Private PoopyPants said:
I'm blown away that Russia has been unable to gain any sort of serious air superiority. Now Ukrainian Migs are flying around shooting NATO missiles. Just crazy.
I think most expected Russia to be flying pretty much unimpeded over the entirety of Ukraine by day 7 to 10 of the war. So much to dive into as to what their capabilities were on paper versus reality.
There has
not been a lot of discussion on russian air power with few articles written by those in intelligence and or mil in general, as compared to other subjects: logistics, training, NCO corp, tires, manpower, etc.
After watching this atrocity regularly I offer the following on possible russian air power limitations. First its doubtful that its any one thing but a combination of several issues that also plague their whole military complex starting with corruption and lack of NCO corp.
In the beginning of the war they had some initial success but also lost several aircraft and were never able to completely knock out key Ukrainian targets to include supply lines. Since then we have seen manned aircraft use diminish significantly. I suspect their intel on target locations and planning was ill prepared for this invasion and remains worse even now six months in.
There is clear evidence of manpower issues in the ground BTGs and likely same manpower issues in their air force. This includes parts and or qualified mechanic issues. If were having trouble keeping our aircraft operational than russia probably has way more trouble.
Just over a month into the invasion, the west began sending or at least publicly announcing the supply of anti aircraft weapon systems to Ukraine. I think this alone was significant deterrent to russia use of AtG missions. Case in point the British Star Streak was all over the war news, yet to my knowledge there is only one recorded video of a shoot down, still unconfirmed it was even starstreak and that was on a helo.
From a strategic standpoint if the russian airpower is capable, than their joint staff simply does not know how to use it properly as effective combined arms like we do or they have been left with no other choice in maintaining some strategic defense effort against other threats with the exception of their subs and what aircraft they have left meanwhile sacrificing a significant part of their ground armies. Subs cant get anywhere fast or carry too many infantrymen. I am also not aware of how you get to be a pilot in russia. If this is a privileged position from politicians/oligarchs than maybe there is some corrupted protection going on as well.
On the flip side we see UKR running more and more air ops, both manned and unmanned, with the TB2s hammering away again thanks to the HARMs and HIMARS.
