Serbian Air Force has started lookig in to new fighters

[thobbes]

Pretty much everything wrote above is inaccurate and in the most shameful and unabashed way, but your claim that Kosovo was not part of Serbia 1389-1850s because it was "Ottoman" is the most idiotic thing I have ever read. By your warped logic from 1939-1945 France was not rightfully French it was German. Silly Silly Silly. But this is not the place for your re education on historical matters and this will be the last I say on the topic.

The ethnic composition of Kosovo changed in those 500 years to mainly Albanian.

And by your definition, Australia should be returned to the Aborigines, NZ back to the Maoris and the US to the Native Americans.


Oh and Serbia should be returned to whatever groups lived there before the great Slavic Migrations in the 7th century. :P

Now back to aviation, yes you are repeating what i said that only low end F16 are on the table from the western side, which answers your question why Russian offer looks more appealing... Since unlike Iraq people there may have some say about it.

Even if US offered free F-35s, the Serbs would still go for Russian equipment.

This is not the 1950s where Yugoslavia was chummier with the US than Russia and got tons of F-84, F-86 and T-33s from the US at discounted rates.

Second your comment that joining NATO eliminates need for advanced AD... so why do ALL members of NATO such as Greece, Italy, Spain , Netherlands ,UK , Ireland etc etc ALL invest in advanced AD?? Why does Royal Dutch Army have needs for NASAMS ??. Its in NATO and surrounded by friends by your logic it has no need for advanced AD what so ever.

Firstly, most of those NATO powers provide considerable expertise and resources for NATO operations. E.g. Dutch Patriots will most likely be deployed to Turkey.

Greece maintains a massive military that it cannot afford as a counter to Turkey (the only real potential hotspot in NATO). Spain also maintains a military it cannot afford as it tries to grip onto an allusion of being some of power.

Serbian AD is severlly outdated, and in dire needs of upgrade , more so than Airforce, and Panstyr with BukM2 is ideal and cost effective option. Also the current crop of radars are insuficient to the point that even Civilan aircraft and not always tracked.

Totally agree with updating radars.

The air policing jets are more valuable than SAMs though. After all intercepting a civilian aircraft or even other countries' military jets doing unauthorised overflgihts is something you should do with piloted jets and not surface to air missiles!

All that said... Serbia is as my brother puts it "Land outside reality" ... high enough bribe and anything is possible there.

That's most of the Balkans I'm afraid.

[DJ.]

Like I said we can agree to disagree on Geopolitics and History.


I disagree that Serbia would automatically go for Russian option., after all the country has recently bought some western equipment (Landrovers , HUMVEEs etc) and has swtiched to NATO standard ammunition. Reality is that West will not sell Serbia anything advanced, and Serbia CAN not afford it anyway. So China / Russia are only option.. with Russia more willing to be flexible when it comes to payment.

As you have said Radars are number on priority, however the need for advanced medium / short range AD is still there for security purposes. Jets can not compare in their cost effectivenes if one has to defend airspace against vastly superior forces. For simple air policing 4-6 jets Be they MiG29/Rafale/Gripen/EF/J10 or even JF17... they will all do just fine and you dont even need long range AAMs.

I read somewhere that BukM2 battery is 4-5 Million ... for price one one MiG you can get whole squad of 6 units. There is no argument which is more effective of protecting your arispace. Combine Buk with Pansyr and you have incredibly capable integrated Medium/Short range system that can take on Aricraft and provide point defense against Cruise type missiles.

[Sintra]

For simple air policing 4-6 jets Be they MiG29/Rafale/Gripen/EF/J10 or even JF17... they will all do just fine and you dont even need long range AAMs. .

4-6 jets?
For air policing an air space 24 hours/7days a week/all year round plus training, maintenance, etc?

Forget it, even one complete sqn will be very hard pressed for maintaining that kind of capability, even for a small airspace like Serbia. Look at how many jets the Austrian, the Swiss, the Bulgarians, the Portuguese, and any other small European nation fields to do QRA, you wont find anything less than a complete 12 airframes SQN, the alternative is doing an "Albanian/Lituanian/Latvian/Lethonian".

[DJ.]

4-6 jets?
For air policing an air space 24 hours/7days a week/all year round plus training, maintenance, etc?

Forget it, even one complete sqn will be very hard pressed for maintaining that kind of capability, even for a small airspace like Serbia. Look at how many jets the Austrian, the Swiss, the Bulgarians, the Portuguese, and any other small European nation fields to do QRA, you wont find anything less than a complete 12 airframes SQN, the alternative is doing an "Albanian/Lituanian/Latvian/Lethonian".

We have been doing it with effectively 4 Mig 29s since 1999 :P

You have one sitting on ground ready to take off and you minnimise your combat training in A2A and A2G role.. concentrate on intercept an escort. In case of war you accept not to use them and , hide them somwhere underground an let AD system do the work.

[thobbes]

I thought Serbs had MiG-21s for QRA?

Though from what I've heard they're being retired in 2013.

I disagree that Serbia would automatically go for Russian option., after all the country has recently bought some western equipment (Landrovers , HUMVEEs etc) and has swtiched to NATO standard ammunition. Reality is that West will not sell Serbia anything advanced, and Serbia CAN not afford it anyway. So China / Russia are only option.. with Russia more willing to be flexible when it comes to payment.

Buying some trucks is not really the same as buying high tech pointy end of the stick weapons.

Even if US was giving away free F-35s, the Serbs would go for Russian due to historical ties and also no strings attached on usage.

ets can not compare in their cost effectivenes if one has to defend airspace against vastly superior forces.

If you perform a threat analysis including looking at potential threats over the next 20 years what threats are there to Serbia? Most of Serbia's neighbours don't operate more than a dozen combat aircraft or are equipped with obsolescent junk:

Albania - no combat air force. No plan to field one.

Bosnia i Hercegovina - no combat air force. No plan to field one.

Bulgaria - Up to maybe 60-70 jets (MiG-21/-29/Su-25) with dubious operational levels. Plan to acquire even a small number of modern jets has not eventuated and probably won't.

Croatia - 10 x MiG-21 - probably to replace with similar number of modern fighters for air policing

Hungary - 14 x JAS-39 combat jets for airpolicing

Macedonia - no combat air force. No plan to field one.

Monte Negro - no combat air force. No plan to field one.

Romania - 48 x MiG-21 with plans to acquire 12 F-16A/B from Portugal. Plans to acquire F-35 seem dubious.


Oh and they're nearly all part of NATO security structure.



If the US ever decides to bomb Serbia, those Pantsir's are useless and will achieve nothing (just like Serbian air defence acheived nothing against NATO in 1999).

Given the political and economic environment, 12-16 jets ala MiG-29, F-16 or Gripen are more than sufficient for Serbia's air space sovereignty mission.

Of course unless the Serbs are planning another bout of expansionism when Uncle Sam and the Europeans aren't looking. :P

[DJ.]

No I dont see any "expansionism" efforts, but there are two possible "points of conflict" that could cause regional trouble. One being obviously Kosove and second Republika Srpska. I personally see Kosovo as "lost" and as you and many in West argue the Kosovo Albanians have right to self determination, well as Bosnian Serb i feel RS have that right too... only its funny how both WEST and too be honest Serbs them self, can take two opposing issues on what appears to be same set of circumbstances.. a minority that forms majority in set regions seeking self determination. Now that premier or RS has set refferendum for self determination on the agenda for 2014 I can see potential for problems.. So that is the main issue with any form of future planing for Serbia and its deffense requirment.

You are absolutely right when you say that most of our Neighbors pose no threat, and that should they realy want USA /NATO could overwhelm and destroy any AD we could possible get. BUT there is a factor of effort required that you are ignoring.

In 1999 Serbia had no automated short range AD, beyond some flak guns fro circa 1950, and medium range SAMs from 1970 .. with radars from same decade. All NATO Ac had to do si keep above 5000m cealing and they were safe... but it still ment they had to be above 5000m height from which they where less effective and Nato Helos like Apaches while deployed were never used. As a result most of our hardware (that was movable) was saved and NATO had to resort to hitting Civilan targets to persuade SM to negotiate.. and even then they had to offer concesions in UN resolution 1244 which states that Kosovo is part of Serbia.... just too bad for us that EU/USA can ignore UN resolutions when it suits them (see Iraq)

But the whole point is that the Antiquatedd SA3s and P12s were far from totally useless. Now compared that to rather modern Pantsyr / BukM2E combo. Very mobile , very compact , range of up to 50km and automated close range ability to hit Guided weapons and Cruise... combine that with berried fibre optic network (already exist in Serbia) and some electronic warfare systems and you got your self incerdibly capable network centric system for a price that is less than a squad of MiGs 29.

Look at for example Syria and Libya . Against Gadafi Euros were lining up to send and demonstrate their new toys (French in particular) knowing they faced pretty much 0 threat from AD. I do not think they would do same in Syria which has better AD network as Turkey found out. Now im not saying NATO could not owerpower Syria with ease.. ofcourse they could.. but increased danger and effort required causes potential agressor to atleast think it over in more detail... and that is where the sophisticated AD network shows value.

That all said New Aircraft doing loopy loops at airshows make for far better photo oportunites for corrupt polititians and are better tool for pacifying nationalistic knuckleheads who are currently up in arms over latest political troubles.

[J-31 Burrito]

On unrelated topic... having seen Su35 and Mig29M2 up close I can not get my head around just how horribly is the mig put together compared to Flanker. What the heck is going on at at MiG... are they beating those panels into shape with hammers how hard is it to manifacture well fitted panel .

Which is why Serbia should go for the Su-35 instead.. and why the hell not.. Belarus is operating flankers :diablo:

[vukashin]

Which is why Serbia should go for the Su-35 instead.. and why the hell not.. Belarus is operating flankers :diablo:

I see what you did there.

It's too damn big. Belarus is twice the size of Serbia. And it's got Russians backing them up (quite literally).

[Levsha]

Which is why Serbia should go for the Su-35 instead.. and why the hell not.. Belarus is operating flankers :diablo:

How many completely brand new aircraft has the Belarus military taken delivery of since that country gained independence over 20 years ago?

[thobbes]

So new rumours about Serbian MiG-29s abound.

In one article, 6 MiG-29M2s have been ordered, yet in another it's going to be 12 + 8 options.

Still no conformation.

Current state of Serbian combat fleets is pretty dire:

4 x MiG-29 - no flying conducted in 2013 http://tangosix.rs/2013/19/04/vipvo-...ocetka-godine/
12 odd MiG-21s - currently mainstay. Was meant to be retired 2013 but since extended to 2018
30+ J-22 - half is grounded http://www.slobodnaevropa.org/conten.../24692225.html
25 G-4 Super Galeb - also half grounded though these are expected to go through an upgrade. http://tangosix.rs/2013/13/04/9270/

[Y-20 Bacon]

So new rumours about Serbian MiG-29s abound.

In one article, 6 MiG-29M2s have been ordered, yet in another it's going to be 12 + 8 options.

Still no conformation.

Current state of Serbian combat fleets is pretty dire:

4 x MiG-29 - no flying conducted in 2013 http://tangosix.rs/2013/19/04/vipvo-...ocetka-godine/
12 odd MiG-21s - currently mainstay. Was meant to be retired 2013 but since extended to 2018
30+ J-22 - half is grounded http://www.slobodnaevropa.org/conten.../24692225.html
25 G-4 Super Galeb - also half grounded though these are expected to go through an upgrade. http://tangosix.rs/2013/13/04/9270/

right. Serbia can barely handle taking care of 4 MiG-29s let alone newer models. Purchase is a mistake.Russia should instead help Serbian AF restructure itself

[nanoc]

Which is why Serbia should go for the Su-35 instead.. and why the hell not.. Belarus is operating flankers :diablo:

Belarus does not operate and flankers anymore. All 21 where retired in December.

[Tempest414]

I feel Serbia should look at 1 for 1 replacement of Mig 21 with JF-17 cheap and easy to operate with a second phase of 15 Yak-130's

[Y-20 Bacon]

Belarus does not operate and flankers anymore. All 21 where retired in December.

RIP Flanker..
Belarus went from Sexyrus to Suckyrus
at least their mig-29s are being upgraded

[Wanderlei]

Looks like its pretty decided on now. Six Mig-29M2, and two new radar stations.
Pilots are already undergoing training for this new bird in the making according to article(s)

BELGRADE, May 6 (RIA Novosti) – Serbia is planning to buy several MiG-29M/M2 Fulcrum fighter jets from Russia, and Serbian pilots are already being trained in flying the aircraft, the country’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Aleksandar Vucic said on Monday.

http://www.politika.rs/rubrike/tema-...m-nebu.sr.html

I'm for one happy about the choice, although Mig-35 was obviously my first choice.

are there major differences between Mig-29M2 and Mig-35 aside from radar range?

[sheytanelkebir]

nice choice for Serbia... of course MiG35 would have been nicer, but the M/M2s are very good too! Looking forward to seeing them at Batajnica in september

[Fedaykin]

Mig-29M2 would mean more then likely these are some of the Algerian examples. So not exactly new but I presume cheaper then new build Mig-35, beggars can't be choosy in such matters!

Still rather dubious about the veracity of the announcement as I can't see how they could pay for them unless the Russians are offloading them with seriously good credit terms.

[Wanderlei]

Mig-29M2 would mean more then likely these are some of the Algerian examples. So not exactly new but I presume cheaper then new build Mig-35, beggars can't be choosy in such matters!

Still rather dubious about the veracity of the announcement as I can't see how they could pay for them unless the Russians are offloading them with seriously good credit terms.

six already build Mig-29M2s are most likely ones intended for Syrian AF, which deal is now dead. And yes, its a good credit, and cooperation where possibly Serbia might be a equipped to service and upgrade other countries' older Mig-29s. Majority of the first stage of this deal will be signed before the end of the May when President of Serbia, and minister of defense visit Russia.

[Fedaykin]

Forgot about the Syrian examples.

Well nevertheless if it works out an opportunity not to be passed up especially if favourable credit is being given.

[TR1]

Mig-29M2 would mean more then likely these are some of the Algerian examples. So not exactly new but I presume cheaper then new build Mig-35, beggars can't be choosy in such matters!

Still rather dubious about the veracity of the announcement as I can't see how they could pay for them unless the Russians are offloading them with seriously good credit terms.

1.) Algeria ordered MiG-29SMT. MiG-29M2/35 are completely different airframes.
2.) Russia picked up all of the returned SMTs.

[sheytanelkebir]

yup those syrian MiG29M/M2s have been coveted by quite a few people looking for new airframes quickly. With the 2 radar stations that will give Serbia quite a good air defence capability within the region... but still I am doubtful if 6 airframes really is enough for QRA? Or are the MiG29Ms much that much quicker to turn around than the old 9.12/9.13

[mack8]

They should get a couple of S-300 or even S-400 divizions too for full national AD coverage, just for the heck of it (and neighbours envy lol) . I for one, i'm looking forward to them getting the new MiGs, it will also make sense to overhaul /modernize those 4 (is that right?) 9.12Bs/UBs they have to last for a few more years and supplement the M/M2 and then replace them with half a dozen more M/M2s.

[sheytanelkebir]

the 4x 9.12s could be useful if upgraded to match some of the MiG29M capabilities at least (and maybe retire the MiG21s finally). That would give a credible squadron of high end fighters.

But I reckon 20-30x Yak-130s would be a nice addition to replace the remaining J22s and Super Galebs. and provide advanced training, ground attack and air policing duties at a cost much lower than the MiG29s... (and be forward deployed to Nis to more effectively cover southern Serbia).

Russia supplying S400 seems like trolling NATO I think the Serbs themselves would turn such an offer down...

[Fedaykin]

If they are getting what are effectively second hand (albeit undelivered to intended customer) Mig-29 on credit they are going to struggle with the Yak-130. Also they have plans to upgrade their Super Galeb to G-4MD standard that should more then meet their needs.

[mack8]

Those 4 legacy MiG-29s "only" (as in "only" a few tens of millions of $) need an overhaul and a limited avionics and radar upgrade (to N-019ME standard) to allow them to fire R-77/27E (and possibly RVV-SD if they will come with the new M/M2?).

[sheytanelkebir]

the J22s are aging pretty badly... something will have to give, either they relinquish fighter-bomber capability or buy Yak130s... There was recent talk of Serbia restarting a light fighter programme with funding from the UAE? Whatever happened to that?

[F-18Growler]

There new plane.

[Y-20 Bacon]

There new plane.

topspeed's dream airplane

[Fedaykin]

The fighter bomber thing had all the hallmarks of a silly rumour. UAE showing interest in the Kobac is more believable but the reports about a light fighter I think were the result of a mistranslation and an over excitable press reading too much into it!

As for ground attack capability the G-4 is pretty reasonable in that respect:

Armament (From the Wiki)
1x GSh-23L 23 mm cannon in ventral gun pod.
2x Inner pylons 350 kg (770 lb)capacity.
2x Outer pylons 250 kg (550 lb) capacity.
1x Centreline pylon 400 kg (880 lb) capacity (G-4M).
2x Wingtip missile rails (G-4M).

That is fairly respectable, to be honest there money is best spent on the G-4MD upgrade with its acceptable ground attack capability then sinking money into the Yak-130. Also people please correct me if I am wrong but the Mig-29M2 has a respectable ground attack capability as well.

[F-18Growler]

topspeed's dream airplane

Maybe this one? LOL