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kemikalkadet posted:We have been training the Qataris on the typhoon for a few years so there is already a training program for it in place already. Not sure if training programmes for gulf regimes should count, given their general results.
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Feb 8, 2023 14:35
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Pablo Bluth posted:There's zero chance of them getting F-35 so it's seems both pointless and cruel to give them a taste of it. The Typhoon is a lot closer to what they might eventually get. Unless we're just providing the airfields for f-16 operatirs to do the training. I'd imagine the RAF has the infrastructure to at least do the first 4-8 weeks of training for F16s if not the actual advanced flight training on the airframes themselves - class room, simulators, basic maintenance stuff for ground crews etc. So this could simply be an effort by the UK to get things started. Even if they're only able to partially train Ukrainians it will speed things up noticeably. And it will also help put pressure on actual F16 operators to get involved, like with the very limited numbers of Challengers by themselves not achieving much but helping to move NATO 'red lines'.
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Feb 8, 2023 15:09
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There was a lot of speculation about Ukraine getting F-16s in the first few weeks when everyone was paying attention to the air war and a bunch of people who didn't know what a No Fly Zone meant wanted NATO to enforce one. I wouldn't be that shocked if Ukraine was already shopping around for Western planes to modernize their air force with even before the invasion but I don't recall them ever being something Ukraine has publicly requested for this war.
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Feb 8, 2023 15:10
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Acute Grill posted:There was a lot of speculation about Ukraine getting F-16s in the first few weeks when everyone was paying attention to the air war and a bunch of people who didn't know what a No Fly Zone meant wanted NATO to enforce one. ? The Ukrainians have repeatedly, very publicly, asked to receive Western planes to modernize their air force. This is from last week alone: quote:Top Ukrainian officials have in recent days escalated their public lobbying campaign for US-made F-16 fighter jets, arguing they need them urgently to defend against Russian missile and drone attacks. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/31/politics/ukraine-escalates-public-push-f-16-fighter-jets/index.html
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Feb 8, 2023 15:15
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For me I don't see F16s pushing the needle much compared to Mig29's they already have. They will still be stuck flying low to avoid ground based AA and then trying to fire AMRAAMS up at far away and high Russian jets that are lobbing long range missiles at them. For that they will need to maintain well kept and supplied airfields within long range missile range of Russian forces versus rough and ready strips that Migs work from. Even a few F35s would be a real capacity step change, likely able to climb to a height and position to really threaten RuAF jets, to at least push them way back and then use the EW capacity of the F35 to have an impact on the front even without being a bomb truck. And I have said it in another thread but in my opinion a big part of the ask for jets is to further commit Europe to Ukrainian goals (it is in Ukraine's interests that the conflict escalates as they are already in an existential conflict). Electric Wrigglies fucked around with this message at 15:18 on Feb 8, 2023 |
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Feb 8, 2023 15:16
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Yeah, it also doesn't make sense to me. I mean I guess he might as well ask, but since Russia hasn't been able to use its air force since like, March, due to high prevalence of effective anti-air I doubt Ukraine would be able to effectively use like 20 or 30 jets designed in the 1990s. It's not like they're going to get 500 F-35s. I guess they could get off a couple surprise attacks since Russia probably isn't watching its anti-air super closely, but I don't see what jets would accomplish that long range rockets wouldn't do more accurately, more safely, and at lower cost. No one is going to do dogfights. Actually I guess now that I think about it, I guess intercepting Shahads and other slow cruise missiles? Maybe that would be useful.
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Feb 8, 2023 15:20
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Electric Wrigglies posted:For me I don't see F16s pushing the needle much compared to Mig29's they already have. They will still be stuck flying low to avoid ground based AA and then trying to fire AMRAAMS up at far away and high Russian jets that are lobbing long range missiles at them. For that they will need to maintain well kept and supplied airfields within long range missile range of Russian forces versus rough and ready strips that Migs work from. I'm in the Gripen camp. The Swedes designed that bird to work from rough and ready dispersed strips with relatively low maintenance requirements. It can carry Meteor anti-air missiles and Small Diameter Bombs for PGMs which puts it in the same class as current model F-16s, but is better suited for the operating conditions in Ukraine.
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Feb 8, 2023 15:22
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The main benefit of western airframes as far as I have understood is that they can be used with western weapons better. The UA pilots seemed to mostly miss the fire and forget ability of newer missiles
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Feb 8, 2023 15:32
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Electric Wrigglies posted:For me I don't see F16s pushing the needle much compared to Mig29's they already have. They will still be stuck flying low to avoid ground based AA and then trying to fire AMRAAMS up at far away and high Russian jets that are lobbing long range missiles at them. For that they will need to maintain well kept and supplied airfields within long range missile range of Russian forces versus rough and ready strips that Migs work from. Going with a NATO spec plane gives them access to a huge stockpile of longer range radar guided BVR AAMs and ideally HARM loadouts for the SAM sites too. How deep are the stocks of Soviet bloc AMRAAMs and modern HARM systems in the Ukrainian air force stockpiles? It sounds like Russia has an overmatch on that front from the articles I've read
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Feb 8, 2023 15:37
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I understand the gain from F-16 would presumably be around better weapons and western supply chains. Dwindling numbers of Sukhois/MiGs flying low before lobbing dumb rockets/missiles can't be sustained forever. F-35 is a complete no-go for cost, availability and secret-sauce reasons
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Feb 8, 2023 15:40
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E: how tf did I end up here
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Feb 8, 2023 16:14
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Well this is something... Seymour Hersh apparently created a substack a few hours ago and posted an essay titled How America Took Out the Nordstream. Sy tells us the US started working on it months before Russian forces crossed into Ukraine, that Norway was the biggest partner, and that they originally planned to set a 48-hour timer on charges planted during the BALTOPS exercise, but decided to design a remote-controlled detonator at the last minute. Sounds weird, but so does every other story. I was hoping it would turn out to be something more cyberpunk.
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Feb 8, 2023 16:28
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Nice of him to take a break from denying that Assad used sarin to spew some more pro-Russian poo poo everywhere.
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Feb 8, 2023 16:37
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yurtcradled posted:Well this is something... Seymour Hersh apparently created a substack a few hours ago and posted an essay titled How America Took Out the Nordstream. Seymour Hersh hasn't been reliable for some time now--he's mostly a conspiracy theorist at this point.
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Feb 8, 2023 16:39
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'Mostly a conspiracy theorist' significantly overstates his credibility. That piece is bizarre, as you'd expect, but notably it's like a cargo cult of journalism where it makes sensational claim after sensational claim and yet doesn't bother with even the pretense of pretending to have sources for any of it.
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Feb 8, 2023 16:40
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As best I can tell from the piece, he has a single unnamed source and not a shred of actual evidence otherwise.
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Feb 8, 2023 16:52
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yurtcradled posted:Well this is something... Seymour Hersh apparently created a substack a few hours ago and posted an essay titled How America Took Out the Nordstream. Literally the moment he published the article, it was all over Russian media. If nothing else, they've been waiting for it to drop and F5ing his substack non-stop and had something pre-written ready.
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Feb 8, 2023 16:55
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I appreciate the straightforwardness of this as an example of source obfuscation for propaganda.
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Feb 8, 2023 17:00
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Seymour putting the C in Clancy
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Feb 8, 2023 17:01
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Agronox posted:As best I can tell from the piece, he has a single unnamed source and not a shred of actual evidence otherwise. This has been the basis for his journalism for the past decade, ever since he started convincing starstruck editors to publish thinly sourced fairy tales about chemical weapon attacks in Syria.
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Feb 8, 2023 17:10
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Mederlock posted:Going with a NATO spec plane gives them access to a huge stockpile of longer range radar guided BVR AAMs and ideally HARM loadouts for the SAM sites too. How deep are the stocks of Soviet bloc AMRAAMs and modern HARM systems in the Ukrainian air force stockpiles? It sounds like Russia has an overmatch on that front from the articles I've read The Russians only developed their AMRAAM equivalent, the R-77 in the mid 1990s just as the Soviet Union fell. Thus any new examples built by Vympel would have been built in Russia and not distributed to Ukraine. I'd say the Russians didn't really get to build too many of these until into the Putin era. To that end any air to air engagement between Ukrainian and Russian aircraft would likely result in the Ukrainians having to deal with these missiles. AMRAAMs would level the playing field.
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Feb 8, 2023 17:14
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The reason why the F-16 is a huge upgrade for the Ukrainians is that the platform has been modified to do pretty much every task they need in the conflict. You can do Air to Air, Air to Ground, Air to Sea, SEAD/DEAD and EW all from a single platform with effectively a load out and software change. Comparing a F-16 to a MiG-29 is like comparing a Pentium 1 Laptop from 1995 to a modern smart phone. People get old hardware to do new tricks all the time but at the end of the day a new smart phone can do everything that laptop can do and a ton more faster, better, cheaper and in a more refined package. There are no doubt a lot of missions that the Ukrainians would love to do but with their current inventory and capabilities are unable to do so. With a squadron or two of F-16s and the right kit that changes very quickly. Hell the air launched cruise missile attacks would likely stop due to them having long range BVR missiles and radars to engage the bombers that launch them. A strike on the locations where they are launching the Iranian drones from Crimea could be on the table as well. That is just two off the top of my head. This is totally discounting the changes that the Russians would require in terms of tactics and logistics due to the F-16s being able to target areas previously more secure from Ukraine's current capabilities. mllaneza posted:I'm in the Gripen camp. The Swedes designed that bird to work from rough and ready dispersed strips with relatively low maintenance requirements. It can carry Meteor anti-air missiles and Small Diameter Bombs for PGMs which puts it in the same class as current model F-16s, but is better suited for the operating conditions in Ukraine. Issue with the Gripen is parts and logistics. There are thousands on F-16s built and it is used by a ton of countries. There is a ton of spares out there and the platform has been adapted to pretty much every role one can think of. There are only about 150 Gripens in the entire world and Saab can't magically make 30 or 40 appear out of thin air, let alone all the spare parts one would need for us in an active conflict. You add in that it is not fully NATO compatible so it is incompatible with a lot of the arms that would be offered and wanted to be used by Ukraine. I agree that the Gripen is a fantastic aircraft and if it was peacetime it would fit Ukraine very well in a lot of aspects but with current needs and logistical concerns the best option is the F-16.
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Feb 8, 2023 17:47
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Djarum posted:Hell the air launched cruise missile attacks would likely stop due to them having long range BVR missiles and radars to engage the bombers that launch them. Would it? I was under the impression that the Russians were lobbing these cruise missiles from an airbase near Moscow. I don't think BVR missiles reach quite that far, do they?
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Feb 8, 2023 17:52
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It's pretty obvious the Russian orcs blew up their own pipeline and I would urge other journalists to consult wikipedia before making outlandish claims to the contrary. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 8, 2023 17:55
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Djarum posted:The reason why the F-16 is a huge upgrade for the Ukrainians is that the platform has been modified to do pretty much every task they need in the conflict. You can do Air to Air, Air to Ground, Air to Sea, SEAD/DEAD and EW all from a single platform with effectively a load out and software change. Comparing a F-16 to a MiG-29 is like comparing a Pentium 1 Laptop from 1995 to a modern smart phone. People get old hardware to do new tricks all the time but at the end of the day a new smart phone can do everything that laptop can do and a ton more faster, better, cheaper and in a more refined package. While the F-16 would be a jump in capability compared to their older Mig-29's, you're completely overestimating it's capabilities in terms of taking out Russian bombers (who are launching 100's of miles away over Russian airspace that would need to be pierced as well as evading R-77's or even longer range R-37's).
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Feb 8, 2023 17:59
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kemikalkadet posted:E: I do wonder what we'll train them on though. We fly Typhoons and F-35's which I doubt we'd donate in any significant numbers. We also train with Hawk T.2's and host F-15s from the USAF. Given that we have no other details of any sort, the safest bet is that they are giving basic jet training with Hawks. There's no value in giving training for Ukrainian pilots on aircraft that they are not getting.
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Feb 8, 2023 17:59
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Tomn posted:Would it? I was under the impression that the Russians were lobbing these cruise missiles from an airbase near Moscow. I don't think BVR missiles reach quite that far, do they? Yeah the KH-55s they're launching at Ukraine can reach over 1000km. What does an air to air missile top out at? Less than 100km for an AMRAAM? Nenonen posted:Given that we have no other details of any sort, the safest bet is that they are giving basic jet training with Hawks. There's no value in giving training for Ukrainian pilots on aircraft that they are not getting. Yeah probably the best guess. I think the training pipeline goes: Grob tutor -> Hawk -> Typhoon with each being a step up in systems complexity. It depends what kind of pilots they're training, if they're veterans with hundreds of hours in MiGs then they probably won't get much from training in a Hawk but if they're fairly new pilots then it might be more useful. kemikalkadet fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Feb 8, 2023 |
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Feb 8, 2023 18:04
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kemikalkadet posted:Yeah the KH-55s they're launching at Ukraine can reach over 1000km. What does an air to air missile top out at? Less than 100km for an AMRAAM? It's like 160 km per wikipedia (for the AIM-120D), so possibly a bit more but yeah you're not gonna lob AMRAAMs from Ukrainian airspace.
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Feb 8, 2023 18:05
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kemikalkadet posted:Yeah the KH-55s they're launching at Ukraine can reach over 1000km. What does an air to air missile top out at? Less than 100km for an AMRAAM? Something like 150 km for the longest range model? Phoenix has a longer range but still below 200 km (carried only by F-14). Even if there were longer range missiles it would be very unlikely that Ukraine would be given anti-air missiles that can reach deep into Russian airspace as this could result in a reverse MH17 scenario... Speaking of which, the Dutch prosecutors now say there is evidence that Putin personally signed the order that transferred the Buk from Russia to Donbas and allowed the war crime to happen. Not that it changes anything 
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Feb 8, 2023 18:19
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Blut posted:? Weird. I dunno how I missed that. Thanks for the correction.
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Feb 8, 2023 18:20
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Space Camp fuckup posted:the Russian orcs The what?
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Feb 8, 2023 18:23
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https://mobile.twitter.com/shashj/status/1623333752976842752
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Feb 8, 2023 18:40
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Tomn posted:Would it? I was under the impression that the Russians were lobbing these cruise missiles from an airbase near Moscow. I don't think BVR missiles reach quite that far, do they? The bombers that are launching them are based near Moscow but they aren't launching them from there. They are getting within BVR range of the border for launch for stuff that is hitting Kiev and targets in Western Ukraine due to the range of the cruise missiles. If nothing else it would cause a lot of Western Ukraine to be a lot safer from strikes as they would likely strike targets closer to the border if this would happen. There is still the issue of them being launched from Belarus as some have been and the mess that engaging Russian bombers in Belarusian airspace would be. Also the sub launched Kalibrs have the range to hit Western Ukraine from Baltic which they have used before but who knows how many they have operational and available to use without harming their defenses and operations in other ways. It isn't like they have the ability to replace these easily or quickly which is why they are moving toward cheap Iranian drones for much of their recent attacks. The other issue would the longer range cruise missiles is that they are subsonic to increase their range, which makes them much easier pickings for anti-air defenses as well as stuff like the F-16 or even the MIG-29.
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Feb 8, 2023 18:56
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Djarum posted:The bombers that are launching them are based near Moscow but they aren't launching them from there. The bombers still can and do launch from well outside of Ukrainian fighter range, unless those fighters fly at altitude within range of both Russian SAMs and Russian fighters. Which is a bad idea.
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Feb 8, 2023 19:00
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TheRat posted:The what? It's a trolling attempt, in which the poster tries to create a strawman of this thread's imagined consensus on Hersh's blog post.
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Feb 8, 2023 19:01
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With F16's would Ukraine then have a platform to launch something KH-55 equivalent?
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Feb 8, 2023 19:03
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Rockker posted:With F16's would Ukraine then have a platform to launch something KH-55 equivalent? It depends on what planes they would or could get, and when, and with which munitions, etcetera – in that this is an exceedingly speculative thought exercise. Fundamentally, however, yes - NATO on the whole leans heavily on air power, and a lot of the fancier stuff is delivered by air. For instance, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KEPD_350 these anti-bridge cruise missiles that we discussed in the thread when the Kerch strait bridge first became a major topic early last year. Also, something something post/av combo 
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Feb 8, 2023 19:10
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Russian spokespeople seem significantly more upset about F16s than MBTs. It is impossible to know the true impact ahead of time, but Ukraine doesnt have any alternatives when it comes to replenishing lost airframes. Of course anything, be it Gripen, F16 or migs scavenged for oarts, is of tremendous value. MBTs are an additional tool for ground operations - jets are the core asset of airpower. Training and logistics are the challenge. As was escalation risk until very recently. It could very well just be a matter of frog temperature mire than anything, when it comes to "why now?"
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Feb 8, 2023 19:22
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PederP posted:Russian spokespeople seem significantly more upset about F16s than MBTs. They've been apoplectic and threatening nuclear strikes on Berlin since May of last year. Russia simply doesn't have anything it can do to.
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Feb 8, 2023 19:41
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Djarum posted:Also the sub launched Kalibrs have the range to hit Western Ukraine from Baltic which they have used before but who knows how many they have operational and available to use without harming their defenses and operations in other ways. Wait, what? You're not saying that Russia has actually been launching Kalibrs at Ukraine from the Baltic are you?  I don't remember hearing that kind of attack happening at all, and it seems if it did happen it would be a major (actual no-poo poo) escalation, since every nation between the Baltic and Ukraine is in NATO
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Feb 8, 2023 21:15
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