Zarathustra
Registered Member
Maybe true, but Iran has stuff they want badly this time.
Iranian Air Force (IRIAF/IRGC-ASF) | News and Discussions
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Tehrani021
Registered Member
Yes you are speaking about economies of scale which I clearly acknowledged in the comment you quoted. However we are not talking about ford cars or commercial airliners which mass produce. We're talking about airforce of a country which is nowhere near to mass produce Kowsar and has an immediate need to have a stop gap. Also in an airforce you dont train a pilot to fly F-14, Mig and maybe an F-4, like you can cross train cabin crew of an airliner with Airbus and Boeing. A pilot can only ever be trained for one type of aircraft, which is why I say that, other than the initial economies of scale discount on the unit price of the aircraft, over time you still have to pay more or less the same for training and maintenance if you were to train 20 pilots in 3 different types of aircraft, as opposed to 60 pilots in one.
That's why you have to compare apples with apples and look to see how many different types of fighters rival nations have in their airforce, and what you will see is not just one type. Israel has 3 (F-15, 16 and F-35), Saudi has 3 (Tornado, Eurofighter and F-15), Pakistan has 3 (F-16, J-17, J-10), and India has 6 (Su-30, Rafael, Tejas, Mig-29, Mirage 2000, and mig-21). If Iran were to add Kowsar and Su-35 they would also have 6 to add to F-14, mig 29, Mirage F-1 and F-7. So it is totally acceptable to have a few different types of aircraft in an airforce. However I'm sure they would ditch F1 and F7 if Su-35 and Kowsar come into service, surely, which would be 4 fighter types.
Yes in the long run having your own aircraft in house is the best. Nobody is disputing that, but we're talking about how realistic it is to get there at all, what sort of timescale do we have to wait to get there and what do we do in the meantime until we get there? Yeah well grippen and f-16 will never happen so bringing it up in the discussion is absolutely a waste of time.
As great as it is as a stepping stone in developing a great fighter but when I see kowsar I see target practice for western jets. So in that regard su-35 would be a more proven jet until a vastly improved kowsar or something even better comes along. What I also don't understand is why do we have to be black and white about it, why cant Iran develop Kowsar in the long run instead of rushing it and at the same time have a few stop gap Su-35 for protection? Kowsar is an unfinished product and the timescales we're talking about are decades, so what do we do in the mean time? Do we buy foreign, if that's even possible because I doubt su-35 will come, OR do we do nothing and rely on drones and missiles for x amount of decades until Kowsar is developed, which is pretty much what Iran is doing now?
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Flotilla
Trusted Member
Completely agree.
Su-35 and even Mig35 or modernization of Mig29 it is perfectly compatible with more Kowsar/Yassin.
I believe ‘timescales’ is the dominant term here. There is no way Iran can develop a competitive and practical system in time that the system is not already a relic. Pilotless and AI are where the action is. Both are already here if if not around the corner.
I find it amazing any discussion is taking place at all for a domestically developed air force under this technologically disrupted environment.
Besides, outrageously, it is clear as day Iran has NO conventional air force today. ZERO. It’s also clear Iran has invested heavily in drones and ai. It’s absolutely clear Iran, correctly, has decided to leapfrog over building a conventional air force and invest in the air forces of the future: pilotless and AI.
Iran’s development path is clear.
1. Buy stop gap (SU-35, etc)
2. Concurrently develop hardware (Kowsars, Q313, etc) as unmanned test beds until
3. AI systems are fully developed, trained and tuned.
4. Integrate
This is the shortest path by far to an effective air force. There is no question about it.
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Hack-Hook
INT'L MOD
so because India have 6 aircraft its ok for us to have 6 , wrong India economy is several time ours also India is phasing out older air crafts and you have forgotten to add IRGC aircraft to the list.
and Iran list is Mig-29, F-14, F-4, F-5, Kowsar, J-7, F-1, Su-22, Su-24, and soon Yak-130, Su-35
and no you are wrong , over time you pay less if your supplier had to gave you higher amount of fewer parts instead of lower amount of a lot of parts , that's simple chain of logistic for you and the training of ground crew also be a lot cheaper , you need to keep fewer maintenance supply line and....
Hack-Hook
INT'L MOD
the difference is when you built it , you have al the subsystem for building a AI controlled pilot-less aircraft , if you beg for older generation aircraft right now then you have nothing and when every body have Ai controlled aircraft you had to go and again beg for a pilot controlled obsolete aircraft again
I’m not clear if you’re agreeing with me or not but, regardless, building foundation models is no longer that difficult (at least compared to building an x gen complex ….relic). The issue is reliability and hallucination ergo fine tuning and supervision and precision prompts (environmental/combat input).
Iran is not far behind in ‘ai’. No one is really. This is the closest technological gap we’ve had for …centuries. So the time is now.
In fact, LLMs are already endangered. Generative ai will be based on ‘general world models’ (GWMs) within a few very short years— much more applicable to UCAVs.
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Tehrani021
Registered Member
Iran's intended fleet size would not be the same as India's so it's all relative. I'm also comparing apples with apples, fighter with fighter, airforce with airforce, not fighter with attack and trainer. IRGC is a seperate discussion to Iran airforce. Shall I include India's 3 attack and 4 trainers as well to make it a fairer comparison? Also youre assuming Iran will keep the aging aircraft after Kowsar and Su-35, whereas all of India's 12 fighter/attack/trainer types of aircraft are fully fit for purpose and in service.
I get that there may be some economies of scale on parts, but can you explain how would there be "fewer parts" with a larger number of one type of aircraft as apposed to "a lot of parts" with fewer aircraft per multiple different types of aircraft? Also another question, is the cost difference "extreme", as one user put it, or does Iran have the financial clout to afford this, as well as having the funds to develop domestically? If not, then you have to give evidence otherwise it's just speculation. Do you have access to Iran military's Profit and Loss accounts, balance sheet, budget plans, etc? You need to make a trade off between where you want to be and where you are now, and what the security need is NOW.
Tehrani021
Registered Member
But they could still have more units of fewer types, I dont see how that negates that theoretically speaking. It's about being practical of what's available and not always living by strict formulas and theory.
Immortals
Elite Member
I know people who work with AI for decades. Generative AI is no where close to being ready. A fully weaponized AI system is still 15-20 years away. That’s assuming a UN treaty isn’t signed banning completely autonomous [offensive] weapon systems.
The closest Generative AI model today is a secret OpenAI project and that has the intellect of a elementary schooler according to leaks. Hardly “smart” enough to power a weaponized system. Not to mention this is exactly how you end up with a human existential threat if you rush such systems to production without building proper safety systems in place. Ask Boeing what happens when you rush technologies to market without fully fleshing them out.
Lastly, Iran is indeed BEHIND on AI because it doesn’t build ANY major semiconductor chips INSIDE its own country. AI uses extremely intensive chips as you well know. Also These LLM models consume enough water as a small country. Very environmentally unfriendly.
It’s better to have AI servers stationed in space or the moon where the natural coldness of space (lack of heat to be more specific due to vaccum) can naturally cool these equipment without need for massive unthinkable amounts of water being used. Iran already has a existential water crisis on her hands, adding AI will only lead to a worsening of this effect.
Side Note: it has been theorized any exterristial species would likely be machine based deployed in space using the vacuum to cool themselves continuously. Machine based life is much more compatible with this vast universe than organic.
Anyway, to conclude. Iran is very behind in AI from an infrastructure standpoint. A future Iranian aircraft/weapons platform would have to rely either on US/Taiwan/China based companies for their hardware (GPUS, CPUs, server farms, semiconductors) needed to run any General Intelligence AI based server farm and for their future weapons systems.
That is a HUGE bottleneck that makes using Windows XP in Command and Confrol centers, ships, etc look like a brilliant move.
The west and Global Imperialist alliance is trying to corner the semiconductor and AI GPU/CPU market for this exact reason. The only hope Iran has lies in that China can battle and make their own capability or else the future is hard to compete if the hardware technology lies in hands of the Imperialists.
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You are manifestly incorrect. The ‘people you know who know AI’ don’t know jack if in fact they told you that. Which if they really did ‘know AI’ they won’t tell you that.
We are at the stage of integration of generative LLM based ‘ai’. Lots of companies are using these outstanding systems poorly. They are given a Lamborghini but use it as a sheep carriage.
Trust me the public systems are very able to carry out complex tasks. Let alone military ones. Palantir has declassified examples of battle management systems which are publicly available.
Ignore your friends.
Mr Iran Eye
Registered Member
The facts are: Kowsar is mass produced. Its production is very well financed. Its technology has passed the 4th generation with great improvement. The Kowsar is a universal platform and the models that follow will be considered as powerful aircraft that are very surprising due to their technology and very low radar signature. The IRIAF's way of doing things is brilliant, well thought out and goes far beyond the analysis of the people on this forum which is stagnating in the swamps.
Iran presents us with 3 assembly lines and but here the reference is the science of Wikipedia with the number of 4. Intellectual poverty!!
en.wikipedia.org
Iran presents us with 3 assembly lines and but here the reference is the science of Wikipedia with the number of 4. Intellectual poverty!!
HESA Kowsar - Wikipedia
| Number built | 4 |
|---|
The facts are: Kowsar is mass produced. Its production is very well financed. Its technology has passed the 4th generation with great improvement. The Kowsar is a universal platform and the models that follow will be considered as powerful aircraft that are very surprising due to their technology and very low radar signature. The IRIAF's way of doing things is brilliant, well thought out and goes far beyond the analysis of the people on this forum which is stagnating in the swamps.
Iran presents us with 3 assembly lines and but here the reference is the science of Wikipedia with the number of 4. Intellectual poverty!!
HESA Kowsar - Wikipedia
These are excellent test beds. Terrible practical systems for modern warfare. Even if they were ’4th gen’ they would not last 30 seconds against opponents—US and Zionia. You seem to be missing the fundamental timescale problem at hand.
Iran will NEVER catch up or field competitive manned fighters in time. EVER. Thank the stars.
The SU-35s won’t last either …maybe a little longer but not meaningfully. Their role is very specific and not for head to head engagement. I keep hearing they will ‘fill a gap’ but, frankly, don’t know what that gap is. Anyway.,..their real value is TOT to be applied to future unmanned systems.
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Tehrani021
Registered Member
Your AI unmanned fighter is still a concept for superpowers, let alone Iran. Do you think if a nation state invaded Iran in the next year would we be better off as things are with our airforce or better off with 60 new Su-35s? Then we can see a gap.
