Su-30: News and Discussion

sum · Post by **sum** » 18 Sep 2008 16:10

.I wonder if our UAVs have been configured to launch hellfires and take out Jehadi Camps.

AFAIK,no...but, with yindoo-yahudi bhaichara at all time high, one never knows

Guess, Unkil might have (atleast hope so) given the wink to go ahead with our own "insertions" from the back(eastern border) as Unkil "inserts" from the front(read: western border)...

Anshul · Post by **Anshul** » 18 Sep 2008 16:19

Well..this may well boil down to just a show of force.Being an election year and riding on the NSG success wave....this may be an aggressive posture adopted apart from cancellation of visas for their hockey team.This government does not have the b***s to do anything anti minority.Sorry for that tangent.Imagine feeding and grooming a bull dog ....a german sheperd and a doberman...!But keeping them locked while your house is being raided by burglars.

Just because the burglar is your brother-in-law and your wife won't allow you to hurt him....just my thoughts..

Anshul · Post by **Anshul** » 18 Sep 2008 17:29

sum wrote:
.I wonder if our UAVs have been configured to launch hellfires and take out Jehadi Camps.
AFAIK,no...but, with yindoo-yahudi bhaichara at all time high, one never knows

Guess, Unkil might have (atleast hope so) given the wink to go ahead with our own "insertions" from the back(eastern border) as Unkil "inserts" from the front(read: western border)...

Good One Sum.Underlines the relevance of Vatsyayana in Modern Combat.The College of Combat may do well to include Kama Sutra in their curriculum.

fanne · Post by **fanne** » 18 Sep 2008 17:52

This question keeps on coming up and I guess there has been no satisfactory answer - How many SU30MKI do we have today? Best guesses?
TIA
fanne

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 18 Sep 2008 17:59

what are you discussing guys ?

I thought for a moment I was in the nukkad.

.I wonder if our UAVs have been configured to launch hellfires and take out Jehadi Camps.

and the israelis supplied hellfires too, eh ?

This question keeps on coming up and I guess there has been no satisfactory answer - How many SU30MKI do we have today? Best guesses?
TIA
fanne

at least 60 for the 3 sqdns. 32 russian made and somebody mentioned 124 has been spotted meaning 24 HAL made at least.
that would come to 66 .
they are talking of 2 more sqdns in quick succession. one would be the regular yearly production from HAL and I suspect the replacements for the K's or one sqdn worth aircraft is arriving from the 40 russi builds bargained for.
all in all, about 5 sqdns worth of mki's by the end of the year. that's ~ 100 give or take half a dozen.

Mihir.D · Post by **Mihir.D** » 18 Sep 2008 18:26

How come only 60 ?
We were supposed to buy 50 from ruskies alone and then as you say 24 from HAL. When do the deliveries of the next set of 40 start ? When do the 18 K's at Lohegaon get replaced ?

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 18 Sep 2008 18:42

that 50 includes 18 k's. it's anybody's guess when the replacements or the new built 40 will arrive. HAL produces about 15/annum. the news about the 5th sqdn leads me to surmise that 1 sqdn worth of airframes is arriving/has arrived from russia.

fanne · Post by **fanne** » 18 Sep 2008 18:55

I would assume you raise before recieving airframe or after?

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 18 Sep 2008 19:02

I would guess the official raising/conversion takes place after everything including machine, flight crew and maintenance crew is in place and the senior pro's are familiar with the aircraft.
Jagan can correct me if I'm wrong.

jamwal · Post by **jamwal** » 18 Sep 2008 19:16

Sukhois being used against terrorists looks kind of far fetched. How many times hae we used air-power against terrorists? Only one occasion I can recall was someplace Hill Kaka or something (sorry, can't remeber the name) where army busted a big terrorist hideout. Even then, papers reported use of choppers, not planes.
India isn't even responding to unprovoked firing on the border. Using Sukhois to strike accross border seems even more farfetched.

sum · Post by **sum** » 18 Sep 2008 21:06

All said and done, the very news of the Rambhas doing nitya so near the border will sure give a few PA/PAF "brave warriors" some sleepless nights...

The sheer psychological effect is tremendous...

Anurag · Post by **Anurag** » 18 Sep 2008 21:32

This one is dated June '07. Based on this, all 18 su-30K replacements should have been handed over.

If everything went as planned, a 5th squadron should come up by year end. That means another five squadrons by '13-'14 which seems reasonable. This is assuming that IAF is going in for 10 sq's (200@ 20/Sq) of MKI's. The remaining would go to TACDE, attrition reservesetc...

http://www.ato.ru/rus/cis/archive/17-20 ... ?sess_=76c

The deal inked in April is estimated at $500 million, and Irkut representatives confirmed to the Russia & CIS Observer that all 18 new aircraft will be delivered by the end of 2007. Earlier, Irkut's Demchenko announced that even before the signing of the contract, Irkut already had completed the construction of 12 new Su-30MKI aircraft.
..........
India seems to be quite happy with the new Russian fighters and plans to further increase their numbers in the country's Air Force. Now both sides are preparing another deal for an additional batch of 40 Su-30MKI assembly kits.

Mihir.D · Post by **Mihir.D** » 18 Sep 2008 22:58

I say order another 100 su-30mki birds and then we can take the MRCA contract even easier.

srai · Post by **srai** » 19 Sep 2008 02:00

Dmurphy wrote:
rkhanna wrote:Plus close to the border the easier it is for ELINT AC of the Enemy to pic it up and study it.
But we do have them at Jodhpur Air base...

And on the eastern front, we plan to have them installed at Tezpur apart from a few places in U.P as well. I thought having 2 squadrons is in itself an extravagant thing. Plus i guess the 18 Su-30s were still there when i last checked out google earth!

All said and done, having 3 squadrons at 3 different places instead of just one is quite a logistical nightmare!

Anyway, long live the Rambhas!

Looking at IAF, typically it has one or two airbases dedicated to a fighter type where the full support infrastructure is setup. This is where raising of new squadrons, pilot conversions, training maintenance crews, stocking parts and supplies, etc occurs.

But as far as deployment goes, the squadrons are not permanently static. Yes their home base will be at one location, but IAF tends to constantly move/deploy some flights of the squadron (or a whole squadron) to various other airfields for short durations. This serves two purposes:

(1) It helps establish local familiarity for the pilots and crews as they may have to operate from these areas during wartimes. It also helps IAF refine its support logistics for short/long term deployments of a fighter type to other areas.

(2) It ensures better survivability against surprise attacks. When the squadrons (or parts of them) are continuously moved around, a surprise attack on the home airfield will not wipe out the entire aircraft type.

Ajay K · Post by **Ajay K** » 19 Sep 2008 20:49

Folks, how does the Litening pod compare with the Sniper pod that the Pukis are getting from unkil.

karan_mc · Post by **karan_mc** » 19 Sep 2008 20:54

Ajay K wrote:Folks, how does the Litening pod compare with the Sniper pod that the Pukis are getting from unkil.

u can call them twin brothers separated in khum mela ,thats what i see after detail comparison

sum · Post by **sum** » 19 Sep 2008 21:55

u can call them twin brothers separated in khum mela ,thats what i see after detail comparison

Guess most of the Israeli products will be Khumb-mela twins of comparable Amriki products due to common parents.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 20 Sep 2008 00:59

certain parts could be sourced from common places but Rafael , Elta, Elop have full pledged product
development teams and not ODCs for raytheon or northrop grumann. that we shall see in the new Munna
eventually - i.e. in BLR

kit · Post by **kit** » 20 Sep 2008 07:43

this is copy paste but whole article is here
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/ ... 044top.xml

Although Litening II, with its modern Flir, CCD-TV, laser marker and laser spot tracker, had more mission flexibility than the baseline Lantirn, it, too, has been eclipsed by both Sniper and Northrop Grumman's own Litening Advanced Targeting (Litening AT) system. Raytheon rounds out heated domestic and international targeting pod competitions with its Advanced Tactical Flir (ATFlir) pod, which the Navy is flying on F/A-18s. I have yet to see the Litening AT and ATFlir inflight, but both feature third-generation Flirs.

Sniper XR's Flir is based on a 3-5-micron mid-wave infrared (IR) staring focal plane array, which is the cornerstone for obtaining high-resolution images at long ranges. Lockheed Martin officials said its Santa Barbara Focalplane division developed the 512 X 640-pixel detector array, which gives Sniper/Pantera a "recognition range" 2-3 times longer than that of legacy targeting pods.

Nitesh · Post by **Nitesh** » 21 Sep 2008 13:53

New Delhi (PTI): India will soon get its air superiority fighter fleet strengthened with the IAF raising the fourth squadron of Sukhoi multirole, strike fighters in February next.

"The fourth squadron of Su-30 MKI will be raised coming February and it is most likely be stationed in Lohegaon near Pune immediately after the raising," a top IAF officer told PTI here on Saturday.

The IAF already has three squadrons of 60 Su-30 MKIs -- the most potent fighter aircraft in the IAF fighter fleet -- deployed in Lohegaon and Bareilly.

While Lohegaon is the home station for the 20 'Lightnings' Squadron, the 24 'Hawks' Squadron is currently based in Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh.

The third operational squadron, 30 'Rhinos', is currently based in Lohegaon, but would ultimately move to Tezpur in Assam near the borders with China, once the fourth squadron of Sukhois is raised.

The 20 Su-30s required for the new squadron will come from the 40 aircraft ordered directly from Russia last year under a fast-track acquisition process, the officer said.

"The first set of aircraft in a knocked-down condition will reach Nasik, where it would be assembled and fitted with French and Israeli avionics beginning February next. Simultaneously, the new squadron would be raised," sources said.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holn ... 211031.htm

rkhanna · Post by **rkhanna** » 21 Sep 2008 19:48

this is copy paste but whole article is here
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/ ... 044top.xml

The Litening III is out and was selected for the EF.

Ajay K · Post by **Ajay K** » 22 Sep 2008 13:07

A follow-up question on the LRMTS(Laser Ranging and Marked Target Seeker) on the Mig-27, how does it compare with Litening pods? Why do they need a laser designator pod?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 22 Sep 2008 13:33

afaik it only covers a small azimuth from the nose, is only a marker and cannot provide
the low-light TV and thermal imagery on a swivelling ball head that a regular LDP does.
even the Jags have such a device (from ferranti) on the small square opening below the
nose probe. its used for ranging calculation by the CCIP bomb release mode where the
bombs are release by computer taking into account range, height, speed, angle...

renukb · Post by **renukb** » 23 Sep 2008 21:08

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008 ... 372540.htm

New US-bought Air Force fighters 'inferior'
Posted 1 hour 18 minutes ago

A US think tank has declared the joint strike fighter aircraft that Australia is set to buy is inferior to the Russian made Flanker jets used by China and Indonesia.

The RAND Corporation's experts compared jets in a wargame and the ABC has obtained the results.

In bad news for the Air Force, which is set to buy 100 of the joint strike fighters, the results say the strike fighters have inferior acceleration, climb, turn capacity and a lower top speed than Russian and Chinese fighters.

In short it says the strike fighter can't turn, can't climb and can't run. It says the US fighter which could outdo the Russian made flankers is the F 22 raptor, which the United States bans from foreign sales.

The fighter's defenders argue it is not designed for close combat. But the RAND Corporation says a plan b is necessary and points out that if the strike fighter is seen or has to engage an enemy at close range then it will be no match for the Flankers.

A spokesman for the defence minister says he is convinced the strike fighter is the best aircraft available, but the minister has not released the air combat capability review which studied the options.

neerajb · Post by **neerajb** » 23 Sep 2008 21:46

Ajay K wrote:A follow-up question on the LRMTS(Laser Ranging and Marked Target Seeker) on the Mig-27, how does it compare with Litening pods? Why do they need a laser designator pod?

The LRMTS is used in conjunction with a FAC since it doesn't display anything onto the cockpit displays. The FAC lases the target, the aircraft comes in proximity of the target and the laser seeker acquires the target. The seeker provides cues on the HUD of the aircraft to steer it towards the target and the onboard laser is used for ranging purposes to deliever the weapons accurately.

Other optical pods like Sniper are way too advanced. They have narrow and wide field of view IR and CCD sensors. These allow for locking onto a particular target of intrest in the target area being shown by the wide field of view sensor. Such optical pods not only provide targetting information but are useful in navigation too by providing IR or CCD images of the terrain ahead of aircraft on aircraft's MFDs. Lantirn is more sort of navigation pod and is equipped with terrain following radar too. Sniper also includes datalink for relaying the target area imagery to battlefield commanders in real time.

Cheers...

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 23 Sep 2008 22:25

renukb wrote:http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008 ... 372540.htm

New US-bought Air Force fighters 'inferior'
Posted 1 hour 18 minutes ago

................................................

A spokesman for the defence minister says he is convinced the strike fighter is the best aircraft available, but the minister has not released the air combat capability review which studied the options.

What else is new? Oz land has been yelling and screaming for eons. Just to get the F-22.

The next thing they will say is that the Su family are growing fangs, are responsible for the present economic crisis and are out to drown the land of Oz.

Sontu · Post by **Sontu** » 23 Sep 2008 22:30

Nitesh wrote:New Delhi (PTI): India will soon get its air superiority fighter fleet strengthened with the IAF raising the fourth squadron of Sukhoi multirole, strike fighters in February next.

The third operational squadron, 30 'Rhinos', is currently based in Lohegaon, but would ultimately move to Tezpur in Assam near the borders with China, once the fourth squadron of Sukhois is raised.

Placing Su-30 like high value squadrons in Tejpur (near China border) is a risky strategy as with the first wave of SRBMs/Short Range Cruise Missile attack, the entire squadron will be smashed to ashes (Please note China has thousands of SRBM/SRCMs in it's arsenal and is cheap option to dispose them in slavo fire mode againts high value assets like MKIs and Air defence radar and missile squadrons around the border.

HariC · Post by **HariC** » 23 Sep 2008 22:38

Sontu wrote:[

Placing Su-30 like high value squadrons in Tejpur (near China border) is a risky strategy as with the first wave of SRBMs/Short Range Cruise Missile attack, the entire squadron will be smashed to ashes (Please note China has thousands of SRBM/SRCMs in it's arsenal and is cheap option to dispose them in slavo fire mode againts high value assets like MKIs and Air defence radar and missile squadrons around the border.

WE ARE DOOMED!!!!!

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 23 Sep 2008 22:54

sontu, dear just go easy on the bolded and underlined thingy please, it's harsh on us old foggies' eyes.
thanks.

kit · Post by **kit** » 23 Sep 2008 23:09

umm MKI s near border with EW aerostats and Phalcons around looks like more of offensive defence to me ! Those missiles would be spotted as soon as they are fired unless ..well chinese dont have that anyway ..so chill ! MKI s would be up and doing their business by the time those missiles enter Indian aerospace ..alternately this denotes the high deal of confidence with the IAF in their EW capabilities..present and future.. Chin would be really feeling some heat where it is meant to be.And finally who knows whether these are really red herrings or not ? Satellites cannot easily distinguish a good copy cat plane on the ground especially if it can take off once in a while

Sontu · Post by **Sontu** » 23 Sep 2008 23:47

kit wrote:umm MKI s near border with EW aerostats and Phalcons around looks like more of offensive defence to me ! Those missiles would be spotted as soon as they are fired unless ..well chinese dont have that anyway ..so chill ! MKI s would be up and doing their business by the time those missiles enter Indian aerospace ..alternately this denotes the high deal of confidence with the IAF in their EW capabilities..present and future.. Chin would be really feeling some heat where it is meant to be.And finally who knows whether these are really red herrings or not ? Satellites cannot easily distinguish a good copy cat plane on the ground especially if it can take off once in a while

I would still prefer to keep/position MKIs sqdns and their support materials/armaments out of the reach of adversary's mass SRBM's/SRCM's reach/range, but keep the Airfields and other support measures near border ready so that if needed MKIs can use them immediately.

I believe in...."No need to show your teeth..if needed just bite them"

Regards,

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 24 Sep 2008 00:18

sontu, two points. PRC will always have to keep the bulk of its assets facing taiwan till (and if) it engulfs taiwan. secondly and more importantly PRC BMs are no where as accurate as will be required to take out particular targets like hangars.
the warhead that compensates for some of this lack of accuracy, bomblets, would be ineffective against well made bomb shelters.
cruise missiles can be shot down. it's not easy, but it can be done.
it requires a comprehensive radar coverage that is unfortunately absent at the moment in the NE. with its terrain, you need airborne radars, awacs and/or blimps.
I would prefer if DRDO develops small tethered blimps carrying radars of limited ranges of 150-200 km which can be carried by army trucks. to cover every valley and such in the NE (and also elsewhere) you require systems that can stay up for long time but they also have to be relatively numerous and cheap to operate in order for the system to have a robust reliable aerial picture of the theater.

Sontu · Post by **Sontu** » 24 Sep 2008 02:52

Rahul M wrote:sontu, two points. PRC will always have to keep the bulk of its assets facing taiwan till (and if) it engulfs taiwan. secondly and more importantly PRC BMs are no where as accurate as will be required to take out particular targets like hangars.
the warhead that compensates for some of this lack of accuracy, bomblets, would be ineffective against well made bomb shelters.
cruise missiles can be shot down. it's not easy, but it can be done.
it requires a comprehensive radar coverage that is unfortunately absent at the moment in the NE. with its terrain, you need airborne radars, awacs and/or blimps.
I would prefer if DRDO develops small tethered blimps carrying radars of limited ranges of 150-200 km which can be carried by army trucks. to cover every valley and such in the NE (and also elsewhere) you require systems that can stay up for long time but they also have to be relatively numerous and cheap to operate in order for the system to have a robust reliable aerial picture of the theater.

Dear Rahul,

On your coments "...secondly and more importantly PRC BMs are no where as accurate as will be required to take out particular targets like hangars.the warhead that compensates for some of this lack of accuracy..."

Please have a look on the following link...
http://www.sinodefence.com/strategic/missile/df15.asp

says...China has also been reportedly seeking to further improve the accuracy of the DF-15 (Range >600 KMs) missile by integrating it with the global positioning system (GPS) or a similar indigenously-developed satellite-based navigation and positing system. A terminal radar-guidance system is also under development. With both system onboard the missile’s accuracy may increase to CEP 35~50m.

please note that this data is in public domain, and hence I assume that PRC's SRBM/SRCM/ALCM's should have this level(or possibly better) of accuracy,is already aquired by now.

Also please note MKI's are quite large aircraft too..say 22 mts X 15 mts.
Looking at all this details..I am quite sure that deploying MKIs close to borders will really risk these valuable assets in the event of any short conflict.And above all as I said that PRC has M-11 and M-9 s in quite large numbers, so any MASS scale usage of these missiles targetted towards a special airfield with high value assets will be very rewarding for them.

Regards,

fanne · Post by **fanne** » 24 Sep 2008 03:11

Well placing SU30MKI right now near the border does not make that much of sense, they are small in numbers. For small time deployment (to make these forward bases used to MKI deployment) it is OK. Maybe when we have big numbes that base should get a sq or two of MKI, but not now IMVHO.
rgds,
fanne

sam_kamath · Post by **sam_kamath** » 24 Sep 2008 03:39

fanne wrote:Well placing SU30MKI right now near the border does not make that much of sense, they are small in numbers. For small time deployment (to make these forward bases used to MKI deployment) it is OK. Maybe when we have big numbes that base should get a sq or two of MKI, but not now IMVHO.
rgds,
fanne

Have you guys heard about the dreadnought syndrome... these were capital ships ... they were so big powerful and so much in the news that nations were scared to use them ... people feared the -ve impact on a nations moral...least one of these capital ships be lost.

dont you think history teaches you something...

Kartik · Post by **Kartik** » 24 Sep 2008 05:36

sam_kamath wrote:
fanne wrote:Well placing SU30MKI right now near the border does not make that much of sense, they are small in numbers. For small time deployment (to make these forward bases used to MKI deployment) it is OK. Maybe when we have big numbes that base should get a sq or two of MKI, but not now IMVHO.
rgds,
fanne
Have you guys heard about the dreadnought syndrome... these were capital ships ... they were so big powerful and so much in the news that nations were scared to use them ... people feared the -ve impact on a nations moral...least one of these capital ships be lost.

dont you think history teaches you something...

you seem to understand very little about what it means to protect and conserve valueable assets from a first-strike using cheap BMs or CMs. it has nothing to do with any such syndrome that you're crowing about. the IAF isn't inducting upto 230 Su-30MKIs only to be afraid of losing them- what it does not want is to lose them to a first strike that would lead to high attrition in its premier multi-role platform. earlier it was the same with the Mirage-2000 and now its the Su-30MKI.

you probably didn't read anything that was posted on BR earlier about certain airbases being developed with one particular aircraft's infrastructure (training, maintenance, etc.) kept in mind. Gwalior had the infrastructure to raise a couple more Mirage-2000 squadrons and be the home-base for upto 3 squadrons (which it is even now).
Lohegaon is now being used as the main base for raising new Su-30MKI squadrons that will then be deployed elsewhere (such as Bareilly), and some of their detachments could well be at forward air bases.

Only a moron would develop this kind of expensive infrastructure at a forward airbase that could be a few minutes flying distance from the border and even shorter for a missile. it war ever breaks out, believe me, the IAF will spare no effort to use its "capital ships" as you term the MKIs.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 24 Sep 2008 05:53

kartik your reasonings are lost on this fellow. he already knows all there is to know.
also, he has already solved India's mrca dilemma.

neerajb · Post by **neerajb** » 24 Sep 2008 07:04

MKI deployment at Tezpur is a peace time deployment where such surprise wave attakcs are not expected.

If China indeed decides to attack india one fine day, IMHO they won't be using BMs but cruise missiles since any BM attack could be taken as a preemptive nuclear strike. Moreover there needs to be strained relations/tensions between the two countries, if China were to take such punitive action against IAF which would/should alert IAF and the MKIs would be on alert at Tezpur anticipating such strikes.

Regarding GPS, why on earth would US supply China with the military grade, digital, encrypted, highly accurate GPS signal for attacking India or a matter of fact anyone. If China wishes to use analog GPS signal used for commercial navigation for missile attakcs then:

1) That is not accurate enough to guide weapons.
2) The US could black out GPS coverage in the region at it's will. I wonder whether US provides GPS coverage to the NE in the first place.

Cheers....

vivek_ahuja · Post by **vivek_ahuja** » 24 Sep 2008 07:22

Look, Tezpur may be physically at a decent distance away from the border but given the Himalayas jutting up to the north, detection ranges are compromised along the entire length of the northern border until the AWACS are operationally deployed. What we do know is that such a capability the IAF does not possess as of yet. Maybe in the future with constant AWACS patrols guarding the borders above the Himalayas, forward deployment might be possible. But as of today, what happens as a result of very difficult terrain and no airborne radars is that the reaction time is diminished and to compensate the airbase has to fall further back inside friendly territory.

Also, I don't buy into this theory of strained relations as a precursor to war. In fact, lack thereof is exactly what is known as a surprise attack!

With longer ranged birds, using precision munitions that reduce number of required sorties and good damage-sustaining airframes, the days of forward airbases being right at the border are fast fading away.

JMT

-Vivek

neerajb · Post by **neerajb** » 24 Sep 2008 07:39

vivek_ahuja wrote:Also, I don't buy into this theory of strained relations as a precursor to war. In fact, lack thereof is exactly what is known as a surprise attack!

So what according to you will anger Chinese to the extent that suddenly the PLA will decide to neutralize Tezpur? IMHO again, Surprise attack is the one which comes without formal declaration of war but it doesn't mean that there is no trigger for that. The trigger could be anything like a skirmish at the border, downing of the adversary aircraft etc.

Off Topic:

India is traditionally a shy country which doesn't initiates a full blown war easily but it is also known that when provoked will fight till end. Now say if Chinese wants to take AP, why will they initiate a full fledged war by attacking Tezpur with BMs/CMs whereas they can fulfill their ambition by a kargil like local conflict and then holding the place knowing that Indian political leadership doesn't have the guts to carry full blown offensive against them (at least Chinese must be having this perception because of 1962 war).

Cheers....