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this post was submitted on 10 May 2024
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Ukraine
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And when they identify one of these they still need to act. How quickly and efficiently can they get interceptors up in the air and vectored in? How operational are their ground-based anti-air capabilities and do they dare shoot something down? And how much coverage do they actually have?
Well as proven with mh17 the buks are pretty good at taking down airliners.
Such a system can shoot at a maximum range of 30km. How many refineries and ammo depots does Russia have to protect? It's a huge bloody country which makes it very hard to cover with radar and air defence.
The edge that allowed Russia to win against powerful invading armies bites them in the ass here. So much real estate is hard and expensive to protect.
During the height of the Cold War, a kid flew across Europe in a small, slow plane and landed on the damn Red Square. Another guy landed a helicopter on the White House lawn.
Buk is 50km, but s300 already over 100 and s400 does 400km range. And for even shorter range you have pantsir and shilka.
But indeed, so much real estate. And the refineries are very vulnerable.
Can you imagine.. at this development pace in a year suck a plane will carry 10 autonomous drones with thermite charges that deploy on target and spread even more chaos.
The asymmetry between the cost of defense vs. offense here is absurd.
The operation of air defense networks, missiles, and fighter jet interceptions, all to try to down kit aircraft costing less than the average Porsche sports car. Fancy-pantsy capabilities that required billions not long ago can be had for cheap. It's no longer the exclusive realm of low-flying supersonic or stealth aircraft to strike the heart of the enemy. What required billions of R&D can be somewhat achieved on the cheap.
Well no. The cost of defence is not actually what pricetag the system is you use to shoot something done. It is what you are defending and an oil refinery is probably in the hundreds of millions, literally a high-profile target
Yeah, spending a hundred thousand to take out a refinery cracker is an amazing trade. What's a cracker worth, a few tens of millions? Plus lost production etc
They have supersonic jets. How difficult would it be for a Su27 to intercept a driverless sport plane?
Still a win for Ukraine if the Russians have to start burning a lot of precious flight hours on checking out every aireal anomaly.
Maybe they decided is was not worth it and they prefer losing refineries and fuel storage rather than using jet hours
If they lose a few more refineries, that will certainly cut into their jet hours.
The fuel is (relatively) nothing. Interceptors have to haul ass and that means going full throttle for periods which translates into countless hours of maintenance on those planes. This immobilizes the aircraft after the mission and the ground crew to work on it. It also consumes spare parts and reduces the overall lifetime of the airframe.
China does this to Taiwan by playing chicken at the edge of their defensive zone, forcing a smaller air force to keep up with the interceptions.
That was my point indeed.. flight hours translate to wear and tear, maintenance and spare part usage. And sourcing some of the spare parts is getting harder and harder by the day.
Some defense industry in Russia is already buying back airframes from abroad.. this reduces the value of the Russian defense sector as these countries can shop elsewhere.
And countries with large Russian military hardware stocks cannot get parts in the foreseeable future.. so they also cannot wage war without serious risks to their own readyness.