Half of Russia's Black Sea fleet's combat jets out of operation - Western official

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

LONDON, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Blasts at the Saky air base in the annexed Crimean peninsula earlier this month have put more than half of the Russian Black Sea fleet's naval aviation combat jets out of use, a Western official said on Friday.

The air base near Novofedorivka on the west coast of the peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, suffered multiple explosions on Aug. 9.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Ukraine was now consistently achieving "kinetic effects" deep behind Russia's lines which was having a material impact on Russia's logistics support and "a significant psychological effect on the Russian leadership".

"We now assess that the events of Saky airfield on August 9 put more than half of Black Sea fleet's naval aviation combat jets out of use," the official said.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/half-russias-black-sea-fleets-122700917.html

[Alexander Of Assyria]

1. Half of...how many? Half an undefined amount is poor math!

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. Half of the entire number. NT

[GreenWave]

4. I prefer half of each plane

1 wing, 1 wheel, etc.

[Irish_Dem]

3. Half the RU Black Sea Navy Air Fleet was sitting on land? At one RU Air Force base?

I don't really know anything about navy air power, but aren't their airplanes supposed to be located on air craft carriers? And if on land, why in the heck one central target?

As a child I lived on US Air Force bases overseas in Southeast Asia during the Viet Nam war.

The military command was always moving airplanes around for safety reasons.
And AF planes most certainly were not all located at just one base.

The AF planes were housed on many bases located in various nearby countries.
Any hint of a danger to airplanes, meant our fathers flew the planes off base to safety.

Even AF kids know the planes are expensive, hard to replace and valuable.

Heck even when delivering supplies to dangerous locations in Viet Nam, the AF planes literally just
threw the supplies off the plane on the runway, barely touching down. Save the planes at any cost.

Maybe I am missing something about Russian strategy.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. You missed the thrill of living on a Naval Air Station.

As a child I lived on US Air Force bases overseas in Southeast Asia during the Viet Nam war.

[Irish_Dem]

6. We loved the Navy.

They had the best BXs. Full of stuff brought over on ships, not smaller airplanes.

Loved the Navy uniforms. We would go over and buy the bell bottoms, shirts and white little hats and wear them around. (During wartime, no one pays attention to military kids. The Dads were always gone and the Moms were doing all the military wives social events.)

Navy guys much more charisma than AF guys.

But we always thought the Navy Air Stations were small compared to AF bases. Don't know if that is true or not.

We thought the Navy was so showy and exotic. All the different ships, sitting out in the water. The wonderful uniforms.

Even the ranks were a tangled mystery to us. All the enlisted men had such exotic titles, the rank names made no sense to us. The officer ranks on their sleeves.

Our fathers flew airplanes that seemed very familiar, we lived next to the runway and saw the planes land and take off all the time. It was boring. And they wore the same old boring flight suits. Ranks very familiar and simple. But the Navy had everything going for it.

[marble falls]

7. All of a sudden, I'm not so angry now that we've found out how much of their parts ...

... originated in the west.