Sukhoi LTS "Checkmate" #2

Yes 8 years between first flights for a "same generation" fighter is a very long time.

The most probable reason for not using any of the Mig-29's in any significant numbers during the SMO is exactly that - they simply don't have adequate numbers in service. Most first gen Mig-29's have been withdrawn except for a few trainers. The SMT is nowhere to be seen - despite being multi-role fighters with better range. Same goes for the small number of Mig-29M2's and Mig-35's that entered service.

MiG 35 batch ordered was just advertising pitch

Those things won't be seeing any wars

There are plans to use them in the Mig-29 aerobatic team as a replacement for the older Mig-29's.

ONCE AGAIN - I have never said that. I repeat - The Mig-35 was developed from the Mig-29M. The design is dated but not yet obsolete.

It is the numbers fighter, it does not need to be better than the Su-35 or Su-57 to consider it useful.

It is supposed to be affordable and Good enough to get most jobs done.

If cheap was the only consideration they would be making MiG-29M2s instead.

Not quite as good as the MiG-35 but even cheaper to buy.

They clearly want quality and volume, which I think is rather positive.

"Not yet obsolete" - in the sense that it is still useful as a fighter.

A useful fighter is better than an aircraft that has not yet flown.

You would rather they have nothing than a useful fighter...

There is a subtle difference there but I do hope that you can now comprehend what I've said?

What I comprehend is that if Yak had said they have an AESA radar for the Yak-130 for use in the Yak-133 single seat light fighter you would say that is a brilliant idea and why aren't they making them right now.

Instead it is evil MiG who stole your girlfriend from you and did naughty things to your mother and no they can't make new planes for love nor money ever again... that is their punishment for all time.

On the other hand, VKS, so far, didn't show any interest in MiG-35 beyond original 6 planes.

They bought 6 planes for testing and use because they knew they had light 5th gen fighters on the way, and no conflict in sight that would require lots of fighter aircraft to be available for use any time soon. Then the conflict in the Ukraine happened and they will have tested the MiG-35 in that conflict as they did in Syria too, and the talk is that they think a light numbers fighter is useful and necessary and the only one available for serial production right now is the MiG-35.

They might only make 36 new planes or they might make a lot more... they will be cheaper to operate than the Flanker family because they were intended to operate with the Flanker family.

Su-35S has been operational for already a decade or so, when Su-57 was in early development and Su-75 was nowhere in sight. While MiG-35 came along too little too late.

The light 5th gen fighter programme was put on hold to focus on getting the heavy 5th gen fighter into service and serial production. The Su-75 and MiG designs were revealed when serial production of the Su-57 started... coincidence?

Su-75 is looking for investment and development partners and is not funded by the Russian military.

That does not mean the Russian military wont look at it of course, the Russian Navy ordered the MiG-29K after the Indian Navy bought some so the tooling and production was already set up for them making their aircraft rather cheaper than they otherwise would be.

Also, VKS stubbornly refuses to use any MiG-29 iteration in and around Ukraine, so far.

Do we know that for certain or is that just your assumption?

Maybe they were mentioned in one or two instances and used over Black Sea for destruction of  Ukrainian surface antiship drones.

The fact that you contradict yourself from your previous sentence suggests you don't know.

Yes 8 years between first flights for a "same generation" fighter is a very long time.

Always depends on funding from the customer.

The most probable reason for not using any of the Mig-29's in any significant numbers during the SMO is exactly that - they simply don't have adequate numbers in service. Most first gen Mig-29's have been withdrawn except for a few trainers. The SMT is nowhere to be seen - despite being multi-role fighters with better range. Same goes for the small number of Mig-29M2's and Mig-35's that entered service.

Before guessing of probable reasons wouldn't it make rather more sense to determine if the  premise is correct or not?

MiG 35 batch ordered was just advertising pitch

Those things won't be seeing any wars

MiG-35s are for testing and AFAIK have been tested in both Ukraine and in Syria.

There are plans to use them in the Mig-29 aerobatic team as a replacement for the older Mig-29's.

That would show a lot of confidence in the design... the SWIFTS is a 6 plane team and there are only 6 serial MiG-35s made.

Of course if they do have AESA radar then what a horrible waste that would be.

Rolls Royce to plough a field.

GarryB wrote:Instead it is evil MiG who stole your girlfriend from you and did naughty things to your mother and no they can't make new planes for love nor money ever again...

How did you know! OMG I thought it was a State secret!

GarryB wrote:
the SWIFTS is a 6 plane team and there are only 6 serial MiG-35s made.
Of course if they do have AESA radar then what a horrible waste that would be.
Rolls Royce to plough a field.

Unlike most other military aerobatic teams - the Russians use regular fighters.

Unlike most other military aerobatic teams - the Russians use regular fighters.

So what you are saying is that they only use regular standard in service fighters in the SWIFTS aerobatics team... which is further evidence that the MiG-35 is to be adopted officially and serially produced.

They are hardly going to use specialist planes for their aerobatic teams...

GarryB wrote:

Unlike most other military aerobatic teams - the Russians use regular fighters.

So what you are saying is that they only use regular standard in service fighters in the SWIFTS aerobatics team... which is further evidence that the MiG-35 is to be adopted officially and serially produced.

Unfortunately not always the case - here is a picture of the Su-27M (Su-35) from the Russian Knights but it never entered VKS service in numbers. Only three were ordered. A few prototypes also made it into the team and the rest were used for spares.

GarryB wrote:They are hardly going to use specialist planes for their aerobatic teams...

But they do... you should watch the Combat Approved documentary on the Knights and the Swifts. It is definitely mentioned in there a couple of times. Their aircraft is regular combat planes ready for duty.

Su-75 is making progress, the first prototype, after the original design has been fully reviewed and greatly improved with a lot of inputs from customers, will be produced soon.
And it seems that the customers want AL-51F(type 30 engines on the final version of Su-57) instead of AL-41F per this video, it would be extremely excellent news if it was true...
I hate a 117 engine on such a beautiful plane... Yes I know 117 will be cheaper.

I think that the 2200 KMH figure is very conservative.

Hope they are communicating to the Russian government... no point in putting the new Al-51 engines in the Su-75 and China buys two...

They need to be very careful what they end up selling...

The Su-75 has been earmarked for the AL-51 right from the start, with the AL-41 as an alternative.

Sounds rather unnecessary.

The aircraft is supposed to have a max TOW of 18 tons so a 15 ton thrust thrust vectoring engine should be plenty most of the time because the 18 tons MTOW would include 7.5 tons of ordinance, which is will almost never actually carry in combat.

In fact most of the time its payload is going to be 3 tons for air to ground work and maybe 2 tons for air to air ops.

The worst case scenario there is 3 tons which means 4.5 tons less than 18 tons... which is 13.5 tons TOW.

Why does it need an 18 ton thrust engine to drag around 13.5 tons of plane?

Acceleration is not as important as turn rate and a TVC engine means turn rate is not going to be a problem at any flight speed...

What rate of production do they expect for Al-51s and do they think large orders for Su-75s is going to lead to the Russian AF waiting for Al-51s to put in their Su-57s?

Not that the Su-57 really needs 18 ton thrust engines either because the airframe will break before it runs out of thrust currently... adding another 6 tons thrust will make it accelerate a bit faster, but otherwise it is just more fuel being burned per second.

If you don't understand then ask yourself why they didn't put an Al-51 or an R-79 in a Yak-130... it should be amazing if power to weight ratio was all that mattered...

GarryB wrote:Sounds rather unnecessary.

Why does it need an 18 ton thrust engine to drag around 13.5 tons of plane?

Because that is what the UAE most likely wants, more doubled maximum powered thrusted tonnage extra bigger better for me. That's always been their motto for purchasing fighters from the Mirage 2000-9s they insisted on every single available and unavailable modification to their all too well-known F-16 Block 60 Desert Falcon to the 80 Rafale F4.1 standard with every single bell & whistle including options for modular modifications. They're the ones financing this, aren't they? Unless this "customer" refers to someone else we know nothing about yet, Saudi Arabia? lol That would be the same motus operandi as well.

And who else is going to be able to purchase this aircraft without the threat of CAATSA? We saw what happened with the Su-35S with Egypt & Indonesia even probably Türkiye as well, but isn't the threat of such sanctions going to impact the sales of any of these platforms? And does anyone know if the Kremlin has addressed any of that concern at all?

Gomig-21 wrote:And who else is going to be able to purchase this aircraft without the threat of CAATSA?  We saw what happened with the Su-35S with Egypt & Indonesia even probably Türkiye as well, but isn't the threat of such sanctions going to impact the sales of any of these platforms?  And does anyone know if the Kremlin has addressed any of that concern at all?

https://pravda-en.com/world/2024/07/28/660364.html

BRICS has officially announced the creation of a financial system similar to SWIFT. This was stated by the Consul General of China in Belfast, Zhang Meifang.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/china-u-s-worlds-trading-partner/

How China Overtook the U.S. as the World’s Major Trading Partner
Today’s animation comes from the Lowy Institute, and it pulls data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) database on bilateral trade flows, to determine whether the U.S. or China is a bigger trading partner for each country from 1980 to 2018.

The results are stark: before 2000, the U.S. was at the helm of global trade, as over 80% of countries traded with the U.S. more than they did with China. By 2018, that number had dropped sharply to just 30%, as China swiftly took top position in 128 of 190 countries.

As USD dominance in international trade wanes, so will the effects of US sanctions, leading more countries to trade with Russia regardless of tantrums thrown from the big, dumb, destructive Golem.

A thing of beauty

Actually I think CAATSA is excellent. It weeds out the weak willed easily bullied countries... imagine if instead of CAATSA they let these countries buy these military platforms and then went to them secretly and said hand us some of these things to examine and look at or we will impose the CAATSA type sanctions on you.

If they didn't buy because of CAATSA then I would say they would bend like reeds to the US on the quiet and hand over all sorts of information and secrets.

Of course Russia should expect all exported goods to be compromised to be fair, so they should be limiting what is allowed to be exported too.

CAATSA is just one of the many branches upon which the Monkey Empire will hang itself. Once a clear, safe and secure alternative to Murkan Hegemony is available, the stampede of the oppressed nations will be a sight to behold. Murkans (and their Eurotrash faggot satraps) have no idea of the depth of HATRED for them that exists in so many nations of the world.

Atmosphere wrote:

This is going to be a big leap towards 6th gen fighter aircraft, where you can have only ONE mainframe but with three different detachable forward sections - depending on the specific mission at hand. Plug and Play with have to be quick though!

GarryB wrote:Actually I think CAATSA is excellent. It weeds out the weak willed easily bullied countries... imagine if instead of CAATSA they let these countries buy these military platforms and then went to them secretly and said hand us some of these things to examine and look at or we will impose the CAATSA type sanctions on you.

If they didn't buy because of CAATSA then I would say they would bend like reeds to the US on the quiet and hand over all sorts of information and secrets.

Of course Russia should expect all exported goods to be compromised to be fair, so they should be limiting what is allowed to be exported too.

As interesting as that alternative sounds, something tells me the US would be more disinterested in allowing a covert 3rd party "inspection" or viewing if you will in return for not imposing CAATSA because I truly believe at the end of the say, the acronym that defines the bill (Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) is far more important to the US than finding out what latest export technical improvements are involved in Russian stealth and technological evolution.  To me, it seems the US is much keener on a financial punitive campaign on the large & lethal export platforms than a technological one because the latter is much more detrimental than the former.  It gains more from Russia suffering financial weapons export revenues (which is the basic concept of sanctions in general) than any technical intelligence information that can still be acquired by other deceiving methods.

GarryB wrote:Actually I think CAATSA is excellent. It weeds out the weak willed easily bullied countries...

As far as that point is concerned, I have 2 counters.  1) yeah I know you think countries that have and will succumb to the threat of CAAATSA are nothing but pure pussy ass vassal bitch ass states bending over stankhole wide open with no pride and are nothing but complete coward ass pathetic bitches.  Fair enough, I can respect that opinion even though it's rather insulting on a horribly misguided level but we're men, we can take the critical heat big time but being someone who is part of such a country that was majorly threatened in many HUGELY SIGNICANT ways made the decision to take that threat very seriously because this was NOT about sanctioning the export of oranges, or grapes or even one of Egypt's largest domestic products in cotton, it was on Egypt's newly discovered gas exports to the EU, to its huge upcoming super profitable mineral discoveries and sales including Uranium and to the effect of the tune of $1.3 Billion in military aid (part of Israel's air package as well goes hand in had why give it up?) that goes to MANY VITAL aspect of the military like the maintenance & upkeep of 200+/- F-16, the #1 frontline legacy aircraft of the EAF and all associated weaponry.  It would've put a practical halt on all 5000 M1A1 Abram & M60A3 tanks, 46 Apache helicopters and a slew of many vital Egyptian, military assets that would decapitate its highly worldly ranking under the greatest military powers.  That's a crimpling effect there is no macho sentiment to be brought to the table here.  Only SENSIBLE and practical leadership looking out for the security of the county and its people.  If anything, it's far from cowardly and quite the opposite in valiant.

That's NOT a decision a well-in-tuned leader/president takes lightly just for the sake of bravado and to appease a bunch of keyboard warriors.  

2) the US simply has a huge monopoly & hegemony over world economic exports that it could sanctions hundreds of countries in the flick of a finger not to trade with culprit country exacerbating said country's already critical and vital economic condition.  These are the difficult decisions GOOD leaders such as president Sisi MUST make for the betterment of the country because think of the alternative of having all those gorgeous 30 Beautiful Su-35SEs for the EAF and the unbearable cost of the above mentioned when your country is basically neutered in full and hence completely irrelevant.  But hey, it has 30 shiny brand spanking new Su-35Ss whoohooo!  As much as you all know I even take a magazine of the best pics of that aircraft with me in the restroom to uhem....I can't see it being the cost of the alternative, ever.

The last points brings me to what is Russia doing to help facilitate LONG-TERM client nations who have brought form Russian classic weaponry to the forefront of warfare to overcome or circumvent those threats of sanctions since IT WAS the culprit for the reason it happened in the first place, accountability no withstanding.  I haven't read @Broski's post where he supposedly answered that question, but the title of the link doesn't suggest it would have the complete answer but in all fairness to him, I will look at it to undersand this sutiation more since I am one of the few members here on this forum who is from Egypt living in the US the latter GREATLY and disgustingly affected by CAATSA and one who has an equal admiration for all things Russin particularly the Su-35SR (which were on their first delivery batch when the shit hit the fan do you have any idea how much that sucked? 35lbs pound sledgehammer right in the middle of the forehead is what they felt like) and had HUGE aspirations (not personal, but issued by the government) to increase the MiG-29/M2 numbers by another 50-75 MiG-35 (with the Zhul-AE AESA) for over 110 aircraft and the Su-35S was undoubdedtly going to climb to at least 75 units and the biggest of all, was the Su-57 was stalted in talks when the MiG-29 delegation approached Mikoyan to purhcase only 24 M models.  They ended being the ONLY country to buy the 29M with the lesser capable Zhuk-ME Doppler radar with the understanding of much greater number of MiG-35, Su-35s and Su-57s.

Now what does Russia have to say about any of this?  Or does Egypt and other countries in similar conditions where approximately 50% of the miliary hardware is Russian?  Is it even willing to help protect one of its best historical supporters of its hardware by the tell the US to go itself?  Or maybe even offer counter sanction assistance.  BRICS is way too into its infancy to make a difference now, especially if let's say not just the UAE or Saudi Arabia would be interested in the Su-75, but Egypt would've jumped so ugly on this bad Larry the day that black tarp was ripped off on it at MAX2022.  Now this is what it's negotiating just to show all you fellas and fine gents this regional powerhouse wants to move in this direction quite seriously and not forget, Russia was its FIRST OPTION.  WTF is Russia doing in return for its culpability in the entire unfortunate scenario?

In the meantime, this was in December 2022.


July 25th this month






The #Égypte is reportedly finalizing an agreement with the #Chine for the acquisition of 5th generation FC-31 (J-31) stealth fighters, thereby strengthening its military capabilities with advanced technologies.







Joint production and technology transfer agreements are also being considered.

I completely understand where Gomig-21 comes from. Egypt has to function in its own reality. All these grand, bold ideas are just empty platitudes when it comes to a nation survival. Present Egyptian politics (economical or military) can be connected to camp David Accords or even before that Anwar Sadat turn from the Soviets, due to their inability to provide sufficient help in fighting with Israel.
Even if Egypt wants to radically change situation (which I don't know if they even want), it will take some years to turn the ship.

lancelot wrote:If Egypt requires thousands of tanks they could have easily gotten a license to make the T-90 tank just like India did.

Continuing to rely on US weapons only means that Egypt must continue to bend the knee to both the US and Israel. In case of conflict with Israel, Egypt would be in serious trouble. Would you rather those tanks failed before a conflict with Israel or right in the middle of one?

Let me just preface my answer by saying this is in no way a form of bitching or complaining about Russia, least of all.  It's about the conditions of the sanctions imposed on Russia that are preventing other countries from making mutually beneficial deals with Russia and that's all.  It's an over-shadowing problem and yes it's created by the evil Yanks without questions.  My point is how not only are these other countries (Egypt being my primary concern) supposed to circumvent those sanctions threats because of Russia or what is Russia doing to mitigate them to a certain extent?

The T-90MS for 500 locally produced tanks with ToT was practically a done deal until CAATSA leaflets flew down from a B-52.  The paperwork was only missing the signatures from both parties.  Egypt then turned around and signed a ToT for 300 K-9 Thunder tracked howitzers (I believe that was the number) and no leaflets for that for obvious reasons.  The same is happening with the K-2 Korea Tanks which SUCKS to no end since I would so much more prefer the T-90MS.  The K9s are to replace the older M-109 Howitzers and are almost complete just like the MiG-29M/M2 and eventuallMiG-35 was to replace the tremendous number of legacy F-16s.  But somehow they were able to sneak in the 46 M/M2s but then the leaflets fell and actual verbal threats of CAATSA through open & back-channel lines came in droves over the Su-35s.  That put a kiobach or everything.  Contrary to the insinuations of some vagina entity being bitch-slapped around, this is a serious matter.

Now the EAF is looking for alternatives to not only the Su-35S was its preference as we all know quite well , but it was also to be the Su-57 in rather impressive numbers once VKS was satisfied of course, but the kiobache was also put on that and one the Su-75 Checkmate with all its potential glory showed up, that made everyone now wonder how is Russia going to even export that platform even to the UAE or Saudi Arabia (not sure who others are rumored countries out there, anyone know?) with the US' control over their "security" and weapons purchases, so to speak.

Which then begs the ultimate question; how is Russia going to circumvent CAATSA (which despite what some fellas here might consider it to be a non-issue is actually a huge problem).  Any country that wants to invest as "customers" as the op article suggests is undoubtedly under the grasps of the US and its undeniable sanctioning prowess.  So what is Russia going to do to not only help these interested parties, but its own export success?  It's a legitimate question, don't you think?

Who do we have, China?  How many will they buy just to reverse tech?  Vietnam?  Belarus?  Iran?  She couldn't pay her way through a paper bag unfortunately, offering China oil in exchange for J-10C and China basically Laughing not even politely.  

And my post highlighting the EAF's interest in Chinese 5th gen aircraft is the unfortunate result in this sad state of affairs since if I had it my way, I'd love to see nothing more that Rafales with a local production line in Cairo (currently being discussed), 100-150 MiG-35s, 50/75 or even100 Su-57 and be happier than a pig mudding around in his own muck.

BTW, that 2-seater Su-75 is absolutely disgusting, that's in a good way, BTW.
What a beauty.  How is it going to export these beauties?  Would India be interested in that considering its fetish for 2-seater platforms?  India might be the only one to be able to avoid US threats of sanctions despite its overwhelming Russian equipment but recent shift to US-built ones.

caveat emptor wrote:I completely understand where Gomig-21 comes from. Egypt has to function in its own reality. All these grand, bold ideas are just empty platitudes when it comes to a nation survival. Present Egyptian politics (economical or military) can be connected to camp David Accords or even before that Anwar Sadat turn from the Soviets, due to their inability to provide sufficient help in fighting with Israel.
Even if Egypt wants to radically change situation (which I don't know if they even want), it will take some years to turn the ship.

Soviets were arming those countries to the teeth for a fraction of the price they would have got from the US.

They just failed miserably gain and again against smarter israeli.

At the end they became US vassals buying useless f-16 or abrams that can't be used against Israeli and their supply lines come directly from the US so they hold them by the balls.

Just like the Joranian, Qatari, Saudi...

Now Israel bomb out of anyone there with impunity.

But yeah it's russian fault.

Isos wrote:


Soviets were arming those countries to the teeth for a fraction of the price they would have got from the US.

They just failed miserably gain and again against smarter israeli.

At the end they became US vassals buying useless f-16 or abrams that can't be used against Israeli and their supply lines come directly from the US so they hold them by the balls.

Just like the Joranian, Qatari, Saudi...

Now Israel bomb out of anyone there with impunity.

But yeah it's russian fault.

This is how Sadat saw it. I'm sure Gomig-21 can offer much more accurate version of the events, but Sadat made a sudden turn and some of the highest pro-Soviet people in Egypt were imprisoned.