“Although the F-16 fighter made its first flight more than 50 years ago, only now did it manage to shoot down 6 enemy missiles in one battle. And this was done by a Ukrainian pilot.”, — write: www.unian.ua
Although the F-16 fighter made its first flight more than 50 years ago, only now did it manage to shoot down 6 enemy missiles in one battle. And this was done by a Ukrainian pilot.
F-16 fighter / US Air Force photoDuring the massive missile attack on Ukraine on December 13, one of the Ukrainian F-16 pilots shot down 6 Russian missiles in one sortie. This shows the extraordinary progress achieved by the Ukrainian Air Force in recent years, writes Business Insider.Col. John Venable, a 25-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force, told reporters that intercepting so many missiles requires a high level of coordination between all the services involved, extraordinary pilot skill, and considerable discretion in grassroots decision-making. The latter is more characteristic of Western military doctrine and less characteristic of Soviet-Russian doctrine.
Venable emphasizes that intercepting missiles is actually a “tough task” that requires all command and control systems working together, as well as enough radars to detect and track the missiles in time. According to the American vet, the success of the Ukrainian pilot actually “speaks a lot about their command and control.”
Venable considers this a sign of how close Ukraine has already come to the Western way of waging war. For example, the Russian command and control apparatus mainly operates according to a certain “script”, that is, pilots are not given much freedom.
“Russian pilots have a reputation for having to take orders from their ground controllers,” agrees former Royal Australian Air Force officer Peter Leighton.
Military experts say that Ukraine is forced to use fighter jets as flying air defense because even the provided Western aircraft are significantly older than what the Russians are using today. However, according to Venable, it was entirely to be expected that the 50-year-old F-16s would be used in just such a role.
A veteran of the US Air Force emphasizes that Ukraine has neither a sufficient number of F-16s nor the necessary technical capabilities to modernize these aircraft to use them more aggressively.
The war in Ukraine: the latest newsAs UNIAN wrote, Russia has reduced the number of missile attacks on the territory of Ukraine. Military expert Oleg Katkov emphasized that the decrease is noticeable not only in comparison with December-November, but also with last winter. This may be the result of general problems with the production of missiles in Russia.
We also told that Ukraine, on the contrary, intensified attacks on military facilities in Russia. In particular, last night, Ukrainian drones attacked the Tambov gunpowder plant, which is one of the key facilities of the Russian military-industrial complex involved in the war against Ukraine.
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