That feeling when you invade a “pushover” country for a 3 day operation and then they turn out to be a regional military power that fields advanced military equipment from partners pissed off about your invasion from all over the world.
Whoopsie!
The Russian war effort is existentially reliant on fighter-bomber launched glide bombs and while I don’t think Ukraine will begin instigating long range air-to-air engagements anytime soon the timeline established by these contracts puts any possible longterm reliance on glidebombs for precision guided frontline artillery/air support into serious doubt for Russia.
Good thing North Korea isn’t running out of good quality artillery shells to share! … oh wait
Rafales and Gripens would be a pretty cool mix for their Air Force.
Also, I’d be pretty interested to see what Antonov pivots into in the coming decade or two - I feel like the Ukrainians would have a pretty pointed interest at this point in developing their own in-house infrastructure for meaningfully credible air defense and multirole fighter aircraft.
Also, I’d be pretty interested to see what Antonov pivots into in the coming decade or two
Given Ukraine’s domestic success with building and operating drones for warfare, I hope Antonov skips human piloted fighter/bomber aircraft altogether. Its a dead end technology. Ukraine is wise buying European domestically produced aircraft which gives them nations with a vested interest in Ukraine’s success over the long term against China’s future vassal state of the Russian Frontier.
Tbh I just don’t think that’s true. I think the balance will shift HEAVILY towards unmanned, but I think manned platforms still have a place now, and will continue to.
I won’t pretend to have any particular expertise in this, but building Gripens seems like an obvious choice to me. The plane seems very well-suited to Ukraine’s needs, it’s currently limited by quite small production numbers, and Saab has experience getting other primarily-civilian aerospace companies to build them (Embraer already does, and Bombardier is due to start soon)
- the Gripen would be a great choice for a more air-defense-leaning QRF/frontline fighter, as that last bit was an explicit design goal of the airframe
- the Rafale would be a great choice for a more multirole-oriented fighter, as its heavier, has (iirc) longer legs, is twin-engined, and can can hold more ordinance (both in terms of mass and hardpoints)
I’m sure Antonov and the Ukrainian government in general would be happy with either, but if they have the opportunity to get both and learn from both (in terms of construction as well as doctrine and deployment), I’m sure they would jump at the chance.
