Pakistan Airforce
…..I believe that warfare has radically changed over the last few years and almost all legacy weaponry is on serious borrowed time.
failure of the Russian Air Force really warped your mindsA JF-17 or an F-16 life expectancy over let’s say the Donbas or Lughansk or Donets can be counted in minutes or maybe hours at best. Same same for Su-35 or F-35. I don’t see neither the western NATO nor the Russians using any military aircraft at all since the last year straight. All warplanes are grounded because it’s pretty clearly understood what happens if they fly…
I don't see western planes in the air either. They'd be shot down in minutes. That's why we don't see them in Ukraine at all.
I would expect 24-30 planes along with some spare parts to be procured
Because they haven't been delivered and Ukrainian pilots haven't been trained to a sufficient point?
Ukraine's entire AF was destroyed early in the war within weeks of it starting. RuAF lost about 50 'advanced' jets also withing the first few months. After that almost no AF activity on either side. Attack helo's did even worse and basically withdrawn from front line duties. We see the same for naval warships and much much worse for armor/ APC's. I honestly believe that looking at this Ukraine war, most countries must be thinking that all they got is cannon fodder in equipment. Only think that works today are ATGM's, drones and laser guided artillery. Almost everything else (legacy weapons) have largely been rendered obsolete. If you paid me a million bucks right now and ask me to fly an F-16 over Donbas, or go sit in a Leopard tank, I would refuse to do it. There's almost a 100% chance of me not coming back alive.
Ukraine's AF wasn't destroyed, their Su-34s are still doing critical missions with storm shadows, TB2s are still collecting data. I don't know what Mig-29s and Su-27s are doing but there's still some left as far as I know.
It’s the era of proxy wars now. Look at the SyRaaq region. Thousands of storm shadow attacks later and the PMU’s are very active. They’ve moved everything or anything critical underground and all these US and IDF strikes make no diff. Supply lines to Hezb are wide open. Occasionally they kill a few IRGC officers or some PMU operatives or the Syrian army officers, but they are quickly avenged and replaced. It’s a lot harder to strike Russian territory on the other hand. Russia’s turned Ukraine into a pile of rubble. And the US and Israel have turned Syria into one. Iran/ Russia/ China are playing the long game…..sooner or later the west will leave. All their trillion dollar weapons have failed to change the strategic balance. In the case of Armenia too I don’t believe Russia nor Iran would allow an Azeri victory, and I don’t believe Azeri’s will push their luck either. JF thunder might work over Armenia, but it’s not really needed in the era of drones and ballistic/ cruise missiles now. I believe a decade or two down the road, manned military platforms will seriously dwindle.
Check that USAF AI controlled F-16v shooting down dozens of aircraft in simulations and doing it repeatedly too. Anything a human can do, the AI can do better, and the scary bit is that it learns from its mistakes and input. It’s very scary.
