India in American F-35 vs Russian Su-57 fighter quandry
India seeks deeper ties with US but the F-35 stealth fighter is more expensive and burdensome than Russia’s comparable Su-57
Only NATO countries, Japan, South Korea and Israel have the top fighter aircraft in the US arsenal, the F-35. The plane, which features advanced electronics and sensors, is billed as a multirole platform that can be used to achieve air superiority and conduct strike missions. It is competing in India against Russia’s 5th-generation stealth-like jet, the Su-57.
While both the Su-57 and the F-35 are competing against one another to fill India’s need for a significant number of new jets, the reality is the aircraft are considerably different.
The F-35 is optimized for stealth, although it falls short of the stealth protection of its big brother, the F-22. Congress decided years ago that the F-22 could not be exported, leaving the Japanese in the lurch as they sought the fighter to fend off China. Compared to the F-35, the F-22 is a heavier aircraft with two engines, greater range and supercruise.
Supercruise is defined as an aircraft’s ability to fly at supersonic speed without afterburner. In practice, this means that any platform that lacks supercruise will need to burn much more fuel to sustain supersonic speeds. An aircraft without supercruise will generally take longer to get to its target and return or be restricted to nearer targets or require air-to-air refueling.
Russia’s Su-57 is more like the F-22 than the F-35. It does have supercruise and technically better range and better dash capability than the F-35.
While India has been trending toward its own home-built fighter planes, it will be several years before it can meet its needs domestically. And even then India will have to import vital components or co-produce them with foreign companies.
It is probably fair to say that the F-35’s electronics and sensors are more advanced than the Su-57’s. Lockheed Martin, the US defense contractor that builds the F-35, guards the “black boxes” in the F-35, including even the built-in logistics system that connects to Lockheed for spare parts and software updates.
Buyers of the F-35 must, therefore, depend on Lockheed. The only country to demand greater autonomy from Lockheed dependence was Israel. Apparently, Lockheed and the US Defense Department considered the Israeli demand reasonable mainly because Israel can troubleshoot and improve F-35 capabilities and operations.
It is also the only country that has used the F-35 in combat, over Syria, Lebanon and possibly Yemen and Iran. Nonetheless, Israel needs the entire F-35 supply chain for spare parts and it almost lost access to some of that during the Gaza war.
Russia, on the other hand, has been a reliable supplier to India without any noteworthy interruptions. Typically, India has required significant co-production rights where there is a foreign sale of defense hardware.
The Russians are not at all opposed to that, partly because the Russian aerospace industrial base is stretched, and partly because they value the political relationship as much as the business opportunities.
It is not too likely that Lockheed will want to offer much co-production to India. In the end, this may break any possible deal for the jet.
Both the F-35 and the Su-57 were together for the first time on display in India. The Russians put on a spectacular demonstration of the Su-57; the F-35 was only on static display.
Had the F-35 flown a demonstration, it would have been inferior to the Su-57. That is because the design theory of these aircraft is different.
The F-35 is optimized for stealth. The surfaces on the aircraft’s skin have coatings and design features to deflect radar (specifically X-band radar, which is the primary type of military radar), the aircraft requires computers to keep it aloft and its design is not great for platform maneuverability.
As a combat platform, the F-35 is designed for standoff operations, meaning that it can fire a missile for 50 miles or more before the enemy can detect it, or so the US Air Force claims. Similarly, for combat ground support, similar standoff weapons such as smart bombs and cruise missiles also would be launched tens of miles from the target.
While the Russians have trended in the same direction, the Su-57 also is designed as a dogfighting aircraft that can do ground support up close, sort of like the venerable A-10 or the aging Russian Su-25.
The F-35 is equipped with a gun system, although it was not in the original plan. Having the gun is largely pointless. In a dogfight, the F-35 would have difficulty against a more agile opponent, and the Su-57 and Su-35 qualify as very agile indeed.
While there are different stories around about the F-35 gun, it is likely the US Air Force stuck it in claiming that the gun’s presence was equivalent to the powerful 30mm gun on the A-10. The Air Force is intent on liquidating the A-10, despite its significant contribution to US warfighters in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
A-10 with guns blazing.In fact, the US Air Force is dominated by its desire for “low observable” technology, the Air Force terminology for stealth.
The Russians have never been as sold on stealth technology as the US. Some say that is because they lack stealth technology, which is highly classified by the US Pentagon. But stealth technology also creates design problems, thus the F-35 while allegedly multirole, cannot dogfight and can’t really provide close ground support for troops.
Take note: when firing from far away, the target may move before the weapon arrives. Perhaps some of this limitation can be offset by artificial intelligence, but a smart enemy will quickly learn how to dodge fire.
Keeping the super-secret surface coatings of stealth planes in repair is a major task, requires specialized equipment and security-cleared personnel, special dust-free enclosures and considerable training and supervision.
Under peaceful conditions, this adds a lot of cost, but is doable. In combat circumstances, stealth coatings are likely to degrade and combat teams may be hard-pressed to clean them up for operations. A degraded stealth plane is a sitting duck even by older combat aircraft.
The Russians also have focused on two other components: strong air defenses, including mobile air defenses, and on advanced ways to detect stealth threats.
Thus they are deploying new types of ground sensors that work in the VHF and UHF frequency ranges. And built into their newer jets are L Band transmitter-receivers that can pick up US and other stealth fighters that are optimized for X Band.
L Band does not have the accuracy of X Band, or anywhere near it, but it is good enough to generally locate a threat. With modern computers, L Band sensors may have already evolved or can be teamed with ground radars and sensors, taking away some of stealth’s advantages.
For India, the two main threats are Pakistan and China. Pakistan’s Air Force is a mashup of old French Mirage fighters, Chinese fighters and around 75 F-16s. China has stealth aircraft with the J-20 operational and the J-36 under development.
While the Chinese complain about the acquisition of weapons by their potential adversaries, they don’t complain much about India buying either Russian or possibly American armaments.
The challenge for India is the cost of the F-35 compared to the Su-57, the very high demand for effective maintenance and training, and various problems the F-35 encounters operationally, especially aircraft availability.
Today (and optimistically), the F-35’s availability is around 51% for the US Air Force. Almost certainly it would be lower in India because its aerospace industrial base is not as advanced. Because India would purchase approximately 100 aircraft, it could never hope to field more than half of them, probably less.
It is likely the availability figures for the Su-57 would be a lot better than the F-35 in India, although there are so few Su-57s operating today that it is just guesswork on how things will ultimately shake out.
It is obvious that maintaining the Su-57 will be less burdensome and less expensive than the F-35, especially if the Su-57 is co-produced in India.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump in an embrace.India seeks improved relations with the US and greater access to US technology. It also has thousands of engineers and technicians India wants to train and work in the United States, and investments by US high-tech companies in India.
The question is whether India is willing to invest billions of rupees in the F-35, knowing it could do better buying the Russian jet.
Stephen Bryen is a special correspondent to Asia Times and former US deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. This article, which originally appeared on his Substack newsletter Weapons and Strategy, is republished with permission.