3 ms·

You didn't actually read the article did you? The vast majority of air defence systems the US has gone against are SA-2 which is late 1950s tech, SA-3, which i

You didn't actually read the article did you? The vast majority of air defence systems the US has gone against are SA-2 which is late 1950s tech, SA-3, which is early 1960s tech and a few SA-5s and SA-6's, which are late 60s tech. Over the past decade and a half, things have started to change. Russia has started exporting large numbers of modern air defence systems, and modern digital upgrades to older systems. Systems that were designed from the start to be highly resistant to jamming and decoys and to be highly mobile. Air defences have suddenly got a lot more capable in many nations around the world, while western nations are by and large still using the same defence suppression tools they had during the first gulf war. If the US needs to attack a nation like Iran or Syria, it will not be a rerun of 1991. Instead of the US having a 20 year technological advantage over enemy air defence, enemy air defences will have a 20 year technological advantage over the US air force.

mapgrep 13y ago
No, if the U.S. needs to attack a nation like Iran or Syria, we will do overwhlemingly better at securing air superiority than we did in 1991. Their pilots are more poorly trained, fewer in number, and less connected to a functional comprehensive air defense system than Iraq in 1991. It's nice that you know the NATO designation of a few old SAM systems, but that's mostly orthogonal to the question of whether we need F-22s. The U.S. system of establishing air superiority is just that: A system, of which air superiority fighters are just one piece. The system is unmatched in the world. And you've been watching too much Top Gun, kiddo.