During WWII, one of the areas where the Soviets emerged with a major advantage was in the area of ground attack. Their IL-2 and later IL-10 were very rugged, easy to fly, carried a good payload and did a good job of protecting the crew in an armored tub. It was odd, then, that after the war, they chose to forego development of these sorts of planes, figuring that the new jets could pull off the mission as fighter bombers. As such, promising designs such as the IL-40 never made it past the prototype stage and the Soviet military went for many years without a dedicated ground attack aircraft.

Turn now to the late 1960s and it was realized that a dedicated CAS jet was needed. The US was already developing the A-10 for this mission, despite the USAF brass not really wanting it (just goes to show that the brass is not always a good judge of what is needed). Whether Sukhoi was influenced by the A-10 or not isn't mentioned in the book, but I'd be willing to bet that it was. At least in some small way as there is just too much coincidence in the timing. Anyway, several designs were put forward including one from Ilyushin that looked very much like the older IL-40, though updated. In the end, it was the Su-25 that was chosen.

The design of the aircraft was intended to not only carry a goodly load, but make it so that it could fly in case one engine was lost. Putting the engines close together helped with the flying of the aircraft in that condition. The airframe was also designed to be easily maintained, providing for short turn-around times. The aircraft was relatively fast, but even better, had good low speed performance. One of the real issues of the Su-7/17/20 series of aircraft is that they were not able to go as slow as the MiG-17, the previous CAS aircraft. This meant they could loose sight of a moving target or not have time to properly aim weapons for delivery.

The Su-25 was not perfect, however. There were major issues with its navigation systems, limiting it to daylight operations in good weather. The original engines were also not as powerful as wanted and the airplay had rather short range. Eventually, all but the range issue was taken care of and you would almost always see a mission loaded plane carrying a pair of fuel tanks on the inner pylons. The plane also had issues with asymmetrical loads, this often causing one wing to rather violently dip.

There is nothing like combat to test an aircraft and the Su-25 was soon sent to Afghanistan to see how well it served in action. Despite the few issues mentioned earlier, the plane was a huge hit and very popular with the troops it was sent to assist. Not only that, but it was able to withstand quite a bit of damage and still return to base. The book has many stories of the Frogfoot bringing back pilots. Of course, some were shot down, but overall, the aircraft had an excellent reputation. Thanks to the ease of maintenance, it was not unheard of for some aircraft to fly seven or eight sorties in a day as turn-around time was in the order of 15 minutes.

The author covers the design, development and deployment of the Su-25. This also includes all of the various conflicts in which it was engaged, even if it only few a single sortie during that conflict. The Su-25 has been delivered to many nations and with the split up of the Soviet Union, there are quite a few former states that are or have been operating the type. Even today, there are aircraft being upgraded to greater standards. All of these different variants are also covered. Add in a great selection of full color photos and the usual profiles and artwork, and you have a superb book on this important Soviet/Russian aircraft.

October 2013

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