Nov 4, 2022
Ukraine War, 4 November 2022: Air War Update, Part 1, Basics
Today, I’ll try start a ‘mini-series’ of features addressing questions like,
- What is going in the air war over Ukraine?
- What is happening with both air forces?
Explaining this — and understanding it — requires ‘going back to the point 1’.
Point 1: BASICS
The Point 1 about air power deployed in this war is the fact that both sides are operating aircraft types actually, and essentially, developed during the Soviet times. Sure, types like Sukhoi Su-30, Su-34, and Su-35 came into being after the dissolution of the USSR, and some of stuff operated by Ukrainians is ‘heavily upgraded’, too. But, keep in mind: all the Russian Su-30/32/35-Wunderwaffen are all still based on the Sukhoi Su-27, developed back in the 1970s. The same is valid for, for example, the few heavily modified Ukrainian MiG-29MUs.
As next, one needs to keep in mind that in the former USSR, and in the Russian Federation, there is just one authority responsible for conceptualising future combat aircraft, and for ordering them. That is the GenStab. GenStab is the sole military procurement authority and thus responsible for the development and acquisition of everything — every single piece of equipment, every weapons system, every bullet, every screw, every spade, every aircraft, every ship, and every intercontinental ballistic missile purchased for the Russian armed forces.
Sure, during the Soviet times, there used to be a lot of different design bureaus (OKBs) of combat aircraft: Lavochkin, MiG, Sukhoi, Yakovlev — all remain famous until this very day. There were lots of factories manufacturing their designs, too. But, none of OKBs was researching and developing any combat aircraft without an order from the GenStab, and no factory was manufacturing any. That was that way back in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s…. 1980s, and remains that way until this very day: nothing in the Russian armed forces happens without an amen from the GenStab.
Until the mid-2010s (yes, around the times of the first invasion of Ukraine), the GenStab was preparing all of its specifications on basis of experiences from the Second World War.
When it comes to air power, one of crucial experiences from the Second World War was that an average tactical combat aircraft had a ‘service life’ — or ‘life expectancy’ — of about 120 to 160 hours. Means: statistically, one could expect the majority of combat aircraft to get shot down, or be badly damaged within 120–160 hours of combat operations; or the battle or campaign in question was over by the time the aircraft was flown for 120–160 hours. Then, the operational tempo would decrease and thus there was time to subject the surviving aircraft to complex maintenance.
The latter was of advantage also because designing and manufacturing aircraft that were ‘simple’ to maintain for these 120–160 hours, made things easier for units operating them, and for the logistics system. The units did not require having personnel qualified to run complex maintenance, did not need being equipped with expensive maintenance facilities, and the logistics system only had to care about ‘simpler’ spare parts (say: tyres, braking parachutes, cockpit canopies, etc.).
Result?
For the last 70+ years, all the Soviet/Russian combat aircraft were made to last some 150–200 hours. In this regards, it didn’t matter if this was a MiG-15, or MiG-21, or, say, MiG-25. And, sure, by the 1970s-1980s, they’ve improved their manufacturing quality to the degree where types like MiG-29s and Su-27s (and their equipment, like engines) were made to last up to 400 hours. With few ‘tricks’ — like down-tuning engines — one could stretch that up to 600 hours. Was ‘handy’ in peace-time, saving lots of money, but, be sure: at war, the engines would’ve been uprated to their max thrust as first.
Foremost, the essential idea was still the same. Even the latest types of combat aircraft could be flown intensively for these 120–160 or 400 hours, and with minimal maintenance. But, after being flown for as much, they had to be subjected to overhauls: essentially, complete re-building of every single airframe. All their major assemblies (engines, piping, radars etc.) had to be replaced.
(BTW, this is one of reasons why the Soviets really operated over 12,000 tactical combat aircraft as of the 1970s and 1980s — which is a figure plenty of youngsters have a problem with, nowadays: a third of the fleet was undergoing overhauls at any given moment; which in turn means that ‘only’ about 8,000 were actually available.)
EXCEPTION FROM THE RULE
First major improvement in this regards….or the sole exception — happened in just one case: the one case where a Soviet/Russian-designed jet was not only adapted, but actually custom-developed to customer’s specifications and requirements. That was in the mid-1990s, when India requested Sukhoi (and paid it) to convert its Su-27UB two-seat conversion trainer with combat capability into a powerful multi-role fighter-bomber, resulting in the Su-30MKI. This project forced the Russians into stretching that ‘service life’ of their combat jets (and their equipment) up to 800 and then 1000 hours; into developing ergonomic cockpits; into adapting foreign computers to improve their avionics etc., etc., etc.
Notably: this was the sole case where it was not the GenStab to place the order for development of a new combat aircraft, but a foreign customer that did so — and that in something like 100 years of Soviet/Russian aviation industry.
But, don’t worry: it was already in 2006 that Putin made an end with all such practices, when ordering — per decree, as usually — all the Russian aviation-designing- and manufacturing companies to be merged into the corporation abbreviated with OAK. After all, he ‘had to’ bring the ‘chaos under control’, i.e. make it sure he’s going to cash his cut from the income of the companies in question.
Now pay attention: essentially, within the OAK — i.e. along Putin’s decree establishing the same — foreign customers had (and still have) no say any more in the development of future combat aircraft.
With hindsight, it can be said that exactly this is what, actually, ‘killed’ the Su-57.
Reason?
Because Putin’s decree creating the OAK was prohibiting a situation where India could seriously influence the requirements, and thus the design of the new jet. Ultimately, and between others, it resulted in a situation where the Russians refused to develop what the Indians demanded them to develop, and were ready to pay for, and created a situation where Indians were not ready to pay for something they did not need.
Without Indian funding, and without Putin being ready to ‘waste’ more of ‘his’ money (stolen from Russia) — Sukhoi….erm… OAK couldn’t afford completing the development of all the necessary avionics and engines.
CONCLUSION
Conclusion from all of this is ‘on hand’: had this war lasted 3–14 days, as originally planned by Putin, ‘no problem’. The VKS would’ve been flying as much as possible and necessary: it could’ve deployed all of its might against Ukraine, and the OAK would have had no problems with keeping it operational, i.e. overhauling it once the ‘campaign’ would have been over.
However, with this war going on for more than eight months — it simply can’t.
Yes, sure, the VKS is still flying up to 200 sorties a day, but this is putting an immense strain on available airframes, requiring one third of them to undergo overhauls. And, when these overhauls are undertaken in a big rush, and under the local conditions in regards of quality management…. well, then the Sukhoi-Wunderwaffen are crashing and lots of people die — exactly like it recently happened to two of them, both during post-overhaul test-flights.
…and since in Putin’s Russia one cannot blame the ‘System Putin’ for all of this, well, it’s seagulls to blame, or whatever else…
