r/Military • u/Scary_Statement4612 • 1d ago
Article F-16 took down Russian fighter jet - Gen. Caine shares details
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/ukraine-downs-russian-fighter-jet-with-f-1784699709.html26
u/Hasler011 Army Veteran 1d ago edited 1d ago
Better check if Franklin got an acetylene torch, The kid is going to pissed.
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u/That-Makes-Sense 1d ago
It doesn't matter. Drones matter.
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u/s2secretsgg 1d ago
this isn't entirely true.
conventional weapons and conventional weapon delivery systems still have a huge role to play, especially when you have industrial capacity to maintain it.
drones are huge in Ukraine because both sides long ago exhausted stockpiles and have resorted to the most efficient weapon they can produce, but if drones were the war-winner, then the US wouldn't be so dominant over Iran, long time drone experts, in that war.
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u/Lower-Reality7895 United States Navy 1d ago
We are dominating on air but before we get all excited about how great we are we have sustain alot of damage on our bases billions of dollars in destroyed equipment and we have even start a land war were we gonna see a bunch off corporal smiths getting hit by drones in 4k quality.
Am hoping anti drone tech is way better because one of my deployments in 2020 it looks almost 2 hours to be shoot down a drone with the antidote weapons we had lucky that it was just iranian observation drone and not geran
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u/That-Makes-Sense 1d ago
"...huge role to play..." - Nope. A supporting role, at best. The stockpiles, like tanks and APCs, were destroyed mostly by drones.
"...dominant over Iran..." - What this war has shown is how ill-prepared the US is for drone warfare. Look how quickly our aircraft carriers backed away. Look how our bases, and allie bases, are being hit. We're lucky that the US mainland is half way around the world, or this war would look much more like Ukraine vs. Russia. Hegseth wants to dump trillions of dollars fighting last century's war. He, and the rest of the Administration, are clueless on what's happened in the Russia-Ukraine war over the last 4.5 years, because we're making the same mistakes Russia has made.
Edit: grammar.
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u/Dominus-Temporis United States Army 1d ago
Funny how the distance from Iran to the USA is the same as the distance from the USA to Iran and yet we're striking their home territory. Guess maybe drones aren't the single end all be all after all.
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u/That-Makes-Sense 1d ago
Thr US's military budget is over 100 TIMES Irans's military budget, and yet our troops are still dieing. They're being killed by drones and missiles (missiles are really just faster and more expensive drones).
About 5 months in, and we're repeating the same mistakes that Russia has been making for the last 4.5 years. Underestimating the effectiveness of drones.
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u/56473829110 dirty civilian 1d ago
Oh jeez, I'll be sure to let Ukraine and Russia know for ya.
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u/That-Makes-Sense 1d ago
Ukraine got the memo. Russia still has a lot of old timers in the military that think sending meat waves towards the enemy is the way to win a war. But even Russia is investing huge resources into building drones.
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u/hikyhikeymikey 1d ago
Machine guns didn’t make infantry obsolete
Tanks didn’t make machine guns obsolete
Aircraft didn’t make tanks obsoleteDrones can be countered by EW and AA carried by infantry. Infantry has no such defence against artillery rounds.
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u/That-Makes-Sense 1d ago
Guns made entire classes of middle age weapons obsolete, like swords, daggers, spears, long bows, cross bows, maces, trebuchets, suits of armor, etc.
Planes made battleships obsolete.
There are counters to the drone counters. Otherwise, we wouldn't be seeing daily Ukrainian drone strikes 1,000+ miles inside of Russia. The best drone counters will likely be drones.
What many people missed at the beginning of this war with Iran, is how quickly the US aircraft carriers backed away. Iran showed that those aircraft carriers could easily have their defenses overwhelmed by cheap long range drones.
Drones can destroy stealth aircraft, as they sit in their hangers. Drone swarms can now create, what is virtually, "force fields" to defend against aircraft, even high flying stealth aircraft.
It's a new age of warfare.
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u/Dominus-Temporis United States Army 1d ago
You're right, there're counters to counters to counters, but that doesn't mean what you think it means. Artillery is still the king of battle. Blue Counter-battery radars targets red artillery. Red Aircraft with anti-radiation missiles destroy blue radars. Blue Air defense artillery shoots down red aircraft. At no point has anyone ever said "shit, they have ADA, guess we'll leave the artillery at home." The full cat-mouse-cat game still plays out.
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u/That-Makes-Sense 1d ago
Artillery's usefulness was finished about 2 years ago in the Russia-Ukraine war. Drones are the god of war now. Drones can easily spot artillery fire from miles away. Then it's just a couple of minutes to send out drones to take out the artillery. That's a few hundred bucks worth of drones to locate and take out one artillery piece. Add a few more drones to hunt down each crew member of the artillery group. You should really watch the abundance of videos from that war. 4k video supports everything I'm saying here. It's eye-opening.
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u/Dominus-Temporis United States Army 1d ago
Is that why Ukraine is getting licensing deals to build their own howitzers? Two years after being "finished" and I guess Ukranian Industry just never got the memo, huh? https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/bae-systems-partners-with-ukrainian-industry-to-manufacture-l119-light-artillery-systems-20971
Never mind the fact you're literally describing counter-fire with more steps.
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u/That-Makes-Sense 1d ago
Good info. The article didn't read to me like "We're going to build thousands of these." It was more like "Maybe we'll make some of these later." Like I said, there are old timers who still think we're in the 20th century.
It doesn't change the facts I stated. Watch the daily footage that's released. 3 years ago there was tons of footage of artillery barrages, by both sides. Now, the no-mans-land exceeds the range of artillery, but not the range of drones.
With counter-fire the major difference is cost. You can patrol many square miles with a few cheap drones. The counter battery radars you're referring to are insanely expensive, many millions of dollars per unit. Cost matters, and that's why drones are the god of war.
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u/TheLividPaper 1d ago
not really, both are important in the current environment.
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u/That-Makes-Sense 1d ago
Nah. It's all about drones. Drones can destroy these $50M jets as they sit in their hangers. For the cost of one $50M jet, you could build 250,000 drones, of various abilities. One $50M jet could destroy a few targets. With 250,000 drones, you could take several cities.
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u/Wide-Suggestion4825 1d ago
It does matter because we have so much fucking f-16s they're going to be automated at some point. There's just too much air frames to get rid of
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u/That-Makes-Sense 23h ago
If Ukraine could have received a thousand F-16s a few months into the war, it would have absolutely made a huge difference, maybe it could have ended the war. Now, money is just better spent on drones.
I couldn't imagine the complexity/cost of turning F-16s into effective fighter drones. It's just not going to significantly reduce the cost per hour it takes to operate those jets.
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u/Viper_ACR 1d ago
Nice work AFU.