As an electrical engineer I am curious how russians get their hands on the mil spec Western electronic components. I mean even in Western Europe I must fill few forms to obtain potentially dual use components. Mil spec Xilinx FPGAs or SiGe transistors aren’t available in every grocery store.
These are reflectarray radars, not AESA. No crazy specialist components are really required, just a lot of PIN diodes. I'm sure those can be made in Russia.
not sure where the proclivity to underestimate Russian military technology comes from. it certainly was a sterling hallmark of US leadership at the time of the cold war.
Russia has been making in-house AESA for a decade. they started with APAR radar in 1963, just a few years off from the US.
> not sure where the proclivity to underestimate Russian military technology comes from
They've been turned into bumbling idiots on Twitter and Reddit. It's a shame, but in my mind it is quite dangerous because sooner or later some president/general is going to make a very bad decision based on that meme. "How could their nukes possibly work?"
It’s enough to launch a retaliation. So the expected value of launching a hypersonic missile is still very negative because you will get inundated with nukes yourself. It’s the old MAD doctrine, not perfect, but better than nothing.
I didn't realise it was possible to detect a hypersonic. What I read is that the missle creates a ball of plasma before it, which is opaque to radar. I thought this was the main strength of hypersonics, over raw speed.
Very useful. Hypersonics shorten the window for defensive engagement but don't completely eliminate it. For example in surface naval warfare anti missile defense is layers of counter systems / munitions. The innermost layers of this "onion" of protection are fast reaction systems that function essentially at line of sight (SeaRAM and similar missiles, CIWS). That an incoming hypersonic is trying to shorten the detection window is all the more reason that detecting one quickly after it comes above the horizon is valuable.
I saw some articles implying that they thought so too but are actually using a lot more Chinese components even as substitutes for military grade components. Given that the portion of US companies make a military and commercial grade component with only thermal differences, I would wonder if they aren't getting a lot of commercial grade versions of US designs from China.
It would be interesting if someone goes through their wreckage strewn about and starts to catalog the finer details of some of the small components.
They did have some degree of connection with France up until 2014 so maybe they might have gotten some from there. Also, sanction busting is a thing and the FSB probably has some way to get some components in a shady manner
Elbrus chips were manufactured in Taiwan TSMC before the war and it has been stopped now due to the war, Russia has no domestic capability to manufacture them.
The process is not as advanced as the TSMC's one, but they seem to have progressed (or have been progressing?) to 28-45 nm technological process in 2018.
Probably possible to order one of these using automotive process in some foundry in Asia. Nobody will ask too much and it would be enough power for defense applications.
Take a look how easily highly illegal drugs are smuggled in large quantity, and then ponder how easy it is for civilians to acquire Xilinx FPGAs in the West regardless of forms. Then ponder that .ru may be using industrial spec instead of mil spec : life-critical isn't so important to russia.
