Soviet Fighter Developement- no SU collapse
- Thread starter Pangur
- Start date
You kind of need to elaborate a little bit because how the USSR and Pact survives is actually rather important in this case. There is a mountain of difference between a Soviet Union that keeps going by reforming its economic and/or political system versus one that keeps going by clamping down hard on dissent regardless of the economic difficulties.
Well I don't really know, but without the collapse of the USSR, the collapse of Yugoslavia would be delayed, so we'd likely see the Novi Avion, although it's not a massive breakthrough. It's pretty much just a Rafale-lite.
Pangur
Donor
What I had in mind was an SU with the Cold war still going. At a guess one point that you are getting at is the availability of money for development and procurement If so then assume that with in reason money is not an issue
So basically, you want to butterfly away Gorbachev and keep the "Second Cold War" of the 1980s going into the 1990s and presumably 2000s?
Pangur
Donor
Not quite true; SU has been used for the Soviet Union for quite a while as indeed has the USSR
I think that Soviet Union will answer to the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) aka the fifth-generation fighter.
with plane like Mikoyan Project 1.44/1.42 (MIG-32?) in 1990s
or the Sukhoi PAK FA (SU-T50?) as the Soviet stealth jet program in 2000s
Next to that will be increase in Transport aircraft, like a fleet of An-225
or even bigger like An-325 or the Myasischev M-52A-1 Aviaspetstrans is build
with plane like Mikoyan Project 1.44/1.42 (MIG-32?) in 1990s
or the Sukhoi PAK FA (SU-T50?) as the Soviet stealth jet program in 2000s
Next to that will be increase in Transport aircraft, like a fleet of An-225
or even bigger like An-325 or the Myasischev M-52A-1 Aviaspetstrans is build
Well, even though I'm one of those people (like you) that get a bit annoyed at the acronym "SU" as opposed to "USSR", the Soviet Union's internet TLD was '.su', which implies that the Soviets themselves were okay with that acronym.
Whilst I personally prefer "USSR", we all understand what the OP means, and it's getting slightly tiresome seeing this SU/USSR debate on every thread about the Soviet Union. Note saying it's your fault, Anaxagoras, just trying to pre-empt this debate before it gets off the ground.
Would the USSR be able to get downed pieces if an F117 ITTL? If they don't, that might slow down their progress
Why the soviet need a piece of aircraft that's calibrated not to be see on Soviet radar ?
They need every piece of US radar systems, they can get in there hands*.
on Soviet/Russian stealth technology there were two R&D lines: passive what let to Sukhoi PAK FA and active ECM pod had to be used on Mikoyan Project 1.44/1.42
*
stealth technology was discover coincidental, in 1970s US got several Soviet Radar systems during Vietnam war and Middle East conflicts.
so they were tested at Groom Lake, some of engineer been bored, start to scan with Radar all kinds of object like, there Cars, teapots, Plastic parts
until they astonish notice that some material were invisible for Soviet radars.
altamiro
Banned
I am annoyed every time when the USAF fanboys start talking about stealth thing like it is some kind of new physics.
The theory of radar stealth is based on Mie theory (early 1920s) as well as a surface shape modelling which in itself is based on publically available works of Soviet mathematicians (!!!) from 1950s and 1960s. The stealth coating is simply high absorption material (usually a finely distributed metal in plastic/resin matrix) coupled with a certain shape of the plane. Coating a "normal" plane in a stealth coating will strongly reduce its RCS but modern radars are good enough to still detect and lock. Getting a plane in the low remission shape and still be flightworthy is the main challenge. This is the reason for the ugly angular shape of F117 - the computing power available at that point in time was not good enough to calculate with finer facets. And the Soviets had significantly less computing power available at the same time than the USA, so they could not make the necessary calculations in any reasonable time - but this was completely different in the 1980s already.
The core secret of stealth technology, the reason why there were orders to firebomb any stealth plane crash site, was that the background know-how is so ridiculously simple - a combination of 1920s chemistry mated with 1950s mathematics. A single hint would suffice.
Now there is obviously a challenge of reducing the thickness and weight of the layer, making it more UV resistant, etc. but this would be nothing insurmountable for the soviet/chinese chemists and engineers.
The theory of radar stealth is based on Mie theory (early 1920s) as well as a surface shape modelling which in itself is based on publically available works of Soviet mathematicians (!!!) from 1950s and 1960s. The stealth coating is simply high absorption material (usually a finely distributed metal in plastic/resin matrix) coupled with a certain shape of the plane. Coating a "normal" plane in a stealth coating will strongly reduce its RCS but modern radars are good enough to still detect and lock. Getting a plane in the low remission shape and still be flightworthy is the main challenge. This is the reason for the ugly angular shape of F117 - the computing power available at that point in time was not good enough to calculate with finer facets. And the Soviets had significantly less computing power available at the same time than the USA, so they could not make the necessary calculations in any reasonable time - but this was completely different in the 1980s already.
The core secret of stealth technology, the reason why there were orders to firebomb any stealth plane crash site, was that the background know-how is so ridiculously simple - a combination of 1920s chemistry mated with 1950s mathematics. A single hint would suffice.
Now there is obviously a challenge of reducing the thickness and weight of the layer, making it more UV resistant, etc. but this would be nothing insurmountable for the soviet/chinese chemists and engineers.
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altamiro
Banned
The Sukhoi PAK-FA was an early 1980s project that got put on ice for over a decade due to the economic collapse of the Soviet economy. In a surviving USSR scenario it would be deployed 4-5 years after F-22, so the US lead would be massively narrowed down. With more and more computing power available to USSR (as I wrote before, this is the technological bottleneck) the lead would shrink quickly.
We referred them as "Soyuz" here and the officially as "Soviet Union" they caled themselves many times as Soyuz Sovietsky, so.... fruitless debate i think.
Well, they got them OTL and if they didn't toss them aside, their probably had their reasons. Notice that I didn't say they can't do it without it. I said the lack of those samples *might* delay them. The Pak-Fa development is classified, so anything we can discuss about it is an educated guess, not a fact
altamiro
Banned
I have been involved in a related development a few years ago, while I am not going to discuss details I can assure you that the basis for the technology IS very simple - the devil is, as so often, in the details and how they play together. If you are going to look at e.g. UV stability of the stealth coating (so you don't have to repaint the plane every couple of months) you have a choice of either spending quite some money and time on your own research, or look what polymer matrix the opponent is using. Most radar-absorbent fillers will be photocatalytically active and will play merry hell with the polymer matrix at high altitude conditions - another topic you have to take care of. And they are necessarily metallic, meaning heavy, so you need to spend a lot of effort to reduce weight with as little as possible trade off in performance. Etc. etc.
The MiG29M would have been mass produced, massively exported, and would be the aircraft the MiG29 was meant to be. The end of the USSR cuting short the story of the 29 is equivalent to MiG 21 develpment being terminated at the 21F-13 stage.
And MiG would have been able to introduce this beauty to service...
And MiG would have been able to introduce this beauty to service...
