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Neither Ukraine nor Russia are using manned aircraft in any significant ways. They are at most used to lob gliding bombs from far behind the front lines. > And
by cyberax 6mo ago
Neither Ukraine nor Russia are using manned aircraft in any significant ways. They are at most used to lob gliding bombs from far behind the front lines.
> And naturally F-35s on that theatre would have been a game changer making mass strikes on Moscow possible.
And then what? Kyiv has been under relentless strikes from drones and missiles for 5 years. And Moscow was hit by Ukrainian drones several times.
You'll need to suppress all the anti-air defenses first, and it will likely be too costly.
- morkalork 6mo agoIt's like watching salami slicing happen in real time. It also forces a dilemma on Russia. Every move of GBAD to Moscow to defend against drone leaves an airfield uncovered. Move some to airfields and it leaves a refinery open. And on and on.
- m4rtink 6mo agoAnd at the same time, drones are eating the AD every day, with videos of multiple strikes often coming out on a single day. Most in Crimea, but now more often also elsewhere. An it shows with how the drone attacks on oil ports, refineries a even on navy ships in harbor have been successful lately.
- varjag 6mo ago> They are at most used to lob gliding bombs from far behind the front lines. You write that, and literally quote my point about F-35 making deep strikes against dense air defense possible in the very next sentence.
- cyberax 6mo agoIt remains to be seen how well F-35s actually perform in that role against an adversary with modern anti-air defense and with modern drone-based tactics. Both Russia and Ukraine learned to avoid concentrating forces, so what are you going to strike? Use an F-35 to attack a single Jeep with a mounted machine gun? F-35 has limited range and carries very limited armament, so you can't just carpet-bomb everything. At some point, you'll need to use much less survivable heavy bombers.
- nradov 6mo agoStrike the stuff that can't move: government offices, factories, bridges, dams, power plants, ports, logistics hubs. The heavy B-2 bombers are themselves quite survivable, and were in fact used in the initial strikes.
- cyberax 6mo agoGovernment offices are hardened against strikes, and they are going to be located beyond the reach of F-35s anyway in case of a war with Russia or China. > bridges, dams, power plants A war crime, btw. Bridges and dams are also notoriously hard to destroy. > The heavy B-2 bombers are themselves quite survivable They are, but less so compared to lighter aircraft.
- greedo 6mo agoF-35s have done pretty well in both Israeli and US hands against the Russian supplied SAM systems. And if these vaunted Russian IADs can't stop Ukrainian drones with a RCS the size of a barn, they stand little chance against a stealth fighter.
- cyberax 6mo ago_All_ the classic anti-air is useless against drones, as the US also found out. It can be easily saturated, and ground-hugging drones are not a good target for missiles anyway. Ukraine is now using interceptor drones for this reason. The issue with stealth fighters is that they have nothing to do. The enemy can launch barrages of drones from hundreds of kilometers away, outside the F-35's effective range. Or if you're moving ground forces, they'll be attacked by mobile units armed with short-range drones, also making F-35 less than useful. That's also the reason why Russia right now is at a full stalemate. Its only semi-working strategy is to filter infantry through killzones that can be tens of kilometers in depth. Russia can easily bomb Ukrainian positions with gliding bombs or missiles like S-300. But there's just nothing to bomb, Ukrainian army is spread out.
- panick21_ 6mo ago