AFAIK Russia didn't get air supremacy in Ukraine, not easily at least, which is strange given all S-300 and S-400 and now S-500 Russia has.
The S-400 is an improved version of the S-300, they upgraded all the parts (radar, missile, launcher) but it is the same architecture (which is basically the same as the US Patriot but in most respects better)
The S-500 has insane range, can hit low earth orbit satellites and more relevant it can hit this kind of aircraft hundreds of miles away
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_E-3_Sentry
An aircraft like that can light up the battlefield with radar from far away and let stealth aircraft operate close to the enemy without switching their own radar.
Anyhow, Russians don't believe in "air superiority" (control the airspace with their own plane) but instead they have anti-aircraft missiles to defend the anti-aircraft missiles that defend their anti-aircraft missiles. They might not control the battlespace completely but it will be a dangerous place to fly.
Initially the UH-1 of Vietnam fame was a single engine helicopter because the expected service life was deemed to be too short to justify the expenses of a second one. Stuff that gets used gets damaged, and in war and combat destroyed. Par of the course.
To get air supremacy, you need to have planes flying in the enemy's sky, but to do so you need to destroy the enemy's own air defence, with what is called a SEAD campaign (which stands for “Supression of Ennemy Air Defense”) and from what is happening in Ukraine it's pretty clear that the VKS doesn't know how to do SEAD (pretty much like the US in the Vietnam war, where they've learned the hard way).
Based on what information exactly?
It's a war, any mainstream information is going to be 100% lies and propaganda.
Literally all of them were like “Wait, why do Ukraine still have planes and Russian planes don't fly over Ukraine-controlled land? Are you telling me they can't do SEAD? Holly cow!”, all of them.
This is Russia we're talking about, they could turn Ukraine and their shitty US sponsored Nazi army into a pile of ashes in a millisecond if that was their goal.
I've always found the US war propaganda really cringe, but the Russian one don't even try to make a coherent story. Zero fuck given.
It's a good read about how Ukrainian pilots worked to foil Russian anti-aircraft measures.
Many things in the military are rock-paper-scissors considerations:
- SAMs beat planes.
- Planes beat ground forces.
- Ground forces beat SAMs.
Within the ground forces themselves:
- Infantry beats tanks.
- Tanks beat artillery.
- Artillery beats infantry.
Examples of this kind abound.
Hence the importance of combined arms operations. Sending a column of tanks on its own is just a case of scissors...scissors...scissors. Pre-operational training is also essential. It's too late, in contact, for infantry to figure out how to fight alongside tanks.
Lots of armies seem to discover this the hard way in a war, adapt their tactics accordingly, only to forget it in time for the next war. Incidentally, this also explains the western Battlegroup concept. It's the smallest integrated unit with a sensible mix of different arms, usually structured around an infantry or armour battalion depending on the circumstances.
That makes also an interesting case study for Taiwan. If, or rather when, Taiwan can deny its air space a Chinese invasion is basically of the table. The Battle of Britain showed that much. And Ukraine showed that current AA, deployed with proper doctrine and part of a well defined and integrated strategy, can deny air space to modern air forces. Personally, I'm surprised how well drones work. All in all Taiwan seems to have decent chance in case China tries something stupid. Being an island definitely helps as well.
The Battle of Britain showed, so, that Germany called of the invasion once it was clear that air supremacy was not going to be achieved. Which meant that the Royal Navy wouldn't be neutralized to the point of allowing enough of the invasion force to actually cross the channel. The same holds, to an extend, true for China and Taiwan. Without air supremacy China cannot be sure to get enough ground forces across the straight to establish a sustainable beach head. They fail to do that and they lost.
Military is not about rock paper scissors. This meme needs to die.
SAM beats planes is probably the most ridiculous one on this list, since most SAM destroyed at war since the 50s where in fact destroyed by airstrikes.
SAM destroys planes and planes destroy SAM, that's it.
Almost any weapons is able to destroy anything in a favorable engagement. For instance, during this war, we've even seen footage of
- at least three Russian tanks destroyed by IFV or APC[1]
- an helicopter destroyed by a anti-tank missile[2]
In the end, it all depends on how one force engage with another one, and different forces have different strength and weaknesses when it comes to engagement.
- Infantry is really good at concealing, and is highly mobile in urban situation. But they have little mobility on their own in a wide battlefield, have low range (especially against enemy infantry), and have limited firepower (suppression fire isn't something infantry can do effectively on a battlefield).
- Artillery has excellent range, lot of firepower but will be defeated (and often even captured) by pretty much anything that can come close enough.
- Tanks are heavily armored, have decent range and a lot of firepower, but they are kind of hard to hide…
[1]: There's two here, https://nitter.net/UAWeapons/status/1512060297607065602#m and one here: https://nitter.net/IAPonomarenko/status/1505461949999501312#... [2]: https://nitter.net/kemal_115/status/1511292835735261192#m