Where is the Russian Air Force? Experts break down why they might be hiding

[douglas9]

If the past 80 years of warfare have taught us anything, it’s that air supremacy, the term for making an enemy air force incapable of resistance, is essential for winning a conventional war. That’s why experts are scratching their heads trying to figure out why the Russian combat air force, despite being 15 times the size of its Ukrainian foe, has not achieved anything close to air supremacy.

“The modernized and massive Russian military force that currently surrounds Ukraine on three sides can muster air and missile strikes that would likely overwhelm Ukrainian airpower and air defenses and severely damage military and other facilities,” wrote RAND senior policy researcher Dara Massicot in an op-ed for Defense One on January 19, about five weeks before Russia launched its invasion on Feb. 24.

According to Flight Global’s 2022 World Air Forces directory, Russia has 1,511 combat aircraft, while Ukraine has a mere 98. But a week into the war, the Russian air force is yet to steamroll Ukraine’s the way Massicot and others thought.

“[T]he roughly 300 modern combat aircraft which the [Russian air force] positioned within easy range of the main contact zones in northern, eastern and southern Ukraine appear to have largely stayed on the ground throughout the first four days of fighting,” wrote airpower expert Justin Bronk.

The absence of Russian combat aircraft has allowed the Ukrainian Air Force to fly low-level counter-air and ground attack sorties, Bronk wrote in an essay on Monday for the United Kingdom defense think tank, Royal United Services Institute.

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/how-big-is-the-russian-air-force/

[secondwind]

1. Give them a couple more days.............................

[SheltieLover]

2. Poorly maintained old junk is my guess

[secondwind]

3. I truly wish you were right... am afraid that they are very well prepared...

[SheltieLover]

5. I hope not!

🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞

[speak easy]

14. Seemed to be maintained just fine in Syria.

It's a mystery.

[brewens]

9. Possibly part of it. I wonder if the Russians know there are some nasty new countermeasures

that we don't know about yet? It might be any kind of jamming or cyber warfare that might make it impossible to control attacks or make their weapons malfunction. Wouldn't that be cool?

[SheltieLover]

22. Yes it would!

[Cracklin Charlie]

25. Maybe the jamming is keeping them grounded.

As in, can’t take off?

[SheltieLover]

34. Could be!

[GoCubsGo]

32. And/or, an overestimation of their abilities by the West.

Yesterday, on Stephanie Miller's show, Malcolm Nance suggested that the West has been wowed by Russia's newer technologies, while not recognizing that the bulk of their military hardware is old and out-dated. He said that just maybe, the Russian military isn't quite the juggernaut we all think it is. They usually post segment in various. Not up yet, but it will probably be up here soon: https://sexyliberal.com/ They usually put it on her YouTube page, as well.

[doc03]

4. They are holding them back in reserve in case NATO gets involved nt

[SheltieLover]

7. Or could fear NATO involvement

[denbot]

18. I believe they went into this to see if they could pull most of the Warsaw Pact back under.

If we buckle under the threat of a tactical exchange he will. I believe this has always been part of the calculus, and is still in play.

[SheltieLover]

19. Could be

[BeyondGeography]

6. They're afraid of being even further exposed as a massively inferior military "superpower"

Given how much Russian forces have suffered from the lack of air cover makes it difficult to understand why so much Russian airpower remains on the sidelines. However, Bronk had a few guesses: a limited number of precision-guided munitions; poor coordination with ground-based air defenses; low number of flying hours; and perhaps a hesitancy not to disabuse notions of foreign observers that the Russian air force has modernized and professionalized in recent years.

[SheltieLover]

8. All quite likely!

Lack of training & maintenance as well.

[Victor_c3]

36. I love the last part of that quote

Russia doesn’t want to dispel the notion that it has modernized its Air Force. As we’re seeing, the Russian military isn’t as mighty as it once appeared (at least to me)

[Papa-Ron]

10. Maybe this is why Putin has said nukes are on the table?

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

15. Small tactical battlefied nukes have always been on the table for Russia, they think different

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

30. Yep

A lot people think the Russians view nukes in the same way as the West. They don't. Their doctrine specifically allows the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield, even against non nuclear states and without provocation. They include their usage in their "escalate to deescalate" strategy, where they believe they can escalate to using tactical nuclear weapons in order force the opposition to negotiate and make concessions in order to prevent further escalation to strategic nuclear weapons.

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

11. No need to expose their high tech aircraft. Rockets, missiles and ground troops are expendables

Russia does not think of war as some western think tank. They are content to grind out a ground war for weeks, months, years.

Save their aircraft for possible NATO involvement in bigger war.

[Carlitos Brigante]

16. Hadn't thought about that. Interesting point. nt

[Wicked Blue]

12. Shh, don't remind them

Maybe they just forgot

[Tetrachloride]

13. I hypothesize that the article was holding back at least 2 scenarios

[gab13by13]

17. The weather has been bad, low visibility.

[RAB910]

20. My best guess

Modern combat aircraft cost a small fortune. Russia literally can't afford to get a sizeable number of them shot down. They know the Ukrainians have Stingers and the Russians remember what happened in Afghanistan.

[Buckeyeblue]

24. I agree with you

At this point there is no need for Russia to end this quickly. The infrastructure of Ukraine has been severely damaged. With nothing to salvage what's rhe rush?

I could even see Russia agreeing to back out of Ukraine for some nebulous concession. The damage has been done. It will take Ukraine years to fix and rebuild what they had.

I'm sure Russia is more than willing to let the west finance such a job.

[Happy Hoosier]

21. If I can be arrogant enough to link to my own post...

In short.... a lot of it is probably not operational, or has major subsystems not functioning.

https://democraticunderground.com/100216432797#post14

[Happy Hoosier]

23. A quick comment on RAND

RAND very commonly takes Russian data for granted as a matter of course. They do this consciously, opining that unless they KNOW the information is inaccurate, they assume it IS accurate. This leads to RAND frequently vastly over-estimating Russian capability.

There have been times that despite having a lot of data to the contrary available, they STILL credit Russian information sources. The Su-35 an S-400 are two examples. If you listen to Rand, you'd think Russia could defeat the entire US Air Force with those two systems alone.

[Wicked Blue]

26. Fuel supply problems

I've read that their tanks are running out of gas

Maybe they can't get enough jet fuel to supply their warplanes

[lastlib]

27. I wish we could ship about a dozen A-10s to Unkraine....

Let 'em have a field day with that long convoy.......fish in a barrel!

[JHB]

35. They'd need trained pilots for that to do any good quickly

That means American pilots, and would effectively mean overt American intervention.

[sl8]

39. I read that Bulgaria is transferring 14 SU-25 "Frogfoot" ground attack aircraft to Ukraine.

Last edited Thu Mar 3, 2022, 06:08 PM - Edit history (1)

On edit:

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2022/03/01/no-eu-countries-arent-sending-fighter-jets-to-ukraine/
No, EU countries aren’t sending fighter jets to Ukraine

[Jarqui]

28. If their airforce is in such disrepair,

how did they develop hypersonic nuclear weapons and how reliable would those be?

So a bunch of this is a bluff?

I'm not sure.

It certainly is not adding up at the moment. Doesn't make sense.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

31. Could be a bluff

But Russia places a higher priority on nuclear weapons and delivery systems, potentially(most likely actually) to a detriment of their other weapon systems.

[Jarqui]

33. That could be a bluff too.

There's only one way to find out.
Hopefully, nobody wants to go there.

[Victor_c3]

38. Good point, like North Korea does

The rest of the North Korean military sucks, but as long they have nukes that they can launch across the globe, nobody is going to mess with them.

[relayerbob]

29. Operative words in the headline - break down

[Victor_c3]

37. Kind of related, but not really related

I’ve wondered how a poor showing by the Russian military would impact their arms sales abroad. Many nations around the world purchase Russian produced equipment, from tanks to aircraft. I’m sure a clear demonstration that their modern aircraft and tanks suck would deter potential buyers.

A few years back, I read an article stating that it’s expected that China will start to rival Russia in arms and weapons sales in the near future. I wonder, does this arms sale competition has anything to do with what we’re seeing?

Edito add a nifty graphic:



It looks like China already overtook Russia in arms sales…