May 21, 20233 yr 1 hour ago, JohnSnowsHair said: Scott Ritter, darling of vatniks and rashists everywhere: He does like the young girls - good move to stay clear.
May 21, 20233 yr 4 hours ago, Bill said: Ukrainian airports are fine. Trust me. Also you can land an F-16 on a road. The air intake isn’t a millimeter off the ground and Asian countries regular test their F-16s on a road. Not that it matters in UA, because the airports are fine. The remnants of the UA air force has survived by dispersing their aircraft into penny packets and using improvised airfields and highways, concealing them from Russian missile strikes. F16s would have to do the same -or- UA would need to build up 'secure' bases to protect their jets on the ground as well as their fuel, ordnance, workshops, personnel, which is difficult even with Patriot.
May 21, 20233 yr 1 hour ago, Waiting4Someday said: The remnants of the UA air force has survived by dispersing their aircraft into penny packets and using improvised airfields and highways, concealing them from Russian missile strikes. F16s would have to do the same -or- UA would need to build up 'secure' bases to protect their jets on the ground as well as their fuel, ordnance, workshops, personnel, which is difficult even with Patriot. I’m not going to go into length about UA capabilities and operations for opsec. There’s a reason they are asking for F16s and why countries want to give them F16s.
May 22, 20233 yr 25 minutes ago, Bill said: I’m not going to go into length about UA capabilities and operations for opsec. There’s a reason they are asking for F16s and why countries want to give them F16s. I’d guess because they are widely available within NATO and as a weapons platform they are still being upgraded (e.g., F16V); a good GEN4 option to run down missiles in the short-term and with the ability to talk/share/missile truck with stealthy things long-term.
May 22, 20233 yr 1 hour ago, Bill said: I’m not going to go into length about UA capabilities and operations for opsec. There’s a reason they are asking for F16s and why countries want to give them F16s. I want to see them succeed as much as anyone, but you're understating what it takes to protect, stage, and deploy an f-16.
May 22, 20233 yr 57 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said: I want to see them succeed as much as anyone, but you're understating what it takes to protect, stage, and deploy an f-16. Nah I think I’m pretty well aware of what their capabilities are, but thanks. Edit: Jesus the amount of people on here who think you need to be a wizard to understand and deploy western equipment, as if the Ukrainians haven’t also been operating the same type of Soviet equipment on the reg for the last 9 years. It’s like Hertling going on about how you have to have a degree in molecular unobtanium to operate and maintain the M1, forgetting to mention that you can do 70% of the repairs to the engine without removing the pack. Name one piece of equipment they’ve gotten so far that they’ve Fed up on.
May 22, 20233 yr 7 hours ago, M.C. said: F-16 Thread: Yes, the F16s that are available are somewhat antiquated- I’d hope the plan would be to replace the older radar/fire control system with at least a 2000s variant (AN/APG-68). The article is correct that the MIG31 can outreach the F16, and even the newest F16s would struggle attacking an integrated air defense. So, the current mission is to either chase missiles within friendly air space (more like uncontested) or provide a better platform for the storm shadow type launches.
May 22, 20233 yr Quote Then there is the question of where Ukrainian F-16s would be based. "F-16s do best on long, pristine runways. They could face difficulties on the rougher, former Soviet ones dispersed across Ukraine,” RAND Corp. analysts John Hoehn and William Courtney wrote in a blog post earlier this month. "To bring in Western aircraft, Ukraine might need to repave and potentially extend a number of runways, a process which Russia would likely detect. If only a few airfields were suitable and in known locations, focused Russian attacks could impede Ukrainian F-16s from flying,” they wrote. Assuming Ukraine can overcome logistics and maintenance hurdles, and find secure runways from which to fly F-16s, they still need the right armaments to be effective against the key fighter jets Russia is using, like the Su-25 and MiG-31, analysts say. "The advantages of transferring advanced western fighter jets in seeking air superiority are likely to be realized only if paired with large quantities of western-manufactured munitions,” the CRS report says. Advanced western armaments for the F-16s would be expensive. For instance, a single Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) costs about $1.2 million, CRS says, adding that it takes about two years to make one. The US could provide AMRAAMs and other arms from its stockpile, but with the long manufacturing times, it runs the risk of its own inventories being depleted if needed in a conflict directly involving US forces, the CRS says. https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/22/europe/f-16-jets-ukraine-analysis-intl-hnk-ml/index.html
May 22, 20233 yr 2 hours ago, JohnSnowsHair said: Sounds like a good opportunity for industrial sabotage - open the gates.
May 22, 20233 yr 15 hours ago, we_gotta_believe said: I want to see them succeed as much as anyone, but you're understating what it takes to protect, stage, and deploy an f-16. Exactly. Training a pilot can be done in 3 months or so but learning how to fly it is just the tip of the iceberg. Learning how to deploy them tactically and in formation takes much longer. Training maintainers will take longer. It takes about 4-5 months of schoolhouse training and about a year of OJT to become fully qualified. They require about 16 hours of maintenance for 1 hour of flight time. They would almost have to have contracted maintenance to help them get started sooner. But thats just the opinion of an old helicopter maintainer from the Navy. Mlodj is the true expert here.
May 22, 20233 yr 41 minutes ago, Tnt4philly said: Exactly. Training a pilot can be done in 3 months or so but learning how to fly it is just the tip of the iceberg. Learning how to deploy them tactically and in formation takes much longer. Training maintainers will take longer. It takes about 4-5 months of schoolhouse training and about a year of OJT to become fully qualified. They require about 16 hours of maintenance for 1 hour of flight time. They would almost have to have contracted maintenance to help them get started sooner. But thats just the opinion of an old helicopter maintainer from the Navy. Mlodj is the true expert here. A) Hopefully the training aspect has been in the works since the war began, so UA at this point is just waiting for the equipment rather than the personnel. B) Otherwise, for security it might make sense to have the F16 logistics based closely to the Polish/Romanian border as it is an insulated position and near the supply chain; but would also allow the more complicated repairs to be sent back over to NATO, and many of the 100,000+ component parts to be warehoused there as well.
May 23, 20233 yr On 10/10/2022 at 10:07 AM, Abracadabra said: Now that Bakhmut is nearly liberated, the heavily fortified defenses of the occupying regime are almost completely demilitarized from Donbas. On 11/10/2022 at 3:41 PM, Abracadabra said: Bakhmut next. On 12/13/2022 at 6:26 PM, Abracadabra said: Bakhmut teeters. On 3/1/2023 at 3:07 PM, Abracadabra said: How is that possible if Ukraine is winning the war? More reinforcements, some of them teenagers, thrown into Bakhmut even as the noose tightens. As many as 3k will be trapped inside this cauldron. 8 months to capture one city. Cope.
May 23, 20233 yr No idea if this RVC is coordinating with Ukraine, but they're hitting Russia where they ain't and it's going to stretch their defense even thinner.
May 23, 20233 yr 22 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said: 8 months to capture one city. Cope. It's very impressive when you consider they havent been using their real army\weapons.
May 23, 20233 yr 3 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said: Ukraine will get blame/credit for every industrial accident in Russia.
May 23, 20233 yr There's been an awful lot of industrial accidents. Russians really should stop smoking around highly flammable war material.
Create an account or sign in to comment