Air Power and it's role in modern warfare

We all know that air force is important in modern warfare but how much?

In Kosovo some 2000 sorties were made against Yugoslav targets and the outcome (confirmed by inspectors after the war) was a fairy modest number of some 40 destroyed pieces of equipment, so about 49 out of 50 munitions fired by NATO missed their targets or hit something else.

The campaign in Libya was somewhat more successful - 7700 combat sorties were made and with the highest estimated casualties of Gaddafi army standing at 3200 killed, we cans ay that 1 in 2 sortis resulted in a soldier's death. Since of course not all soldiers were killed by airstrikes, we can reduce this estimation to 1 in 4, maybe even less. Number of wounded is unknown; it could raise the ratio to 1:1-1.5 which still isn't impressive.

Both of these conflicts were fought in conditions of total air superiority. During a conventional war, with the enemy capable of defending himself, would AF be of any relevance to the ground operations?

I don't think air power alone can win a conflict, but air control over your own forces and air control over enemy forces can make everything much much easier.

The Russian AF supporting Syrian Army and allies... likely with a few special forces on the ground assisting and advising is clearly a successful way to intervene in a foreign country.

The US did the same with the Afghans as ground forces in Afghanistan.

Of course once they had pushed back the Taleban they tried to occupy a foreign country which is not going to work without significant ground forces...

Controlling the air makes observation easier and target finding easier.

x_54_u43 wrote:

wilhelm wrote:
Don't stress about it too much, Elbows.

x_54_u43, Elbows was pretty neutral, and didn't exactly pick on any nation over another.
I really can't see why he deserved the slight dig?

Either way, I was glad when I was a soldier back in the day that I was an infantryman.

On that note, forgive me if I haven't been following as closely as I should the progression of Armata, but is it still in State Trials, or have those been concluded now?
If they are concluded, is there a date that it is to be inducted into service? I seem to recall reading on this site that a production order was announced the other day.

Anyone who thinks air power can significantly affect ground power is a retard, simply put.

Russian air force or American, it makes no difference.

Contract for Armata have begun.

And yet, Iraq and Libya were obliterated by air power in matter of days. Same happened to Germans on Western Front, and to Egyptians and Syrians in wars with Israel... Air power wins the war there is not even a spot for discussion on that matter.

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.

Militarov wrote:

x_54_u43 wrote:

wilhelm wrote:
Don't stress about it too much, Elbows.

x_54_u43, Elbows was pretty neutral, and didn't exactly pick on any nation over another.
I really can't see why he deserved the slight dig?

Either way, I was glad when I was a soldier back in the day that I was an infantryman.

On that note, forgive me if I haven't been following as closely as I should the progression of Armata, but is it still in State Trials, or have those been concluded now?
If they are concluded, is there a date that it is to be inducted into service? I seem to recall reading on this site that a production order was announced the other day.

Anyone who thinks air power can significantly affect ground power is a retard, simply put.

Russian air force or American, it makes no difference.

Contract for Armata have begun.

And yet, Iraq and Libya were obliterated by air power in matter of days. Same happened to Germans on Western Front, and to Egyptians and Syrians in wars with Israel... Air power wins the war there is not even a spot for discussion on that matter.

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.

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.

eehnie wrote:

Militarov wrote:

x_54_u43 wrote:

wilhelm wrote:
Don't stress about it too much, Elbows.

x_54_u43, Elbows was pretty neutral, and didn't exactly pick on any nation over another.
I really can't see why he deserved the slight dig?

Either way, I was glad when I was a soldier back in the day that I was an infantryman.

On that note, forgive me if I haven't been following as closely as I should the progression of Armata, but is it still in State Trials, or have those been concluded now?
If they are concluded, is there a date that it is to be inducted into service? I seem to recall reading on this site that a production order was announced the other day.

Anyone who thinks air power can significantly affect ground power is a retard, simply put.

Russian air force or American, it makes no difference.

Contract for Armata have begun.

And yet, Iraq and Libya were obliterated by air power in matter of days. Same happened to Germans on Western Front, and to Egyptians and Syrians in wars with Israel... Air power wins the war there is not even a spot for discussion on that matter.

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.

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.

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.

I love this weapon. 52,000 pounds, 25 mile range. Today's Howitzer is a computer chip just like Las Vegas. When I enlisted this weapon was the same set-up as a 64 Nova. Easy to operate and teleological to the 9th degree. Everything had to be set by hand each time it was fired. Now I guess a button is pushed and it is ready to fire. Strange army today. Even the gas chamber is for girls now. YouTube has film of today's army. Fort Sill has banks, restaurants and golf courses.

Militarov wrote:

x_54_u43 wrote:

wilhelm wrote:
Don't stress about it too much, Elbows.

x_54_u43, Elbows was pretty neutral, and didn't exactly pick on any nation over another.
I really can't see why he deserved the slight dig?

Either way, I was glad when I was a soldier back in the day that I was an infantryman.

On that note, forgive me if I haven't been following as closely as I should the progression of Armata, but is it still in State Trials, or have those been concluded now?
If they are concluded, is there a date that it is to be inducted into service? I seem to recall reading on this site that a production order was announced the other day.

Anyone who thinks air power can significantly affect ground power is a retard, simply put.

Russian air force or American, it makes no difference.

Contract for Armata have begun.

And yet, Iraq and Libya were obliterated by air power in matter of days. Same happened to Germans on Western Front, and to Egyptians and Syrians in wars with Israel... Air power wins the war there is not even a spot for discussion on that matter.

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.

Not quite. The Arab nations were devastated due to piss poor tactics, and even then, the west lost a lot of equipment in the process (they can call it technical failures all around, doesn't make it any better) and it really didn't help when majority of Saddams army folded quite early for whatever reason. Example of poor tactics is Syria's AD setup where Buks are constantly moved and struck when during movement, but not like Pantsir that was used when shooting down a Turk jet a while ago.

AD systems could very well be a determined factor and mobile units are indeed a huge game changer. If Saddam's army had more modern and capable, mobile sam systems then I don't think the US would have gotten away with the same amount of losses. Add to that, if they even had low altitude radar or UHF radar as well. No, we are also seeing that artillery units and alike are a determining factor. You cannot win a war against an enemy without a ground troops, and even then Israel had to conduct ground ops against various nations during the 6 day war to destroy SAM sites before they could use their airforce to pummel the enemy. Libya was an example of having mercenaries fight on the ground while your airforce hunts a specific person down. They didn't win, they just assassinated a person and helped create a power vacuum because of it.

eehnie wrote:

Militarov wrote:

x_54_u43 wrote:

wilhelm wrote:
Don't stress about it too much, Elbows.

x_54_u43, Elbows was pretty neutral, and didn't exactly pick on any nation over another.
I really can't see why he deserved the slight dig?

Either way, I was glad when I was a soldier back in the day that I was an infantryman.

On that note, forgive me if I haven't been following as closely as I should the progression of Armata, but is it still in State Trials, or have those been concluded now?
If they are concluded, is there a date that it is to be inducted into service? I seem to recall reading on this site that a production order was announced the other day.

Anyone who thinks air power can significantly affect ground power is a retard, simply put.

Russian air force or American, it makes no difference.

Contract for Armata have begun.

And yet, Iraq and Libya were obliterated by air power in matter of days. Same happened to Germans on Western Front, and to Egyptians and Syrians in wars with Israel... Air power wins the war there is not even a spot for discussion on that matter.

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.

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.

A dilapidated military against a bunch of angry experienced war veterans, miners, and Spetsnaz advisers.

x_54_u43 wrote:

wilhelm wrote:
Don't stress about it too much, Elbows.

x_54_u43, Elbows was pretty neutral, and didn't exactly pick on any nation over another.
I really can't see why he deserved the slight dig?

Either way, I was glad when I was a soldier back in the day that I was an infantryman.

On that note, forgive me if I haven't been following as closely as I should the progression of Armata, but is it still in State Trials, or have those been concluded now?
If they are concluded, is there a date that it is to be inducted into service? I seem to recall reading on this site that a production order was announced the other day.

Anyone who thinks air power can significantly affect ground power is a retard, simply put.

Russian air force or American, it makes no difference

Contract for Armata have begun.

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.

Militarov wrote:

eehnie wrote:

Militarov wrote:

x_54_u43 wrote:

wilhelm wrote:
Don't stress about it too much, Elbows.

x_54_u43, Elbows was pretty neutral, and didn't exactly pick on any nation over another.
I really can't see why he deserved the slight dig?

Either way, I was glad when I was a soldier back in the day that I was an infantryman.

On that note, forgive me if I haven't been following as closely as I should the progression of Armata, but is it still in State Trials, or have those been concluded now?
If they are concluded, is there a date that it is to be inducted into service? I seem to recall reading on this site that a production order was announced the other day.

Anyone who thinks air power can significantly affect ground power is a retard, simply put.

Russian air force or American, it makes no difference.

Contract for Armata have begun.

And yet, Iraq and Libya were obliterated by air power in matter of days. Same happened to Germans on Western Front, and to Egyptians and Syrians in wars with Israel... Air power wins the war there is not even a spot for discussion on that matter.

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.

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.

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.

I do not agree. Until now the kind of air superiority that you commented has been based on low vulnerability of the air platforms, but in the case of Ukraine, the Surface-Air weapons proved to be able to destroy every platform fliying, until a point where the alone good tactic for air warfare is to avoid to fly.

Future wars between armed forces with enough developed surface-air weapons, are likely to produce spaces of air interdiction for both sides, like is the Donbass now. The air superiority only works to crush fairly weaker countries that have not enough good surface-air weapons.

The military tactics based on air superiority to destroy land warfare are old and outdated stuf to fight with modern adversaries since the massive development and deployment of surface-air manpads and the improvement of the accuracy of the bigger surface-air platforms.

eehnie wrote:

Future wars between armed forces with enough developed surface-air weapons, are likely to produce spaces of air interdiction for both sides, like is the Donbass now. The air superiority only works to crush fairly weaker countries that have not enough good surface-air weapons.

The military tactics based on air superiority to destroy land warfare are old and outdated stuf to fight with modern adversaries since the massive development and deployment of surface-air manpads and the improvement of the accuracy of the bigger surface-air platforms.

Correct.

Air superiority alone without dominating land offensive is doomed to fail.  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.

If NATO and Israel provide to Turkey their best air defenses that they have .including Patriot ,Thaad and NATO destroyers at the coast of Turkey defending turkey airspace and Awacs to monitor Russian planes, with strong electronic warfare it could deny Russian airforce the entry on any part of Turkey. without massive losses on their airforce. the same is true the other way.

So what this means is that modern wars between modern warfare, will reduce significatively
the effectiveness of long range missiles and beyond visual combat could be next to useless too.
So stealth planes could become largely over rated. at best radars will not see them ,but it will not matter ,since their missiles will not hit any mobile target or neither static one.

So modern wars will rely heavily in very fast and Dynamic close combat armies with long range mobile artillery and tanks and Airforce could be grounded.   In modern wars , stealth planes will be more effective in first strike attacks ,when the enemy is taken by surprise in massive attacks , but not so effective after the first day of war ,if the enemy is very well defended its airspace. . what will really dominate the battlefield will be strong fast ,mobile Armored divisions. Tanks ,artillery ,rocket artillery. Reason why Russia need to rush mass production of all their Armata.

So if NATO and ISrael deploys in Turkey the best air defenses they have and airforce ,and Russia do the same in Syria. then both sides will deny Air space to each other, and fast mobile armies will make the difference.

 In Ukraine conflict according to NATO former General Breedlove , 75% of the casualties of Ukrainians was to Pro Russian fighters Artillery. Even Russia lost half a dozen of planes in georgia war who was poorly equipped. and it was Ballistic Artillery what disable Georgian defenses.  in summary in modern warfare , well armed Army > will always win well armed Airforce.  Missiles fired by planes will always be the weakest link ,because it can be interrupted easily it guidance by strong electronic warfare ,jamming and decoys.  In the other hand you cannot easily stop the attacks of classic artillery , bullets or tank kinetic rounds.

For land combat ill take any day a full armed T-14 over a Pak-fa for defending territory.
the first one can produce more destruction with better accuracy and better view of enemy positions . Airforce however still will be important , their best performance will be to fight warships ,flying over water and under enemy radars ,and not in land ,where every surface could be armed with anti air defenses. or even anti air artillery can shut down a plane that is flying low.

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.

The raw power of Russian AD is shown, in my mind, by the fact that on its own it can maintain full air control. US Generals have nervously admitted that Russia is impervious to 4th generation aerial attack through its IADS alone.

Air superiority being the decider of a war is only a reality in the fevered minds of NATO wardogs, let alone enforcing such a strategy in the first place.

eehnie wrote:

Militarov wrote:

eehnie wrote:

Militarov wrote:

x_54_u43 wrote:

wilhelm wrote:
Don't stress about it too much, Elbows.

x_54_u43, Elbows was pretty neutral, and didn't exactly pick on any nation over another.
I really can't see why he deserved the slight dig?

Either way, I was glad when I was a soldier back in the day that I was an infantryman.

On that note, forgive me if I haven't been following as closely as I should the progression of Armata, but is it still in State Trials, or have those been concluded now?
If they are concluded, is there a date that it is to be inducted into service? I seem to recall reading on this site that a production order was announced the other day.

Anyone who thinks air power can significantly affect ground power is a retard, simply put.

Russian air force or American, it makes no difference.

Contract for Armata have begun.

And yet, Iraq and Libya were obliterated by air power in matter of days. Same happened to Germans on Western Front, and to Egyptians and Syrians in wars with Israel... Air power wins the war there is not even a spot for discussion on that matter.

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.

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.

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.

I do not agree. Until now the kind of air superiority that you commented has been based on low vulnerability of the air platforms, but in the case of Ukraine, the Surface-Air weapons proved to be able to destroy every platform fliying, until a point where the alone good tactic for air warfare is to avoid to fly.

Future wars between armed forces with enough developed surface-air weapons, are likely to produce spaces of air interdiction for both sides, like is the Donbass now. The air superiority only works to crush fairly weaker countries that have not enough good surface-air weapons.

The military tactics based on air superiority to destroy land warfare are old and outdated stuf to fight with modern adversaries since the massive development and deployment of surface-air manpads and the improvement of the accuracy of the bigger surface-air platforms.

You are aware that i am Air defence officer right?

Ukrainians lost their borts due to:

1. Bad flying
2. Bad mission planning
3. Outdated warload and airframes

Aganist decent airforce MANPAD-s wont be even remotelly effective as it was aganist Ukrainians or SyAF.

That is why SEAD exists duh, to deal with integrated air defence. Iraqis had more SAM launchers than some countries MANPAD-s, and what good it did to them with all the jamming and Wild Weasels flying around. What good it did to us in Yugoslavia when we werent able to turn our radars on most of the time.

Air defence is king of warfare, was, is and will be for long time.

Well, Iraq and Serbia were operating relatively outdated equipment during the conflicts. Modern systems all have much better capabilities especially in jamming environment. Iraq had a huge defense system but that was still obsolete and poorly manned. Serbia seemed was obsolete but well manned. If it had more modern equipment, would have been more devastating for nato aircrafts. Also good protection against standoff weapons. Latest training with manpads and shorad shows their importance.

Plus manpads have a track record of getting a good shot at modern aircrafts.

GarryB wrote:

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.

1. WW2 Western front wouldnt even happen without full air superiority of Allies and biggest air raids in history. And stop twisting my words, ofc there was ground campagin, but war itself wouldnt go anywhere without airforce.

Naturally air superiority during WW2 was different than today in some ways, where major targets for ground strikes werent point targets like today but rather major military installations and industry.

2. And yet Iraq lost both wars...coz there was nothing to challenge USAF. 35.000 KIA and in first Gulf War and just brief ground offensive in which Iraqis gave basically no resistance. Ofc there was needed ground operation, that is how war works...but it did not won, it just made them leave the terrain.

3. NATO over Iraq and Syria operates tiny number of borts, nothing to be compared with Desert Storm for an example or Kosovo war, where they operated over 6-700 just combat aircraft. Actively they fly like two dozen aircraft in total, that is not really air superiority we talk here about.

4. "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..." - Incompetent?

You know why wasnt Yugoslav army bombed into stone age? We didnt operate it... we hid it. You cant win war like that...you just prolonge it. And we shot 2 actual aircraft during almost 80 days.

5. Yes sure, aganist equally modern adversary, however we are talking here after the actual air superiority has been achieved. Also i dont think we would do anything even if we had 30 MiG29SMTs back in the time, simply coz we were outnumbered dozens:1. And everyone is outnumbered at this moment in same manner aganist NATO.

Someone will always eventually reach at least partial air superiority in a conflict if its being fought "seriously".

sepheronx wrote:Well, Iraq and Serbia were operating relatively outdated equipment during the conflicts. Modern systems all have much better capabilities especially in jamming environment. Iraq had a huge defense system but that was still obsolete and poorly manned. Serbia seemed was obsolete but well manned. If it had more modern equipment, would have been more devastating for nato aircrafts. Also good protection against standoff weapons. Latest training with manpads and shorad shows their importance.

Plus manpads have a track record of getting a good shot at modern aircrafts.

Well our main air defence systems in 1999. were old as S-300PMU1 is today. Kub-s that i served on were obtained in mid to late 70s and some early 80s. Nevas got destroyed mostly anyways due to being fixed site launchers.

MANPAD-s havent really performed well during last 2 decades aganist modern aircraft from what i can figure. Some Syrian MiG-21s, Su-22s, Libyan MiG23BMs... Ukrainian..well...Ukrainian everything. "Modern" fighters rarely fly low enough for them to reach, even when they do its during landing or taking off. That is where Afghanist were trying to catch even Soviet AF fixed wing aircraft in 80s with Stingers as otherwise they would not get many chances to use them except on helicopters.

It was only recently air defense systems got protection from ew and spoofing, while also calculating which target to hit in terms of a mass strike.

Kubs were good but even during the conflict, they were already obsolete and compromised.

sepheronx wrote:

Militarov wrote:

x_54_u43 wrote:

wilhelm wrote:
Don't stress about it too much, Elbows.

x_54_u43, Elbows was pretty neutral, and didn't exactly pick on any nation over another.
I really can't see why he deserved the slight dig?

Either way, I was glad when I was a soldier back in the day that I was an infantryman.

On that note, forgive me if I haven't been following as closely as I should the progression of Armata, but is it still in State Trials, or have those been concluded now?
If they are concluded, is there a date that it is to be inducted into service? I seem to recall reading on this site that a production order was announced the other day.

Anyone who thinks air power can significantly affect ground power is a retard, simply put.

Russian air force or American, it makes no difference.

Contract for Armata have begun.

And yet, Iraq and Libya were obliterated by air power in matter of days. Same happened to Germans on Western Front, and to Egyptians and Syrians in wars with Israel... Air power wins the war there is not even a spot for discussion on that matter.

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.

Not quite.  The Arab nations were devastated due to piss poor tactics, and even then, the west lost a lot of equipment in the process (they can call it technical failures all around, doesn't make it any better) and it really didn't help when majority of Saddams army folded quite early for whatever reason.  Example of poor tactics is Syria's AD setup where Buks are constantly moved and struck when during movement, but not like Pantsir that was used when shooting down a Turk jet a while ago.

AD systems could very well be a determined factor and mobile units are indeed a huge game changer.  If Saddam's army had more modern and capable, mobile sam systems then I don't think the US would have gotten away with the same amount of losses.  Add to that, if they even had low altitude radar or UHF radar as well.  No, we are also seeing that artillery units and alike are a determining factor.  You cannot win a war against an enemy without a ground troops, and even then Israel had to conduct ground ops against various nations during the 6 day war to destroy SAM sites before they could use their airforce to pummel the enemy.  Libya was an example of having mercenaries fight on the ground while your airforce hunts a specific person down.  They didn't win, they just assassinated a person and helped create a power vacuum because of it.

Yeah, the shot one solo flying F4 / 2020, they did not fight an actual invasion, yet they never managed to stop Israelis dropping whatever they like on their nuclear reactors and armament storages.

Lets face it, no matter how pink we paint it in, Iraqis would lose even if they had everything brand new and everything modern and best training in the world. Simply they were outmatched in every possible way, it would just take longer and more ppl would die for shit.

Iraqis had low altitude recon P-15 radar same as we did in Serbia and PRV-9 too.

Yet in each of those cases main and the most importang blows were dealt by airforce. I am not sure what are you guys trying to prove here. Infantry on its own wasnt main fighting tool since mid 19th century. Sure infantry is still required and is one of pillars of military power, however its not capable of delivering the blows that are winning the wars anymore.

Poor fight infantry wars like we did in Yugoslavia. We tried to compensate for it by artillery, did not go very well.

So you are saying Russia would lose too, on an invasion on its own land even though they have new equipment, strongest IADS, and advanced aircrafts because somehow US/NATO outmatches them? Logistics means nothing?

If Iraq had all of that, they would win. The amount of forces engaged against Iraq were smaller than Iraqi overall forces. It was horrifically out of date and poorly trained. If not why do you think the US would win? Cause of hollywood? You make no sense. Your answer borderline of just because USA, Southern redneck style.

The only determining factor of what you may be saying is Iraqi willingness to fight.

sepheronx wrote:So you are saying Russia would lose too, on an invasion on its own land even though they have new equipment, strongest IADS, and advanced aircrafts because somehow US/NATO outmatches them? Logistics means nothing?

If Iraq had all of that, they would win. The amount of forces engaged against Iraq were smaller than Iraqi overall forces. It was horrifically out of date and poorly trained. If not why do you think the US would win? Cause of hollywood? You make no sense. Your answer borderline of just because USA, Southern redneck style.

The only determining factor of what you may be saying is Iraqi willingness to fight.

Actually not, because the committed forces against Iraq were for the most part actuall Active duty forces. The support element was well protected. Iraq had no strategic assets, it had no strategic capabilities that ould have stopped the US & C° from ammassing the roughly million people they put together to shit on Saddam Hussein. At no moment could Iraq flex the supply lines or strike combat groups. FFS even Yemen is doing that. With Iraqi and Russian supplied Tochkas.

Russia is a complete different ball game.

But he said with modern weapons and modern training they couldn't win. But if they had Tochka-U and Iskanders, new MLRS, New sukhoi jets a cruise missiles and the like, then Iraq would have been able to strike massed groups and supply lines as well as bases themselves from afar. These are all Russia has as well. Besides nukes of course, Russia got nothing else special.

Actually, even with Nukes, it isn't stopping US building up a mass of troops along Russia's borders and threatening them of war. So technically, same situation as Iraq. Only difference is Russia has more assets and manpower, nukes that now no one believes Russia would use no matter what, and possibly a way to replenish destroyed gear from Eastern section.

sepheronx wrote:So you are saying Russia would lose too, on an invasion on its own land even though they have new equipment, strongest IADS, and advanced aircrafts because somehow US/NATO outmatches them? Logistics means nothing?

If Iraq had all of that, they would win. The amount of forces engaged against Iraq were smaller than Iraqi overall forces. It was horrifically out of date and poorly trained. If not why do you think the US would win? Cause of hollywood? You make no sense. Your answer borderline of just because USA, Southern redneck style.

The only determining factor of what you may be saying is Iraqi willingness to fight.

How did you come to that conclusion and where did i say that?

I said that airforce today is winning wars and is main tool in modern warfare i never mentioned Russia.

I hate that "Russian airdefence is better than US airforce" talk, like kids arguing whos dad is stronger. And i would like to skip on it if possible.

No, Iraq would never win, dont be silly. What does it even mean "to win" when 20+ countries with combined forces is attacking you together with every your neighbour basically supporting it? Win how, in what? And having Kurds attacking you on every corner, your own citizens.

It would just prolonge war for another few weeks and another 40.000 dead. And some increase in NATO loses, what would be the point of that?

Its like saying how Germany would win WW2 just if they had better equipment. If you gave them equipment from 70s they would have lost anyways simply coz whole rest of the world was fighting them...

sepheronx wrote:But he said with modern weapons and modern training they couldn't win. But if they had Tochka-U and Iskanders, new MLRS, New sukhoi jets a cruise missiles and the like, then Iraq would have been able to strike massed groups and supply lines as well as bases themselves from afar. These are all Russia has as well. Besides nukes of course, Russia got nothing else special.

Actually, even with Nukes, it isn't stopping US building up a mass of troops along Russia's borders and threatening them of war. So technically, same situation as Iraq. Only difference is Russia has more assets and manpower, nukes that now no one believes Russia would use no matter what, and possibly a way to replenish destroyed gear from Eastern section.

And then Power Rangers join them, combine their powers to form Megazord wipe out NATO fleet and destroy White House...

eehnie wrote:

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.

No it is not an exemple. Air force against guerillas isn't effective. Ukrainian planes would be destroyed by russian planes, thats why they don't use them, not by some buks used independtly. Most of their radars would be detected far enough of their engagement range and would be destroyed with good tactics.

Against an conventional army it is. If you don't have no more airforce, they can easily destroy your ground forces, heavy equipment and artillery, specially if they have Su-25 or A-10. Even if you have S-400 and Pantsirs... you could destroy them by sacrifying some planes.

That's what happend in Irak. Even if the soldiers fought really, they couldn't do anything against the aviation of coallition with tanks, BMPs ank AK-47.