Abhirup Sengupta
Military Aviation Enthusiast Jun 2

Does the problem with Russian-made combat aircraft lie in how the
Russians use them (doctrine) or in the aircraft designs themselves?

I disagree with most of the answers attributing poor performance of
Russian aircraft merely on the doctrine and pilots. That’s just turning
a blind to a number of fundamental problems on Russian aircraft today.
Take SEAD campaign for example, the latest Russian anti-radiation
missiles like Kh-58UShKE or Kh-31P lack something as basic as a GPS
receiver which has been a standard on HARMs from last 20 years. As a
result if the SAM being targeted were to turn off its radar after the
Kh-58 is launched then there’s a high probability of the missile being
wasted. All the SAM-operators have to do is minimise their radar
emissions when under attack which has been a standard tactic since
1990s. This also has a big impact on the effective range of Kh-31 since
launching from long range gives the SAM operator a lot of time to turn
off their radar. It doesn’t help that unlike HARMs being roughly the
size of a BVR missile, the Kh-31P weighing 600 kg are almost the size of
an AShM like Harpoon which makes them far easier to detect. So while
Kh-58U may have a 250 km range on paper its actual effective range will
be far less.

Kh-31P on a Su-35 involved in SEAD over Ukraine

By contrast GPS on HARM along with launch platform’s ability to
geo-locate the radar before launch allow HARMs to attack enemy radars
even if they were to turn off during the flight. The AGM-88E adds a
terminal millimetre radar seeker for effectively engaging ‘non-emitting’
SAMs. Without something as simple as GPS guidance your anti-radiation
missiles (ARMs) will have horrible pK and your ability to destroy enemy
SAMs will be severely limited. Not to mention that if your ARMs are the
size of cruise missiles then it will dramatically reduce your payload.

Then there’s Russia’s inability to conduct high altitude bombing
campaign. Take a look at Su-34’s attack run in Russia’s Belgorod region
last week.

A pair of Russian Su-34 attacking a checkpost in Belgorod region and
apparently missing the target in 3 attack runs

Imagine how bad things must be for VKS to have its aircraft involved in
such low-altitude bombing on its own territory. This is because of
Russia’s extensive reliance on unguided munitions which limits the
flight ceiling to 13,000 ft. in order to have any kind of accuracy. For
CAS there’s no way but to drop them from such low-altitude and in the
above video you can see them missing even from a 100 ft. release.

This puts Russian aircraft at a significant risk from MANPADs like
Stinger and Starstreak that are common in Ukraine, and is responsible
for a significant number of losses in the initial months and even today
for ground-attack aircraft like Su-24 & Su-25. This is an unnecessary
risk that could have been easily avoided with high altitude precision
bombing capability. Iraq had plenty of Soviet MANPADs as well (over
6,800 to be precise) but in the last 30 years of combat, USAF lost a
grand total of 4 fixed-wing aircraft to MANPADs – 3 A-10 and an AC-130.

Over the past 3 decades MANPADs essentially stopped being a threat to
Western Fighter aircraft that could easily conduct precision bombing
from 30,000 ft. With proliferation of SHORADs and MANPADs with
all-aspect IR seekers flying at low altitude was no longer a viable
strategy and was associated with highest attrition rate. Western
Airforces learnt their lessons and moved away as technology matured,
Russian Airforce on the other hand didn’t. In fact, for years we had
Russian fanboys glorifying Russia’s reliance on ‘cheap’ dumb-bombs over
Western PGMs. Not so cheap when they cost you several million dollar
aircraft and ultimately air power.

The limited arsenal of PGMs Russia did develop is rather primitive and
does very little to mitigate the problem. Where you’ve JDAMs with an
operational flight ceiling above 50,000 ft., the KAB-500S-E which is
Russian counterpart to JDAM has a flight ceiling of mere 16,500 ft. To
make things worse, Russian aircraft also lack anything resembling a
modern Targeting pod. It’s the reason behind Russian aircraft in the
export market using French or Israeli Targeting pods. The Su-34M will be
having Russia’s first Targeting pod. With almost your entire fleet
lacking a Targeting pod, you’d be forced to fly considerably lower in
order to acquire a target. So while people are too quick to blame high
attrition rate of VKS on poor doctrine of low-altitude bombing, they
ignore the fundamental reason behind that doctrine.

Russian Fighter-radars are also significantly behind their Western
counterparts, especially when it comes to Air-Ground modes. Consider
that the latest Irbis-E and Pika-M on Su-35 & Su-34 have Synthetic
Aperture Radar (SAR) resolution of 1 to 3 meter, which is comparable to
20 year old F-15E’s APG-70 Mechanical radar (NHR mode). For context this
is the difference between 1, 0.3 and 0.1 m SAR resolution.

SAR images of M47 Tanks taken by MQ-1 Predator in 1999

Where you’ve F-16V or F-15E pilots able to spot things like Tanks, SAM
launchers and artillery pieces on their SAR maps, Russian pilots will be
barely able to spot combat vehicles with little to no ability to
distinguish between them. One of the lessons in Kosovo was how SAMs
could be used in an asymmetric manner by exploiting their mobility and
minimising their emissions. It showed how difficult it could be to
destroy these well hidden Air Defences and the importance of Synthetic
Aperture radars in finding such non-emitting SAMs even amidst decoys.

Today merely relying on SAMs to go ‘active’ is no longer effective as it
puts attacking aircraft at significant risk of getting inside their
envelope. This is where SAR can help locate non-emitting Air Defences as
well as screening the ingress route from long ranges in real time. I had
written a detailed answer highlighting the importance of SAR against
modern Air Defences.

Profile photo for Abhirup Sengupta
Abhirup Sengupta
· 10mo
Is Russia's inability to destroy Ukraine's air defence network a stain
on the SEAD capability of the Russian Air Force or a vindication of the
survivability and effectiveness of Soviet air defenses?
There are a number of reasons why Russia have failed to achieve Air
Superiority over Ukraine 7 months into the conflict. It boils down to
advancement in SAMs that made them more lethal and Russian Aerospace
industry’s inability to move past 1980s era technology/doctrine as far
as Air-Ground combat goes. In the 1980s advancement in SAMs made them
significantly more lethal with adoption of phased-array radars that
could target both low and high-altitude targets. Earlier long-range SAMs
like SA-2 were quite effective against high altitude targets but lacked
the ability to reliably engage low altitude targets. The early versions
of S-300 changed this, allowing a single system to be more flexible and
capable. More importantly, Short-range Air Defences (SHORAD) got a
significant jump in capability as well. From Strela-1 (SA-9) using
MANPADs and thereby, being completely restricted to low-flyers and
visual-range targets, you’ve Buk-M that could engage targets upto 72,000
ft. and 35 km. The Buk-M was also different from its predecessor Kub
(SA-6) in that the SAM launchers (TEL) carried their own radars, making
it an independent system of its own instead of having separate Missile
launchers (TEL vehicles), Radar and Command post. Having a SAM system
with such a low footprint and still able to engage Fighter-aircraft
across their entire envelope was unprecedented. It didn’t really have
any unique or great capability per se but it posed a serious threat when
employed asymmetrically. When facing a far superior enemy your Air
Defences would quickly loose the ability to protect the airspace as the
Surveillance radars and Command Centres get destroyed. That’s when you
resort to asymmetric tactics by dispersing into smaller units and
picking out targets of opportunity. The idea is to focus less on
protecting an area and more on inflicting enemy casualty, leading to
unsustainable attrition rate. This ensures that your SAMs are much more
survivable as they remain active only for small durations and that the
airspace remain contested. This is where the smaller footprint and
mobility of SHORADs like Buk-M is of significant advantage. They can
easily hide in an urban environment or camouflaged in the grasslands and
bushes, waiting for an enemy aircraft to get in vicinity before going
‘active’ and taking a shot. Then moving on to another position and
repeating the process. The mobility of longer-range SAMs like S-300
allows them to be used in similar fashion, albeit less effectively given
the bigger footprint. Since the beginning we saw Ukraine deploying their
SAMs very effectively. From placing them under critical ingress routes
to ambush Russian aircraft on strike mission to using Ukrainian Mig-29 &
Su-27 as bait to lure Russian aircraft into the envelope of Ukrainian
SAMs. These tactics are not new, the Iraqis did the same in Gulf War,
and Serbs extensively exploited the mobility of their SHORADs to protect
them in Kosovo. Earlier SHORADs had fairly limited envelope such as low
engagement altitude which allowed Fighter aircraft to avoid them quite
effectively but that changed with advancement in SAMs. Also, longer
range SAMs like S-300 got better mobility as well which increased their
survivability in the initial attack waves. In order to perform SEAD
missions against post 1980s SAMs you need aircraft that can create
high-resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) maps of the target area
in real time. This allows you to locate well-hidden SAMs and their
components regardless of their emissions. Merely relying on SAMs to go
‘active’ especially days after your primitive strikes is no longer
effective as by the time they go active you’re more likely to have
entered into their engagement zone. This is why having the ability to
create SAR maps and able to autonomously identify ground targets on a
tactical aircraft is really important for SEAD missions in 21st Century.
The latest Russian Fighter-radars (Irbis-E, Pika-M) have SAR resolution
of 1.4 meter which is comparable to 20 year old Mechanical radar on
F-15E (APG-70). So where you’ve Western Fighters creating SAR maps like
these, On right you can actually see things like lawn mower patterns The
very best Russian aircraft are limited to SAR maps a bit worse than
this, 1 meter X-band SAR resolution is a little worse Not only Russian
aircraft lack the ability to use Synthetic Aperture radars to any
meaningful effect, Russian Airforce doesn’t have anything like Global
Hawk or MQ-9 Reaper that could map large parts of enemy territory for
days. Russia only have a grand total of two Tu-214R with Synthetic
Aperture Radars and given the state of Russian Fighters one can only
imagine the state of its tiny Tu-214R fleet. Lack of sophisticated
avionics is not the only problem for Russian aircraft, they lag even
when it comes to basic weaponry. Forget about modern variants of HARM
(AGM-88E) having active millimetre seeker for reliably engaging
non-emitting SAMs on the move, the Russian anti-radiation missiles
(Kh-31P/Kh-58UShKE) don’t even have a basic GPS receiver to hit the
last-known location of an enemy radar, something common on HARM since
1980s. So if an Ukrainian SAM being targeted were to turn off its radar
in the middle of an attack, that’s a Kh-31P wasted. And it doesn’t help
when your anti-radiation missiles are the size of a cruise missile. The
Kh-31P at 600 kg literally weighs more than a Harpoon AShM. The bigger
size and RCS not only makes them easily detectable by enemy radars
providing a heads-up, but also makes them more vulnerable to being shot
by a SAM. Moreover, it also limits the real world loadout (as opposed to
on-paper) for a SEAD mission. A Su-35 with two Kh-31P on a SEAD mission
second week into the invasion (Source: Russian MoD, March 7) There’s an
entire history of SAM operators turning off their radars when faced with
the threat of anti-radiation missiles. In the Gulf War Iraqi SAM
operators used to turn off their radars just by listening to HARM
launches on the radio. With GPS you could at least hit the last known
location of the radar should they stop emitting post-launch. Without it
the Kh-31P would have extremely poor odds. It’s a recipe for failure.
Electronic Warfare EW is important not only for SEAD missions but also
to protect your aircraft on strike missions from remnants of enemy Air
Defences. We already knew that Russian Airforce was nowhere near the
USAF/USN when it comes EW. For one, Russia lacked a tactical EW platform
like E/A-18 Growlers, which not only had a big impact on protecting
their aircraft on strike or SEAD mission but also severely limited
Russia’s ability to do things like communication jamming – disrupting
the data links used by Air Defences to connect launchers, radar and
Command post for example. Russian aircraft also lack towed-decoys which
have been common in F-16, F-15 & F-18 (ALE-50) since the 1990s. In Iraq
and Kosovo towed-decoys were crucial in protecting not only aircraft
involved in SEAD but also those on strike missions when attacked. In
Kosovo alone Serbs launched almost 700 SAMs on NATO aircraft, 266 of
them were SA-6. Russian aircraft did carry powerful jamming pods which
while not as sophisticated as Western counterparts did have plenty of
raw power. Both Ukrainian pilots and evidence on the ground highlighted
extensive use of Electronic warfare by Russian aircraft since the
beginning. Despite this Russian Airforce is suffering a significantly
high attrition rate with a documented loss of at least 58 aircraft, half
of which are Su-30SM, Su-34 & Su-35. Wreckage of Su-35 with wingtip
L-265M10P/R jamming pods of the Khibiny EW suite Then there’s the
SAP-518SM jamming pods (Khibiny-U) on Su-30SM that went operational
around 2018 and is the latest Russian jammer in service today. The
intact pod from a Su-30SM wreckage was recovered recently during
Ukrainian counter-offensive in Izium. It’s not like Ukraine is using
‘modern’ Air Defences, their most advanced SAM – S-300PS is 37 years
old, and the Buk-M1 is 39 years old (1983). For Russian aircraft
equipped with latest EW system to suffer such losses is really baffling
because reliably jamming your own antique radars is the least your
modern EW pods should do given the detailed knowledge of the said
radars. It appears that Russian jammers have unusually long response
time – from detecting and classifying threat radar(s) to prioritising
the target radar and initiating a jamming attempt. This would explain
their poor performance against SAMs that are active only for short
durations. Lack of effective jammers made Russian aircraft on strike
missions highly vulnerable to Ukrainian SAMs. If the most capable
Russian jammers are struggling against their own outdated radars, one
can only imagine their fate against far more advanced Western radars
today. Majority of the analysis on Russian Airforce’s poor performance
in Ukraine focus around lack of experience and inadequate pilot
training. While that is true, and is indeed a factor but when you look
at the bigger picture it is nowhere as significant as the state of
Russian aircraft and their armament. Today SEAD missions are far more
dependent on your equipment. There is no doubt about advancement in Air
Defences making them significantly more lethal and survivable. The
extent of Russian losses is clearly a reflection of that. However, at
the same time advancement in Aerospace made aircraft more lethal than
ever – whether its modern anti-radiation missiles (AGM-88E) having
active-seeker to engage non-emitting radars, tactical aircraft producing
real-time SAR maps with resolution that allows Automatic ground Target
Recognition or decoys like MALD-J that can not only mimic anything from
a F-16 to Tomahawk cruise missile but also provide stand-in jamming
flying in proximity to SAMs. And then there’s the whole avenue of VLO
aircraft like F-35 that allows you to carry out airstrikes deep inside
highly contested airspace with little to no external support. It just
happens that Russian Airforce lacks pretty much all of them. It’s also
worth mentioning that Ukrainian Air Defences are not unusually powerful.
With about 430 SAMs it is roughly 1/8th the size of Iraqi Air Defences
in 1991 (3,679 SAMs) and is arguable more outdated. Both the US and
Israel have dealt with much more capable Air Defences in the past and
while they spent the last 40 years realising the challenge posed by
advancing Air Defences, the serious vulnerability of non-stealth
aircraft – the Russian military was busy attributing poor performance of
their equipment to their users while being duped in their ‘Superiority’.
When you look at the advancement in SAMs made since 1980s, the
challenges asymmetric tactics created in past SEAD campaigns, and the
state of Russian Aerospace industry today which for all practical
purpose is pretty much stuck stuck with 1980s Soviet doctrine as far as
Air-Ground combat goes – you quickly realise how that’s a recipe for
failure.
Unfortunately for Russian aircraft their poor SAR resolution has little
use in combat, being fairly limited to shiny brochures. We always knew
that Russian aircraft didn’t have sophisticated jammers as
microelectronics and semiconductors weren’t their thing. Instead they
relied on brute force (raw power) to overwhelm radars. In recent years
Russia portrayed the likes of Khibiny-M and SAP-518 on Su-35, Su-30SM
and Su-34 to emphasise modern deception jamming techniques (DRFM),
however their performance in Ukraine tells a different story. You’ve
documented cases of 36 Russian aircraft with latest jamming pods being
shot in Ukraine (4 Su-35, 11 Su-30SM and 21 Su-34).[1]