Yes, they are increasingly enabling themselves to strike more often on Crimea. I would not be surprised if that wasn't the last attack we have seen on Sevastopol as winter is coming near and with it Russias terror attempts on the civilian energy/heating infrastructure. Taking out missile launch platforms is very valuable to prevent/reduce this.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
- Thread starter Wednesday at Stoke
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Have you only just stumbled across Twitter? Why do you seem surprised to discover it’s full of terrible people with terrible opinions?
Because I rarely venture into the comments, but even knowing it's bad, it manages to surprise me every time because it's always worse than what you expect. Sadly I have to use it for work reasons.
They think they'll have the first F16s ready soon. Need the air defences cleared if they hope to use them.
Twitter comments are the seventh circle of hell. I deleted my Twitter account ages ago, so was only ever exposed to comments via Redcafe. I guess I have Musk to thank for improving my mental health by messing Twitter functionality up so badly that it's no longer possible to see comments from Tweets embedded on this website.
That's not a big factor now I think. They are able to do deep strikes using drones, cruise missiles (both air and land launched - Storm Shadow, Scalp, Neptune) already, they don't need the F-16 for this capability. But obviously to increase the success of any long range attack it makes a lot of sense to start with the enemies air defense.
The biggest new capability of the F-16 will be long-range air-to-air combat, which Ukraine can't perform right now due to a lack of fitting long-range AA-missiles for their current planes (only Russia has those which gives them an advantage in air-to-air combat).
The S-300/400 platforms don't appear to be any use in defending against Ukraines cruise missile capability, but they still are apparently prime target. So it feels like Ukraine does want to utilise their air force closer to Russian held territory. That could be with the F-16's in mind, or it could just be for the new drones they are producing. There appears to be a couple types we dont' know a lot about yet, plus the bayraktar's.
Yes. Without radar jamming aircraft alongside the NATO fighters, they'll absolutely need to be reducing the anti-air threat.
Are we sure about this? I have seen Russian claims, that the attack on Sevastopol was carried out by 10 Storm Shadows, 7 of them were intercepted. That does indeed sound reasonable for me and would show two things: Ukraine can launch an attack using five aircrafts together (as their Sukhois can only launch two Storm Shadows each) and that Russian air defence still is a factor. Just imagine the havoc in Sevastopol if all 10 had hit it.
For me that's a lot more believable than that Russia can't do anything about attacks on their currently most important military base
I just read some rumours, that two patrol ships were destroyed by Ukrainian marine drones today. Russia only has four ships of this class, if true it would be another blow to Russia's ability to control the Black Sea and to launch cruise missiles from there. But no reliable source yet for this.
Unfortunately, we can't take any Russian claims seriously, of course there will sometimes be truth and whilst that that claim may be plausible, they lie so much its just pointless listening to them at all. I think so far we've only seen evidence of one storm shadow being shot down and even then that's a maybe. I saw another Russian claim that S-200 were used to saturate defences, could be those were shot down if any, but we just don't know.
The attack this morning north of Sevastopol on the S-400 site according to Ukraine was done using Neptune's after drones had taken out the radar.
This should be the most heavily defended area of Crimea, so it does appear to me Russia is pretty impotent against these attacks. There was a comment on reddit suggesting the taking of those gas rigs the other day was a prelude to these attacks, taking out those radar towers may have made Crimean bases a lot more vunerable.
I think it's less to do with the air force to come and more to do with Storm Shadows as they are fired from aircraft. The more you want to hit deep with Storm Shadow the more you want AA down so the planes get closer.
F 16s will change things with long distance AA missiles and maybe American cruise missiles (none of them are confirmed). IMO F 16 will serve to deny the orcs air force.
Exactly. 70% shot down is roughly the percentage of the western anti-air systems. It's far more likely they want to show their anti-air systems are no worse than the western ones, which I seriously doubt. It wouldn't surprise me, if Kremlin and Putin also get those fake numbers, so that those responsible won't be punished. Who can really confirm except Ukrainian command whether 5 or 10 missiles arrived?
A little spit and rubbing and it's as good as new.
Yep, a bit of elbow grease & all will be well.
This doesn't work as an argument because there are claims for example that IRIS-T SLM has a "near 100% success rate" defending Kyiv. So 70% would be much worse.
I know, I talk about general numbers which were around 70-80% after each missiles wave in the past. Sometimes more, sometimes less. It's a not great, not terrible number. I'm sure those responsible fear to report bad numbers to the Kremlin.
The F-16 is very vulnerable to the Russian S-400 system. To avoid the S-400 threat, they’ll have to either have jamming aircraft with them capable of countering the S-400 or fly at low altitude. If at low altitude, they’re at a disadvantage vs Russian fighters and are now vulnerable to short range SAMs / AA.
I think the s 400 is a very different reality to what many people used to think. Crimea and Sevastopol are "protected" by a youtube AA system. The S400 only exists in the minds of youtubers and no more. In reality, everything goes through.
The S400 another propaganda unit. Like the T14 and the S whatever pretend to have stealth aircraft.
I guess it’s a good thing that I’m not getting my info from YouTube, then.
You said that the F 16 is "very vulnerable to the S 400". My point was to say that the "S 400" is an internet system. That is all. I'm sure you get your info from NATO Intelligence when you say " F 16 is "very vulnerable to the S 400"
Always found deception stuff fascinating.
What actually happened there? Wasn’t clear to me
I know what I wrote. I wrote it for a reason.
https://missilethreat.csis.org/defsys/s-400-triumf/
https://warontherocks.com/2016/01/how-chinas-new-russian-air-defense-system-could-change-asia/
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blo...l-not-mean-for-ukraines-fight-against-russia/
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/will-ukraine-get-f-16s/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...enses-jets-at-risk-but-can-still-help-ukraine