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Why would that be a solid assumption? If Russia were actually engaging US forces and was "allowed" to shoot the AWACS, then they would also be engaging the USAF
by Tossrock 4y ago
Why would that be a solid assumption? If Russia were actually engaging US forces and was "allowed" to shoot the AWACS, then they would also be engaging the USAF - by far the most effective air force in the world - who would deny such attempts.
- sudosysgen 4y agoThe USAF (nor anyone else) has no practical way to defend an AWACS against a near-peer enemy. That's kind of the point of the R-37 or PL-15 (even moreso the PL-21), soft targets such as AWACS are vulnerable at 300-400km. That's also the real value proposition of the Su-57, even though they are few and probably can't defeat an F-22, it sure can defeat an AWACS and it's not feasible to detect it before it gets within 300km of an AWACS.
- greedo 4y agoYou're making huge assumptions here. One is the reliability of anti-AWACs AAMs, while ignoring both kill-chain issues and ECM etc. Sure the Russian AF might be able to use them during a "bolt out of the blue" attack, but once hostilities have commenced, any airbase that hosts MIG-31BMs will be targeted heavily.
- sudosysgen 4y agoThe killchain issues are very easy to deal with. An AWACS is a massive target, it doesn't take much to get a missile there. As far as ECM, it works a lot better when you have a small radar cross section. The burn through range for a frequency agile radar at that cross section is going to be far too much. > but once hostilities have commenced, any airbase that hosts MIG-31BMs will be targeted heavily. People say this a lot, but Ukrainian and Iraqi planes were flying weeks after that. And it's not just the MiG-31BM that can carry them.