The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare | Hacker News Reader

The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

newyorker.com

127 pointstekdude114 comments

> Several news sources have reported that a single TB2 drone can be purchased for a million dollars, but Bayraktar, while not giving a precise figure, told me that it costs more. In any event, single-unit figures are misleading; TB2s are sold as a “platform,” along with portable command stations and communications equipment. In 2019, Ukraine bought a fleet of at least six TB2s for a reported sixty-nine million dollars; a similar fleet of Reaper drones costs about six times that.

It seems to me there is still a lot of opportunity in the low end with even smaller and cheaper UAVs with a few kilograms of payload. There have already been numerous instances of COTS UAVs being jerry-rigged to drop mortar shells, and it seems to work pretty well in a lot of scenarios. Particularly for smaller governments dealing with relatively unsophisticated insurgencies.

You should take a look at the switchblade. The switchblade 300 model has the equivalent of a 40mm grenade as a warhead, 2.7kg weight, endurance of 10 minutes and a range of around 10km all puts it well in that lower end range. Couldn't find any pricing data, but I imagine more COTS approaches could come out pretty cheap.

I'm actually surprised we've got man-portable loitering munitions like the switchblade in use before the widespread adoption of guided mortar rounds. I'd have to imagine it's more cost effective (in terms of kilograms of high explosive on target per dollar) to make some GPS-guided or laser-guided mortars, and either use ground troops or a small UAV to provide targeting data.

> I'd have to imagine it's more cost effective (in terms of kilograms of high explosive on target per dollar) to make some GPS-guided or laser-guided mortars

The problem is scale. No one in the private sector makes or needs mortar rounds, so the DoD doesn't benefit from buying COTS components for them. Whereas you can pretty much just strap a grenade to a quadcopter with a few minor tweaks and you're in business. Which is more or less exactly what the Ukrainians have been doing with their surplus Soviet anti-tank grenades.

I don't even see how the 'switchblade' is useful for anything but special operations strikes on 'key assets' - which is what it was designed for.

It doesn't matter if it's 'price effective per kg' - it can't disable a tank, and might not disable a soft target without a direct it.

The 900 series is the one that might be quite useful.

All of that said, we'll have to see how countermeasures work it may be that they develop rapidly to neutralize drones ...

... and then a rational actor like China takes the 'saturation approach' and launches 100's of them at a single battalion etc..

Oh I dunno, Russian generals in particular may be concerned about the lowly 300 model.

The XM395 120mm GPS mortar guidance kit is about $10k per round and was introduced a short time before the switchblade. Switchblades are about $7k and are fairly low yield relatively speaking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM395_Precision_Guided_Mortar_...

Perhaps it's 10km range, more precise and visual targeting on moving vehicles vs close range and/or fixed position targeting. There is a switchblade 600 with even more range and more payload which can be used anti-armor.

Also, mortars and other artillery are subject to a counter-battery fire.

I've seen a claim that Switchblade 300 costs less than USD 7k. No idea how accurate this is tho.

This video says $6k as well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PcWS1marOA

The most interesting part is that it flies extremely fast so you'll never see it coming. Particularly how it bursts through a windshield before exploding.

Wouldn't a COTS drone be relatively easy to jam or have early warning by detecting its control/video links?

I get why Russia is having trouble adapting (logistics, sanctions, brain drain, paper tiger military) but outside of the Russia-Ukraine war, how effective would a COTS drone really be in a different state-vs-state direct conflict?

You can bet that countermeasures are already in place or are being developed now. Jamming of commercial drones is doable. However, it is ridiculously hard to jam software controlled radio equipment. Especially military grade hardware. SpaceX demonstrated this recently when they got past Russia's top of the line hardware. The energy requirements balloon to ridiculous levels when you are talking about broad spectrum jammers doing area denial. In addition, such jammers make excellent targets since you know exactly where they are. If drones could be targeted it makes jamming a lot easier, but still difficult.

One thing we can expect is home on signal anti-aircraft batteries and anti-loitering munitions that seek other loitering munitions. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of the last big wars where such COTS drone tactics are successful.

I’m not sure how effective signal jamming would be against COTS quadcopters. It’s relatively easy to provide on-loss-of-signal instructions to the navigation microcontroller. Perhaps it could be a return to set location command or a home in on signal jammer and explode command.

>or a home in on signal jammer and explode command.

Congratulations, you just invented the anti-radiation missile.

The drone space seems to be speed running decades of SAM and combat aviation tech.

You're saying all we need to defeat these drones is lure them into a jammer and destroy them all at once with conventional air burst munitions? If you want to be fancy use a helicopter to make your air defence solution mobile.

Some kind of middle ground platform with the largest commercial multicopters as a cost effective base but with some jamming resistant communications would be the sweet spot. Perhaps 5kg payload and a few km range and some autonomy such as being given permission to autonomously drop munitions on specific target signatures in specific areas.

If it can be entirely radio silent within the last mile radius (records video for later transmission, finds targets and attacks without intervention) then jamming would be extremely difficult.

>Wouldn't a COTS drone be relatively easy to jam

Have you heared Link 1?

The ukrainians are repurposing small civil drones and old soviet shells to attack russian targets on and behind the lines.

Aerorozvidka:

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-cheap-grenades-expensive-tan...

That's true. Everyone in Ukraine now know the name "Bayraktar" and videos from the drone's camera showing destroying russian vehicles in action has been a huge morale boost for people. I think decent-quality video recording is one of the most underapreciated features of TB2. Here is a strike on the invaders' helicopter just yesterday recorded with IR camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Juxv8L3gkKo

I wish more people would talk about the Switchblade loitering munitions (kamikaze) drones.

We've already had western made drones on the battlefield for decades, this is nothing new, just much cheaper than what the west makes while doing the same job equally good.

But the man portable kamikaze drones are the real game changer.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G9xLyNfPzQ

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv8Flu533xE

Artillery with spotters accomplished the same task.

Except you can't survey an area with a an artillery warhead.

Sure, you can use your spotters to scout ahead, but why put them in danger of an ambush and have them get killed by a sniper or hidden machinegun, when you can survey that area from a safe distance, and take out the sniper/machine gun if you see one?

This is not meant to replace artillery battalions and scouts, but to complement them.

Cheaper to use a drone for spotting instead of a FIST unit. That's what's working for the UA.

Kamikaze drones have a role for the smaller units, but at the battalion level, it's better to use a surveillance drone to coordinate fires from mortars, MLRS and artillery. The rounds fired from these systems typically have longer range than a drone, a higher rate of fire, and larger warheads.

In fact it seems to me that overall drones as artillery spotters have been much more impactful than direct fire drones in this war.

Yes, except for the strategic things like hitting AA, ships etc..

Artillery is the king of battle. I've seen numerous SAM/AA gear destroyed in Ukraine by artillery using drones for spotting.

I think these are pretty complementary. Switchblade 300 is a 10km range Javelin (same warhead in fact) with integrated surveillance capability that can go beyond range of sight. It is not there to replace mortars, artillery and MRLS, which are area weapons.

switchblade 600 has the Javelin-like warhead, switchblade 300 has something equivalent to a 40mm grenade for a warhead

The 300 is the low collateral assassination drone when you can't use sword bombs.

The switchblade 300 has the same warhead as a javelin? Got a source for that?

It's the 600 with the tank buster.

Artillery has been used by Ukraine, and by a lesser extent by Russia, extremely effectively as a precision weapon against all kind of targets, including MBTs.

You can survey with a drone. Merging the observation with the munition is what makes it a loitering munition, but drones for observation/targeting/correction + traditional corrected or guided artillery is very similar (especially guided shells like Excalibur etc which are also themselves similar to loitering munitions just that they loiter very briefly…)

Same task, totally different logistics.

You can put the spotter and the artillery in your backpack? The task is only one part of the equation.

I’ve heard varying numbers about the range of the artillery. Somewhere between 15 and 45 miles. Whatever the range, hundreds of drones covering the country could allow for extreme precision.

See also, this popular Ukrainian song about the Turkish Bayraktar drone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXVu_DeB4wo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayraktar_(song)

This drones are almost useless against modern army with good anti air defense.

Here is Indian article with some technical details. https://www.defenceview.in/why-did-the-turkish-tb2-uav-sudde...

This seems superficially reasonable, but it looks like the TB2 Bayraktar was used to bomb the fuel depot in Bryansk less than two weeks ago and that's 150km into Russia. They seemed to have used the TB2 the other day on Snake Island. As of a week ago there had been 6 internationally confirmed incidents where a Tb2 was shot down. They were known to have had at least 20 when the war started and have received more sense. So it doesn't seem like they've disappeared at all. So one can only assume that either Russia's air defense isn't as good as everyone thought, they aren't using it effectively, or the drone is harder to shoot down as operated than people thought.

> So one can only assume that either Russia's air defense isn't as good as everyone thought, they aren't using it effectively, or the drone is harder to shoot down as operated than people thought.

All of the above I bet.

That's what seems to be the case, but I don't know enough to really make sense of it.

> So one can only assume that either Russia's air defense isn't as good as everyone thought

I think a big risk here is thinking that only Russia is less competent than advertised. My guess is that 90% of professional militaries (at least those without a LOT of active recent combat) are Potemkin villages wholly incapable of operating as advertised.

Against any of those militaries, things which really should not work, frequently will work fine.

It's a very solvable problem though. At least for countries other than Russia, which might not be technically nimble enough to adapt mid-conflict and under a strong sanctions regime. S-300s/S-400s/Buks and the somewhat rarer western equivalents like the Patriot system just aren't designed to target something flying that slow with that small of a radar cross section. That doesn't mean the drones aren't reasonably easy to detect and target, just that the targeting systems need to be fine-tuned a little.

I doubt NATO would have this problem, not only because Turkey is part of NATO but because US tactics would probably be more effective against similar drones. We rely on fighters to establish air superiority more than SAMs, while the Russians do the opposite. Worst case scenario, F-15s/16s/22s/35s can use cannons and pilots are more adaptable than radar systems. I also suspect that the F-35's sensors at least are far superior to whatever the Russians are relying on.

I am also somewhat suspicious of the reports we have heard about them striking deep within Russian territory. Not because I doubt their veracity, but because I am certain we are not getting all of the relevant information. I wouldn't be surprised to find out if there was some supplementary SEAD (suppression of enemy air defense) going on that Ukraine and its western allies are remaining tight lipped about. It wouldn't shock me to find out that NATO has some clever trick for blinding Russian SAM radar in a way that the Russians haven't figured out yet. The Russians would never ever admit the existence of such a capability publicly because it would totally destroy demand for their military exports, and NATO wouldn't want to tip their hand in anyway that would give the Russians an opportunity to adapt.

The problem is that I think it is very hard for a modern fighter jet to engage a slow and low drone with a cannon. Probably it is easier with missles, but not very cost effective.

Probably anti-drone drones or some sort of CIWS is going more effective.

I mentioned cannons as the absolute worst case option in case US air-to-air missiles suffer from the same issues as Russian SAMs appear to, and from the perspective of extant US capabilities that could be adapted and rapidly fielded for immediate use. My ultimate point being that we're just way better positioned to handle these drones right now and into the near future than the Russians are or will be.

> We rely on fighters to establish air superiority more than SAMs, while the Russians do the opposite. Worst case scenario, F-15s/16s/22s/35s can use cannons and pilots are more adaptable than radar systems. I also suspect that the F-35's sensors at least are far superior to whatever the Russians are relying on.

Or just, ya know, shoot the damn thing.

The specs are well within what you can expect to hit with with an "old enough they give them out like candy" AA gun.

They really aren't. The TB2 can loiter at 18,000 ft, or about 5.5km. 20mm guns max effective range is about 1,500m. 40mm are better, but still max out at about 7,000m. You're not going to be able to hit it. That assumes you can even see it, which you probably can't.

The problem with using AA against drones is that saturating an area with very cheap drones is a great way to depleting the AA resources, as the Armenians unfortunately found out.

A Patriot missile - usually priced at about $3m (£2.5m) - was used to shoot down a small quadcopter drone, according to a US general. The strike was made by a US ally, Gen David Perkins told a military symposium. "That quadcopter that cost 200 bucks from Amazon.com did not stand a chance against a Patriot," he said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39277940 (2017)

Assuming 10,000 patriot missiles have been manufactured[1], it would cost only $2 million in quadcopters[2] to deplete the entire missile supply? What a bargain!

1. apologies for lacking a better source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Patriot

2. i.e. 2/3rds the cost of a single missile

Not to mention the possibility of operating swarms of drones to overwhelm air defenses. If an attacker can launch one drone for $200, it isn't much harder for them to launch fifty for $10,000 -- and it's a lot harder (and more expensive) to defend against.

There are systems in the west that can counter drones much more economically. Heres Rheinmetals Oerlikon Skynex for instance ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DXpPmpmcak Long range missiles, Short range missiles, Lasers and electronic warfare modules in combination for static defence. I would assume that the U.S also has similar concepts.

From the article:

>"Military analysts had previously assumed that slow, low-flying drones would be of little use in conventional combat, but the TB2 can take out the anti-aircraft systems that are designed to destroy it."

The article describes how they’ve fared far better than expected against good air defense. For example flying an unmanned crop duster in, drawing missile fire, taking out missile battery.

That's funny because there is countless footage of TB2 blowing up the very systems that are meant to defeat them so easily. What's the obsession in India with Ukrainian ops? Is it just a government desperately needing to justify it's wholly Russian-built army?

From what I can see on twitter, there is a deep-rooted turkophobia in India. Add to that Pakistan's interest in the Bayraktar drones, you have a copium induced hatred.

> deep-rooted turkophobia in India.

Yeah, no. Turkey is too distant to take up any mindspace in India. The two countries don't really have an intersecting or conflicting interests.

Remember, most of what we read on the internet is written by insane people.[1] That's doubly true for Twitter. Any conclusions you draw from them will be hopelessly inaccurate.

1: https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most...

Maybe a little deeper than that?

https://thediplomat.com/2022/03/indias-response-to-the-ukrai...

The article doesn't show up for me in latest version of Chrome.

Why are these things as effective as they are in the ukrain-russian war? Don't these things show up on radar and therefor vulnerable to conventional anti air defence. Before the start of the war experts where warning that russia could lock down the air space of the whole of europe. These single propeller planes can not be as fast as jet engines and need to be almost on top of their target to drop bombs on them? What is preventing Russia from building these things in the thousands and I don't know patrol the skies of eastern ukrain with it?

> What is preventing Russia from building these things in the thousands and I don't know patrol the skies of eastern ukrain with it?

You need to build them, you need to train operators, you need to deploy said operators. They are not autonomous.

A better question is, if Russia's electronic warfare capabilities are so amazing, how are the drones even able to operate?

We'll probably find out that the capabilities were either overstated, or not deployed nearly enough to matter. Pretty sure some AA battery money went to Yacht upkeep.

My suspicion is that the Russian weapons and munitions are fine, but that there isn't any coordination, integration, management, or planning. If I'm sitting at an S400, and I see a radar blip, I probably don't know if it's GA, commercial aviation, news helicopter, Russian military plane returning, or a Ukrainian drone. I just know something's flying.

This is all speculation based on how I expect the governments there work.

I suspect that if the Ukrainians wanted Russian munitions, they'd just need to wander over in Russian uniforms, and pick some up...

> Don't these things show up on radar

I'm sure they do, but they're quite small and mostly made out of composites that are fairly transparent to radar. Their radar cross section must be very small compared to a gen 4 jet fighter.

> What is preventing Russia from building these things in the thousands and I don't know patrol the skies of eastern ukrain with it?

Money, corruption, inertia, brain drain...

> Their radar cross section must be very small compared to a gen 4 jet fighter.

Still not less than the most of missiles (engine, ordnance).

The real problem is what it is not some video game, you don't have a "satellite view" with enemy units outlined with a red rectangles. Eg S300 was designed in 70s, it's UI/UX is eye-watering.

These drones dropped like flies in Libya. It is actually very surprising how successful they have been.

They had some problems initially but completely won the battle after that, especially when they brought in some EW equipment. I have some second hand knowledge that Baykar engineers were very busy constantly tuning the Tb2s.

It seems a big problem, if not the main problem, is crappy training and other prep on the Russian side.

Countermeasures will evolve quickly.

What will 'change things' is when China makes these and sends 1000 of them to Taiwan all at once with another few thousand in reserve.

The cost/scale/saturation issue hasn't really been explored.

Notably - the 'West' is helpless to support Ukraine because nobody has anything useful except the Americans who have mostly 'super high end gear'.

It'd be nice to see Ukraine being brought onto F-series jets, predators and other gear sooner than later.

The other glaring hole is AA - Patriots are really expensive and there's only a few of them, this feels like a weakness to me in that Russia could feasibly strike those and then what?

There's a 'mid market' of gear that needs to be sorted out.

Finally - artillery - it's not going away, we're struggling to get Ukraine what amounts to almost ancient tech.

NATO should have 100's of M777's in reserve, precisely for these occasions, i.e. to lend out as necessary.

> the 'West' is helpless to support Ukraine because nobody has anything useful

Are we watching the same war?

Archived: https://archive.ph/Ygt7b

Turkish drones, but all Ukrainian engines.

that was like that,newer ones have TEI-PD170 Turbodiesel Aviation Engine

There were protests at SpaceX when it was revealed the Turksat 5B satellite would command and control these TB2 drones, extending their range from operator line-of-sight to near global.

Elon decided to go ahead with the launch. At some point we need to start calling SpaceX a defense company.

I would venture a guess that nearly every SiValley darling supports the military-industrial complex in some fashion. The military-industrial complex started SiValley, after all.

If you don't think there's a military application for AI, self-driving whatevers, logistics innovations, or even social media you are uninformed or willfully ignorant.

I think they probably don't, if only because government contracting is an absolutely massive pain and having been on both sides (early at a YC co and have worked in local and federal gov) I know that the gov side considers it an issue that they don't have a close enough relationship to tech startups. This was the whole rationale for launching DIU.mil, Afwerx, sofwerx, NavalX, etc. and championing OTAs which helped shorten the procurement process so they could get smaller companies interested

edit: spelling error

If you think supporting the government means working directly working with the government then, again, you don't know the game.

Look at the B-2 bomber. Parts were procured via front companies to conceal the project. Do you think that's the only time where that has occurred?

There are many layers to that onion and it is obfuscated for a variety of reasons. The least of which is that I don't think many rock star engineers would be happy if they thought their life's work was being used to fuel the murder machine.

I think I may be misunderstanding exactly what you're discussing then. Is the point in your original comment that the DOD uses off the shelf commercial technologies of all sorts for their work and that people who work at startups unknowingly contribute to this? I mean sure, but I can also tell you that the government struggles with buying products commercial off the shelf, this is again a reason you see the push for OTAs and collaborating more closely with the private sector instead of primes.

Also, not sure if calling it "the murder machine" is necessary or useful for a discussion. Many people, myself included, believe that a strong military is necessary for the United States to ensure its own survival and apply its protective cordon around NATO, Korea, Japan, etc. and despite its flaws has probably led to much less overall destruction and death than if the U.S. had a very weak military and could not deter more global conflicts.

> "the murder machine"

Sorry this is my way of saying I think this is what many unsuspecting valley engineers, who in some cases lean quite leftish, would term it if they knew they were contributing to it. Case in point, I worked at a defense comm company and when a fellow engineer overheard a use case in drones they literally wept. That engineer left shortly thereafter for the valley. I use colorful language sometimes for my own amusement.

My point is that not every piece used by the military industrial complex(specifically agencies with 3-9 letters) comes from standard procurement channels. Sure, when you're building F-35s or whatever. But this assumes every big government project is a big government project. Some are one-offs. I'm intentionally obtuse here for a myriad of reasons and I've said about all I can.

> Look at the B-2 bomber. Parts were procured via front companies to conceal the project. Do you think that's the only time where that has occurred?

Are you saying they got off the shelf parts? Otherwise, they would be working with the government, even if the purpose of the components wasn't known.

Possibly. Structural, mechanical and propulsion parts were probably custom. Some electronics parts were probably "COTS" mil-spec parts which were procured for imaginary projects or diverted from existing ones.

I would go way further and venture that Space X and those satellites have background relationships with defence industry all along.

Most of Elon's businesses have state related support in some way (even Twitter), it's part of how he operates.

Do people not consider SpaceX a defense company? At the very least I thought people always considered it dual-use

You can't work there (except possibly in some minor roles) if you're not a US Person as defined by ITAR for a reason.

ITAR applies because rockets are indistinguishable from ICBMs

While there is some overlap, it's quite easy to distinguish between civilian launch vehicles and military ICBMs. All major civilian rockets use liquid fueled core stages. But all ICBMs are solid fuel.

Exactly. Rocket companies are always defense companies.

Until you get down to the details of what makes a good orbital launch vehicle vs what makes a good ICBM.

SpaceX tries not to highlight their military work but it is a majority of their business, even with "commercial" Starlink.

A more direct offensive buildup is happening with their government Starlink satellites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#Military_capabilities

As a "get to Mars" company it makes very little sense, they've invested virtually nothing into colony technology, just rockets. Mars is to SpaceX what manganese nodules were to Hughes' Glomar Explorer, a flimsy cover story that only seems plausible because everybody knows the guy in charge is wacky. I believe the real purpose of their attempt to create a rapidly reusable heavy lift rocket (Starship) is to rapidly replenish a massive constellation of expendable interceptors in LEO, for ballistic missile defense.

The government definitely thinks of SpaceX as a defense company. They have to comply with ITAR because if you have the technology to get to space you basically have the technology for an ICBM.

Correction: Turksat 5A https://wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%BCrksat_5A

>At some point we need to start calling SpaceX a defense company.

They do themselves. ITAR compliance is a prerequisite to employment at SpaceX.

Because rockets

Is a trucking company a defense company if they ship something for the military? Or the same with air transport?

If you become an integral part of the logistics pipeline for the military, then yes. Even if the company seems relatively civilian, you can bet it will be forced to focus on the military in the event of a military operation.

If they can precisely deliver ~22 tons of material from Florida to anywhere in the globe in ~20-50 minutes, arriving at perhaps Mach 5, one should tend to regard SpaceX as at least weapons-capable.

> arriving at perhaps Mach 5

Quite a lot faster than that actually; Mach 20+ on reentry. The way the media talks about "hypersonics" without getting into specifics is very misleading. Hypersonic cruise missiles are a tough nut to crack, but hypersonic reentry vehicles are table stakes for ballistic missiles and spacecraft.

No, but if they truck a bunch of equipment into warzones and have huge government contracts they might be considered one

Is this a defense company now, then? https://twitter.com/walter_report/status/1523497545351278593...

Any company doing shipping for the military has large government contracts. The government contracts have turnover limits, and every company this large works with the government a lot.

> some point we need to start calling SpaceX a defense company

What is the real-world outcome you're going for?

Of course SpaceX is a defense company. Starlink is essentially the next GPS in terms of defense importance.

It’s not just StarLink. SpaceX already has a pentagon contract to develop or revive the Prompt Global Strike program. It’s called something else now. Basically,to use SpaceX launch capabilities to a hit a target anywhere on the planet using conventional payloads on short notice. Something that’s currently done using the B-2 bombers and several hours of transit time to target.

Well, space x is a commodity service. If not them, someone will be happy to accept Turkish Lira.

That point was almost 20 years ago

They are being treated like that already.

"Russian space chief Dmitry Rogozin apparently threatens Elon Musk"

https://www.space.com/russian-space-chief-rogozin-threatens-...

I’m a little surprised that drones in Ukraine haven’t been discussed widely on HN. Ukraine doesn’t have the air force, pilots are expensive and take a lot of time of to train

Here are a few interesting stories that I saw over the past couple of months

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-rapidly-developed-ghost-dro...

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-kyiv-technology-bu...

https://www.popsci.com/aviation/black-hawk-helicopter-first-...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/24/ukraine-war-...

Super cheap drones could make a difference too:

https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-cheap-drones

Something super simple with GPS for reconnaissance, for example

Ukraine absolutely has an airforce. According to a recent CNN article, "In early March, about two weeks into the war, the defense official said Ukraine has 56 fighter aircraft, which composed about 80% of its fixed-wing fighters"

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/20/politics/ukraine-aircraft-spa...

They are not flying a lot of missions. It was down to a few sorties a day.

Neither Air Force is spending a lot of time in hotly contested territory.

I suggest UKR AF is really just patrolling within the territory they control as a deterrent to Russian AF.

But neither spending a lot of time directly in each other's turf.

A bit sad UKR doesn't have better AA because Russia is flying a lot more sorties on their lines than they should be able to get away with. They are a bit too fast for MANPADs.

The RuAF is flying between 200-300 sorties a day, just not all over Ukraine where they'd get waxed by S300s. They're mostly flying in the Donbas, pretty much at the limits of the best SAMs Ukraine fields.

The UkAF literally bombed Snake Island the other day. They definitely have an air force.

Yes, I guess I wasn’t explicit enough and now we’re having a silly discussion about a few dozen Ukrainian planes.

The entire point was… anyway…

I’ll be more explicit next time so we don’t run into the weeds and waste everyone’s time and get right to the issue

It's the internet. So many people just looking to argue...

> Ukraine doesn’t have the air force

Strange that their nonexistent air force has been getting transfers of spare parts so they can fly more of their nonexistent fighters.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/20/politics/ukraine-aircraft-spa...

Ukraine did have some air force even in 2014 where its army was barely functioning, and it surely has air force now. What's left of it at this stage.

Ukraine is a large country.

"Starlink helps Ukraine's elite drone unit target and destroy Russian tanks"

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/starlink-helps-u...

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