The Su-57 is an actual "mini AWACS" due to its side and rear facing AESA radars?
>>65216751no
I'm sure that it works exactly as well as it's on paper stats would suggest.
>>65216760Russia - the country where the only reason they have their only 5th gen in more active service than ever before because they're running out of other stuff to feed to the grinder.
>>65216751The L-band on the leading edges only has two rows of T/R modules on the array. You can't steer a beam up and down worth a damn with just two vertical rows, it's clearly not a search or track radar.
Yeah
>>65216789>it's clearly not a search or track radar.So why have it? Having a wide scan area early warning radar on a 'stealth' aircraft is self-defeating.
>>65216751even an F-35 isn't a "mini AWACS", that was always some stupid marketing fluffthe amount of power and transceiver modules that a full-sized AWACS carries just can't be beat by these much-smaller fighter jetsbesides, it's the network links that makes American aircraft a "mini AWACS", and Russians don't do that gay shit
>>65217782because it isnt a stealth aircraft, it's a 4th gen with a big ass radar array. probably for the best, since Russian datalinks suck hella dong. In a nato vs russian air combat situation, any russian gci (since their a50 fleet is gone) will be having their receiver amplifier modules' backs blown out by fat jammer cock.
>>65217782>So why have it?To increase RCS if the wings leading edge.
>>65217806The F-35 cheats by networking with actual AWACs and letting them process the data, basically.
>>65217782Because it's most likely used for another purpose. EW/RWR/IFF/Synthetic Aperture Radar are all valid uses for a wide beam. But for air-to-air target discrimination you can't get away with such a sorry-ass array on that wavelength.In the end it's not a bad idea per se, but vatniks and Russiaboos hyped this shit as a stealth-killer "no analogovnet, blyat".>>65218919You can't cheat physics.What makes the F-35 a cheat is that helicopter carriers can't catapult E-2 Hawkeyes off the deck and recover them with a hook, so nations that don't operate big boy carriers and replaced their ageing Harriers with F-35Bs got a huge upgrade in capabilities.
>>65220017you can relocate the data source capture and extend the range of your network significantly.
>>65220190Drones will be doing that over planes in future conflicts
>>65220215I forgot it's pride month, because ordinarily that'd be fucking gay.
still funny
>>65216751I am suspect of anything Russia puts out, especially when it comes to their radars considering they still buy into the whole stealth defeating radar shit.
>>65220507Me gusta
>>65216757fpbp
>>65217859>since their a50 fleet is gonewait did ukraine already destroy all of themaw man i keep missing cool stuff with all the shitty slide threads
>>65216751According to the Russians, yes. They've also claimed that it's a 5th generation stealth fighter that's been tested in combat and is in serial production. Draw your own conclusions.
>>65218919The F35 is a sensor node and can assign targets to other units in the network, but that's not the same as being a "mini AWACS">>65220017>got a huge upgrade in capabilities.Still doesn't make it an AWACS anymore than a coastwatcher with binocs and a radio is a "mini AWACS" just because he calls in a target
>>65221051>wait did ukraine already destroy all of themno. Russia only managed to produce 42 over a 14 year period before the SU collapsed and had a total of 8 A50Us active before the war began. At the very minimum, Russia has 4 active A50s in their inventory while the potential maximum is 6. 2 were shot down over the Sea of Azov in 2024, another was damaged on the ground by Belarusian partisans back in 2023, 2 others were damaged in Operation Spiderweb (though we don't know if those were active airframes or if they were mothballed soviet-built basic bitch A50s used for spare parts), and the facility that maintains the A50s was attacked and damaged in 2024. And with how bad Russia's aviation industry is doing these days, I doubt that they are able to repair any of the damaged airframes while also upgrading the existing A50 airframes to the A50U standard
>>65221177>I doubt that they are able to repair any of the damaged airframes while also upgrading the existing A50 airframes to the A50U standardCould if they swallow their pride and chinese cocklets, and buy in some chink electronicsRadar parts seems to have been the main hangup for the A50 programme
>>65221190radar, money, various spare parts, inability to not fuckover russian taxpayers by pocketing money and asking for more
>>65221159>>65220017Hence, cheating. Having an F-35 in an area can give you very AWAC-like benefits despite the F-35 not being an AWACs.
>>65221177It’s not even about airframes, they lost a huge amount of their trained crewmen in those two SAM shoot downs. You can’t run a Cold War era AWACs system with cadets
>>65221811yeah I get what you're saying, I just object to the phrase "mini AWACS"because AWACS is so much more than simply "big fuckoff radar in the sky", having dedicated intercept controllers and deconfliction managers on board makes a huge difference that even the F-35's networking cannot compare with
>>65221190>Could if they swallow their pride and chinese cocklets, and buy in some chink electronicschinks aren't selling and chink electronics aren't readily fit to be used in an AWACS, not without a basically clean sheet redesign program russians cannot afford.that's why russians are so keen on smuggling Texas Instruments chips despite all the costs and sanctions and their defense sector deathly depends on them and has been since soviet times.
>>65221818They've had plenty of time to train replacement crews. If there was an operational gap stemming from lack of trained crew it's been long plugged. It's not a problem as long as the institutional knowledge is preserved. Russia has bigger problems related to training, like the whole system being dysfunctional enough to send trained specialists to their pointless deaths as infantry because recruiting targets can't be reached otherwise.The limiting factor for out-of-production aircraft is maintenance and repairs. Having dozens of airframes doesn't help when the operational fleet has been kept going at minimal expense and every other unit has been neglected since the soviet union fell.
>>65221837Fair. The Mini- prefix was doing a lot of work.
>>65221869Sounds like a Brain Drain issue. What little talent Russia has is moving on to nicer places to live.
>>65216751>The Su-57 is capourwareFTFY
>>65216757anyone who posts anything else after this (except me of course) is the big dum and gay too
