this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
1152 points (97.1% liked)
World News
32316 readers
559 users here now
News from around the world!
Rules:
-
Please only post links to actual news sources, no tabloid sites, etc
-
No NSFW content
-
No hate speech, bigotry, propaganda, etc
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Except, at the end of the day, someone runs out of soldiers. If Ukraine keeps wasting resources in a futile counteroffensive, it's going to be Ukraine. Military doctrine going back centuries has told us that defending is far easier if your technological capability is even marginally close to equivalent.
Ukraine is getting fully functional F-16s, Russia has already shown that they tape down Garmin GPSs to their fighter jet dashboards. That's... not "marginally close".
Maybe Ukraine should regroup and stay on the defensive in the meantime, but I wouldn't bet on Russia in 2024.
Except... It sort of is? GPS was first launched in 1978 (oh look, the year the F-16 was introduced). The F-16 is an ancient platform and Ukraine has already shown that CAS is rather challenging given how advanced modern munitions are. At the start of the war they were literally plucking planes out of the sky.
Plus, NATO doctrine relies on complete battlefield superiority and complex logistics... Things that Ukraine lacks. How exactly is Ukraine supposed to turn the tides with F-16s when the Russians have stealth planes and hundreds of Su-35/34/30s?
It's not about how old is the platform, it's about what you put into it. Is the F-35 still randomly rebooting mid flight? The F-16 hasn't had that problem for decades, and it can run modern hardware just fine.
Stealth planes are irrelevant in a dogfight, or in defending ground assets, and all those Su-* have been shown to be lacking proper maintenance for decades. We'll see how they manage against a fully operational and updated bunch of F-16s.
Dogfights are an outdated paradigm.
If an Su-57 picks up your radar signature and gets a lock, you better pray to your countermeasures suite because you're not even going to get a glimpse of it. That's literally the entire modern US fighter paradigm.
You're supporting my point: those F-16s are going to have the latest countermeasure suit.
It doesn't matter how "invisible" is the plane (Ukraine already downed a Russian Su-57) or how "hypersonic" is the missile it launches (Ukrainian ground countermeasures are also taking care of those), what matters is whether it can hit you or not.
A bunch of "old" F-16s equipped with the latest stuff, plus some decent ground support... we'll see how it goes, but since Russia hasn't been able to establish air superiority over Ukraine in all this time, with a little push Ukraine likely will.
With... 40 F-16s? Do you imagine Ukraine to be the size of Taiwan while the Russians fly around in Chaika biplanes?
Ukraine is already protected from those magnificent Russian Su-57s, they don't need F-16s for that. All Ukraine needs is to keep maybe 5 of those F-16s in the air over whatever scrap of land they happen to be trying to take back at any given moment. And yes, those pieces of land are going to be much smaller than Taiwan, what matters is that piece by piece, they will no longer be under Russian control.
Ah yes, because F-16s will absolutely be able to achieve what Su-27s couldn't... Because, reasons I guess? Just like the Patriot system. Just like the Bradley. Just like the Challenger. Just like the Leopard 2. Just like HIMARS. The Patriot system was supposed to help Ukraine gain air superiority, too. Western armour was supposed to act as a fist straight through Russian lines.
How much has Ukraine captured over the counteroffensive so far?
This war lives and dies on attrition and logistical superiority. Ukraine needs more artillery shells, more drones, more ammunition, and more men, not some new wonder weapon that'll go straight where all the other wonder weapons are. Thing is, nobody has the manufacturing capability to produce more artillery, more drones, off more ammunition and Ukraine has been bleeding refugees since the start of the war.
Put another way: if Ukraine knew it was going to get F-16s eventually and that F-16s could gain air superiority, why go on a counteroffensive and bleed morale/resources now? By your reasoning, Ukraine could have just hunkered down until they had technological superiority and pulled some good old Blitzkrieg tactics on Russian lines to punch straight throw them. Either this counteroffensive was a severe tactical blunder or the F-16s won't do as much as claimed.
We've been over this: because F-16s have updated hardware (radars, ECMs, etc.) that couldn't be retrofit into a Su-27.
That too. This wouldn't be a war in the first place if Russia hadn't fucked up their initial logistics so severely.
Personally, that's my opinion, yes.
I think they've done it to "boost morale" by hopefully regaining "some" territory before the whole place turns into a mud bath, but from a tactical point of view, yes, I think they should have waited it out, stick to defense and drones for the time being.
I think we're at a bit of an impasse then. I don't think it makes sense to bleed men and defectors for morale (because, y'know, people dying is bad for morale), but maybe the Ukrainian propaganda machine is more powerful than I am.
My point is that the West has sat behind the idea that every single new weapon they send to Ukraine will be a GAME CHANGER and lead to the COLLAPSE OF RUSSIAN LINES. Nothing has done so so far, so why should the F-16 be any different? The Patriot was supposed to help Ukraine maintain air superiority. Western tanks were supposed to outclass Russian ones. The Bradley, through it's rich operational history, was supposed to completely outmaneuver Russian forces. Yet... Nothing.
That's propaganda used to get the expenditures approved. Nothing is going to be a "game changer" by itself, it's all a step by step way to replace Ukraine's soviet-era weapons, with an updated NATO weapons kit.
Once the kit gets completed, we'll see what happens. For now, each part is proving superior to its Russian counterpart. The Patriot is a defensive system intended to prevent Russia from achieving air superiority, and it's doing just that.
How well has NATO equipment fared on the front lines? With the exception of HIMARS (which has given Ukraine long-range artillery strike capability that Russia can't match), what's all this NATO equipment done?
The Patriot systems are parked far from the front lines in Kiev. The "indestructible" Challenger 2 has lost 14% of their delivered vehicles in barely a few weeks.
Ukraine needs artillery, ammunition, drones, and supplies. These new weapons have done nothing to shift the front lines whatsoever and serve only to distract the population from providing Ukraine with real, tangible military aid.
Stopped Russia from taking over Ukraine.
That is correct, they're intended to prevent Russian advances, not to support Ukrainian advances.
There is a non-zero risk that if Ukraine was given full offensive support, they'd try to take over Russia... or at least a chunk of it... which would self-justify Russia into using nuclear weapons, something that most people don't want to see.
Supplies, they're getting. There is a problem with ammunition though; since Ukraine is using Soviet era weapons, they are non-NATO caliber. Most of the stock of Soviet stuff that Western countries had, they have already shipped to Ukraine. In order to ship more, Ukraine will need to switch to NATO gear, which means basically re-arming the whole country from scratch.
It is no coincidence that Russia would become buddies with China, India, or North Korea, they're one of the few countries left producing some Soviet-compatible ammunition and gear.
All of this also means a NATO-ification of Ukraine's armament, which is something very desirable for NATO, and in particular for the main NATO weapons producer: the US.
Has it? Almost all the progress in this war has been made by infantry and artillery. Where exactly do you propose the NATO equipment has helped change that?