335

Shooting Down 11 Jets In 11 Days, Ukraine Nudges The Russian Air Force Closer To Organizational Death-Spiral (www.forbes.com)

submitted 10 months ago by machinin@lemmy.world to c/ukraine@sopuli.xyz

32 comments fedilink hide all child comments

An overview of the recent losses by the Russian air force and overall situation for their readiness. Kind of a follow-up on some questions I asked on other posts here.

all 33 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] Assman@sh.itjust.works 67 points 10 months ago

Here's to 11 more

[-] jas0n@lemmy.world 27 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

There's actually already 2 or 3 more su34s

[-] NegativeLookBehind@lemmy.world 34 points 10 months ago

Good work. Keep it up.

[-] muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world 22 points 10 months ago

These new plane loss rates indicates to me the ukraine has some new weapon. I suspect they may finally be fielding some f16s.

[-] NoiseColor@startrek.website 48 points 10 months ago

Its more likely it's the patriot or updated s200.

[-] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 31 points 10 months ago

It could be a large rock. It works for crazy people on freeway overpasses and it can't be fooled by chaff or flares. A rock is a rock and it will do rock things. Like nothing. You wouldn't want nothing to happen to your flying jet do you?

[-] Unforeseen@sh.itjust.works 12 points 10 months ago

Belta lowdah knows the way. Send the rock sa sa, que no?

[-] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

I almost hope putin goes out with a rock. It could be a small one right to the head. It could be a 400lb one anywhere on the body really. Sure if the US could fucking donate an F16 with a rock delivery bay door, that would be great 😃. But otherwise, hey if rocks are available, rocks are the weapon.

[-] PrettyFlyForAFatGuy@lemmy.ml 11 points 10 months ago

had to scroll up to make sure i wasnt on NCD

[-] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

A rock can help 👍.

[-] HootinNHollerin@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago

Can I have some of what you’re on?

[-] kautau@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago

Y’all want some of this rock?

[-] Klear@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

Just watch out for paper.

[-] muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

U saw har far behind the lines the latest big fuck off command plane thing was. Seems awfully long distance to be a missile.

[-] Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works 23 points 10 months ago

S-200 can do that distance though. Has a range out to 150 miles. They're gigantic.

[+] NoiseColor@startrek.website -11 points 10 months ago

Yes, I'm just surprised they still have those. They are really in a bad shape right now and these few downed airplanes don't mean much.

[-] machinin@lemmy.world 26 points 10 months ago

these few downed airplanes don't mean much

The article is talking about a possible death spiral of the Russian air force. I think that means something.

[+] NoiseColor@startrek.website -16 points 10 months ago

A lot of hopium. Same stuff we heard since the start of the war. First it was food, then equipment, then shells, troops, missiles,... And looking at the the Russian army today it's fed, well equipped, as many shells as they need, new drones, missiles in production, planes in production. Not to mention new motivation as they see the west faltering in their resolve to help Ukraine. Russia is in war economy, unfortunately it's not running out of anything anytime soon. They are not that stupid and will adapt if the losses become unmanageable.

[-] machinin@lemmy.world 17 points 10 months ago

I guess if you just ignore the fact that Ukraine has downed 11 (+?) planes in the past 11 days, maybe you could call that sentiment hopium.

I do agree, things aren't looking great with the US (not the whole West, by the way) delaying aid. But what was supposedly the second greatest military in the world is stuck in a quagmire with a neighboring country a fraction of its size. They are making only minor progress at enormous cost.

It's a waiting game. Neither of us have the facts about what is actually happening with the Russian military or economy. Saying that, I don't think you can dismiss the recent losses by Russia as insignificant.

[-] NoiseColor@startrek.website -4 points 10 months ago

I'm not ignoring these legit military successes, I'm saying that we can't expect them to continue until Russia is out of planes.

The fact that Ukraine has stood up to Russia for so long means nothing if they lose in the end. And right now Ukraine is losing. It's losing lives and land and its only losing because we in the west didnt and still don't fulfill our promises and our obligations and our leaders pussy foot around what weapons to send.

[-] ghostdoggtv@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

The US only stopped sending as much aid because of Russian assets in Congress. Lame way of trying to make it seem like the Budapest accords weren't unilaterally violated by one of the signatories.

[-] crispy_kilt@feddit.de 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

And looking at the the Russian army today it’s fed, well equipped,

Lol, no, it is not

Too many deserters showing up severely malnourished for that to be the case

Too many documented cases of unusable or plain fake equipment, like plastic helmets, or artillery rounds missing propellant, rusted rifles, etc

[-] TheOSINTguy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago

Missle tech has come really far. for example, thaad has a flight ceiling of 93 miles, and the tomahawk land attack missle has a range of 1550 miles.

[-] dutchkimble@lemy.lol 10 points 10 months ago

Can someone ELI5 why Russia isn't able to send 10 jets for every 1 that Ukraine has? (I mean it's good they haven't, it's just that we're led to believe countries like the US, Russia and China have ginormous armed forces and when it's actually come down to it it's been a 2 year long war instead of what was supposedly going to be an immediate annihilation with overwhelming forces flattening out ukraine)

[-] rammer@sopuli.xyz 26 points 10 months ago

Because modern air war has little if anything to do with dogfighting (planes fighting planes with guns). It is all about using missiles to hit targets. Both on the ground and in the air. And those missiles can also be fired from the ground. SAMs (surface-to-air-missile) are used to hit planes, drones, other missiles. Also MANPADs (portable shoulder fired missiles) pose a threat to aviation.

In an air superiority battle overwhelming air power is used to take out the SAM batteries. This is difficult and costly. Something neither Russia nor Ukraine are currently able to do. So both are using jets in a minimal capacity.

Recently Russia has ramped up the usage of jets to hit entrenched targets on the front line. Which has predictably resulted greater losses. And relatively meager gains.

[-] wer2@lemm.ee 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Russia has a limited supply of working jets, and limited supply of good pilots. Which they need elsewhere across their very large country and in other places (Syria).

In addition, Russia pulled back its air operations not because of Ukraine jets, but because of ground based air defense (missile that shoot down planes). Trading pilot/plane for pilot/plane is good for Russia, but trading a pilot/plane for a missile is a bad trade for anyone.