Russia-Ukraine War (continuing)

Russians getting new equipment.
Advanced tactical fighters, armed with surface to air missiles. And increased manovability.

Topdung

Another window "Accident"

What a wonderful country!

From the Forbes " journalist " about the Oreshnik crash that he got from an unnamed Ukrainian journalist. Considering those things can travel 5000 km no doubt the Russians would of informed the US of a planned launch to prevent the risk of an accident occurring. Nothing from the US also and you could be sure they would be shouting it from the rooftops if it did happen.

So looks like it was just another made up bit of fantasy for the gullible to cheer about.

EDIT - Further update

Update, 2/7/25, 8:36 A.M EST: The Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council's Center for Countering Disinformation announced there was no Oreshnik launch on Thursday.

I generally like your posts but there are a few things I do need to call out here.

To start out with, the aircraft available from Australia were F/A-18A (single seater) and B (double seater) models, the earliest versions of the Hornet, which are similar in capability to the F-16. There are, quite simply, no F/A-18E or F "Super Hornet" available in Australia, the 24 (+12 E/A-18G "Growler" Electronic Warfare variants) aircraft of that type that the RAAF has in service are all relatively new, having been delivered in the mid to late 2000s and early 2010s and are an integral part of the RAAF's order of battle.

Second, the F/A-18 has a similar level of airfield requirements as the F-16. Air intakes are similarly close to the ground. There's a reason for the "FOD Walk" on a carrier flight deck before the start of flight operations. F-16s are able to conduct road ops just as well as other aircraft, this has been demonstrated in multiple exercises. Owing to its origin as a carrier aircraft, the Hornet does have a much stronger undercarriage in order to to handle the rather more robust carrier landings and catapult launches, that part is true. However, that same origin also brings with it a number of disadvantages, most of them stemming from the wing fold mechanism that's in place on all F/A-18s. This reduces the load capacity of any weapons stations outboard of the wing hinge, especially in the early model F/A-18A & B models that Australia operated. There's also the simple fact that the base model Hornet's fuel capacity is limited, requiring external tanks on nearly every mission which, together with the load restrictions on the outer wing hard points, reduces the available weapons hard points even further.

Finally, and most importantly, the issue for Ukraine is the availability of pilots, more so than that of airframes. From what I read, back in December, Ukraine had about 20 F-16s available, but only a dozen or so pilots. If Ukraine had gone with the Australian F/A-18s, they'd have likely ended up with several dozen airframes but very few pilots to fly them. The flight training programs in Denmark, the UK, Romania and elsewhere throughout Europe are just as important as the aircraft themselves, and there's no real way to improve the throughput of those programs. Ukraine can't just afford to have an entire squadron of MiG-29s or SU-27s stood down just for the pilots to be retrained on western aircraft.

I don't often advocate violence but for the love of poetic justice, when Putin's time comes (and it will come) I hope his downfall is literal.

So, in the run up to any “truce” or whatever codology word is used, and the fact the Russia aren’t getting places, I wonder will Ukraine go all out and bomb the bejazuz out of certain regions to take back ground before the lines are formally drawn?

This would be huge news if true.

(Resistance groups in Crimea claim Russia has begun withdrawing it's AA from the region)

Redeploying to protect refineries. Great news if true.

They've only just relocated additional air defence to Crimea. If that report is true, then it'd possibly be one of the first real confirmations that "Russia's running out of [whatever] ..."

Someones playing the auld Israeli pager game with the Russians

With the capture of the mines outside the residential areas Toretsk has been officially confirmed as being under 100% control by the Russian defense ministry.

Thats a nice hit.

Damage morale

Damage tactical planning

Damage control over their zerg units

The Russians openly state their aims are extermination

Really? Can you post a link for that from somebody high up in the Russian military or Government?

Or maybe you are confusing your threads, and meant to post in favour of Israel elsewhere?

You might be correct in all you say, but using words like Putler and orcs doesn't give any weight to your thoughts. quite the opposite, IMO.

Well-researched and well-reasoned opinions with links are more likely to do so.

I didn't say there where any superhornets on offer, I said the US could possibly have been up for upgrading the radars to the same as are used in the superhornets.

Here is a Ukrainian aviation experts take on your same airfield claim:

we should ask our allies to provide the F-18, because this aircraft has a much stronger chassis and it would be able to operate from our airfields, without their reconstruction,”

https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-f16-jets-f18-hornet-comparison-1805268

Experts told the Financial Review that the twin-engine Hornets are better equipped for dealing with the rougher airfields Ukraine is operating from than comparable fourth-generation jets.

Experts previously told Newsweek

that jets such as the Swedish Gripen are more capable of dealing with rougher surfaces and dispersed airfields than the F-16.

As to FOD - the F-18's engine intakes are far higher off the ground than the F-16's - one of which was actually lost due to FOD. Your claim of equivalence is false.

The F-18 is more easily maintained than F-16 and has the US record for serviceability and combat availability. In the Gulf war, an F-18 took hits to both engines and made it 200km back to base and was repaired and airborne a couple of days later. You can swap out an engine in just 20 minutes.

Then there's the absolute weirdness that Zelensky actually asked for F-18's from Finland and from the US.