We were talking about something cool, and then nooooooo, another student of military history knows better.
Just in short, I do enjoy how impenetrable Russian IADS is, and how NATO will struggle with it, but supremely unstealthy last generation Russian fighters will zip on through NATO/Ukrainian IADS and kill all the mens.
Carrying on in good order though!
Who died and appointed you to be thread-Stalin? It was off track and we were happy there talking about much more relevant topics like how cool Longbow 2 was.
Re: IADS examples.
Super-off topic! The question was never "will NATO bomb the Russians?" because the answer to that is fairly well agreed by all parties to be "Yes, eventually." The million dollar question was if the Russians could bomb NATO.
And apparently given your able defense of large SAMs and the 2S6, the answer is "no, all Russian pilots will die shrieking in their canopies as they are violated from every direction by PATRIOT and 2S6 fire because IADS is the end all"
However I do not think that was your intent, so carrying on in good order.
Effectively the realistic outcome of any ADA component is to raise the difficulty of bombing something, but like all defenses, given effort and proper equipment they can be breached. Anyone with a basic understanding of military workings understands defense is the stronger form of military operations, but it is never the decisive one (or, even if the defensive fight was important, what decided the matter was the follow-on offensive, or threat of same no matter how anemic it was). The Israelis had to suffer through the slings and arrows of both first generation ATGMs and SAMs once they'd moved beyond babby's first missile stage. However, as time and time again has proven, the IADS builds complexity into the operation, but to act as if they were the be all end all is a shallow reading of military history. Hanoi still rocked with bomb blasts, Israeli jets still snake and naped their way across the desert. Like all defensive, reactive ways of warfare, they're only good if you can follow up the breathing room they've given you.
Which gets to relative strength.
Here's what the Russian Air Force can muster circa around now:
830 "fighter" type planes (includes multi-roles and assumes the Russians would potentially commit MIG-31s offensively)+60 additional PAK-FAs maybe+100 claimed MIG-35 starting initial small number service claimed 2016
535 "Strike" type planes (planes with unambigiously strike-only role, chiefly SU-25 and SU-24)+89 claimed SU-34s
For amusement:
16 A-50 AWACS type planes
19 IL-78 aerial refueling planes+31 on order
Here's what the USAF brings to the fight:
1,473 "fighter" type planes (F-16, F-15s minus Es, F-22, F-35s in inventory)+1763 F-35 on order)
534 "Strike" type planes (F-15E, A-10C)
32 E-3 Sentry (AWACS)
16 JSTARs (Sort of AWACS for ground)
417 refueling planes (KC-135, not bored enough to look up KC-46 procurement)
USMC could bring if invited
229 Fighters (F/A-18s, to be replaced by F-35s)
99 Strike (AV-8, also to be replaced by F-35s)
USN if they get sick of the ocean
998 fighters (F/A-18A/B/C/D, and F/A-18E/Fs)
117 Dedicated SEAD (EF-18G)
Here's what our special relationship would show up with should Her Majesty deem fit:
125 Fighters (Typhoon)
102 Strike (Tornado)
6 AWACS (E-3 Sentry as operated by RAF)
Deutchland
109 Fighters (Typhoons, to eventually become fleet of 143)
116 Strike (Tornadoes)
Merde. It is time for zee French:
135 Fighters (Rafales, remaining Mirage 2000s in fighter role)+37 additional Rafales if the Navy shows up.
84 Strike (Mirage 2000s in strike units)
4 AWACs (French owned E-3s)
Za naszą i waszą wolność!
80 Fighters (MIG-29, F-16)
23 Strike (SU-22)
"I swear guys! THIS time we're going to pick a side and stick with it!"
Ukraine:
50 Fighters (operational and on hand, others broken/in storage)
15 Strike (remaining operational SU-25s)
NATO
18 AWACS (E-3s "owned" by NATO)
These numbers:
Total commitment by all parties involved. Obviously not the case in event of war, each of these parties to include Russia will be forced to commit platforms to protecting other fronts It's safe to assume this will equally effect all countries involved, and NATO is much better able to spread forces around at this point.
The only numbers that include F-35s are the USAF simply because I got bored of adding those in quickly
Russian "new" planes only count confirmed orders.
Only USAF tankers are counted, again this is a boredom thing on my end.
Russian and USAF strategic bombers are excluded. It's doubtful any of those assets would be used for CAS, and very likely, at all for fear of causing some sort of "is this B-1 heading towards the Russian border dropping bombs on a bridge, or is it carrying nukes?" situations.
This excludes a large number of NATO countries. I simply stuck to countries we've gotten some indication might show up in CMBS.
You can see the massive disparity in air power, capabilities, and numbers. There are more USAF F-16s alone than all fighters in the Russian inventory, and significant numbers (nearly 50%) of Russian strike fighters are SU-25s, which given how everyone's crowing how dead the A-10 would be over Ukraine, I think it's safe to say they're not any more likely to survive terribly long either. Additionally the 60 or so AWACS type platforms vs the 16 or so A-50s is a massive disparity in surveillance and command and control capability. And bluntly russian SOF can only get lucky so many times, while risking the fact that "Chechen separatists" may suddenly appear in western Russia and do the same before disappearing to never be heard from again.
Some more random one off key points:
Who knows, there's only about 180ish of them I think, there's going to be a TON of other high end fighters in the air though, and the stealth isn't going to be as important for CAP over friendly lines.
If memory serves, West Germany isn't a country any more, and the hypothetical war of 1988 is not the hypothetical war of 2017.
Irrelevant to a painful degree. Finding a tank company gone to ground is something much harder to do than finding a CVBG. While standoff is going to be important, the defender's ability to acquire Russian aircraft will be much greater than Russian aviation's ability to acquire NATO ground forces. Simple reality of finding a plane in the cold blue sky over a tank on the cluttered green earth.
Says the man who thinks tanks are aircraft carriers.
As I have shown there is a MASSIVE difference in NATO capabilities and Russian capabilities. And we know unambigiously USAF/USN/USMC avaitions, and several of their NATO counterparts fly significantly more than their potential Russian opponents. 830 Russian fighters to the 3,312 fighters NATO could call on, even assuming mirror capabilities is simply not a fight the Russians are going to be able to manage. And ESPECIALLY something the Russians will not be able to manage over PATRIOT (from various NATO allies and US Army sites), MANPADs, Ukrainian ADA, etc, etc, etc. The idea an SU-25 is going to live long enough to make a pass is possible, leakers can happen. The idea it's not going to be part of his posthumous medal for valor is positive madness.
Even assuming leakers, the odds that an SU-25 or SU-24 is going to get over US forces, make more than one pass, and survive to return to friendly lines is even more insane. With Russian IADS, it's going to be hard for US forces to bomb Russian forces as much as we'd like. Russian strike pilots would do well to jettison their landing gear on takeoff to save weight, because god knows they wouldn't be needing them again if they make it to the FEBA. The war in the Ukraine is not a war of national survival. The Russians would not be desperate enough to simply throw away aircraft they cannot afford to lose by the dozens to achieve tactical level strikes (especially considering each of those 830 fighters that follows the SU-25s it was trying to protect crashing to earth is one less fighter to stave off the 991 dedicated strike craft+ 3000ish now bomb carrying fighters from NATO).
Given this force, this literal swarm of current generation airframes, something like a yankee imperialist 2S6 is a stupid, stupid, stupid waste of money. We're best served by the might of our winged bretheren, and saving our pennies to make sure those flyboys get all the crew rest they need instead of pretending it's still 1989 and paying for Chaparral 2 or Son of Linebacker.
