More than a year has passed since the first publication of this post. During this time, I learned a lot about myself and listened to a certain number of "flattering and witty" reviews. Fortunately, there were many constructs among them, thanks to which I corrected the data on the quantitative composition of aviation. Our and incredible ally.
But before moving on to the post itself, I want to say the following:
A) In modern warfare, there are no single "ubercraft" capable of destroying everyone and everything. War is multimodal mutual destruction. It involves aviation, air defense, motorized infantry, reconnaissance, artillery, etc. Even more space is given to the will of chance, combat coordination, weather conditions, and the morale of the troops. Therefore, there is not and will not be such a situation when the F-35 will fight only with the Su-35S or FA, and everything else will not interest him. “And everything else” will not be interested in the F-35. There are no autonomous individual duels in the air. There are opportunities to shoot down someone, to bomb someone, to fight off someone, to get away from something.
B) I do not care about the quantitative composition of the US fighter and strike aircraft. The reasons are as follows: 1) between us and the US it is only possible to exchange MRNUs with subsequent attacks by "strategists", if, of course, by that time something remains; 2) The United States will not be able to concentrate such a number of aviation at our border. Aircraft carriers only carry certain types of aircraft. You also have to swim without incident. Suitable airfields in Europe, located within the combat radius of their aircraft, may simply not be enough to accommodate such a number of machines. Do not forget about "gifts with surprises" from our OTRK (mb, with TNW), army intelligence and, possibly, ICBMs. What these "fields" will turn into, I think, is clear. Plus, there is an acute issue of supplying and securing all this pornography technology.
Let's start. For those who value their time, I give my conclusions at the very beginning:
1) The US Air Force is outnumbered by the Russian Air Force in the overall quantitative ratio by about 4 times. And 2 times in the number of combat aircraft in operation;
2) the trend for the next 5-7 years is the overhaul of the Russian aviation fleet;
3) PR, advertising and psychological warfare are a favorite and effective method of US warfare. An adversary who is psychologically defeated (by disbelief in the strength of his weapons, leadership, etc.) is already half defeated.
So, let's begin.
The US Air Force / Navy / Guard is the most powerful aircraft in the world
Yes this is true. The total number of US aviation in 2013 amounted to 2,960 (1,593 in service) fighters, 162 (95) bombers, 424 (255) attack aircraft, 1,795 tankers and transports, and more than 1,100 trainers. In total ~ 8,250 cars.
For comparison: the total strength of the RF Air Force as of May 2013 is 897 (760) fighters, 321 (88) bomber, 329 (153) attack aircraft, 372 transport aircraft, 18 tankers, 200 training aircraft. In total ~ 2 200 cars.
However, there are nuances, the main of which is that US aviation is aging, and its replacement is late.
Let me explain what I mean by "obsolescence". If you look at the table, you will see that the F-15/16 accounts for just over 50% of the entire US aircraft fleet. These were good aircraft for their time, but even then they were inferior to our MiG-29 and Su-27 in a number of indicators (especially from the point of view of operation in front-line conditions), which greatly "puzzled" our American colleagues.
What do we see now? Our country 20 years ago took the path of democracy and capitalism with the Su-27 and MiG-29. Thanks to a competent export policy, the vehicles were able to survive and then increase their potential to the Su-35S and MiG-35. Those. engineers and designers did not have to build aircraft from scratch. Of course, any letter in the index can mean that we have a completely different car that is many times superior to its predecessor. But the gliders of the MiG-29SMT and the Su-27SM3 or Su-35S remained the same. And these are completely different costs.
And what about the United States? They got into the crisis with the discontinued F-22 (completely new car) and the unfinished F-35 (completely new car), as well as a massive fleet of good but outdated F-15 / 16s. I lead my delirium to the fact that at the moment the United States does not have a relatively cheap backlog, which would allow them to maintain a quantitative (and in some ways, qualitative) superiority over the Russian Federation without multibillion-dollar investments in new developments. In 5-7 years they will have to write off about 450-500 F-15/16, and by that time we will have about 250 new Su-27SM and SM3, 64 MiG-29SMT, 96 Su-35S and 60 Su-30SM.
That is the aircraft fleet of the Russian Federation over the next 5-7 years will be actively modernized … Including through the creation of completely new aircraft. At the moment, until 2020, contracts for production / modernization have been concluded:
MiG-31BM - 100 units;
Su-27SM - 96 units;
Su-27SM3 - 12 units;
Su-35S - 95 units;
Su-30SM - 60 units;
Su-30M2 - 4 units;
MiG-29SMT - 50 units;
MiG-29K - 24 units;
MiG-35 - 37 units. (?);
Su-34 - 124 (184) units;
FA - 60 units;
Il-476 - 100 units;
An-124-100M - 42 units;
A-50U - 20 units;
Tu-95MSM - 20 units;
Yak-130 - 65 units
In fact, by 2020 a little more 850 new cars.
For the sake of fairness, I note that Carthage should be destroyed by the United States in 2001, it was planned to purchase about 2,400 F-35s by 2020. However, at the moment, all deadlines have been disrupted, and the adoption of the aircraft has been postponed until mid-2015. In total, the United States currently has 63 Lightning 2s.
We have only a few 4 ++ planes and no 5th generation, while the United States already has hundreds of them
Yes, that's right, the United States is armed with 141 F-22A. We have 48 Su-35S. PAK-FA is undergoing flight tests. But you need to consider:
A) F-22 airplanes were discontinued due to 1) high cost (280-300 US dollars versus 85-95 for the Su-35S); 2) stocks with a tail unit (fell apart during overloads); 3) glitches with the LMS (fire control system); 4) the absence of a threat for the United States from someone's aviation (we will fight the strategic nuclear forces with them), problems with ventilation and the inability to sell it to anyone.
B) The F-35, with all its PR, is very far from the 5th generation.… Yes, and there are enough jambs: either the EDSU will fail, then the glider will break, then the OMS lags.
C) By 2020, the troops will receive: Su-35S - 150 units, FA - 60 units.
D) Comparison of individual aircraft outside the context of their combat use is incorrect. Combat operations are highly intense and multimodal mutual destruction, where a lot depends on the specific topography, weather conditions, luck, skill, coherence, morale, etc. Individual units do not solve anything. On paper, an ordinary ATGM will tear apart any modern tank, but in combat conditions everything is much more prosaic.
Their 5th generation is many times superior to our FA and Su-35S
This is a very bold statement.
A) To begin with, the F-22 was created to combat our Su-27 and MiG-31. And it was quite a long time ago. The FA is being created for confrontation with the 4th generation, which it will meet in Europe, and with the F-35, which by its parameters is far from the most formidable "ufolet".
B) If the F-22 and F-35 are so cool, why are they: 1) Are they hiding so carefully? 2) Why are they not allowed to make EPR measurements? 3) Why are they not satisfied with demonstration dogfights or at least simple comparative maneuvering, as at air shows?
C) If we compare the flight characteristics of our and American vehicles, then we can find a lag in our aircraft only in EPR (for the Su-35S) and detection range (20-30 km). 20-30 km in range is not so critical for the simple reason that the missiles that we have surpass the US AIM-54, AIM-152AAAM in range by 80-120 km. I'm talking about RVV BD, KS-172, R-37. So, if the F-35 or F-22 radar has a better range against unobtrusive targets, then what will they shoot down this target? And where is the guarantee that the "contact" will not fly "low-low", hiding in the folds of the terrain?
C) There is nothing universal in military affairs. There are multipurpose aircraft capable of both working on air targets and on the ground, depending on the armament. An attempt to create a universal aircraft capable of performing the functions of an interceptor, bomber, fighter and attack aircraft, leads to the fact that the universal becomes synonymous with the word mediocre. War recognizes only the best in its class, sharpened for specific tasks. Therefore, if it is an attack aircraft, then it is a Su-25SM, if a front-line bomber is a Su-34, if an interceptor is a MiG-31BM, if a fighter is a Su-35S.
And even more so the F-22 is not a universal aircraft. It was created to gain air supremacy. To destroy the Su-27 and MiG-31, which posed a considerable danger to the American strategic and attack aircraft. Its main task is airspace control. And in this category, the development of aircraft is subject to a single slogan - "not a gram (not a pound) on the ground." So there is no need to talk about any "superpowers" of the F-22.
D) War is not a comparison of who has a longer spear. More importantly, who will have these spears better in terms of price / quality / quantity. Our potential friend's planes cost a lot of money, and I don't even want to remember how much they spent on R&D: $ 400 billion for the F-35 (and the program has not yet been completed) and $ 50 billion for the F-22. For comparison, at FA we plan to "lime" $ 10 billion of budget money.
The United States has a significant superiority in strategic aviation forces
This is not true.
The US Air Force already has 95 strategic bombers: 44 B-52H, 35 B-1B and 16 B-2A. B-2 - exclusively subsonic - from nuclear weapons carries only free-fall bombs. B-52N - subsonic and old,. B-1B - is no longer a carrier of nuclear weapons (START-3). Compared to the B-1, the Tu-160 has 1.5 times the take-off weight, 1.3 times the combat radius, 1.6 times the speed and more load in the internal compartments. By 2025, we plan to commission a new strategic bomber (PAK-DA), which will replace the Tu-95 and Tu-160. The United States extended the service life of its aircraft until 2035, and the development of a new "strategist" and a new ALCM was postponed until 2030-2035.
If we compare their ALCMs (cruise missiles) with ours, then everything turns out quite interesting. AGM-86 ALCM has a range of 2400 km. Ours X-55 - 400-4500 km, and X-101 - 7000-8500 km. Those. The Tu-160 can shoot at the enemy's territory or AUG without entering the affected area, and then quietly leave in supersonic mode (for comparison, the maximum operating time at full thrust with afterburner for the F / A-18 is 10 minutes, for the 160th - 45 minutes). It also raises deep doubts about their ability to overcome the normal (not Arab-Yugoslavian) air defense system.
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Summing up, I want to note once again that modern air warfare is not individual battles in the air, but the operation of detection systems, target designation, suppression, etc. And there is no need to consider the plane (be it F-22 or FA) as a proud celestial horseman. There are a lot of all sorts of nuances around in the face of air defense, electronic warfare, ground RIRTR, weather conditions, hand flares, LTC and other joy, which will not even allow the pilot to reach the target. Therefore, there is no need to add sagas and sing hymns to single fantastic winged ships, which will bring laurels of victories to the feet of those who created them, and destroy everyone who dares to "raise a hand" against their creators.
