> The jets circled for about 12 minutes and Italian F-35s were scrambled to repel them.
Earlier this year, HN discussed the value of the F-35 (a plane I'm quite fond of!)
During that discussion, one overlooked point was the top speed of the F-35. At-altitude, the F-35 cannot intercept a MiG-31. Flying nap-of-the-earth would be a different discussion, but Russia knows this. Their planes commit an incursion, waited for a response, and then exited once they detected the response. They were in control of the entire intercept, from the start to the end.
This is what we mean, when we say Russia is "testing" us. They want to see if a serious response exists to these threats; an F-35 is a glorified ground-attack jet. It's an amazing piece of kit, but it can't do much besides lob an AMRAAM in a situation like this.
The fact is that the F-35 was not designed to be an interceptor fighter jet. Rather, it was designed to use its stealth features, advanced sensors, and long-range missile capabilities to detect and destroy a MiG-31 well before the MiG-31 could even become aware of it. Whether the F-35 is a suitable aircraft for dealing with the aforementioned MiG-31 provocations is another question.
I agree wholeheartedly. That's why my heart breaks seeing other countries use the F-35 as an interceptor, presumably because their air force was priced-out of something like the Eurofighter or Rafale. It's in your own airspace, you don't need a highly-survivable stealth platform or 10x sensor loadout. You need a fast interceptor.
Rafales are considerably more expensive - India paid like $250M+ per unit (and lost like four of them to F-16s/J-10s). F-35s are $70-100M. Imho F-35 are superior in this scenario due to its stealth features - they'll be operating very close to russian AA systems
The F-35 is expressly vulnerable, in this scenario. If Russian radars were the only threat, you'd be correct. The MiG-31 has a top-notch IRST system though, they can get a missile lock on the F-35 regardless. "Going dark" is pretty much useless for this scenario.
For a pure interception-style mission profile, an F-15 or even F/A-18 would perform much better. A Rafale or Eurofighter platform would also suffice. The F-35 is a Joint Strike Fighter though, and I think people forget why it was made. It's a bomb dropper, the F-16 will outperform it in a one-circle and two-circle engagement. The F-35 is just not built to dominate air combat, and that's okay. It only becomes an issue when customers don't know what they're buying.
What is significance of having a passive relatively short-range sensor for violating aircraft in this scenario? Nothing on mig-31 is "top-notch" - it's 50 year old tech. Even Zaslon-M probably isn't capable of detecting F-35 with its low RCS beyond 50mi
I think you're discounting the MiG-31 in this engagement a bit. I like the F-35, but it was only going to be useful here if they fired an AMRAAM. They didn't - the F-35's radar and datalink advantage was never used. It never intercepted the MiG-31s or attained visual identification.
Let's start with this, Russia knows that NATO fears escalation. As long as their MiGs don't open fire, they can maintain an ambiguous international stance (even if they were definitively wrong). SAM operators would hesitate to open fire; in training they learn that modern decoys can spoof RCS and potentially endanger civilian aircraft in the confusion. So, they raise the issue with their allies and see if a response can be scrambled to deter further airspace violation. Assuming Russia never intended to escalate, this is the point in their plan which they bail out.
You're correct that Zaslon is largely useless here; the IRST is much closer to SOTA and well-integrated with the R-77 and R-73 missile family. These are pretty demonic missiles if you're a stealth aircraft, and they can be queued off-boresight to deter anyone from wanting to get close: https://youtu.be/a6TiPNW512g
I agree that if the goal is traditional cold war era intercept ie show of force then rafale is probably better. Not sure if that strategy will be effective here though - vks seem to pursue different goals here
That is such an old "standard" procedure. We ( West) used to fly Phantoms into East Germany to see how long it took them to respond - then switched on the afterburner and disappeared. The Russians have done that in Norway and Finland for ever. Old news.
With the small caveat that there wasn't a hot war with the party doing the peaking in progress one country over. This is literally begging for an escalation and that's most likely the only reason they haven't got one yet, not for lack of ability. The amount of hardware on NATO's Eastern flank is pretty impressive, especially in NE Poland and the Baltics and Finland near the russian border. Those pilots must have been wondering if the lack of response was good or bad news.
Wouldn't any capable aircraft lob an AMRAAM? At least as an initial BVR engagement? I would think a bunch of long range missiles coming your way would qualify as a serious response even if they came from F-35s.
when a mig turns tail, and runs like this, they have seriously limited manueverability. they basically go into "rocket mode" and sacrifice agility for delta v
The meat sack can only handle 8-9G’s and only some number of those. So, make missiles and drones that can outdo this and get them to go fast and the problem is reduced. Stealthy and fast might not be possible due to IR, and stealth might not work at all in optical wavelengths with any ambient light.
Ukraine might have demonstrated that smart, smaller weapons will or even have taken over the battlefield. And they brought down a stealth fighter with boring old flak in the Balkans decades ago.
There are already missiles that can pull 50-80Gs, most modern air-to-air missiles can pull over 20Gs easily.
Part of the issue is optimizing for weight/G pull, versus a high-sustain motor. A lightweight 50G missile has a very high P/K off the rail, but the longer it flies the harder it is to capitalize on your G rating. If the pilot notches it, you can potentially outrun the dangerous portion of the missile burn and force it into a sustained glide where the warhead is harmless.
Contrast this with other missile designs like the MBDA Meteor, which probably has a relatively low G pull. Much less maneuverable, but it also remains dangerous for much longer than even an AMRAAM. Optimizing for these kill envelopes is what you want, if shooting down MiGs is your goal. By the time you're close enough to fire a 50G missile, you've got a helmet-queued R-73 hot-and-ready delivered through your canopy.
> The jets circled for about 12 minutes and Italian F-35s were scrambled to repel them.
Earlier this year, HN discussed the value of the F-35 (a plane I'm quite fond of!)
During that discussion, one overlooked point was the top speed of the F-35. At-altitude, the F-35 cannot intercept a MiG-31. Flying nap-of-the-earth would be a different discussion, but Russia knows this. Their planes commit an incursion, waited for a response, and then exited once they detected the response. They were in control of the entire intercept, from the start to the end.
This is what we mean, when we say Russia is "testing" us. They want to see if a serious response exists to these threats; an F-35 is a glorified ground-attack jet. It's an amazing piece of kit, but it can't do much besides lob an AMRAAM in a situation like this.
> the F-35 cannot intercept a MiG-31
The fact is that the F-35 was not designed to be an interceptor fighter jet. Rather, it was designed to use its stealth features, advanced sensors, and long-range missile capabilities to detect and destroy a MiG-31 well before the MiG-31 could even become aware of it. Whether the F-35 is a suitable aircraft for dealing with the aforementioned MiG-31 provocations is another question.
I agree wholeheartedly. That's why my heart breaks seeing other countries use the F-35 as an interceptor, presumably because their air force was priced-out of something like the Eurofighter or Rafale. It's in your own airspace, you don't need a highly-survivable stealth platform or 10x sensor loadout. You need a fast interceptor.
Would you share more about the priced out part? Wouldn't a stealth fighter be more expensive than an interceptor? Do you have links?
Rafales are considerably more expensive - India paid like $250M+ per unit (and lost like four of them to F-16s/J-10s). F-35s are $70-100M. Imho F-35 are superior in this scenario due to its stealth features - they'll be operating very close to russian AA systems
The F-35 is expressly vulnerable, in this scenario. If Russian radars were the only threat, you'd be correct. The MiG-31 has a top-notch IRST system though, they can get a missile lock on the F-35 regardless. "Going dark" is pretty much useless for this scenario.
For a pure interception-style mission profile, an F-15 or even F/A-18 would perform much better. A Rafale or Eurofighter platform would also suffice. The F-35 is a Joint Strike Fighter though, and I think people forget why it was made. It's a bomb dropper, the F-16 will outperform it in a one-circle and two-circle engagement. The F-35 is just not built to dominate air combat, and that's okay. It only becomes an issue when customers don't know what they're buying.
What is significance of having a passive relatively short-range sensor for violating aircraft in this scenario? Nothing on mig-31 is "top-notch" - it's 50 year old tech. Even Zaslon-M probably isn't capable of detecting F-35 with its low RCS beyond 50mi
I think you're discounting the MiG-31 in this engagement a bit. I like the F-35, but it was only going to be useful here if they fired an AMRAAM. They didn't - the F-35's radar and datalink advantage was never used. It never intercepted the MiG-31s or attained visual identification.
Let's start with this, Russia knows that NATO fears escalation. As long as their MiGs don't open fire, they can maintain an ambiguous international stance (even if they were definitively wrong). SAM operators would hesitate to open fire; in training they learn that modern decoys can spoof RCS and potentially endanger civilian aircraft in the confusion. So, they raise the issue with their allies and see if a response can be scrambled to deter further airspace violation. Assuming Russia never intended to escalate, this is the point in their plan which they bail out.
You're correct that Zaslon is largely useless here; the IRST is much closer to SOTA and well-integrated with the R-77 and R-73 missile family. These are pretty demonic missiles if you're a stealth aircraft, and they can be queued off-boresight to deter anyone from wanting to get close: https://youtu.be/a6TiPNW512g
I agree that if the goal is traditional cold war era intercept ie show of force then rafale is probably better. Not sure if that strategy will be effective here though - vks seem to pursue different goals here
>Their planes commit an incursion, waited for a response, and then exited once they detected the response.
That's pretty much the status quo during the cold war anyway, speed or not. You measure response times, where it came from, and so on.
It should have come at Mach 9 from below. Good chance that next time it will.
Anti-missile and anti-drone lasers are starting to appear, which may make the response somewhat faster than Mach 9.
(IIRC the laws against weaponised lasers are only for intentional blindness, not incidental while e.g. cutting a fuel line).
That is such an old "standard" procedure. We ( West) used to fly Phantoms into East Germany to see how long it took them to respond - then switched on the afterburner and disappeared. The Russians have done that in Norway and Finland for ever. Old news.
With the small caveat that there wasn't a hot war with the party doing the peaking in progress one country over. This is literally begging for an escalation and that's most likely the only reason they haven't got one yet, not for lack of ability. The amount of hardware on NATO's Eastern flank is pretty impressive, especially in NE Poland and the Baltics and Finland near the russian border. Those pilots must have been wondering if the lack of response was good or bad news.
Wouldn't any capable aircraft lob an AMRAAM? At least as an initial BVR engagement? I would think a bunch of long range missiles coming your way would qualify as a serious response even if they came from F-35s.
when a mig turns tail, and runs like this, they have seriously limited manueverability. they basically go into "rocket mode" and sacrifice agility for delta v
The meat sack can only handle 8-9G’s and only some number of those. So, make missiles and drones that can outdo this and get them to go fast and the problem is reduced. Stealthy and fast might not be possible due to IR, and stealth might not work at all in optical wavelengths with any ambient light.
Ukraine might have demonstrated that smart, smaller weapons will or even have taken over the battlefield. And they brought down a stealth fighter with boring old flak in the Balkans decades ago.
There are already missiles that can pull 50-80Gs, most modern air-to-air missiles can pull over 20Gs easily.
Part of the issue is optimizing for weight/G pull, versus a high-sustain motor. A lightweight 50G missile has a very high P/K off the rail, but the longer it flies the harder it is to capitalize on your G rating. If the pilot notches it, you can potentially outrun the dangerous portion of the missile burn and force it into a sustained glide where the warhead is harmless.
Contrast this with other missile designs like the MBDA Meteor, which probably has a relatively low G pull. Much less maneuverable, but it also remains dangerous for much longer than even an AMRAAM. Optimizing for these kill envelopes is what you want, if shooting down MiGs is your goal. By the time you're close enough to fire a 50G missile, you've got a helmet-queued R-73 hot-and-ready delivered through your canopy.
I will leave you with the audio of an Su-34 defeating a MiM-104 (content warning: distressing) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD_en_xvSvU