Post by raider on Apr 25, 2008 11:28:58 GMT 7
Buat para mania pesawat lansiran Sukhoi, khususnya Su-34 Fullback yang akan menggantikan peran Su-24 Fencer, artikel berikut lumayan lah buat nambah2 pengetahuan.
Outside View: Su-34 Strategy
by Ilya Kramnik
Moscow, April 22, 2008
Russia's rearmament program, approved in 2006 for a period until 2015, provides for supplying modern weapons to its armed forces. One of them is the Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback fighter-bomber, which will replace the Sukhoi Su-24 Fencers.
The process has begun, but some say the replacement is taking too long.
The new fighter-bomber is said to be very good. An improvement on the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker, it has cutting-edge equipment, including a modern crew and equipment protection system. The Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback is effective against personnel and military hardware on the battlefield and also against targets behind enemy lines, and can also be used for surveillance and against naval targets.
The Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback will replace the Sukhoi Su-24M Fencer aircraft -- about 400 planes, the Sukhoi Su-24MR Fencer surveillance aircraft -- over 100 planes, and the MiG-25RB aircraft -- about 70 planes.
Russia will have to produce between 550 and 600 Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback to replace these obsolete aircraft within 10-15 years. However, the Russian Defense Ministry plans to buy only about 58 such planes by 2015 and a total of 300 by 2022.
Many experts say that if the Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer and MiG-25RB aircraft are scrapped by 2020, Russia will be left without fighter-bombers and surveillance aircraft.
Others argue that this number will be enough for the Russian Air Force's new concept.
The concept is focused not so much on the combat characteristics of the Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback, as on its long range, the ability to refuel in the air -- including by other Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback aircraft with additional fuel tanks under their wings -- and its comfortable cabin allowing the crew to make long-distance flights without becoming overtired.
The Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback aircraft can also fly without electronic warfare support planes, because it has electronic interference equipment.
Units armed with such aircraft can be used in the so-called pendulum operations, when a Russian air force unit bombs a terrorist base in Central Asia today, delivers a strike at a missile base in Europe the next day, and three days later flies to the Indian Ocean to support a combined group of the Russian Northern, Pacific and Black Sea fleets, with the flights made from a base within the Russian Federation.
The Su-34 aircraft has long-range precision weapons, can fly hugging the Earth and has a high level of protection, which should cut losses during lightning operations.
The Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback aircraft's remarkable qualities give Russia the option of using a relatively small number of them as an elite strike force.
This is not a new concept. Elite units of top-class aircraft manned by superbly trained crews formed the core of the German air force, the Luftwaffe, during World War II, and Japan's Imperial Navy had a similar concept.
However, such elite units can be quickly weeded out by swarms of ordinary aircraft in a global war of attrition, such as World War II. From this viewpoint, Russia's new concept looks vulnerable, but then this country has the nuclear triad for a global war.
In a war of attrition, it will not matter how many such smart aircraft Russia will have -- 200, 600 or 1,500. What will matter is the yield of a nuclear bomb they will be able to drop on the enemy.
But in the event of a small war involving one or two adversaries, or a chain of local conflicts, the existence of such high-speed, highly protected and well-armed aircraft can be the decisive factor.
Even 58 Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback fighter-bombers, used at the right time in the right place, would be a powerful force. A group of 200-300 such aircraft, divided into several units for use in key areas of the battlefield, will be able to complete the most complicated tasks.
Apart from the Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback, the Russian air force will also receive other new planes, whose technical characteristics will maintain the force's combat potential at the requisite level. New units, set up for the fulfillment of specific tasks, will consist of fighters, bombers, early warning and command planes, flying tankers and unmanned aerial vehicles.
These forces will be highly mobile units, which means aircraft can be quickly dispatched to the area in question. In fact, Russia's new concept is not unlike the U.S. Aerospace Expeditionary Force, a flexible and powerful instrument of air warfare capable of quickly delivering strikes in any part of the world.
As for surveillance aircraft, industrialized countries intend to replace them with unmanned aerial vehicles. The world is changing, and the new world will wage new kind of wars.
Outside View: Su-34 Strategy
by Ilya Kramnik
Moscow, April 22, 2008
Russia's rearmament program, approved in 2006 for a period until 2015, provides for supplying modern weapons to its armed forces. One of them is the Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback fighter-bomber, which will replace the Sukhoi Su-24 Fencers.
The process has begun, but some say the replacement is taking too long.
The new fighter-bomber is said to be very good. An improvement on the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker, it has cutting-edge equipment, including a modern crew and equipment protection system. The Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback is effective against personnel and military hardware on the battlefield and also against targets behind enemy lines, and can also be used for surveillance and against naval targets.
The Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback will replace the Sukhoi Su-24M Fencer aircraft -- about 400 planes, the Sukhoi Su-24MR Fencer surveillance aircraft -- over 100 planes, and the MiG-25RB aircraft -- about 70 planes.
Russia will have to produce between 550 and 600 Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback to replace these obsolete aircraft within 10-15 years. However, the Russian Defense Ministry plans to buy only about 58 such planes by 2015 and a total of 300 by 2022.
Many experts say that if the Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer and MiG-25RB aircraft are scrapped by 2020, Russia will be left without fighter-bombers and surveillance aircraft.
Others argue that this number will be enough for the Russian Air Force's new concept.
The concept is focused not so much on the combat characteristics of the Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback, as on its long range, the ability to refuel in the air -- including by other Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback aircraft with additional fuel tanks under their wings -- and its comfortable cabin allowing the crew to make long-distance flights without becoming overtired.
The Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback aircraft can also fly without electronic warfare support planes, because it has electronic interference equipment.
Units armed with such aircraft can be used in the so-called pendulum operations, when a Russian air force unit bombs a terrorist base in Central Asia today, delivers a strike at a missile base in Europe the next day, and three days later flies to the Indian Ocean to support a combined group of the Russian Northern, Pacific and Black Sea fleets, with the flights made from a base within the Russian Federation.
The Su-34 aircraft has long-range precision weapons, can fly hugging the Earth and has a high level of protection, which should cut losses during lightning operations.
The Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback aircraft's remarkable qualities give Russia the option of using a relatively small number of them as an elite strike force.
This is not a new concept. Elite units of top-class aircraft manned by superbly trained crews formed the core of the German air force, the Luftwaffe, during World War II, and Japan's Imperial Navy had a similar concept.
However, such elite units can be quickly weeded out by swarms of ordinary aircraft in a global war of attrition, such as World War II. From this viewpoint, Russia's new concept looks vulnerable, but then this country has the nuclear triad for a global war.
In a war of attrition, it will not matter how many such smart aircraft Russia will have -- 200, 600 or 1,500. What will matter is the yield of a nuclear bomb they will be able to drop on the enemy.
But in the event of a small war involving one or two adversaries, or a chain of local conflicts, the existence of such high-speed, highly protected and well-armed aircraft can be the decisive factor.
Even 58 Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback fighter-bombers, used at the right time in the right place, would be a powerful force. A group of 200-300 such aircraft, divided into several units for use in key areas of the battlefield, will be able to complete the most complicated tasks.
Apart from the Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback, the Russian air force will also receive other new planes, whose technical characteristics will maintain the force's combat potential at the requisite level. New units, set up for the fulfillment of specific tasks, will consist of fighters, bombers, early warning and command planes, flying tankers and unmanned aerial vehicles.
These forces will be highly mobile units, which means aircraft can be quickly dispatched to the area in question. In fact, Russia's new concept is not unlike the U.S. Aerospace Expeditionary Force, a flexible and powerful instrument of air warfare capable of quickly delivering strikes in any part of the world.
As for surveillance aircraft, industrialized countries intend to replace them with unmanned aerial vehicles. The world is changing, and the new world will wage new kind of wars.
