Russian bombers are routinely intercepted by US and Canadian planes along the Northern border.

No surprise to see them flying near aircraft carriers.

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"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. " — John Stuart Mill

Recent photo of superdoopersecret Russian jet....

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"When I'm in command, every mission is a suicide mission!" -Capt. Zapp Branigan
The United Church of the Latter Day Tangential Tarts

..a Russian plane :



and this is an American Craptor :

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EU : Portable Stereo AM/FM Radio Cassette Recorder
CIS (Russia) : АМ/ЧМ Stereo Magnitola
US : Boombox (Ghettoblaster)

Apparently the Russians themselves dont think it is worth producing. So why should we be worried about it?

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I don't see how the F22 is a piece of crap from what you have shown

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Yeah it isn't a plane the Russians intend to use. Though maybe the Saudi's or someone will pick them up. Continuing the trend of the best Russian planes not being flown by Russia (I believe the Indian's Su-30 varient is better than the Russian ones though I'm not sure).

As for the F-22 I think it might give the Su-37 a spanking even without the avionics and stealth factored in. It's thrust vectoring is over a wider range than the 37 and it has a higher thrust/weight ratio.

However since stealth and avionics are probably far more important in actual air combat an actual match up would be a route.

Though to be fair the 37 isn't meant to be an air superiority fighter. Rather it's a multi-role craft.

What exactly does the SU-37 have that would prevent it from being detected, locked, and hit by an F-22 at BVR ranges? Grond still has not answered that.

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I definitely do not think the SU-37 is a piece of crаp btw...it is probably superior to any European fighter, and certainly superior to anything made by China. It's vector engines can operate independently unlike the F-22, so it is likely it is more manuverable.

But the lack of stealth is a critical weakness in modern warfare. Modern warfare is BVR. Dogfighting is a relec of the 70s.

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I wouldn't count dogfighting out yet. There are a number of ways it can come back.

The first one that we'd be likely to face is requiring target confirmation before being able to fire. In regional conflicts you often can't fire a missile off at any blip on your radar.

Next you could have planes coming upon each other suddenly at close range. Such as when flying low over hilly terrain.

Also if planes are able to avoid the first missile or counter with their own BVR missile forcing the first plane to break before their missile gets into range of its own systems you could get planes in close.

Though with modern missiles I don't think dogfighting in any of these cases would be like in top gun. It sounds like it'd be more like a small number of manuvers.

Of course the point of the F-22 is that it could guide it's BVR missile into independent tracking range before the other plane could get a lock.

The AESA radar the F-22 is equipped with allows it to maintain its own reduced RCS while still allowing it to lock onto enemy planes.

But even if it didnt: F-22s are also capable of networking with each other, allowing one to "spot" for others. Since any one F-22 can lock many targets simultaneously (AESA again), in effect you could have only a single F-22 locking for a dozen other F-22s that can remain out of range behind it. F-22s that are out of range can still "lock" as if they were in range...never putting themselves at risk.

Dogfighting would not be able to counter such tactics. That being said, I am definitely a proponent of arming American fighters for a dogfight as a last resort. But realistically, BVR is what the vast majority of air battles are going to be BVR, and that is what fighter designs should be based on.

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