I was kinda hoping this news wouldn't get out until after the Russian Air Force suffered a sudden and surprising day of absolutely devastating losses.
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I think it will be a slow rollout. Justin Bronk did a good interview that helps to set expectations. Times Radio Interview
The basic summary is that the introduction of F-16 is helpful, but not game changing.
They are most probably already used to shoot down rockets and gliding bombs. They won't be pulled anywhere near the border until every enemy's anti-air facility in the vicinity is thoroughly destroyed.
Yep. They have crummy range without refueling. Nobody's talking about gripens anymore for some reason, but those have the advantage they could hide on the ground near the front.
The sappers are the one non-incompetent part of the Russian army. Without airpower it's a WWI-style deadlock and no breakthroughs are possible.
News of their arrival will only force Russia to up its AA network.
Makes sense to announce this and spend a few days hunting down some more radars and s300 systems before putting these in the sky.
Not to mention F16 will be an absolute beast in a 'wild weasle' roll
It'll be interesting to see how the AFU innovates the use of these.
Will they get stuck inserting these as direct replacements for its aging and dwindling fighter fleet, or developing new tactical and strategic uses for its capabilities.
my first guess is they'll do some SEAD/DEAD with all these new capabilities HARM on properly integrated fighter jet can provide
Moar!
Amazing news! Looking forward to reading about the use of these over the coming months.
Fuck war, but man fighter jets are sexy hardware.
Stupid, sexy war
In all seriousness: I belive that's why wargaming was invented. Not for military education, but because actual war is so damn expensive and dangerous which kinda ruins the fun (Note: Obviously it is not fun. /s if needed.)
I think imperialism is evil and all governing should be consensual (with exceptions for people knowingly causing harm to others through maliciousness or negligence). But I still love me some paradox games and usually play an expansionist empire.
To be fair, free camping trips with the homies, doing "games of skill" against other groups of campers, getting to use high tech machinery for free, and getting paid for it while you're at it? It does sound like a ton of fun minus the whole dying/killing part. 😂
This is on my dream bucket list for one day: https://migflug.com/flights-prices/two-jets-aerial-battle-riga/
They used to offer a mig flight to the "edge of space" where you got to use the afterburners to go up to it's max altitude 🤤🤤🤤 It was through Russia though, so I guess that's not happening again for a while.