MovieChat Forums > Stealth (2005) Discussion > F/A-37 vs. Su-37 dogfight

F/A-37 vs. Su-37 dogfight


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0FmWSmIJ0M

In the dogfight scene involving Lt. Gannon (Josh Lucas) in his Talon and the UCAV EDI against a trio of VVS (Russian Air Force) Sukhoi Su-37 Terminators, the 6th generation stealth fighters pull neck-breaking high positive G force maneuvers, enabling them to slip behind the pursuing Sukhois and open fire with their 30mm cannons.

The Generation 6 F/A-37 Talon and UCAV EDI have the advantages over the unstealthy Generation 4.5 Su-37 Terminators in attributes like engine and stealth technology, armament and avionics, they are on par with thrust vectoring and supermaneuverability.

The UCAV EDI pulls a radical high positive G maneuver known as a controlled flat spin, chopping down the craft's airspeed, popping the rudders full right turn and pointing the nose directly at the overshooting Su-37, pummeling the enemy jet with a barrage of 30mm HE shells, while Lt. Gannon repeats the same tactic with his backflip.

Suddenly the third Su-37 closes in on Gannon from behind and unleashes his own torrent of 30mm cannon fire while he releases flares to counter a possible R-73 lockon, only to be saved in the nick of time by a missile from the UCAV EDI.

Do you think the dogfight was lopsided or simply because Lt. Gannon and the UCAV EDI exploited their advantages and superior dogfight tactics over the
Su-37s?

State me your opinions.

reply

It's pretty stupid that they portray a fictional near future scenario but the US airforce/navy gets 6th generation fighters with completely revolutionary engine types while the Russians get to field weaponry lagging two generations behind and which is close to realization.

They should have given the Russians some futuristic design as well. Even if it is not en par you don't throw propeller aircraft at jets so when one side finds such a tech you'd see others improve their toy box no matter what. The only reason other countries haven't emulated the B-2 or F-22 is that the stealth design is close to being cost ineffective. Still, Stealth is now an integral consideration in future weapon designs, but they look for more cost effective ways to do it. E.g. the Typhoon is no stealth aircraft but it was designed with Stealth in mind so it is very stealthy compared to former aircraft while not making radical design changes necessary.

Somehow only Japanese anime seems to be capable to imagine that one side fields mecha the others will, too. There were some nice robot Anime's where different countries had different design philosophies just like with MTBs.


Stealth was a propaganda poster for the US armed forces so this shallowness is sadly to be expected.

reply

It's set in the year 2016, so pulse detonation engines may be technologically feasible.

reply

It is completely ridiculous because the Su-37 is generation 4.5 and the F-22 which we have now is a generation 5. In war games the 2 F-22's (which would be antiques compared to the F/A-37) were able to engage and destroy (pretend) an entire squadron on F-16's which are generation 4. On top of all that the F-16's did not even detect the F-22's until they were already destroyed. Bottom line with a 6 generation fighter and a UCAV that can out preform and out think the F/A-37, it would have been a massacre.

reply

"They should have given the Russians some futuristic design as well. Even if it is not en par you don't throw propeller aircraft at jets so when one side finds such a tech you'd see others improve their toy box no matter what."

Funny... The Americans flew P-51s against Chinese and North Korean jet-propelled MiGs in the early years of the Korean War and, in quite a few cases, they won. Half of the fighting's in the pilot.

Besides, the U.S. has been pulling ahead of Russia, Britain and the rest of the world militarily for the last twenty years, which is what you'd expect given that we're like half the world's military budget. Take stealth technology; first deployed in 1989 against Noriega, now, twenty years later, I'm still waiting for the Russians to deploy anything like the F-117.

Talon II vs. Terminator unrealistic? Not so much... especially given the current trend towards people cutting their high-tech stuff and focusing on ground forces, special ops and the rest.


Denny Crane.

reply

"
Funny... The Americans flew P-51s against Chinese and North Korean jet-propelled MiGs in the early years of the Korean War and, in quite a few cases, they won. Half of the fighting's in the pilot. "

Depends on the numbers you read. The Sabre was rushed to Korea because the Mig-15 (in the beginning in majority piloted by WW2 Soviet pilots) wrecked havoc on the UN air forces.

"Besides, the U.S. has been pulling ahead of Russia, Britain and the rest of the world militarily for the last twenty years, which is what you'd expect given that we're like half the world's military budget. Take stealth technology; first deployed in 1989 against Noriega, now, twenty years later, I'm still waiting for the Russians to deploy anything like the F-117. "

Again, the question is wether a F117 is worth anything as it performs a very specific niche function you do not necessarily need. At the end of the day, if the weapon is capable to kill it it doesn't matter if it is fancy and expensive.

People think imho too much in absolutes. F-22 wipe the floor with F-16s, then suddenly radar is invented which makes it harder to hide in think air => all the fancy stealth becomes worthless like plate armor when guns got too strong. Problem with such assertions is that they can be hardly verified.

I don't suggest that they have to be en par but I consider it silly that the US supposedly deployed a completely new kind of standard aircraft (not fancy stealth for primary strike missions against intact air defenses but some multirolefighter) and everyone else gets the same aircraft he's using or about to use now? A completely fictional jet and the Russians only some advanced type already in prototype stage. Give them something fancy as well, even if it proves inferior to the Talon. Something more fun.




On a serious: Ask yourself why you are pulling ahead. It's peace with no large power directly at odds with anyone else. Normally this would mean that countries do not need to invest as heavily into the military. Why does the US think it needs to?

reply

I don't suggest that they have to be en par but I consider it silly that the US supposedly deployed a completely new kind of standard aircraft (not fancy stealth for primary strike missions against intact air defenses but some multirolefighter) and everyone else gets the same aircraft he's using or about to use now? A completely fictional jet and the Russians only some advanced type already in prototype stage. Give them something fancy as well, even if it proves inferior to the Talon. Something more fun.

Thing is at the beginning of the movie it states:
"To combat the mounting threat of terrorism, a new program has been created.
Armed with the most advanced and EXPERIMENTAL (caps mine) technolog, its prupose is to destroy the enemy wherever they operate in the world.
Over 400 pilots applied for the program.
3 were chosen. "

This suggests to me that the talons are not in general deployment - they are still in the experimental stage and are just being used as there is nothing available that can match their capabilities. I'm not suggesting that the russians did not have anything even close to the performance of the talons, but EDIUCAV and Talon 1 were over Russia and their stealth capability had been compromised by their own commander, however the only planes that the russians could field against these intruders were "standard" interceptors. It may be because their experimental craft (if they had any) were at some secret base many miles away and would not have been able to intercept in the time allowed.

reply

Well, fiction is fiction.
Clearly, if we taking this situation as tactic situation wargame: this is so-colled "elite" team of 2 US fighters, let's say of at least 5+ generation, meets 4 SU-37 (4++ generation) of _usuall border army_ pilots.
With all my respect to my own company Russian fighters - SU will lose.
We are talking here about "dog fight" on guns, with compairable fighters, pilots skill means more, and US here - are elite pilots.
If US would have F-18 or F-16 - that will be another very questionable story.

reply

And F/A-37 Talons, if they were an operational 6th Gen fighter, would, in the hands of skilled pilots, gain rapid air superiority against a numerically superior but technologically inferior adversary.

reply

well even though it's fictional, but from what we've seen, we can only say the talons are supermanuverable too. but we don't see too much of the difference in terms of technology other than avionics so far.

and as for dogfights like in the movie, the terminators couldve pulled of cobras and somersaults in response to what the talons did

reply

Some of the comments made on here are obviously by people that have never served in the military or never bother to have an understanding/keep abreast of current tech/abilities. For example, poster 'superterrificdaredevil' made a review comment stating the whole thing as a 'two-hour Army recruitment commercial. It was the U.S. Navy.

1. Stealth featured many presently used, futuristic, or THEROETICAL (my own caps) technologies at the time of release. Keep this in perspective when analyzing the movie.

2. It was not meant to be an EXACT representation of every type of military scenario....ergo, there are things that will not be standard military protocol and are meant as eye-candy (aesthetics) only! Enjoy the movie as such and stop being over-critical of every detail!

3. Given Hollywood's track record of similar movies, why are people so surprised about a so-called 'bad' movie. There have (and will be) many movies that have much more hype along with them that were/will be total bombs. The effects were better than most other movies when you take a look at them. Hell, some of the CGI used in this movie was so real that viral images fooled millions online about the U.S. government's use of secret and experimental technology.

4. Lastly, research material and learn to spell before posting nonsense remarks for the world to see without expecting some type of opposing viewpoint!


Thanks for those that bothered to read this and take my post into account.




reply

You should learn to spell before you put THEORETICAL all in caps.

www.freerice.com

reply

Misspelled one word. Sorry. Usually, I'm the one that plays grammar police but since I have learned to spell some time ago and can make a typing mistake such as this, its also possible you could benefit from being a little less harsh on people who have a decent handle on American English grammar and punctuation...over one word.

I would be more understanding had my post contained many errors. Have you read some of the other posts on this site? And you're telling me I need to learn to spell? You could have simply said the word theoretical is misspelled and be done with it. Thanks for the correction.

reply

If you would like to edit your post, I'd be glad to remove mine. I find it funny when people have spelling typos when they are complaining about others' spelling. More so when their error is in caps.

You might also put in the missing quote in your first paragraph (somewhere after Army) and add the word been in item 3 (have been (and will be)). If I were grammar police I would've mentioned those errors also, the first time.

www.freerice.com

reply

Are you sure about the Talons having 30mm guns? To date all american built fighters(those with the F designation) only have 20mm guns, except I think for the F-35A which has 25mm rounds. I'm no expert at identifying the type of guns on a fighter so I'm wondering if you're guessing or if you saw something I didn't.

reply

Russians do have stealth fighter project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_PAK_FA

reply

Wow...it looks like a Flanker and a Raptor snuck off at some point and had a kid and thathttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_PAK_FA plane is the kid. If those stats are accurate and match the mass-produced version of this Russian stealth I will be impressed...assuming they put this thing into mass production. Russians have had a tendency to not put some other advanced planes into production yet like the Su-37 and Su-47.

Does anyone else understand this, and if so can you explain it to me?

reply

People like to forget the little thing called the end of the Cold War. This was only possible because the Russian economy was collapsing which in turn with the settlement of the Cold War in a peaceful way meant the military industrial complex did not have first dips on the state budget to ensure the nation's survival.

Assuming Russia's economy isn't collapsing again I'd dare say the first one's knowing their military is in bad shape are the Russians and given all the stuff they are doing military wise is geared to make the Russian army a modernized, sleek, fast hitting combined arms force, give the Russian navy replacements for their nearly decaying materials and introduce new generations of nuclear weapons and aircraft to compete with the "threats" the West has introduced by forgoeing nuclear arms treaties and building new generation of jets while keeping Russia out of our club house.

This is a Russian centric summary of the situation so we are free to disagree on some or all of those points but imho these are driving points behind Russia's security concerns. Add to that that they know that they can't win a conventional war with the new star China and you have them having to completely overhaul their military system. I'd dare say a big chunk of their nukes will have a dual setting of either hitting NATO or China depending which neighbor caused the Russian president to push the panic button. That said I don't think war is likely in any case but military thinking is based on paranoia and that everyone wants to kill you and the Russians might have found too many events have proven that thinking to be the safest course of action.

reply

"Russians have had a tendency to not put some other advanced planes into production yet like the Su-37 and Su-47" The 37 and 47 were test beds for future designs, IE the T-50, also know as the pak-fa.

reply

Your conclusions are all wrong....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

reply