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Is there any air war that the USAF would not be in a turkey shoot that is not a direct war against China? Let's be realistic here... The US expects to have full
by SEJeff 3y ago
Is there any air war that the USAF would not be in a turkey shoot that is not a direct war against China? Let's be realistic here... The US expects to have full air supremacy against most any adversary. They certainly would against Russia. Despite Russia having a few exceptional air superiority fighers. They're only "as good or worse" as the best American equivalents and they might have one tenth as many as the US does.
- barrkel 3y agoRussia denies air supremacy with a spectrum of anti air defences, not air superiority fighters. IIRC Russia is at 99% air defence effectiveness vs the start of the Ukraine war; i.e. it has not been materially degraded at all, despite HARM anti-radar missiles and so forth given to Ukraine.
- SEJeff 3y agoI meant vs the USAF, with modern stealth multi role jets such as the F35. We can target their anti-air for long range GMLRS artillery / precision artillery like Excalibur, or with cruise missiles like tomahawks. The SEAD / DEAD missions seem quite appropriate for F35s. Though I don’t full agree with Russia only using ground based air defense as the few newer generation jets Russia have are shooting down a lot of Ukrainian jets. They fly higher, faster, and can both lock and engage Ukrainian jets before the Ukrainian have even detected them.
- baybal2 3y ago[dead]
- greedo 3y agoWell, to be fair the the Ukrainians, they're flying old old Flankers and Fulcrums. Compared to Su-35 etc, it's no contest. I think that the USAF will have its hands full overcoming Russia's A2AD environment, assuming it's set up and competently managed. The range on S300/S400 makes it hard to use anything other than Tomahawks and stealth aircraft to target. It definitely won't be like Baghdad during DS.
- SEJeff 3y agoIn the first 48 hours of the Afghanistan war, a tomahawk was launched, on average, every 12 seconds. To pivot back to near peer threats like china, the US Marine Corps now has a ground based tomahawk launcher[1] they can setup on small islands. Also, the US has a crapload more stealth aircraft than the Russians and the maintenance is actually performed on them. [1] https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/first-marine-corps-tomahawk-cruise-missile-unit-has-stood-up https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/first-marine-corps-tom...
- greedo 3y agoYou're seriously comparing the air defense capability of Afghanistan against a near peer? I love the Tomahawk, and I think it still has some use until LRSO comes into inventory in significant numbers, but I think it's going to struggle against China if it comes to that. Even with saturation attacks, you'll have to have a lot of luck and careful planning to overwhelm China's A2AD.
- KptMarchewa 3y agoHARM are operating at basically few percent of their capabilities, due to - old C versions from early 90s - only working on pre-programmed target mode - no targeting pods like AN/ASQ-213
- SEJeff 3y agoIndeed. Very little of what the US has sent Ukraine is the latest and greatest, though I’d expect that to change in the near term future.
- LorenPechtel 3y agoNobody's realistically trying to take down the Russian air defense network because they're not conducting strikes into Russian territory.
- barrkel 3y agoThey would take down short range AA if they could because it would permit the use of ground attack aircraft.