Putin’s losses likely to continue as Ukraine plans to incorporate F-16s into defences | Justin Bronk

Putin’s losses likely to continue as Ukraine plans to incorporate F-16s into defences | Justin Bronk

one of the consistent problems of both sides sorry is that um they have both taken such heavy losses in sort of established pre-war formations that had the the the longer term training and the the the officer sort of mid-rank Officer sort of cardas to conduct large scale Brigade or or or division scale operations both sides have very much um dimin you very much lost that capacity and so what you’re seeing is that both sides are operating essentially mostly in in augmented company scale groups which is you know a couple hundred men uh and that’s partly why you’ve seen such kind of incremental positional attritional Warfare uh so again going back to that the question of have the Russians managed to build up a sufficient reserve of new units and have they managed to get the breathing space to train units that can fight at a larger scale because that’s what you need to do a big kind of concentrated offensive to try and essentially break through the lines and then maneuver to to expand and exploit that as the ukrainians did in harke in in Autumn 2022 um so the the Russians because they Contin they continue to take incredibly heavy losses for most of the beginning of this year even though the ukrainians were very short on ammunition the Russians were only really able to push that strategy of just pressure with these relatively small scale infantry in artillery attacks in terms of small scale infantry units with lots of artillery all across the line they didn’t really have the capacity to do like a big concentrated push that may have changed I want to come on to the situation with Ukraine’s air defenses in a moment Justin but but just on what we may see from the Russians in the coming months if they were going to launch a new concentrated offensive somewhere where do you think they would be targeting where are the likely areas they will Target I mean the the immediate Russian um objective is likely to be to complete the conquest of of donet and Lans uh which would mean pushing towards U katos and Sloans um and one of the reasons the ukrainians are fighting so hard to try and keep Chaz OFA is that first of all it’s a very well fortified position it has high ground it is it is a a very commanding position uh so they they don’t want to lose it but also if it falls then um significant towns and and you know larger larger towns will come within Russian uh artillery range and the Russians have have consistently pursued a policy of essentially trying to depopulate the towns that they can so they just indiscriminately fire artillery into towns to force the population to leave because that further hurts Ukraine’s economy it creates more internally displaced people it’s obviously demoralizing and so um part of what’s driving where the ukrainians are choosing to to try and hold and fight at different points in the front line um not only in places like Chaz of where they where they have good ground that they want to try and defend but also often in places where it’s really not optimal to try and fight there it’s because they’re trying to avoid the Russians getting into position to be within a regular artillery range of additional towns which uh or even small cities um so yeah um it it’s the the Russian push is likely to at least initially be towards katos and slans um and the initial stages would be trying to take key points like Chaz ofada would unlock parts of that um on the other hand there is always the danger that the Russians in a relatively small scale attack manage to find a weak point in the line and just push through it and then exploit it um so you know we we we’ve seen on both sides throughout the war that sometimes because of for example bad rotation Handover of units or just you know misallocation of resources relative to Intelligence on where the enem is planning to conduct attacks that you get these sort of relatively unexpected breakthroughs which if they can be rapidly exploited before the en before the other side has a chance to plug the Gap as it were to move forces around then can actually become a much bigger um movement in the lines um particularly if key ground lines of communication start being taken so key Railways key roads um you know a lot of Ukraine is is very arable um forested in some areas and so uh in many cases lots of the country is not easily traversable at speed by armies um and so Key Road and rail um routes are are kind of a a subtlety which you don’t necessarily see on just a a territorial um but if key bits are are taken or at least put under under Fire and observation then that can really affect the ability to move things around large areas front Belgium has agreed to deliver 30 us made F-16 fighter jets do we know when they will arrive and when they do how much of a difference will the f-16s make Justin uh so there have been some suggestions uh from uh Denmark for example that um f-16s may be delivered uh into country next in the next month um certainly the uh first uh sort of class of Ukrainian Pilots uh I believe are are um through F-16 conversion training now um the the question will be on the ground support capacity so where do you put the aircraft um F16 requires long comparative to to the 29 and S 27 aircraft that the ukrainians been flying up to now you m F16 with a combat load requires long um runways but also crucially runways and taxiways that are very smooth and that are completely clear of gravel Stones you know any what we call foreign object debris fod um because it’s a single engined aircraft with an intake positioned underneath right next to the the the ground um which because of the shape of it when when the engine is takeoff power so high power it it creates a sort of very very strong almost Hoover effect um so it will suck up any fod that’s on the ground and because it’s a single engine if you get the engine if you get engine damage because of ingested stuff uh on takeoff and an engine failure there’s no second engine so you’ll lose the jet um so that’s not a problem uh if you are most Air Forces not having to develop a cap capacity Under Fire um because you will have you know you can do what the US Air Force does which is to have um you know lots of you take most of the people on a given base do what’s called a fod walk so everybody just walks up and down the taxiways and the runways um two or three times a day uh looking for any bits of anything and picking them up uh and as long as you do that and you have smooth nicely conditioned surfaces F-16 is very efficient it’s it’s you know it’s the reason the landing gear is relatively flimsy and you know the aircraft is design the way it is is to to minimize weight so to maximize thrust to weight ratio and Agility and all of that the trade offers in Ukraine um there’s there’s quite a lot of work that will need to be done to the air bases um that have up to now been being used for a maintain to the standard required for um mig29 and s27 which are much more fod tolerant are twin engine designs with much more robust landing gear um designed to operate from pretty rough strips um and it’s not that Ukraine can’t prepare strips to that bases to that level it’s that doing so is not only visible so you you’ll see that you know they’ filled in the cracks in the wrong ways and or or the the gaps between you know Runway Paving slabs and things um but also that it’s quite Personnel intensive and Ukraine is desperately short of trained people for all sorts of tasks um so if you don’t do it if you if you can only afford to do it at a couple of locations then the Russians will work out where they are very quickly and at that point they will probably go all out to hit them on the ground um and even if they don’t hit the Jets to hit the ground support equipment that maintainers um you Ukraine has very effectively used a dispersed operating model for most of the war when they’ve needed to so moving Jets around regularly from different bases and and using forward um Forward Air bases to you know conduct rapid re refueling and rearming and that kind of thing nearer the front line all of that is much more difficult to do with F16 and again it goes back to the the severe overstretch already on Ukrainian groundbased air defenses if you’re also then trying to protect f-16s on the ground um from pretty concentrated Russian attacks um that that’s that’s a pretty big challenge so I suspect um that when they are pushed into theater it will be relatively small numbers in order to try and minimize those dangers minimize the challenge minimize the number of personnel that you’re having to move around between bases minimize the target size for the Russians and so try and poten disincentivize you know the use of mass strikes um for a relatively low payoff um but yeah and in terms of the the combat Effectiveness you the the Ukrainian Pilots are um some of them are are combat experienced very combat experienced but they about experienced in very different tactics uh with using very very different aircraft that are designed to work in a very different way um and so there will be a question as to how well the aircraft adapts to Ukrainian tactics can be adapted to Ukrainian tactics um and to what degree the pilots are able and or willing to use western style tactics and whether those western style employment methods for aircraft like the F16 can be integrated with a Ukrainian military that is still very much ground focused and and so the the Air Force is very much a secondary component within the Ukrainian military as it is in the Russian military it is a military that is fundamentally run by land officers and even in the Ukrainian Air Force a lot of the senior officers are um groundbased air defense officers because Ukraine had a huge groundbased air defense network for you and has done for many years and as as has essentially saved it from Russian air power for um for the the war so far um all of which is to say there’s a lot of questions around how effective relatively small numbers of F-16 will be able to be in country it’s it’s not to suggest that the program isn’t useful it it’s vital to keep the Ukrainian Air Force extent and and to give them capacity for at least internal air defense um against Cru you know help to help with cruise missiles and intercepting sh heads and other things but I think it’s important to manage expect a because because they’re such a symbol and because it was such a political um priority after main battle tanks but by you know the zalinsky government and the Ukrainian military and a lot of the kind of Ukrainian supporting um you know media social media kind of community should we say that there’s a really overinflated expectation among most people about what these Jets can achieve um you F-16 is not a wonder weapon it is a design from the 1970s that NATO Air Forces would not employ as the main tool in a threat environment like we see in eastern Ukraine um anywhere near the front lines and the tactics that you would normally in a western Air Force use to mitigate some of those limitations are large formation tactics using a huge number of different weapons in each salty for suppressive and and targeting purposes um and while you can train Ukrainian Pilots relatively quickly to fly the F Well very quickly to fly the F-16 relatively quickly to operate them individually training Pilots to lead large complex formations to plan and to actually employ and and coordinate in the air you know let’s say for ship tactics that takes years and years um you know it takes Western Air Forces you know a minimum of a minimum of about 3 years um under ideal circumstances to get people to the point where they’re a good foreship leader after they join the Frontline squadrons they’re already current on type um and we would also normally draw on things like tankers um aerial refueling tankers to extend the range to to give more tactical Freedom ukrainians can’t operate tankers because of the longrange air defense bubble so they will have to be at low level with relatively constrained range because jet engines use a huge amount more fuel at low level and they’ll have to be at low level anywhere near the front lines because of that long ground based long range air to ground surface to a threat so yeah it it will help to some degree with air def a missile and air and missile defense in depth and it will give Ukraine some more options for delivering air to ground Munitions from some degree of standoff um which they’ve already been doing to a significant extent with with kind of um adaptations for use of Western weapons like GBU 62 which is a jdam Glide bomb um from their existing aircraft but it’s not going to change the course of the war thank you for watching front line for times radio for more on Global Security and the war in Ukraine you can listen to times radio take out a digital subscription to the times and click subscribe on our YouTube channel

Ukraine will seek to use F-16s in defences against an expected Russian offensive if they can get pilots trained and to the front in time, RUSI’s Prof. Justin Bronk tells #timesradio

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