The Internet is being flooded with all sorts of claims about 4+ and 5th generation fighters and I think that some reality needs to be re-injected into all this. Thankfully, Air Power Australia, which always has very good technical analyses, published an excellent comparative chart which is very helpful in getting some sense of the real capabilities of the various 4+ and 5th generation fighters currently in existence:
Ok. I guess I should add here that the folks at Air Power Australia have an agenda: they really, really, do not want the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter for their country. But hey – who could blame them?! Besides, the fact that these folks are horrified at the prospect at getting the F-35 JSF does not mean that they analyses are flawed. On the contrary, the analysts writing for Air Power Australia are among the best out there and I have never seen anybody challenging their expertise or conclusions.
Now, a full comparison would require further elements, such as a comparison of radars and radar modes, jamming capabilities, air to air missiles, etc. Air Power Australia already has published such comparisons and I am not going to re-publish all that stuff here. Rather, let me share the bottom line with you: there are only 2 real 5th generation fighters in existence: the F-22 and the PAKFA (and only the former is actually deployed) and of these two the PAKFA is the more capable and more advanced one. Russian 4+ (or even 4++ as some refer to them) such as the Su-35BM or the MiG-35 are trailing the F-22 very closely and are clearly ahead of other 4+ aircraft (Eurofighter, Rafale, F/A-18E/F Super Hornet).
Lastly, I would like to add here that the difference in costs between 4++ and 5th generation fighters is huge and that I believe that 4++ generation fighters have a better export potential than the immensely expensive and complex 5th generation ones. Airpower is really running into a diminishing marginal returns issue here. Ask yourself – what is better: a wing of 4+ fighters or a pair of 5th generation ones? The answer, of course, depends on assumptions and on your engagement scenarii, but I just don’t see countries like, say, Indonesia or Venezuela coming up with many reasons to procure 5th generation fighters.
The Saker
PS: does anybody know how to embed a full-size picture in Blogger? I tried all sort of things and the least bad one was to host the image on Picasa (which I did with the chart above). But it always de-pixelizes the damn picture. I really would want to post high res picture here without having to put up with the idiotic size limitations of Blogger. Any help with this would be really appreciated!!
VERY good site! Thanks.
http://www.ausairpower.net/
Air Power Australia has really interesting and well-done analysis and comparisons. Their agenda is not exactly that they don’t want the F-35, what they really seek is that the US lifts the export embargo on the F-22, and Australia buys it.
saker,
what is your take on the patriot defence system. does it work? the US is shipping them everywhere — but are they effective? i seem to recall them failing in live battle (gulf war I?) and in tests. but i have no clue.
@Carlo: yes, but that is the same deal though. They don’t want the JSF because they think that its useless for Australia. Now, I happen to believe that nobody would want to attack Australia, nor does Australia have any reasons/business attacking anyone else, so their kinda paranoid “we need to F-22 to defend against the nasty Russians and/or Chinese and/or their proxies” makes me smile, but their analysis is very good. Americans seem to be convinced that anything and everything produred by the Pentagon is, the best, the best in the Galaxy, and most Europeans have the same inclination (except, amazingly, the Poles who from time to time release an article questionning whether buying 2nd hand US systems is such a brilliant idea). I have no idea what the Japanese or Chinese write (since I don’t know either language) so outside Russian sources the Aussies is all I have and, so far, I found them very good.
Them, and the militaryphotos website which, really amazingly, has some very sharp guys posting there. They don’t take too kindly to the “red white n blue” patriotic nonsense and a that kind of idiocy is immediately challenged by technically oriented folks (a good way to deal with trolling, I think).
But in terms of full length indepth analyses in Enlish – Air Power Australia is the only game in town, I think.
Cheers!
@anonymous: the Patriot is a solid air defense system, no doubt here. The main problem is that it *never* was intended as a anti-ballistic missile system so during the first gulf war it failed to intercept a single Scud. In fact, the Patriots killed some folks in Israel I believe, but never shot down anything.
Now, the newest Patriot variants are reportedly better at this task. Also, unlike the Russian S-300/S-400, the Patriots cannot function autonomously, they need initial data from other intelligence source.
But all in all the Patriot is wholly inadequate to defend against Russian missiles, even the short ranged ones so if the dumb Polaks really think that putting these Patriots on the Russian border is protecting anything they are wrong. All it does is piss-off the Russians and provide the Russians with a great set of lucrative and easily destroyable targets. I can hardly think of a dumber decision than the one to deploy the Patriots there. But then, Poland has such a long and proud history of making idiotic decisions that I am not surprized one bit. They might as well deploy some elegantly dressed “pans” on horses and “made in the USA” slingshots for all I know….
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