In times of war, new weapons are often rushed to the front and pressed into service before they have been properly tested. There is little choice, and any operational edge can be critical on the battlefield. The Russian Federation, however, is not fighting a war at present – just a low-intensity conflict in Syria, where its aircraft are indiscriminately bombing rebel enclaves, killing hundreds of civilians weekly. It is beating them into submission so the ground forces of its protégé, President Bashar Assad, and his proxy allies can eventually regain territory.
There is no military justification for Russia to deploy its most advanced and – so far at least – nonoperational stealth fighter jet to Syria. And yet last week Russia sent four Sukhoi Su-57s to its Khmeimim air base in Syria.
The Su-57 first flew eight years ago, in January 2010. And just like other new weapons systems, its development has been long and arduous. From all available information, only 10 flyable prototypes have been produced so far, and deliveries to Sukhoi’s main customer – the Russian Air Force – have yet to take place. With an aerodynamic shape and coated in radar-absorbent materials that greatly reduce its radar cross-section, it is intended to be the first stealth fighter in Russian service.
On an airstrike mission, stealth fighters are optimized to take out high-value targets defended by multiple anti-aircraft batteries, utilizing their evasive features to penetrate defenses and carry out precision strikes. All these advanced capabilities are superfluous on a routine Russian sortie over Syria, which consists of dropping tons of explosives on hospitals and bakeries.
Rebel groups in Syria have little in the way of anti-aircraft defenses. The best they can muster is a handful of Soviet-era, Strela shoulder-launched missiles with which they have scored some successes against low-flying regime and Russian aircraft. But this has hardly deterred the Russians, who usually bomb from altitudes well beyond the Strela’s range. The Su-57 is hardly necessary against such puny resistance.
Some experts have advanced the explanation that the Su-57 is being deployed in order to train air and maintenance crews, and provide them with combat experience on the new jet. But this hardly makes sense at this stage in the aircraft’s development, before it has even been supplied to squadrons back in Russia. They still lack the most basic knowledge of stealth operations and will need many months, if not years, to acquire the know-how to use these aircraft efficiently overseas.
Another theory raised in recent days – that the Su-57s are to counter another U.S. airstrike against Russian mercenaries in eastern Syria, such as the one earlier this month where as many as 200 of them are reported to have been killed – is even more outlandish. The United States, should it be confronted, has far superior forces to bear in the region, including its own stealth F-22 fighters; four prototypes, never tested in real-life scenarios, will be no match. The last thing the Kremlin is planning is to risk the humiliation of its most advanced jet being shot down over Syria.
Deploying nearly half of Sukhoi’s prototypes to Syria will not only cause months of delay in the test program, as the flights taking place there will be of little use since they won’t be carried out in the necessary conditions and with calibrated telemetry instruments. It also risks exposing some of the aircraft’s unique capabilities. Every radar system within 400 kilometers (about 250 miles) range of Khmeimim – there are a lot of them, and you can be certain that more were flown out there by NATO over the weekend – will be focused on detecting the Su-57 and acquiring readings of its radar and sensors signatures.
The Su-57 deployment to Syria smacks of the same kind of motivation that made the Russians send their single aircraft carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov, to the Mediterranean in November 2016. The Russians boasted that in the short time it sailed off the Syrian coast, its aircraft attacked “a thousand targets.” However, Western intelligence services tracking the operation believe the fighter jets on the Kuznetsov’s decks lacked even the range to carry out a single full carrier-based mission – launching from the ship with a bombload and returning there after completion. It was an exercise in public relations with scant military value, and at the cost of two fighter jets that crashed into the sea.
But at least the Kuznetsov is a veteran vessel that should be put through its paces at sea. The Su-57 is still brand new, and exposing it to harm in Syria makes less sense. That is, until you check out Russia’s domestic political calendar.
The Syrian campaign is losing popularity back home and in three weeks the Russians will vote in a presidential election. There’s no way President Vladimir Putin will lose – he has no serious challengers, anyway. But the campaign itself needs rousing images to deliver not just victory but a resounding landslide and a chorus of nationalism befitting a czar. And what better image than Russia’s newest jet bombing the enemy to oblivion?
There is no other conceivable reason to send the Su-57 to Syria other than for Putin’s greater glory. The family in east Ghouta buried alive by the shock wave released by one of its bombs will never know they were the first-ever civilian target of a stealth fighter – but at least they’ll have provided action footage for Russian television.
http://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/node/33192
http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-looks-to-have-deployed-su-57-to-syria-posing-problem-for-f-22-2018-2
@ Hugo Schmidt-Fischer:
Russia’s Su-57 Stealth Fighter Makes Maiden Flight With New Engine
Russia’s defense industry is working hard on developing a next-generation engine for the fifth-generation fighter jet.
India Wants Out of 5th Generation Fighter Jet Program With Russia
The Indian Air Force has reportedly demanded an end to the joint Indo-Russian stealth fighter project.
@ Hugo Schmidt-Fischer:
I think those days of Israeli ingenuity are done…reserved only for the “start-ups’/
The pilot of the Israeli downed plane, as well as the IDF tracking depot said that the missiles were S-200s an out-of-date system.So the S-400s were not used for that operation.
@ EDDIE DEE:
I think they believe with reason that Israel will not dare attack those planes but they can use them to gain tactical information and intelligence with their upgraded avionics and weapons platforms…….as I said new radars and electronic jammers and long distance surveillance…. Does anyone want to mess directly with the Russians???? They can perfect tactics and surveil all of israel without entering Israeli airspace. That they are willing to risk those planes means Putin is playing high stakes chicken chess…..
The Russians deployed their S-400 surface to air system in the theater. The SA-21 Growler as it is known in NATO circles, may very well be the most advanced system around today.
We cannot say whether US technology can match up to this. Or will Israel surprise us as it did in the 1960s when it pulled a MiG-21 from Iraq or raided an entire P-12 radar system from Egypt to study their DNA codes and go on and win the war.
That so much is under-reported may have to do with the fact that the Americans and Israel are indeed heavily constrained in their aerial capabilities.
Unless the Russian system is not as good as thought of, much may have to depend on the goodwill of Putin.
It is far from the laughing matter Haaretz makes us believe.
But then again, Israel may pull a bunny out of the hat again
@ yamit82:
yamit82:if Su-57 so untested,why would they be risked against easily challenged Israeli aircraft?
Planes can carry nukes
Planes have new improved avionics and electronic jammers that need testing
dual message Russia counters American attacks on Russian mercenaries killing hundreds and wounding many more… Israel destroying according to reports command and control of drone sites located on Russian airbase…… I don’t think either Israel or America will challenge Russian Su-57 but they are sitting ducks from the air or cruise missile attack….. Putin’s game of chicken and so far he is winning I haven’t heard of any Israeli attacks since they were deployed. Strange, the American attack against Russians in Syria under-reported and most American’s haven’t heard about the attack or it’s significance……
I believe the planes are there to give the West the impression that they ARE airworhy and can carry out whatever sorties neccessary. Also, for some reason, inordinate interest in these planes may be taking close scrutiny away from far more dangerous points.
The writer is ambiguous. He says that these planes to be more stealthy carry their weaponry inside the aircraft and the air-to-air missiles needed, limits the bomb load which minimises it’s use over Ghouta Province and Idlib, making it ineffective anyway.
So the whole schmeer makes it a highly expensive instrument useful for only limited, incisive actions against singular highly prized targets…….. We’ve only seen pictures lined up side by side. Presumably that they have been in use..which, considering the ineffective resistance, gives the pilots practice combat action of a sort.
Like a golden bullet. Highly expensive but limited to only a one-time use.
Haaretz is painting Putin as a fumbling general in uniform, an operetta dictator out to make a few headline photos.
Putin succeeded rolling back 50 years of US domination of Mideast region, unheard of since the days of Nixon.
The Russian president is no fool. He carried out great achievements. The fool is Anshel Pfeffer.
Maybe Iranian pilots want test drive them over Israel?