> "Consider the A10 in the current Ukrainian war: CAS is impossible because both sides have too much antiair."
Not really. It's true that anti-air has prevented aircraft from dominating the battlefield, but both sides still use jets and helicopters to come in at low altitude, fire off a bunch of rockets, do a quick U-turn (releasing a bunch of flares) and run away.
Both sides use MI-8s and SU-25s. Not sure if Ukraine has MI-28s, but Russia does. Both sides use glide bombs to hit fortified defense lines.
The Russian KA-52s in particular have been very effective lately because they have guided missiles and night vision equipment, and don't even have to be very close to the front.
If MI-8s, MI-28s, SU-25s, and KA-52s are all being actively used in this war and aren't immediately shot down, I don't see why an A-10 would fare any worse in that situation. Might not be a game-changer, but not useless either.
> I would be really curious what an A10 pilot's take on this would be.
An Su-25 pilot’s take would be more relevant, but I don't think Ukraine's Su-25 are flying a lot of sorties right now. (And even Russia’s, which seem to be flying more, aren’t having a great time.)
Neither side is able to suppress the others air defenses (airborne or ground based) enough for tank-killer jets to be used at anything like full effectiveness.
> Weren’t these the signature weapons because Ukraine doesn’t have much of an air force?
It's because they're cheap, easy to deploy, and effective. And Russian planes need to fly low because of other anti air weapons and a general lack of precision munitions.
> The US has had total air superiority in every conflict since the Korean War. That's over. The Ukraine war makes it clear. Against a competent opponent, most of what flies will die.
Not sure how you work that out. The state that spent half a century focusing on air defence to take out the USAF hasn't even substantially reduced the pathetically small and outdated fixed wing capability of the Ukrainian air force, and neither side has done much damage to the other side's airborne logistics, which is where this would fit. It's not been a great war for helicopters, but neither this project nor the US fighter capability that their superiority rests on is going anywhere close to frontline portable air defence systems.
> The Russians don't rely as much combat air support -
Russia is not using aircraft in Ukraine because regular Russian military is not "technically" there. It's kinda hard to deny your presence if your planes are bombing the country. Most of Ukraine's meager air fleet was grounded in the beginning of conflict so that whole thing turned into artillery war.
On another hand take a look at Syria. Pretty much everything Russia does there is air support.
> Air support is as vulnerable to MANPADs as tanks are to a Javelin
They are not, the fact the Russians have lost so many planes is a testament to their inability to suppress the Ukrainian air defense.
Fighters are capable of flying far higher than MANPAD ceilings the only reason to fly that low is to employ visually guided weapons under cloud cover or to attempt to hide behind the terrain against longer range air defense systems.
Both of these issues can be resolved. By suppressing the enemy long range air defense and by employing laser guided weapons along with ground based designators.
Also fighters can evade missiles, google f16 dodges 6 sams for an extreme example.
> The Kalibr missile is quite sufficient for striking stationary objects, so you don't need planes for those.
Perhaps, but how many of those does Russia actually have? Whenever I read reports of US Tomahawk inventory, I'm always surprised by how few they actually have in inventory (e.g. guessing they'd run out quickly in a hot war).
> Air supremacy is already achieved (almost all Ukrainian war planes and strike drones have been shot down)
My understanding is that's not true. The airspace is contested, since neither Russia nor Ukraine have full control.
>Dogfights are not happening regularly in Ukraine.
They are happening far more regularly than US Air Force doctrine calls for, which is never. Posessing total air superiority is baked into nearly every decision.
>In Ukraine, I understand, much of the defence against Russian missiles pounding civilians is done from aircraft in the sky, not with rockets from the ground.
Ground based systems still do majority of the work, although this might be for the acute lack of air force.
> The Air Force with an estimated strength somewhere stern that of algeria and chile?
It’s amazing that such a small airforce manages to prevent russia from gaining air superiority and even manages to effectively conduct sorties isn’t it.
Just shows you how different it is when your the invading force. russias airforce losses largely outsize Ukraines even though Ukraine has a smaller airforce and they older planes.
> The risk of not being able to properly maintain them down the line and ending up with 3-4 operable planes is too high for the advantages of stealth (which IMO comes more into play when on the offence, which Finland probably won't be anytime soon).
I guess, it really depends on your threat model.
If you assume that Russia is the main threat, and assume that what's going on in Ukraine is what future combat would likely look like, forward deployed SAMs are the main threat to aircraft. I have to imagine that advanced stealth capabilities would really help Sweden maintain an air capability in such an environment.
From what I understand, the Ukrainian airforce has taken a pretty severe beating (understandably). Heck - the Russian airforce has been pretty limited as well - they do run sorties, but they aren't exactly operating with impunity.
> The unique situation here is that Russia had deployed extremely sophisticated surface-to-air batteries.
Single launcher. Full battery has 4 launchers and a significantly more sophisticated radar. Arguably that radar would have helped to sort between Ukrainian observation plane and civilian Boeing.
> There isn't anything in the air for the ukrainians.
According to news reports, the Ukrainian air force and their unmanned planes (UAVs) are flying and fighting, and having a real effect on Russian ground forces. Other countries are sending additional planes.
> Latest HARM has a 150km range. Kh-58 has a 250km range.
> Where are the F-16s going to take off from (they need pristine runways)?
Probably relatively far from the action.
> Who will maintain them?
Ukrainians its one of the reasons why its taking so long for them to get them.
> How will they refuel without airtankers (they don't have enough range to make it to Donbas and back).
They don't have to fight at the front line, they can be used effectively as missile trucks to throw long range weapons like Storm Shadow and other long range weapons at Russian lines.
If a SU25 and Mig29 can survive doing that a F-16 will have no problem.
> How will they avoid the R37M (300km range) when the AMRAAM is not even 200km? And what about Russian SAMs and EW?
The same way that the SU25 and Mig29 do, the F-16 will survive much better.
> What I suggest is actually the F-22 is being using for signal intelligence over the Black Sea
That would be silly, we have planes that are specialized for SIGINT gathering, the F-22 is not one of them. We certainly have SIGINT aircraft operating near Ukraine, but they aren’t F-22s.
> helping guide in missles.
That’s not SIGINT, but something like an airborne forward observer for artillery/missiles. Which is less improbable than SIGINT, but still…
> Such as this attack
Ukraine has attacked airbases much farther from its current lines of control, deep inside Russia proper, with Soviet-era drones converted to loitering munitions. It is far more likely that they did the same thing in Crimea than that they conducted some kind of long range attack with F-22’s providing terminal targeting for some kind of SARH/SALH missile.
Even more likely than even that is that they used the Ukraine-developed-and-manufactured Neptune anti-ship cruise missile (the same reported to have been used against the Russian Black Sea fleet flagship), that has inertial/GPS guidance for land attack, and sufficient range to have hit that base from well within Ukraine-controlled territory at that time.
> Even looking at total aircraft losses per side per month, the worst case is Ukraine with 307 losses over 19 months or 16.2 per month.
Unless this includes UAV's (which would be a bit strange) I don't see how this is even possible Ukraines airforce doesn't even have 300 combat aircraft.
Looking at most sources I cannot find where this number could have come from.
> That only tangentially answered the specific form of the question. Why not equip Ukraine with anti-aircraft weapons that can threaten aircraft over Russia
Russian ALCMs have ranges of over 1,000 miles, and are launched from bombers that fly from bases hundreds of miles from Ukraine. There are no surface-to-air missiles that can shoot them down in flight from Ukraine.
Ukraine is attacking the bombers on the ground with their own Tu-141 drones converted to cruise missiles.
The only thing that can practically be shot down in flight (short of a sufficient air combat capability to challenge control of airspace over Russia, which isn’t happening short of a general war with the West, sending equipment to Ukraine won’t do it) are the missiles themselves, which is why Ukraine is being supplied systems like Patriot and NASAMS.
> or anti-ship weapons that can harass targets in the Black Sea?
Ukraine’s domestically-developed land-launched Neptune missile has longer range to the US’s longest-range dedicated anti-shipping that currently have a surface launch system, and only slightly shorter range than the ATACMS, which isn’t AFAIK, designed for anti-shipping use but might be pressed into such use, or the LRASM, which is currently only integrated with certain US air platforms. The only thing the US might be able to transfer that would provide this coverage is the just-introduced Maritime Strike Tomahawk, which I gather there are very limited numbers of in US service.
> The Polish MiGs in particular would not add much to Ukrainian capabilities. Much more important is a continuing supply of Javelins, Stingers, TB2s, medical supplies, comms equipment, and intel sharing.
Yes, MiGs, like all manned fighters, are as relevant today in the age of the drone as battleships were during WWII (and arguably the Japanese did us a favor at Pearl Harbor by definitively discrediting the battleship die-hard dead wood in the Navy).
Not really. It's true that anti-air has prevented aircraft from dominating the battlefield, but both sides still use jets and helicopters to come in at low altitude, fire off a bunch of rockets, do a quick U-turn (releasing a bunch of flares) and run away.
Both sides use MI-8s and SU-25s. Not sure if Ukraine has MI-28s, but Russia does. Both sides use glide bombs to hit fortified defense lines.
The Russian KA-52s in particular have been very effective lately because they have guided missiles and night vision equipment, and don't even have to be very close to the front.
If MI-8s, MI-28s, SU-25s, and KA-52s are all being actively used in this war and aren't immediately shot down, I don't see why an A-10 would fare any worse in that situation. Might not be a game-changer, but not useless either.
reply