First-hand account of MiG-29 radar

[A.S]

Voice commands...it sounds overkill at first. I wonder how the pilot will sound when doing 9 G's and trying to issue a voice command. Probably like talking while taking a dump.

 

-Engage...argh...igh...towed...argh...DECOYS...oh...god...

"Voice pattern not recognized, intruder ejection activated"

 

The future is scary. :huh:

 

 

:megalol::megalol:

[Alfa]

Weird thing is...if you look at the special thanks page, Zuyev actually thanks Tom Clancy for "all his insight and know-how".

 

Great.....that puts things into perspective :D

[RedTiger]

Great.....that puts things into perspective :D

 

Well, hopefully any input Tom Clancy had didn't effect the accuracy. :music_whistling:

[Alfa]

That sounds like a contradiction in terms :D

[RedTiger]

That sounds like a contradiction in terms :D

 

*sigh* :( :P

 

It shall forever be my blessing AND curse to be around those who, like me, must nitpick everything enjoyable in life for accuracy of the details. :P

[GGTharos]

In general the description of the event seems fine ... things like saying that the spy sabotaged the radar may just as well have been something they truly believed: Why else would Russia produce such a poor radar?

[nscode]

Get it off production line ASAP, fine tune it later? :D

 

@Pilotasso:

it's not like it's an extra effort. It's more like it's not bothering to hide it ;)

[SwingKid]

In general the description of the event seems fine ... things like saying that the spy sabotaged the radar may just as well have been something they truly believed: Why else would Russia produce such a poor radar?

 

in other words,

"it's not a bug it's a feature?"

 

:)

 

I've heard that one before.

[GGTharos]

I think your sarcasm is quite unwarranted.

More along the lines of 'It wasn't out fault, the spy gave us a broken design'

rather than 'it's not a bug its a feature'

[RedTiger]

Here's the thing that I find interesting and puzzling about the validity of information in his book; if this guy is so disgusted with his country and all that it stands for that he is willing to defect, would he hype or exaggerate their abilities? Would OTHERS who are working with him on the book have some sort of stake in making the USSR's technology and abilities seem better than it is?

 

For example, in that same section, he talks about how the West assumes that Russia "slavishly copies" all their technology through espionage. He dismisses this saying that Russia allowed the West to dump all the money and effort into designing these things. When the west dutifully wrote about these things in technological publications, the USSR would use those and fill in the gaps with spying and the "improve" on that technology.

 

^^^

First of all, this entire bit here as presented in the book, doesn't sound like someone who hates his country. On the contrary, it sounds like he's proud of their resourcefulness and has disdain for the West for assuming that Russians are just copycats.

 

Second of all..."improve" on the technology? Again, I wonder if he really wrote that seeing as I know he came in contact with American pilots who used that technology the USSR supposedly improved upon! At some point he would have had to notice a gap, right?

[GGTharos]

Defection might not be due to disgust with your own country, just your governements or in general ideals.

He may or may not have been allowed to use western systems for comparison, and it is possible that he was not allowed to talk about it if permission was granted.

While the Russians did copy certain things, ie. the concept of a modular missile, from the west, technology has been going back-and-forth all the time.

Russians are not stupid people; but their technology does lag behind. It is possible that he believes what he's saying, but ... do you think available publications would really include the deepest secrets of what hides in operational radars and missiles? :)

Naturally, you -should- be able to 'improve' upon published materials.

 

Of course, all this is just as much of an assumption as well :P

[SwingKid]

I think your sarcasm is quite unwarranted.

More along the lines of 'It wasn't out fault, the spy gave us a broken design'

 

"Nonsense." :)

Such a stupid excuse deserves all the contempt it gets and more.

 

Any system that passes a "broken design" through acceptance testing need not waste its time looking for spies. Intelligently directed sabotage is easy to find and fix - if your system can't filter that, then honest bugs are going to give you ten times as many problems.

 

With quality control so incompetent as to allow a "sabotaged" product through state acceptance trials, no sabotage would ever be necessary. Normal bugs would get through such system naturally, that a smart spy or intelligence agency would simply take credit for, in order to get paid for doing nothing.

 

If Tolkachev had anything to do with it, we would probably know by now what it was he actually did. Instead, we have only the same vague rumours and fairy-tales we got from the CIA when the Iron Curtain was still up. A more likely story is that the CIA got him killed by giving him unrealistic instructions that were sure to get him caught, and now, after he was caught and killed, they're trying to paper it over it as a success.

 

Tolkachev was no dout a real spy and able to steal a few documents, and perhaps made a convenient scapegoat for everything under the sun. That's a lot easier to imagine than that he managed to get a non-functional engineering design past testing and into production. I sure wouldn't be able to do that to any of my antennas and get away with it - and the products I work on surely involve fewer people working above and alongside me than something as complex as a fighter radar.

[GGTharos]

Since you still don't understand what I was trying to say, I'll assume I wasn't clear enough:

 

I never said Tolkachev broke anything. I said people might easily believe in such a claim. Pride can easily overcome reason - you should know that well first hand. ;)

[SwingKid]

Oh, you mean the CIA believed Tolkachev sabotaged the radar?

 

Because the book's version of the events (about which you seemed to write, "the description seems fine") attributes this belief to the Soviet military.

 

My reason for suspecting a CIA author is because such description seems hard to believe.

[RedTiger]

Oh, you mean the CIA believed Tolkachev sabotaged the radar?

 

Because the book's version of the events (about which you seemed to write, "the description seems fine") attributes this belief to the Soviet military.

 

My reason for suspecting a CIA author is because such description seems hard to believe.

 

You know, this whole time you've been talking about this Tolkachev fellow, I was assuming this was something later in the book. I didn't ask because I didn't want any spoilers. I wish I would have known that you were talking about the nameless spy the book attributes the poor radar performance to. Now this argument is clear...

[SwingKid]

You know, this whole time you've been talking about this Tolkachev fellow, I was assuming this was something later in the book. I didn't ask because I didn't want any spoilers. I wish I would have known that you were talking about the nameless spy the book attributes the poor radar performance to. Now this argument is clear...

 

Yeah, there's only one quick little blurb about him, and then the magic fairy technicians "descended upon the base" in their UFOs or whatever and made the radar sabotage problem go away overnight. What a convenient explanation for the lack of evidence.

 

They also make it sound like nobody in the USSR listened to anything on the radio but CIA Radio Free Liberty. They even attribute Zuyev's whole defection plan as being inspired by one of their news reports.

 

You be the judge.

[RvEYoda]

Well.. I spoke to some mig29 pilots about this, export versions sure, but...

 

What they told me was not very good results about the mig-29 radar ;).

 

While practicing BVR 1v1, they told me that for a head-on situation, one of them

told me that he picked up a transport size plane from up to 80 km, and when they

tried vs fighters they would end up around 40km. Note that this is for a

coaltitude situation in good conditions... no chaff, straight path head on coalt and

no ecm - btw ecm tests showed very little diff, actually his words were

"ecm didn't do anything" :), on the other hand he did not tell me what the setup was

for that ecm test :P.

 

Either way what was even more interesting was when they had some Rafael fighters

visiting the airfield, they did the same test and the mig picked up the rafael from.....

20 km ^^. His comment was that it was not very good, and at

20 km "you would be dead already".

[bigbelgian]

It amazes me how a thread about a radar can change in a semi-politic discussion, in a community that wants no such discussions...............but hey,you're never to old to learn:book::doh:

[Esac_mirmidon]

One thing that may stay clear first of all is the radar model in question.

 

MiG-29 9-12 first radar version N-019 was far from a good radar complex, but this was a design from mid 70s. Almost 38 years ago ЎЎЎ

 

Its true that it had a very poor perfomance in BVR, ground clutter, look-down mode and suffer from jamming but in mid 80s with the MiG-29 starting his operational life how many NATO fighters based in Europe had BVR capability?

 

Only F-15A and UK Phantoms, with only AIM-7 for BVR engagements, and of course only one target at a time. The F-16 of first versions was not able to carry BVR missiles at all ( only AIM-9 ). French mirages had only one mid range SARH missile in the Mirage III ( maybe i am forgeting some models XD). The AMRAAM age came a coupple of years latter and changed everything.

 

With this in mind, 1986, a strong GCI command and numerical superiority in the air, the MiG-29 9-12 and MiG-23ML could have a chance in the air against NATO counterparts.

 

Later, the russians developed the N-019M, and this was a far better radar complex, wich corrected several shortcomings of initial versions, but N-019M was not the "definitive" option.

 

With the Zhuk-M the MiG-29 could be a vast improved BVR Fighter but all knows that the fall of the URSS, funding problems, and economic situation lay down over military development industry.

 

Thinking that russian scientist are no capable enough, ( not smart enough XD ) or russian technology olny can be improved through spying methods is dangerous. Today is more a funding problem that a capability problem.

[Pilotasso]

Well.. I spoke to some mig29 pilots about this, export versions sure, but...

 

What they told me was not very good results about the mig-29 radar ;).

 

While practicing BVR 1v1, they told me that for a head-on situation, one of them

told me that he picked up a transport size plane from up to 80 km, and when they

tried vs fighters they would end up around 40km. Note that this is for a

coaltitude situation in good conditions... no chaff, straight path head on coalt and

no ecm - btw ecm tests showed very little diff, actually his words were

"ecm didn't do anything" :), on the other hand he did not tell me what the setup was

for that ecm test :P.

 

Either way what was even more interesting was when they had some Rafael fighters

visiting the airfield, they did the same test and the mig picked up the rafael from.....

20 km ^^. His comment was that it was not very good, and at

20 km "you would be dead already".

 

 

The rafale has low RCS, even though the mig can detect it at 20km it will still break a lock easely by changing aspect. Even older aircraft do it. You probably couldnt shoot it untill it became much closer than that.

[RedTiger]

One thing that may stay clear first of all is the radar model in question.

 

MiG-29 9-12 first radar version N-019 was far from a good radar complex, but this was a design from mid 70s. Almost 38 years ago ЎЎЎ

 

Its true that it had a very poor perfomance in BVR, ground clutter, look-down mode and suffer from jamming but in mid 80s with the MiG-29 starting his operational life how many NATO fighters based in Europe had BVR capability?

 

Only F-15A and UK Phantoms, with only AIM-7 for BVR engagements, and of course only one target at a time. The F-16 of first versions was not able to carry BVR missiles at all ( only AIM-9 ). French mirages had only one mid range SARH missile in the Mirage III ( maybe i am forgeting some models XD). The AMRAAM age came a coupple of years latter and changed everything.

 

With this in mind, 1986, a strong GCI command and numerical superiority in the air, the MiG-29 9-12 and MiG-23ML could have a chance in the air against NATO counterparts.

 

Later, the russians developed the N-019M, and this was a far better radar complex, wich corrected several shortcomings of initial versions, but N-019M was not the "definitive" option.

 

With the Zhuk-M the MiG-29 could be a vast improved BVR Fighter but all knows that the fall of the URSS, funding problems, and economic situation lay down over military development industry.

 

Thinking that russian scientist are no capable enough, ( not smart enough XD ) or russian technology olny can be improved through spying methods is dangerous. Today is more a funding problem that a capability problem.

 

I'm glad you mention this for the simple fact that sometimes you have to stop and consider the time frame and what technology existed during that time frame. While I agree with GG's first response in this thread, I also temper that with what I've read about F-15Cs in desert storm. Their record there was outstanding, to be sure. However, I've read about an Eagle pilot reflecting on the fact that some of those kills took multiple missiles. His point was basically that in training, each missile fired within the correct parameters would be considered a kill. In reality, it often took more than one missile to get the actual kill.

 

My point is the essentially the same as yours. For all the sophistication of the Eagle's radar, circa 1989 it still would have been SARH environment, which I THINK (I'm not totally certain), would limit the Eagle to STT, right? No bugging targets and tracking others while launching the missile? I can't help but think this would counteract some of that radar's search sophistication when the time came to go for the kill. On the other hand, I do think that training, team work, and the other advance systems in place that the MiG-29 would not have (like TEWS, for example) could certainly reduce any loss of SA.

[GGTharos]

It depends on where and how the missiles were stored. IIRC from what I heard, missiles brought in from germany suffered more malfunctions than missiles brought in from some dry desert storage in the US; also missiles that were rotated more often for in-flight carry suffered more malfunctions.

It turns out that if you look at the Pk, if you received a missile that was stored better, your Pk would go way up because those missiles just worked. You migth expect the same from R-27's.

 

His point was basically that in training, each missile fired within the correct parameters would be considered a kill. In reality, it often took more than one missile to get the actual kill.

 

But the eagle still had a tremendous range advantage, allowing a flight to pop a bunch of migs, then extend and come back for another try. The MiG-29 just wasn't competitive in BVR against the Eagle, in addition to the things you mentioned.

Lastly, the Eagle had TWS capability at least as of the first MSIP upgrade, AFAIK. So while they were limited to shooting in STT, sorting was eased and SA was increased by being able to TWS until it was time to shoot.

 

My point is the essentially the same as yours. For all the sophistication of the Eagle's radar, circa 1989 it still would have been SARH environment, which I THINK (I'm not totally certain), would limit the Eagle to STT, right? No bugging targets and tracking others while launching the missile? I can't help but think this would counteract some of that radar's search sophistication when the time came to go for the kill. On the other hand, I do think that training, team work, and the other advance systems in place that the MiG-29 would not have (like TEWS, for example) could certainly reduce any loss of SA.

[RvEYoda]

The rafale has low RCS, even though the mig can detect it at 20km it will still break a lock easely by changing aspect. Even older aircraft do it. You probably couldnt shoot it untill it became much closer than that.

 

yeah, it seems so

[SwingKid]

MiG-29 9-12 first radar version N-019 was far from a good radar complex...

 

On a strategic level it was a fantastic radar. It practically wiped out the entire US fleet of F-111 and A-6 and made the B-1B and Tornado IDS obsolete overnight, without ever firing a shot. By contrast, the F-15 and its radar killed what - 100 planes?

[Geier]

I have some NO 19 Data

 

Redacted