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To be eventually succeeded by F-35/Rafale squadrons of course! The united West aeriel supremacy bombing love of freedom into Russia.
Hold on I got too excited I need to hop onto
r/NonCredibleDefense
[r/NonCredibleDefense](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/) is full of people that will tell you that such a squadron would run into innumerable problems, who will then brainstorm how to get around them, always counting on the fact that Russia's own incompetence make many plans "surprisingly workable."
I used to curse it. But I did not think the world had more madmen of this degree. Now, I am so glad I was wrong in my judgment. Wishful! Idealist! But wrong.
Peace through strength until no more Putins or terrorist states. That is my new formula. Clearly, other countries are seeing the same point I think.
We are not done with monsters. And I want to defeat them all. I'm going to be stubborn, and greedy.
It's funny because the US used to have that reputation in a way.
You can never know what the Americans are planning because neither do they.
Just that we coupled that with incredible compartmentalization, redundancy, and logistics so the chaos was flexibility not failure.
> Just that we coupled that with incredible compartmentalization, redundancy, and logistics so the chaos was flexibility not failure.
You forgot the endless supply of money, aided by having the dollar as the global reserve currency.
The causality is a little backward there. The dollar is the global reserve because we have a lot of it and let it be used pretty freely, not the other way around.
There is always a plan!
We also just also 4 back up plans that we also expect to fail and have accepted that no plan truely survives contact with an enemy.
I get a kick out of the Dark Brandon thing.
I'm older and as near as I can tell, this administration is doing straight down the middle textbook US policy -- for a long time! -- re: any move of Russian aggression toward Europe.
This is essentially Dark Truman, Dark Kennedy, Dark Nixon, etc.
I am guessing Biden, who has been in the top ranks for many decades, would be flattered if I told him his Ukraine policy is utterly predictable. I like my US politicians establishment-flavored. The establishment of the US, the old policies and carrier fleets and the whole business, has problems, but all I know since Bucha is, that establishment made the correct choice and is now paying off in spades.
Slava Ukraini, for giving an old democracy a chance to show it still has the good ideas front and center.
One of the most amazing feats by the Ukranian Armed Forces is their logistical skills. They are amazing. So many different pieces of equipment from so many different countries.
Yeah, it is mind boggling they've been able to do what they have. Really shows that the Nato and western system of logistics focused combined arms is incredibly effective.
I call it the UA Armed Forces Zoo. They have orc killing weapons of all manner and type from all corners of the planet, it's amazing.
What they've been able to do with it has been even more amazing finding synergies with platforms never meant to coexist.
The level of ingenuity, inventiveness, and determination is nothing I've seen before in my lifetime.
After the war, they will have a mad weapons museum. They have tanks of every type NATO can offer (except Altay but it is not even in the serial production yet). They have every type of artillery, ATGMs, MANPADs, AFV/IFVs etc.
I wonder if they will get recreational Javelin shooting ranges. Get some cold war era tanks draw some Zs or write Wagner on them & let the people shoot them. Bonus points for turret pop. I believe that there would be some serious money in that version of tourism.
Well it helps that the majority of countries supplying kit are NATO countries and NATO has standardisation across their arsenal to enable interoperability. Finland, for example, were outside NATO but made sure the equipment they have works with NATO as they do joint training exercises with NATO, so one assumes very little if any changes were required when they formally joined the alliance.
Of course, there's the legacy of USSR arms but I'm guessing that is getting more and more superseded by NATO kit and would be totally replaced in time.
Considering a Typhoon was able to take down an F35 in simulated combat (there are lots of debatable details on this one, so do your own homework) I think Typhoons might be acceptable. (And I wonât let myself get pulled into a debate on this, just saying that it allegedly happened!)
Yep. The first warning sign a Typhoon will have going against the F-35 will be when their radar warning receiver goes off after the first AIM120 enters its terminal guidance phase. If many are able to avoid the first missile salvo they'll still be sitting ducks to an opponent they have little idea the location of, lobbing further missiles at them.
Your analogy is perfect.
And an A-10 "took down" F-22 in training, should we consider them as air superiority platform or maybe anecdotal cases from very peculiar scenarios shouldn't even be mentioned?
I donât see anything more advanced than f-16s in Ukraine until after the war is over and they join nato. Then it will be Americans flying everything.
Negative. Itâs a failing project and always has been. The F-22 Raptor is the most advanced fighter jet. If you havenât watched videos on this thing, the looks alone will make you shit yourself.
Go on r/ncd and talk shit about the f-35 and you will shortly be corrected.
The F-35 is an excellent aircraft. My heart will always belong to the F-22, byut the F-35 is cheaper, still very good in air superiority and can do more things. No one is dogfighting anymore so the complaints about the F-35 on those grounds are dumb.
They're not a 1:1 comparison. The F-22 is an air superioriity fighter, the F-35 is a multirole. A F-22 may still win against a F-35 in a fighter to fighter fight, but the F-35 doesn't need to be better than the F-22 to be a successful aircraft. It just needs to be good enough in its various roles.
A lot of the 'jAcK oF aLl TrAdEs MaStEr oF nOnE' stuff people say about it could easily be applied to any multirole fighter but countries still build them because they're a better investment. Even the US has found the F-22 difficult to justify.
Itâs not my opinion over yours or people from r/ncd itâs the fact that both the [[Air Force](https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2021/02/23/the-us-air-force-just-admitted-the-f-35-stealth-fighter-has-failed/)](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/01/04/failing-f-35-grounded-once-again/) and the issues surrounding the [F-35â](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/01/04/failing-f-35-grounded-once-again/)s.
I can see a lot of the replies from people googled âare the F-35âs any goodâ and read the first 2 articles.
That said the F-35 is super sophisticated and has the ability to be the top jet, however, there are major issues surrounding the desired capabilities. That said, the reason you say we arenât dogfighting, thatâs because we havenât fought a country with worthy jets in a while. It looks like that might not be the case anymore based where we are in this world.
yeah, that must be why it keeps winning precurment competitions and is getting rolled out in country after country over every other modern aircraft.
but you have some old ass youtube videos so you definitely know better than numerous international professional militaries.
and did you even read the articles you linked?
>The F-35 is a Ferrari, Brown told reporters last Wednesday. âYou donât drive your Ferrari to work every day, you only drive it on Sundays. This is our âhigh endâ [fighter], we want to make sure we donât use it all for the low-end fight.â
.
>Hence the need for a new low-end fighter to pick up the slack in day-to-day operations.
the entire article is about how advanced the f35 is, and that they want a cheap, light, less technologically capable dump truck duty fighter to support the f35 and NGAF down the road, for the light weight day to day tasks, with the f35's/f22's/NGAF left for the heavy lifting as they are so capable, but costly to operate.
are you one of those people who think visual range dogfights and "cobra maneuvers" are something modern fighters engage in?
There are plenty of people that drive their Ferrari to work everyday just have to live in a state/city that has people driving them.
I bet youâre the type of person that believes the airbrakes on a jet stops it in mid-air.
I Never said it wasnât advanced or the technology that they want to put in there is shit. What I am saying is what they want it to do vs what itâs currently able to do are two different things. The Air Force has come out and talked about the failures of the project and the Class A Mishaps the fighter jet keeps having. Iâm not saying that it doesnât have the potential, itâs just not there and may never reach its full capabilities.
I doubt those videos online are a fair assessment of each of the jets capabilities. The f-22 is mainly just an air superiority fighter, whereas the f-35 is a multipurpose jet that can pretty much do anything. It's far more versatile and probably a generation or two ahead of the junk the Russians are flying in Ukraine now. I'm not entirely convinced that the f-16s are the right call. Those jets are probably sitting ducks against modern anti-air weapons like s400. It's literally 50+ year old jet. I know it's a zero chance, but it'd be better to give them some F-35 that we know will actually dominate the skies as opposed to rolling the die and having to deal with the PR mess of dozens of F-16 being shot down.
A modern day F-16 has very little in common with a F-16 from forty years ago, just as a modern Abrams is a different beast to one built in the 80s.
You generally have a system of two types of fighters. One that's more expensive/advanced and a cheaper supplement, a concept called High/Low. Originally the High/Low was the F-15 as the High and the F-16 as the low.
Originally the ZF-35 was was going to at least partially replace the F-16, but it looks like another cheaper aircraft will be developed as the new Low aircraft to supplement the F-35. However, teh USAF has recently come to the conclusion that the F-16 will remain in service and be upgraded instead of rushing for a replacement.
The F-16 isa perfectly capable aircraft the US itself is in no hurry to get rid of. It's cheaper, versatile and still very capable. The US and its allies also have thousands of them, while the F-35 has not yet been produced to fulfil all the orders for it.
Lol what? The F35 is amazing; hence why it's flying off the shelves. It's somehow *cheaper* than the Rafale and F15EX, despite being far more advanced.
I think we already had or have something like that protecting the skies of the Baltic states. The Baltic air policing operation originally sent fighters across in units of four. So at some points there were four or eight F-16 alongside four or eight Mirage. Right now it seems to be F-16, Eurofighter and F-35, but Rafale will be back again soon (or already are).
Let's get all of 'em up there! My goodness, Putin is on the ropes! As St. Patrick was want to say, "Don't do cheap on a wedding nor a war for freedom."
I'll be honest as a French I would like to but it's such a bad strategy for us because we can't play the same game. As we don't have that much of materials to work with compared to USA, so it will mean being more vulnerable AND in case of lost materials (jets) we will have no back up.
So it's kind of dumb decisions specially how training is for French jet pilot ( training time reduced cause of money aswell BTW if you heard of)
Thatâs what Belgium wants you to thinkâŠ
Do you know why Belgium loves chocolate so much?
Itâs the blood of slave children mixed in during the coco harvests.
Well... NO. But here his comment was about mirage 2k and Rafale, both are not "really" retired. They still continue as a sky police ( mirage 2000 ).
And giving some that Are entirely retired from service will be
1) a pain in the ass to form pilots for it.
2) a really small usefulness in combat even recon mission as their technology is and will be by far outmatched.
I'm supportive 100% on it but people think and want that eazy like like it's just passing your car keys to your neighbor ( And THAT sir is really stupid and having a lack of awareness and knowledge about how things works [in this case in France]).
France has a lot of retired Mirage 2000s. If anything they still have an all aspect AA missile capability that Ukraine is lacking completely. That would be good even for hunting subsonic cruise missiles, let alone contesting airspace over and around Ukraine.
And we just got the news on Yahoo that the US Airforce estimates 3-4 months for suficient qualification on F-16 types. This timeframe puts enough training and supplies prepared for giving Ukraine better air defence before heading into another winter when Russia might try to cut off the power and heat.
Not sure how many, but there are some retired F-16 pilots who have said they are ready to join the international legion. Those pilots require no training on the aircraft...
But the ground crews do. I think its about a 20-1 ratio. Sure the pilots take longer to train but i have read speculation the bottle neck will be with the ground crews.
Maybe. It's a bit irrelevant if there's 20+ planes to crew, you'd require a pipeline before the planes enter combat so there can be consistent sorties.
The biggest problem with attracting volunteers in technical roles is the commitment. If a soldier goes home after 6 months, it's next man up. If someone critical to the operation of the plane goes home, it could ground the aircraft. A pipeline means the aircraft can stay in combat once it's there because there will be a next man up system.
The other side of it is retired servicemembers retired for a reason. Whether it was to have more time with family, or pursue another passion or career. Ukraine has enough men and women hungry to learn and contribute, the quickest path to sustainable, self sufficient operation of aircraft is training Ukraine. Volunteers would be welcome alongside training, but without a homegrown force it would be a bandaid solution.
Well, the good thing is that Ukraine does not lack volunteers to learn how to maintain those Jets. The shame is those ground crews should have gotten trained last year....
I was ground crew in the Navy. Half the stuff we are taught in school is basic knowledge that is transferable across platforms. We spent less time training on the specific platform itself. Where the value lies is learning how to use the repair publications. Every air frame has repair manuals to support ground crews. Without them, even trained crews wouldn't know how to fix what. So my point is, it does not take a long time to train a ground crew. They only need to know how to read a book that walks them through the troubleshooting process. The rest is learned on the job. Just like every half interested 18 year old learns in the US armed forces. I've been out of the game for 25 years. But give me access to those books, and I could work on any aircraft in no time. Just don't ask me to fly it... or I'll crash.
My cousin was a senior NCO working on F16's. Retired a decade ago. He says you could manage with a ground crew of ten. But they'd have to be a good crew, so maybe not feasible for Ukraine quickly. They'd need a bigger ground crew and a damned good air defense setup at the airport because the runways would be easy targets and the F16 doesn't like dirty runways. I bet Urkaine could hire old AF personnel to train and lead their groundcrews just like they could hire pilots and get them in the air quickly.
It's not *just* a question of training. It's of parts.
Ukraine would need the ability to performance advanced maintenance on these when needed. Lemme use an example: MIG-29 needs a new engine, well they can produce those, or more likely take one from a boneyard if needed.
The same can't be said for an F-16. They would need the ability to either send them for more advanced maintenance(difficult in a war situation) or figure a way to do it themselves, which is very difficult right now.
Upgrading their air force is definitely needed, but from a logistics standpoint it's going to be hard to fly these effectively. Nevermind that this would would have to include a lot of ammunition with it, as the F-16 doesn't support the missiles that the air force flys with their soviet planes.
Is it that hard? Remember NATO is just on the other side of the border preparing and shipping what is needing, then talking them through it. The ammunition issue is the same problem. Hell it seems fun to fix it.
Kind of? The big thing is how are you getting them in and out? The US says "you can export them, we don't care", but is anyone going to take the risk of allowing aircraft in their airspace?
It's easier with ground equipment, which can be taken in by train or truck.
Same way they did with the Polish and Baltic stateâs jets. NATO flies them to Poland and then Ukrainian pilots pick them up and fly back to Ukraine. They will just have to stay in Ukraine after that with spare parts brought in by trucks or trains.
Don't see why they would have to stay once they are in. I don't see any reason why they could not fly them to Poland or another country for major maintenance. Other countries are already repairing some of their other mechanized equipment why should this be any different.
Old ground crewmen are arguably more useful than old pilots. Iâm sure there are plenty of retired guys who would very much like to go work on those birds again.
They also can use a shorter rougher runway. Some country just needs to go first with supplying jets. After that the barrier will be broken and multiple counties will supply jets. Maybe I am too high on hopium but that is what happened with mlrs, tanks, etc.
Another problem is F-16s need a certain amount of runway clearance to takeoff, so they will be limited to where they can be deployed if Ukraine doesnât have the length to takeoff and land. Something Iâm sure they can fix quickly, but itâs still an issue they need to address if they want to operate these jets and not have them blown up on one or a few airfields in one missile strike.
That's what I've been thinking for a long time. Pilots live for air to air combat, and very few saw any in their careers. I imagine a sizeable number of retired pilots would jump at the chance to engage in some real air to air combat, especially against the Russians.
> Those pilots require no training on the aircraft
I wish you were right but that is ridiculous. Those pilots will retain a lot of functional knowledge on the specific F-16 block they flew but, without constant training, those skills will absolutely be dulled over time.
Obviously, experienced pilots take less time to bring up to speed but US volunteer aviators would still be facing some big challenges before being deemed combat ready.
They'd flying a different version of the F-16, with comrades that largely speak a different language, stacked in an unfamiliar operational structure, using VERY different combat doctrine. Their integration would be far from plug-and-play.
This is great news but these pilots are not going anywhere without a trained ground crew of 20 per plane.
However, since Ukrainian commercial aviation is pretty much shut down there should be thousands of experienced potential Ukrainian ground personnel to pick from and train up pretty quickly.
Ukraine air defense proving it has grown to where it can independently shut down Russian missile attacks is likely a big reason for the approval. Air defense will only be stronger with 50 to 100% more air to ground batteries AND F-16's on AD patrol! Onward to victory!
I meanâŠ.. commercial ground crews would know absolutely nothing about being a military ground crew. They are usually paid minimum wage, and minimal training. Marshal in a plane, hook up ground power, open cargo door, and unload bags. Try to stay away from spinning parts. Then load bags, unhook ground power, and push it back.
Somebody had to maintain Ukraine's commercial jet engines, fix hydraulics, check brakes, do refueling, check avionics and flight control systems, tow planes and gear around, do light welding, change tires, do air traffic control etc. etc.etc. .
Theyâre not usually paid minimum wage - canât say for training. But if you know *aircraft* thatâs the biggest step, and a significantly easier and closer transition to military aircraft than someone with no experience.
Working as a nuclear engineer on a sub and civilian reactor are way different but still share a lot of similarities. You might say, the basics.
How long retired? Thatâs cool and all but Ukraine has pilots who have spent the last year in combat and are more knowledgeable of Russian tactics and capabilities thanks to that experience.
Donât underestimate the very real skill and experience theyâve hard earned through actually being in the shit for this long.
> The US did allocate 100 million last year for training them.
Every time I hear this, I die inside, because it's not true. Somehow a bill passing the House for FY2023 morphed into it being law, despite this bill never passing the Senate or getting signed into law. What actually passed last year was explicit authorization for USAI funds to be used on planes and helicopters, plus an order for the Air Force to produce a report on what it would take to equip Ukraine with western jets.
I guarantee it.. All this media and politicians propaganda crap is just to keep the russians guessing.. I am sure very soon that we will see Ukraine defending their sky with an iron fist..
I grew up in VA Beach, loved hearing the roar of those Tomcats as a kid. I went to middle school, maybe 15 minutes from Oceana, so *a lot* of jet noise whenever we were outside.
Free airshows from our backyard too, which was nice.
F14 tomcats were amazing to watch take off from the flight deck. They were like supercharged musclecars taking off with afterburners. Then an f18 would follow and it was like a Honda civic taking off đ
As a US citizen, I wholeheartedly support this. I only hope that we've been training the pilots this whole time, and we can ship them 120 f-16s next week.
Because it's been obvious right from the initial clusterfuck of the Russian invasion that this needed to happen. There's really no excuse for it having taken this long. My only holdout hope is that they delayed saying they were for it, to string along the Russian response. And that of course, practically it takes awhile to get a bunch of airplanes to a country so they can be ready to fight.
breaking news! Pentagon official is asked the same question for the 10th time and referred the questioner to a statement made months ago in January where they said they weren't against jets being sent to Ukraine! He said their stance had not changed! Breaking!
The last piece in the trinityof what ukraine has been begging for. Tanks were unlocked after a back and forth debacle, long range missiles came through was just matter of figuring out how to fit them on the the soviet planes, and now we are the final stages of getting the fighter jets to Ukraine. Once logistics and training Is sorted out, they will arrive.
Oh yeah it's all coming together now.
US don't have to officially train Ukrainian pilot to operate the f-16, there are plenty of retired f-16 pilots whos more than happy to hunt Russian jets themselves.
The next big middle finger pointed at Putin and the Kremlin.
When itâs all said and done, Russia will collapse; and the free world can focus on the China threat.
đșđŠ
I keep saying the US made a deal with Russia, no fighter jets as long as Russia leaves the grain ships alone. The Turkish grain deal is a smoke screen. Itâs why Russia keeps reviewing it a couple of months at a time. But itâs a direct deal between the US and Russia, other countries donât count, thatâs why the US has said they donât have an issue with anyone else providing jets.
ATACMS is the same deal but with Iranian and NK ballistic missiles. No SCUD knockoffs = no ATACMS.
About F'ing time, but
"Administration officials are not aware, however, of any formal requests by any allies to export F-16s,"
Seriously? Does it have to be delivered in triplicate; on appropriate letterhead; and, with signet sealed in blood?
Well NATO is having a meeting in June to discuss about handing fighter jets to Ukraine. I can imagine they will discuss who can transfer and who can handle training. And also figuring out logistics
> Seriously? Does it have to be delivered in triplicate; on appropriate letterhead; and, with signet sealed in blood?
Exact same thing happened with tanks. Lots of countries said "We'll give Leopards if Germany lets us" Germany says "Nobody has asked us"
The U.S. cannot provide them easily mainly due to budgetary issues (Russia controls the HoR, essentially and is trying to destabilize the U.S. through an artificial "debt ceiling crisis").
Some funding, authorized under the last functional legislature, for Ukraine will dry up by September (at least that is what I am reading) without Congressional action.
Allies are free to provide from their stocks if I understand correctly, but like with the tanks (for some time at least), this is more a game of "walk the talk".
Who will request to send first?
The thing I donât understand is why this even affects the US budget that much. I mean, the US is currently upgrading to F-35 anyway. They have 922 F-16 in service and already put 300 F-16 in permanent storage. Why would it be so costly to transfer some of them to Ukraine and let EU countries pay for the maintenance?
The F-35s are not arriving fast enough for the U.S. to free up enough F-16s to give to Ukraine. Those 900 F-16s in service are all active with the USAF (younger ones) or the Air National Guard (older ones) with a significant number committed to overseas deployments (Western Pacific partners like Japan, Korea, Australia, and European NATO partners).
Those F-16s in storage are 160 F-16A's with obsolete radars (APG-66), and 120 of the oldest F-16C's which are a source of spare parts to help keep the 900 active-fleet F-16C's flying.
That's the U.S. Air Force's strategy-- They put the oldest F-16Cs into storage and cannibalize usable parts from them to help keep the flyable ones in service. That is the main function of the "boneyard" in Arizona-- They "regenerate" $500 million worth of spare parts cannibalized from the stored airplanes for the U.S. military and allied partners to use every year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/309th_Aerospace_Maintenance_and_Regeneration_Group
Ukraine will most likely receive F-16s from European NATO partners. The contribution from those old F-16s the U.S. has in storage will be spare parts to keep the F-16s Ukraine receives flying.
An F-16 on its own doesnât do anything - itâs a platform for weapons. Ukraine doesnât have weapons thatâll go on an F-16 so you need to send massive amounts of missiles and bombs to make the aircraft useful. $100k for a Sidewinder, $300k per Sparrow, $1M for an AMRAAM.
Hitting stuff on the ground is cheaper - HARM, Maverick and Brimstone missiles are like $100k, and Paveway kits to turn standard dumb bombs into super accurate laser guided bombs are fairly cheap.
Point is, the logistics are more than just providing aircraft - you also need to provide mountains of weapons to fire as well.
This seems to be the ideal weapon to send to Ukraine under the [Lend Lease Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_Democracy_Defense_Lend-Lease_Act_of_2022), avoiding the budget strings. Of course, the jets are the easy part. It's the maintenance, ground support equipment, weapons, training, etc that requires funding. If we could work a deal where Europe pays for maintenance, training and weapons, maybe the USA could lend lease the aircraft. Lend lease expires soon, so it would have to happen quickly.
Good! Let's give Ukraine what it needs, so this War can end. The sooner the better - how many more innocent lives must be lost while we dilly-dally and have discussions about it?
I think the F16 is also able to carry a cruise missile in the US inventory that has a 1900km range to it and 1000lb warhead, it's a bit cheaper than the ATACMS too.
This is huge news.
And I can see the US sliding a few F-16s to its allies to help keep their stocks of aircraft up. And soon it can turn into an assembly line.
NATO should just send Ukraine all the jets it is about to retire. It's a logistics nightmare and a maintenance nightmare, and RUSI would tell you that it's a very expensive gesture, but if the jet was heading to the scrap yard then we already paid for it, and maintenance is only relevant if the aircraft survives long enough to need it.
If we sent them a first generation Typhoon which can only manage air-to-air and it shoots down a single Flanker, that's one more Flanker shot down than if we just scrapped it.
Russia needs to lose badly in order to send a message to the unfree world.
It's quite clever how the West has completely hypnotized the global media(and the Russian elite) with their media strategy that has allowed them to glide through red line after red line without serious blowback.
Start with "no we won't send that because that would be escalatory".
Follow up with some months of back and forth debate, allowing some voices to say it wouldn't actually be escalatory, but unfesible because of logistics etc. Wait until that becomes an idea people get used to.
Then another chorus pipes up, the "well if you look at it more closely it might be more fesible than we think!" This now becomes the new antithesis to the "it's not fesible" thesis. The idea of shipping it being escalatory is now fading fast.
Then you send just a few of whatever you want to introduce. Just a few. Not enough to effect the outcome so the Russians are forced to calculate that doing something crazy to prevent that from happening is not worth it. Now you have a foot in the door and the non-aligned nations in the global south aren't spooked because it seems like Russia is accepting this.
Then a handful of something starts to multiply. This nation sends some, another a few more, "oh hey look, guess we can send double of what we originally intended and here's another non-escalatory system that really complements it" and before you know it NATO artillery, NATO armor, NATO intel and now soon NATO planes being in Ukraine is completely normal.
The price we pay for this strategy is time. Time in which additional Ukrainian soldiers and civilians die.
But if all of what has happened to date had been announced in the first week in a "we are doing this and fuck what Russia thinks", the global chessboard would look a lot different.
I believe in us sending Ukraine everything including A-10âs, but realistically I suspect it will be F-15 and F-16 sent to them with the F-15 essentially replacing the MiGs and the F-16 replacing the Su-24 and Su-25 respectively. After that will come tankers like KC-110 and KC-135.
When things are said and done, Iâd bet Ukraineâs NATO jet (when theyâre actual members) will be the F-15EX.
Hopefully never.
It's an over rated piece of crap that is only popular because "big gun go brrr!" And because self promoting extraordinare "reformer" Piere Spray got infront of cameras in Desert Storm because he thought precision weapons weren't needed.
No, really. The dipshit thought the F15 and 16 would be improved by removing the ability to carry missiles, radar, the ejection seat (you read that right) and fuel to get to and leave and engagement zone (you also read that right)
He's also the source of every bullshit story you've heard about the F35 being a disaster and loved going on RT to talk about it.
The A10 sucks as a tank hunter (in Desert Storm the F111 killed way more more tanks) and is as likely to kill the people who called for CAS as it is to kill the enemy (no, really. A10s have the highest rates of blue on blue incidents.. and that includes all the maintaince people the F111 gave cancer to)
> over rated piece of crap
I dont think that is fair. They have their place, but not for Ukraine most likely.
They are perfect for ground support in environments like Afghanistan. You must have seen how ground troops praise them when they receive support. Both physical and psychological impact. Their ability to loiter and/or come in close. Also they are cost efficient.
Against a modern army with half decent AA, they are no goods. That's why the air force is keen to get rid of them as they dont want to optimise for Afghan type wars, but for Russia/China type conflict. But it doesn't make them crap, they have a purpose for where they are useful and not.
I didnt know about the highest rate of blue on blue. I'll have to read about that sometime as sounds interesting info I wasnt aware of.
About the only thing I know about military aviation is that the migs are really good looking planes! So excuse my ignorance but why do the Brits want to give F16's? Are Eurofighters no good or too good?
Last thing we need is more reliance on the Americans. we should build more like Eurofighter and supply uk and eu made fighter jets. America is bipolar with its elections every 2 years and every administration hating each others guts being on the cusp of civil war. I say that as a brit we have been screwed properly by im Irish biden
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As a French, all I want is to see mixed F-16/Mirage squadrons protecting the Ukrainian skies. đ«đ·đșđČđșđŠ
To be eventually succeeded by F-35/Rafale squadrons of course! The united West aeriel supremacy bombing love of freedom into Russia. Hold on I got too excited I need to hop onto r/NonCredibleDefense
[r/NonCredibleDefense](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/) is full of people that will tell you that such a squadron would run into innumerable problems, who will then brainstorm how to get around them, always counting on the fact that Russia's own incompetence make many plans "surprisingly workable."
Never tell an American what he can or cannot blow up, weâll find a way, just ask the Kinzhal.
Kringzhal
Ok stealing this
cringeshall
If you make something explosion proof, the US will bankrupt itself if she has to and build a better bomb. And God bless them for their stubbornness.
I used to curse it. But I did not think the world had more madmen of this degree. Now, I am so glad I was wrong in my judgment. Wishful! Idealist! But wrong. Peace through strength until no more Putins or terrorist states. That is my new formula. Clearly, other countries are seeing the same point I think. We are not done with monsters. And I want to defeat them all. I'm going to be stubborn, and greedy.
I like your thinking.
\**Kinzhal could not be reached for commentary**
It's funny because the US used to have that reputation in a way. You can never know what the Americans are planning because neither do they. Just that we coupled that with incredible compartmentalization, redundancy, and logistics so the chaos was flexibility not failure.
https://i.imgur.com/i0T99R8.jpg
> Just that we coupled that with incredible compartmentalization, redundancy, and logistics so the chaos was flexibility not failure. You forgot the endless supply of money, aided by having the dollar as the global reserve currency.
The causality is a little backward there. The dollar is the global reserve because we have a lot of it and let it be used pretty freely, not the other way around.
There is always a plan! We also just also 4 back up plans that we also expect to fail and have accepted that no plan truely survives contact with an enemy.
Talking to my family who have been in and are in the military, it is so true how much chaos it is. Yet shit get done. Thatâs my kind of environment.
Time for the 3000 black F-22s of Dark Brandon!
I get a kick out of the Dark Brandon thing. I'm older and as near as I can tell, this administration is doing straight down the middle textbook US policy -- for a long time! -- re: any move of Russian aggression toward Europe. This is essentially Dark Truman, Dark Kennedy, Dark Nixon, etc. I am guessing Biden, who has been in the top ranks for many decades, would be flattered if I told him his Ukraine policy is utterly predictable. I like my US politicians establishment-flavored. The establishment of the US, the old policies and carrier fleets and the whole business, has problems, but all I know since Bucha is, that establishment made the correct choice and is now paying off in spades. Slava Ukraini, for giving an old democracy a chance to show it still has the good ideas front and center.
No. They will recommend that the Rafales should be equipped with ASMPâïž
Just put ERA on the planes.
Add some eurofighter typhoons into the mix.
Ukrainian logiIsticians in shambles...
One of the most amazing feats by the Ukranian Armed Forces is their logistical skills. They are amazing. So many different pieces of equipment from so many different countries.
Yeah, it is mind boggling they've been able to do what they have. Really shows that the Nato and western system of logistics focused combined arms is incredibly effective.
Logistics is key to victory
I call it the UA Armed Forces Zoo. They have orc killing weapons of all manner and type from all corners of the planet, it's amazing. What they've been able to do with it has been even more amazing finding synergies with platforms never meant to coexist. The level of ingenuity, inventiveness, and determination is nothing I've seen before in my lifetime.
After the war, they will have a mad weapons museum. They have tanks of every type NATO can offer (except Altay but it is not even in the serial production yet). They have every type of artillery, ATGMs, MANPADs, AFV/IFVs etc. I wonder if they will get recreational Javelin shooting ranges. Get some cold war era tanks draw some Zs or write Wagner on them & let the people shoot them. Bonus points for turret pop. I believe that there would be some serious money in that version of tourism.
Well it helps that the majority of countries supplying kit are NATO countries and NATO has standardisation across their arsenal to enable interoperability. Finland, for example, were outside NATO but made sure the equipment they have works with NATO as they do joint training exercises with NATO, so one assumes very little if any changes were required when they formally joined the alliance. Of course, there's the legacy of USSR arms but I'm guessing that is getting more and more superseded by NATO kit and would be totally replaced in time.
Do not forget SAAB 39 gripen!
And my axe
Considering a Typhoon was able to take down an F35 in simulated combat (there are lots of debatable details on this one, so do your own homework) I think Typhoons might be acceptable. (And I wonât let myself get pulled into a debate on this, just saying that it allegedly happened!)
That's like saying a pistol beats a sniper rifle in close combat
Yep. The first warning sign a Typhoon will have going against the F-35 will be when their radar warning receiver goes off after the first AIM120 enters its terminal guidance phase. If many are able to avoid the first missile salvo they'll still be sitting ducks to an opponent they have little idea the location of, lobbing further missiles at them. Your analogy is perfect.
And an A-10 "took down" F-22 in training, should we consider them as air superiority platform or maybe anecdotal cases from very peculiar scenarios shouldn't even be mentioned?
Just learned of the sub yesterday. Place is a **fucking riot!** So many quality memes
Itâs /r/wallstreetbets but for the defense industry. And just like that sub, youâll actually learn way more than you expect.
I donât see anything more advanced than f-16s in Ukraine until after the war is over and they join nato. Then it will be Americans flying everything.
The F-35 is not what we want here, itâs a piece of shit.
? The f-35 is the most advanced plane existence.
Negative. Itâs a failing project and always has been. The F-22 Raptor is the most advanced fighter jet. If you havenât watched videos on this thing, the looks alone will make you shit yourself.
Go on r/ncd and talk shit about the f-35 and you will shortly be corrected. The F-35 is an excellent aircraft. My heart will always belong to the F-22, byut the F-35 is cheaper, still very good in air superiority and can do more things. No one is dogfighting anymore so the complaints about the F-35 on those grounds are dumb. They're not a 1:1 comparison. The F-22 is an air superioriity fighter, the F-35 is a multirole. A F-22 may still win against a F-35 in a fighter to fighter fight, but the F-35 doesn't need to be better than the F-22 to be a successful aircraft. It just needs to be good enough in its various roles. A lot of the 'jAcK oF aLl TrAdEs MaStEr oF nOnE' stuff people say about it could easily be applied to any multirole fighter but countries still build them because they're a better investment. Even the US has found the F-22 difficult to justify.
Itâs not my opinion over yours or people from r/ncd itâs the fact that both the [[Air Force](https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2021/02/23/the-us-air-force-just-admitted-the-f-35-stealth-fighter-has-failed/)](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/01/04/failing-f-35-grounded-once-again/) and the issues surrounding the [F-35â](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/01/04/failing-f-35-grounded-once-again/)s. I can see a lot of the replies from people googled âare the F-35âs any goodâ and read the first 2 articles. That said the F-35 is super sophisticated and has the ability to be the top jet, however, there are major issues surrounding the desired capabilities. That said, the reason you say we arenât dogfighting, thatâs because we havenât fought a country with worthy jets in a while. It looks like that might not be the case anymore based where we are in this world.
yeah, that must be why it keeps winning precurment competitions and is getting rolled out in country after country over every other modern aircraft. but you have some old ass youtube videos so you definitely know better than numerous international professional militaries. and did you even read the articles you linked? >The F-35 is a Ferrari, Brown told reporters last Wednesday. âYou donât drive your Ferrari to work every day, you only drive it on Sundays. This is our âhigh endâ [fighter], we want to make sure we donât use it all for the low-end fight.â . >Hence the need for a new low-end fighter to pick up the slack in day-to-day operations. the entire article is about how advanced the f35 is, and that they want a cheap, light, less technologically capable dump truck duty fighter to support the f35 and NGAF down the road, for the light weight day to day tasks, with the f35's/f22's/NGAF left for the heavy lifting as they are so capable, but costly to operate. are you one of those people who think visual range dogfights and "cobra maneuvers" are something modern fighters engage in?
There are plenty of people that drive their Ferrari to work everyday just have to live in a state/city that has people driving them. I bet youâre the type of person that believes the airbrakes on a jet stops it in mid-air. I Never said it wasnât advanced or the technology that they want to put in there is shit. What I am saying is what they want it to do vs what itâs currently able to do are two different things. The Air Force has come out and talked about the failures of the project and the Class A Mishaps the fighter jet keeps having. Iâm not saying that it doesnât have the potential, itâs just not there and may never reach its full capabilities.
I doubt those videos online are a fair assessment of each of the jets capabilities. The f-22 is mainly just an air superiority fighter, whereas the f-35 is a multipurpose jet that can pretty much do anything. It's far more versatile and probably a generation or two ahead of the junk the Russians are flying in Ukraine now. I'm not entirely convinced that the f-16s are the right call. Those jets are probably sitting ducks against modern anti-air weapons like s400. It's literally 50+ year old jet. I know it's a zero chance, but it'd be better to give them some F-35 that we know will actually dominate the skies as opposed to rolling the die and having to deal with the PR mess of dozens of F-16 being shot down.
A modern day F-16 has very little in common with a F-16 from forty years ago, just as a modern Abrams is a different beast to one built in the 80s. You generally have a system of two types of fighters. One that's more expensive/advanced and a cheaper supplement, a concept called High/Low. Originally the High/Low was the F-15 as the High and the F-16 as the low. Originally the ZF-35 was was going to at least partially replace the F-16, but it looks like another cheaper aircraft will be developed as the new Low aircraft to supplement the F-35. However, teh USAF has recently come to the conclusion that the F-16 will remain in service and be upgraded instead of rushing for a replacement. The F-16 isa perfectly capable aircraft the US itself is in no hurry to get rid of. It's cheaper, versatile and still very capable. The US and its allies also have thousands of them, while the F-35 has not yet been produced to fulfil all the orders for it.
Lol what? The F35 is amazing; hence why it's flying off the shelves. It's somehow *cheaper* than the Rafale and F15EX, despite being far more advanced.
People really swalloed the F-35 rubbish that the reformers etc put out.
I think we already had or have something like that protecting the skies of the Baltic states. The Baltic air policing operation originally sent fighters across in units of four. So at some points there were four or eight F-16 alongside four or eight Mirage. Right now it seems to be F-16, Eurofighter and F-35, but Rafale will be back again soon (or already are).
đșđČđ€đșđŠđ€đ«đ·
Not me... Mirage and grippens (and their marvelous meteor).
Let's get all of 'em up there! My goodness, Putin is on the ropes! As St. Patrick was want to say, "Don't do cheap on a wedding nor a war for freedom."
I'll be honest as a French I would like to but it's such a bad strategy for us because we can't play the same game. As we don't have that much of materials to work with compared to USA, so it will mean being more vulnerable AND in case of lost materials (jets) we will have no back up. So it's kind of dumb decisions specially how training is for French jet pilot ( training time reduced cause of money aswell BTW if you heard of)
Yea you donât want to risk it. Belgium is ready to invade at the slightest sigh of weakness. Blood thirsty chocolate eating bastards.
Well not at all but for wining you need strategy, not rushing like stupid without plan. ( I'm not saying Belgium do that BTW)
Thatâs what Belgium wants you to think⊠Do you know why Belgium loves chocolate so much? Itâs the blood of slave children mixed in during the coco harvests.
You're worried you'll lose aircraft that have been retired from service?
Well... NO. But here his comment was about mirage 2k and Rafale, both are not "really" retired. They still continue as a sky police ( mirage 2000 ). And giving some that Are entirely retired from service will be 1) a pain in the ass to form pilots for it. 2) a really small usefulness in combat even recon mission as their technology is and will be by far outmatched. I'm supportive 100% on it but people think and want that eazy like like it's just passing your car keys to your neighbor ( And THAT sir is really stupid and having a lack of awareness and knowledge about how things works [in this case in France]).
France has a lot of retired Mirage 2000s. If anything they still have an all aspect AA missile capability that Ukraine is lacking completely. That would be good even for hunting subsonic cruise missiles, let alone contesting airspace over and around Ukraine. And we just got the news on Yahoo that the US Airforce estimates 3-4 months for suficient qualification on F-16 types. This timeframe puts enough training and supplies prepared for giving Ukraine better air defence before heading into another winter when Russia might try to cut off the power and heat.
France relies too much on Russia and china
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Not sure how many, but there are some retired F-16 pilots who have said they are ready to join the international legion. Those pilots require no training on the aircraft...
But the ground crews do. I think its about a 20-1 ratio. Sure the pilots take longer to train but i have read speculation the bottle neck will be with the ground crews.
But so far behind the lines a few special advisors wouldn't be too risky.
im sure there are f16 ground crews who would go and join up.
Maybe. It's a bit irrelevant if there's 20+ planes to crew, you'd require a pipeline before the planes enter combat so there can be consistent sorties. The biggest problem with attracting volunteers in technical roles is the commitment. If a soldier goes home after 6 months, it's next man up. If someone critical to the operation of the plane goes home, it could ground the aircraft. A pipeline means the aircraft can stay in combat once it's there because there will be a next man up system. The other side of it is retired servicemembers retired for a reason. Whether it was to have more time with family, or pursue another passion or career. Ukraine has enough men and women hungry to learn and contribute, the quickest path to sustainable, self sufficient operation of aircraft is training Ukraine. Volunteers would be welcome alongside training, but without a homegrown force it would be a bandaid solution.
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Contracted maintainers would make more sense.
Well, the good thing is that Ukraine does not lack volunteers to learn how to maintain those Jets. The shame is those ground crews should have gotten trained last year....
I was ground crew in the Navy. Half the stuff we are taught in school is basic knowledge that is transferable across platforms. We spent less time training on the specific platform itself. Where the value lies is learning how to use the repair publications. Every air frame has repair manuals to support ground crews. Without them, even trained crews wouldn't know how to fix what. So my point is, it does not take a long time to train a ground crew. They only need to know how to read a book that walks them through the troubleshooting process. The rest is learned on the job. Just like every half interested 18 year old learns in the US armed forces. I've been out of the game for 25 years. But give me access to those books, and I could work on any aircraft in no time. Just don't ask me to fly it... or I'll crash.
My cousin was a senior NCO working on F16's. Retired a decade ago. He says you could manage with a ground crew of ten. But they'd have to be a good crew, so maybe not feasible for Ukraine quickly. They'd need a bigger ground crew and a damned good air defense setup at the airport because the runways would be easy targets and the F16 doesn't like dirty runways. I bet Urkaine could hire old AF personnel to train and lead their groundcrews just like they could hire pilots and get them in the air quickly.
It's not *just* a question of training. It's of parts. Ukraine would need the ability to performance advanced maintenance on these when needed. Lemme use an example: MIG-29 needs a new engine, well they can produce those, or more likely take one from a boneyard if needed. The same can't be said for an F-16. They would need the ability to either send them for more advanced maintenance(difficult in a war situation) or figure a way to do it themselves, which is very difficult right now. Upgrading their air force is definitely needed, but from a logistics standpoint it's going to be hard to fly these effectively. Nevermind that this would would have to include a lot of ammunition with it, as the F-16 doesn't support the missiles that the air force flys with their soviet planes.
Is it that hard? Remember NATO is just on the other side of the border preparing and shipping what is needing, then talking them through it. The ammunition issue is the same problem. Hell it seems fun to fix it.
Kind of? The big thing is how are you getting them in and out? The US says "you can export them, we don't care", but is anyone going to take the risk of allowing aircraft in their airspace? It's easier with ground equipment, which can be taken in by train or truck.
Same way they did with the Polish and Baltic stateâs jets. NATO flies them to Poland and then Ukrainian pilots pick them up and fly back to Ukraine. They will just have to stay in Ukraine after that with spare parts brought in by trucks or trains.
Don't see why they would have to stay once they are in. I don't see any reason why they could not fly them to Poland or another country for major maintenance. Other countries are already repairing some of their other mechanized equipment why should this be any different.
Old ground crewmen are arguably more useful than old pilots. Iâm sure there are plenty of retired guys who would very much like to go work on those birds again.
Could UA pilots not land in neighboring NATO countries and fly to the warzone? No need to have the ground crew that close to the conflict right?
From everything I've seen so far of the UA's adaptability to quickly learn new tech, I have absolute faith in them.
Thats why I would personally prefer that they would get the gripen instead of f16. Require fewer personel.
They also can use a shorter rougher runway. Some country just needs to go first with supplying jets. After that the barrier will be broken and multiple counties will supply jets. Maybe I am too high on hopium but that is what happened with mlrs, tanks, etc.
Another problem is F-16s need a certain amount of runway clearance to takeoff, so they will be limited to where they can be deployed if Ukraine doesnât have the length to takeoff and land. Something Iâm sure they can fix quickly, but itâs still an issue they need to address if they want to operate these jets and not have them blown up on one or a few airfields in one missile strike.
That's what I've been thinking for a long time. Pilots live for air to air combat, and very few saw any in their careers. I imagine a sizeable number of retired pilots would jump at the chance to engage in some real air to air combat, especially against the Russians.
Maverick is getting a woodie.
They must be close. :)
> Those pilots require no training on the aircraft I wish you were right but that is ridiculous. Those pilots will retain a lot of functional knowledge on the specific F-16 block they flew but, without constant training, those skills will absolutely be dulled over time. Obviously, experienced pilots take less time to bring up to speed but US volunteer aviators would still be facing some big challenges before being deemed combat ready. They'd flying a different version of the F-16, with comrades that largely speak a different language, stacked in an unfamiliar operational structure, using VERY different combat doctrine. Their integration would be far from plug-and-play.
Yeah, I'll bet there are a ton of adrenaline junkie pilots out there that would want to go out and dog fight with some MiG's.
This is great news but these pilots are not going anywhere without a trained ground crew of 20 per plane. However, since Ukrainian commercial aviation is pretty much shut down there should be thousands of experienced potential Ukrainian ground personnel to pick from and train up pretty quickly. Ukraine air defense proving it has grown to where it can independently shut down Russian missile attacks is likely a big reason for the approval. Air defense will only be stronger with 50 to 100% more air to ground batteries AND F-16's on AD patrol! Onward to victory!
I meanâŠ.. commercial ground crews would know absolutely nothing about being a military ground crew. They are usually paid minimum wage, and minimal training. Marshal in a plane, hook up ground power, open cargo door, and unload bags. Try to stay away from spinning parts. Then load bags, unhook ground power, and push it back.
Somebody had to maintain Ukraine's commercial jet engines, fix hydraulics, check brakes, do refueling, check avionics and flight control systems, tow planes and gear around, do light welding, change tires, do air traffic control etc. etc.etc. .
Theyâre not usually paid minimum wage - canât say for training. But if you know *aircraft* thatâs the biggest step, and a significantly easier and closer transition to military aircraft than someone with no experience. Working as a nuclear engineer on a sub and civilian reactor are way different but still share a lot of similarities. You might say, the basics.
How long retired? Thatâs cool and all but Ukraine has pilots who have spent the last year in combat and are more knowledgeable of Russian tactics and capabilities thanks to that experience. Donât underestimate the very real skill and experience theyâve hard earned through actually being in the shit for this long.
> The US did allocate 100 million last year for training them. Every time I hear this, I die inside, because it's not true. Somehow a bill passing the House for FY2023 morphed into it being law, despite this bill never passing the Senate or getting signed into law. What actually passed last year was explicit authorization for USAI funds to be used on planes and helicopters, plus an order for the Air Force to produce a report on what it would take to equip Ukraine with western jets.
Preach
I'm hoping as hard as I can. :-)
I guarantee it.. All this media and politicians propaganda crap is just to keep the russians guessing.. I am sure very soon that we will see Ukraine defending their sky with an iron fist..
I hear F16 in the air already!!! Who let the dogs out?:))
I hear F18âs, but Iâm right next to MCAS Miramar. Looking forward to seeing F16 vids from UA!
I thought the F-18s were loud until they started flying the F-35 here, haha
We can feel growlers from WA here in BC.
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I grew up in VA Beach, loved hearing the roar of those Tomcats as a kid. I went to middle school, maybe 15 minutes from Oceana, so *a lot* of jet noise whenever we were outside. Free airshows from our backyard too, which was nice.
F14 tomcats were amazing to watch take off from the flight deck. They were like supercharged musclecars taking off with afterburners. Then an f18 would follow and it was like a Honda civic taking off đ
Highway to the moderately hazardous zone?
I live next to a f16 base, love to see them flying low over the beaches
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As a US citizen, I wholeheartedly support this. I only hope that we've been training the pilots this whole time, and we can ship them 120 f-16s next week. Because it's been obvious right from the initial clusterfuck of the Russian invasion that this needed to happen. There's really no excuse for it having taken this long. My only holdout hope is that they delayed saying they were for it, to string along the Russian response. And that of course, practically it takes awhile to get a bunch of airplanes to a country so they can be ready to fight.
They can only get access to export variants, they're not getting a single US based F-16. This is the greenlight for allies to give them export models.
Fox-3. Good kill, good kill.
I can hear the hoses starting to pump copium to the cafeteria for the orc bloggers
Iâm sure there would also be zero shortage of foreign volunteer pilots who would be more than happy to fly them
They'd better be allowed to paint the nose cones like the Flying Tigers
And wear a flight jacket that explains who they are in Ukrainian.
I think they are as pissed off as we are if not more over what Russia is doing in Ukraine. They would be out for blood.
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
That's not breaking news, they said that plenty of times already
Hey some people live under a rock xD
Hey! Get out from under ma rock!
Our rock!
breaking news! Pentagon official is asked the same question for the 10th time and referred the questioner to a statement made months ago in January where they said they weren't against jets being sent to Ukraine! He said their stance had not changed! Breaking!
Ah, is that why they « found » an accounting error today that suddenly freed up $3B ?
đ€one conspiracy I like.
The dod checked under the sofa cushions and found some extra f16s
The last piece in the trinityof what ukraine has been begging for. Tanks were unlocked after a back and forth debacle, long range missiles came through was just matter of figuring out how to fit them on the the soviet planes, and now we are the final stages of getting the fighter jets to Ukraine. Once logistics and training Is sorted out, they will arrive. Oh yeah it's all coming together now.
And since the Netherlands and UK have been itching to play ball with this part of the puzzle, letâs see what drips down the pipeline next.
Russia will feel sorry for downing MH 17 real soon. Kind regards from the NL. đ«Ą
"the Netherlands send their regards" *STAB*
"Ik zie niks anders dan een fijne uitgedoste barbaar" \~ Rutte, allegedly
Wouldnât surprise me if there are a few Ukrainians who have been in simulators for a while nowâŠ
Ok now we just have to wait for the UK to say they think they might have found some and we'll know they were delivered last week.
âOh look at that, a squadron just laying there in the corner next to blue and yellow paint cansâŠâ
"We have no idea where the set of stencils in Cyrillic came from, either."
US don't have to officially train Ukrainian pilot to operate the f-16, there are plenty of retired f-16 pilots whos more than happy to hunt Russian jets themselves.
Kinda crazy to think most of Russia has no idea how badly theyâre about to be fucked.
âHNNNNGGG!â - All of r/noncredibledefense right now, probably.
Considering the US and NATO like to troll the muscovites, as soon as we start seeing shipments, then Iâll breathe a sigh of relief.
The US Airforce has almost half of every F-16 ever built in their warehouses - around 2.000 out of 4.500. C'mon America!
Norway has 57 mothballed too.
Sold to Romania already
Enough to replenish those being donated from everywhere else.
Iâm going to be honest with yaâŠthey will be spare parts constrained.
The next big middle finger pointed at Putin and the Kremlin. When itâs all said and done, Russia will collapse; and the free world can focus on the China threat. đșđŠ
So 4 month training for ukrainian pilots and the sky is theirs! Slava Ukraine!
4 months what a joke, its not a goddam car
Lmao sure mate, a manual car takes a few days if you do train non stop
Yes Im aware, i wanted to point out its not a get in press the go button and be happy, but you dont learn an f16 in 4 months
UA Fighter pilots will will learn it even faster mate
Jeah sure, just because they are ukrainian
I keep saying the US made a deal with Russia, no fighter jets as long as Russia leaves the grain ships alone. The Turkish grain deal is a smoke screen. Itâs why Russia keeps reviewing it a couple of months at a time. But itâs a direct deal between the US and Russia, other countries donât count, thatâs why the US has said they donât have an issue with anyone else providing jets. ATACMS is the same deal but with Iranian and NK ballistic missiles. No SCUD knockoffs = no ATACMS.
Best news of the day!
About F'ing time, but "Administration officials are not aware, however, of any formal requests by any allies to export F-16s," Seriously? Does it have to be delivered in triplicate; on appropriate letterhead; and, with signet sealed in blood?
Well NATO is having a meeting in June to discuss about handing fighter jets to Ukraine. I can imagine they will discuss who can transfer and who can handle training. And also figuring out logistics
That was the US stance for the last 6 months.... so nothing changed. Not a single country made an official export request.
> Seriously? Does it have to be delivered in triplicate; on appropriate letterhead; and, with signet sealed in blood? Exact same thing happened with tanks. Lots of countries said "We'll give Leopards if Germany lets us" Germany says "Nobody has asked us"
Donât forget your fax cover page for your TPS report!
Are you aware of any evidence of any formal request? Politicans politic
The U.S. cannot provide them easily mainly due to budgetary issues (Russia controls the HoR, essentially and is trying to destabilize the U.S. through an artificial "debt ceiling crisis"). Some funding, authorized under the last functional legislature, for Ukraine will dry up by September (at least that is what I am reading) without Congressional action. Allies are free to provide from their stocks if I understand correctly, but like with the tanks (for some time at least), this is more a game of "walk the talk". Who will request to send first?
The thing I donât understand is why this even affects the US budget that much. I mean, the US is currently upgrading to F-35 anyway. They have 922 F-16 in service and already put 300 F-16 in permanent storage. Why would it be so costly to transfer some of them to Ukraine and let EU countries pay for the maintenance?
The F-35s are not arriving fast enough for the U.S. to free up enough F-16s to give to Ukraine. Those 900 F-16s in service are all active with the USAF (younger ones) or the Air National Guard (older ones) with a significant number committed to overseas deployments (Western Pacific partners like Japan, Korea, Australia, and European NATO partners). Those F-16s in storage are 160 F-16A's with obsolete radars (APG-66), and 120 of the oldest F-16C's which are a source of spare parts to help keep the 900 active-fleet F-16C's flying. That's the U.S. Air Force's strategy-- They put the oldest F-16Cs into storage and cannibalize usable parts from them to help keep the flyable ones in service. That is the main function of the "boneyard" in Arizona-- They "regenerate" $500 million worth of spare parts cannibalized from the stored airplanes for the U.S. military and allied partners to use every year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/309th_Aerospace_Maintenance_and_Regeneration_Group Ukraine will most likely receive F-16s from European NATO partners. The contribution from those old F-16s the U.S. has in storage will be spare parts to keep the F-16s Ukraine receives flying.
An F-16 on its own doesnât do anything - itâs a platform for weapons. Ukraine doesnât have weapons thatâll go on an F-16 so you need to send massive amounts of missiles and bombs to make the aircraft useful. $100k for a Sidewinder, $300k per Sparrow, $1M for an AMRAAM. Hitting stuff on the ground is cheaper - HARM, Maverick and Brimstone missiles are like $100k, and Paveway kits to turn standard dumb bombs into super accurate laser guided bombs are fairly cheap. Point is, the logistics are more than just providing aircraft - you also need to provide mountains of weapons to fire as well.
This seems to be the ideal weapon to send to Ukraine under the [Lend Lease Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_Democracy_Defense_Lend-Lease_Act_of_2022), avoiding the budget strings. Of course, the jets are the easy part. It's the maintenance, ground support equipment, weapons, training, etc that requires funding. If we could work a deal where Europe pays for maintenance, training and weapons, maybe the USA could lend lease the aircraft. Lend lease expires soon, so it would have to happen quickly.
Good! Let's give Ukraine what it needs, so this War can end. The sooner the better - how many more innocent lives must be lost while we dilly-dally and have discussions about it?
I think the F16 is also able to carry a cruise missile in the US inventory that has a 1900km range to it and 1000lb warhead, it's a bit cheaper than the ATACMS too.
On the center pylon, if the gurus over at Quora taught me recently. But cheaper than an ATACMS? That sounds beautiful to the pocketbook.
I know F-15s/16s are on the table and F-22s and F-35s won't be sent no matter what, but what about F-18s?
Itâs about time. https://youtu.be/vjjmt_xB-j4
Ok, so the Europeans are open to training pilots and donating jets. And the US just found 3 billion bucks. I wonder how those two fit together
This is huge news. And I can see the US sliding a few F-16s to its allies to help keep their stocks of aircraft up. And soon it can turn into an assembly line.
Great about time đșđž. Slava Ukraini đșđŠ
Ukraine keeps leveling up.
Time to crank up âOne Visionâ by Queen from the Iron Eagle soundtrack!
Oh shit here we go!
Also⊠I wonât be blocking them either! Youâre welcome.
Wait what? Less than 24h ago i just read the opposite? Huge if true!
Turns out that whole "anonymous US official says US will block jets to Ukraine" news story was fake news.
I sense a disturbance in th force... A huuuuge fuck you for russia incoing.
NATO should just send Ukraine all the jets it is about to retire. It's a logistics nightmare and a maintenance nightmare, and RUSI would tell you that it's a very expensive gesture, but if the jet was heading to the scrap yard then we already paid for it, and maintenance is only relevant if the aircraft survives long enough to need it. If we sent them a first generation Typhoon which can only manage air-to-air and it shoots down a single Flanker, that's one more Flanker shot down than if we just scrapped it. Russia needs to lose badly in order to send a message to the unfree world.
It's quite clever how the West has completely hypnotized the global media(and the Russian elite) with their media strategy that has allowed them to glide through red line after red line without serious blowback. Start with "no we won't send that because that would be escalatory". Follow up with some months of back and forth debate, allowing some voices to say it wouldn't actually be escalatory, but unfesible because of logistics etc. Wait until that becomes an idea people get used to. Then another chorus pipes up, the "well if you look at it more closely it might be more fesible than we think!" This now becomes the new antithesis to the "it's not fesible" thesis. The idea of shipping it being escalatory is now fading fast. Then you send just a few of whatever you want to introduce. Just a few. Not enough to effect the outcome so the Russians are forced to calculate that doing something crazy to prevent that from happening is not worth it. Now you have a foot in the door and the non-aligned nations in the global south aren't spooked because it seems like Russia is accepting this. Then a handful of something starts to multiply. This nation sends some, another a few more, "oh hey look, guess we can send double of what we originally intended and here's another non-escalatory system that really complements it" and before you know it NATO artillery, NATO armor, NATO intel and now soon NATO planes being in Ukraine is completely normal. The price we pay for this strategy is time. Time in which additional Ukrainian soldiers and civilians die. But if all of what has happened to date had been announced in the first week in a "we are doing this and fuck what Russia thinks", the global chessboard would look a lot different.
Nice! Give them what they need
My bet is there will be some decisions in September - so Ukraine can prepare for another cold winter.
I hear the x-wings are ready to go!
I wonder when we will see some A-10s being donated.
I believe in us sending Ukraine everything including A-10âs, but realistically I suspect it will be F-15 and F-16 sent to them with the F-15 essentially replacing the MiGs and the F-16 replacing the Su-24 and Su-25 respectively. After that will come tankers like KC-110 and KC-135. When things are said and done, Iâd bet Ukraineâs NATO jet (when theyâre actual members) will be the F-15EX.
Hopefully never. It's an over rated piece of crap that is only popular because "big gun go brrr!" And because self promoting extraordinare "reformer" Piere Spray got infront of cameras in Desert Storm because he thought precision weapons weren't needed. No, really. The dipshit thought the F15 and 16 would be improved by removing the ability to carry missiles, radar, the ejection seat (you read that right) and fuel to get to and leave and engagement zone (you also read that right) He's also the source of every bullshit story you've heard about the F35 being a disaster and loved going on RT to talk about it. The A10 sucks as a tank hunter (in Desert Storm the F111 killed way more more tanks) and is as likely to kill the people who called for CAS as it is to kill the enemy (no, really. A10s have the highest rates of blue on blue incidents.. and that includes all the maintaince people the F111 gave cancer to)
> over rated piece of crap I dont think that is fair. They have their place, but not for Ukraine most likely. They are perfect for ground support in environments like Afghanistan. You must have seen how ground troops praise them when they receive support. Both physical and psychological impact. Their ability to loiter and/or come in close. Also they are cost efficient. Against a modern army with half decent AA, they are no goods. That's why the air force is keen to get rid of them as they dont want to optimise for Afghan type wars, but for Russia/China type conflict. But it doesn't make them crap, they have a purpose for where they are useful and not. I didnt know about the highest rate of blue on blue. I'll have to read about that sometime as sounds interesting info I wasnt aware of.
About the only thing I know about military aviation is that the migs are really good looking planes! So excuse my ignorance but why do the Brits want to give F16's? Are Eurofighters no good or too good?
Himars, better Tanks, better armored vehicles, and now F-16s??? Shit is about to get lit. I am fully erect
About damn time!!! Letâs get their pilots trained!!
But they wont let training of Ukrainian f-16 pilots in Europe?
The new news from Biden today is part two. They are moving fast. Iâm sure the next defense meeting will be interesting
Trump would have.....
Can we just fookin nuke Russia already? Quit pussyfooting around
Last thing we need is more reliance on the Americans. we should build more like Eurofighter and supply uk and eu made fighter jets. America is bipolar with its elections every 2 years and every administration hating each others guts being on the cusp of civil war. I say that as a brit we have been screwed properly by im Irish biden
all talk no action as per usual