> NATO would have air superiority and not need as many stingers.
How, exactly?
How, exactly?
Stingers are inexpensive comparatively cheap surface-to-air missiles that allow an individual soldier on the ground to pick off an aircraft that happens to fly sufficiently low; it's useless if air superiority is actually being contested or if aircraft are bombing away from high altitude and mainly functions to whittle down the size of the edge the opposing force's air superiority gives in the ground combat.
These are questions the US has been working on since Vietnam - they’ve gotten pretty good at it by now.
But anyways, they’re already using US gear, tactics, ISR - why not this? You don’t need red blooded Americans to employ SEAD.
So no, other than one old missile, they're not using US gear, nor US tactics, nor US ISR for SEAD/DEAD.
They don't have the modern aircraft, or missiles that would make SEAD missions against modern Russian AA effective.
Despite the narrative most of the stuff Ukraine is getting is super old.
- Leopard 1's.
- M113 APC's
- Mig 29's
- Sukhoi 24's
- Mi-28's
- Mi-8s
The HARM's that you speak off, we don't know what variant they are but they won't be super effective because they cannot be effectively integrated with the aircraft Ukraine has so they are probably older variants using pre programmed fixed coordinate attack modes.
That should hopefully change once the F-16's arrive and they can start more effectively using more modern air borne weapons especially for SEAD.
The air defences are probably some of the most modern pierces of equipment that Ukraine has.
HIMARS are a good example of modern equipment with relatively modern munitions but they still haven't gotten any PrSM's or ATACMS.
Where are the F-16s going to take off from (they need pristine runways)? Who will maintain them? How will they refuel without airtankers (they don't have enough range to make it to Donbas and back). How will they avoid the R37M (300km range) when the AMRAAM is not even 200km? And what about Russian SAMs and EW?
> Where are the F-16s going to take off from (they need pristine runways)?
Probably relatively far from the action.
> Who will maintain them?
Ukrainians its one of the reasons why its taking so long for them to get them.
> How will they refuel without airtankers (they don't have enough range to make it to Donbas and back).
They don't have to fight at the front line, they can be used effectively as missile trucks to throw long range weapons like Storm Shadow and other long range weapons at Russian lines.
If a SU25 and Mig29 can survive doing that a F-16 will have no problem.
> How will they avoid the R37M (300km range) when the AMRAAM is not even 200km? And what about Russian SAMs and EW?
The same way that the SU25 and Mig29 do, the F-16 will survive much better.
And how is Russia going to pummel NATO airbases? This isn't 1985 when the Soviet VVS had thousands of fighter bombers tasked with taking out the airfields. They're not next door to Germany/France/UK anymore since NATO has expanded East. The RuAF might have 500 flying aircraft for their entire nation. They have no stealth aircraft in service (the Felon isn't in production yet if ever).
While behind with aircraft, Russia has objectively outclassed the West with missile tech (and defense).
Do yourself a favor and read this book:
Let's just look at AA gear. Pantsir has been shown to be ineffective against most drones, Storm Shadow, etc. Same with BUK. S300 and S400 have really good range, but I think that Patriot and SAMP stand up well in comparison. The Ukrainians are using older Patriot missiles and are successfully engaging Khinzal and any cruise missile the Russians can throw at it. NATO has THAAD and better versions of Patriot in their arsenal, so even being generous, I think this is a draw.
For offensive weapons, the Russians have nothing in the class of SCALP/Storm Shadow, much less JASSM/LRASM. They would even have a hard time coping with Tomahawk.
So what weapon system are the Russians going to use against Lakenheath and Mildenhall? A Kalibr is going to have a very hard time making it across the Baltics to the UK, and I doubt any aircraft doing a suicide mission would make it either. How about Aviano? Same problem. Ramstein and Spangdahlem as well.
And Russia sure has done a great job "pummeling" Ukrainian airbases, right? I mean, they've utterly failed at this. The Ukrainians are still flying Fencers, Fulcrums and Frogfoots from their bases.
Indeed it is and the proof shows that Ukraine intercepts a large number of Russian missiles with air defence.
Whilst Russia intercepts a lot of Ukrainian weapons with the intended targets.
The Russians have maybe shot down a single stormshadow out of all the ones that have been fired.
They don’t seem so good at intercepting modern western cruise missiles.
This all ignores that Ukraine managed to get TU141 drones that look like they have the radar signature of a truck past Russian air defence to hit targets within Russia.
Your true believer enthusiasm is endearing, but it doesn’t win wars.
They have a single photo of a single storm shadow.
Because they haven't shot down anymore, I presume they will move it to 100 different sites to try and claim they have shot down more like they did earlier with the downed drones.
Then jets like the F-22[3] would be used to establish command of the airspace.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_military_parachu... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_B-2_Spirit [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor
It doesn't need to be singularly successful since it's part of a collective of redundant systems[2]. Air isn't working then increase missile strikes, missiles can't attain good effect on target then increase covert operations with local insurgencies, etc.
That's just some of the possible angles of attack. There's leaving out things like drones and cyber attacks that would also be employed to some effect.
Eventually the enemy loses the ability to fight since it's critical points are weakened to such a point it can no longer wage an effective resistance.
Another example: why attack heavily defended artillery positions when you can blow up the logistical route and starve them of rounds to attack with?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_B-21_Raider [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuver_warfare
How is Russia establishing air superiority over Ukraine now? Or is going to change the tempo of the war into their favor?
How does this pertain to them denying NATO+allies from probably eventually attaining air superiority in a hypothetical full conflict?
How many helicopters can Russia sustain to lose? They've lost several over the last few weeks.
Supply routes have be successfully attacked by Ukraine with estimates of slowing logistics by 50% in certain areas.
And again how many AA batteries can they sustain to lose?
Meanwhile Ukraine has made slow but steady advances forward gaining ground.
Where's Russia changing the direction? Is that by terrorizing civilian targets (your bombing campaign) and blowing up hydroelectric dams? So essentially they're just using the tactics of terrorists.
Yet they still can't freely fly over Ukraine because they still lack control over the skies.
When's Russia regaining the momentum in their favor? Last week one of their best units tried to storm Moscow and hang their top military leaders.
AND now Russia is more weakened to a full confrontation with NATO than they were before starting their war in Ukraine. So all the more likely to lose air superiority to NATO+allies.
I dunno know about this part of the statement, the fact that we are still seeing long range deep strikes into important Russian territory (sometimes killing hundreds of soldiers at a time), tells me that maybe Russias EW and AA against semi modern cruise missiles isn't as good as people think.
Yeah but these missile strikes have been hitting high value targets like air fields and troop barracks.
Regardless of if they can’t defend these areas because they don’t have the systems or the systems cannot intercept them it doesn’t bode well.
I guess they might have been Russia's best airborne units, but both at Hostomel and in other engagements, they've been shown to be overrated. Then again, Hostomel was a shitshow of poor planning/intel. I bet the VDV would have loved to know that there was a UKr unit right next door with heavy artillery before they kicked off the assault.
What happens when the enemy has exhausted it's supply of AA ammo?
Or lost use of its radar?
HALO is for opponents lacking AD and radar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq#Invasion
Edit: If you're objecting to HALO insertion as a measure against AA then fine but even describe as a way around AA:
"The technique is used to airdrop supplies, equipment, or personnel at high altitudes, where aircraft can fly above surface-to-air missile (SAM) engagement levels through enemy skies without posing a threat to the transport or load. In the event that anti-aircraft cannons are active near the drop zone, the HALO technique also minimizes the parachutist's exposure to flak...
... The combination of high downward speed, minimal forward airspeed, and the use of only small amounts of metal helps to defeat radar and reduces the amount of time a parachute might be visible to ground observers, enabling a stealthy insertion."
Edit: I don't understand why you're fixated on one or two options being insufficient for certain scenarios out of a redundant number of options at the U.S. disposal but whatever.
Like HALO is the only way to insert a team? You're clearly not clueless about a variety of tactics so I'm confused why you're not extending that here.
1. Round the clock bombing. We saw how F-117, flying the same route day after day in Serbia was shot down by an S-75 Dvina (first deployed in 1957) in optical mode. You will never see a B-2 flying in daylight any more than you would see an AC130.
2. What US artillery can outrange an S300/S400? US artillery is already outranged by Russian artillery.
3. Missile strikes are the only thing you list that are even doctrinal against a modern A2AD system. And those are limited, as NATO found out when several members ran out of smart munitions when overthrowing Qaddafi. But yes, that's what we'd use. JASSM, Tomahawk, SCALP, etc.
4. Using Iraq as a measure of how we'd fight a near peer opponent is ridiculous. While Iraq had a large standing army, it was never a match for the US in 1991, much less 2003. There are numerous things we did in Iraq that we'd never have attempted in the Fulda Gap.
5. Finally, back to HALO. Sure the operator jumping out using HALO might have a minimized signature, but remember that big, lumbering transport that he's jumping out of? The one with the ginormous radar signature? Flying high (so the H in HALO) can occur, meaning every radar in the world can spot it? BOOM. Shot down as soon as it's in range of an S400. Which is roughly between 300 and 400KM. So if you're expecting a team dropping in by HALO to survive, you're delusional.
So you can’t refuel, your home runways are trashed and the carriers are sunk. Then what.
Range and logistics matters and the Ruskies have it in that neck of the woods.