Russian build up along Ukraine

It may focus the minds of certain other NATO members about the need for better Air Defences in Ukraine.

Indeed, the issue is the NATO members don’t exactly have a huge surplus of heavy SAMs standing by. How many more systems might be available, or maybe the US could pull the ones going to the Saudis?

Probably Mary Lou and a few other shinnors are allowed travel as well.

I see our neighbours are making noise they may send fighter jets to Ukraine. What would they send? The Torandos that they retired a few years ago are they in a storage yard?

What became of all the harriers that were retired early? The GR7 was a hell of a ground attack aircraft.

As for the Tonkas, The ADV was very hands on to fly and needed a crew of 2. Ukraine can't spare pilots for that nonsense.

But some nations who operate the Typhoon are about to decide whether to upgrade their earlier versions or not. I think Austria is close to handing back its Air Superiority only versions. Spain could do likewise Indeed anyone with Tranche 1s could use the opportunity to get rid of them instead of struggling to upgrade to Block 5 standard.

There is a lot more talk on in the UK media this morning that they will supply jets. It will be interesting to see if it happens. The UK even at the moment have no hawks as they are all grounded. Maybe as Dohvelle touched on they could send there Tranche 1 Tyhoons. It would be a good way to for the UK to see how they get on in air to air combat and a good reason to manufactue more aircraft

RUSI seems to disagree with me. Their reason? Typhoon is a piece of poop that requires large teams of civvy contractors to keep it operational.

Giving RAF Typhoons to Ukraine Would Be a Very Expensive Symbolic Gesture | Royal United Services Institute (rusi.org)

Any Government has to balance military capabilities with domestic concerns (ie industries), not buying Typhoons then meant the end of the domestic capability to build Fighters, while also paying the States for fighters. It’s been the same argument since WW2 for most of the European nations, also the reason why the European defence industry is still so splintered and repetitive.

How exactly would Russia do that? Lets not be jumping at shadows, this war has proved their capabilities are fall less than what they have been doing PR with.

As to the UK, it's not just the industrial base, it's also the r&d infrastructure for development, hence why the UK is pushing their Tempest as a Next Gen fighter (and the French and Germans are trying to agree their project), and why BAe managed a by in for the F35 project. Just look at the saga of UK procurement during the Cold War. It's nothing new, through out the Cold War you had either projects built to sustain domestic capabilities (ie the French) or at the very least licenced production for "smaller" countries/militaries (Netherlands, Greece etc), it's no different than the US spreading procurement of their fighters/bombers across all 50 states to buy political votes.

As for NATO being serious about enlarging European militaries, that doesn't override domestic politics, so all the European nations combined will still have duplication left, right and center so as to keep domestic employment and tax bases going (ie multiple SSK designs, multiple armour projects, 2-3 Next Gen fighter projects, etc etc). You aren't going to last in a Government if you declare that you are going to shut a local industry and move it all to another country, that's simple politics

To get to Germany they'd have to get through Poland first. It's not happening.

Rolls-Royce didn't make the Typhoon engines all by themselves but they didn't for the Tornado (or Concorde) either. Politics.

Sweat zombie Jesus, give the **** over with the “Russia strong” shite, across the board they have demonstrated that they can’t compete with a relatively constrained force like Ukraine, they can’t fight a war with NATO, not with what they have or can have.

I’d disagree about air superiority, they are mostly staying over their own areas, you aren’t seeing them try interdiction flights against deep areas in Ukraine for example, and their own air assets are flying at the same height due to SAMs as well. And yes HARMs have been macgyvered onto MIG 29s from some of the footage they have showed and some examples of damaged Russian hardware. Of course the Russian bombers are staying deep in Russian territory (which isn’t exactly an offensive position) but their strikes have been massively wasteful for most of the time, and that SAM system has been proven vulnerable with Russia losing Strategic bombers to drone strikes deep within Russia, hell it’s not normal to set up short range SAMS on capital buildings if you are confident of your defences.

The Russian Army is beyond scrapping the bottom of the barrel in both quality of manpower and equipment effectively at this stage and will have massive long term impacts for Russia anyway. As for the Navy, yeah losing a warship to a nation that effectively doesn’t have a navy isn’t great for anyone, but in reality it’s ability to affect the war is limited and it’s global abilities the same when compared to major Western or Asian Navies.

And above all else, we aren’t talking about the hammering in Ukraine, we are talking about the (crazy imo) suggestion that somehow while they are fully committed to an utter meatgrinder that they could have the ability to engage in open warfare with the collective might of NATO… That’s not going to happen. It’s as likely as the floated suggestion back in the summer that they were preparing for conflict with Japan over their disputed areas.

Outside of nukes what exactly have they been holding back? They’ve stripped units and equipment from everywhere from the Chinese border to the Kalingrad to maintain operations and that’s with two rounds of mobilisation to try and boost numbers as well. This “Russia is holding back” is no different than the tankies proclaiming that Putin ordered retreats as signs of good will…

They have burned through their MBT stocks, they’ve burned through their special forces, they have lost a measurable faction of their helicopter fleet, they have lost irreplaceable ships and planes, and that’s not even touching the demographic and economic damage they have done to themselves, but you are arguing that they have capacity to try anything in widening this war?

Of course NATO is keeping their forces forward deployed, the Baltic’s in particular have no depth or capability to defend themselves, and Vlad hasn’t been slow in threatening them but likewise Russia has no capacity to enlarge this war. It’s telling that when Sweden and Finland announced their intention to join NATO there was barely a whimper from Moscow compared to preinvasion sabre rattling.

I'd like to add that one of the reasons why Russian forces don't demonstrate big results across the board is that a lot of their soldiers are not ready to fight for death, some of them are attempting to defect. Most of them decided to take part in this war because of money. And Ukrainians fight for their motherland, their freedom, and a better future. There is a big difference. I mean the strength of spirit plays a great role here. 

I follow not only the news about the war but also about various Ukrainian projects. The last one I discovered was CarDonate. Its goal is to find people who want to donate tjeir old vehicle for military needs.

It is amazing how many people have transformed their lives to support each other and fight in the war, both on the front line, and in the back.