Flanker question

Never noticed this until I saw the loading screen a million times. I wanted to see if anyone knows what these small triangular surfaces are on the Sukhoi 27, only early variants seem to have this feature, not proto types or Su-35s or Su-33s and 34/Fullback, but it does appear on Su-30s. My thinking was that they must be supplementary canards and/or holding antenna/rwr equipment, and Sukhoi must’ve figured they didn’t need them or a way around them.

This is in Italian, but in #66 this is labelled as ECM antenna.

Since jammer is in pod on wingtips, I would put my bet on RWR antenna.:smilewink:

RWR antenna.

Never noticed this until I saw the loading screen a million times. I wanted to see if anyone knows what these small triangular surfaces are on the Sukhoi 27, only early variants seem to have this feature, not proto types or Su-35s or Su-33s and 34/Fullback, but it does appear on Su-30s.

Yes on some(older) variants of the Su-30(like Su-30K), but not on e.g. Su-30SM or Su-30MKI.

My thinking was that they must be supplementary canards and/or holding antenna/rwr equipment, and Sukhoi must’ve figured they didn’t need them or a way around them.

As already mentioned, they are RWR antennas - more specifically for the SPO-15. Thats why newer Flanker variants don't have them - i.e. they have newer RWR systems(e.g. L-150 "Pastel") with different antennas/location.

The Su-33 is something of a special case - it was intended to have L-150(hence no SPO-15 antennas), but didn't until very recently...so in reality the Su-33 has been flying without an RWR for most of its service life :) .

That’s crazy that they left a RWR out for so long

That’s crazy that they left a RWR out for so long

Yeah and its just one of several weird things about the Su-33. I guess it just came around at the worst possible time(collapse of the SU and economic crisis in the nineties). With only two dozen aircraft and a single semi-operational carrier for them to operate from, the Su-33 probably wasn't at the top of priorities for the Russian military.

And a pretty limited capability carrier and its aircraft, at that.

Plus, wasn't the primary mission in those Soviet times for this carrier to provide protection to their submarines from NATO ASW patrol airplanes? In that regard, the RWR perhaps wasn't a high priority, like e.g. it wasn't for the F-14's which were initially equipped with the same obsolete AN/APR-25's from the F-4's.

And a pretty limited capability carrier and its aircraft, at that.

I don't really agree with that - I could write you a long-winded account as to why, but this section would probably not be the right place for it :) .

Plus, wasn't the primary mission in those Soviet times for this carrier to provide protection to their submarines from NATO ASW patrol airplanes? In that regard, the RWR perhaps wasn't a high priority..

No it was just one of them - Soviet "carriers" were really multirole cruisers tasked with; anti-submarine warfare(large powerful sonar suite and ASW helicopters), surface-to-surface warfare(engaging enemy surface groups with cruise missiles) and air defence - not just to protect friendly submarines from enemy long-range ASW aircraft, but also to protect the friendly surface group from air-raids by carrier launched tactical aircraft. So I don't agree that lacking an RWR could be a low priority :) .

.. , like e.g. it wasn't for the F-14's which were initially equipped with the same obsolete AN/APR-25's from the F-4's.

I don't know about the F-14, but since the Su-33 inherited practically the entire combat complex directly from the Su-27, it would seem more logical to just adopt the SPO-15 along with it, if the RWR wasn't seen as a priority :) .

I don't really agree with that - I could write you a long-winded account as to why, but this section would probably not be the right place for it :) .

Well, you could write some key points, I'm sure no-one would mind. IMHO, the carrier has a limited range, limited stores and aircraft complement and without the catapult, it can't launch its aircraft with full payload, nor can it provide tanker and proper AWACS support (unless you want to consider those Kh-31's which never entered service as such). It's advanced radar system (which I guess was meant to offset the AWACS limitation) also doesn't work IIRC.

No it was just one of them - Soviet "carriers" were really multirole cruisers tasked with; anti-submarine warfare(large powerful sonar suite and ASW helicopters), surface-to-surface warfare(engaging enemy surface groups with cruise missiles) and air defence - not just to protect friendly submarines from enemy long-range ASW aircraft, but also to protect the friendly surface group from air-raids by carrier launched tactical aircraft. So I don't agree that lacking an RWR could be a low priority :) .

Well, they call them cruisers, but not necessarily because they truly consider them as such. The actual reasons could be of ideological (being offensive weapons) and also of practical nature (being forbidden to cross the Turkish straits otherwise which is kind of a problem when the shipyard capable of making them was there in the Black Sea).

Sure, they added a sonar suite to them and a small complement of powerful anti-ship missiles, but those missiles only take valuable hangar space, while the limited number makes them more like a self-defense weapon against NATO ships, rather than an offensive weapon. I guess they had to install them not because they needed cruisers, but because their air complements lacked both range and anti-ship missile capabilities, which kind of defeats the purpose of having a proper aircraft carrier in the first place.

That's why I mentioned that it's relatively realistic primary mission was to provide air cover (and of course the anti-submarine cover against NATO HK subs as you said which I didn't mention as we were discussing Su-33's) to their ballistic subs in the Barents Sea, certainly not duking it out with a US carrier group (I guess Backfires were in charge of keeping those away from the Barents Sea).

I don't know about the F-14, but since the Su-33 inherited practically the entire combat complex directly from the Su-27, it would seem more logical to just adopt the SPO-15 along with it, if the RWR wasn't seen as a priority :) .

Well, you can spin that differently - if it was a priority to have something, they wouldn't have put it in the serial production without one. And Pastel would presumably require a different display (e.g. an MFD?), which the Su-33 doesn't have.

There could be other reasons like extra weight for a perhaps unnecessary or even somewhat outdated system at the time (mid 80's). Also, the original Su-27 SPO-15 installation couldn't have been simply reused because they had to mount the canards there. And I guess installing such things in new locations requires a lot of testing and adjustments to avoid interference, etc. which costs time and money, hence why I assumed it might not have been a priority.

The parallel with the F-14 was that both services kind of had to fight the budgets so they often had to make do with what they had. E.g. the TF-30 engines were supposed to be interim, but they got stuck with them for almost 20 years. Same with the RWR upgrades (a capable RWR suite only became necessary when the Bombcat role became a thing and they would have to fly over land strike missions) and later weapon upgrades (e.g. had to scrap the AMRAAM integration to use the funds for LANTIRN, Harpoon and HARM missiles weren't integrated, though they were tested successfully, etc.).

Of course it's not really fair to compare them as US Navy had a defined role and much more funds at its disposal, but I presumed that there could be some doctrinal similarities with their interceptors over sea not having the RWR suite as a priority.

bio i think it was? remarked that rwr wasn't seen as such a big deal at the time since over the ocean there's not much in the way of terrain masking, and so defense could be predicated on filling the aor with active emissions.

Interesting probad, that certainly makes sense. I wonder if the change from pointed vertical stabs to flat topped vertical stab was also due to the change in RWR