Interesting post. I would say however that the lesson of the Ukraine war, in this regard, is that fighter jets are just very constrained nowadays by SAMs. We see even Kiev's old S-300s are still super dangerous, wouldn't they still be super dangerous to the most advanced fighters? If the USA were fighting a country with ample S-300s, would they dare deploy the F-22 or F-35? Obviously we now see that Russia badly under-invested in the military, but wasn't it better to prioritize S-400 and S-500? and the new generation of missiles (Kinzhal, Zirkon &c.)?
I think that was Khrushchev’s belief (as mentioned in my comment below) he took significant resources away from the development of new combat aircraft and gave it to the design bureau’s developing missiles (most famously Korolevs OKB-1 (most famous for the R-7), Chelomei’s OKB-52 (probably most famous for the UR-100 but could also be UR-500), and Yangels OKB-586 (not sure what he’s more known for: the R-14 because of its role in the Cuban missile crisis, or the R-36, which gave the USSR first strike advantage and was an overall masterpiece of engineering)) but history seems to remember that as a mistake. Especially because aircraft’s play a huge role in smaller scale conflicts; just look at Afghanistan or Syria. Missiles are great, but they’re very expensive, especially when being volleyed in large numbers with conventional warheads against small targets. They’re much more potent when used in tandem with other technologies, including aviation. In the case of the Kinzhal, I agree. Zircon is an absolute technical marvel & it’s quite frankly shocking how little it is mentioned, especially because it is powered by the only fully operational (not in testing) scramjet in the world (I really hope it’s engineers write memoirs one day like Chertok did) but I can’t imagine it would be economically feasible for it to replace the role of aviation in combat (unless Russia is centuries rather than decades or even years ahead of the rest of the world and have found a way to mass produce scramjets for cheap). Not to mention, hypersonic missiles have an odd weakness: the stealth plasma that helps make it so invincible also prevent it from sending and receiving signals from satellites, nor active radar homing. And while intertidal guidance systems have their advantages, they cannot be course corrected and they do suffer from some accumulating errors over time due to minor inaccuracies in the accelerometers and gyroscopes, which can decrease their accuracy. Aviation is definitely still relevant.
All great points. I think the key question is: "can you fly a 5th gen fighter over an area infested with S-300s".
I'm not qualified to say, but my hunch is that it's not a great idea, that the 5th gen plane will suffer similar casualties compared with an updated 4th gen
That's certainly been the case with tanks on the battlefield--due to the rapidity with which armor of all ages is deleted with proper artillery strikes, "how many tanks can you bring to field" has proven to be a more important question than "how advanced are your tanks." Obviously planes are not armor and the considerations are rather different, but it's possible that in both cases missiles reduce it to a numbers game.
“The first country to have started a 5th generation program were the United States…”
Had the above been written prior to 1865, it would have been grammatically correct. Post American Civil War, we refer to the United States in the singular in English.
It went from a loose band of states to a banded state. You can see the persistence of the traditional plural treatment of "the United States" in the 13th Amendment, ratified at war's end in 1865:
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
1. The Eurofighter Typhoon's shape has some resemblance to the 1.42/1.44 prototype?
2. Credit where credit is due. In the current conflict, the RUAF did its part together with SAM's, to remove the majority of UA air force from the board. What remains with partial replenishment by NATO, is confined to area-denial work in the rear and low altitude harrassment at the front.
3. The other Mig, #31, was quite successful with the absurd range enhancement its missiles receive from the speed and altitude. But it hasn't faced the full threat it may do someday.
4. Pretty much every complex weapon designed for a 40 year service life in worldwide use conditions, is going to be the wrong fit in a big war. Big wars need stuff that is potent and quick to build at the same time. US burned through 1000 aircraft a year in Vietnam (without running out). UA supposedly at a rate of 300+ per year, but it could not go full effort for a full year due to lack of planes. Those 1000 F-35's may well be gone in under two years of high intensity combat against a capable opponent.
5. So this returns to the Mig-29 or its modernized derivative, Mig-35. Cheap and high performance.
Is the impact of Khrushchev’s neglect of combat aircraft development in favor of allocating more resources to developing missiles still noticeable in the Russian military industrial complex today? Or were those issues largely resolved during Brezhnev’s era (with the introduction of the MiG-29 & Su-27)? I read a little about it when reading Boris Chertoks, Sergei Korolevs (and later Mishins) deputy at OKB-1, memoirs “Rockets and People” (can’t remember if volume 2 or 3) but he mainly talked about it from the perspective of how it impacted the development of rockets and missiles so I don’t know how big of an impact it really had on the trajectory of Soviet Aviation R&D
Side note: I’m less of an AvGeek than I am a aerospace geek, but I gotta say, I really love the history of Soviet Aviation in the mid-to-late 20’s and 30’s. Tupelov’s TB-1 and TB-3 have a special place in my heart for some reason.
I don't say anything about Russian aircraft, except to say that if the Flanker platform still bears fruit today, something must have been done very well! The US only recently became aware of the fraud of its "stealths" - but I'm go already there - and when they thought of modernizing some F-15s that they needed very urgently given the delay of new fighterjets in the last decades to renew the old fleet that on average already required 10 to 50 hours of maintenance for each hour of flight, realizing that structurally no F-15 had the capacity for any modernization. It was then that they ordered a few dozen F-15s from a Boieng production line somewhere in the Middle East. The oldest fighter still in production anywhere in the world today. Such is the evolution of fightersjets in the US!
About the F-22, I'm just to say that no product of any value left the production line so quickly. It didn't even heat up. Another thing are the fantasies that are created! In Hollywood it has always been good for the aura to die young! And the same with the F-35, which also began to suffer cuts in orders early! I'd say it's already lucky when it can get up. Despite the fact that the US reports every day that there is nothing like it in the skies. Not even at the bottom of the China Sea! It seems that even the software is stealthy. In short, yet another US MIC scandal to be foisted abroad overpriced because the oligarchs have to keep making a lot of money. In Australia the order was placed without studying any competitor. They still relegated the F-35 to an uncomfortable place. Which in turn is producing another scandal. After all, Australia is not the USA's shithole in Atlantic. Just for submarines. Will see!
F-22 RAPTOR, the last expensive wunderwaffe strictly for hunting weather balloons:
It is an interesting question, and a great article. MiG is apparently going to release an interceptor to replace the MiG-31 at some point, but that's probably going to be revealed in the latter part of the decade at best. It does seem that the administrative woes are the worst part of the RuAF though, as opposed to aircraft quality. We read of the R-37 and R-77 missiles terrorizing Ukrainian craft from ranges outside of their own, yet most Russian aircraft losses seem to be strike aircraft (Su-24/25/34) or due to friendly fire.
Interesting post. I would say however that the lesson of the Ukraine war, in this regard, is that fighter jets are just very constrained nowadays by SAMs. We see even Kiev's old S-300s are still super dangerous, wouldn't they still be super dangerous to the most advanced fighters? If the USA were fighting a country with ample S-300s, would they dare deploy the F-22 or F-35? Obviously we now see that Russia badly under-invested in the military, but wasn't it better to prioritize S-400 and S-500? and the new generation of missiles (Kinzhal, Zirkon &c.)?
I think that was Khrushchev’s belief (as mentioned in my comment below) he took significant resources away from the development of new combat aircraft and gave it to the design bureau’s developing missiles (most famously Korolevs OKB-1 (most famous for the R-7), Chelomei’s OKB-52 (probably most famous for the UR-100 but could also be UR-500), and Yangels OKB-586 (not sure what he’s more known for: the R-14 because of its role in the Cuban missile crisis, or the R-36, which gave the USSR first strike advantage and was an overall masterpiece of engineering)) but history seems to remember that as a mistake. Especially because aircraft’s play a huge role in smaller scale conflicts; just look at Afghanistan or Syria. Missiles are great, but they’re very expensive, especially when being volleyed in large numbers with conventional warheads against small targets. They’re much more potent when used in tandem with other technologies, including aviation. In the case of the Kinzhal, I agree. Zircon is an absolute technical marvel & it’s quite frankly shocking how little it is mentioned, especially because it is powered by the only fully operational (not in testing) scramjet in the world (I really hope it’s engineers write memoirs one day like Chertok did) but I can’t imagine it would be economically feasible for it to replace the role of aviation in combat (unless Russia is centuries rather than decades or even years ahead of the rest of the world and have found a way to mass produce scramjets for cheap). Not to mention, hypersonic missiles have an odd weakness: the stealth plasma that helps make it so invincible also prevent it from sending and receiving signals from satellites, nor active radar homing. And while intertidal guidance systems have their advantages, they cannot be course corrected and they do suffer from some accumulating errors over time due to minor inaccuracies in the accelerometers and gyroscopes, which can decrease their accuracy. Aviation is definitely still relevant.
All great points. I think the key question is: "can you fly a 5th gen fighter over an area infested with S-300s".
I'm not qualified to say, but my hunch is that it's not a great idea, that the 5th gen plane will suffer similar casualties compared with an updated 4th gen
That's certainly been the case with tanks on the battlefield--due to the rapidity with which armor of all ages is deleted with proper artillery strikes, "how many tanks can you bring to field" has proven to be a more important question than "how advanced are your tanks." Obviously planes are not armor and the considerations are rather different, but it's possible that in both cases missiles reduce it to a numbers game.
“The first country to have started a 5th generation program were the United States…”
Had the above been written prior to 1865, it would have been grammatically correct. Post American Civil War, we refer to the United States in the singular in English.
It went from a loose band of states to a banded state. You can see the persistence of the traditional plural treatment of "the United States" in the 13th Amendment, ratified at war's end in 1865:
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
Great article by the way.
Good stuff. Some thoughts:
1. The Eurofighter Typhoon's shape has some resemblance to the 1.42/1.44 prototype?
2. Credit where credit is due. In the current conflict, the RUAF did its part together with SAM's, to remove the majority of UA air force from the board. What remains with partial replenishment by NATO, is confined to area-denial work in the rear and low altitude harrassment at the front.
3. The other Mig, #31, was quite successful with the absurd range enhancement its missiles receive from the speed and altitude. But it hasn't faced the full threat it may do someday.
4. Pretty much every complex weapon designed for a 40 year service life in worldwide use conditions, is going to be the wrong fit in a big war. Big wars need stuff that is potent and quick to build at the same time. US burned through 1000 aircraft a year in Vietnam (without running out). UA supposedly at a rate of 300+ per year, but it could not go full effort for a full year due to lack of planes. Those 1000 F-35's may well be gone in under two years of high intensity combat against a capable opponent.
5. So this returns to the Mig-29 or its modernized derivative, Mig-35. Cheap and high performance.
Is the impact of Khrushchev’s neglect of combat aircraft development in favor of allocating more resources to developing missiles still noticeable in the Russian military industrial complex today? Or were those issues largely resolved during Brezhnev’s era (with the introduction of the MiG-29 & Su-27)? I read a little about it when reading Boris Chertoks, Sergei Korolevs (and later Mishins) deputy at OKB-1, memoirs “Rockets and People” (can’t remember if volume 2 or 3) but he mainly talked about it from the perspective of how it impacted the development of rockets and missiles so I don’t know how big of an impact it really had on the trajectory of Soviet Aviation R&D
Side note: I’m less of an AvGeek than I am a aerospace geek, but I gotta say, I really love the history of Soviet Aviation in the mid-to-late 20’s and 30’s. Tupelov’s TB-1 and TB-3 have a special place in my heart for some reason.
I'm Russian-American, my grandparents left there in 1905. I podcast & write, here's something I wrote: https://www.buffalorising.com/2021/09/natural-niagara-falls/
My great grandfather was a Russian general with a wooden leg. Please come on my show, thanks. andyz7@verizon.net
I don't say anything about Russian aircraft, except to say that if the Flanker platform still bears fruit today, something must have been done very well! The US only recently became aware of the fraud of its "stealths" - but I'm go already there - and when they thought of modernizing some F-15s that they needed very urgently given the delay of new fighterjets in the last decades to renew the old fleet that on average already required 10 to 50 hours of maintenance for each hour of flight, realizing that structurally no F-15 had the capacity for any modernization. It was then that they ordered a few dozen F-15s from a Boieng production line somewhere in the Middle East. The oldest fighter still in production anywhere in the world today. Such is the evolution of fightersjets in the US!
About the F-22, I'm just to say that no product of any value left the production line so quickly. It didn't even heat up. Another thing are the fantasies that are created! In Hollywood it has always been good for the aura to die young! And the same with the F-35, which also began to suffer cuts in orders early! I'd say it's already lucky when it can get up. Despite the fact that the US reports every day that there is nothing like it in the skies. Not even at the bottom of the China Sea! It seems that even the software is stealthy. In short, yet another US MIC scandal to be foisted abroad overpriced because the oligarchs have to keep making a lot of money. In Australia the order was placed without studying any competitor. They still relegated the F-35 to an uncomfortable place. Which in turn is producing another scandal. After all, Australia is not the USA's shithole in Atlantic. Just for submarines. Will see!
F-22 RAPTOR, the last expensive wunderwaffe strictly for hunting weather balloons:
https://youtu.be/KaoYz90giTk
Excellent post . Thanks for this. May I quote you on my newsletter? Here. https://open.substack.com/pub/julianmacfarlane
Your information should be useful for me in upcoming articles.
It is an interesting question, and a great article. MiG is apparently going to release an interceptor to replace the MiG-31 at some point, but that's probably going to be revealed in the latter part of the decade at best. It does seem that the administrative woes are the worst part of the RuAF though, as opposed to aircraft quality. We read of the R-37 and R-77 missiles terrorizing Ukrainian craft from ranges outside of their own, yet most Russian aircraft losses seem to be strike aircraft (Su-24/25/34) or due to friendly fire.