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Bash the Pak-Fa thread


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Radical idea: there has been a continuous improvement in aircraft design, rather than 4 or 5 large jumps.

 

The term 4.5th generation is already in wide usage, and I've seen 4.75th generation once or twice. I'm waiting for whatever Flanker variant gets released in 2025 to be called a 4.9999999999....

generation fighter.

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Radical idea: there has been a continuous improvement in aircraft design, rather than 4 or 5 large jumps.

 

The term 4.5th generation is already in wide usage, and I've seen 4.75th generation once or twice. I'm waiting for whatever Flanker variant gets released in 2025 to be called a 4.9999999999....

generation fighter.

 

That was gonna be my next swing, after x's post.

To refocus: My original point was that Russia very well could modernize at some point and field things that could be put in the category of 6th Gen fighters without committing to 5th Gen ones. Why X thinks that's impossibru is beyond me, since it's happened over and over again in Russian history alone.

 

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Also, X, how on earth do you figure the J35 is equivalent to the J47?

 

Misplaced when it got swapped over to the J47, thought it stayed on the J35 a bit longer than it did. Even then, the FJ-1 and F-86 are just as much different generations as the F-35 and F-22 (kidding, but come to think of it, internal carriage may make light bomber and top end fighter mutually exclusive for now).

 

 

That was gonna be my next swing, after x's post.

To refocus: My original point was that Russia very well could modernize at some point and field things that could be put in the category of 6th Gen fighters without committing to 5th Gen ones. Why X thinks that's impossibru is beyond me, since it's happened over and over again in Russian history alone.

 

Not really clear on where it happened in Russian history even though they went into the jet era with good info on swept wings and a country to license better jets from.

 

I'm not really fond of the terminology either, to be honest, but they're such broad clumps of planes that It's really hard to come up with anybody that's skipped an entire generation. On the other hand 4.5th generation is a bullshit lie coined by LockMart to make their products look shinier as they wrapped the definition of fifth gen around the F-22 and F-35, so I could definitely see some Russian planes that would get labeled as 4.5th gen seeing enough development that engines and avionics wouldn't be too dramatically behind the curve.

 

Honestly it's the avionics that I see being an incredible swine to just skip over. The sort of thing that's getting thrown around requires some serious integration work, and without the sort of foundation given by that, I don't see them taking whatever the next step is. I work in a bit of programming where we deal with standards and different APIs and it's hard not to understate what an incredible nightmare that can be. I can see Russia skipping 5th gen, but I can't see them skipping 5th and 4.5 gen and having a non-hellish time making a 6th gen fighter

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If we assume that "4.5th Gen" actually means anything, then the Russkies have certainly not skipped it.

 

There's been pretty huge avionics improvements especially to get from the original fighters in the 4th gen bucket to what's thrown in the 4.5th bucket, although in fairness some of those planes are using the same airframe. It's probably better to discuss current planes against ones from the 80s than a terminology that seemingly exists to shill lockmart products.

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Well, considering the MiG-31BM should be able to see a F-35, I am sure the PAK FA can also be seen. I think most stealth stuff is a waste of time tbh.

 

There's seeing, "seeing" and " 'seeing' " (repeat ad nauseum). Knowing there's someone out there, knowing he's out there, knowing who he is, knowing how he's moving, knowing where he is and how he's moving, and your weapons knowing these things are all radically different things and working your way up that scale constrains that someone's options progressively more and more.

 

Frankly I consider it absolutely vitally desperately needed for operating against anybody who can put up an IADS worth the name (and if I remember right this includes such heavyweights as Azerbaijan) without it getting painful.

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