Patriot Plus F-16: A formula that will end up with aircraft of Russian Federation in the Ukrainian sky
In fact, a powerful aviation, which has more than a thousand front -line fighters and at least a hundred bombers, had serious, but mostly invisible shortcomings. These include lack of experience, lack of key ammunition and rigid command structure. It is these shortcomings that explains the fault actions of the Air Force in the first months of the wider war of Russia with Ukraine, which began in February 2022.
However, two years later, the Russian Air Force - also known under the Russian abbreviation of the CCS - delayed the reforms that they should be carried out many years ago. New Russian military-air forces are hardened in battles, well armed with new precision ammunition and more flexible than ever. And this is obvious on the 600-mile front of a wider war, when Russian fighters that throw powerful planning bombs systematically destroy Ukrainian positions.
The problems of Russian aviation were not obvious in the first few days of a wide war in Ukraine - but only because the shock from the first Russian attack forced the Ukrainian aircraft to be embarrassed. In those stormy first days, Russian fighters almost impunity of Ukraine's airspace, mainly dumping unmanaged bombs. But then, at the beginning of March, the CBOs of Ukraine were formed.
Armed with fresh weapons from the Union countries, they attacked the Russian aircraft, and knocked down dozens of them. After experiencing irreparable losses, the Russian Air Force curtained their operations. "The offs of the front line were expensive in March and stopped until April 2022," the Royal Institute of the Joint Forces in London explained in a study conducted in November 2022. The problem for VCS was triple.
Without high-precision ammunition, which Western Air Force-and the US Air Force, in particular, is used in almost every departure, the Russian Air Force usually had to direct their planes directly above their goals to have a chance to engage in something valuable. Not that the emergency purchase, say, planning bombs with satellite guidance would greatly help in the spring of 2022. Of the thousands of combat pilots in the Russian Air Force, only a few could do it - those who flew the best of all.
Su-34 fighters over Syria had no experience in handling high-precision ammunition. Moreover, Russian commanders strictly controlled their pilots, usually assigning them to bombing those coordinates where, according to the suspicions of commanders, Ukrainian goals could be found. Pilots were not allowed to deviate from pre -planned flight trajectories to find and attack mobile Ukrainian forces.
Sharp and exhausted, Russian Air Force missed most of the first year of the Widespread War in Ukraine more or less. The exception was the bombers of the Air Force, who often launched winged missiles in Ukrainian cities at a distance of thousands of miles. But the rest of the Air Force, in fact, was not idle. Instead, it transformed. And at the beginning of 2023 she returned again.
Instead of almost suicide missions at low altitudes, their more experienced pilots flew high and quickly, sending to the Ukrainian troops winged planar bombs (CA) with satellite guidance, some of which weighed up to 3300 pounds - at a distance of up to 25 miles. It is far enough to reduce, though not to eliminate, the danger of Ukraine's air defense. The cabin is the rough analogues of their own direct attack by the US Air Force.
They are simple, done manually and are probably not very accurate, but there is no need. The disadvantage of accuracy they compensate for pure explosive power. "These bombs are completely destroying any position," the Ukrainian soldier Yegor Sakhar wrote. The cabbage attacked the Ukrainian formations during the Ukrainian counter -offensive last summer, bleeding the crews that came before they came into direct contact with the Russian regiments.
Last month, the stream of hundreds of Cab destroyed Ukrainian defense in Avdiivka, an industrial city in eastern Ukraine, which accelerated the fall of the city. Now the bombers of the planners are striking in Ukrainian positions in Krynki, Colors, Berdychi and other front-line settlements. The Russian Air Force is not just relevant again. It is now indispensable for the Kremlin's military strategy. But, by the irony of fate, the revived Air Force contains the seeds of their own destruction.
Becoming indispensable, the air forces also became more loaded. Today, they make more than a hundred combat departments a day - almost as much as the same crazy first days of the Great War. But each departure exposes the pilots and aircraft of the influence of the best Ukrainian air defense means of Western production, including the American Patriot missiles, whose range reaches 90 miles. The more Russian aircraft is in the air, the more Russian aircraft can be shot.
During the 13 chaotic days, which ended on March 2, the Ukrainian Air Force, according to their statement, was knocked down by 14 Russian aircraft, including 11 out of one hundred and a hundred Su-34. The Russian aerospace industry can produce only a few dozen new combat aircraft a year. Better than ever, but also more loaded and unprotected, Russian air forces are a valuable military resource. It is also a non -renewable resource. And it is steadily exhausted.