Russia - threadbanned users in OP

To be a "game changer " in attack ,the f16s would need to be used in mass, to the edge of their capabilities,, and accepting large losses - Ukraine has 18 planes and newly converted pilots - they cant take losses,

They can however be successful in defence, they can keep russian jets 50 to 100km back from the front line,limiting Ru ability to use glide bombs, or to be top cover for helicopters attacks,

Target practice for the Archer.

Yeah, those yokes are just infantry support vehicles similar to the Bradley or other IFVs but the emphasis is on firepower rather than transporting and protecting troops , twin 30 mm cannons and missiles should be a pretty effective system,but like everything else in the Russian military industry over the last few years they take a concept and rather than spending the time developing platforms they jump straight to limited production runs ,they used a few of them in Syria before Ukraine,

Sounds plausible to me. The Ukrainians are ideally placed to integrate ex soviet systems with modern NATO standard equipment and I'd be very surprised to see them make public all of the ways they have been doing this.

Isn't the most plausible explanation the planes were shot down with the additional Patriot supplied by Germany. It's pretty much the same effect as the 5 planes/helicopters shot down over Bryansk in Russia back in May. It's been confirmed by Ukraine that it was a patriot system.

Ukraine would also have to upgrade their MIG/SU radars to increase the range to match the AIM-120. Unless they fired them in the general direction as fox3's, so without a radar lock and let the AIM-120 use it's own radar to search for a target. It's risky, but not like any Ukrainian planes would be in the air in front of them.

Depends on where the shootdown occurred. I don't remember reading anything about that, so that's a genuine question on my part.

Generally, Patriot is a very powerful system, but while it is vehicle-mounted, it isn't exactly mobile in the same way that for example a PzH-2000 or HIMARS would be mobile. It takes a bit of time to set it up and connect up the launchers & radar to the command post. Plus, it's a high-value system, so you wouldn't place it too close to the front. Now, if the shootdowns occurred over Ukrainian-held territory then sure, it could easily have been a Patriot, NASAMS or an IRIS-T system, but if they happened, lets say over the Black Sea or well into Russian-held Donbas, that could indicate an airborne system of some sort.

EDIT: It could also be that the Ukrainian Air Force has simply become a little less risk-averse, now that there's the promise of at least a certain level of reinforcements in the shape of the F-16 on the horizon.

True, and that's not accounting for any information they might be getting from NATO assets airborne over the Black Sea or along the borders. The flow of information must be staggering at this point, I'd hazard to say that 95-99% of what's happening in that regard is going completely under the public radar.

Truth before death in old age.

I dont quite get it , is india short of dollars or euros ?- they export a lot of refined (russian) oil to europe, so if they paid in dollars russia would have no prob spending them ,

Or is it the lack of ability to access the banking needed to transfer the dollars

I know a lot of nato equipment is capable of data linking , so if the data-links to a lap-top on board say a su-27 , and the missile is linked to the missile , it could be fired using information from a ground based nato standard radar system ,

Effectively with the right software,the lap-top would be spoofing that its a Nato jet , and the ground based radar and anti-aircraft missile would act as if it were ..

I hope this was a once off as well, but from what I'm seeing on X, Russia was pretty smart this time, waiting until some SAM sites opened fire at the cruise missiles only to then target the SAM sites themselves with Kinzhals or Iskanders. One IRIS-T battery had a narrow escape when an Iskander missed it by like 70 meters. Can't post the link, as I'm on my work computer at the moment.