Ukrainian media is reporting the shoot down of a VKS A-50 AEW&C and a Il-22 Coot ELINT plane over the Sea of Azov.
Russian signals intelligence warnings shut down the Kerch Bridge earlier in the day, thinking the PSU sorties were a Su-24 strike.
🧵 1/ rbc.ua/rus/news/zsu-p…
I think it likely the PSU gave off the signals of a Su-24 Storm Shadow strike and actually sent out Su-27's hunting, tricked out with 100(+) km range AIM-120C's.
Think of the WW2 "Operation Vengeance" P-38 raid that killed Adm. Yamamoto.
It would give a single Ukrainian PSU Su-27 a chance to break within 100 km and blarf a volley of lock on after launch AMRAAM against these converted cargo & airliner planes.
5/
The US fighter pilots don't like 'pitbulling' the AMRAAM when they "Fox 3."
That is, firing a AIM-120 seeker in the lock on after launch (LOAL) with missile seeker doing autonomous homing at range.
This is because there tends to be more US fighters than enemy fighters.
6/
To use ~2008 fighter pilot slang:
"Shake a pitbull up in a sack and when you let out. It's goes for the first thing it sees.
In which case, you have a 'mad dog' event."
A PSU Su-27 fighting one on many doesn't have this issue.
7/
Ukraine could only pull this AMRAAM Ambush once.
They decided to make a high operational risk/high operational pay off poker bet and won the pot.
8/8 End
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The Coyote I was a propeller interceptor like the Ukrainian FPV's, but it wasn't "enough" for the higher end drone threat like the TB-2 Bayraktar.
2/
So the US military abandoned kinetic solutions the lower end drone threat.
And it has to pretend that high power microwave weapons and jamming will be the answer to fiber optic guided FPV's at weed height and grenade dropping drones behind tree lines.
The arrival of the Ukrainian Gogol-M, a 20-foot span fixed-wing aerial drone mothership, with over a 200km radius of action while carrying a payload of two 30km ranged attack drones under its wings, underlines the impact of low level airspace as a drone "avenue of approach."
2/
The Gogol-M flys low and slow, below ground based radar coverage like a helicopter.
It opens up headquarters, ground & air logistics in the operational depths to artificial intelligence aided FPV drone attacks.
This is the main example of one of the most unprofessional delusions held by the US Navalist wing of the F-35 Big/Expensive/Few platform and missile cult.
Russian fiber optic FPV's have a range of 50km - over the horizon!
Drones simply don't have ground line of sight issues like soldiers do.
Drones can see in more of the electromagnetic spectrum than humans.
And the US Army refuses to buy enough small drones (1 m +) to train their troops to survive on the drone dominated battlefield.🤢🤮
2/3
"Just send a drone" is the proper tactic for almost everything a 21st century infantryman does from patrolling, raiding enemy positions, sniping and setting up forward observation posts.
3/3
The odds are heavily in favor of the IDF having parked Hermes drones with "Gorgon Stare" technology over Tehran to hunt Iranian senior government officials.