No, they wouldn't be. Shit, the US alone could bomb any non-nuclear country they wanted into destruction by now. The fact that Ukraine still has a functioning airforce shows how laughably incompetent Russia is in the air (relatively speaking).
Armchair General's DonbAss Derailed Discussion Thread (Topics Include History, Traps, and the Ongoing Slavic Civil War plus much much more)
- Thread starter ParadiseLost
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sillygoose
Well-known member
Is this what an Ameri-boo is?
bintananth
behind a desk
The US also has an enormous number of military aircraft compared to everyone else:
Largest Air Forces in the World 2023
worldpopulationreview.com
Russia is a distant 2nd.
The US has more 5th generation fighters than most countries have planes. Depending on how many of Russia's aircraft are in flyable condition, we might have more 5th gen fighters then then have fighters in total.
It's not being an ameriboo to claim that US air power is unrivaled. The only way to be a something-boo is to deny that.
sillygoose
Well-known member
Ok, but that doesn't mean this:
Or this:
Especially given this:
The failure to destroy Serbian air defenses despite a massive effort to do so by the best air force in the world supported by NATO.
Sure, but that wasn't what was claimed. See above.
That's not really a great example. Not being able to entirely wipe out air defenses 30 years ago (in part due to, as the article says, technical problems and restrictive ROE) but still being able to maintain air superiority in spite of that doesn't suggest that decades later, an all out "bomb these people back to the stone age" campaign would also struggle.
Nor does it suggest Russia is doing comparably well either. The US had trouble taking out SAM sites in 1995, yes. That doesn't mean that therefore Russia's inability to shut down the Ukrainian air force after a month of open warfare isn't pathetic.
SEAD ≠ DEAD. Destruction of Enemy Air Defense is related but still different then Suppression of Enemy Air Defense. The latters primary goal is to nullify enemy air defenses, not destroy them as a DEAD mission would entail... but if that is the result hooray.
Chiron
Well-known member
ISIS took 4 and a half years to drive into the desert and had no more than MANPADS and AAA.
Floridaman
Well-known member
To be fair given isis was also the moderate rebels we were supporting to topple Assad were we really trying?
AnimalNoodles
Well-known member
NATO bombed Serbia for over 70 days and still couldn't suppress its air defenses.
Yes, because the goal of the operation was "minimize US casualties and have next to no ground forces in play, because the public won't tolerate it", not "beat ISIS as fast as possible".
And a short campaign from 30 years ago proves.....what exactly?
bintananth
behind a desk
If the US couldn't suppress Serbian air defenses back then the Russians aren't being dumb now by being cautious when they have much less to work with in terms of an ariel advantage.
The Serbians managed to track and shoot down an F-117 - which was practically invisible to then-modern radar and an aerodynamic abomination - using an obsolesent SAM system.
Heck, the Swedes were able track and target SR-71s. They even managed to get a missile lock once.
sillygoose
Well-known member
But they didn't nullify them either. The operated for the entire course of the conflict, which forced NATO to dedicate a continuous and disproportionate share of their operations to SEAD and never really managed to nullify them. Against a much larger and more savvy enemy NATO capabilities remain in doubt. Things have probably only gotten worse since then too considering how much effort the US has put into COIN at the expense of peer level opponents. I'm sure there is some important capabilities built up since since in the general cyberwarfare capabilities that would help in an all out war, but in a restrained conflict the US/NATO more likely than not have pretty severe deficiencies resulting from spending distortions from the GWOT (or in the case of the Germans just total atrophy), much like the severe lack of air defense units in the military in general.
Fighting Russia or China is not going to be like fighting Iraq. Clearly not even fighting Serbia was like fighting Iraq.
sillygoose
Well-known member
Air superiority against Serbia, but not air dominance. You think things are any better after 20 years of the GWOT and distorted spending? I mean the US effectively eliminated its air defense within division in the army due to lack of need and is now finding that units like the Patriot missile batteries aren't all their cracked up to be against the Russians in Ukraine.
You really think the US could simply dominate a country like Russia which has focused on ground based air defenses and having to fight the US? If they struggled to dominate Serbia after spending 20 years fighting terrorists the US doesn't really have a lot of savvy on fighting a major opponent. See all the silly American generals claiming that because Ukraine didn't quit after 3 days that means somehow Russia failed.
For starters the Russians aren't claiming to have an all-dominating air force like you are saying the US has.
What the Russians have done is shut down the Ukrainian air force. What's left is surviving with massive NATO intelligence support and by hiding and barely conducting sorties. They've been reduced to drones for the most part and now fuel shortages might well take out what remains of the UkAF. Not bad for a sanctioned leftover rump of a former superpower.
They did largely nullify them though? It was almost an eighty day air campaign with over 500 sorties a day on average (if Wikipedia is to be trusted) and only two aircraft (including that hilarious shootdown of the F-117) were shot down. That's what suppression does. It doesn't mean the Air Campaign was successful (though it did result in the Kumanovo Agreement and eventual Kosovo Independence), but it does mean that the Air Defenses were suppressed insofar that they didn't impact NATO Air Forces with any significant losses.
By comparison the Russians have already lost over forty five aircraft, planes and helicopters, destroyed. Subtract the transport helicopters and those destroyed on the ground and its still thirty birds that went down including sixteen (non-transport) airplanes.
And Russia stated they had established total air superiority by Day Five.
Russia Claims ‘Total Air Superiority’ Over Ukraine as Talks Loom - The Moscow Times
Russia's Defense Ministry said Monday it has established “total air superiority” over Ukraine on the fifth day of President Vladimir Putin's deadly invasion of the neighboring country. The latest briefing claiming Russia’s military gains came as Russian and Ukrainian delegates were due to...
www.themoscowtimes.com
Considering the disparate odds in the air, the fact that Ukraine still has an Air Force operating after a month is surprising to most people. They had around ninety operational combat jets at the beginning of the invasion but that includes trainers and presumably hangar queens as well.
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Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
They also took out one F-117, a secret aircraft that was supposed to be impossible to take down.
Well, apparently the Serbs didn't know that and shot it down anyway.
What is the current US 5th gen airforce comprised of?
Oh, yeah, the F-35, aka a massive boondoggle that ended up being massively late and massively over budget.
Sorry, but I am not all that enthusiastic about it, and there is the minor fact that it was never really tested in actual combat, and that the Russians have invested tons of money into more advanced air defense systems and radars.
Frankly I think that the F-35 would prove to be a massively buggy and ineffective money sync.
I mean, obviously Erdogan thinks the S-400 was a better purchase than the F-35/JSF, maybe the sultan knows something you do not?
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sillygoose
Well-known member
Sure, but as the article I linked to mentioned the air defenses were never nullified and a major chunk of those sorties were for SEAD rather than air support missions as they had intended. So despite the combination of the greatest air forces in the world they couldn't actually nullify Serbia's air defense system despite their best efforts to do so.
The claims about Russian losses come from Serbia or some dubious twitter threads using Ukrainian photos that we don't know are actually accurate. What is the Russian government claiming?
Edit:And Russia stated they had established total air superiority by Day Five.
Russia Claims ‘Total Air Superiority’ Over Ukraine as Talks Loom - The Moscow Times
Russia's Defense Ministry said Monday it has established “total air superiority” over Ukraine on the fifth day of President Vladimir Putin's deadly invasion of the neighboring country. The latest briefing claiming Russia’s military gains came as Russian and Ukrainian delegates were due to...
There's your problem, you're quoting an 'independent Russian source' that is most likely an anti-Kremlin publication.
TASS only says air superiority:
Russian aviation gains air superiority over entire Ukraine — Defense Ministry
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov underscored that "since the beginning of the operation, Russian Armed Forces hit 1,114 objects of Ukrainian military infrastructure
tass.com
Which would be entirely accurate. The UkAF is barely able to operate if at all with actual manned aircraft, while drones are their main form of action at this point.
Are they though other than drones? Or it is another 'Ghost of Kiev' scenario?
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Yes, particularly given a large portion of that spending has been on the air force and intelligence gathering systems, the latter of which would be extremely helpful at locating air defense installations.
What? Ukraine doesn't have patriot missiles.
Given the observed performance of the Russian military, yes.
Sebia was before the war on terror, not after.
As far as I known, most defense analysts have been shocked at the underperformance of russuan forces, including Russian ones. Remember that big, angry and disappointed speech Putin gave last week? That was not the speech of a man confident that everything was going according to plan.
It's ridiculous that the Ukrainian air force is even still functional at all after a month of fighting.
If older, obsolete radar was an easy counter to stealth aircraft, then everyone would have just built more of those systems and no one would have bothered investing in stealth tech.
That's obviously not the case.
It's not exactly unheard of for defense systems to end up costing more money and taking more time to deploy than expected. Nor is it an exclusively western issue, just look at the development history of the T-14, or more notably the SU-57.
It's seen actual combat, which is more than can be said for the 57 and most of Russia's new equipment. Which they've certainly spent a lot of money on, but the evidence available suggests that Russia isn't getting thier money's worth out of that spending (IE, brand new T-90s getting owned by javelin missiles).
Maybe thier air defense systems will defy the trend seen in every single other bit of Russia military hardware, but I wouldn't bet on it.
