02-23-2025, 11:11 AM
A couple of F-16 articles. First https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/02/20/7499278/ reports on an F-16 directly supporting ground troops. This is "new", as previous reports seemed to indicate the F-16s were exclusively dedicated to anti-drone warfare. It may be the arrival of a more jets has allowed Ukraine to branch out a bit. Fly low, zoom and toss. Now if there were only enough of them (and it was 2023 instead of 2025). Oh well.
Second F-16 article is literally true but still mostly BS. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/02/14/7498420/ Link-16 isn't an IFF system. It is a data distribution system. It is certainly true that if the Ukrainian Patriot battery had Link-16 capability it would have had a Link-16 battlespace picture available. However, if the F-16 did not have Link-16 capability it wouldn't necessarily be identified (or even present) in that picture. Its presence in that picture at all might just be due to the Patriot battery detecting it as an unidentified contact. Do we know the F-16s sent to Ukraine still have Link-16 capability? I would think it even more likely it would be removed from the F-16. Patriot batteries don't come all that near the FEBA let alone cross it. F-16s OTOH have a very non-zero probability of doing both. Removing Link-16 capability for security purposes obviously makes more sense for the F-16 than it does Patriot batteries.
IMO the much more relevant question would be "Was the NATO mode 4 (or 5) IFF retained on the F-16s and the Patriots?". Russia undoubtedly already has examples of this hardware, so losing one wouldn't be a "big deal". They probably have copies of all the relevant STANAGs as well. However, without appropriate settings Russian knowledge of the system design wouldn't help them. They couldn't "spoof" a valid interrogator signal. A Patriot with appropriate settings could send an interrogation message in the direction of the F-16 that a similarly equipped F-16 would respond to with a properly encoded response message. This is especially true for an F-16 flying well inside Ukrainian (friendly) air space. This is the main purpose of IFF. The absence of IFF is what the article should be complaining about.
Of course, IFF may have been available but not being used. Neither Russia nor Ukraine have been using IFF in this war because they both use the same, compromised legacy system. The fact there was such capability for NATO compatible equipment may have not been utilized (for whatever reasons).
Second F-16 article is literally true but still mostly BS. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/02/14/7498420/ Link-16 isn't an IFF system. It is a data distribution system. It is certainly true that if the Ukrainian Patriot battery had Link-16 capability it would have had a Link-16 battlespace picture available. However, if the F-16 did not have Link-16 capability it wouldn't necessarily be identified (or even present) in that picture. Its presence in that picture at all might just be due to the Patriot battery detecting it as an unidentified contact. Do we know the F-16s sent to Ukraine still have Link-16 capability? I would think it even more likely it would be removed from the F-16. Patriot batteries don't come all that near the FEBA let alone cross it. F-16s OTOH have a very non-zero probability of doing both. Removing Link-16 capability for security purposes obviously makes more sense for the F-16 than it does Patriot batteries.
IMO the much more relevant question would be "Was the NATO mode 4 (or 5) IFF retained on the F-16s and the Patriots?". Russia undoubtedly already has examples of this hardware, so losing one wouldn't be a "big deal". They probably have copies of all the relevant STANAGs as well. However, without appropriate settings Russian knowledge of the system design wouldn't help them. They couldn't "spoof" a valid interrogator signal. A Patriot with appropriate settings could send an interrogation message in the direction of the F-16 that a similarly equipped F-16 would respond to with a properly encoded response message. This is especially true for an F-16 flying well inside Ukrainian (friendly) air space. This is the main purpose of IFF. The absence of IFF is what the article should be complaining about.
Of course, IFF may have been available but not being used. Neither Russia nor Ukraine have been using IFF in this war because they both use the same, compromised legacy system. The fact there was such capability for NATO compatible equipment may have not been utilized (for whatever reasons).