Recently, Russian media reported that the Komsomolskaya Komsomolsk-on-Amur aircraft factory recently delivered the second batch of Su-35S fighters to the Russian Aerospace Forces, this batch is two, the previous batch was two, five months have passed this year, Russia has received a total of four new Su-35S fighters.
Of course, after the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the Russian Aerospace Forces lost several Su-35 fighters, most of which were shot down by Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles. The elite fighters of the Russian Aerospace Forces have all been shot down, including Su-30SM, Su-35 and Su-34 fighters, of which the number of Su-34 fighters has been shot down has exceeded 20.
Some analysts pointed out that since the Su-34 and Su-35 fighters were shot down one after another, the Russian army itself is disgusted with this fighter, the specific reason is that the manufacturing cost and difficulty of the Su-35 fighter is higher than that of the Su-34, and it has been shot down one after another on the battlefield. After all, according to the production capacity of Russian Aerospace Forces fighters, it is easy to produce more than a dozen new Su-35 fighters within a year, and even if they cannot be produced quickly, the fighters that were previously exported and returned are enough to make up for the war damage.
Nowadays, the speed of equipment is so slow, it has to be said that the Russian Aerospace Forces no longer look down on this advanced fighter. From the point of view of the Russian army, the performance of the Su-35 fighter in real combat is not satisfactory to the Russian army. Since its inception, this fighter has become a new star in the Sukhoi family. But in actual combat, among them in the Syrian battlefield, they were locked by the US military stealth fighters without realizing it, and in the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, they were shot down one after another, and the Su-35 fighter has been included in the field of four and a half generation fighters, but now the performance is very ordinary, even inferior to the previous generation of fighters.
The Su-35 fighter is based on the Su-27S fighter, with a new design and improvement, the nose airspeed tube is canceled, the vertical tail is redesigned, the fuel tank is increased inside, and the new 117S engine is installed, the thrust is greatly enhanced, the maneuverability becomes more excellent, and it has supersonic cruise capability, and the radar is upgraded N035 "Snow Leopard"-E passive phased array radar, and it can also mount jamming pods, and the weapon load has also increased to 8000 kg, which can use new air-to-ground weapons, Judging from the performance data, it belongs to the fourth and a half generations of fighters.
But with the development of the times, the avionics system of the Su-35 fighter has fallen behind, the stealth ability is poor, and the anti-jamming ability is not strong. The biggest advantage of the Su-35 fighter is still close-range combat, relying on the maneuverability of the fighter to gain an advantage, but modern fighter air combat is no longer the era of dog fighting, has entered the era of over-the-horizon air combat, whoever finds the target first, can use medium-range air-to-air missiles to take the lead in interception.
As for weapons, the Su-35 currently in service in the Russian army still uses R-27/R-77 medium-range air-to-air missiles, R-73 combat missiles, and R-27 missiles are semi-active radar-guided missiles with a range of only 40-50 km, which is already a phased product, while the R-77 medium-range air-to-air missile has a range of 90-110 km, but in the face of new medium-range air-to-air missiles such as AIM-120D, there is still some gap, as for ground attack, The Russian Su-35 fighter did not use too many precision air-to-ground weapons on the battlefield, only a small number of anti-radiation missiles, and even at the beginning of the war, ordinary aerial bombs were used.
The avionics system of the Su-35 fighter is backward, and Ukraine has intelligence support from the United States and NATO, and the air defense system on the ground directly ambushes the Su-35 fighter of the Russian army, and the probability of victory is very large. The radar and avionics system of the Su-35 fighter are somewhat different from similar fighters in the West, after all, the modern mainstream advanced fighters use active phased array radar, and the Su-35 fighter will obviously suffer when fighters with the same performance meet.
NATO is also actively assisting Ukraine F-16 fighters, and it is not known which version of the F-16 fighters currently assisting Ukraine, but Western countries may assist Ukraine with the latest model of F-16 fighters. After all, they don't want to see a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, and it's better if the Russian army can't attack for a long time, and the Ukrainian army can still hold on to fighting. For example, now Ukraine's MiG-29 fighter has used the United States' precision strike weapons, and NATO has the ability to upgrade the F-16 fighter to the latest model configuration, at that time, with NATO's strong intelligence support, the Ukrainian army's F-16 fighter uses the latest AIM-120 medium-range air-to-air missile, which can easily fight with the Su-35 fighter, and has many advantages.