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A comment on What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped. Parent comment

Re:What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, exper... by lumost on Wednesday March 02, 2022 @01:05PM (#30530508)
A combination of 1 & 3 seems highly likely in my uninformed opinion. Economically, losing aircraft will make a war very expensive very quickly. Losing large numbers of top of the line aircraft will severely harm Russian military aircraft exports.

With Europe closing its airspace there aren't many valid approach paths into Ukraine, or ways to get out of Ukraine should things go south. Russia has few stealth aircraft. In the 1991 gulf war, 60's era Soviet SA-2 missiles were able to defend Baghdad against non-stealth aircraft despite weeks of Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses(SEAD) strikes.

A MIG-29 costs ~20 million dollars new.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_Q_Strike

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Re:What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, exper... by whatshisface on Wednesday March 02, 2022 @01:24PM (#30530819)
>With Europe closing its airspace there aren't many valid approach paths into Ukraine

Europe only contacts the western border. Russian aircraft can approach from the north (Russia and Belarus), south (Black Sea) and east (Russia).

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Re:What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, exper... by WalterBright on Wednesday March 02, 2022 @01:47PM (#30531128)
I've often suspected that the F-35 was so expensive only a handful could be built, and would not be risked in combat because it was too expensive to replace.
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Re:What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, exper... by mhh__ on Wednesday March 02, 2022 @02:05PM (#30531387)
The F-35 isn't that expensive these days. It's still a huge amount of money to spend on something good for nothing but war, insert your view here, but the price isn't much different than the new F-16s being bought by the Israelis.

That being said however stealth aircraft are not cheap to maintain at all.

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Re:What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, exper... by lumost on Wednesday March 02, 2022 @03:08PM (#30532305)
Curiously I wonder if a similar problem is occurring with SA-400 missiles and other Russian air defenses. They may be too expensive to shoot at low cost drones such as the bayaktar.
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