Good evening everybody! OK, now lets start with the ‘more interesting’ part of today’s ‘review’. Where… well, actually it’s so that the last few days it was the Russian Air-Space Force (VKS) and the Ukrainian Air Force and Air Defence Force (PSZSU, but I’m usually abbreviating it to PSU) were the branches that were dominating the scene.
Very impressive, and although I've read of this maneuver previously from another source - the reference being how F16s might be deployed, seeing it successfully executed as a graphic was most satisfying.
Which leads me to the question, now would you rate an F16 performing this maneuver? It is a nimble, lighter aircraft than a MIG an advantage? There is also the possibility of a Saab JAS 39 Gripen or Dassault Mirage. How would you evaluate their effectiveness? They are both agile and maneuverable. Would they be limited by the missiles they can deploy?
I spent like half my youth playing old-school flight sims. Even that is enough to confirm that any combat jet can follow this flight profile. Toss bombing has been a thing for a long time.
Low altitude flight characteristics depend on a lot of factors, wing shape and size as Tom mentioned being important ones. Weather, payload - all has an impact. Thrust-to-weight ratio is another key variable that factors in to everything. Mirage, Gripen, Falcon/Viper - they're all roughly in the same class.
French Hammer bombs also have a rocket motor attached to offer added range. Not sure how much it extends a low altitude toss though.
These basic tactics will be used whenever Ukrainian jets are near the front. What's incredible is that Ukrainian pilots have been running these missions every day, usually without loss, for months. This could say a lot about the ability of the orcs to intercept F-16s equipped with modern jamming pods. With the right model of Amraam, they can fly air defense missions much the same way.
If they are able to routinely get 10km from the front line and have airborne radars backing them up, it's possible to hit enemy jets up to 150km away. This will make glide bombing attacks extremely dangerous.
I am guessing once he is at a "safer altitude" he will alter course to make it harder to predict his course and be harder to approach. I wonder if there is any way for ground transmitters to broadcast on the same frequencies as the radars to create more clutter to give him a screen?
I think the fact that Ukrainian Air Force can operate at low altitude is a real condemnation of how bad Russian IADS (including interceptors) are. The fact we've even had Mi-24 strikes deep in Belgorod shows how bad the Russian IADS is.
1. S300/400 can't detect squat at low altitude (from memory 15 km range). It's best range is swatting airliner sized targets at high altitude.
2. Russian networking seems useless/non-existent. If an air defence radar or A50 has caught wind of a Ukrainian aircraft it clearly struggles to communicate this to the local air defence units.
3. Supposed Russian look down shown radars on Su-35 and MiG-31 clearly aren't very good.
4. There appears to be an abject shortage of anti-aircraft assets in frontline formations.
Remember Iraq 1991 effectively made low altitude missions obsolete in US eyes. Too many MANPADS, AAA, SHORADS resulted in too many losses.
Yet against the Russians, the Ukrainians have been flying low level altitude missions for 2 years now.
5. The Pantsir has proven itself to be trash in 3 separate wars now. One then has to wonder how effective Buk and Tor are. Indeed the fact that S400s nominally guarded by Tor/Buk/Pantsir are routinely being destroyed, I suspect that Tor and Buk are also failing to live up to the hype.
Both cruise missiles and fighters normally fly around 15-20m high to avoid electrical wires, mobil towers and such man-made obstacles.
Yes, some times pilots do fly very low (but thats more like around 10m high) but that's very dangerous and some times they hit something and that's easily cost their life...
The S-300PT/PS/PM/PMU can detect low flying planes and fighters around ~40km range with NVO or NVO-M radar at 25m tall mobil tower. Fun fact: this originally not planned for the S-300, but later become one of the cornerstone of the system, because with this is the system become more effective against the low-flying cruise missiles (historically: BGM/UGM-109 Tomahawk and the AGM-86 ALCM).
The big question is the RPN radar can get a cue to the target and the system have had the right missile for the role. The 5V55 and the 48N6 series need radar contact until it's hit the target, the 40N6 and the 9M96 series got an active radar final phase guidance, exactly for hitting the target below the radar horizon.
The Su-35 and MiG-31 look-down capability probably good enough, simply not from 150-200km. And they does not gonna come much closer than 100km at high altitude to the battlefield because the Ukraine SAM threats.
I do not seen Pantsir-S1 near the destroyed russian S-300 and S-400 systems lately, while see them earlier of the conflict. So the main problem is the lack of the layered anti-air systems...
Seems to be the Russian army have shortages of SHORAD systems, probably because they are prime targets too.
Some good points but we don't really have any evidence Russian IADS is working as promised.
The Ukrainian Air Force has been conducting long range interdiction and even resupply missions over captured territory (eg Mauripol supply runs with Mi-8s - most missions successful, only 2 aircraft shotdown).
If the Russian IADS is unable to stop chunky Mi-8s flying over territory it controls then I doubt it is very effective.
The fact that even drones the size of Cessnas are flying long range missions over Russian territory is an utter condemnation of the Russians IADS systems be it radars, SAMs or fixed wing interceptors.
One analyst showed that Tu-141 drones have flown over the radar coverage zones of at least 4 S300/400 batteries and were never detected let alone shot down.
The Turks have been vocal about the poor performance of S400 too.
The whole Russians IADS seems to be stuck in early 1960s era of S75M - sure it can splat big targets flying high.
But it seems to be useless at low altitude, useless against small targets and anything that isn't a large aircraft flying WWII level medium/high level missions with no ECM.
Heavens forbid what would happen to Russian IADS if Ukrainians ever got a hold of a squadron of EA-18Gs.
It's not a surprise the Turkish are find the S-400 capability unsatisfactory as the S-400 is simply a bit outdated system compared to the new systems like the NASAMS or SAMP/T, even compared to the Patriot PAC-3. The S-400 not a bad system even now, but to become effective they need to be integrated into a Turkish radar- and air-control systems. Which a bit hard when you have a NATO standard system...
Honestly the Turkish S-400 system acquisition is not a professional military decision but a political one.
To target and destroy low-level flying helicopters you need a lot of AWACS plane relative close to the battlefront to detect them. As the UKR anti-air systems are frequently used highly mobile way, even close to the battlefield the Russian not really keen to let their few remaining A-50(M) plane that close.
The MiG-31 or the Su-35 is cannot be effective too because without AWACS like system their radar only can detect the enemy target in the front hemisphere. And they need to be fly close to the battlefield and high enough to have had any chance. But the threat there, that's why those helicopters fly that low...
So yea, the problem is what you mentioned - the lack of effective IADS. But that's won't means the S-400 or the MiG-31BM itself are bad and useless systems...
At the time the Ukrainians were flying their resupply missions and long range raids into Belgorod (2022), A50s were flying around unmolested.
Note at this time Tu-22M3s could do carpet bombing of Mauripol because the Ukrainians were surrounded and Ukrainians IADS pushed back.
Yet still the Ukrainians managed to fly aircraft into Mauripol without neither the A50s, te S300/400s, Tor/Buks/ Su-35/MiG-31 noticing most of them.
I think the problem with Russian IADs is that it was designed to fight 1973 Yom Kippur and shoot down U-2s over Siberia, not engage against forces using modern tactics and stand off o guided weapons.
Also do we have any real idea how many SHORADS Russia ever acquired. A sizeable minority of the equipment lost is really old (eg Strela 10).
But what do we know about Medium range and SHORAD deliveries?
Tunguska is no longer seen much since start of the war. From a loss perspective, Russia has confirmed losses of 8 ancient ZSU-23-4 Shilkas yet only 14 Tunguskas. Given these are battlefield level SHORADS it indicates a very low number of systems present.
A lot of the systems lost are ancient ala Osa, Strela and older model Buks.
Buk launchers losses: 76
Buk radar losses: 9
Osa losses: 24
Strela 10: 46
Tor launcher losses: 55
Pantsir S1 losses: 24
Excluding whatever Wikipedia says about deliveries, it's evident that Pantsir is a rare beast in Russian service. I wonder if Russians never ordered them en masse due to them being poor quality compared to a Tor?
Finally the war in Ukraine has debunked the Sino-Russian A2/AD doctrine the west feared so much.
Dear God, are serious with that? The last time that UA manned aircraft dared into RU airspace was 2022. Since that time, only "shoot and run" from UA airspace.
As per efficiency of RU SAM systems, so many pros and cons that it's hard to judge objectively. My personal imho is that latest TORs and BUKs were good. The latter was finally able to cope with Himars and Bayraktars vanished at all since 2023.
S-300/400 is indeed controversial. While have no trouble in managing aircraft, they failed to completely "neutralize" ATACAMs. Seems like RU high command got fooled by advertising brochures. Will be interesting to see them against F-16s.
Interesting that last days a number of ATACAMs were successfully intersepted. Either by S-500 or, more likely, S-300V
Pantsirs are a different story. While failing in Syria, they scored a lot in Libya. In Ukraine the results were mixed. They had minimum classical targets like attack aircrafts or helicopters, being pressed to face UAVs, cruise missiles or Himars. Himars are hard targets to them, while a few Storm Shadows were indeed downed last month.
Russians releasing glide bombs 100 km behind the front line must be close to the extreme glide range which probably puts them in range of Patriots (if they had them) sited maybe 30/40 km the other side of the front line.
It all gets to be like a game of chess
How close to the front line to site air defenses vs how high the risk.
Same for the Russian bombers on the other side.
Ukraine really needs to find a good way to stop the glide bomb onslaught.
BTW, I am disappointed with the performance of the US GLSDBs. Typical I suppose of being the first to actually use a weapon in war conditions. I hope they can fix the problems but probably too much to hope for that they can successfully retrofit the bombs already made.
Who would have thought that the cold war tactics we trained 40 years ago would still be successfully used 35 years later?
We trained sustained low level flying at 100 feet with speeds up to 540 kts at Goosebay , Labrador. Excellent description of the event, though I think the approach and zoom was a subsonic event for several reasons: It is extremely challenging to fly supersonic at 100 feet and below over terrain and maintaining terrain masking, which is most important in a hostile environment. It is very fuel consuming and the capability for turn rate decreases while the turn radius increases, things you do not want when you need to evade any threat. The acceleration to supersonic speed in the climb with the external load would need the use of afterburner, the increased IR signature would be highlighting the jet for IR seekers from all aspects. And again after the release of the bombs the quick tight turn speaks also for an subsonic event, getting the direction reversed as fast as possible, exchanging altitude for speed and thus reducing the possible threat to catch a missile that was fired head on during the zoom up. The G's involved are big numbers, but trained and equipped with a G-suit they are manageable.
Kudos to my comrade pilots who do this job despite the dangers for their country and in the long term for the free world.
Thanks for the reminder on fuel consumption rates at low altitude going way up.
That will be a challenge with F-16s using similar tactics to approach the front line when they need to hit Sukhois inbound with glide bombs. It's a 150km dash from the Dnipro, and an F-16 based near Kyiv might have to fly that far there and back. Probably want to minimize use of external fuel tanks, though maybe you routinely dump a centerline tank over the Dnipro.
Still, a Viper carrying a couple Harms, jamming/decoy pods and 6x Amraams has what, maybe 800km to work with before hitting bingo fuel? How much wiggle room does that leave a pilot who has to go full afterburner at low altitude to dash to and from the front?
First, thank you for the great work you guys perform from day to day on this blog.
Let me start with your question in the last sentence. If the target is not absolutely time critical there will be no need to dash to the front, or lets better use the term "combat zone". It might be as fast as possible, f. e. for close air support of urgent ground operations , but most time it will be measured depending on the time available until ToT, thread, distance, fuel available and environmental factors. At nearly no time will it be a dash with speeds in the transonic or supersonic region. The route and speed would be the result of all those factors, and maybe some others not mentioned yet . Jet combat aircraft in low altitude perform best in a speed range up to 0,92 mach. Type and external load dependent each individuell one has a sweet spot where it is fast and agile enough to sustain the speed while turning fast and tight, the engines are responsive on thrust changes and the fuel consumption is acceptable . I'm not going into detail of any specific type though for obvious reasons.
So the flight to the combat zone will be subsonic at 450-540 kts over ground with about 85 -90% dry power, and a routing with some turning points according to terrain and possible threads. Things change when approaching the combat zone or when unplanned thing happen, and there are plenty out there in harms way.
Supersonic speed and use of afterburner is helpful to leave the combat zone, less so when flying inbound to the target for delivery.
Bottom line, imho the F-16 has enough range to reach the combat zone subsonic and bug out low and as fast as necessary after weapons release. It was built for this task and it did a great job over some decades in many countries. There is a really big data base available, no need to invent something new.
My thoughts on seeing this video the other day was that a) the pilot has serious balls and, b) even with the low flying, the Russian air defences in the area have to have been seriously degraded for the Ukrainians to risk their aircraft that close to the front lines. And I say this not just because of this one flight, but because there seem to have been an increasing number of PSU air attacks in the last couple weeks. This suggests to me a sufficient degradation at least locally such that the Ukrainians see the risk as having lowered enough to risk these attacks more often.
If Ukrainian F-16s can routinely get close enough to the front to deliver ordnance like this, even C-model Amraams have enough range to knock down Sukhois. I've been working under the assumption that they'd never come closer than about 50km even having the advantage of more potent ECM.
Moscow has proven throughout this war that it has a lot of extremely lethal capabilities that *only* work when every other supporting component of a complex system operates as planned. It's starting to look like the fearsome R-37M/S-400 complexes have a much smaller effective no-escape zone if the jets using them lack full AWACS support. If the A50 can't come closer than 200km because of the threat of S-200s, S-400s are kicked back more than 100km because of ATACMS, and those Mig-31/Su-35 radars perform more poorly than hoped, the air-to-air fight becomes a lot more manageable for Ukraine.
Except in Kharkiv, until it can use ATACMS up to 300km inside russia...
Well, one of the best Tom's articles within last months. Really nice and informative.
Sad to admit, that's another war when Fulcrums face prevailing foes, being unable to fully utilize their great maneurability and vaunted R-73 missiles.
Feel great respect to UA pilots that dare to the sky in such hostile environment. Luckily for the Russians, UA Mig-29s shoot either harmless HARMs or "light" French bombs.
Wow. Thank for the description. I dont normally watch videoes of the war, But this with your explanation was worth it. And explains clearly the problems facing Ukraine when using glide bombs. Damn, those guys are brave and though.
Were A50s able to detect such low-flying planes from afar?
Yes. Probably from around 200km away.
Thus the bombardment was enabled by the previous downing of the A50.
Very impressive, and although I've read of this maneuver previously from another source - the reference being how F16s might be deployed, seeing it successfully executed as a graphic was most satisfying.
Which leads me to the question, now would you rate an F16 performing this maneuver? It is a nimble, lighter aircraft than a MIG an advantage? There is also the possibility of a Saab JAS 39 Gripen or Dassault Mirage. How would you evaluate their effectiveness? They are both agile and maneuverable. Would they be limited by the missiles they can deploy?
I spent like half my youth playing old-school flight sims. Even that is enough to confirm that any combat jet can follow this flight profile. Toss bombing has been a thing for a long time.
Low altitude flight characteristics depend on a lot of factors, wing shape and size as Tom mentioned being important ones. Weather, payload - all has an impact. Thrust-to-weight ratio is another key variable that factors in to everything. Mirage, Gripen, Falcon/Viper - they're all roughly in the same class.
French Hammer bombs also have a rocket motor attached to offer added range. Not sure how much it extends a low altitude toss though.
These basic tactics will be used whenever Ukrainian jets are near the front. What's incredible is that Ukrainian pilots have been running these missions every day, usually without loss, for months. This could say a lot about the ability of the orcs to intercept F-16s equipped with modern jamming pods. With the right model of Amraam, they can fly air defense missions much the same way.
If they are able to routinely get 10km from the front line and have airborne radars backing them up, it's possible to hit enemy jets up to 150km away. This will make glide bombing attacks extremely dangerous.
150 km range for an AMRAAM launched at low altitude seems too optimistic. I would expect something like 90-100 km, at most
What an incredible battle the Ukrainians are fighting!
I am guessing once he is at a "safer altitude" he will alter course to make it harder to predict his course and be harder to approach. I wonder if there is any way for ground transmitters to broadcast on the same frequencies as the radars to create more clutter to give him a screen?
Excellent write up and analysis.
I think the fact that Ukrainian Air Force can operate at low altitude is a real condemnation of how bad Russian IADS (including interceptors) are. The fact we've even had Mi-24 strikes deep in Belgorod shows how bad the Russian IADS is.
1. S300/400 can't detect squat at low altitude (from memory 15 km range). It's best range is swatting airliner sized targets at high altitude.
2. Russian networking seems useless/non-existent. If an air defence radar or A50 has caught wind of a Ukrainian aircraft it clearly struggles to communicate this to the local air defence units.
3. Supposed Russian look down shown radars on Su-35 and MiG-31 clearly aren't very good.
4. There appears to be an abject shortage of anti-aircraft assets in frontline formations.
Remember Iraq 1991 effectively made low altitude missions obsolete in US eyes. Too many MANPADS, AAA, SHORADS resulted in too many losses.
Yet against the Russians, the Ukrainians have been flying low level altitude missions for 2 years now.
5. The Pantsir has proven itself to be trash in 3 separate wars now. One then has to wonder how effective Buk and Tor are. Indeed the fact that S400s nominally guarded by Tor/Buk/Pantsir are routinely being destroyed, I suspect that Tor and Buk are also failing to live up to the hype.
Cruise missiles don't fly this low. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JJ-tdU3Qfag
Neither fighters fly this low routinely.
Both cruise missiles and fighters normally fly around 15-20m high to avoid electrical wires, mobil towers and such man-made obstacles.
Yes, some times pilots do fly very low (but thats more like around 10m high) but that's very dangerous and some times they hit something and that's easily cost their life...
Standard NATO tactical doctrine for interdiction missions in 1970s/80s was low level flying. Hence F-111, Panavia Tornado and also British Jaguars.
I reacted @Donald Hill video where a MiG-29 fly around 1 meter high...
I don't disagree, it was just an extreme example. And then there was the time in 2020 when a Ukrainian collected a road sign and survived.
I was more referring to Russia's ability to stop Ukrainian manned aircraft (including helicopters) which they clearly are incapable of doing.
Ukrainian air force has been conducting these kind of sorties since start of war.
Russians couldn't even stop Mauripol supply missions flown by Ukrainian Mi-8s or Ukrainian Mi-24s.
(And I won't even go into the Russians complete inability to neutralise Ukranian air bases).
The S-300PT/PS/PM/PMU can detect low flying planes and fighters around ~40km range with NVO or NVO-M radar at 25m tall mobil tower. Fun fact: this originally not planned for the S-300, but later become one of the cornerstone of the system, because with this is the system become more effective against the low-flying cruise missiles (historically: BGM/UGM-109 Tomahawk and the AGM-86 ALCM).
The big question is the RPN radar can get a cue to the target and the system have had the right missile for the role. The 5V55 and the 48N6 series need radar contact until it's hit the target, the 40N6 and the 9M96 series got an active radar final phase guidance, exactly for hitting the target below the radar horizon.
The Su-35 and MiG-31 look-down capability probably good enough, simply not from 150-200km. And they does not gonna come much closer than 100km at high altitude to the battlefield because the Ukraine SAM threats.
I do not seen Pantsir-S1 near the destroyed russian S-300 and S-400 systems lately, while see them earlier of the conflict. So the main problem is the lack of the layered anti-air systems...
Seems to be the Russian army have shortages of SHORAD systems, probably because they are prime targets too.
Some good points but we don't really have any evidence Russian IADS is working as promised.
The Ukrainian Air Force has been conducting long range interdiction and even resupply missions over captured territory (eg Mauripol supply runs with Mi-8s - most missions successful, only 2 aircraft shotdown).
If the Russian IADS is unable to stop chunky Mi-8s flying over territory it controls then I doubt it is very effective.
The fact that even drones the size of Cessnas are flying long range missions over Russian territory is an utter condemnation of the Russians IADS systems be it radars, SAMs or fixed wing interceptors.
One analyst showed that Tu-141 drones have flown over the radar coverage zones of at least 4 S300/400 batteries and were never detected let alone shot down.
The Turks have been vocal about the poor performance of S400 too.
The whole Russians IADS seems to be stuck in early 1960s era of S75M - sure it can splat big targets flying high.
But it seems to be useless at low altitude, useless against small targets and anything that isn't a large aircraft flying WWII level medium/high level missions with no ECM.
Heavens forbid what would happen to Russian IADS if Ukrainians ever got a hold of a squadron of EA-18Gs.
You write about the S-300 / S-400 capability for example, this is where the NVO / NVO-M radar is necessary for the mentioned low-level capability. Even the RPN can be raised on the top of the mobile tower ( https://cdn.rios.hu/dl/upc/2024-06/28/140_nzmcl47wakxx7nzh_s300_rpn_tower.jpg ).
It's not a surprise the Turkish are find the S-400 capability unsatisfactory as the S-400 is simply a bit outdated system compared to the new systems like the NASAMS or SAMP/T, even compared to the Patriot PAC-3. The S-400 not a bad system even now, but to become effective they need to be integrated into a Turkish radar- and air-control systems. Which a bit hard when you have a NATO standard system...
Honestly the Turkish S-400 system acquisition is not a professional military decision but a political one.
To target and destroy low-level flying helicopters you need a lot of AWACS plane relative close to the battlefront to detect them. As the UKR anti-air systems are frequently used highly mobile way, even close to the battlefield the Russian not really keen to let their few remaining A-50(M) plane that close.
The MiG-31 or the Su-35 is cannot be effective too because without AWACS like system their radar only can detect the enemy target in the front hemisphere. And they need to be fly close to the battlefield and high enough to have had any chance. But the threat there, that's why those helicopters fly that low...
So yea, the problem is what you mentioned - the lack of effective IADS. But that's won't means the S-400 or the MiG-31BM itself are bad and useless systems...
At the time the Ukrainians were flying their resupply missions and long range raids into Belgorod (2022), A50s were flying around unmolested.
Note at this time Tu-22M3s could do carpet bombing of Mauripol because the Ukrainians were surrounded and Ukrainians IADS pushed back.
Yet still the Ukrainians managed to fly aircraft into Mauripol without neither the A50s, te S300/400s, Tor/Buks/ Su-35/MiG-31 noticing most of them.
I think the problem with Russian IADs is that it was designed to fight 1973 Yom Kippur and shoot down U-2s over Siberia, not engage against forces using modern tactics and stand off o guided weapons.
Also do we have any real idea how many SHORADS Russia ever acquired. A sizeable minority of the equipment lost is really old (eg Strela 10).
But what do we know about Medium range and SHORAD deliveries?
Tunguska is no longer seen much since start of the war. From a loss perspective, Russia has confirmed losses of 8 ancient ZSU-23-4 Shilkas yet only 14 Tunguskas. Given these are battlefield level SHORADS it indicates a very low number of systems present.
A lot of the systems lost are ancient ala Osa, Strela and older model Buks.
Buk launchers losses: 76
Buk radar losses: 9
Osa losses: 24
Strela 10: 46
Tor launcher losses: 55
Pantsir S1 losses: 24
Excluding whatever Wikipedia says about deliveries, it's evident that Pantsir is a rare beast in Russian service. I wonder if Russians never ordered them en masse due to them being poor quality compared to a Tor?
Finally the war in Ukraine has debunked the Sino-Russian A2/AD doctrine the west feared so much.
Dear God, are serious with that? The last time that UA manned aircraft dared into RU airspace was 2022. Since that time, only "shoot and run" from UA airspace.
As per efficiency of RU SAM systems, so many pros and cons that it's hard to judge objectively. My personal imho is that latest TORs and BUKs were good. The latter was finally able to cope with Himars and Bayraktars vanished at all since 2023.
S-300/400 is indeed controversial. While have no trouble in managing aircraft, they failed to completely "neutralize" ATACAMs. Seems like RU high command got fooled by advertising brochures. Will be interesting to see them against F-16s.
Interesting that last days a number of ATACAMs were successfully intersepted. Either by S-500 or, more likely, S-300V
Pantsirs are a different story. While failing in Syria, they scored a lot in Libya. In Ukraine the results were mixed. They had minimum classical targets like attack aircrafts or helicopters, being pressed to face UAVs, cruise missiles or Himars. Himars are hard targets to them, while a few Storm Shadows were indeed downed last month.
Very interesting read and kudos to the Ukraine pilots
Russians releasing glide bombs 100 km behind the front line must be close to the extreme glide range which probably puts them in range of Patriots (if they had them) sited maybe 30/40 km the other side of the front line.
It all gets to be like a game of chess
How close to the front line to site air defenses vs how high the risk.
Same for the Russian bombers on the other side.
Ukraine really needs to find a good way to stop the glide bomb onslaught.
BTW, I am disappointed with the performance of the US GLSDBs. Typical I suppose of being the first to actually use a weapon in war conditions. I hope they can fix the problems but probably too much to hope for that they can successfully retrofit the bombs already made.
Thank you for update, Tom. I have seen this video yesterday, but reading your post I felt the situation much deeply.
God bless ZSU and PSU!
Who would have thought that the cold war tactics we trained 40 years ago would still be successfully used 35 years later?
We trained sustained low level flying at 100 feet with speeds up to 540 kts at Goosebay , Labrador. Excellent description of the event, though I think the approach and zoom was a subsonic event for several reasons: It is extremely challenging to fly supersonic at 100 feet and below over terrain and maintaining terrain masking, which is most important in a hostile environment. It is very fuel consuming and the capability for turn rate decreases while the turn radius increases, things you do not want when you need to evade any threat. The acceleration to supersonic speed in the climb with the external load would need the use of afterburner, the increased IR signature would be highlighting the jet for IR seekers from all aspects. And again after the release of the bombs the quick tight turn speaks also for an subsonic event, getting the direction reversed as fast as possible, exchanging altitude for speed and thus reducing the possible threat to catch a missile that was fired head on during the zoom up. The G's involved are big numbers, but trained and equipped with a G-suit they are manageable.
Kudos to my comrade pilots who do this job despite the dangers for their country and in the long term for the free world.
Thanks for the reminder on fuel consumption rates at low altitude going way up.
That will be a challenge with F-16s using similar tactics to approach the front line when they need to hit Sukhois inbound with glide bombs. It's a 150km dash from the Dnipro, and an F-16 based near Kyiv might have to fly that far there and back. Probably want to minimize use of external fuel tanks, though maybe you routinely dump a centerline tank over the Dnipro.
Still, a Viper carrying a couple Harms, jamming/decoy pods and 6x Amraams has what, maybe 800km to work with before hitting bingo fuel? How much wiggle room does that leave a pilot who has to go full afterburner at low altitude to dash to and from the front?
First, thank you for the great work you guys perform from day to day on this blog.
Let me start with your question in the last sentence. If the target is not absolutely time critical there will be no need to dash to the front, or lets better use the term "combat zone". It might be as fast as possible, f. e. for close air support of urgent ground operations , but most time it will be measured depending on the time available until ToT, thread, distance, fuel available and environmental factors. At nearly no time will it be a dash with speeds in the transonic or supersonic region. The route and speed would be the result of all those factors, and maybe some others not mentioned yet . Jet combat aircraft in low altitude perform best in a speed range up to 0,92 mach. Type and external load dependent each individuell one has a sweet spot where it is fast and agile enough to sustain the speed while turning fast and tight, the engines are responsive on thrust changes and the fuel consumption is acceptable . I'm not going into detail of any specific type though for obvious reasons.
So the flight to the combat zone will be subsonic at 450-540 kts over ground with about 85 -90% dry power, and a routing with some turning points according to terrain and possible threads. Things change when approaching the combat zone or when unplanned thing happen, and there are plenty out there in harms way.
Supersonic speed and use of afterburner is helpful to leave the combat zone, less so when flying inbound to the target for delivery.
Bottom line, imho the F-16 has enough range to reach the combat zone subsonic and bug out low and as fast as necessary after weapons release. It was built for this task and it did a great job over some decades in many countries. There is a really big data base available, no need to invent something new.
The two white trails are not SAMs, its the rocket exhaust of the Hammers, which are rocket powered.
I was thinking that too. Any Buk launcher close enough to leave vertical contrails would be risking a lot from Ukrainian drones.
A part of me hopes that's not the case: Hammers releasing such contrails would make their targeting much easier....
Who can doubt the bravery and skill of the Ukrainians when you see a video like that.
My thoughts on seeing this video the other day was that a) the pilot has serious balls and, b) even with the low flying, the Russian air defences in the area have to have been seriously degraded for the Ukrainians to risk their aircraft that close to the front lines. And I say this not just because of this one flight, but because there seem to have been an increasing number of PSU air attacks in the last couple weeks. This suggests to me a sufficient degradation at least locally such that the Ukrainians see the risk as having lowered enough to risk these attacks more often.
Which is good news all round.
What a hero. Will we ever know if he returned safely?
Yes, we know it. The Russians claimed nothing, and there are no reports about any of PSU pilots being killed lately.
If Ukrainian F-16s can routinely get close enough to the front to deliver ordnance like this, even C-model Amraams have enough range to knock down Sukhois. I've been working under the assumption that they'd never come closer than about 50km even having the advantage of more potent ECM.
Moscow has proven throughout this war that it has a lot of extremely lethal capabilities that *only* work when every other supporting component of a complex system operates as planned. It's starting to look like the fearsome R-37M/S-400 complexes have a much smaller effective no-escape zone if the jets using them lack full AWACS support. If the A50 can't come closer than 200km because of the threat of S-200s, S-400s are kicked back more than 100km because of ATACMS, and those Mig-31/Su-35 radars perform more poorly than hoped, the air-to-air fight becomes a lot more manageable for Ukraine.
Except in Kharkiv, until it can use ATACMS up to 300km inside russia...
Well, one of the best Tom's articles within last months. Really nice and informative.
Sad to admit, that's another war when Fulcrums face prevailing foes, being unable to fully utilize their great maneurability and vaunted R-73 missiles.
Feel great respect to UA pilots that dare to the sky in such hostile environment. Luckily for the Russians, UA Mig-29s shoot either harmless HARMs or "light" French bombs.
Wow. Thank for the description. I dont normally watch videoes of the war, But this with your explanation was worth it. And explains clearly the problems facing Ukraine when using glide bombs. Damn, those guys are brave and though.