Hopefully we can provide enough airpower to give Ukraine the air superiority, or at least even the playing field
Who are "we"?
NATO, the West, anyone who supports Ukraine
F-16's are fantastic at SEAD & Ukrainian pilots are currently training on them.
It will be a new ball game after that.
yeah, too bad they're aren't getting them in time for this counteroffensive
Would have loved for that to be the case, but I'm glad that they're not rushing their deployment only to lose half to training deficiencies.
Before the war, KA-52s were hyped as a kind of Apache killer. Now we see them dropping from the skies like flies. Is the platform bad? I like the counter-rotating blades as it reduces the mechanical inefficiency present when you have to torque a smaller rotor at the back of the helicopter.
Or it could just be a sign of the effectiveness of anti-air systems being used.
I think "dropping like flies" is a bit of an overstatement when you regard the number of sorties being flown. I think this is more a sign of how saturated the airspace is with AA, if any pilot is just a bit uncareful or unlucky, they will get shot down.
Tbf. these have been more effective than I would have liked to see against Ukrainian armour, and we even have a video of one surviving having its tail shot off.
As for how they would do if western aircraft were in the air: That might be a different story, and not one I'm going to speculate about.
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