The War in the Ukraine

Dark Father said:

The analysis of Suriyak.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1660053390087401475

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The great irony is that both names are Russian.
Bakhmut itself was established as a border fortress by a Tzardom of Moscow in the late 16th century.

tankphobia said:

On the topic of F-16s, I think that simply having them perform the normal CAP role that they fill in western airforces will be a huge help. Since the US has essentially a endless stockpile of A2A missiles F-16s in numbers could completely stop shaheds and Cruise missiles from being effective.

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Blk. 50/52 F-16 is considered as largely ineffective as a cruise missile hunter(grossly insufficient radar performance), it isn't just about weapons.
Performance against those targets is the central selling point of Blk.70 (f-16v).

Right_People said:

I don't think the Iskander has the range to attack a large number of the airfields.

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Iskander has enough range to hit the entirety of Ukraine if you fire them from Belarus.
If you use the air launched Kinzhal you can hit targets anywhere even from inside Russian territory.

Right_People said:

Italian PM said they cant participate in the F-16 coallition.

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Italy never had any F-16s to send in the first place.

obj 705A said:

Denmark and nethherlands have a combined F-16 fleet of 57, I know they want to eventually replace them with F-35 but still that means they will be donating almost 80% of their F-16 fleet to Ukraine for free.

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The Netherlands already relinquished their tanks, so I guess they will relinquish their fighters next. Just do not assume they will do it for free. Remember that the EU has the "European Peace Facility" fund.

These are likely to be Russian special forces or spetsnaz from Gru, operating in the northern border. They identified this house as an ammo depot and sent an ATGM to this location.


Could be related to this event as two GRU special forces brigades are sent to the border from the Kursk area.


Ukrainian vehicles falling under Russian ATGM fire.

gelgoog said:

I doubt those F-16s will be in good condition. The Dutch F-16s for example are at the end of their lifetime. They would need major work which would take several months if not a year to refurbish properly. And they will be totally outmatched in terms of radar by the Su-35 and MiG-31BM aircraft the Russians have. So then you start with the question if they will use NATO AWACS aircraft to cue the F-16s to compensate for their lack of radar or not. If they do it, then Russia will have a viable motive for shooting NATO AWACS down.

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There aren't many F-16s in good condition any more anywhere. The F-16s have been in service a lot longer than they were supposed to. Whether they come from America or Europe they'll have very little airframe time. The few forces with newish F-16s certainly won't be giving them up.

I don't think the primary goal of the F-16s will be to intercept cruise missiles. It'll be to give the Ukrainians some A2A capability. As their SAM stockpile depletes, the VVS will become a bigger threat.

gelgoog said:

The Netherlands already relinquished their tanks, so I guess they will relinquish their fighters next. Just do not assume they will do it for free. Remember that the EU has the "European Peace Facility" fund.

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Which is funded by the richer EU countries, i.e. the same countries that will be giving away the F-16s.

Once this war is over the regimes of these countries will be telling their people they underestimated the threat of Russia and they now need to replace the F-16s with billion dollar contracts for F-35, which will probably never show up.

Abominable said:

There aren't many F-16s in good condition any more anywhere. The F-16s have been in service a lot longer than they were supposed to. Whether they come from America or Europe they'll have very little airframe time. The few forces with newish F-16s certainly won't be giving them up.

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The condition doesn't matter - they'll be certainly in better condition than those mig-29s flying beyond their designated lives.
Can fly, can fight - goes up and flies.

F-16 isn't a rare airframe, this way the supply of them can be almost endless.

Aircraft with 1990s upgrades, for all inadequacies of f-16 platform, will be certainly vastly better than Soviet types without those upgrades.
On the other hand - the later they'll come, the more Felons they'll meet.

Gloire_bb said:

The condition doesn't matter - they'll be certainly in better condition than those mig-29s flying beyond their designated lives.
Can fly, can fight - goes up and flies.

F-16 isn't a rare airframe, this way the supply of them can be almost endless.

Aircraft with 1990s upgrades, for all inadequacies of f-16 platform, will be certainly vastly better than Soviet types without those upgrades.
On the other hand - the later they'll come, the more Felons they'll meet.

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Agreed, anything they get will be better than what they currently have.

The Americans/Europeans need to hurry up and send them in. This will be the first time in recent years a western air platform has come up against a Soviet one without the deck stacked in its favour. Since internet forums were a thing people fanboys have been arguing about this topic.

Talk is cheap, time to put up. Whoever loses I don't want to hear any excuses.

Sure. The F-16 will be a vast improvement over the aircraft they have assuming they can operate them. But mid-1990s upgrades will still have worse electronics than the 2010s electronics in the Su-35 and MiG-31BM. Those had the radar processing elements and flight computer upgraded. For example the flight computer is the Baget-55 which uses MIPS-64 RISC processors.

gelgoog said:

Sure. The F-16 will be a vast improvement over the aircraft they have assuming they can operate them. But mid-1990s upgrades will still have worse electronics than the 2010s electronics in the Su-35 and MiG-31BM. Those had the radar processing elements and flight computer upgraded. For example the flight computer is the Baget-55 which uses MIPS-64 RISC processors.

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They will have AWACS operating in friendly territory around the Ukraine feeding them radar data.

Gloire_bb said:

The condition doesn't matter - they'll be certainly in better condition than those mig-29s flying beyond their designated lives.
Can fly, can fight - goes up and flies.

F-16 isn't a rare airframe, this way the supply of them can be almost endless.

Aircraft with 1990s upgrades, for all inadequacies of f-16 platform, will be certainly vastly better than Soviet types without those upgrades.
On the other hand - the later they'll come, the more Felons they'll meet.

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It would be most ironic if the first fight of a 4th generation fighter vs. a 5th generation fighter ended up being an American 4th generation fighter vs. a Russian 5th generation fighter.
For early 2024 Russia will have a full regiment of Su-57s ready

Right_People said:

It would be most ironic if the first fight of a 4th generation fighter vs. a 5th generation fighter ended up being an American 4th generation fighter vs. a Russian 5th generation fighter.
For early 2024 Russia will have a full regiment of Su-57s ready

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Are su-57s actually used much at all in Ukraine? Reports about them have been sporadic at best.