10 fighter jets from Britain, America and Poland executed air to air combat training over Poland.
NATO say that exercises like this are now “more relevant than ever following the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine, increasing NATO interoperability and readiness”.
🔟Allied fighters from 🇵🇱🇬🇧🇺🇸 executed air to air combat training over Poland yesterday.
Exercises like this are now more relevant than ever following the illegal #Russian invasion of #Ukraine 🇺🇦, increasing #NATO interoperability and readiness.#StrongerTogether pic.twitter.com/hCM5dvBgjF
— NATO Air Command (@NATO_AIRCOM) March 31, 2022
Elsewhere, four Royal Air Force Typhoon fighters landed at Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base in the Southeast of Romania to support NATO’s enhanced Air Policing in the South.
“The RAF deployment, called Operation Biloxi by the UK military, will see the Typhoons forming a crucial part of the existing reinforcement of NATO’s posture across eastern Europe; they are joining an Italian Typhoon detachment that has been in Romania since December 2021.
The Allied mission provides a unique opportunity to improve the UK’s interoperability with regional Allies whilst part of a multinational combat capable force operating alongside Romanian and other Allied aircraft in the region.”
The present deployment is the fourth time that the RAF has deployed to Romania to undertake NATO enhanced Air Policing. Previous deployments were in 2017, 2018 and 2021.
If you ever find yourself feeling any sympathy towards the Russians i’d recommend you watch this on youtube. Slava Ukraini. 😡😡Search
😢 YOU MAY WANT TO CRY AFTER WATCHING THIS: Prejudiced attitudes or Russians towards Ukrainians
Yes it’s painful to see just how little attitudes have changed over years most of the population were in their 20s or 30s when the Soviet Union fell and yes it was bad for a decade but this blind support for those who are part of the bad side of events anyway is beyond me. Nationalism seems as bad as ever, it’s like they enjoy banging their heads against the wall in the name of some innate sense of loyalty to a madman who is using them as canon fodder and that the West by comparison is so much worse… Read more »
I think there’s too much free speech in the US for that to have much traction. It’s a minority even if a loud one.
Live in Latvia.
On the 9th May, Russian Latvians head towards their monument to celebrate Russian victory in Europe 1945.
When I was teaching them, when they returned to the classroom, they got a video of an arctic convoy… Oh the silence.
Erm… watch what?
Try this on youtube search.
Prejudiced attitudes or Russians towards Ukrainians
Thanks got it. A shining example of Russian youth… not!
No prob I should have double checked. The only bad guy in Russia is Putin apparently !
If Ukraine loses, which is looking increasingly unlikely then Putin will persuade the Russian people to support an invasion of a Bulkan sate, and possibly, a NATO member? Some leading military experts are predicting just that! France and Germany’s stance on Ukraine is encouraging Putin to believe NATO’s resolve is simply not strong enough? The atrocities discovered so far will only accelerate as Russian forces concentrate on the east and south of the country. The level of barbarity is on a par with German acts during Barbarossa, in many ways, mankind’s morality has not changed in the 70 years since.
You could be right there’s a lot of speculation about Putins health and mental state. But if the Russian army invades a NATO member state they would be slaughtered within 72 hours max and everyone in political and military power in Russia will know that. Under those circumstances I think Putin will be killed.
I’d agree with that – given the Russian armed forces performance in Ukraine, I’m not sure they’d last more than 72 hours.
I’m also not sure that he would be allowed to do something like attacking a NATO member state. Pretty sure one of his inner circle would surely step in and put an end to it? He is surrounded by mostly ex-KGB after all.
Apart from the fact that most of them have disappeared or died.
On the performance presented so far, could we dial down to time needed to wipe the Russian Army off the map to 24 hours?
😁😁
Nah, it’ll take 72 hours to give different NATO units/countries a fair crack at them. Can’t have the Poles scything their way through the lot in less than a day, can we?
There is clear evidence of poor discipline amongst the Russian forces with copious amounts of empty vodka bottles littering the debris fields? I doubt a regrouped force in the east will be capable of penetrating beyond current lines? One thing is clear, a greater supply of arms is now required to support Ukrainian ground troops, with a huge effort from the EU and NATO. To some extent, Putin’s threats have to be challenged and tanks and aircraft will need to be part of the new support package. Let us face it, Putin has lost face and his earlier warnings no… Read more »
I don’t think anyone has explicitly said it but for Poland, Baltics, USA and UK I think this has to end with Putin removed from power. Otherwise any peace deal would be nothing more than a ceasefire.
In truth, the only way to remove Putin is for the Russians to weed him out of power. I’m sure there are many agencies working hard to finish his rule both inside and outside of Russia? We can only scratch the surface of what the intel agencies are plotting, just imagine all their instruments of espionage, that are hard at work to remove this miscreant.
Oh yeah but it’ll be a Russian who pulls the trigger. This shitstorm of a war he’s got Russian into will be making a lot of pissed of Russians. It only needs one of them to get one chance.
Given Russia’s performance against a not very sophisticated Ukraine military I seriously doubt they would risk a war with NATO. I think NATO would be happy for an excuse to give Russia a major kicking.
Be nice if the Polish fighters could get ‘lost’ and ‘accidentally’ land in Ukraine.
You mean. 36 Polish military aircraft stray into Ukraine and Ukrainian air defence fighter directs them to land immediately. The Ukrainians confiscate the aircraft and return the crews. Poland kicks up a fuss and tells Ukraine not to do it again or they will stop training Ukrainian pilots?
This could have been devised by Putin himself!
Biden has put an end to the Polish Mig transfer. He’s too scared of Putin unfortunately.
Why does Biden have say in Polish MiGs going to Ukraine? ?
Its probably not Biden’s decision but the Pentagon’s and they really don’t want WW3..
Poland, without prior consultation with the US, publicly proposed sending 28 of its MIGs to Ukraine providing the US provided it 28 F-16s free of charge. The Pentagon does not get to make that call. That’s a Commander-in-Chief call and, unfortunately, Biden is Commander-in-Chief. In addition, the transfer of 28 F-16s, free of charge, to Poland requires Congressional approval. Poland could have saved everyone a lot of grief had it done its homework before shooting off its mouth.
It always a stupid idea the way Poland made the offer. And they have been updated with nato standard equipment etc etc. As far as I could tell Poland says here America take our mig 29 to ramstien in Germany. Now they are USA jets you can give them to Ukraine, nothing to do with us(Poland). Oh and can we get 28 f-16s the same as we have ordered for free. (Not free Americans pay for them) we need them ASAP, is next week ok. Can we also get the full spares and weapons packages thrown in for free as… Read more »
I think it took a lot of people by surprise with how publicly it all fell apart. Not the best look for NATO. As you say, they could have snuck across a couple at a time after having any of the upgrade parts removed that NATO / the US doesn’t want the Ukrainians to have. As well as removing the markings which could be as simple as just painting over them, they don’t have to be replaced with anything. I’m pretty sure there was some satellite pictures come out of Russian jets in Libya with their markings just hastily painted… Read more »
But there were ways around sending the jets, Ukraine is free to purchase whatever it likes to support its war effort. One country loans Ukraine money and Ukraine buy jets from a source country. Ukraine pilot collect the jets from the source country. No question of WW3 imo, just genuine military purchase. UK is now sending artillery and T72s are finding there way to Ukraine. US made a bad call on the jets.
Because Poland wants free F16’s in return. Same for turkey they want free F35’s for their S400. We could give them tranche 1 typhoon instead.
I read somewhere they would have to de-NATO the aircraft systems. I suspect IFF etc. Not sure how true it is but it makes some sense.
Because Poland wanted to route them via Ramstein US Air Base, to get American support and protection.
That’s my understanding too, Graham.
Whatever you say Danski 😆
If the planes are Russian made it’s ok to give them. However NATO countries cannot give Ukraine planes that could improve their abilities. Non NATO countries can give offensive weapons, but the line between defensive and offensive is blurry.
I’d lay a hefty bet that I know the unofficial nickname of that Operation. 😉
would have been a lot more impressive if it was 100 fighters … Russia might have even taken note.
They always take note, certainly more so now they are aware that we (NATO) know just how inept and half trained their people are. 10 NATO platforms, fully armed could put half of the Russkie airforce into the deck before they knew they were even spotted.
Do you follow The Drive War Zone mate? I check it daily as it’s a great site for collating footage from Twitter and others. Just looking at the latest from Kyiv Oblast. Leaving aside the war crimes at Bucha, the Russians have been well and truly slapped. Convoys obliterated, trucks with looted walking machines blasted. There is intriguing drone footage of several Russian armoured vehicles amongst houses in a village. Placed in people’s gardens, people’s yards. Right up close to houses. Using civilian buildings to try to hide in. Each one is taken out with absolute precision, no misses. From… Read more »
I have a look on occasion mate, decent site and lots of info! We are certainly entering a new game changer in regard to using drones at every level of planning and combat! As you and I amongst many others repeat often, we need to be looking at our own efforts on that front, offensively yes but more importantly defensively! The RA need to take the lead and have Anti-UAV batteries within all BCTs! I think it’s dawned on the head sheds but they need to be pushing it, and fighting for more funding to cost it! The RA, sad… Read more »
I would add great content, terrible site. Forever crashing and stalling. I look at it not the phone and it stalls lots. I’ve heard on a pc there are adverts and pop ups all over the place. Great content from the few authors
Thats interesting, thats never happened with me there, and I hate those adds!
You know me mate, the RA should be, in my opinion, along with infantry, the premier combat arm. It’s been neglected for too long.
The RA were 25% of the army’s strength in WW2 – now about 8%.
Just my suspicion but I think that it might in fact have been some of those Switchblades the Yanks sent that was deleting the Russian vehicles in that villiage. Could be wrong though.
Good grief! Buy them up if they’re that effective. I was surprised that posters on Twitter were just claiming regular artillery. With that accuracy.
John,
The Ukraine has been using the Polish made Warmate Lotering munition since 2017, where the purchased the licence to make 1000 . It comes with the ability to change warheads and its anti tank one comes in at 1.4kg of HE. The switchblade warhead is much smaller and is deemed only effective against troops and soft skinend vehicles. But then as say every little bit helps:
Here a video of the WM
Very interesting mate, very soon we will have a plethora of Coy/Plt/Sect UAVs at Battalion level. Game changer to the way we should be operating and thinking!
Armour clearly needs ECM against drones now to be effective. One extra part of combined warfare. That being said most if not all drones are very vulnerable to anyone with half decent jamming capabilities. Apparently Ukraine put most it it’s early attacks in to eliminating ECM units and they were guided right to them by RC135 Rivet Joint from UK and USA tracking them from emissions and locating with satellites.
There was an article on Warzone saying just pick a fighter jet and start training Ukraine’s air force. They state that this will now be a drawn out conflict and Ukraine will need to look beyond its current fleet. I handful of Migs from Poland won’t cut it. The west has stalled for 5 weeks now Ukraine’s air force would be a significant way through the training by now.
10 fighters is normal excercise traffic, so nothing out of the ordinary. Fully armed they would typically have 60-80 air-to-air missiles between them plus maybe 150 rounds of cannon per airframe. The current active Russian fleet of fighters is ~900 modernish (Mig-29/Su27 & more recent) – they could quite easily swamp attack even 100 NATO fighters especially if they also used older airframes to simply soak up missiles to save their more modern (history says that the Russians would take the human losses in order to achieve their aim).
Comes back to tactics, range, sortie rate etc. You’re right, knock out 70 nato warplanes, test the western resolve for casualties.
Mate the Russkies may do that, but NATO has more platforms and are much better technically but more importantly much better trained! Russkie lads would just be targets closely followed by a smoking ruin! And let’s not forget air platforms don’t just operate in isolation!
As they say, quantity has a quality of all of it’s own (to the Russian AF fighter force you can add ~600 strike/bombers plus the naval aviation force). It’s best not to be complacent & underestimate your enemy lest they turn round & hand you your arse … (something that the Russians are just relearning 😝)
Agreed, numbers can on occasion be a quality of its own and agreed you never underestimate your enemy, however you need your planning considerations to be realistic and that does include knowing their capabilities, their doctrine and tactics and in doing so you must never plan in a way that overestimates their said capabilities. The fact that most of the Russian aviation struggle to get 80-90 hours per month and their training is rather basic, and many of their aviation platforms are certainly not 4th or 4.5 gen mate,. Cheers.
I had a look at the nato site. There’s 4 ef18 of Spanish airforce, 4 french mirage 2000-5, 5 Czech gripens, across the eastern flank and 4 Italian typhoons in Romania with 4 U.K. typhoons. I think there are more that was a quick look. Great to see everyone standing forces up
Some sickening images coming out of Bucha….
Fake according to Russia. I wonder what our on site Russian apologists have to say?
I confidently predict that they will declare this Ukrainian propaganda, totally fake! And, besides, they completely deserved it!
No doubt they’ll blame it on Ukrainian nationalists or claim that those people shot themselves.
Johnskie, Kayaker and Andrew (one and the same) will say it was the Azov Bns, the Nazis, the evil Ukrainians and that the peace loving Russkies went in their to save the world!!!!!!!!
Give the canoe paddler and his comrades a few days to come up with some deflection about mainstream media and some outlandish tale of destroying a city in order to save it .
MSM lol….they are learning mate as they are changing their tactics and making a conscious effort to no longer post pretty much the same shit, in the same way and same style, and try to be “reasonable” they have taken my advice! I do try my best for our pet Trolls, I like to see them achieve promotion, a higher status as supervisor, and the extra 2 litres of 2 stroke which comes with that elevation in status. And they will need those spuds more now Russia is becoming even more of a basket case!
Strangely silent. Not sure we’ll see Ulya for a while either. I mean , how do you front this up? Ulya doesn’t seem daft and is obviously no troll
Yes, agree. To me she or he was just someone defending the actions of their country and their government. For right or wrong.
I do remember her repeating her governments position on Ukraine joining NATO. That is is a red line for them. And also telling the forum, many of whom like myself doubted Russia would attack, that they would and to see if they were joking.
Some joke!
It’s not so much as not training to polish boots to perfection as not having any idea boots need to be polished. It appears that all the Cold War stereotypes are true when it comes to Russian and be extension Chinese aviation training. What few exercises the actually do seem to be more about showing numbers and formations but the concept of integrated training is completely alien to them. A major issue for this is likely cost. The USA spends 10 times more per head than the Russians do and much if that goes on very expensive training. Anyone with… Read more »
And potentially with a chunk of the $60 billion getting – ahem – diverted for certain purposes / individuals other than it was intended for…
Russian atrocities reported today and looking at all the media I believe it. 2 things: Firstly two types of forces commit atrocities. The premeditated SS types or troops out of command and hope.I reckon that these Russians are the latter (let’s hope so). No hope, no discipline and scared they’ve done unspeakable things to escape. It says a lot about the Russian forces. Secondly, how long can we watch this go on? The Russian Army is right now in a very vulnerable position. If we stop allowing the nuclear deterrent deter peace and go after those forces with the full… Read more »
Amongst many issues the Russkies are facing is the basic discipline of their half trained amateurs in uniform. Just seeing footage on youtube from Russkie positions which have been overrun, or deserted shows the basic lack of field discipline. Crap and rubbish everywhere, kit dumped, food and half eaten food chucked about etc etc. While it may not seem important to someone who hasn’t served, basic hygiene and standards have to be maintained if you are living in the field, or fixed locations for extended periods. The lack of a professional JNCO/SNCO group within their mil is really showing, and… Read more »
Bang on Airborne.Those positions wouldn’t pass a cadet force first weekend inspection. If they had NCOs they’d all be on a fizzer by now. From a military point of view it is incredibly unprofessional and that leads to scared, ill disciplined conscripts shooting civvies.
Agreed mate, sad to say
For those still wondering why the Russians do not control the airspace over Ukraine, here is a report with video about a state-of-the art Su-35s ‘Flanker’ shot down near Izium in Eastern Ukraine.
https://theaviationist.com/2022/04/03/first-russian-su-35s-flanker-e-confirmed-destroyed-in-ukraine/
Examination of the wreckage has confirmed that this plane was configured for a ‘Wild Weasel’ mission with an anti-radiation missile. It was hunting Ukraine SAM systems – and found one. Maybe Sky Sabre?
Dangerous trade is Wild Weasel – however, the pilot managed to eject and was captured
You mean ‘Starstreak’? Perhaps a possibility. Sky Sabre is in Poland and is brsnd new and much larger and complex no way it will be deployed to Ukraine.