You mean, something like this? Ukraine is claiming it outfit its sea drones with missiles for attacks on ships. Not hard to imagine a missile being launched at an aircraft. A Ukrainian floating drone that is devastating Russia's Black Sea fleet can now fire missiles
Avionics, electronics make an airplane a lot of what it is. The F4 Phantom is a good example. Eventually it was turned into the “Wild Weasel” where it was used for ground attack against radars and missile systems. The F16 is one of my favorite aircraft. I remember following R&D through Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine. Even though it is a single engine aircraft it had/has a 1.1 to 1 thrust to weight ratio.
As a pilot, you may know the answer to this question: If Russia tries to down a U.S. drone by dumping fuel on it, could a properly equipped (small flame thrower?) drone ignite the fuel and will the flame travel back to the Russian plane's fuel tank? It would most likely destroy the drone, but would it take down the offending plane if the jet continued to dump fuel? Video Captures Two Russian Su-27 Aircrafts Intercepting A US MQ-9 Drone
is russia playing whack a mole with a patriot battery and losing? 100 mile range is quoted here Why Russia Air Force's 'Severe Loss' May Be Work of US Patriot Ambush (msn.com) Their prime role is to defend Ukrainian cities and vital infrastructure against Russian missile and drone strikes, but recent hits on Russian aircraft suggest at least one battery is being used within range of the southern and eastern fronts, perhaps in a mobile capacity. One system, Stupak said, appears not to be "located in a particular territory, so it's always on the move...It could be deployed here or there, Kharkiv region or Dnipro region. And the crew is waiting to trap Russian planes and destroy them. [They can] launch missiles towards the planes, and within maybe 20 minutes, leave the territory and hide." Luzin said such an approach would not be unusual. "Patriots can be mobile, there is no technical problem," he explained. "Missile ambush is a known tactic."
Ukrainian Crews Set A Complex Missile Trap For Russia’s Best Radar Plane (msn.com) “Who did this?” the Ukrainian air force quipped. The answer, it seems, is the air arm’s 90-mile-range Patriot PAC-2 air-defense missiles. Less likely: shorter-range Patriot PAC-3s or S-300s. Exactly how the Ukrainians shot down the four-engine A-50 with its top-mounted radar is unclear, but analyst Tom Cooper—who has written many books about Soviet and Russian warplanes—has a theory. Ukrainian radar and missile crews lured the Russian crews into a trap. If Cooper’s theory is correct, the Ukrainians set the trap on Saturday, when Ukrainian air force jets—presumably Sukhoi Su-24 bombers—struck Russian air force installations across the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula. “A number of radars were knocked out,” Cooper reported. The Saturday strikes, the latest in a long campaign of Ukrainian raids on Russian defenses in Crimea, suppressed the Russians’ ground-based radar coverage, leaving the surviving missile batteries on the peninsula partially blind—especially to the north, where the terrain could mask incoming Ukrainian planes, drones and missiles. ......................................................... So Russian commanders did the obvious, but stupid, thing. They ordered one of their few remaining A-50U radar planes, which normally fly far to the south over the Sea of Azov, to push farther north in order to extend radar coverage over most of Crimea. An A-50’s rotating radar can see airplane-size targets nearly 200 miles away. A four-prop Ilyushin Il-22M airborne command post with around 10 crew aboard accompanied the A-50. The Il-22 is a radio-relay platform; its crew assists the A-50’s crew by handling communications and data-transfer for which the A-50 lacks the power and processing. Satellite imagery and radar data seem to place the A-50’s northernmost flight path over occupied Berdyansk, just 75 miles from the front line. That’s within range of the single Patriot surface-to-air missile battery, out of three in the arsenal, that the Ukrainian air force has deployed along the southern front.
I think we are too focused on winning and losing. So what even if it were true that Russia was “winning” this conflict? It wouldn’t justify the invasion anymore than would not getting caught justify robbing a person.
We should be focused on winning and losing. This war, after all, is a serious matter. It is not, say, youth soccer where as long as both sides have fun and learn a little something about war, then everyone wins. As far as victory conditions go, the fact that Russia has already greatly rolled back its acceptable end state is a relatively good sign for Ukraine. No matter how this ends now, it almost certainly won’t be with a Russian-installed puppet government and Russian troops “invited” to have free movement and bases in what’s left of Ukraine. Now, that said, Ukraine’s victory conditions look like a tall order at the present time. If we call those conditions restoring their January 2014 borders and having Russia officially recognize them, then we are not close to that either. Ukraine’s immediate problem is that it cannot continue its strategy of chewing up Russian will through frustration and casualties without getting a steady stream of aid from the West. That is where our focus needs to be. Ukraine is already more than carrying its load.
Putin is setting the stage for invading Baltic States. He claims that Latvia and other Baltic states are expelling ethnic Russians from their countries, and this (somehow) affects the security of Russia. I thought Putin would be happy to get back Russian citizens from other places, so he can conscript them and send them to die in Avdiivka. It helps Russian security, not hurts it. Putin sets stage for escalation against Baltic States – ISW
I think perhaps I didn’t make clear the meaning of “we” in my post. I don’t mean that the US shouldn’t care whether Russia wins. I mean that we, the members of this message board, should be less focused on winning. Frequently, polling stats are cited to defend politicians, as if their likelihood of winning the next election justifies their actions. Regardless of whether Russia “wins” this war, I agree with you that the invasion is unjust. If anything, Russia making advances should spur the US to invest more in Ukraine’s efforts.
I would say that it doesn't matter at any given time who is winning. The important thing is that Ukraine wins in the end. But, yes, we should be focused on Ukraine defeating Russia. Everyone (other than a few propaganda-spreaders) knows that what Russia did was wrong. No matter what the outcome of the war is, Russia will be wrong for having started it on the flimsiest of excuses. Ignorant Americans might forget that, secure on the other side of the world, but most of Europe will not, as they are much closer to the threat of Russia's military.
