6 ms·

I think this author makes some good points, though it seems like he is downplaying the lack of effective SEAD (suppression of enemy air defenses) equipment and

by nickff 5y ago

I think this author makes some good points, though it seems like he is downplaying the lack of effective SEAD (suppression of enemy air defenses) equipment and tactics. The USAF and Israelis dedicate a lot of attention to this area, and it seems like the Russians (and their Soviet predecessors) never have.

ttul 5y ago
I wonder to what extent advice and training of Ukrainian forces, not to mention real-time intelligence, has aided the Ukrainians in denying Russia air superiority.
- foogazi 5y ago
  But the same is true of Russian forces - they also get advice and training
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    I don’t know that they expected the Ukrainians to have satellite and electronic intelligence parity, though.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > I wonder to what extent advice and training of Ukrainian forces, not to mention real-time intelligence, has aided the Ukrainians in denying Russia air superiority. I read somewhere that Soviet-style air defense turn out to be most effective against Soviet-style air forces. Basically Western militaries have never invested heavily in SAMs, but invested heavily in anti-SAM weapons an tactics; while Soviet-style militaries did the opposite. That leaves Soviet-style forces with with very good SAM capabilities and weak air forces without the ability to counter it.
  - js8 5y ago
    > Basically Western militaries have never invested heavily in SAMs, but invested heavily in anti-SAM weapons an tactics; while Soviet-style militaries did the opposite Hm, I will cynically say that it looks like the Russians were actually more interested in defense, while the Americans were more interested in offense.
    - mulmen 5y ago
      That’s a thing that you can say. But I would be careful not to conflate military doctrine with geopolitical policy.
      - js8 5y ago
        I certainly wish that, at least in the American case, they are different. There is however evidence to the contrary. My country was invaded by Russians in 1968. While it wasn't particularly pleasant, I think it was better than being bombed, or perhaps even, economically starved.
        mulmen 5y ago
        Of course they are different. But if you are going to battle strike early and strike hard.
    - KptMarchewa 5y ago
      You can see opposite tendencies looking at the ground forces.
      - js8 5y ago
        OK, fair enough. There might be several reasons why is air offensive more important for Americans than Russians and vice versa: 1. Russians won the WW2 using tanks on land, Americans won the WW2 using aircrafts over sea. 2. (If we assume Russians care less about the loss of their troops than Americans.) Attacking another country from the air is more expensive, but safer, than attacking it from the ground. 3. (If we assume Americans are more interested in projecting their force globally than Russians are.) It is easier to move airplanes/missiles/drones around the world on ships than to move heavy mechanized ground troops. On the other hand, Russians have sometimes led the development of heavy ICBMs and nuclear weapons, but that also seems to be more valuable as a global deterrent rather than something you would randomly use during an invasion.
  - SEJeff 5y ago
    Western militaries have never heavily invested in SAMs?! Have you heard of the stinger, that the Ukrainians are using to great effect? The US also has the patriot and aegis systems which are really good air defense missiles. That’s not including THAAD, etc.
    - KptMarchewa 5y ago
      THAAD is 21-century system, not a cold war era one.
      - SEJeff 5y ago
        But the OPs comment was that the west ended invested in SAMs, a laughably incorrect statement if you study the order of battle of any western military, US or otherwise.
        dylan604 5y ago
        It's kind of like saying that we ended investment in 8-bit hardware because we've replaced it with 64-bit hardware. It's not that we stopped, it's that the funding has been repurposed for newer/better things.
        tablespoon 5y ago
        > But the OPs comment was that the west ended invested in SAMs That's not at all what I said. I suppose it would have been a little clearer if I had said "never invested as heavily" in SAMs compared to the Soviets, but I wasn't focusing on the West. I was making a point about Soviet-style forces fighting one another. Nothing about that implies the West never invested in SAMs or has stopped doing so. It just means they're not as central to its air defense strategy.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > Western militaries have never heavily invested in SAMs?! > Have you heard of the stinger, that the Ukrainians are using to great effect? The US also has the patriot and aegis systems which are really good air defense missiles. That’s not including THAAD, etc. Not like the Soviet Union did. The article I'm trying to paraphrase said that SAMs were far more integral to Soviet air defense strategy than they were to Western air defense, which put more emphasis on using fighter aircraft for air defense than having the Army deploy different SAM systems for every need. Because the Soviets relied more on SAMs, then the West had to put more emphasis on counter-SAM weapons (which the Soviets has far less need to do). Also the article noted that the exception is Western navies, which the article said were in a more similar situation to the Soviet Army. That's why the more capable US SAM systems have naval lineage.
- tguvot 5y ago
  i listened to interview with leading Ukrainian journalist/analyst a couple of days ago. Apparently Ukraine got intel about time of attack and possible targets so when cruise missiles were flying to take out targets, most of functioning planes were in the air and everything that wasn't stationary (like mobile air defense systems) were moved to different locations
ASalazarMX 5y ago
It's also more cost-effective to roll troops in cheap tanks from the edge of your border than to engage costly fighters and bombers with anti aerial defenses. They don't need to fly if their targets are adjacent, and Ukraine has not dared bomb Russian territory, so Russia can easily resupply its invasion for weeks if it wants.
- thematrixturtle 5y ago
  Tanks cost less than fighter jets, but you can hardly call the "cheap", they're typically the Army's most expensive piece of kit. The M1 Abrams costs around $10 million a pop.
  - ReptileMan 5y ago
    The inefficiencies and price overruns in US procurement of military equipment are legendary. I guess we should look at the cost of the bom for a tank, not what government pays for it. Not that tanks are cheap but I think manifacturing cost is substantially lower than 10m.
    - ASalazarMX 5y ago
      I'm not very informed on tanks, but IIRC the Armata series are their next-generation tanks, and they cost like 3-4 million each. Invading Ukraine would be the opportunity to throw old stockpile nevertheless, much like the bombing of Afghanistan helped replace old USA bomb stockpile.
      - astrange 5y ago
        The common opinion seems to be that the T-14 Armata is vaporware, and their newest tank is the T-90 which they are using - and having stolen by farmers.
        KptMarchewa 5y ago
        T-72BM3
berkut 5y ago
Where are you seeing him downplay the role of SEAD? He mentions that the Russians should be capable of doing much more in this area? The same author in this video (he was being interviewed, towards the end of the video) mentioned the lack of SEAD compared to the west: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WGcfkqzUI4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WGcfkqzUI4
- nickff 5y ago
  The author barely mentions SEAD in the post, and makes an offhand comment that the Russians should be able to take care of SAMs with large formations. I think that qualifies as down-playing, but I can see how you might disagree.
  - jholman 5y ago
    My read was, he was saying something like: "If the VKS had the large-scale organizational capabilities we'd previously assumed, then they'd have a straightforward SEAD approach (involving strength in numbers and some moderate SEAD sophistication), though it might lose aircraft (perhaps due to comparably low SEAD sophistication, I don't know). Then, having eliminated the SAMs, they could fly higher, in larger numbers. So it's weird that they don't do that. This is circumstantial evidence that they aren't capable of this type of SEAD, and this in turn is more evidence for my tentative conclusion that they might be incapable of air operations of more than a few planes." That's what I got out of the SEAD comments in TFA.
chiph 5y ago
The Russians have traditionally been very good at radio direction finding. They could then send in land forces or one of three model "Wild Weasel" aircraft they had - the Yak28N, the Mig-25BM in small numbers, then the Su-24M. The role of a Wild Weasel aircraft is to tempt enemy radar operators into turning on their units and start transmitting. Whereupon the aircraft would launch an anti-radiation (radio-homing, not "nuclear") missile at the transmitter. The USAF has the AGM-88 and the Russians have the Kh-58 and the Kh-31 to do this. Note that all this happens while the Wild Weasel is being attacked by surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft fire. As to why the Russians are being so ineffective at SEAD in Ukraine - no idea but I'm not going to give them any improvement suggestions.
- mc32 5y ago
  Was this what the Israelis did against the Egyptians equipped with Russian radars and AA artillery.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  The reason they aren't as good at SEAD in Ukraine - in no way that ineffective - is simple. NATO is flying AWACS and warning Ukrainian air defences of possible threats. In a serious peer-to-peer total conflict the AWACS would be shot down and the Ukrainians wouldn't be able to get away with much of anything.
  - elliekelly 5y ago
    Is this why NATO doesn’t want a no-fly zone?
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      No-fly zone is a highly disingenuous and misleading term meaning "we will fly our planes only and shoot down yours", so no, this isn't why they don't want a no fly zone. The reason they don't is because that would be an act of war and difficult to enforce.
      - 5y ago
zabzonk 5y ago
One thing I have always wondered about WW2 - why did the Allies never attempt to perform SEAD? Send in a light striking force of Mosquitoes and such to attack flak emplacements, radar, and so on ahead of the main force that would zap the main target?
- nickff 5y ago
  There were attacks on radar sites and such, but both sides lacked effective SEAD equipment and tactics. In addition, the flak emplacements were hard to find, and many of them were extremely sturdy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flak_tower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flak_tower
- mc32 5y ago
  I don' think the Axis powers had radar, so there was no radar to destroy. [thank you for the clarification --they had R.A.D.A.R. but apparently it was behind Allies' tech]
  - nickff 5y ago
    The Germans and the Japanese developed radar systems during the war, though they were 'behind' the Brits and Americans. Radar countermeasures were actually a critical part of Silicon Valley's origins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo
  - zabzonk 5y ago
    The Germans had an extremely sophisticated radar air defence system, both ground and air based, as the RAF found out to their great cost. Their Navy (which was small) also had very good radar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kammhuber_Line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kammhuber_Line
- cpgxiii 5y ago
  There was actually a major SEAD campaign in the lead up to D-day, with strikes on German RADAR stations, but the primary objective prior to that point was to gain air superiority over the Luftwaffe fighter force (considered significantly more dangerous than AAA [anti-aircraft artillery, flak]). While electronic warfare was still in relative infancy, radio and RADAR jamming and chaff (known then to the Allies as "Window") were widely used. However, prior to the widespread development and use of guided weapons (e.g. homing anti-radiation missiles) it was very difficult to precisely strike small SEAD targets (semi-mobile RADAR units, AAA batteries) without needing to first close within range of low-level AAA defenses.
hangonhn 5y ago
I'm regurgitating what I've read and heard, including from HN commenters so I don't deserve credit for this: Historically, the USSR's answer to Western air superiority isn't more fighters but air defense that can move with the army. Basically the USSR army has really good air defense. Consequently, the Western allies got really good at SEAD. The Western allies rely on their fighters to gain air superiority. It's assumed that before the army even starts moving in, the fighter would have swept the skies so the US ground forces (the US Navy does because they can't rely on ground based fighters and carriers are precious) don't have great air defense in the form of missiles, etc. when compared to the USSR. As a consequence, the USSR/Russia air force did not need to have as much SEAD capabilities. But now they're fighting Ukraine who inherited the same strong USSR air defense capabilities and its been difficult for the Russians because it wasn't a capability they had needed to develop. The hypothesis seems plausible to me. Feel free to let me know where this information may be incorrect so I can update my knowledge.
- pillefitz 5y ago
  SEAD = Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses, for those wondering like me

by nickff 5y ago

ttul 5y ago

I wonder to what extent advice and training of Ukrainian forces, not to mention real-time intelligence, has aided the Ukrainians in denying Russia air superiority.

foogazi 5y ago
But the same is true of Russian forces - they also get advice and training
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  I don’t know that they expected the Ukrainians to have satellite and electronic intelligence parity, though.
tablespoon 5y ago
> I wonder to what extent advice and training of Ukrainian forces, not to mention real-time intelligence, has aided the Ukrainians in denying Russia air superiority. I read somewhere that Soviet-style air defense turn out to be most effective against Soviet-style air forces. Basically Western militaries have never invested heavily in SAMs, but invested heavily in anti-SAM weapons an tactics; while Soviet-style militaries did the opposite. That leaves Soviet-style forces with with very good SAM capabilities and weak air forces without the ability to counter it.
- js8 5y ago
  > Basically Western militaries have never invested heavily in SAMs, but invested heavily in anti-SAM weapons an tactics; while Soviet-style militaries did the opposite Hm, I will cynically say that it looks like the Russians were actually more interested in defense, while the Americans were more interested in offense.
  - mulmen 5y ago
    That’s a thing that you can say. But I would be careful not to conflate military doctrine with geopolitical policy.
    - js8 5y ago
      I certainly wish that, at least in the American case, they are different. There is however evidence to the contrary. My country was invaded by Russians in 1968. While it wasn't particularly pleasant, I think it was better than being bombed, or perhaps even, economically starved.
      - mulmen 5y ago
        Of course they are different. But if you are going to battle strike early and strike hard.
  - KptMarchewa 5y ago
    You can see opposite tendencies looking at the ground forces.
    - js8 5y ago
      OK, fair enough. There might be several reasons why is air offensive more important for Americans than Russians and vice versa: 1. Russians won the WW2 using tanks on land, Americans won the WW2 using aircrafts over sea. 2. (If we assume Russians care less about the loss of their troops than Americans.) Attacking another country from the air is more expensive, but safer, than attacking it from the ground. 3. (If we assume Americans are more interested in projecting their force globally than Russians are.) It is easier to move airplanes/missiles/drones around the world on ships than to move heavy mechanized ground troops. On the other hand, Russians have sometimes led the development of heavy ICBMs and nuclear weapons, but that also seems to be more valuable as a global deterrent rather than something you would randomly use during an invasion.
- SEJeff 5y ago
  Western militaries have never heavily invested in SAMs?! Have you heard of the stinger, that the Ukrainians are using to great effect? The US also has the patriot and aegis systems which are really good air defense missiles. That’s not including THAAD, etc.
  - KptMarchewa 5y ago
    THAAD is 21-century system, not a cold war era one.
    - SEJeff 5y ago
      But the OPs comment was that the west ended invested in SAMs, a laughably incorrect statement if you study the order of battle of any western military, US or otherwise.
      - dylan604 5y ago
        It's kind of like saying that we ended investment in 8-bit hardware because we've replaced it with 64-bit hardware. It's not that we stopped, it's that the funding has been repurposed for newer/better things.
      - tablespoon 5y ago
        > But the OPs comment was that the west ended invested in SAMs That's not at all what I said. I suppose it would have been a little clearer if I had said "never invested as heavily" in SAMs compared to the Soviets, but I wasn't focusing on the West. I was making a point about Soviet-style forces fighting one another. Nothing about that implies the West never invested in SAMs or has stopped doing so. It just means they're not as central to its air defense strategy.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > Western militaries have never heavily invested in SAMs?! > Have you heard of the stinger, that the Ukrainians are using to great effect? The US also has the patriot and aegis systems which are really good air defense missiles. That’s not including THAAD, etc. Not like the Soviet Union did. The article I'm trying to paraphrase said that SAMs were far more integral to Soviet air defense strategy than they were to Western air defense, which put more emphasis on using fighter aircraft for air defense than having the Army deploy different SAM systems for every need. Because the Soviets relied more on SAMs, then the West had to put more emphasis on counter-SAM weapons (which the Soviets has far less need to do). Also the article noted that the exception is Western navies, which the article said were in a more similar situation to the Soviet Army. That's why the more capable US SAM systems have naval lineage.
tguvot 5y ago
i listened to interview with leading Ukrainian journalist/analyst a couple of days ago. Apparently Ukraine got intel about time of attack and possible targets so when cruise missiles were flying to take out targets, most of functioning planes were in the air and everything that wasn't stationary (like mobile air defense systems) were moved to different locations

ASalazarMX 5y ago

It's also more cost-effective to roll troops in cheap tanks from the edge of your border than to engage costly fighters and bombers with anti aerial defenses. They don't need to fly if their targets are adjacent, and Ukraine has not dared bomb Russian territory, so Russia can easily resupply its invasion for weeks if it wants.

thematrixturtle 5y ago
Tanks cost less than fighter jets, but you can hardly call the "cheap", they're typically the Army's most expensive piece of kit. The M1 Abrams costs around $10 million a pop.
- ReptileMan 5y ago
  The inefficiencies and price overruns in US procurement of military equipment are legendary. I guess we should look at the cost of the bom for a tank, not what government pays for it. Not that tanks are cheap but I think manifacturing cost is substantially lower than 10m.
  - ASalazarMX 5y ago
    I'm not very informed on tanks, but IIRC the Armata series are their next-generation tanks, and they cost like 3-4 million each. Invading Ukraine would be the opportunity to throw old stockpile nevertheless, much like the bombing of Afghanistan helped replace old USA bomb stockpile.
    - astrange 5y ago
      The common opinion seems to be that the T-14 Armata is vaporware, and their newest tank is the T-90 which they are using - and having stolen by farmers.
      - KptMarchewa 5y ago
        T-72BM3

berkut 5y ago

Where are you seeing him downplay the role of SEAD? He mentions that the Russians should be capable of doing much more in this area? The same author in this video (he was being interviewed, towards the end of the video) mentioned the lack of SEAD compared to the west: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WGcfkqzUI4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WGcfkqzUI4

nickff 5y ago
The author barely mentions SEAD in the post, and makes an offhand comment that the Russians should be able to take care of SAMs with large formations. I think that qualifies as down-playing, but I can see how you might disagree.
- jholman 5y ago
  My read was, he was saying something like: "If the VKS had the large-scale organizational capabilities we'd previously assumed, then they'd have a straightforward SEAD approach (involving strength in numbers and some moderate SEAD sophistication), though it might lose aircraft (perhaps due to comparably low SEAD sophistication, I don't know). Then, having eliminated the SAMs, they could fly higher, in larger numbers. So it's weird that they don't do that. This is circumstantial evidence that they aren't capable of this type of SEAD, and this in turn is more evidence for my tentative conclusion that they might be incapable of air operations of more than a few planes." That's what I got out of the SEAD comments in TFA.

chiph 5y ago

The Russians have traditionally been very good at radio direction finding. They could then send in land forces or one of three model "Wild Weasel" aircraft they had - the Yak28N, the Mig-25BM in small numbers, then the Su-24M. The role of a Wild Weasel aircraft is to tempt enemy radar operators into turning on their units and start transmitting. Whereupon the aircraft would launch an anti-radiation (radio-homing, not "nuclear") missile at the transmitter. The USAF has the AGM-88 and the Russians have the Kh-58 and the Kh-31 to do this. Note that all this happens while the Wild Weasel is being attacked by surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft fire. As to why the Russians are being so ineffective at SEAD in Ukraine - no idea but I'm not going to give them any improvement suggestions.

mc32 5y ago
Was this what the Israelis did against the Egyptians equipped with Russian radars and AA artillery.
sudosysgen 5y ago
The reason they aren't as good at SEAD in Ukraine - in no way that ineffective - is simple. NATO is flying AWACS and warning Ukrainian air defences of possible threats. In a serious peer-to-peer total conflict the AWACS would be shot down and the Ukrainians wouldn't be able to get away with much of anything.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  Is this why NATO doesn’t want a no-fly zone?
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    No-fly zone is a highly disingenuous and misleading term meaning "we will fly our planes only and shoot down yours", so no, this isn't why they don't want a no fly zone. The reason they don't is because that would be an act of war and difficult to enforce.
    - 5y ago

zabzonk 5y ago

One thing I have always wondered about WW2 - why did the Allies never attempt to perform SEAD? Send in a light striking force of Mosquitoes and such to attack flak emplacements, radar, and so on ahead of the main force that would zap the main target?

nickff 5y ago
There were attacks on radar sites and such, but both sides lacked effective SEAD equipment and tactics. In addition, the flak emplacements were hard to find, and many of them were extremely sturdy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flak_tower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flak_tower
mc32 5y ago
I don' think the Axis powers had radar, so there was no radar to destroy. [thank you for the clarification --they had R.A.D.A.R. but apparently it was behind Allies' tech]
- nickff 5y ago
  The Germans and the Japanese developed radar systems during the war, though they were 'behind' the Brits and Americans. Radar countermeasures were actually a critical part of Silicon Valley's origins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo
- zabzonk 5y ago
  The Germans had an extremely sophisticated radar air defence system, both ground and air based, as the RAF found out to their great cost. Their Navy (which was small) also had very good radar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kammhuber_Line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kammhuber_Line
cpgxiii 5y ago
There was actually a major SEAD campaign in the lead up to D-day, with strikes on German RADAR stations, but the primary objective prior to that point was to gain air superiority over the Luftwaffe fighter force (considered significantly more dangerous than AAA [anti-aircraft artillery, flak]). While electronic warfare was still in relative infancy, radio and RADAR jamming and chaff (known then to the Allies as "Window") were widely used. However, prior to the widespread development and use of guided weapons (e.g. homing anti-radiation missiles) it was very difficult to precisely strike small SEAD targets (semi-mobile RADAR units, AAA batteries) without needing to first close within range of low-level AAA defenses.

hangonhn 5y ago

I'm regurgitating what I've read and heard, including from HN commenters so I don't deserve credit for this: Historically, the USSR's answer to Western air superiority isn't more fighters but air defense that can move with the army. Basically the USSR army has really good air defense. Consequently, the Western allies got really good at SEAD. The Western allies rely on their fighters to gain air superiority. It's assumed that before the army even starts moving in, the fighter would have swept the skies so the US ground forces (the US Navy does because they can't rely on ground based fighters and carriers are precious) don't have great air defense in the form of missiles, etc. when compared to the USSR. As a consequence, the USSR/Russia air force did not need to have as much SEAD capabilities. But now they're fighting Ukraine who inherited the same strong USSR air defense capabilities and its been difficult for the Russians because it wasn't a capability they had needed to develop. The hypothesis seems plausible to me. Feel free to let me know where this information may be incorrect so I can update my knowledge.

pillefitz 5y ago
SEAD = Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses, for those wondering like me