romad1

but rather than worry about them

seems rational. They need to feel the pain of these sanctions though.

Before Putin came in and wrecked the country....maybe. I doubt that would be a winning election platform at this point.

Insert gif of Zelensky dressed as Michael Corleone

Oh rrly [insert Michael Corleone gif "my offer is this: . . ."

I'm on board with this. TB-2s and other armed drones which can hit Russian artillery and more counter-battery capability would be very helpful.

"Our" is the key word here. He's not part of the "our" anymore. He's off in MAGAMERICA which is fueled by delusion and fed by the will of the Karenocracy.

Big if true

Fodder

Looking at this. I see infantry wrecking un-checked havoc on armor. I see AR pattern rifles (with precision optics like any American can buy off the shelf or via Amazon) mixed with the AK pattern rifles and I see tactical gloves. I also see helmets that look like the kind that US special operators wear.

I know some professionals who got this wrong. Totally wrong. I had a laugh with the one guy I talk to the other day who had some experience with the Russian efforts in Eastern Europe. Me: "I guess you had Zelensky wrong" Him: "Well you remember Winston Wolf's line from Pulp Fiction don't you?"

I know some on this board who did.

Apparently the Russian Government is funding a twitter trend about russophobia. Cry me a river kiddie killers.

The next aircraft is already on the drawing board. A program for something like NGADF or some such acronym which will take all the good ideas from F-22 and F-23 and F-35 programs (and lessons learned) as well as some much more expensive things. Most likely next trend is "buddy wingmen" who will be similar performance capable UAVs that will assist the fighter bomber with covering its 6 and delivering ordinance into air defenses. This is the 6th generation fighter. F-22s and F-35s are 5th generation. F-16 and Mig 29s are 4th. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Air_Dominance#:~:text=The Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) is the,to as the F-X or Penetrating Counter-Air (PCA). Notable that Russia's 5th gen fighter has not been seen in the war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-57

Much more capable than non-f-35s of most any stripe (except F-22s)

So, in terms of capability. F-22s which stopped being produced in when...2010 or so...are still better than ANYTHING else out there. We aren't giving anyone those. F-35s are produced in a bunch of variants. I think they even have a variant for "austere" airfields.

We can't backfill F-22s. That production line has been shut down. The modern F-16 equivalent is the F-35. Now, the hang up for Poland is that the Migs and Sukhois don't require nice perfectly tended airfields because Russian doctrine was always designed around use of airfields tended to by a workforce inured to work. So, the Migs/Sukhois are less susceptible to FOD (foreign objects debris) than our very Ferrari-like American and Euro jets. It was a solution to a technical problem somewhat like the Americans design a pen cable of writing in zero G and the Russians use pencils. In this case the technical problem was that Russians (and TBF conscripts in general) are lazy and don't want to sweep airfields for stones and other junk.

I wonder if other gen 4 air forces operating MIG and Sukhoi aircraft (e.g., India) would be convinced to sell them to Ukraine if Uncle Sugar and its Auntie EU would pay them enough.

well, the Ukrainians are having a bit of dark humor with this

THIS IS PATHETIC Also, why would they need to have passenger vehicles? To remove people. Why would you need to remove people? Where would you put people? In camps? In camps where you could concentrate all the non-compliant types? In concentration camps?

The silver bullet would be to stockpile Japanese, Australian and American ground forces in token to non-token numbers.

The central idea is contained in the tweet. The nuances are in the article as a practitioner of air power I would LOVE to see F-35s and F-22s proving themselves on a battlefield for Xi to see before he contemplates this coming invasion of Taiwan. However, as a person who enjoys having a non-nuclear suntan and low levels of radioactive material in my atmosphere, lets be careful. Also, Ukraine can kick Putin's ass with aid + intel + lend lease equipment.

Oooh...this is good

Scraping the bottom of the barrel to send these guys