Note by the Saker: I usually don’t like direct comparisons between weapons systems, mostly because I find them highly misleading and because their conclusions are totally dependent on the assumptions you make. Furthermore, comparing the F-22 to the MiG-31 is really talking about apples and oranges. However, sometimes, it *does* make sense to compare apples and oranges (depending on what you want to cook). In this case, I see this video not so much as a direct comparison of aircraft as much as a (rather interesting and well made) comparison of design philosophies. So, when watching this video, don’t imagine 1×1 or even 2×2 or any other kind of direct engagements between these two very sophisticated aircraft, but just try to get a sense of the immense differences in aircraft design philosophies of the two producing countries.
Enjoy!
The Saker
Saker Message:
MiG-31 is a doomsday device. It can operate at the highest ceiling, take out satellites and deliver nukes on hypersonic missiles. If they get off the ground (should the US strike first), they will terminate US full spectrum dominance and then terminate the US itself. They won’t be dogfighting the F-22.
The MiG-31 is a true strategic platform.
the Mig-25 and 31 made the SR-71 spy plane obsolete as they both could fly as high and faster than the Blackbird. Any plane dominating the skies of the SR-71 has got to compare favourably with the F-22 and then some.
In spite of a greater than 10 fold spending on the US military I continue to be amazed by Russian engineering of its military technology. And now with the step up of US threats the Chinese will turn even more to Russia to help their buildup in the face of the US buildup in the Pacific. US elites will someday be very sorry and pay the price for threatening Russia and China at the same time.
Agreed, Soviet/Russian engineers have a special talent of building platforms that last decades; not just physically but also leaving plenty of room to upgrade technologies. MiG-31, while almost 40 years old, is still able to upgrade its technologies to outclass the F-22 (except in dog-fighting.) Same with the Su-24, nearly 50 years old, yet with upgrades it does strike bombing as well as F-18E or F-35.
The British used to follow that same principle. Compare the Spitfire versus the BF-109, which were pre-war designs with very similar performance when they entered service.
The Spitfire was a bigger plane with much more potential for upgrading, while the BF-109 had been designed to wrap the smallest airframe possible around the biggest engine then available.
By 1945 they were both still facing off against each other, each with similar beefed-up specs (on-paper).
But the Spit was still a delight to fly, and extremely dangerous for any opponent, while the BF-109 had become an overpowered brute that killed more of its pilots in landing/takeoff than died in actual combat.
There are two golden rules for designing fighter planes:
a) Make sure they can operate from the roughest of airfields.
b) Make sure you leave plenty of “stretch” in the design
Well, it’s pretty obvious that US weapons aren’t ten times better than Russian weapons, and apart from the obvious example of aircraft carriers the USA definitely doesn’t have ten times the amount of equipment.
So whichever way you dice it the USA isn’t getting anywhere near the bang for the buck that the Russians do.
They spend more than the Russians, sure.
They have more stuff than the Russians, sure.
But not ten times more, in large part because the USA doesn’t *really* spend ten times more than the Russians do. That number is misleading, because how the Americans calculate military spending is misleading.
It goes like this: you take the Russian military budget of xxxx rubles, and then you convert that number in $yyyy at the current exchange rate. You then take that dollar amount and compare it with the US military budget (also, of course, in US dollars).
You’d then decide that, yep, that amount is one-tenth what the USA spends, so every time the Russians buy one tank for their army the USA must be buying ten tanks.
The catch is obvious: the Russians don’t buy Abrams M1A1 tanks using US dollars spent in the USA. They buy Russian-built T-90 tanks, and they pay for them in Rubles.
So the USA will outspend the Russians, sure, but not by ten-to-one. Not even close.
This is easy to illustrate: imagine if the Russians kept their military budget exactly the same year by year, but in 2020 the ruble depreciates 50% against the US dollar compared to what it was “worth” in 2019.
Q: So do the Russians have to cut tank production by half?
A: No, absolutely not, even though ACCORDING TO THE AMERCAN CALCULATIONS Russian spending on military equipment has halved.
It hasn’t: Russian military expenditure can remain unchanged, precisely because they buy Russian-built tanks using Russian currency, not US money.
It’s truly a philosophical difference n engineering.
On paper the NATO weapons are truly wonderful; but they require “ideal” conditions to be fully performant. It is not uncommon, in real conditions, that they broke and become unrealiable.
Soviet/Russian weapons are made for *real* war conditions.
Probably the fact that the USSR/Russia had to survive, with much pain, real wars, make them value the usefulness of real defensive weapons on real conditions.
As the US never had to fight a real existential war, they are still in a careless denial of reality (like when they did a war game and were badly beaten by an inventive officer, instead of learning from that and improving their tactics, no, they blamed the officer, and falsified the results…. well, that works in war games, but in a real war…)
Exactly. This is not a video game. In order to be effective, the plane has to be operable. All the specs in the world are of little value if the plane is just sitting on the ground most of the time waiting for repairs. The end of the video covered all too briefly the maintenance problems of the F-22 including the failure of the oxygen systems for pilots. A realistic comparison would start with reliability of the two aircraft and their practical use as combat jets, not their theoretical capabilities.
Now that video I did watch to the end and found it both interesting and informative. There is an article that expands on the video and goes into more detail. Also worth a look at.
MiG-31BSM Foxhound vs. F-22 Raptor: Which Heavyweight Jet Would Reign Supreme in Air to Air Combat?
https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/mig-31bsm-foxhound-vs-f-22-raptor-which-heavyweight-jet-would-reign-supreme-in-air-to-air-combat
i would question the credibility of some Indian guy’s blog presented as a “magazine”
What makes you think it is ‘Some Indian Guy’s Blog’ ? The director isn’t even from India – based on his name. I don’t see anything lacking in its credibility, it’s articles are well balanced (and don’t even cover india very often or necessarily positively, so that seems very strange)
Ps if it was an ‘Indian blog’ how come the coverage of Pakistani and especially chinese weapons systems is so favourable…
Whoever, Indian … Take a look at his YouTube channel, a kind of Kids backyard: A vs B.
This blog/magazine is simply maintained by some an amateur hobbyists, knowledgeable but to treat it as a source for military analysis is partially ridiculous.
Idk why you have a problem with them. I don’t see them citing anything wrong. The most popular YouTube videos are all ‘A vs B’ so I guess he is trying to get views
Perhaps it is your comments which lack credibility, not the source itself
A little bit of background history. The first production fighter aircraft from Mikoyan-Gurevich, the I-200 series or MiG-1&3, were high altitude interceptors. The WW2 era version of the original role of the MiG-25&31. Here is a short video of a MiG-3 from 2012:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tHwfb9LtZX4
A longer flight from 2007 showing more aerobatics (probably the same MiG-3, I would be surprised if more than one was still in flyable condition):
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y4LVWm0wE04
“i would question the credibility of some Indian guy’s blog presented as a “magazine”
“Whoever, Indian …”
I was going to write welcome to guardianistaville, but this is worse. It’s youtubecommentsville. :-D
“Furthermore, comparing the F-22 to the MiG-31 is really talking about apples and oranges.”
Maybe now, but not so much initially in the design concept the f-22 was build to fulfil. The f-22 was a continuation of the american wet dream of having an air asset capable of shotting down all comers from a distance while remaing effectively immune to attack. The ultimate air fighter, an impervious interceptor, who kills before the enemy knows what hit them, and hss to face little in the way of counterattack. The f-22 was not initially designed to be maneuverable, as this is not needed in an aircraft designed to use misdiles to fight at very long distances.
But during the 1990s the Russian demostrated a phenomenon known as thrust vectoring. The americans, copycats that they are, figured that if they applied this thrust vectoring to the f-22, they could have a stand-off interceptor and at the same time a dogfight fighter. So they added thrust vectoring to the f-22. But again, being americans, they took it only halfway, the way that would ensure minimum cost for maximum profit. Their thrust vectoring was only in 2 directions, up and down. Not also in side to side directional thrust.
What this means is that the f-22 gains better maneuverability in the verticle, but only marginal improvement in the horizontal, the plane it always lacked maneuverability. In practical terms this meams the f-22 can put on some spectacular feats at airshows, but its actual dogfighting capability is really not much, if at all better than figjters without thrust vectoring, but which employ canards. Such as a Su-33 or a eurofigher.
The MiG-31 developers never went this route and instead added features additional to designed requirements that expanded on the aircrafts established capabilities in both its original role and in new roles. Such as improving on its interception capabilities or emplying it for Kinzal launches.
Eurofighter and Su-33 don’t have thrust vectoring. an interesting assessment though.
For your benefit, the jets with thrust vectoring are:
2D
F-22
Su-30
3D
Su-35
J-10C
Su-57
MiG-35
J-11D (upcoming)
F-22 is the only Western fighter with thrust vectoring engines. Until 2018 when the J-10C came it, it was the only non-Russian one with this technology
Shinzo – Do read the comment of vot tak again > he did say that that SU33 and Eurofighter employ canards and not thrust vectors…