Reddit reviews Russia's Air-launched Weapons: Russian-made Aircraft Ordnance Today
We found 2 Reddit comments about Russia's Air-launched Weapons: Russian-made Aircraft Ordnance Today. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
You actually don't need more than 2-3 books, and the skills in 'reading between the lines' of a few articles. Question is exactly what books, and what articles: problem is that certain 'prominent' authors on Russian military aviation (say Yefim Gordon) are actually copy-pasting from plenty of native sources, and then picking cherries at their own discretion. Result are illusions and legends.
In regards of books, I would recommend Piotr Butowski's recent Russia's Warplanes (there are two volumes) and Russia's Air-Launched Weapons. Combined, they are very useful as 'starting points', even though the latter is lacking precision in regards of specific missile projects.
A regular visit of specialised sections of the ACIG.info forum (requires registration to read) helps 'sort out ambient noises' from 'reality' in regards of all the online reporting. That platform is online since 19 years, and frequented by people who really know what 'research' and 'critical thinking' means.
Just as an FYI, RuAF's never ordered "vanilla" R-77, which only nominally passed the trials and was accepted into service just to be able to force a procurement of a token number of new MiG-29S that could use it as the military spending was being drastically reduced at that time. The missile itself, though, was never seen on RuAF birds, only mock ups were ever spotted.
I suppose, Deka is referencing RVV-AE, which is a kind of an export version of R-77, except, unlike the latter, it actually exists in numbers and was procured in significant enough quantities by China, India, Syria, Malaysia and many others. There was a blog post with compilation of links for all the spotted RVV-AE appearances but I can't find it for some reason, will come back and post it here, if I manage to find it, but for now the links posted above should suffice.
There is also this old doc that lists all the pre-2010 contracts. Yes, China has been ordering these at least all the way up to 2010.
Finally, RuAF in Syria doesn't use "export version", those are R-77-1 (Izdeliye 170-1). It has been in development at least since 2000s and, according to Butowski (see the book reference below), entered mass production back in 2010. We also have a 100% confirmation for 2015-2017 procurement contracts in a form of an official tender document. The corresponding export missile is RVV-SD and KTRV states a significant range increase over the basic model.
For more information on RVV-AE production numbers and R-77-1 R&D and procurement for RuAF you can also check Butowski's book on Russia's Air-launched Weapons: Russian-made Aircraft Ordnance Today :)