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Zelenskiy begging for Russian airplanes

fortune

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Poland romania hungary finland etc have plenty of russian jets, the same types the ukrainians need no training on as that is what they operated before the war. I say give them those jets, stinger missiles and javelins work great if it is just funding an insurgency, but when funding and arming a military to fight another military head on, there needs to be far more than just missiles.

The former soviet nations still have jets, tanks, and trucks the ukrainians are already trained to use, and in the short term would be more beneficial than just atgm and anti aircraft manpads in the broader picture.

If ukraine survives this they need to branch out past old soviet gear, right now they have no choice because they do not have time in the middle of a hot war to train their forces for new gear, however if they retain independance and are not in a war they should seek gear independant of russia, or do a mix so they can still be armed no matter which sphere they anger.
 
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At this time, doing so would be stupid.

Russia has grounded most of their Air Force and has overwhelming air superiority. And can hit any airport in the country with ease.

Unless they can get basing in another country that Russia can not hit, any aircraft there would just be destroyed. It would be better first to send them air defense systems, so they can try to eliminate the large Russian air superiority.

But the best we could probably do at the moment is to give them something like the HAWK missile system. We and our allies all have a ton of those in inventory, as well as AVENGERs. Use those, knock out a big chunk of the Russian air forces and secure at least a few bases from attack. Then sending them jets will start to make sense.
 
I say give them those jets, stinger missiles and javelins work great

There is only one problem with the STINGER. It requires the operator to be able to see the aircraft. And the Russians have been taking advantage of the overcast so they can do their attacks without fear from MANPAD systems.

Hence, my suggestion of HAWK. Or any all-weather systems that use RADAR and not reliant on the Mark 1 eyeball.
 
Why are so many people so excited to escalate this to WWIII?
the mind of a little man with the biggest "hit me" glass jaw avatar who can utter any stupid adjective with an even more ignorant one to make a point? No one notices?
I have no idea what is with you but there are not that many people all that excited about what you type.
Let go of yourself a little dude...perhaps by the sudden release of endorphins... or just by relaxing your grip on it... works for most people.
 
the mind of a little man with the biggest "hit me" glass jaw avatar who can utter any stupid adjective with an even more ignorant one to make a point? No one notices?
I have no idea what is with you but there are not that many people all that excited about what you type.
Let go of yourself a little dude...perhaps by the sudden release of endorphins... or just by relaxing your grip on it... works for most people.
mucho texto, no funny
 
the mind of a little man with the biggest "hit me" glass jaw avatar who can utter any stupid adjective with an even more ignorant one to make a point? No one notices?
I have no idea what is with you but there are not that many people all that excited about what you type.
Let go of yourself a little dude...perhaps by the sudden release of endorphins... or just by relaxing your grip on it... works for most people.
Are you joking? Do you approve of escalating things?
 
At this time, doing so would be stupid.

Russia has grounded most of their Air Force and has overwhelming air superiority. And can hit any airport in the country with ease.

Unless they can get basing in another country that Russia can not hit, any aircraft there would just be destroyed. It would be better first to send them air defense systems, so they can try to eliminate the large Russian air superiority.

But the best we could probably do at the moment is to give them something like the HAWK missile system. We and our allies all have a ton of those in inventory, as well as AVENGERs. Use those, knock out a big chunk of the Russian air forces and secure at least a few bases from attack. Then sending them jets will start to make sense.

The point of those jets is not counter air combat, its for strikes on Russian supply lines. Hawks can't do that.

Zelinski needs planes, and the West has Russian aircraft to spare. This is a no brainer, give him the god damn planes. NOW.
 
Through overwhelming Russian air superiority?

Not bloody likely.

Quite the contrary. What has been striking in this offensive is the lack of coordinated Russian fighter cover for ground attack aircraft, 'top cover' being at medium or higher altitudes to avoid stingers and nlaws. So, lacking has been coordinated and consistent fighter cover that Ukraine still has a majority of its combat aircraft.

The underwhelming Russian fighter commitment is undisputed by analysists.

So no, the Ukrainian air force does not see its primary role as wasting aircraft in medium and high altitude dog-fights... these Russian pilots represent no threat to Ukraine's ground forces because they are inflexible, single role trained airmen. Rather, Ukraine is using its aircraft to attack at low level Russian supply lines and choke points.
 
I think a numerous & constant supply of long range armed drones would have the Russian troops on the ground living in a state of constant terror.
 
There is only one problem with the STINGER. It requires the operator to be able to see the aircraft. And the Russians have been taking advantage of the overcast so they can do their attacks without fear from MANPAD systems.

Hence, my suggestion of HAWK. Or any all-weather systems that use RADAR and not reliant on the Mark 1 eyeball.
That is why I said they work great if just funding an insurgency, they are great for surprise attacks against lowflying aircraft, but do not work for much else.

Ukraine needs a unified system, which is armor, trucks, artillery, etc etc to not only keep up a defence, but also to keep their logistics rolling.

The hawk would work fine, however I doubt the west will give them any. Ukraine still has some s-300 systems that survived working as standalone units, though there has not been much recorded on their use recently, so they likely are either running out of missiles or saving what they have to defend vital areas of kyiv.
 
I think a numerous & constant supply of long range armed drones would have the Russian troops on the ground living in a state of constant terror.
Probably not though, russia seems to not be sweating those drones yet, and to make it worse russia has not even bothered with electronic warfare yet, so russia could resort to mass jamming of coms making drones useless except as autonomous attack drones which would mean they could only attack with a preset route and target, which would limit their effectiveness especially when troops and armor are not static but rather mobile.
 
Quite the contrary. What has been striking in this offensive is the lack of coordinated Russian fighter cover for ground attack aircraft, 'top cover' being at medium or higher altitudes to avoid stingers and nlaws. So, lacking has been coordinated and consistent fighter cover that Ukraine still has a majority of its combat aircraft.

The underwhelming Russian fighter commitment is undisputed by analysists.

So no, the Ukrainian air force does not see its primary role as wasting aircraft in medium and high altitude dog-fights... these Russian pilots represent no threat to Ukraine's ground forces because they are inflexible, single role trained airmen. Rather, Ukraine is using its aircraft to attack at low level Russian supply lines and choke points.
Ukraine does not have the majority of it's combat aircraft, I know ukraine and the us govt claimed that, but there has been zero evidence to back that up, infact all available evidence says the opposite, that ukraine has no combat aircraft left that is functional.

Well I guess the claim can be true, ukraine had a very large airforce, with most of it not working, I guess if you count the hundreds of aircraft in storage that have not flown in decades you could claim they still have most of their combat aircraft, but aircraft that can not fly should not really count.
 
Ukraine does not have the majority of it's combat aircraft, I know ukraine and the us govt claimed that, but there has been zero evidence to back that up, infact all available evidence says the opposite, that ukraine has no combat aircraft left that is functional.
Well I guess the claim can be true, ukraine had a very large airforce, with most of it not working, I guess if you count the hundreds of aircraft in storage that have not flown in decades you could claim they still have most of their combat aircraft, but aircraft that can not fly should not really count.
Is there a link to this evidence?
 
Is there a link to this evidence?
There are numerous links all over the news with claims by the us govt they retain most of their aircraft, and about zero evidence they actually do. For all they claims ukraine can't seem to get anything in the air except drones.

Let me ask you this, why is the ukrainian air force supposedly fully intact as claimed by the us govt yet begging every country for aircraft so they can fly missions, the reality says they have no airforce left that is functional, and much of their stored aircraft would take months or years to get back into service.
 
There are numerous links all over the news with claims by the us govt they retain most of their aircraft, and about zero evidence they actually do. For all they claims ukraine can't seem to get anything in the air except drones.

Let me ask you this, why is the ukrainian air force supposedly fully intact as claimed by the us govt yet begging every country for aircraft so they can fly missions, the reality says they have no airforce left that is functional, and much of their stored aircraft would take months or years to get back into service.
So you don't have a link. I thought not.
 
Quite the contrary. What has been striking in this offensive is the lack of coordinated Russian fighter cover for ground attack aircraft

Have you looked at the weather at all? At best it has been cloudy for the last two weeks. And this next week, is mostly heavy overcast with partly cloudy for a few days. With only two days of sunny weather at the end of the week.


You see, some of us pay attention to things like weather in warfare. And when talking about aircraft, the weather is of primary importance. This has forced them to use less accurate systems to hit the ground, or helicopters that can operate under the cloud cover. Why do you think they have been relying so heavily on missiles?
 
That is why I said they work great if just funding an insurgency, they are great for surprise attacks against lowflying aircraft, but do not work for much else.

Ukraine needs a unified system, which is armor, trucks, artillery, etc etc to not only keep up a defence, but also to keep their logistics rolling.

The hawk would work fine, however I doubt the west will give them any. Ukraine still has some s-300 systems that survived working as standalone units, though there has not been much recorded on their use recently, so they likely are either running out of missiles or saving what they have to defend vital areas of kyiv.

Actually, the Hawk would be great for both.

Especially as they are highly mobile, a dozen HMMWV or similar vehicles can move an entire Battery of launchers. And even better, as they operate by RADAR.

And more than that, simply by being there the RADAR demands that any aircraft in the area pay a lot of attention to them. Hell, just sending them a few dozen RADAR systems and little else will start to drive the Russian Air Force nuts. Not unlike what Saddam was doing in 1990-1991 and 2003 with the "SCUD hunts". Set up a RADAR someplace, and start radiating with 2 or 3 more a mile or so away each. As soon as an aircraft is detected, it powers off and moves then another fires off just outside of the range of the aircraft.

Rinse and repeat.

The beauty of HAWK is that it is highly mobile. Literally it can be ready to move in under 10 minutes. Just send them a lot of FOCA fiber optic cable, so when they can abandon it and move to the next location.

And that is the biggest problem with the larger and more capable systems like S-300, PATRIOT, etc. It is "mobile", in the sense that a CASH (modern variant of a MASH) is "mobile". It can be moved, that is about it. Roughly an hour at each end to set up and tear down, not counting movement time. And with the size and weight, restricted to main hardpacked roads. Something not really very available in the current area where much of it is soggy.

You must remember, we are now talking about my specialty. They can have dozens of S-300 left, but that will do them little to no good at this time because the things are not well suited to this kind of operation. This is indeed almost an insurgency kind of setup, and not a major battlefield which is where GRUMBLE-PATRIOT was designed to be operated in.

You have to realize, for those systems it was expected that the side using them would likely have either overwhelming airpower, or they would be operating in an environment where aircraft would be so busy operating against other aircraft that they simply defend select positions and not have to worry much about moving or being attacked other than for SEAD missions. Let's just assume that this was really a WWIII situation, and the target was not Ukraine, but Germany.

There, the US could not be sending aircraft to "Germany", because they would not be operating them from there. The aircraft would be operating out of France and other nations, and flying to and from Germany to do their attacks and defenses, then returning. Safe from Russian air attacks themselves at bases removed from the front lines. And even better AWAC aircraft so the air defenses can spend a lot of time powered down, undetectable to enemy forces.

But Ukraine has none of this. No early warning aircraft, no friendly bases to operate out of that are out of reach of Russian forces.

You are talking "unified system", and so am I. But the question is, do you know how such are set up and run? I do.

And in reality, HAWK has largely been retired for decades. But many countries still keep them for reserve forces, or for deployed forces. And the US has many hundreds of them still sitting in boneyards across the country.
 
Or at least, there used to be. Something disturbing is that I just now looked at a boneyard that once had hundreds of launchers and RADAR systems in it. And they are all gone, it is now an empty field and the warehouse is gone. I forgot that President Obama had a huge amount of our surplus equipment destroyed when he was in office. Not just ships, but aircraft and everything else. Almost all of our surplus equipment made before around 1980 was scrapped. I was going to pull up in Google Maps where I knew a ton of that stuff was just sitting, but I can't because it is gone.

The only thing I could find even close is this:


That is not a military boneyard, but I believe it is owned either by a contractor that still works on the system for other countries or is involved in scrapping them. I remember when the parking lot there had around two dozen launchers and a dozen RADAR systems. How, I see no launchers and maybe a half dozen RADAR systems. And this is the perfect system to send them, as you can send it there in almost any cargo aircraft we use. Even a couple C-130 can move those, unlike PATRIOT which need at a minimum C-5.

In short, Ukraine never had a chance, no more than Kuwait had a chance when Iraq came knocking in 1990. The most they can hope for is to use terrain and cover to operate highly mobile air defense systems, to the point where the Russians are afraid to come overhead at will. Only then can they start to push things the other way, unless they can safely operate their aircraft outside of the battle area. The current US and Russian systems were never intended to operate in such an environment. And this shows in the long setup and teardown times for each of them.
 
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