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One of Moscow’s fighter jets has been shot down by Ukrainian forces, according to a military blogger with links to the Russian air force. Another pro-Moscow milblogger said that the Sukhoi Su-34 aircraft had been downed by a Western-supplied F-16.
Once they use those F-16s to establish air dominance someone needs to give them a few A-10s to help them speed up retaking their territory.
That would be super helpful. Everyone always says that the A10s would be too vulnerable to AA but I’m guessing it’s survivability in the skies of Ukraine will probably be higher than helicopters and they are still flying those. A10s will absolutely decimate Russian lines if they can get close.
Helicopters can loiter better, fly closer to the ground, and resupply close to the front.
Even so, attack helicopters are not really used in anything other than ATGM sneak attacks from terrain cover (which the A10 can’t do, being a plane), or UGM “artillery” strikes. Most helicopter usage is about utility transport or troop transport in Ukraine. The primary CAS platform in Ukraine is drones. For tactical strikes, it’s glide bombs and cruise missiles, but that’s in short supply, no point in having a bunch of platforms if they have nothing to shoot.
The A10 is not really useful in near-peer engagements. At least not as useful as an equivalent value amount of SAMs or drones. And aid is passed by congress by value, so it absolutely matters how much something costs, they have to package the best stuff they can in the dollar limits.
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The A-10 is vulnerable to AA and to fighters, that’s why establishing F-16 patrols first is important. I’d also prefer that the A-10s either be escorted by or fly in mixed formations with Ukraine’s Soviet era fighters.
If the USAF doesn’t want to deal with the A-10s supply chain, there’s a good chance Ukraine doesn’t either.
The only thing that keeps the A-10 flying is Congressional mandates from a few jobs-oriented congressmen.
It’s a morale booster. Marines want a battleship to roll-up and lob explosive vws at the enemy and the army wants to keep it’s brrt buddy. With more modern electronics and better drone link they’d still be very capable at the job they are built to do.
You don’t spend excessive logistics on a “morale booster”. Then, those morale boosters would get shot down in no time and it would have both the strain on the logistics, and the opposite effect for morale. It’s an old plane that’s not useful on modern battlefields. Get Ukraine what they need - long range rockets and permission to use them how they want. Get them more fighter jets. Get them more artillery. Don’t send trash.
We do though.
Look into the ice cream ships.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_barge
Dude you bring up a curiosity in a different situation, time and war, economy and scale. Ukraine doesn’t have countless factories pumping out fighter jets to be able to dedicate those to making spare parts for an obsolete airframe. No amount of morale is worth it when you cannot supply the soldiers with what they need. Imagine ice cream barges going through the pacific when most of the US carriers would be on the bottom of the ocean with no more comming. It would be a laughable waste of resources.
You said we don’t waste logistics on militarily useless morale boosters. Clearly the us does as do most militaries, good cas is well worth every penny. CAS that scares the shit out of your enemy and raises your troops spirits is even better.
It’s never been a forward weapon, it was never meant to be. No one is suggesting to send it now they’re saying it may be useful to ship pilots and get them started training and as far as I’m aware that’s wrapped into funding.
A10’s aren’t “good CAS”. They are a hog on logistics, expensive, the gun isn’t worth it anymore and the job can be done in 300 other, more efficient ways. It’s a white elephant and nothing more, there is a reason they are getting retired.
There’s more reason they’ve been trying to retire then since before many people here were born and yet haven’t been. Troops love them, armchair strategists that have been saying they aren’t worth the money don’t. Who should I care about more I wonder.
To your point, Ukraine lacks resources for both Ice cream and bbbrrrrrtttt.
They are fighting for their freedom.
Point to where exactly it says now, it doesn’t right?
So your point is any planning is futile, you must be a proper strategic genius.
Ideally, people should try to get them Jas-39 Gripen with MBDA Meteor missiles to back up the F-16 fleet.
Currently, the situation seems to be: F-16 pilots are still inexperienced and their missiles are outranged by some missiles that a Su-35 could be carrying (e.g. R-77M with 190 km range). When a Su-34 (fighter-bomber) conducts glide bombing runs from a distance of 40 km, a Su-35 (air superiority fighter) typically provides it air cover. Under such conditions, it’s a difficult task for an F-16 pilot to fire an AMRAAM at the bomber (at best 180 km range) and evade counter-fire from the fighter. Fortunately they’ve got shiny new ECM pods and hopefully Russian planes haven’t got decent radars.
However, a plane with longer range weapons (Meteor can fly for 200 km) would deter even a fighter escort of the Su-34, and likely end glide bombing as a tactic.
Alternatively, one can hope that the actual range of AMRAAM exceeds the advertised range or the actual range of R-77M falls short of advertised range - or that they have better radars, or can somehow backport Meteor to F-16, or that their ECM can beat the electronics of R-77. However, as far as I’m aware, firing an AMRAAM from maximum range needs a really big target (actual bomber, not a fighter-bomber).
Either way, good to hear it happened. :) If it happens more, it might finally deter glide bombing. So far, air defense ambushes have also temporarily deterred it and drones have struck airfields where the Su-34 planes get equipped, but nothing has stopped it for long.
I mean, they made to strafe tanks. Pretty sure they were actually terrible at that when first introduced.
They did fine, budget dweebs just never thought they were enough of an advantage to offset the cost. They stay in service because people in the actual field want them around, it’s the same reason a lot of obsolete “useless” weapons stay in service.
Yea the a-10 is on the us chopping block. Could be their next step.
My vote is for a dozen AC-130J Ghostrider gunships
Those planes are workhorses, they would hardly need a dozen. We could probably put two of them on loan for a weekend and the Ukrainians would have the majority of the trenches converted into graves.
Also a fun indy game on steam “project gunship”
Big asterisk* it’s a fun but very dead partially developed game that hasn’t been updated in 10months despite its popularity.
Dam your right! Such a shame. As it is atm its still fun, could do woth more scenarios/maps.
Such a shame, any news on what happened to the dev?
No idea just sorta stopped I guess.
Damn… that blows. Had it on my wishlist for a while waiting for it to hit 1.0
BBBRRRRRRRRRRTTTTT
Or they could just put sanctions on emirates or thailand where russian are chilling, stop sending more war toys to the ukrainian government and the war would be over within a month.
I hope you’re a troll and not actually that stupid.
They’re a Russian troll. I have them tagged from a previous thread.
When it comes to Index, it’s anyone’s guess.
As a Russian, I have nothing against this. Actually, screw it, just send all of them. Russian MoD’s probably going to put bounties on them, like they did with Leopards. This way, the US finally get to decommission that meme of an aircraft, some AA crew is going to get an easy payday of like $10k each, and the MoD gets to report that they’ve inflicted $20mil worth of damage for only pennies, while in reality only lifting the burden of maintenance of those planes from the US budget. Sounds like win-win-win to me. The only losers here are those few poor Ukrainians who will have to pilot the damn thing.
Russia was getting spanked by Bradleys, f16s would glory over the battlefield, and it would open the door to unsealing real weapons.
We need to train their best on f35s.