Yes I have been think a lot lately about what everyone has been posting here and how it might go down vis a vis with F-15’s or no F-15s. Specifically would Russia look at annexing territory if all anybody in Europe had was F-16’s. Would they feel like that’s an air war they can at least fight to a stalemate? Whereas against F-15’s and F-22’s it’s just not something they can calculate as a move that can have success. Would we, in a limited war scenario, in effect have the same diplomatic weight as Norway?
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You are shifting the argument Snark. There is no doubt that Russia has changed it’s strategy in the last few years to a more overt, aggressive one. That action will change the strategies of other parties (ie: take a look at Sweden responding to the change) and directly relates to the discussion of the F-15.
Saying that ‘But America has been doing it for 20 years’ is being apologetic to Russia’s actions and doesn’t relate to the discussion here - that the F-15 may be integral to America’s stance in and should/shouldn’t be retired.
I’d argue that you are being sensationalist if you put it like this.
Most definitely…but you also can’t make that response in a vacuum. Are they responding to something or just striking out on a new path?
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Oh i am not saying that they are not responding to a situation that has become frustrating for them for a number of years. I think that is a separate argument/discussion that doesn’t relate to the F-15 retirement one. I just think that Snark is taking an opportunity to make a dig (and not an entirely invalid one), and make a claim of ‘sensationalism’ and thus derailing what is a fascinating strategic topic.
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From a strategic standpoint, what if Russia feels the F-35 will be such an overwhelming game changer that they feel like they need to act now for whatever territorial ambitions they have? Not that I think they’d fare much better against the F-22 (and all the other very capable European platforms). Just makes you wonder what their end game is or if they are just keeping the pot warm for similar reasons as us.
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I am not shifting it, I am merely saying that what Russia is doing is nothing new, and certainly not a policy that hasn’t been employed by the USA over the past decades.
We are still discussing the same subject, just in a more global way.
I think Russia is just trying to show the world that they are still there Beach, although I suppose their motivations are a bit of a guessing game.
Lol this topic is getting interesting. I can’t sleep so I’m going to throw a couple of cents in to try and elucidate cost v benefit of eagles and falcons.
So at red flag Alaska I flew with f-16s of every variety, us and allied along with jasdf -15s, marine -18s and -22s out of Elmo.
Bandits were as a whole capable 4th gen platforms, not going to go into specifics but think modern Russia or China equivalents. Flying with expected tactics and capabilities. And they kept it a fairly symmetric fight numbers wise, red air could regen up to nearly as many aircraft as blue had during the vul.
Overall at the end of two weeks they told us the kill/death ratio for each platform vs the threats.
It was illuminating as to a/a wise what each platform can do.
F-22s of course dominated with something like a 12+ to 1 kill ratio
F-15s as a whole (they included E models and Jasdf in this statistic) had around a 4 to 1 kill ratio.
F-16s had depending on nationality and mission averaged out to a 2 to 1 kill ratio.
18s performed similarly but I do t remember the exact numbers.
A-10s were there as well but other than a solitary miraculous aim-9 kill they usually got slaughtered wholesale if/when a bandit found them on the way to their targets
If you want to look at the cost benefit and strategic analysis of what each platform can do just think for every eagle not in the modern bvr a/a fight with modern fourth gen threat adversaries you may be able to accomplish the mission but it’s going to cost you a lot more aircraft and men to get it done.
Then consider that half of the eagles weren’t c models, and were running multi role missions 75% of the time instead of being dedicated OCA/DCA Fighters.
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That’s interesting stuff @klarsnow - but I am a fan of statistics and I’m wondering if the rate of attrition is calculated all the way up to the point of air superiority? I mean, I don’t know how Red Flag is run, but I’m assuming they are going to want to get the most bang for the buck as it were, so I assume they don’t degrade the “enemy” in necessarily a realistic fashion (or do they?). So what I’m getting at - is the end of day 14 the battle you’d be having at the end of day 14 in a real war, or is it higher tempo with more adversaries would you say?
Also - does Red Flag simulate the degradation of enemy AWACS and/or ground control intercepts? Are there ever incidents where red air just has to come in and “do their best” blind against blue air?
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Oh duh…I over-read that sentence. So basically there is no attrition of the enemy…it’s as if it were Day 1 each day (?) So wouldn’t that imply that on Day + X the A-10s would be survivable? I mean, is the scenario they are flying into realistic other than a Fulda Gap situation where it is everyone onboard no matter the cost.
No they did simulate the reduction of enemies forces as we go along, to note they don’t simulate the reduction of blufor with losses. I.e. All Blufor are always at 100% capacity at all times
The enemy also had a full fledged IADS, those are not included in the k/d ratios for a/a of course.
Key things to remember here is these are overall statistics we definitely had days where few to no blufor aircraft died, and we annihilated red. Other days a single lucky bandit managed to get vectored outside our radar coverage and behind us, with predictable results. Some days we survived the entire hour + long vul killing everything red threw at us and then rtb and out of gas and missiles, we get run down and killed. So lots of individual things happening there but overall the numbers held up throughout
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Just remember they are also simulating a full fledged near peer power like Russia or China that has the numbers of jets to throw into a scenario like that. Not saying they would keep it up realistically with those kinds of losses, but they definitely have the numbers for it
Cool. Sounds exciting. I wonder how much the plan changes on the fly assuming that someone back at command has that capability. It’d be like the ultimate Fleet Command…
Got it. Well - here’s to hoping it never comes to that. And I can appreciate the sacrifice you all make - I’m just jealous I’m not there with you…LOL…
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It was relatively realistic, real world would we have thrown a-10s into that scenario, no not unless it’s the fulda gap and we need them there regardless of cost. But again just proves the point of air superiority, more air supremacy, if you don’t utterly own the airspace, unless you are willing to take significant casualties a-10s have no place being there. Again diverging into a different discussion, and of course it is a controlled fight at red flag with specific learning objectives and training desired for each mission, but it is still representative, or at least as representative as I can be of what capabilities each platform brongs to that kind of fight.
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It would be interesting to know how handicapped Red Air is…like, I know they are trained to emulate the capabilities of the enemy Blue would be facing…it must be incredibly frustrating to not fly Red Air as good as Red Air could be. LOL. Can you imagine?
Without going into specific threat simulations, if you’re Red Air for a flight, you’ll handicap yourself as appropriate to the threat you’re simulating.
The simulated aircraft dictates when you can take locks, shots, etc. Something without a very good radar is gonna be expected to behave as such. On the other hand, if you’re simulating a very capable, modern platform, you might have little to no constraints.
I think red flights are pretty enjoyable. They’re fairly light on the mission planning side as opposed to the guys that are planning strikes, etc.
At the end of the day, your job is to provide the blue training. It’s not about fighting your best fight or slaying the other side, it’s about providing a professional adversary simulation for the guys getting the training. If they did everything right, they walk away with zero losses and mission success. If they’re making stupid mistakes, you punish them to drive a point home.
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You have a point and that brings up another point to consider, too…
We found out this crap is expensive. If you think we’re tossing a lot of money at military procurement, consider that the Russian government is finding out this international presence business is ridiculously expensive. Take that entire list of everything they’re doing, and think about the amount of hard currency in rubles they are literally throwing down this well. As Beach pointed out, the sole Russian big-deck carrier has to travel with a tug because there’s an even-money chance it won’t make it home under its own power.
Back in the 80s, we defeated the Russians economically by spending them into the dirt and we didn’t fire a shot at them. There other ways to repeat this successful formula, we can make these misadventures for Putin as expensive as possible, and again, we don’t have to risk an armed confrontation with him.
@klarsnow is going to have to take this into battle during the next Red Flag. We are going for extreme cost savings now (are those electric duct fans?)…
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Can we take a step back and comment on how that thing looks like an absolute blast to fly?
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It looks a lot like that Textron/Cessna light attack trainer thing…
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