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How would the war look if one side had total air dominance as the "Anglos" fight? I don't think that drones would play as large of a role. They're only playing

How would the war look if one side had total air dominance as the "Anglos" fight? I don't think that drones would play as large of a role. They're only playing such a large role because the air is contested.

sgt101 1y ago
I think that they give adversaries another card to play. Drones mean that you can do a bunch of tasks that previously needed air dominance without that dominance, or even when you are dominated - like the Houthis are showing. With drones you can surveil and strike even while your enemy kills everything that goes 20m above the ground. If you can contest the air at the same time I would say that their role becomes greater - as the Ukrainians have showed. But drones do make air dominance less decisive, even as it remains very desirable.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
  It's all shades of gray. TAD doesn't make drones useless and drones don't make fighter jets useless. They all provide options. I just think their role is inflated because of the lack of TAD.
  - sgt101 1y ago
    yes - agree, people look at a picture and don't look at what's not in the frame or what other pictures can look at.
- WillAdams 1y ago
  One thing which the U.S. Air Force EDIT: Used to brag on was that no U.S. soldier had been killed by enemy munitions from the air in an active conflict zone since Vietnam --- drones definitely change the calculus in which this statement is made. EDIT: and as pointed out below, were able to break this record, depending on how one defines airspace and conflict zone.
  - sgt101 1y ago
    Sadly this is a past tense thing now since Rukban in Jan 2024 where 3 U.S. soldiers unfortunately were killed by an Islamist (Iranian backed) group with a drone.
    - aspenmayer 1y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_22_drone_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_22_drone_attack > On 28 January 2024, an attack drone, launched by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq—an Iranian-backed Shia militia group—struck Tower 22, a U.S. military outpost in Rukban, northeast Jordan. The explosion killed three U.S. soldiers and injured 47 others. > The incident marked the first time U.S. troops were killed by enemy fire since the start of the Gaza war. President Joe Biden condemned the attack as "despicable" and pledged retaliation at a suitable time. The U.S. began retaliatory strikes on 2 February, hitting sites in Iraq and Syria. Iran denied any involvement in the attack. What might have made this attack different, and hopefully some indications that lessons were learned: > The failure of air defenses to intercept the drone was a key focus of the subsequent U.S. Central Command investigation of the attack. A U.S. preliminary report found that the hostile drone attacked around the same time an American surveillance drone was returning to the base, which likely led to confusion over whether it was an enemy drone and delayed a response. And, the reason this belongs on HN imo: > An Analog Devices employee was arrested in December 2024, and later charged with evading U.S. export controls and facilitating indirect sales of some of the technology used in the drone, via the Iranian military.
    - WillAdams 1y ago
      Thank you for that correction --- I've edited my comment to reflec that.
postexitus 1y ago
Can air be dominated against a powerful adversary in the age of relatively cheap AA?
- sgt101 1y ago
  I don't think we know, but it does look like the answer is Yes. Both Iraq in 1991 and Iran in 2024 had extensive, developed, and expensive AA setups. The USA destroyed the Iraq assets by attrition, Israel surgically removed the Iranian ones. Russia apparently has no SEAD or DEAD capability because they didn't and haven't even attempted to remove the Ukrainian air defence network. I think this shows one of the key requirements for future European Air Force structures. Long range strike and SEAD/DEAD are going to be fundamental for creating the conditions for military dominance in the east.
  - nradov 1y ago
    Right, and one of the major weaknesses of NATO is that outside the US none of the other members have much SEAD/DEAD capability. They might train for it occasionally but they don't have entire squadrons which specialize in that mission.
    - sgt101 1y ago
      100% - this must change.
  - nothercastle 1y ago
    In both those situations the reason it was possible is because they weren’t being resupplied. The Russians can’t achieve this because advanced aa is constantly flowing in from US and Europe so eliminating existing AA is not enough.
  - postexitus 1y ago
    At the same time, despite their arguably modern capabilities, neither Russia nor Ukraine can fly their planes over contested regions, let alone get close to establishing air superiority. I am not entirely sure if we can compare Iraq/Iran setups (despite being same hardware) to an adversary who knows what they are doing like Russia/China.
paganel 1y ago
> had total air dominance as the "Anglos" fight? It will most probably come as a big surprise to the Anglos when they'll find out that they do not have any such dominance. Also see their surprise when they had to use their aircraft carriers against the Houthis, didn't go quite as they (the Americans) had expected. Real war can be like that, is usually like that, i.e. it washes away in a second any previous misconceptions, it places you right in front of reality itself.

sgt101 1y ago

I think that they give adversaries another card to play. Drones mean that you can do a bunch of tasks that previously needed air dominance without that dominance, or even when you are dominated - like the Houthis are showing. With drones you can surveil and strike even while your enemy kills everything that goes 20m above the ground. If you can contest the air at the same time I would say that their role becomes greater - as the Ukrainians have showed. But drones do make air dominance less decisive, even as it remains very desirable.

2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
It's all shades of gray. TAD doesn't make drones useless and drones don't make fighter jets useless. They all provide options. I just think their role is inflated because of the lack of TAD.
- sgt101 1y ago
  yes - agree, people look at a picture and don't look at what's not in the frame or what other pictures can look at.
WillAdams 1y ago
One thing which the U.S. Air Force EDIT: Used to brag on was that no U.S. soldier had been killed by enemy munitions from the air in an active conflict zone since Vietnam --- drones definitely change the calculus in which this statement is made. EDIT: and as pointed out below, were able to break this record, depending on how one defines airspace and conflict zone.
- sgt101 1y ago
  Sadly this is a past tense thing now since Rukban in Jan 2024 where 3 U.S. soldiers unfortunately were killed by an Islamist (Iranian backed) group with a drone.
  - aspenmayer 1y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_22_drone_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_22_drone_attack > On 28 January 2024, an attack drone, launched by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq—an Iranian-backed Shia militia group—struck Tower 22, a U.S. military outpost in Rukban, northeast Jordan. The explosion killed three U.S. soldiers and injured 47 others. > The incident marked the first time U.S. troops were killed by enemy fire since the start of the Gaza war. President Joe Biden condemned the attack as "despicable" and pledged retaliation at a suitable time. The U.S. began retaliatory strikes on 2 February, hitting sites in Iraq and Syria. Iran denied any involvement in the attack. What might have made this attack different, and hopefully some indications that lessons were learned: > The failure of air defenses to intercept the drone was a key focus of the subsequent U.S. Central Command investigation of the attack. A U.S. preliminary report found that the hostile drone attacked around the same time an American surveillance drone was returning to the base, which likely led to confusion over whether it was an enemy drone and delayed a response. And, the reason this belongs on HN imo: > An Analog Devices employee was arrested in December 2024, and later charged with evading U.S. export controls and facilitating indirect sales of some of the technology used in the drone, via the Iranian military.
  - WillAdams 1y ago
    Thank you for that correction --- I've edited my comment to reflec that.

postexitus 1y ago

Can air be dominated against a powerful adversary in the age of relatively cheap AA?

sgt101 1y ago
I don't think we know, but it does look like the answer is Yes. Both Iraq in 1991 and Iran in 2024 had extensive, developed, and expensive AA setups. The USA destroyed the Iraq assets by attrition, Israel surgically removed the Iranian ones. Russia apparently has no SEAD or DEAD capability because they didn't and haven't even attempted to remove the Ukrainian air defence network. I think this shows one of the key requirements for future European Air Force structures. Long range strike and SEAD/DEAD are going to be fundamental for creating the conditions for military dominance in the east.
- nradov 1y ago
  Right, and one of the major weaknesses of NATO is that outside the US none of the other members have much SEAD/DEAD capability. They might train for it occasionally but they don't have entire squadrons which specialize in that mission.
  - sgt101 1y ago
    100% - this must change.
- nothercastle 1y ago
  In both those situations the reason it was possible is because they weren’t being resupplied. The Russians can’t achieve this because advanced aa is constantly flowing in from US and Europe so eliminating existing AA is not enough.
- postexitus 1y ago
  At the same time, despite their arguably modern capabilities, neither Russia nor Ukraine can fly their planes over contested regions, let alone get close to establishing air superiority. I am not entirely sure if we can compare Iraq/Iran setups (despite being same hardware) to an adversary who knows what they are doing like Russia/China.

paganel 1y ago

> had total air dominance as the "Anglos" fight? It will most probably come as a big surprise to the Anglos when they'll find out that they do not have any such dominance. Also see their surprise when they had to use their aircraft carriers against the Houthis, didn't go quite as they (the Americans) had expected. Real war can be like that, is usually like that, i.e. it washes away in a second any previous misconceptions, it places you right in front of reality itself.