RE: Russia and Ukraine
March 27, 2022 at 8:34 pm
(This post was last modified: March 27, 2022 at 8:41 pm by Thumpalumpacus.
Edit Reason: cut out older posts
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(March 27, 2022 at 8:00 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: Russia held back her air force for the obvious reason, to hold it at highest possible state of readiness in case of NATO intervention. The moment it is committed on any significant scale for other goals, its reserves of fuel, ammunition, spare parts, reliable sortie capacity before maintenance and overhaul, and unfatigued flight and ground crew will begin to drain away, and it’s state of readiness will decline.
If the Russian airforce already has a couple of weeks of intense operation behind it, and NATO enter the fray fresh, Russia will be at a great disadvantage starting from the moment of contact and there is no way to make it up.
After the drubbing the Russian Army has received in the last month, I'm not sure how useful those airplanes will be if NATO does join the fray. Nathan Bedford Forrest's "fustest with the mostest" is something that still holds true today.
Had the Russians committed that reserve airpower, might we not here be discussing instead how the Ukrainians got defeated so quickly? Those Russian planes will not have it any easier against NATO, but they might have put paid to Ukrainian resistance before NATO could mobilize enough to respond coherently.
As it stands, while those planes sit in hangars, they accomplish nothing; but NATO has moved many aircraft east to move to the threat. I have no doubt that NATO could seize control of Ukrainian airspace in mos' rickey-tick time.