1/ So, entering the fighter debate. A lot has been coverd and discussed about it, here a short 🧵about some things I could not fit into this 👇 @ecfr comment. ecfr.eu/article/the-ca…
2/ 🇺🇦 are at serve disadvantage for both tactical and technical reasons.
The tactical are hard to change. Fighters need to hug the ground to avoid 🇷🇺 GBAD. That means the range of whatever AA missile they fire is reduced. Because the missile has to waste a lot of energy climbing
3/ ... instead of range.
🇷🇺 missiles gain range by firing at low-flying targets from above.
Regardless what missile is used, even hypothetically, 🇷🇺 will outrange 🇺🇦.
🇺🇦 will have to sneak up to ntercept any 🇷🇺 plane. But, to fulfill their mission, ...
4/ ... they need to be able to shoot at the 🇷🇺 strike planes carrying glide boms.
If they can avoid/evade 🇷🇺 fighters, that's fine as well. You don't need to go into a lobbing duel with R-37M carrying Mig-31.
5/ 🇺🇦 Soviet legacy vintage fighters are bad at sneaking up. One reason is the radar. The baseline Rubin (Mig-29) and Mech (Su-27) radars not only lack the range of modern 🇷🇺 PESA(AESA radars.
They are mechanically tilted cassegran dish radars with party analogue computers.
6/ Their radar beam is much wider than that of a modern radar, and needs more pulses & energy to detect a target. Modern radar warning receivers (RWR) may pick the signal up, even if the 🇺🇦 radar only scans them.
7/ But they also lack "track while scan" (TWS) modes, hence if they start tracking a target, they can't scan for ofther aircraft flying around.
Tracking is even easier for 🇷🇺 RWR to pick up, and if the 🇷🇺 plane doesn't know there were 🇺🇦 planes around, it knows now.
8/ Then, to fire at a 🇷🇺 aircraft, the 🇺🇦 aircraft has to constantly illuminate the target with a high energy radar beam. The R-27ER1 needs the echo from the beam to find its target.
The 🇺🇦 needs to have its radar always pointed towards the 🇷🇺 aircraft. If it banks away ...
9/ ... the missile would be lost. That means it needs to close in towards 🇷🇺 lines and fighters.
To reach its maximum range, a R-27ER1 takes more than a minute.
In the 🇷🇺plane, even the dumbest RWR recognises the beam and allerts the pilot. The Russian plane takes evasive action.
10/ The 🇺🇦 plane has unmased itself, and becmes a target.
Now let's assume 🇺🇦 had old 🇦🇺🇪🇸🇫🇮🇺🇸 F-18 to do the same thing. (btw. I don't know why no one talks abut F-18s, carrier capable aircraft are much better suited to operate from improvised strips).
11/ The F-18s AN/APG-65 or AN/APG-73 is still meachanically scaned, but with digital beam control. It has TWS capability. So the cance to detect it, are much lower.
The pilot does not loose situational awarness while tracking a target.
12/ Moreover, it would fire a AIM-120. This missile does not require any iluminatiuon. Either it gets tracking data from the launching aircraft, or it memorises where the enemy aircraft was.
Once close, it switches on its own radar and rides the attack home.
13/ Only now the 🇷🇺 aircraft would see it is under attack. And the 🇺🇦 fighter may have turned away already, again hugging the ground, hiding in ground clutter.
🇺🇦 pilots would survive this much longer. And it would be a more serious threat to 🇷🇺 aircraft, restraining operations.
14/ For this to be effective, 🇺🇦 would not need a lot of fighters. Just sufficient to be able to always fly CAP missions. So all above 24 aircraft.
They would also need NATO compatible early warning radars and communication equipment for ground control. But this ...
15/ ... is already being delivered, because you need it to integrate Western SAM systems into an integrated air defence network.
Scaning the German lists for military assistance I find enough hints this is dome already.
16/ You saw today's pictures from the attack against 🇺🇦 cities. This is a cynical 🇷🇺 strategy to keep 🇺🇦 SAM close to cities and away from the front.
Delivering fighters is the fastest way to counter it. Fighters are so substitute for SAM.
17/ But production rates of SAM systems have their limits, and you can't increase them on a short notice.
Ich dachte nicht dass der Tag mal kommen würde, an dem ich jemanden aus der Linkspartei empfehle. Aber hier in der @FAZ_Politik hat @bodoramelow ein lesenswertes Interview gegeben: faz.net/aktuell/politi…
Ein paar Schmankerln:
"Leider wird inzwischen nicht nur in meiner Partei die Erinnerung an die sowjetische Armee, die Auschwitz befreit hat, vermischt mit der heutigen russischen Armee unter Putin, die die Ukraine überfallen hat."
"Ich bin kein Freund von Waffenlieferungen. Ich bleibe aber dabei: Wenn die Ukraine Waffen zur Verteidigung braucht, sehe ich keinen Grund, ihr das zu verweigern, schon gar nicht mit dem Hinweis, dass es sich um ein Kriegsgebiet handelt."
2/ The #Leopard2 is arguably the most prolific tank in Europe. However surplus and reserve tanks make up only a small part of the force.
They could be used to start training and introduce the tank into 🇺🇦 services, but to achieve a real effect in a long war, more ...
3/ ... deliveries over the long run would be necessary.
This is still possible as the Leoprd is still in production, theoretically 3 sites (🇩🇪🇬🇷🇪🇦) could produce it and there are 🇪🇺 funds for joint procurement, hence states could replace donated vehicles.
But will they?
Essential reading in the @spectator - 🇺🇸🇨🇳 back channel agreements to limit the war in 🇺🇦.
White house Angst on nuclear release caping military assistance. spectator.co.uk/article/the-re…
This sheds some light into the complete erratic policy on MBT, fighters, and others. And why @JakeSullivan46 stayed so suspiciously silent on all of it.
It would be essential to read whether the White House made "deals" with other larger powers as well.
The assumption that 🇺🇦 can win this war rests on the belief that it can be supplied throughout the long war of attrition.
Resupply has to regard all branches and systems in the armed forces. War is a team sport, you need all arms synchronized.
This assumption is now in question.
Da sich die SPD-Hofschreiberlinge (👇) an meinem Tweet ergötzen, ein paar klarstellungen zu Zetenwende und 🇺🇦.
Erstmal, ja "kommt nicht vor" war der falsche Ausdruck, denn in der Einleitung kam sie vor. (Twitterverkürzung).
Aber nun wird versucht Ursache und Wirkung zu verdrehen.
Ja, die Ukraine kommt in der Reden vor, als Anstoß. Denn der Angriff auf die Ukraine ist ja der ursächliche Auslöser. Wegen dem Angriff, der die Gefahr Russlands offen legt, gibt es Zeitenwende.
Aber um die EU/NATO vor dem weiteren Ausgreifen der russsischen Bedrohung zu retten.
Dazu braucht es auch nicht Johnson als Offenbarer, das war damals schon klar. Die BuReg brauchte 3 Monate um halbwegs einen Kurs zur Ukraine zu finden.
Wie die meisten 🇪🇺 und auch 🇺🇸 glaubte 🇩🇪 nicht, 🇺🇦 werde überleben. Ausnahme war 🇵🇱 u.a. die Botschafter nie abzogen.
1/ This is the thing to follow closely.👇
The 🇷🇺 army has the capacity (officers, barracks, etc.) to train roughly 250 000 men at once. If you want to create more forces, you'd have to do this in waves.
2/ Of course Putin/Shoigu pretend that mobilisation is completed, otherwise all those who haven't been drafted yet would go to 🇬🇪🇰🇿🇲🇳 ...
At a later point, they may invent whatever reason that "now suddenly" they need more men.
3/ That said, not an easy exercise. Forming new formations takes longer than the Kremlin has planned. Appart from shortages in materiel (see the🧶cited above), trained officers and specialist are short in supply too.
1/ Here you see an 🇺🇦 S-300 intercepting a 🇷🇺 cruise missile. Look how close the point of intercept is!
In theory, S-300 has a range over 100km, but in practice, the radar needs to track and illuminate the target all the way to intercept.
2/ Because cruise missiles fly low, they are hidden behind the horizon, or shielded by ground clutter (hills, mountains, buildings, etc.)
Hence practically interception of cruise missiles takes place at a much, much shorter range.
3/ Western Ukraine is not flat territory, a l ot of hils, river valleies, etc.
If presumably a 🇺🇦 S-300 would have crashed into 🇵🇱, the details of the engagement would very much matter to judge the event.
Where was the target? Where was the launcher? All that I don't know.