The problem I am seeing with just throwing major weight into the SU-75 program is that the plane is yet to even fly and we do not know what it will become considering its radically different from the conventional flanker design.
I have faith Sukhoi to deliver a solid product. They have a long track record in successful designs.
It’s basically a 5th gen F-16. Smaller, stealthy agile multi purpose fighter jet. It’s what we dreamed Kowsar would turn into (or F-313).
I think it will be a success and the best way to position our access to the program is while it’s still in R&D. Russia is not going to have the client list it once did: China has its own planes, India is turning to the west, and any country with strong relations to the west will go with F-35 or F-18/F-15 latest blocks. Even Egypt is being forced into the western arms ecosystem.
That leaves a small list of countries like Algeria, UAE, and Vietnam as potential customers. Iran is the only country that can place a big order (100+ jets).
Even SU-57 is just a low RCS flanker airframe, it's flying, inducted, and already has combat operational experience.
Personally, I think SU-57 program is shaping up nicely. Of course mainstream media made fun of the “screws” shown at the recent air show in China. What they failed to realize is that was a T-50 model from 2012 and the plane is becoming more and more advanced. For example, the latest block engines now have automated gates to hide components from radar penetration.
Sukhoi patents claim an AVERAGE RCS (all around not just frontal) of .1 - 1 m2 and that puts it in the same territory as F-35 . Disregard the Lockheed propaganda of .001 or whatever since that is one angle in particular X band at a particular altitude/azimuth and they took the MINIMUM value they could record at that. Marketing bs at its finest.
So SU-57!8: A great plane that is improving by each iteration (again what we thought Kowsar would do) with a limited budget of Russia (60B).
Some informational points I think that demonstrate it below:
But how likely is it Russia gives us SU-57? Somewhere between 0 and laughable. Russia has its Arab relations (and Israel) to worry about who would not be happy if Iran got its hands on SU-57.
Shame because I really like the plane and can only imagine how beautiful it would be like in Desert Camo.
Leadership is stupid otherwise instead of playing delayed gambles on these 4+ generation fighters from Russia and China, they should just get a few to buy time as a stop-gap and focus on domestic assembled 5th generation now (be it FC-31, SU-57/75) because in few years we will be surrounded by enemies flying F-35, Tempests, stealth wingmen and what not. Iranian missile forces being proven as a strong deterrent have bought Iran some time but for how long? Iran needs to enter the 5th Gen and Loyal Wingmen program. The budget of ~35 Billion USD is more than enough for this considering we dont import any defense product.
Agreed on F-14A conversion to fully armed F-14AM standards (with ALBM capability) and storing some for whenever they are needed to play the role of MIG-31BM. If the Ukraine conflict has taught us anything, its that in the end every airframe counts and you dont throw airframe than can fly to 3500 KM with 6 x LR-BVR missiles. Kowsar in its current form or its future generation, being a light fighter, has no utility in how the Iranian conflict is shaping up other than that the fighter is given to IADS to datalink with Karrars/SAMs and create an inner layer of defense against intrusions by drones, CM etc. Even if it gets AESA+PL15, it has limited utility which is why they should have been done with the program by now, build/rebuild some 70-80 airframes and place them along IADS coverage points. Another crazy idea will be to focus on creating a loyal Wingmen out of Kowsar considering the plane is 100% locally built so can be the guinea pig for this science project.
I agree with your points. I HOPE (keyword hope) that this recent budget increase translates to more $$$$ to Air Force.
We still don’t know how far along the Iranian “medium” engine project is. If we don’t see any prototype by 2027, I will assume it’s mothballed. I have faith is still going strong, but again finalizing an engine and mass producing it are two different things. Look at China and India in that field.
Yes, we absolutely do need a stop gap airforce. It took China decades in aerospace engineering to reach this point and they have 200B+ military budget and had access to western (and Russia) tech. I don’t know why individuals on here think that Iran can produce “6th gen AI terminators” and completely by pass traditional jet development, when they cannot even reverse engineer an RD-33 or mass produce a J-85.
Also regarding BMs, they are great deterrent weapon, but not a good war weapon. Look at how many KGs of munitions Russia has dropped on Ukraine, or Israel on Gaza/Lebanon. If Iran wanted to replicate that destruction it would need MILLIONS of missiles, not remotely feasible.
So the BM program is good for what it is, keeping enemies at bay from starting a war. But if a major war starts they can't be your only source of firepower.
I have advocated for a high altitude supersonic (Mach 3+) VLO delta wing UAV bomber. U.S. had a recon drone like this in 60’s using an engine from the Blackbird. So it’s not a cutting edge tech beyond Iran’s reach in 2030’s.
The thinking would be a UAV bomber that would be able to be reusable and can penetrate enemy lines to bomb HVTs and complement the BM. I know hypersonic CMs are supposed to be full that role, but again for Iran you get into the same issue of how can you build enough HCMs at a reasonable cost to sustain a war effort?
At the end of the day the lack of a family of engines from CMs to tanks to helicopters to jets is what keeps Iran from reaching a level of a China or Russia in terms of arms development. That and a peanut size military budget of 15B ( hopefully 30-40B in 2025).
As for Kowsar, you already know my viewpoints on it. I thought it would be an experience guide for Iran to learn the steps of mass production of higher magnitude weapon systems. Also a way to modernize the F-5 force for the future plus not rely on an external trainer (ie Yak-130). But it seemed it became more of a zombie program used for press releases and propaganda and given the bare minimum to stay running.
I don’t think at this point anyone in the Republic has a coherent long term strategy for the airforce even the Artesh Navy is still stuck on Mowj vessels since 2008. The Iranian destroyer project (Persian Gulf Ship) is in wonderland apparently after one section of the Hull was shown of years ago.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the consensus in Iran is that:
A) we are too big and too mountainous to be land invaded, thus regime change via military by west is not an option. Color revolutions remain the biggest threat.
B) BMs keep risk of conflict low, if we feel that POINT A is threatened we will just build a nuclear bomb so who needs a fancy airforce and Navy. Focus should be on weapons that cause pain on the enemy, forgo building a military that can wage a long aerial based war.
If those points are true, then the future Iranian airforce will likely look like North Korea’s. Which ironically these days, with NK now under strategic military alliance with Russia you could see a revival of NK airforce in the near future as Russia rebuilds that force to piss off the west and South Korea.
How sad would it be if NK has more advanced airforce then Iran? Even Azeribajian is getting more capable fighter jets than Iran. The future is Iran surrounded by F-35’s from UAE to Israel while we fly the corpse of F-14.
Your welcome. China today is the second largest economy in the world where is Iran with its inflated currency that's worth nothing more than a toilet paper.
