F-35 vs. Su-35 is a real reality!
Some details of the deal between Russia and Iran on the Su-35 have become known. Actually, the main detail is that there will be a deal. The only variable that is currently present in this deal is that Iran is thinking about what would be better: to buy ready-made aircraft, following the example of many countries, or to assemble them at home, following the Indian scenario.
Perhaps, all this will seem insignificant to some, but in fact, this is the most important question for both Iran and Russia. Why – will become clear a little later.
In general, the question of a meeting in the sky of Israeli F-35s and Iranian Su-35s, which are not at all with peaceful intentions, is not a question at all, but a matter of time. The question here is the effectiveness of the parties, and here is a field for reflection.
We will leave the technical side of the comparison of the two fighters for later, since this comparison is worthy of a separate section. Here we will talk about no less important aspects that can be more significant than the flight and technical characteristics.
So, in Kazan, within the framework of the summit, certain agreements were reached between Russia and Iran. As I see it, these agreements will be supplements to the Treaty on Comprehensive Cooperation between Russia and Iran, which the parties could sign at the summit in Kazan. The treaty was dragged out for a very long time, they started under the previous president Raisi, and now they could complete the work on it by signing it. In this case, everything looks quite logical and balanced.
Iran has long been looking at new Russian weapons systems and has even acquired some of them. Of interest to us are the Yak-130 aircraft, which can easily and naturally be used to train pilots to fly the Su-35. Moreover, former Deputy Defense Minister Mehdi Farahi, who lobbied for the deal, did not hide the fact that the Yak-130 is being viewed as exactly that: as a training aircraft to prepare Iranian pilots for more complex Russian-made aircraft.
The fact that Iran began training its pilots in advance to work with Russian aircraft (they are not only planning to buy Su-35s, they also want to stock up on helicopters to the fullest extent) is correct.
The main thing here is what Iranian military pilots fly today. And they fly, excuse me, such outright junk that it really becomes a shame for them.
If you look at the armament of the Iranian Air Force, you can immediately understand why Israel can do any kind of mischief with its F-35s, fearing only Russian-made SAMs: they cannot counter the Iranian Air Force with anything sensible. They have nothing to counter with.
The main fighter aircraft of the Iranian Air Force is the F-14 Tomcat.
In general, the situation with aircraft in Iran is as follows: in the 70s, the US was actively sending its equipment to Iran in response to the USSR arming its neighbors in Iraq. And then they quickly closed the shop, Iran flew into a regime of global isolation and it simply had nowhere to get new equipment.
That's why F-14s, which were produced between 1974 and 1979 (check it out!) are still in service. Iran was able to establish production of spare parts for these aircraft, and veterans of the Iran-Iraq war (who, by the way, showed themselves very well in it) are still in service.
There is nothing shameful about this (on the one hand), our Tomcat's contemporaries, the MiG-31, also serve quite peacefully with proper care, the only question is that Russia can properly modernize its aircraft, but there is no such confidence for Iran.
There are also MiG-29s. They were ferried over from Iraq when it was being destroyed by coalition forces in 1991. The planes are also far from new, plus there is no technical base for them. That is, the combat capability of the MiGs is rather conditional.
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This is a separate sadness. But this is a very important point, since it is necessary to understand the level of capabilities of the Iranian industry in this regard.
There is a level, and it is not a bad level.
The main thing is that the Iranians seem to have managed to build their own aircraft. Of course, it is not worth talking about their own development, so far from the entire Eastern world, only the Japanese and Chinese have been able to come up with independent projects. For the rest, everything is more than sad (especially in India), let's say this: all national projects are held as entertainment to maintain the image. The South Koreans were able to do it too, but they are practically American aircraft, just reconfigured and assembled in the South Korean Republic. Their T-50, around which there was so much noise, is in fact a Samsung KTX-2, corrected by specialists from Lockheed, which is practically a copy of the American T-38.
Yes, the T-38 Talon is a great machine. It is still used to train pilots in the US, having been in service since 1961. They say they will change it, but that is not certain.
So, on the basis of this more than successful training aircraft, a very unique and controversial F-5 fighter was created. It was released in a very decent series, but was late for wars due to its initial obsolescence.
Yes, the F-5 fought heartily, starting with Vietnam and ending with a lot of African conflicts, but against serious opponents (like the MiG-23) it was a whipping boy, which is confirmed very clearly by the results of the Iran-Iraq war.
But Iran had nothing better at hand, the F-14 is a very complex machine, even the Americans, who removed it from service, admit this, so Iranian engineers copied the F-5. In the West, many experts are sure that both the HESA Azarakhsh and the HESA Saeqeh that followed it are simply modernized F-5E Tiger.
HESA Azarakhsh
The HESA Saeqeh differs from the F-5 in having two vertical stabilizers instead of one, additional wingtips and modified air intakes. The fuselage, chassis, engines, armament and cockpit instruments are identical to the F-5E, which makes it possible to say that the Saeqeh is not a new aircraft, but a remake of the F-5s that were in the Iranian Air Force. However, footage from Iranian enterprises does not say the opposite, but they show major work on the aircraft.
Overall, it doesn't matter. The basis for "reverse engineering" is so ancient that there is nothing to talk about. The F-5 was good for "dogfighting", that is, for the closest maneuverable combat, and even with the use of guns. Yes, for helicopters the F-5 was a deadly phenomenon, but at medium range rockets Any normal fighter of the 70s and 80s would have made a mincemeat out of the Tiger.
And what can the re-faced F-5 do to the Israeli F-15, F-16 and F-35? Absolutely nothing. The F-5 is like eating a kitten in front of tigers. You can replace the avionics, replace the American radar with a Soviet one (the Saeqeh had a Fazotron-NIIR N019, known as Baaz), then on the next models it was replaced by a Chinese version of the Italian Grifo radar, but the aircraft design itself became obsolete about forty years ago.
Frankly low speed (around 1700 km/h), below average ceiling (15 m), meager set of weapons, weak in range and selectivity of radars, not to mention stealth - too many minuses against the background of good maneuverability and a decent range. In short - not a fighter.
No, in Africa, the F-5 is still relevant in local showdowns, but we are talking about the fact that Iran's main enemy is Israel... More precisely, this is what the Iranian military says. And with such toys, the Iranians have nothing to catch in any conflict. Against them will be three hundred fighter-bombers of the Israeli Air Force, which will simply demolish everything that the Iranian Air Force has. And there are not many, even if you take into account the donated MiG-29 and MiG-21 of Chinese manufacture, it will still be less than a hundred aircraft.
Overall, there is nothing to catch except downed Iranian pilots if the countries get into a serious fight.
So all Iran can do today is throw ballistic and cruise missiles and nothing more. Yes, a missile is a serious matter. weapon, but it is also possible to counteract them, as practice shows.
Iran really needs to beef up its air force. And it needs to do so quickly, because the new US President Trump, even before taking office, started talking about how democracy in Iran is still lousy, and Iran is still creating tension in the region, so it would be a good idea to turn off its oil tap. And not buy it, and not let others do it.
Well, there are not so many ways to implement it. Only two: Russia and China
Iran is somewhat familiar with Chinese technology, they once bought F-7M and J-7 from them, an exact copy of our MiG-21PF. But in fact, Iranian pilots flew American and Soviet aircraft. MiG-29 and 21, Su-24, Su-25 - a fairly sufficient list to say that Iran knows Soviet and Russian technology.
Well, the choice is obvious. Of course, someday Chinese aircraft will be quite competitive on the world market, but this will not happen anytime soon. So, given today's quite normal relations between Iran and Russia, it is clear that the fighters should be taken Russian.
With my own strength
Iran needs a lot of planes. More than a hundred, which puts the order on par with serious and not so serious (like the Indian show) world-class orders. But Iran is a much stricter country than India, such obscurantism is hardly possible there.
But the Persians are interesting people... I would say creative. If during the complete isolation of the country they were able to establish mass production of not the worst ballistic and cruise missiles, and even more so strike missiles drones- Kamikaze is now a classic - so why not take up building airplanes?
The Indians were able to...
In general, of course, how they managed to assemble it in India is a separate series with elephants and dances, but the Iranians have a simpler task. The Indians took a risk to invest in an unknown aircraft (Su-30MKI) and won, because the aircraft turned out just right. Well, plus assembly on their territory by their own specialists is a big fat bonus along with the production of spare parts.
And in Iran they want the same. And it is easier for them, the Su-35 is completely mastered in production, everyone understands that it is one of the best aircraft in the world, and among the 4th generation it is the best aircraft.
Moreover, it is clear that, unlike India, the project will not cost Iran much in "clean" money. It is clear that there will be a lot of barter and mutual offsets.
But in this barrel of honey, of course, there is not a spoon, but a pot of tar. In India, despite all the tricks, an aircraft assembled in the country costs exactly twice as much as an absolutely identical aircraft assembled in Russia. Why does a Su-30MKI cost 32 million dollars in Russia, while an absolutely identical one assembled in India costs 64 million? The mystery of the century...
There are even more questions about Iran. The first, of course, is how much will it cost to assemble the Su-35 there, which is actually more expensive than the Su-30? The second question is: to what extent do Iran's assembly plants meet the requirements that the Russian side is expected to present? It is one thing to assemble/redesign the F-5, and quite another to assemble the Su-35.
Of course, the assembly of ready-made machine kits, produced within the walls of KNAAPO and delivered from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Tehran is a completely different matter. The Iranians will most likely cope with this quite well. And localization... Over time - why not?
A modern aircraft is a complex and delicate mechanism, and, unlike a ballistic or cruise missile, it cannot be used once. That is, everything is much more complicated and will be a very big test for Iranian military enterprises.
But as the old Persian proverb goes, "If Ali is a camel driver, he knows where to put the camel."There is absolutely nowhere to go, they will cope.
The guys we know from The Drive have been very vocal about the potential of this deal:
"The Su-35 is very well suited to Iran's immediate needs. Its reputation has been strengthened by intensive combat testing and a fairly solid track record, and Russia is not at all averse to selling these aircraft. Such large contracts for "4++" fighters are now a rarity. Iran will seek to localize the production of key parts of the fighter, in particular many of the most frequently needed spare parts, to reduce its dependence on Russian technical support. But full assembly according to the Indian model does not seem to be the most feasible option."
Well, remembering what happened after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, when Iran suddenly ceased to be a US arms client and the country was left practically without arms supply channels, it is understandable why Tehran really wants to produce the necessary components and parts for aircraft themselves.
But here problems arise from Iran's designated enemies. That is, from Israel. These specialists in delivering very precise air strikes are unlikely to be happy with the prospect of Iran having three or four regiments armed with Su-35s. It and the Israeli Air Force, so to speak, have been in a semi-relaxed state for the last 20 years. They take off, fly into Lebanese airspace (their own ended immediately after takeoff), fire missiles from there where they should, and quickly back.
But we will talk about possible tactics of use in the next part, here we will note that it is not so simple - to produce planes and protect them from Israeli strikes. And if relations between the countries develop in the same way as today, here you don’t need to go to grandma, the Israelis will strike not at airfields, but at factories.
Of course, having learned from bitter experience, Iranian leaders have moved a number of their most important enterprises underground in mountainous areas. Where it will be very difficult to reach the factories even with missiles. If the factories producing aircraft, and especially the most modern ones, are even a little vulnerable, I think Israel (and the US) will not resist the temptation to launch something corresponding at them. We know how quickly coalitions are created in the world to smash not only factories, but entire states into rubble. And which countries usually initiate such processes.
So, assembling the Su-35 somewhere on the edge of the world, in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, is not such a bad idea. No one who doesn’t like Iran will be able to get there.
There are many components, as you can see. And Iranian military and government officials will have to think very carefully about how best to rearm their Air Force with the least possible expense. Either organize the production of components and assembly of aircraft on Iranian territory, in some super-protected underground factories, or not bother at all and buy ready-made ones in Russia.
A big headache for the Iranian leadership. But – with a perspective. The problems that were voiced here are, perhaps, even more complicated than the level of training of Iranian pilots and the possible lag of the Su-35 in performance characteristics. But Iran is clearly not afraid of this, so the first step towards the Israeli aircraft meeting, if anything happens, an equal (with the F-35) and stronger (in the case of the F-16 and F-15) enemy. This may well happen in the very near future.
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