[Goose]

Interesting footage of a Ukrainian F16 with a gun kill of a shahed type drone. 

https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/2020...05845?s=20

Thanks for the link. It is indeed a good illustration of taking down this kind of drone with the gun. Using air to air missiles for such a job is economically unsound. The F-16 can't carry enough such missiles anyway. Using the gun costs much less and can increase the F-16's time on station.
 
The following link illustrates the successes and capabilities of the F-16 school set up in Romania. https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/gene...16969.html This school can't deliver more than 8-10 Ukrainian pilots per cycle given that its capacity is only 25 students. The Romanians themselves need at least half the slots. That said, it is much, much better than nothing. If this effort had been started by the US administration fairly promptly when the war began, it would be producing today's results at least two years ago, if not sooner. Oh what might have been :-).
 
The article discusses link-16 in the NATO context. It is unclear if the Ukrainian trainees participate in that training. It is also still unclear to me whether the Ukrainian F-16AMs retained their link-16 capability. There are claims both ways on the internet. The Saab 340s that Ukraine received also had a link-16 capability. However, it is not exportable without US approval. I don't know if that was granted or not.
 
I do know that using F-16s to chase down drones without some kind of AEW control is real inefficient. This is especially true for F-16s that must remain at low altitude to avoid Russian long range air to air missiles launched from inside Russian airspace. Their radar horizon is quite limited, better than a ground based radar, but not much. Ideally targets would be handed to the F-16s based on priority and proximity. This would maximize the F-16s efficiency and kill the most targets. Given the small number of F-16s Ukraine has maximizing efficiency  is pretty important.

[Goose]

Interesting footage of a Ukrainian F16 with a gun kill of a shahed type drone. 

https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/2020...05845?s=20

Thanks for the link. It is indeed a good illustration of taking down this kind of drone with the gun. Using air to air missiles for such a job is economically unsound. The F-16 can't carry enough such missiles anyway. Using the gun costs much less and can increase the F-16's time on station.
 
The following link illustrates the successes and capabilities of the F-16 school set up in Romania. https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/gene...16969.html This school can't deliver more than 8-10 Ukrainian pilots per cycle given that its capacity is only 25 students. The Romanians themselves need at least half the slots. That said, it is much, much better than nothing. If this effort had been started by the US administration fairly promptly when the war began, it would be producing today's results at least two years ago, if not sooner. Oh what might have been :-).
 
The article discusses link-16 in the NATO context. It is unclear if the Ukrainian trainees participate in that training. It is also still unclear to me whether the Ukrainian F-16AMs retained their link-16 capability. There are claims both ways on the internet. The Saab 340s that Ukraine received also had a link-16 capability. However, it is not exportable without US approval. I don't know if that was granted or not.
 
I do know that using F-16s to chase down drones without some kind of AEW control is real inefficient. This is especially true for F-16s that must remain at low altitude to avoid Russian long range air to air missiles launched from inside Russian airspace. Their radar horizon is quite limited, better than a ground based radar, but not much. Ideally targets would be handed to the F-16s based on priority and proximity. This would maximize the F-16s efficiency and kill the most targets. Given the small number of F-16s Ukraine has maximizing efficiency  is pretty important.