this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2023
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It's sort of a shit design for 2023 tbh.
Sounds like Ukraine got a new air defense system... Maybe they moved a Patriot battery?
It's pretty mid nowadays, nowhere near the levels of the F-22 or F-35. But the F-16 C, D or MLU versions are in almost every way a very modern fighter. Russia does pretty much the same thing, but while an upgrade F-16 is called a 'block 50', an upgraded SU-27 is called an SU-30 (or 34, or 35). They're basically all improved versions of 1970s planes.
The SU57 and Mig-35 are basically non-existent, if not actually so.
The F-16 is absolutely not the best fighter out there anymore, but it's hardly a pushover and at the very least on par with what Russia is fielding.
The F-16 was even outclassed by the J-17 in the recent Pakistani Operation Indus Shield 2023 exercises according to recent reports.
Like I said to the other guy, if that's even true, it doesn't matter because Russia doesn't field the J-17.
I haven't read a report on that in English. Could you share?
It's in the new issue of Air Force Monthly.
The only reference I could find (headline skimming) is a Pakistani pilot giving the politically correct statement that their native-built fighter is better than the imported one.
Yeah, that's the theory. Russia had been using the planes to bomb a Ukrainian beachhead from an area that would keep them out of range for the Soviet-era systems Ukraine has in that area, so Ukraine moved a patriot system there, switched off. When the Russians flew in and they got detected on long range radar, they turned on the patriot and fired.