Ukraine - F-16 Multi-Role Combat [BCV] aircraft
The F-16 is not called a viper for no reason. It's a vicious, nasty, dangerous little airplane. It's tiny, it's hard to see on radar, it's even harder to see in the air with the naked eye.
Some Russian sources reported 12 October 2024 that the a Russian Su-34 was shot down and the crew was killed. The plane was shot down during the dropping of an FAB from the UMPK, approximately 50 km from the front line. The Su-34 was apparently shot down by an F-16, which was over Ukrainian-controlled territory. There may be more such losses soon. NATO has sent F-16s out to hunt. Now there will be fewer FABs flying at the Ukrainians.
US President Joe Biden first authorized NATO's European allies to send F-16s to Ukraine in August 2023. The first batch of six of the promised 80 F-16s arrived in Ukraine at the beginning of August 2024. It's unclear who exactly provided the first batch: Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway earlier vowed to provide the Kiev regime with them. The F-16s promised to Ukraine are second-hand and have decades of flying time already.
One of the first Ukrainian F-16 jets crashed on 26 August 2024, the Ukrainian Air Force confirmed on 28 August 2024. "During an air battle, the F-16 aircraft demonstrated their high efficiency, four cruise missiles were shot down by on-board weapons... During the approach to the next target, communication was lost with one of the aircraft. As it turned out later, the plane crashed, the pilot was killed," the Ukrainian General Staff said on Telegram.
The plane was piloted by Oleksiy "Moonfish" Mes, one of Kiev's first pilots to be trained on the US-made F-16. He died during the crash. Mes had undergone months of training in Denmark. Oleksiy Mes became one of the active speakers from the Air Force abroad. Many times he gave interviews to the American media, in which he talked about the need for Western fighter jets for Ukraine. "He talked a lot about the need to provide the F-16. He was very professional, knew his job well, had good English. He didn't like publicity. He didn't like to give interviews, but he understood - who but him," says Tatyana Shevchuk , lawyer, expert of the Anti-Corruption Center , who was also involved in the campaign for Ukraine to obtain F-16 fighter jets.
In June 2022, the advocacy team arranged for Moonfish and Juice to travel to Washington, D.C., where they were to promote the allocation of modern aircraft for the Armed Forces. Then they were accompanied by Hollywood actor Sean Penn. The pilots met with several legislators, including the representative in the United States Congress from Illinois, Adam Kinzinger. "When I met with "Jus" and "Moonfish", I had a bad feeling that they would not survive the war. "Jus" died in August 2023, "Moonfish" - on Monday. They fought with all their might for Ukraine and for F-16", - this is how Kinzinger reacted to the death of Mesia. After a meeting with Moonfish and Juice, on June 17, 2022, Kissinger introduced the Ukrainian Fighters Act to the United States House of Representatives , which would have approved the provision of F-16s to Ukraine and the training of Ukrainian pilots to fly them.
According to the text, the fighter he was piloting was hunting Russian cruise missiles and kamikaze drones during a massive missile strike on August 26, allegedly he shot down three cruise missiles and one UAV, but he himself died . This wording suggests that the F-16 was either shot down by fire from its own air defense, which was also firing at missiles and drones, or his fighter crashed into one of the air targets . By the way, there was already such a precedent in the Ukrainian Air Force - in December 2022, a MiG-29, hunting for the Geranium, lost and crashed into the wreckage of a drone.
According to US officials, the jet wasn't shot down by the Russian military. Sources close to the Ukrainian military claim the crash's reason is "unknown." Ukrainian MP Maryana Bezuglaya claimed the F-16 was hit by Ukraine's Patriot anti-aircraft missile system "due to a lack of coordination between units." Bezuglaya published her version of what happened to the F-16 and Lieutenant Colonel Mes. Along the way, she accused the Ukrainian Air Force command and other higher headquarters of lying, and was upset that the commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, General Oleshchuk, was still in his position.The person responsible for the loss of the first F-16 in Ukraine was quickly found. Zelensky issued a decree dismissing the commander of the Ukrainian Air Force Mykola Oleshchuk.
On 04 August 2024, Zelenskyi said that the F-16 aircraft are already in Ukraine and are performing tasks. "From the beginning of this war, we have been talking with our partners about the need to close the Ukrainian sky from Russian missiles and aircraft. We have held hundreds of meetings and negotiations to strengthen the capabilities of our aviation, air defense, and Defense Forces. We often heard the word "impossible" in response, but we made possible what was our ambition, our defense need, and now – it is a reality in our sky. F-16s in Ukraine. We ensured this. I am proud of all our guys who are skillfully mastering these aircraft and have already started using them for our country. I thank our team for this result. I thank all the partners who are truly helping with the F-16s, and the first countries that accepted our request for aircraft – Denmark, the Netherlands, the United States, – and all our partners, – we value your support."
On July 31, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, Gabrielus Landsbergis, reported on the X social network that Ukraine has already received F-16 fighter jets as part of international aid from NATO allies. Before that, the Bloomberg agency wrote about the first deliveries of F-16 fighters from NATO allies with reference to its own sources.
The F-16 multirole fighter jets received by Ukraine are equipped with Terma PIDS+ pylons with a missile early warning system. As Militarny writes , they were identified from the video published on the official channel of the President of Ukraine in Telegram. The system of the Danish development and production of the company Terma was equipped with fighters of all participating countries of the European Air Force (EPAF). MWS system provides a vital improvement to the F-16's self-defense system, as it allows the aircraft to detect and counter missile attacks in advance. MWS consists of six sensors and one computer. Three sensors are installed on each of the two pylons. Their location provides almost complete spherical coverage around the aircraft.
The first delivery of F-16 fighter jets from NATO allies arrived in Ukraine 31 July 2024, according to people familiar with the matter. The number of jets is small. The first dozen F-16s are expected to arrive in Ukraine within weeks as their pilots complete their training. “Understandably, they will be hunted down,” Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, ex-deputy head of Ukraine’s general staff of armed forces, told Al Jazeera 18 June 2024. “But we will serve them, hide them, equip and use them.” Ukraine’s top brass hopes to get AIM-120 air-to-air missiles that could put an end to Russia’s biggest battlefield advantage.
Britain had a track record of pushing the envelope when it comes to supplying Ukraine with advanced weaponry, prompting the US to follow suit. After months of Ukrainian demands for Western tanks, London announced in January it would send Challengers to Ukraine, heralding a U-turn in Washington as the Biden administration changed its mind and agreed to send Abrams tanks. The same month the Western allies shifted gears on tank deliveries, the F-16s' manufacturer, US defence company Lockheed Martin, suggested supply constraints would not be a problem when it came to the fighter jets - saying it was ready to match increased demand.
The US had always sought to balance strong support for Ukraine with prudence about escalation - and wariness about the risks is unlikely to go away after Biden's U-turn. "The problem revolves around the crossing of the Russian border. The purpose of combat aircraft is to bring the fight to the enemy. However, there is a political obstacle here,"defence consultant Marc Chassillan said 20 May 2023. At the same time, keeping the F-16s within Ukraine would be quite a constraint, Chassillan continued. Ukrainian forces "would be making very limited use of this kind of weaponry [if they do] not cross the border with Russia. Flying F-16s only within Ukrainian airspace would be like putting birds in a cage", he said.
The gradual and incremental escalation of the War in Vietnam was a direct result of the inability of the US to make a firm commitment during the early stages of the conflict. An early and strong commitment of US forces could have forced Hanoi to accept the South Vietnamese Government and the partitioning of the country. ROLLING THUNDER is an example of piecemeal application of military power in an attempt to take some form of retaliatory action, but yet not appear overly aggressive to the Soviets or Chinese. The U.S. committed forces to the conflict in a piecemeal manner. This played a significant role in the eventual military and political losses that contributed to the strategic failure.
Faced with uncertainty and under the pressure of competing domestic and foreign demands, President Johnson and his civilian and military advisers made Vietnam policy incrementally; at each stage they decided only what they had to decide at that moment. " George Herring, a leading Vietnam war historian, summarized: "Johnson did not provide clear strategic direction to his military leaders. On the other hand, [the military leaders] did not (or could not) make clear to him the full depth of their own objections to the way the war was being fought. No one was really satisfied with the strategy, but there was little discussion of the major issues, no airing of the differences. The result by 1967 was a makeshift strategy that was doomed to failure and enormous frustration on all sides…."
The United States had become self-deterred in its international actions since the end of the Cold War. Security interactions take on the air of a poker game--the deterrer has raised the stakes and the deteree must decide whether the adversary has a good hand or is merely bluffing. Dangers were deemed too great and the stakes too low to justify U.S. military involvement in troubled areas.
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