Anyone who thinks air power can significantly affect ground power is a retard, simply put.
Russian air force or American, it makes no difference.
So people with an opinion that is different from yours are retarded?
Why are you being rude?
Abusing other members for whatever reason violates the rules of this forum and also more importantly stifles open and honest discussion.
This is a warning... people who abuse others for not holding their views will find themselves banned for a period of time... I hope this is clear for everyone.
But he started it will not be accepted as an excuse so if someone abuses you and you reply in kind don't be surprised if you both get a time out...
Not sure how I can make this clearer.
GarryB And yet, Iraq and Libya were obliterated by air power in matter of days.
No, they really weren't. Iraq... that is the first time around had 100 days of bombing which didn't wipe out anything... it took a ground campaign to actually get Iraq out of Kuwaite.
equally in Kosovo the air campaign was ineffectual.
In Libya the government was broken but then you can create anarchy easily... that really has no practical value.
Same happened to Germans on Western Front,
Yeah... that strategic bombing won WWII... they didn't fire a shot from the French beaches to Berlin because the air power had already defeated the german occupiers... NOT.
Egyptians and Syrians in wars with Israel... Air power wins the war there is not even a spot for discussion on that matter.
In flat open deserts it has a bearing on the outcome, but I would suggest that the quality of the ground forces is far more decisive.
Under full air superiority of the enemy there is very little you can do on the ground, at the best you can do what we did in Serbia... hide, run, evacuate. When you actually operate with your armored and mechanised units while enemy has full air superiority you can only hope they do not have good battlefield awareness or that weater is too challenging for them to perform airstrikes.
Only when one force is NATO and the other force is Serbia. Replace the Serbian force with a modern Russian army, or even equip the Serbian force with modern Russian Army equipment including their air defence forces and NATO would not have been able to fly.
Air power against a very much weaker side can look impressive but Kosovo proved even against an enemy with obsolete equipment it can be totally ineffectual, but you are claiming it is a war winner?
I do not agree on this. The war in Ukraine is an example of how today can be stablished an space of air interdiction based only on land surface-air warfare, without a need of air superiority.
X2
The fact is that air power has serious weaknesses... including cost. It looks great in an open desert against an enemy lacking weapons effective above 10Km...
With good tactics however they fly around unable to find targets and hit nothing.
Maybe because of incompentent, outdated and few in numbers Ukrainian airforce? Here we are talking about real air superiority, where enemy actually can fly and perform high precision airstrikes and control airspace.
You mean the US and British fight against Daesh?
US had air control over south vietnam and USSR had control over Afghan air space but could not find targets... they controlled the air but the enemy did not use the air for anything so the value of control was small. A supply of MANPADS means the power in control of the air can't even exploit it with air delivered troops for fear their helos get shot down...
A dilapidated military against a bunch of angry experienced war veterans, miners, and Spetsnaz advisers.
A situation where one side had an air force but not the stand off capability to avoid MANPADS, and the other side had no air force but had MANPADS so could eliminate the threat of the enemies air force... result air force quickly eliminated from the equation and ground forces forced to deal with the situation.
Better ask Austin about Indian airforce and Pakistani tanks. We have example in Syria - how few planes can change course of war in few months.
But not on their own... in the case of Syria you need ground forces to attack an enemy target... when the enemy concentrates its forces to meet that attack it becomes a target for air power. If it does not concentrate to meet the ground force the ground force will crush them piece by piece. If they run away air power can harass them.
Without the ground forces however the enemy has no reason to group up and remains invisible target for air power so air power is not effective.
Syria is a perfect
example of this how Russia cannot keep advancing with how weak the Syrian army is versus
NATO armed ISIS and Alqaeda fighters.
I disagree... as long as the Russian and Syrian air support is accurate and effective ISIS is doomed... it can either form up and meet the attack... in which case it will be bombed, or it can run away.
As more areas are liberated they lose more territory and more resources and more local support in the form of food and men.