US vs Russian fighter jets (latest gen)

I have been reading a bit about the Su - 27 family. It seems that the latest planes (SU-35S and SU-34, among others) are at least at technological parity if not superior to most anything in our (US) inventory. I saw a bunch of references by Russian sources to victories of SU family against F-15 and F-22 in mock air combat. Are there any open source US publications that deal with mock air combat? I wonder how F-35 would compare to SU-35S as well.

According to unbiased Russian sources, most of the avionics are currently a generation behind their Western counterparts, with the exception of the ECM systems, as are most of their weapons systems.

I would not expect them to be a match for even 4.5 gen Western fighters, unless they were able to fight over their own territory and enjoy the support of the latest ground based Russian air defense and support systems.

I would be suspect of any source claiming to know how things turned out in mock combat between the latest gen jets. The US and Russian governments probably don't know exactly how it would work out, so it's a good guess that no one else knows. I'm not sure that they've been in the same airspace at the same time that much, and if they were, it was probably a fairly controlled environment, such as action in Syria or interceptions over international waters, and neither would be using their full capabilities then.

Generally speaking, those that know, don't talk and those that talk don't know.

I get a nice warm feeling whenever a non-US government touts how they beat US equipment in an exercise; they're doing it wrong, which I wholeheartedly encourage them to do.

US ran exercises against an opposing force (OPFOR) is always designed in such a way that we get our butts kicked by our enemies...or at best simply hold our own. It's all about exposing our weaknesses, not about showing our strengths.

From Top Gun school with fighters to the National Training Center with tanks and grunts, we're always shown the door with our hats in our hands and and a smirky "sorry 'bout the whipping, but you deserved it" after action review.

We'll go so far as to hobble the BLUFOR to ensure defeat, "killing" leaders, removing technology "you've been jammed," to artificially holding up units so they aren't timely to the battlefield.

This is why whenever some exercise we've ran has it's results leaked and it's all gloom and doom on how the USA has lost it's edge I laugh and snort. That's how we run those things.

Similarly, China recently announced that they could track F-22s. My thinking was that if they really could, they wouldn't announce it so that they could use that advantage when necessary. Announcing it would only make the US figure out how they are doing it and fix it, so it was either a dumb idea to announce it, or maybe they can't really do it and it's all for show.

Exactly, Arthonon, on both posts.

When I hear about these things my thoughts go back to the late 1970's. We were just about to make the B-1 operational when the Soviet Union announced that it had an interceptor that could make it completely useless. Jimmy Carter cancelled the bomber outright. A few years later it was learned that it was a big hoax meant to prompt exactly that reaction.

The Russian military is faced with the situation where its necessary to rob Pyotr to pay Pavel, if they hurried up and modernized the Flanker derivatives enough to make them truly competitive then they wouldn't be able to fund their next generation fighter programs like SU-57 and MiG-41.

To my knowledge no modern Russian fighter has ever done "mock combat" against either the F-22 or F-35 - somebody correct me if I'm wrong...

Even if they had a 100% perfect simulation of our fighters AND the software within them there'd still be the matter of tactics and training - I highly doubt they've obtained anywhere near all of that...

The F-35 technically doesn't even belong in that kind of conversation, it's not designed to be an air superiority fighter. But I bet it'd hold it's own against anything else nonetheless, short of an F-22...

The F-22 (and some of the Russian fighters) can do some tricks in the air the F-35 can't, but I don't think I've ever seen any fighter whip around as violently as the F-35. I remember thinking before I first saw one fly "#%&*$#, I wish the F-22 was here today, but the F-35 will probably be nearly as impressive".

I was wrong, in some ways it was MORE impressive than the Raptor.

Missile and avionics technology is behind the US, Europe and is being surpassed in some ways by the Chinese. My understanding is the current generation of air to air missiles built by the Chinese is superior to their Russian counter parts. I read something recently about the PLAAF finding my errors in the Su-30s than the Russian Air Force because the pilots are getting more flight time. That as well as a lot more money to throw around means Russia will likely be falling behind as time goes on.

I also recall a day when the US was worried that the MiG-29 was a serious, perhaps impressive threat -- that clearly was a joke -- both in terms of its success record, and the analysis results when they actually flew some German ones...

To be sure, "past success, doesn't guarantee future results", but history seems to bear out that taking Russian government commentaries with a significant dose of salt is usually much more accurate than believing their press releases...

(Just one guy's opinion)

Regards,
4 ~S!~

+1

China GDP in 2017: 12.25 trillion
Russia GDP in 2017: 1.58 trillion



It's no competition AT ALL.

The state of Texas alone has a higher GDP than Russia.

The Russian GDP is misleading, as not only is the currency hugely undervalued, but it doesn't reflect the moving around of vast amounts of unsustainably borrowed money, as is the case with its competitors.

In terms of PPP its the 6th largest economy in the world, right behind Germany.

Yeah, on the face of it that's still not particularly impressive for their size and population, but when you consider that they're still recovering from a national collapse and decades of underinvestment in their civilian sector, its not too bad.

Plus the Russians could still glass the planet several times over. Not a trifle adversary. And they are typically unorthodox thinkers, so their tactics may be unpredictable, and they tend to be very crafty.

I'm more worried about China. Short game, we could beat them, but long game, not a chance. We're toast.

"He who controls the resources and production wins the war."

Save for a Hail Hary. But these days, a Hail Mary means nukes. There goes the planet.