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The closest wars are the Iraqi and Balkans ware. For the first the vast majority of Iraq air force were destroyed on the ground or fled to neighboring countries
by elashri 2y ago
The closest wars are the Iraqi and Balkans ware. For the first the vast majority of Iraq air force were destroyed on the ground or fled to neighboring countries, there were rarely any meaningful air to air fights.
For Balkans, there were minimal air activities for Serbian air force. They were up against NATO (not only US) and all of the little opposition they had were using air defence systems which managed to down a couple of Nato air Jets. I wouldn't describe each of these two as significant in any meaningful way. Just to give example on scale. In Balkans, serbian air force had like a dozen modern air craft against ~ 1000 NATO aircrafts.
One can say that the it was a little bit different in Korea and Vietnam but this was much closer to 1945 than nowadays.
- Spooky23 2y agoHuh? The US was essentially fighting the Soviets in Korea and Vietnam. It was a contentious, significant conflict. Vietnam in particular saw the cost of allowing the SAC/bomber mafia from dominating strategy. The Soviet and Vietnamese pilots were pretty badly mauling the US Air Force and Navy, whose armament and tactics were built around bomber interception.
- bluGill 2y agoKorea has been in cease fire since 1953. Vietnam ended in 1975. There has been a lot of changes since then. Not only have people studied and tried to learn lessons, but technology has changed significnatly. We have no clue how the current military would approach Vietnam or Korea if they happened today (both sides would be different!)
- elashri 2y agoRegarding these two wars my comment was exactly that. > One can say that the it was a little bit different in Korea and Vietnam but this was much closer to 1945 than nowadays. Korean war started almost five years after the end of WWII and Vietnam war is 50 years old now. The two wars in Balkans and Iraq is much relevant in experience compared to the earlier two. And while the soviets provided the Vietnamese with AAA and aircrafts, there were little soviets engagement in the actual fighting (regarding the air).