Russia’s huge Air Force is still mostly intact, but it hasn’t been building the jets it needs to win on the ground in Ukraine
by vincevega87
Russia’s huge Air Force is still mostly intact, but it hasn’t been building the jets it needs to win on the ground in Ukraine
by vincevega87
10 comments
Also if the jets are afraid to fly over enemy territory, they’re severely limited in their ground-attack role.
In tact but can they fly and have the parts and people to repair and maintain them?
They can always use the air force for internal resistance suppression /s
I reject the premise of this article. We all saw the internal grifting that rotted out Russia’s vaunted tank armada. Why would anyone believe the jet fleets are in any better condition? The illusion of being “intact” is not the same as actually being functional.
Not to mention Russia is notoriously bad at human resources and seems unlikely they have enough adequately trained pilots. Yet again the wise starting point is to assume Russia is lying and then verify they’re lying.
They have aircraft, but they’re either set up for Air-to-Air interception missions. Or fairly simple Close-Air-Support. What’s need for the fighting in Ukraine is sophisticated EW capabilities.
Russia’s Air Force is a Potemkin Village…
Having planes and having pilots for them are 2 different things
The kind of aid that that Ukraine has been lacking the most is for western companies to put a final and fatal stranglehold on western components from not only Russia but also any potential trade nation partner. Primarily, this is obviously semiconductors but we’ve also heard about other hardware like engine parts and optics.
I think it says it all about the Russian airforce. On paper you can have this number but how many are actually operationally available. By comparison, the US has the bone yard of air craft which aren’t included in usaf numbers. If they’re terrified of flying over Ukraine territory with its limited air defence capabilities, imagine how it would stand up against the Polish or German or wider NATO air defenders if they ever decided to head West. The Russian air force is a fantasy, and they’re pretty aircraft are duff
The way they fly that single mig-31 you’d think they only have one pilot that can fly them left.