
Well based on the news about the AA Brahmos, it could be that the MiG-31s will focus on bombers and ships and the Su-57 with a 2,000km range mach 10 scramjet powered anti AWACS missile might take over its duties.
I would think plans to evolve the R-37M with small missiles that deploy when the missile approaches its target could be applied to a much larger scramjet powered missile too...
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.
But S-400s will fly very high and as an approaching target the size of a dinner plate by the time it becomes visible to the fighters radar it might be too high up in its line of vision to be detected... in which case the target aircraft might only realise it is under attack when it is 20km away diving at mach 5 or mach 6... and assuming a 150kg directional warhead and the missile finding the target in the centre of its dive view I would say my money would be on the missile most of the time...
Aerial targets are a matter of AWACS, ground troops are monitored by JSTARS, as far as I know.
During Desert Storm the Americans boasted their AWACS could see lines of barbed wire in the sand in the lines of defence... so it does follow ground targets too AFAIK.
He is creating a whole story around made up figures, so off they go both, the figures and the story...
Without any figures there is nothing to discuss... if you don't like his figures give us yours and we can continue with those... if we can accept those as plausable... don't need sources... just a bit of reasoning will do.
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?
Without numbers then theories and hypothesis is pointless. It gives us a frame work to work up tactics and suggestions.
So the detection range is?
The fins make 90º angle with the body of the missile, that reflects radar rather effectively.
They tend to roll so no fin will be 90 degrees for very long if at all. Also.... what are the fins made out of... they might be radar transparent for all we know...
Detection range will be poor because these will not be bigger than 1 sq metre targets, and will roll over to present its nose to the targets it is heading for...
It is just a 20 m tall fireball, who would notice it?
The battery could be located behind a low row of hills and might not be visible at all till the missile has climbed quite a bit... besides... is it an S-400 or a Smerch rocket?
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.
Even if they are tracked with pin point accuracy how is a fighter plane supposed to evade a mach 7 400km range missile exactly?
I mean a last second roll might gain a few metres...
Syria obviously has proved that the hundreds of rigorously made RCS models of VLO aircraft executed in the most renowed Federation's Institutes was perfectly right while PR figures was .....exactly that: low level disinformation and propaganda boasting.
Funny they refused to let Turkey operate S-400 and F-35 in the same airspace.... that would have proved their propaganda boasting to be correct... or maybe it might have revealed something they didn't want to be revealed until they had delivered more...
Cost/effectivness of stealth is become shittier every year. Limited and controled stealth is still a good point for new fighter but it will be useless one day or another.
I think the lesson is that Stealth can be important but don't spend trillions trying to make something invisible... when if comes to soldiers you hand out ghillie suits to snipers who sneak around and rely on not being seen or noticed but for the average infantryman a ghillie suit would be cumbersome and awkward and wouldn't make them harder to spot most of the time.
The US put all their eggs in one basket and went for expensive all out stealth. The Russians didn't have that sort of dough to throw away but they still made a stealth fighter, but with more emphasis on fighter than on stealth and they also equipped their fighters with radars able to find stealthy aircraft in the L band and also fitted all their new fighters with IRST systems and IR guided missiles... and made the manouverable enough to be able to dogfight even with they run out of missiles...
It was a war 60ies/70ies technology against state of the art western technolgy...unfair conflict! And stealth technology at this time had a few advantages, but many many problems too. The problems with stealth technology haven't changed until today.
Observations of how HATO fought in that war and other wars before and since have led to the creation of air defence systems like Pine and Pantsir and TOR and BUK and S-350 etc etc.
Are the Western models so bad?
Western models are likely fine, it is their marketing department that choose what figures are released...
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