![]() Without better training, Russia’s pilots “would struggle to effectively employ many of the theoretical capabilities of their aircraft in the complex and contested air environment of Ukraine,” Bronk predicted back when the war was young. Justin Bronk, an analyst with the Royal United Services Institute in London, has pointed out the relative paucity of training on the Russian side. It’s clear by now the Ukrainian air force is better at close air support than the Russian air force. By contrast, there haven’t been any confirmed Ukrainian warplane losses since late August. They lost four warplanes on Saturday alone. But its biggest successes have come in striking buildings in positions the Russians themselves recently occupied.Īnd even those raids have proved extremely costly for the Russians. Yes, the Russian air force is back in action after sitting out the first couple weeks of the Ukrainian counteroffensives. And they’re why the Russians haven’t been duplicating the strike. They are what made the Ukrainians’ tank-strike possible. Add to that the danger from Russian air-defenses. The low altitude alone represented a serious risk to the crews. And even with accurate targeting and navigation, the bombing run itself was a perilous affair. So it’s possible that forces on the ground, or the operators of a drone, spotted the Russian tank, pinpointed its GPS coordinates and fed them via voice radio to the Su-24 crews fast enough for the crews to bomb the tank before it moved. The biggest and most modern, a Garmin 660, in theory could help steer a bomber crew to precise coordinates. One video compilation from a MiG-29 pilot shows at least two commercial GPS systems strapped to the cockpit. Videos we’ve seen from inside the cockpits of Ukrainian warplanes over the last seven months might offer some clues. It’s less obvious how they managed to strike a tiny target with unguided bombs-a target they almost certainly could not see until they were right on top of it. It’s obvious how the Su-24 crews avoided getting shot down by the Russians. intelligence agencies and do have drones and troops on the ground locating enemy targets, they don’t benefit from the high-tech kill-chain the Americans take for granted. ![]() And while they do enjoy support from U.S. The Ukrainians do not have air-superiority. High-fidelity sensor pods on the attack planes themselves, to name another. Satellite, drones and controllers on the ground feeding real-time intelligence to the bomber crews, to name a few. There’s more margin for error, and more time for corrections, between the moment the plane releases its munition and the moment of impact.īut the USAF approach to CAS assumes it has suppressed enemy air-defenses-and also assumes support from a host of enabling people and systems. Air Force, usually employs guided munitions-and from medium altitude. ![]() For this sort of attack, the world’s leading practitioner of close air support, the U.S. It’s hard to overstate how difficult it is to do that. The two bombers, flying fast just above the forest canopy, struck with unguided bombs a Russian tank, while the tank was under the cover of the trees. For the accuracy of the raid, if for no other reason. Even in this context, the Tuesday video is special. Now Su-24s are flying bombing sorties-frequently enough and close enough to front-line forces that they’re all over social media. With what must have been heroic effort on the part of technicians and engineers, the air force returned to front-line service enough old bombers to restore the service’s sole Su-24 unit, the 7th Bomber Regiment in Starokostiantyniv in western Ukraine. But Ukraine had scores of old, derelict Su-24s in storage.
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