The US Air Force is the largest one in the world. The second largest? The US Army. 4th largest? US Navy. I think the USMC is #7 or so.
That doesn't mean the US will have air supremacy in every situation or even air superiority, but it's unlikely to be close to even for long, if it ever is.
> ... despite a world-class air force’s best effort against a second-rate defense, the United States never gained air supremacy. High-value intelligence platforms such as the E-8 Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System were prohibited from flying over land where their sensors were most useful and instead had to stand off outside the threat region.
(c) https://warontherocks.com/2022/03/the-dangerous-allure-of-th...
A military that cannot send stingers to allies, right now, is objectively not very capable; focusing on air superiority might be the best choice after all, but it cannot be an excuse for late stingers.
Nuclear powers feared conflict between each other not because one or the other's conventional army (or arms) were superpowered, but because it dramatically increased the chances of a conflict escalating to the nuclear level - which could well be the end of both civilizations, if not the better part of the entire human species.
Anyone planning for that war needs to stop whatever the hell they are doing and start planning for how to avoid it instead.
IIRC Russia is at 99% air defence effectiveness vs the start of the Ukraine war; i.e. it has not been materially degraded at all, despite HARM anti-radar missiles and so forth given to Ukraine.
Though I don’t full agree with Russia only using ground based air defense as the few newer generation jets Russia have are shooting down a lot of Ukrainian jets. They fly higher, faster, and can both lock and engage Ukrainian jets before the Ukrainian have even detected them.
I think that the USAF will have its hands full overcoming Russia's A2AD environment, assuming it's set up and competently managed. The range on S300/S400 makes it hard to use anything other than Tomahawks and stealth aircraft to target. It definitely won't be like Baghdad during DS.
[1] https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/first-marine-corps-tom...
- old C versions from early 90s - only working on pre-programmed target mode - no targeting pods like AN/ASQ-213
And nobody flies aircraft at "treetop level", with the possible exception of the A10 which is designed to and actually has flown home successfully after a missile hit. https://theaviationgeekclub.com/a-10-pilot-explains-how-the-...
Also there is no such thing as a "MANPAD", it's not a plural -- it means "Man-portable air-defense system".
Helicopters fly this low all the time.
Ukraine isn't an edge case, Ukraine is what you would expect from anything less than a turkey shoot. It's just we haven't been in anything other than a turkey shoot since the Stinger came out.