Ha-Ha! the hyperbole. Russia is just going to sit there and let the US fly into what is now Western Russia ? And how would F-22’s and F-35’s fare against S-400 and now S-500 AA ? Like Russia is going to be firing machine guns in the sky. Never mind what decade, what century have you been hiding in ?
I don’t want to completely derail the thread but Russia’s biggest weakness right now is logistics. The US would use long range artillery to sever the rail connection from Belgorod into eastern Ukraine. There is a similar rail artery in the southern portion of Ukraine and these are the bulk of Russian supply operations. Ukraine hasn’t had the long range weaponry to effectively sever these connections. The us could do so immediately. Once that happens Russia can’t supply the war effort and it becomes academic. They would have no choice but to fall back into Russia.
If you want find out, tell your Russian comrades to drop a surprise bomb or two on U.S. territory anywhere around the world. The U.S. would be very enthusiastic about wiping Russia off the face of the earth, if they had another Pearl Harbor or 9-11 incident to piss them off. In WWII, a 12-year-old from Texas signed up with the Navy, and served on the battleship South Dakota. That's how much the U.S. was offended by the attack on Pearl Harbor. And yes, the U.S. has plenty of capability in a ground war, especially after Russia's defenses were softened up by bombing from the air, as well as missile and artillery strikes. I don't think any tank in Russia's arsenal matches up to the M-1 Abrams, which is 40-year-old technology and has almost certainly been upgraded a few times since Gulf War I (I seem to recall that it had a fire rate of one round every three seconds). I don't even think that the HIMARS and M-777 artillery that Ukraine is beating the hell out of Russia with is our latest and greatest technology. The U.S. also has officers who don't run away from their units before a big fight, unlike the Russians. We can also afford more than three shovels per battalion, as well as modern, unspoiled food. We won't be issuing any rusty rifles to draftees who have never handled a weapon before. Yes, if we fought Russia in a WWII-style match and didn't use our latest weapons or air power, it might be difficult. But why would we do that?
Where did you get this tall tale that Russia lacks logistics in its own backyard. And Ukraine is one thing, but if Russia knew that US was entering the war, it’s just going to sit there and watch the US trundle heavy artillery into theatre ?
Ask your Hatfields and McCoys why Russia would just willy-nilly drop a bomb in another country. That’s what the US does.
The Russian's have a shitty logistics operation right now that is almost completely reliant on rail arteries. If you read anything actually analytical about this and not just propaganda you would know that. And since the Russian's can't even stop the Ukrainian's artillery, which is predominantly shorter ranged, plus a few himars with medium range ordinance, what the hell are they going to do to stop a couple hundred MLRS that can fire ATACMS at ranges of 300 KM? And I'm not even really bringing the air force into it - but the combined western might of air power would certainly be sufficient, yes with some losses, but certainly enough to degrade supply lines in eastern Ukraine to the point that the Ukrainians could then overwhelm the Russian's on the ground. And that doesn't even involve US or Western forces on the ground with Abrams.
Lots of bravado in there, but a lot of truth that cannot be credibly contested. The most relevant challenge you pose involves the F22, F35, and B2 (implied). Before the war started, we believed the Russian IADS was much better than it clearly is. The reason we believed this is because Russians appeared to believe it. Our intel indicated they had cracked the code on our stealth aircraft. We were not sure how, but they seemed to believe it, so in an abundance of caution we chose to believe it, too. Then the Russians went and started a war, a war that — hypothetically speaking, of course — gave ample opportunity for the U.S. to test and observe against an active IADS. The Chinese might have, again totally in the hypothetical world, recently gained some keen insight just how outclassed they are in the air domain. Maybe they share insight of this nature with their Russian allies; maybe they don’t. No idea. Regardless, both nations have the same problem set: the only methods not involving pure chance they have to destroy these aircraft are to target them on the ground at their bases or to catch them refueling in the air. I, too, wonder if Russia knows exactly how poorly such an air campaign would go for them. First to go would be every Russian aircraft in Ukrainian airspace or on the ground in occupied Ukraine. Then the stealth aircraft would pull apart like warm bread all of the IADS and C2 nodes in Ukraine. Next to go would be all of the forward logistics bases and infrastructure (bridges, canals, overpasses) all supporting the fragile Russian ability to resupply and reinforce. Once so cut off, our air forces could go to work on the Russian field army sort of like continuing a beating on an unconscious man: patient, deliberate, really making each blow count to ensure that extended hospital stay. But I actually think we would not do that last part; you have to let Ukraine do the heavy corralling of that shattered Russian army back to its own borders.
I’ll bet you think there was a 60 km long supply line outside of Kyiv. Invading what is now Western Russia would be Vietnam 2.0 for the US.
Seeing as how Ukraine managed to drone attack (using a drone from the 80’s) a Russian nuke base 150 miles from Moscow, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that F35’s 22’s and other assorted weapons systems would barely notice Russian air defense efforts.
And as I pointed out, when someone who hates you is determined to hurt you, they don’t need high-tech means to hit you ...
No it would not. It’s completely different. Us would enter friendly territory, with much of its road and rail infrastructure intact because Russia doesn’t have the ability to effectively destroy it. 80% of Ukraine is controlled by friendly forces and unlike Vietnam the us has several potent Allies in theatre. In addition air strikes would be taking place over mostly friendly land with friendly air defenses. To hit key targets in east Ukraine few sorties would be required to actually fly over Russian controlled Ukrainian airspace because of the range of new surface to ground ordinance. The biggest enemy this time of year to the us would be the weather.
Bs argument just trying to stoke anger. Big difference between hijacking a friendly airline and flying a 50 year old uav through supposedly protected airspace.
Brings a tear to the eye. Ukraine keeps finding innovative and highly effective ways to kill Russians
S-400 is allegedly a world-class missile platform, but it's never taken on an F-35 or F-22. It would be idiotic to project how it would do. One thing that is likely to happen is that the F-35 would arrive surrounded by drones with the same (small) radar signature, so Russia might have to send up a dozen missiles to have any chance of taking out the one actual fighter, if they can even detect it. (Some days, the drones may arrive without the actual F-35.) If they can't see it, they might have to wait until the F-35 opens its bomb bay doors to get a glimpse of the larger radar target (and maybe the drones increase their radar signature at the same time). If that's how it plays out, Russia has a problem. There could be a lot of missiles going up and not hitting anything of value. I'm sure some of the S-400 systems have been identified by satellite and other means, and missiles would knock a number of them out before the fight really got started. If not, the drones might draw their attention and spot the S-400 locations as the missiles went toward them, and forward targeting data for U.S. missiles to knock them out. There are a lot of possibilities.
What's even funnier is that as the $20 billion we spent wipes out the Russian military, we will need to spend less on the military in the future. One of two major threats worldwide will be reduced to ashes and we won't need to defend against it as a high priority. Just like we saved a ton of money when the USSR collapsed. We will save hundreds of billions of dollars because we spent that $20 billion. In fact, in general terms, the more we spend now, the more we save in the future, and the safer the world will be in the future.
The US has actually developed some really fascinating anti air-defense capability with the F35. Some of the missiles they fire actually have a longer range than the S-400 itself. The advantage of something modern like the S-400 is it really should be linked into an integrated air defense system, and when it is it can be more dangerous, but we don't have any evidence of that in the ground in theatre.
Many of the capabilities cannot be discussed here, but (hypothetically speaking) what we thought they could do theoretically might have been proven thanks in large part to our helpful friends in Russia for providing the field laboratory. I suppose one could say the same for the Javelin. Without our Russian friends, we would never know how effective those weapon systems were against modern MBTs, such as the T90, and how a small, lightly armed force could significantly slow the punching power of an armored spearhead. I note the Russians have kept their vaunted T14s completely out of combat despite the fact that they’re, like, impervious to the Javelin. Weird decision, right? Oh, and the Javelin has been around since the late 90s. For perspective, the F35 has not.
Theoretically correct, but I’m pretty sure the M.I.C will take theirs regardless, so in practice we will actually “save” nothing. Although ultimately it’s still good policy to back Ukraine’s defense against Putin’s criminal gangster state.
