4 ms·

Russian warplanes breach NATO airspace over Estonia

41 points by thm 1y ago

bigyabai 1y ago
> The jets circled for about 12 minutes and Italian F-35s were scrambled to repel them. Earlier this year, HN discussed the value of the F-35 (a plane I'm quite fond of!) During that discussion, one overlooked point was the top speed of the F-35. At-altitude, the F-35 cannot intercept a MiG-31. Flying nap-of-the-earth would be a different discussion, but Russia knows this. Their planes commit an incursion, waited for a response, and then exited once they detected the response. They were in control of the entire intercept, from the start to the end. This is what we mean, when we say Russia is "testing" us. They want to see if a serious response exists to these threats; an F-35 is a glorified ground-attack jet. It's an amazing piece of kit, but it can't do much besides lob an AMRAAM in a situation like this.
- duxup 1y ago
  >Their planes commit an incursion, waited for a response, and then exited once they detected the response. That's pretty much the status quo during the cold war anyway, speed or not. You measure response times, where it came from, and so on.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    It should have come at Mach 9 from below. Good chance that next time it will.
    - ben_w 1y ago
      Anti-missile and anti-drone lasers are starting to appear, which may make the response somewhat faster than Mach 9. (IIRC the laws against weaponised lasers are only for intentional blindness, not incidental while e.g. cutting a fuel line).
  - cjbenedikt 1y ago
    That is such an old "standard" procedure. We ( West) used to fly Phantoms into East Germany to see how long it took them to respond - then switched on the afterburner and disappeared. The Russians have done that in Norway and Finland for ever. Old news.
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      With the small caveat that there wasn't a hot war with the party doing the peaking in progress one country over. This is literally begging for an escalation and that's most likely the only reason they haven't got one yet, not for lack of ability. The amount of hardware on NATO's Eastern flank is pretty impressive, especially in NE Poland and the Baltics and Finland near the russian border. Those pilots must have been wondering if the lack of response was good or bad news.
- thw_9a83c 1y ago
  > the F-35 cannot intercept a MiG-31 The fact is that the F-35 was not designed to be an interceptor fighter jet. Rather, it was designed to use its stealth features, advanced sensors, and long-range missile capabilities to detect and destroy a MiG-31 well before the MiG-31 could even become aware of it. Whether the F-35 is a suitable aircraft for dealing with the aforementioned MiG-31 provocations is another question.
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    I agree wholeheartedly. That's why my heart breaks seeing other countries use the F-35 as an interceptor, presumably because their air force was priced-out of something like the Eurofighter or Rafale. It's in your own airspace, you don't need a highly-survivable stealth platform or 10x sensor loadout. You need a fast interceptor.
    - csdreamer7 1y ago
      Would you share more about the priced out part? Wouldn't a stealth fighter be more expensive than an interceptor? Do you have links?
      - dilyevsky 1y ago
        Rafales are considerably more expensive - India paid like $250M+ per unit (and lost like four of them to F-16s/J-10s). F-35s are $70-100M. Imho F-35 are superior in this scenario due to its stealth features - they'll be operating very close to russian AA systems
        bigyabai 1y ago
        The F-35 is expressly vulnerable, in this scenario. If Russian radars were the only threat, you'd be correct. The MiG-31 has a top-notch IRST system though, they can get a missile lock on the F-35 regardless. "Going dark" is pretty much useless for this scenario. For a pure interception-style mission profile, an F-15 or even F/A-18 would perform much better. A Rafale or Eurofighter platform would also suffice. The F-35 is a Joint Strike Fighter though, and I think people forget why it was made. It's a bomb dropper, the F-16 will outperform it in a one-circle and two-circle engagement. The F-35 is just not built to dominate air combat, and that's okay. It only becomes an issue when customers don't know what they're buying.
- rolph 1y ago
  when a mig turns tail, and runs like this, they have seriously limited manueverability. they basically go into "rocket mode" and sacrifice agility for delta v
- tejohnso 1y ago
  Wouldn't any capable aircraft lob an AMRAAM? At least as an initial BVR engagement? I would think a bunch of long range missiles coming your way would qualify as a serious response even if they came from F-35s.
jleyank 1y ago
The meat sack can only handle 8-9G’s and only some number of those. So, make missiles and drones that can outdo this and get them to go fast and the problem is reduced. Stealthy and fast might not be possible due to IR, and stealth might not work at all in optical wavelengths with any ambient light. Ukraine might have demonstrated that smart, smaller weapons will or even have taken over the battlefield. And they brought down a stealth fighter with boring old flak in the Balkans decades ago.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  There are already missiles that can pull 50-80Gs, most modern air-to-air missiles can pull over 20Gs easily. Part of the issue is optimizing for weight/G pull, versus a high-sustain motor. A lightweight 50G missile has a very high P/K off the rail, but the longer it flies the harder it is to capitalize on your G rating. If the pilot notches it, you can potentially outrun the dangerous portion of the missile burn and force it into a sustained glide where the warhead is harmless. Contrast this with other missile designs like the MBDA Meteor, which probably has a relatively low G pull. Much less maneuverable, but it also remains dangerous for much longer than even an AMRAAM. Optimizing for these kill envelopes is what you want, if shooting down MiGs is your goal. By the time you're close enough to fire a 50G missile, you've got a helmet-queued R-73 hot-and-ready delivered through your canopy. I will leave you with the audio of an Su-34 defeating a MiM-104 (content warning: distressing) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD_en_xvSvU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD_en_xvSvU
LiisMannik 1y ago
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41 points by thm 1y ago

> The jets circled for about 12 minutes and Italian F-35s were scrambled to repel them. Earlier this year, HN discussed the value of the F-35 (a plane I'm quite fond of!) During that discussion, one overlooked point was the top speed of the F-35. At-altitude, the F-35 cannot intercept a MiG-31. Flying nap-of-the-earth would be a different discussion, but Russia knows this. Their planes commit an incursion, waited for a response, and then exited once they detected the response. They were in control of the entire intercept, from the start to the end. This is what we mean, when we say Russia is "testing" us. They want to see if a serious response exists to these threats; an F-35 is a glorified ground-attack jet. It's an amazing piece of kit, but it can't do much besides lob an AMRAAM in a situation like this.

duxup 1y ago
>Their planes commit an incursion, waited for a response, and then exited once they detected the response. That's pretty much the status quo during the cold war anyway, speed or not. You measure response times, where it came from, and so on.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  It should have come at Mach 9 from below. Good chance that next time it will.
  - ben_w 1y ago
    Anti-missile and anti-drone lasers are starting to appear, which may make the response somewhat faster than Mach 9. (IIRC the laws against weaponised lasers are only for intentional blindness, not incidental while e.g. cutting a fuel line).
- cjbenedikt 1y ago
  That is such an old "standard" procedure. We ( West) used to fly Phantoms into East Germany to see how long it took them to respond - then switched on the afterburner and disappeared. The Russians have done that in Norway and Finland for ever. Old news.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    With the small caveat that there wasn't a hot war with the party doing the peaking in progress one country over. This is literally begging for an escalation and that's most likely the only reason they haven't got one yet, not for lack of ability. The amount of hardware on NATO's Eastern flank is pretty impressive, especially in NE Poland and the Baltics and Finland near the russian border. Those pilots must have been wondering if the lack of response was good or bad news.
thw_9a83c 1y ago
> the F-35 cannot intercept a MiG-31 The fact is that the F-35 was not designed to be an interceptor fighter jet. Rather, it was designed to use its stealth features, advanced sensors, and long-range missile capabilities to detect and destroy a MiG-31 well before the MiG-31 could even become aware of it. Whether the F-35 is a suitable aircraft for dealing with the aforementioned MiG-31 provocations is another question.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  I agree wholeheartedly. That's why my heart breaks seeing other countries use the F-35 as an interceptor, presumably because their air force was priced-out of something like the Eurofighter or Rafale. It's in your own airspace, you don't need a highly-survivable stealth platform or 10x sensor loadout. You need a fast interceptor.
  - csdreamer7 1y ago
    Would you share more about the priced out part? Wouldn't a stealth fighter be more expensive than an interceptor? Do you have links?
    - dilyevsky 1y ago
      Rafales are considerably more expensive - India paid like $250M+ per unit (and lost like four of them to F-16s/J-10s). F-35s are $70-100M. Imho F-35 are superior in this scenario due to its stealth features - they'll be operating very close to russian AA systems
      - bigyabai 1y ago
        The F-35 is expressly vulnerable, in this scenario. If Russian radars were the only threat, you'd be correct. The MiG-31 has a top-notch IRST system though, they can get a missile lock on the F-35 regardless. "Going dark" is pretty much useless for this scenario. For a pure interception-style mission profile, an F-15 or even F/A-18 would perform much better. A Rafale or Eurofighter platform would also suffice. The F-35 is a Joint Strike Fighter though, and I think people forget why it was made. It's a bomb dropper, the F-16 will outperform it in a one-circle and two-circle engagement. The F-35 is just not built to dominate air combat, and that's okay. It only becomes an issue when customers don't know what they're buying.
rolph 1y ago
when a mig turns tail, and runs like this, they have seriously limited manueverability. they basically go into "rocket mode" and sacrifice agility for delta v
tejohnso 1y ago
Wouldn't any capable aircraft lob an AMRAAM? At least as an initial BVR engagement? I would think a bunch of long range missiles coming your way would qualify as a serious response even if they came from F-35s.

jleyank 1y ago

The meat sack can only handle 8-9G’s and only some number of those. So, make missiles and drones that can outdo this and get them to go fast and the problem is reduced. Stealthy and fast might not be possible due to IR, and stealth might not work at all in optical wavelengths with any ambient light. Ukraine might have demonstrated that smart, smaller weapons will or even have taken over the battlefield. And they brought down a stealth fighter with boring old flak in the Balkans decades ago.

bigyabai 1y ago
There are already missiles that can pull 50-80Gs, most modern air-to-air missiles can pull over 20Gs easily. Part of the issue is optimizing for weight/G pull, versus a high-sustain motor. A lightweight 50G missile has a very high P/K off the rail, but the longer it flies the harder it is to capitalize on your G rating. If the pilot notches it, you can potentially outrun the dangerous portion of the missile burn and force it into a sustained glide where the warhead is harmless. Contrast this with other missile designs like the MBDA Meteor, which probably has a relatively low G pull. Much less maneuverable, but it also remains dangerous for much longer than even an AMRAAM. Optimizing for these kill envelopes is what you want, if shooting down MiGs is your goal. By the time you're close enough to fire a 50G missile, you've got a helmet-queued R-73 hot-and-ready delivered through your canopy. I will leave you with the audio of an Su-34 defeating a MiM-104 (content warning: distressing) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD_en_xvSvU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD_en_xvSvU

LiisMannik 1y ago

[dead]