[gocard14]

HIMARS is a great weapon, but when paired with the real-time drone reconnaissance from some pretty cheap and basic drones it can be used to snipe like this. Russia clearly is struggling with the very widespread Ukrainian drone coverage all over the front, but I do wonder how good the US capability would be. Seems like drone offense is much better than drone defense at this technological moment.

The US drone capability would be adequate to do what Ukraine is doing. One can argue ours are "better" (and they certainly cost more) but we can do the same. The asymmetry in the Ukraine vs. Russia front is that 1) Russia doesn't have a drone capability to go "find" the HIMARS, and 2) even if they did, Russia doesn't have a precision weapon that can hit the HIMARS. Russian tube artillery (and NATO tube artillery) does not have the range. The SMERCH and Tornado-S systems in theory have available precision guided rockets similar to a HIMARS. However, it appears Russia has very few of these missiles. That explains the virtually invulnerability of the HIMARS to date.

In theory, Ukraine, Russia, and NATO also have the ability to attack the HIMARS systems with aircraft. So far, Russia hasn't succeeded in doing this. Even more stunning, Russia has not attempted to deal with Ukrainian drones using aircraft. They have planes that are not doing anything else. They are available. They have Mainstay aircraft that can "see" the TB2 class drones. We know this because they did it in Syria. The convoys being attacked are in Russian controlled areas so the Russian aircraft don't have to worry about MANPADS. They are far enough away from the Ukrainian Air Defense Zone that they don't have to worry much about S-X00 systems or the like. So why doesn't each convoy have an airborne escort to destroy/chase away the drones? Because Russians suck at war?? Probably more that Russia hasn't trained to do this and are too rigid to improvise. Also, the Army hasn't figured out yet who in the Air Force they should talk to :-).

What would our aircraft be doing differently in CAP? It seems unsustainable to use a million dollar AMRAAM to shoot down 4 figure cost surveillance/targeting drones.

[gocard14]

HIMARS is a great weapon, but when paired with the real-time drone reconnaissance from some pretty cheap and basic drones it can be used to snipe like this. Russia clearly is struggling with the very widespread Ukrainian drone coverage all over the front, but I do wonder how good the US capability would be. Seems like drone offense is much better than drone defense at this technological moment.

The US drone capability would be adequate to do what Ukraine is doing. One can argue ours are "better" (and they certainly cost more) but we can do the same. The asymmetry in the Ukraine vs. Russia front is that 1) Russia doesn't have a drone capability to go "find" the HIMARS, and 2) even if they did, Russia doesn't have a precision weapon that can hit the HIMARS. Russian tube artillery (and NATO tube artillery) does not have the range. The SMERCH and Tornado-S systems in theory have available precision guided rockets similar to a HIMARS. However, it appears Russia has very few of these missiles. That explains the virtually invulnerability of the HIMARS to date.

In theory, Ukraine, Russia, and NATO also have the ability to attack the HIMARS systems with aircraft. So far, Russia hasn't succeeded in doing this. Even more stunning, Russia has not attempted to deal with Ukrainian drones using aircraft. They have planes that are not doing anything else. They are available. They have Mainstay aircraft that can "see" the TB2 class drones. We know this because they did it in Syria. The convoys being attacked are in Russian controlled areas so the Russian aircraft don't have to worry about MANPADS. They are far enough away from the Ukrainian Air Defense Zone that they don't have to worry much about S-X00 systems or the like. So why doesn't each convoy have an airborne escort to destroy/chase away the drones? Because Russians suck at war?? Probably more that Russia hasn't trained to do this and are too rigid to improvise. Also, the Army hasn't figured out yet who in the Air Force they should talk to :-).

What would our aircraft be doing differently in CAP? It seems unsustainable to use a million dollar AMRAAM to shoot down 4 figure cost surveillance/targeting drones.