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by Ogee
Like everything else, eg. the Ukrainian counteroffensive, 'expectations are too high' with regards the delivery of 70 F-16s.
US Air Force pilot warns against optimism over delivery of F-16 fighter jets to Kyiv
F-16 fighters are not a panacea and they have vulnerabilities that Russia is "well aware" of and can exploit, CNN reports.
According to an active-duty F-16 pilot, expectations for the transfer of fighters to Kyiv may be "too high."
“To your question that the F-16 will change the rules of the game, it’s not,” the pilot added on condition of anonymity.
Repeat this posted May 17th.
[They] appear to neglect the all-important consideration of the logistical imperatives of deploying western air power in a high-intensity conflict. I'll mention just a few:
F-16s (and all western aircraft, for that matter) can only fly from pristine runways, of which none remain in Ukraine.
They are also very maintenance-intensive, requiring a fully equipped base from which to operate.
And if they try to fly from Poland, Romania, or the Baltics, they will absolutely require refueling, and those tankers will be easily destroyed.
Lastly, they would absolutely depend on airborne ISR to operate in a high-intensity battlespace. All western ISR platforms would also be big, fat, slow targets for long-range Russian missile strikes. They would quite literally be annihilated within days of the commencement of hostilities.
For the sake of the pilots who will surely die, I pray the damn fools don't yield to the temptation to put Russian integrated AD (and their air force) to the test against either Gen4 or Gen5 western aircraft, because it will end in fire, wreckage, blood, and ashes. And the longstanding myth of US air power supremacy will be permanently shattered.
Will Schryver
@imetatronink
At some point Ukrainians will have to come to terms with the fact that the US is just fucking them around and this whole operation is now solely, having failed to degrade Russia, to keep money flowing into the military industrial complex.