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F-16s To Ukraine
A few days ago U.S. President Joe Biden announced the training of Ukrainian pilots for the F-16 multirole fighter aircraft:
President Joe Biden told G7 leaders on Friday that the US would join in efforts to train Ukraine’s pilots on fourth generation fighter jets including the F-16s, a senior administration official told CNN on Friday.
This has obviously been in the planning for some time. The timing of the announcement at the G7 summit was simply chosen to maximize the propaganda value for Biden.
The process we have seen has repeated itself again and again. As pro-Ukrainian blogger (with no military knowledge) describes it:
This has clearly become a proxy war between Russia and NATO, supercharging the political considerations inherent to any war. Ukraine’s goal is to wheedle as much military aid as humanly possibly out of NATO, especially the United States. The United States’ goal is more complex: give enough aid to push Russia back, but not so much that its proxy war with Russia escalates into an actual one.
This dynamic has created a Hunger Games scenario where Ukraine is constantly playing to the cameras to cajole extra gifts from the wealthy sponsors who watch its every move over the internet in real time. I had decided against using this analogy until I saw Ukrainians themselves using it. There is something grotesque and sobering about finding yourself in this position, and writing about it. But it is what it is.
I had assumed that F-16 training had in fact already started several weeks back. The EU blabber mouth Josep Borrell now all but confirmed it:
The European Union’s foreign policy chief said on Tuesday that the US green light to allow Ukrainian pilots to get training to fly F-16s has created an inexorable momentum that will inevitably bring the fighter jets to the Ukrainian battlefield.
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Borrell added that training for Ukrainian pilots had already begun in Poland and some other countries, though authorities in Warsaw could not immediately confirm the news. The Netherlands and Denmark, among others, are also making plans for such training.
No decision on actually delivering fourth-generation fighter jets has been taken yet, but training pilots now – a process that takes several months – will help speed up battle readiness once a formal decision is made.
The process will be much faster than many assume.
The jets the Ukraine will get have already been selected and will go through ready maintenance. The Ukrainian pilots, who already have some experience on other fighter jets, will get just a short introduction course – six to eight weeks or even less. They do not need to train air to air fights because the F-16 would lose any such fight against the newer and better armed Russian jets. They just need to learn the basics, starting, landing, going up to a certain height and launch point, release whatever long range weapon will be on board. Anything else would be suicide.
The big question is where to start and land from. The F-16 has a relative short combat range of some 500 kilometer and there will be no air to air tankers. There ain't that many airfield that are suitable for the fighter jet's missions.
Someone who seems competent explains the problem (edited):
The Ukrainian Air Force, to my knowledge, has had to use guerilla airfield tactics to keep the Russians guessing as to where they are operating from. This is to prevent Moscow from targeting the aircraft/impromptu airfield from drone attacks and air strikes, destroying stationary aircraft or the rendering the “runway” unusable. Soviet-built aircraft are sublimely suited to this.
For ex, the MiG-29 “Fulcrum” uses automatic Foreign Object Debris (FOD) covers that close for initial start up (vid). Meanwhile louvres located at the top of the wing-root open to provide alternate air intake to the jet engines. Upon take off, once the weight on wheels (WoW) switch in the nose gear detects it is off the ground, the louvers cycle closed and the FOD covers on the primary intake retract, allowing max airflow to the engines once the danger of FOD damage has passed. This ingenious design allows the Fulcrum to operate, not only from unimproved runways or even highways, but even from grass fields. The wing itself and the distance to the ground preventing small stones and debris from getting sucked into the delicate engines.
I cannot stress how dangerous and debilitating FOD is to aircraft. A single rock, bolt, nut, or minor road debris can have a cataclysmic effect on a modern high-performance jet engine. It may not even happen immediately, the damage could happen on take off, then progressively get worse during flight as the blades, now potentially bent or unbalanced begin to self-destruct the engine internals. Even if a MiG-29 happens to shell out an engine because of the careless placement of a bolt or tool by a mechanic or the ingestion of a bird during flight or take off, the MiG HAS TWO ENGINES which are isolated in separate bays, preventing the destruction of one engine from FOD-ing out the second.
The F-16, by contrast, is definitely not suited for this style of airfield. The bottom of the intake lip sits approximately 30” from the ground with no provision of alternate intake. In addition, all the suction flow of that air comes from the sides, fore, and ground since no air can be ingested from above the engine (that’s where the fuselage is). With no provision for FOD protection or alternate, high-mounted intakes during the entire time spent on the ground, this calls for rigid and inflexible FOD control measures from the location of engine start, to taxiing routes to the runway.
In the USAF, this meant hundreds of maintainers walking at arms-length intervals two to three times a day with eyes on the ground looking for any and every piece of debris that could be ingested by the multi-million dollar vacuum cleaner with only ONE engine we were charged with maintaining. In addition, an almost constant procession of street-cleaners rumbled up and down the flightline, taxiways and runway. Everything had to be spotless lest we risk the aircraft, or worse, the pilots.
Imagine the preparation it would take to complete this process on a 10,000 foot long straight highway, in the dark, while trying to be as inconspicuous as possible so as not to draw the attention of collaborators or Russian spies. You couldn’t hop from highway to highway or run from unimproved airfields like the Ukrainian Air Force can do with MiG-29s, you’d be handcuffed or at the very least less mobile. Imagine a disused Soviet airfield that suddenly had all its weeds plucked from the cracks in the concrete, concrete patched, the runway spotless. What signal does that send? “F-16s could, will, or are operating from here.”
There are several other issues discussed in the above thread. The maintenance philosophy behind U.S. and Russian build planes is different. The Russians just change factory parts and systems, U.S. maintainer try to repair them locally:
The MiG-29 averages about 11 hrs of maintenance for every ONE hr of flight. The F-16? A whopping increase to 18.5 maintenance hrs for every one hr of flight time. These are per aircraft with experienced crews. These figures also assume decent airframe hours on the aircraft.
The Ukraine will also need a sufficient number of competent maintainers. The training for them will likely take more time than for the pilots. The author of the above suggests a solution:
Plenty of mechanics in Europe and the US are happy to lend their services to the UAF as members of the “International Legion” or the modern day iteration of the “Flying Tigers”. Myself included.
Well, good luck doing maintenance on the F-16s that will soon sit on those few available and thereby quite vulnerable Ukrainian airfields.
Russian air defenses, from the ground and from the air, can certainly suppress any F-16 flights coming near to them.
The only sensible purpose of those planes is thereby their one or two time use as a launching vehicles for long range missiles like the British Storm Shadow cruise missiles that were given to Ukraine. It is easy to train for those missions but I doubt that they will make any noticeable difference.
THE FUTURE OF THE SMO INSTALLMENT 3
The Battle Not Addressed
To understand the future of the SMO it is imperative to examine all elements of the conflict. What is visible on the ground in 404 is the top of the iceberg. Beneath the visible conflict there lies a massive ice block slowly grinding its way along the ocean floor, a source of endless friction left unspoken in our focus on wanderwaffen, industrial capacity, and the weight of shells fired each day.
It is this unspoken set of issues which lie at the heart of the conflict, which will do much to shape the outcome, and which are central to the final victory.
The issue was first described by Nietzsche in 1886:
It is nothing more than a moral prejudice that truth is worth more than semblance. It is, in fact, the worst proved supposition in the world . . . Why might not the world which concerns us – be a fiction?
You can unpack Nietzsche’s statement in a number of ways. Many of these intellectual directions lead to blind alleys of little immediate concern. The contemporary significance of Nietzsche’s insight can be found in a statement describing the conduct of the current world hegemon:
‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out.
This statement is alleged to have been uttered by Karl Rove former Deputy White House Chief of Staff and head of the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives. The quoted statement demonstrates the operationalization of Nietzsche’s insight, its practical real world application.
We are all familiar with the toy Russian doll. It separates into two halves and reveals, contained within, a second Russian doll which also separates into two halves revealing a third Russian doll containing within a fourth Russian doll . . . ad infinitum.
This concept of infinite regression can be traced to Hindu mythology but it reappears in the work of Locke, Fichte, Hume, Bertrand Russell, Stephan Hawking, even in the US Supreme Court decision in Rapanos v. United States.
What is noteworthy in Nietzsche’s statement is the separation between “truth” and “substance.” There exists something of substance, the hard reality on which we each hit our head, and then there is a quality we describe as “truth” a communication purporting to describe the substantial reality which caused our headache.
Truth claims are easily distorted. According to Z Artyomovsk remains under his control. According to Norwegian | May 22 2023 19:47 utc | 116 Artyomovsk has been recognised as Russia’s new cultural capital. Currently 99% of the city’s population are “musicians.”
Distorted truth claims are central to much humor. The distortion juxtaposes two variants of the same truth claim and exposes the invalidity of the truth claim in a way that cuts to the very heart of the issue. This is the reason we enjoy comedy; its revealed ironies enable us to laugh at the often painful reality of our lives.
But reality, as demonstrated by the conflict in 404, is deadly serious. 14,000 dead due to recurrent shelling from 2014 to the present. In excess of 300,000 dead since 2022. There is nothing remotely funny about these numbers.
The question is Why? Europe has a long history of warfare and its effects. How could it not foresee the present tragedy? The Global South has experienced its own forever sequence of endless conflict. Why did the Ukraine war start? Who is responsible? Who failed to listen to Putin as far back as the 2007 Munich security conference? Who failed to heed the prescient words of John Kennan? Not just the warning contained in his long telegram of 1946 (see https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/coldwar/documents/episode-1/kennan.htm ) but his 1948 warning on Ukraine that no Russian government would ever accept Ukrainian independence.
What of Kennan’s letters to Bill Clinton’s deputy secretary of state, Strobe Talbott:
And the question, in the face of all that, is: how are the Russians to interpret the participation of the NATO powers, and particularly the U.S., in this rather farcical (from the naval standpoint) but nonetheless serious (from the political one) undertaking? The anti-Russian nature of the planned exercise is indeed unmistakable. So is the motivation of the Ukrainians in inviting western participation in it namely the hope of involving the NATO navies on the Ukrainian side in case the conflict over the Crimea should at any time assume active military dimensions. And the question, I repeat, then presents itself: how is NATO’s involvement in this venture to be viewed in Russia? Can it really be made seriously to fit with the effort of the NATO powers to persuade Russia that the extension of the NATO borders toward the Russian frontier in Eastern Europe has no immediate military connotations?
And if there is no visible way of reconciling these two evidences of NATO policy, does this not suggest some serious lack of policy coordination somewhere along the line in both NATO and our own government?
SOURCE:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/kennan-vs-talbot/
And:
Kennan’s question gets at the heart of the problem. How could NATO be at once a “defensive alliance” and yet an expanding one, with political and economic ambitions that would make Russia the net loser of expansion?
SOURCE:
IBID
Has no one in America or Europe ever heard of John Mearsheimer?
in 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea, Mearsheimer wrote that “the United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for this crisis.”?
SOURCE:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-john-mearsheimer-blames-the-us-for-the-crisis-in-ukraine
Is the New Yorker so popular that no one reads it any more? Has no one in any Western institution of even marginal repute ever heard of Stephen Cohen:
Steve was the only major figure in America who insisted on remembering the Russian-speaking Ukrainians who, like my family members, distrusted and hated the new Kiev government. He spoke of neo-Nazi paramilitiaries who fought for the US-backed government committing war crimes against civilians in eastern Ukraine. He spoke the truth, regardless of how unwieldy it was.
SOURCE:
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/stephen-cohen-ukraine/
If we truly wish to understand the source of the confict in 404 we need to return to Nietzsche and contemplate the elements of his insight and the fact he places the moral issue ahead of the the question of substance, or of truth. It is the moral issue which mediates between truth and substance. And it is moral issues which underlie the present conflict and will decide the future of human kind.
The moral issues represent the mass of ice cold glacial concerns deeply hidden beneath the conflict raging across the turbulent surface above.
All this raises the question of what will occur when a state, or a statesman, guided by a strong commitment to moral/religious values, to respect for the letter and intent of the law, respectful of the interests of 3rd parties, engages with a state or statesman with total contempt for moral/religious values (the rejected precepts of the “deplorables”), a state willing to bend the law in pursuit of specific self-interest objectives, a ruling elite lacking in concern for the interests of any counter party: “You fucked up. You believed us.”
The question the reader must answer is this:
What happens when a clergyman meets a psychopath and both men are armed with nuclear weapons?
Posted by: Sushi | May 23 2023 15:28 utc | 11
From the Ukranian publication Defence Express, 20 May 2023:
How Many F-16s Can Ukraine Count On and Why F-35 Production Plays a Decisive Role in Process of Transferring the Aircraft.
The basis of eventual coalition to supply Ukraine with the F-16 fighter jets has been formed and now with a high degree of probability we can talk about when and from which countries Ukraine would receive the aircraft
After the prime minister of the United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak, officially announced the list of countries that will work together “to get Ukraine the combat air capability it needs,” it is possible to finally assess whose F-16s the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will strengthen.
In particular, the list of countries that will be part of the “coalition” includes Great Britain, the United States, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark.
The main roles of each member of the coalition are quite clear from this list. In particular, it is unlikely that the transfer of aircraft should be expected from Great Britain – the Royal Air Force simply does not have F-16s. In their turn, the USA has already officially announced that they will not hand over the aircraft. At the same time, London is, at a minimum, responsible for the initial training of pilots, and without the United States, the re-export of the F-16 would be impossible.
But it seems that the real role of the USA is much broader, because in addition to agreeing to export, there is the issue of providing these combat aircraft with weapons and spare parts. It is these costs that are very significant, because, as a rule, in an export contract for the sale of aircraft, the weapons and spare parts themselves often make up about 50% of the total price tag.
The role of Denmark and the Netherlands, being donors of the vehicles themselves, is indicated by the fact that the decision regarding the transfer of the F-16 was already discussed at the official level in Denmark, and the issue of the possibility of transferring the aircraft was considered in the Netherlands at the beginning of the year. For these countries, the transfer of part of the F-16 does not pose a critical threat to defense capabilities, because they have already begun to receive the F-35 to replace the F-16.
Belgium, which is also upgrading its fleet with fifth-generation aircraft, is a bit more difficult, as the country ordered 34 F-35A aircraft in 2018 for $4.25 billion and expects the first aircraft to be delivered only after 2023. That is why the country’s government informed that Belgium would not be able to transfer fighter jets.
Thus, at this time, the F-16 aircraft fleet of Denmark and the Netherlands remains the most likely fighters for Ukraine. The estimate of the number of combat jets that can be transferred to Ukraine is directly related to the schedule of receiving the F-35 and their achievement of operational readiness.
In particular, the Netherlands ordered the first batch of 24 F-35s in 2016, which were to arrive in the country during 2020-2022. Later, this order was expanded to 46 aircraft, which were to be delivered by the end of 2023, while their achievement of full operational readiness was supposed to happen in 2024. In the summer of 2022, against the background of the large-scale invasion of the russian federation in Ukraine, the Netherlands ordered an additional 6 5th-generation aircraft.
The first 12 Dutch F-35s reached operational readiness at the end of 2021. This is what is connected with the decommissioning of 12 F-16s, which were planned to be sold to the private company Draken International. In this regard, these aircraft are currently undergoing major repairs. It was also planned to sell Draken International another 28 F-16s after the new F-35 squadrons achieve operational readiness, which should take place in 2024.
Regarding Denmark, it should be recalled that the country placed its order for 27 fifth-generation F-35 aircraft in 2016. The schedule for receiving new combat jets is also well known thanks to the country’s government report. In particular, by the end of 2023, the Danish Air Force should receive 17 aircraft but some of them are used for pilot training and are in the United States.
During 2024-2026, the country should receive another 10 aircraft, in three batches – 4, 3 and 3 aircraft, respectively. Decommissioning of all 30 combat-ready F-16 fighters was planned by 2024, but this decision was later postponed to 2027. The write-off of the F-16 was tied in terms of terms to the terms of the F-35 supply. Thus, it is possible to predict with a high degree of probability that Denmark will transfer up to one squadron of F-16 aircraft to Ukraine in the short term.
Thus, if we take only the resources of the Netherlands and Denmark, at the moment we can talk about the potential possibility of Ukraine receiving one or two squadrons from the Netherlands and one from Denmark – that is, from 24 to 36 aircraft. In the future, this number can be increased to 70 F-16 as new F-35s arrive from the USA.
At the same time, it should not be ruled out that Denmark and the Netherlands may be joined by other F-16 operators who will be ready to transfer their machines to Ukraine – even with the threat of a certain reduction in their own defense capabilities. In this case, it is quite possible to talk about the satisfaction of the Air Force of Ukraine’s need for five aviation brigades of Western aircraft for the full protection of Ukraine.
Posted by: horseguards | May 23 2023 16:58 utc | 67
Paul Damascene | May 23 2023 16:00 utc | 31–
As I’ve posited using UkiNazi, EU and NATO aims, the goal is to kill Russians and related Slavs in a manner similar to the Star Trek Borg–Assimilate or be destroyed as proven by behavior against Serbia since 1991. Poland needs to beware as they too are Slavs. Since before WW2’s end, elements within the Outlaw US Empire adopted Hitler’s Plan Ost as their own but were kept from implementing it until the ascension of Reagan/Bush, which allowed the CIA to finally run the Executive, a fact that continues today. That’s part of Sushi’s Truth. Since the Wolfowitz Doctrine and the subsequent announced policy goal of attaining Full Spectrum Domination of the planet and its people, what we’ve seen is a very disjointed attempt to attain that policy goal. Today, that attempt is clearly failing. But there’s no quit in the fanatics running the show. The answer to Sushi’s question is the clergyman has weapons in his arsenal capable of defeating those in the psychopath’s, while the psychopath essentially has none despite the decades of bluster and destruction visited on helpless nations. Recall at the outset I stated the Outlaw US Empire has no weapons capable of defeating Russia, and I still stand by that and have yet to encounter anyone proving it wrong.
So, how to explain Outlaw US Empire behavior not just in Ukraine but globally? The attack being waged on Dollar Hegemony has no defense as the Empire is incapable of the power projection it once had prior to Obama–the Illegal Iraq War and technological developments combined to alter the equation: The Age of the Missile now rules. Star Wars came into reality but not by the Empire but by Russia. It has bullets that can hit other bullets whereas NATO doesn’t. The R-37 and R-37M air-to-air missiles outrange all NATO types and Russia boasts stronger radars that complement those missiles. There’s a two-part video on the Kinzhal that’s not just about that weapon I highly suggest watching (they have English subtitles), Part One and Part Two, the most fascinating for me was Russia’s research bureau that copies all NATO weapons that’s existed since Soviet times. What differs between Russia and its Nazi enemies is Russia doesn’t want to destroy the world to destroy the Nazis, although it could. As Putin, Lavrov, Patrushev, Medvedev, and the rest of Russia’s Team have said, no one actually wins if nuclear weapons are unleashed because of the environmental damage inflicted on the planet–even if Russia wasn’t touched, North America and Europe would be toasted, and Russia’s in Europe. Fallout is everyone’s enemy. So, Russia’s approach is to use the siege as it knows it’s not alone in the struggle versus the Nazis; China’s on its side too and has openly stated the hegemon will be defeated. The RoW shares that goal and do many people captured within the Empire.
It’s an odd sort of Siege. Whose battlements are being assaulted? A look at the Big Picture shows Russia being assaulted by NATO as the latter moved its “siege engines” ever closer to Russia’s borders, reached them and refused to remove them, while actively conducting Genocide against Russians living within historical Russian Donbass, that’s now expanded to include all Ukraine and much of Europe. NATO is simply NAZI and is run by the Top Nazi the Outlaw US Empire. The Nazis attack Russia’s battlements and are slayed in the thousands yet the Nazis are undeterred as most of the slain are Russia’s fellow ethnic Slavs. Take careful note that no other ethnicity is being committed to the Siege aside from the usual glory seekers. Wikipedia:
“Present-day Slavs are classified into East Slavs (chiefly Belarusians, Russians, Rusyns, and Ukrainians), West Slavs (chiefly Czechs, Kashubians, Poles, Slovaks and Sorbs) and South Slavs (chiefly Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes).”
Also note which nation is promoted as the next battleground: Poland, not Romania which isn’t Slavic. Also note that prior to WW1, Kaiser Wilhelm saw the coming war as a Racial battle for European supremacy between the Teutons and the Slavs, a theme adopted by Hitler and his fellow Nazis within Europe and North America. Although the concept of Race is no longer valid, the notion remains very strong within certain segments of the Western World and is perpetuated via Divide and Rule politics. That notion allows North American Nazis to include the myth of Manifest Destiny in their Narrative despite its falsity (Manifest Destiny is part of the rationale within Full Spectrum Dominance Policy).
So, to win the Siege, Russia and its allies must cause the collapse of the Hegemon without blowing up the world, and thus the Siege. Dollar Hegemony and Neoliberalism are its twin Achilles Heels. War is being waged on Great Russian Lands, but it will be won with the collapse of the Nazi economy and its ability to wage war.
Posted by: karlof1 | May 23 2023 17:39 utc | 91
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