Now this conflict is indeed showing some key weaknesses in the su-34 platform and indeed Russia is burning the midnight oil to build more stealthier platforms which it does very much need.
The amusing thing is that these Russian aircraft are being tested and challanged and changes and upgrades are being introduced to improve their performance.
Can't really say the same for western air forces that rely on air power in any conflict... we saw how vulnerable they were in Afghanistan after their air power left three months before the ground forces...
They are also in need of s-70 stealth uavs and especially
But do they though?
Western air defence consists of Patriot and ground launched AMRAAM and Aster in terms of reaching up to altitudes... I would wonder if stealth would make a huge difference, and indeed non stealthy aircraft getting such ground based systems to reveal themselves by activating might be a good way of taking them out.
Fly a few Kh-101s and Kh-55SMs to targets and watch for air defences to light up to engage and hit them with Kinzhals and Iskanders and next generation IRBM/CM weapons...
I don't think having stealthy aircraft or cruise missiles would help western forces penetrate Russian air defences, and doubt Russian stealth platforms would rule the skies over western airspace by being invisible either.
In spite of this though the su-34 will be in big time need for decades to come and they will need repairs and upgrades. It truly is an amazing aircraft.
The people who think a plane should be impossible to shoot down if it is any good are the ones that don't like it...
Children.
How can you play chess if you fall to pieces and cry with the loss of any piece.
Su34 just needs MAWS, improved jamming, better sensor fusion and it will be able to not only lob FABS but also brute force SHORADS and other AD
Also OLS-k for 360 degree views of ground
Certainly would not hurt but don't expect losses to drop to zero just because these changes are made.
War is dangerous.
Their missions are dangerous.
Missiles have hit the su-34 and it went down like a moskito. Useless armor.
The armour is against small arms fire because it flys very low and very fast some hits by small arms fire is possible... the armour is to reduce the chance of a lucky hit ending the mission.
It was never intended to be missile proof... that is just stupid.
Sure you can buy 10 su-34 for 1 f-35. But last time I checked US had built almost 1000 f-35 and Russia 140 or so su-34 and lost almost 20% of them in Ukraine.
And they are still not fully operational and have a low readiness rate and don't fly into dangerous airspace... which makes them super expensive and fucking useless.... the worst possible combination.
Stormshadow/Scalp/Taurus so much junk russian copied the concept to create the kh-65 and improve the kh-55 inyo kh-101.
Those crap eurotrash missiles are horribly expensive an less effective than Kh-31s which have been in service since the 1980s.
The closest Russian missile to those types is probably the Kh-69 which is an evolution of the Kh-59 missile which first entered service in the 1980s too... HATO codename AS-13 and AS-18 depending on the model.
The Kh-69 is box shaped to better fit in internal weapon bays... something the Euro weapons don't need to worry about because there are no Euro aircraft with internal weapon bays in service are there? Except perhaps the useless F-35s from America.
They send the black sea fleet to the bottom including 1 kilo that cost 450 million $. Totally worth having 1 out of 15 hit such a target...
You twist the truth so naturally I would think I was talking directly to CNN or the BBC.
The kilo that got hit wasn't even in the water and it has already returned to service... talking of value for money is amazing... keep it up... it will cost Europe trillions of euros... what with money pissed down the drain by sending it to Kiev, and also those gas bills.... did you hear about the Russian gas pipeline to Iran through the Caspian Sea... did you notice it was going to carry the same amount of gas that Russia used to sell to Europe... think that is a mistake?
Europe will never again get cheap Russian gas... but it is OK because of everything that Europe is getting out of this conflict with Russia.
You are paying more for electricity and your heavy industry is moving to the US and Frances colonies are realising they were being abused by the west just like the west was abusing Russia and now they want out too.
The cost to Europe is its empires and its credibility.... pretty steep price to pay to put a hole in a Russian sub.
@TMA1 If they lost 24 of them against Ukraine you can easily calculate how much would be left after 1 week fighting hundreds of patriot, hundreds of f-15, f-22 and a thousand f-35. Su-34 is a loss of mobey and nothing else. Those gliding bombs can be launch by any jet out there.
What hundreds of Patriots? Ukraines air defences were orders of magnitude better than Europes because the C4ISTAR support they got during this three year conflict would not have existed in a conflict against HATO... the Russians would have quickly taken it out.
High intensity warfare with hundreds of ongoing fire support calls at any given moment calls for mass bomb trucks. Lightweight and LO frames with dismal availability rates can never.
Agree to a point, but the whole idea behind aircraft like the MiG-35 is that it is a numbers aircraft so lots of callouts is what they are for.
Aircraft like F-35 with poor availability rates makes things worse, but a good light fighter solves the problem better than relying on a few heavy platforms.
The Su-34 wont load up with 12 tons of ordinance and just fly around hitting targets as they are spotted and reported... it will carry four glide bombs and hit one or two or three or four targets at one time with that load of weapons and then fly back to base.
It wont wander over the battlefield waiting for targets to pop up... it might have a Kh-31 in case a radar lights them up and they can fire that at it to make it shut down...
A gross exaggeration, you are starting to sound like Ukrainian and NATzO Propagandists
He probably doesn't want to watch the Olympics and just wants to flame bait some rooskies.
The US has a shit ton of f-35,
They do have a shit ton of shit, but even the Israelis wont fly them into Syrian airspace because Syria has S-300s... what chance against S-350s and S-400s?
Russia has 140 Su-34 that can't be used as designed against Ukraine.
And that is the problem with trying to talk to children.
The Su-34 IS BEING USED AGAINST UKRAINE. It is destroying targets and doing its job.
There are the occasional losses likely to a range of different reasons, but they continue to use them against a range of targets and the new FAB-1500 and FAB-3000 bombs with glide kits seem to be especially effective in this conflict aiding a Russian victory.
But the little kids want the scrapped and banned.
They are shit and can now only be used to drop gliding bombs at safe distances.
They are shit because they use standoff weapons the way they were designed to be used.
Get a clue... Israel has been using F-35s to launch standoff weapons into Syria over the last decade because the air defences are too strong for the stealthy super F-35 gold plated plane.
Do you think Rafale will do better?
Tell Moron to send Rafales to defeat Russia the way the Abrams tanks and the Leopard II tanks will defeat the Russians....
Nato missiles are doing the job.
No they aren't. The military significance of the very few that actually reach actual targets is pathetic and the number shot down or jammed is embarrassing and you as a taxpayer should be asking your military about cost effectiveness of such useless crap and why it is being used to make energy costs in the west higher.
The HATO missiles have been pathetic. They stopped using Excalibr because it was so easily jammed and couldn't hit anything.
Not an exageration. They lost a fcking cruiser.
There is no evidence of what happened to the Moskva, it might have been a cruiser, but it hadn't been upgraded for 30 years. There is a good chance an S-300F missile might have exploded on launch and set the ship on fire.
Certainly it had nothing to do with any western missiles.
state of art sub
A 40 year old sub design that was in dry dock at the time and is now back in service.
Landing ships.
A couple of landing ships were sunk in port and were refloated...
Raptor boats.
Speed boats... the Americans call Iranian equivalents bog hammers... and which amazing western super missiles destroyed them?
Missile boats including new Karakurt.
That was a surface drone attack... a bit like the speed boat attack on the USS Cole... the same sort of threat that has led to the Mighty US Navy and UK navy and the French Navy from running away and leaving civilian shipping to its fate in the Middle East.
Rest of ships is hiding as far as possible in the eastern part.
When a threat appears it makes sense to move ships out of harms way. That is just common sense.
Total defeat for the black sea navy. Like it or not, it's the reality.
Total defeat?
So money well spent. When is the victory parade?
I wonder what your point is in comparing the aircraft production of China and USA with Russia that doesn't have anywhere near the same GDP, industry or military budget?
More importantly comparing a super expensive plane that can't even do what the Su-34 is currently doing... how many FAB-3000 glide bombs can an F-35 deliver through an enemy country equipped with S-300 and Patriot and ground launched AMRAAM and Gepard and IRIS-T... and of course covered in stingers and all sorts of other western MANPADS...
The sub and the Karakurt were only damaged and are being repaired,
Both are repaired in fact...
We are hardly seeing even Su-34 deliver more than a few bombs per sortie, roughly equivalent to what even a Su-75 could carry internally (i.e. 2x Grom + 2x KAB-250).
Would guess it would carry AAMs and air to ground weapons so probably R-74s and Groms....
They have that 300mm diameter glide bomb that can be launched on the end of a Smerch rocket... I wonder if that might represent their equivalent of the SDB that might be carried internally in greater numbers than conventional bombs?
So Su-34 ends up being used similarly to what a Su-75 would do, the later being smaller, supposedly cheaper to operate and more difficult to detect, plus having an unmanned version from the start.
The Su-34 is deep strike, it would not be used to hit targets near the front line, but if it did it would use standoff weapons like bombs with glide kits so it could be launched at say 110km away from the ground target with the rocket boosted glide bomb GROM. For heavier targets the GROM with a double warhead and not rocket motor could be used from something like 40km but equally FABs with glide kits can be used too.
The Su-75 is going to be a MiG-23 and MiG-27 type aircraft, assuming it gets accepted into service.
Means, it could come closer to the targets, means, deliver shorter ranged weapons with lower cost and higher warhead/total weight ratio.
I am not so sure it is cheaper if you get shot down. The Ukrainians have already made clear they can't defeat bombs using glide kits.
I agree that smaller lighter aircraft could deliver ordinance cheaper, but a MiG-35 is probably faster and able to fly higher than an Su-75 so in terms of glide performance you get more bang for your buck with a MIG.
The Su-34 could deliver heavier bombs but when FAB-250 and FAB-500 and even FAB-1500 bombs are being used the MiG can do the same job cheaper than the Su-34 and I suspect its more advanced self defence avionics would make it safer.
That is why it is such a great idea to have a manned and unmanned platform like LTS, which can be introduced in the fleet as manned and progressively transition to increasing proportions of unmanned airframes with the time.
I am not buying that.
The S-70 might share design structure and materials with the Su-57 but its massively simplified design should make it much cheaper than what you are essentially talking about which is just an unmanned copy of a fighter... you don't really save much money at all by removing the cockpit and seat.
I think the unmanned drones make more sense to be custom designed rather than just unmanned fighters because an unmanned aircraft can be designed to pull significantly more g and be rather more capable than an airframe designed to carry people in it.
And simplifications can make it much cheaper too.
I guess the lesson is that in order to make an actual impact on the conflict, you need insane amounts of HE on target, round the clock.
Lots of artillery to keep their heads down, but precision is important and getting better across the board.
In terms of aircraft precision is important but heavier bombs also make a lot of sense and can deal with targets lighter bombs or missiles cannot.
You could pepper concrete fortifications with 40kg artillery shells all day, but a 3,000kg bomb and the way is cleared much faster.
Even a 500kg or 1,500kg bomb is devastating when used accurately.
Because the US and the rest of NATO are potential enemies of Russia, who are already waging war with them in Ukraine.
Well having seen the performance of western MBTs do we think a direct comparison of tank numbers means anything at all?
Most western tanks were taken out by drones... their enormous weight limited their mobility. Their diverse designs means parts to fix one tank are useless to fix any of the other tanks you have. And of course those massive turret bustles filled with ammo are inviting targets for drones worth $500 bucks.
When taking about western airpower critical things you need to include their ability to make more quickly... how many could be made right now to replace losses?
The west uses aircraft for both attack and defence and so when they lose aircraft in both attack and defence you will notice they are quickly running out of aircraft... and that drastically will effect their ability to attack and defend... do you understand that?
They are thin skinned and the loss of large numbers of men and aircraft is going to have a real effect... a real negative effect.
And of course the solidarity will collapse when countries wonder why they are fighting this American war to break Russia.
Russia used to sell you cheap energy and now you are pissing away billions of Euros to sink their subs and ships and kill their men.
Money well spent?
In the event of a war, no one asks about GDP and defense spending.
The governments will have soldiers in media offices and martial law will be in effect so you don't hear what is really happening and think you are winning... finally beating the Russians... Why does the phone line squeal and then go dead when you are talking on the phone with family in major western cities?
And if NATO started using a large part of its F-35s etc in Ukraine, Russia would start a nuclear war?
If HATO sends troops into Ukraine they will be killed... sending in F-35s would get those planes shot down and the air bases they operated from hit.
It seems that the US is less and less afraid of Sarmatians and Avangards etc.
When you are dumb as **** it is easy to be brave... especially when you have your plane tickets to south America already booked...
and Russia must outfight and outproduce the current combined MIC of western nations while only spending maybe now about a hundred and twenty billion a year and with major defense industrial and commercial handicaps.
Super sanctions and the Russian economy is growing and they are winning on the battlefield and the entire west know they are going to lose and are desperately searching for a way out...
Frontline bomber means it flies above the front, enemy front. Not 40km away and launch gliding bombs. For that thry can use mig-27 or su-24. Same result but cheaper.
Su-34 is a strike aircraft and is not supposed to be used on or near the front line... that is what the A-10s and Su-25s are supposed to be doing.
The Su-34 is just a replacement for the Su-24 which is a deep strike aircraft like the F-111 and the ground attack Tornado.
BTW I remember hearing about all the super amazing technology on the Tornado... how did it do in Desert Storm hitting runways?
I seem to remember it was shit.
The anti runway munitions required the aircraft to fly low the full length of the target runway and a few were shot down rather easily.
Kept using it quite a bit after that mind you... even though it was proven to be shit.
It's more than 1 years since it doesn't enter Ukraine.
How would you know?
BTW 3,000kg bombs being shown to hit targets deep inside the Ukraine... the only aircraft that could deliver that would be the Tu-22M3 and the Su-34.
I don't think the MiG-31BM carried bombs heavier than 1.5 ton.
Kh-31 was used since the begining but seems to reach only bad results since they switched to iskander and lancet.
Again, what information are you basing your opinion on?
Sales and usage of the Kh-31 seem rather good.
Gor the low quantity delivered, they have a very good ratio in terms of target cost per missile used.
Yeah, the west dumping all its shit on Ukraine... what good friends you are.
Ukrainians are even filming the destructions of the russian black sea fleet. Every hit is recorded. It's the reality man. Sat images show where rest of the fleet is, at port and not in Crimea.
And yet grain deliveries have not resumed despite the Russian black sea fleet being defeated, and plenty of sea launched cruise missiles hitting targets right across the Ukraine... magic I guess.
Some people claim they have more like 70 km range. It depends on the specific bomb and glide kit you are talking about.
The altitude and speed of release is rather critical too, but even 40km is a decent buffer from any air defence system.
Buk-M3 has 70 km range, not more than 75 km and both Patriot PAC 2 and Samp/t have over 100 km range.
The direction they approach the target can be varied depending on intel at the time and after release the aircraft can drop down to very low altitude and high speed to leave the area quickly.
It can also use support from other platforms in case missiles are launched in its direction to evade interception.