Ward Carroll, a former F-14 RIO, first appeared as a source in U.S. Navy Carrier Readiness a few days ago. Now he’s got Justin Bronk from Royal United Services Institute for an interview, and if you can spare 42:14 this is some exacting detail on Ukraine’s new planes, the types of weapons they have available, and how they’re going to play against Russian defenses.
The big issue for them is the same for us - not enough pilots. Soviet fighter doctrine, which Ukraine had simply continued, involves what would be seen as dreadful micromanagement from the ground for NATO pilots. They get told where to go and what to do.
Being able to operate a MiG-29 means a pilot can handle a supersonic fighter, but they would have little sense of how to employ the sensors and weapons on their F-16s. There’s a step up to becoming the lead pilot for a two plane element, and then another LONG jump to get to being the lead for a four plane formation.
I am very excited to see the short range infrared AIM-9 Sidewinder and long range radar guided AIM-120 AMRAAM against Russian cruise missiles and drones. The level after that would involve suppressing air defenses with the AGM-88 HARM anti-radar missile and hitting targets from a safe distance with the AGM-158 JASSM.
If you’ve been following the endless debate about the MGM-140 ATACMS, the JASSM has twice the explosives and about 20% more range. The ATACMS could almost reach the Kerch bridge from Zaporizhzhia. The JASSM has a forty mile range advantage, so the F-16s would come no closer to the front line than Dnipro. Once that bridge is finally down, and I presume they’ll get the ferry terminal at the same time, things in Crimea start to change quickly.
This war would have ended some time ago had Ukraine been given the tools to get at the Kerch strait bridge. The west’s muddled approach - Ukraine can’t lose, but Russia can’t lose Putin, has been a political burden Ukraine has borne at the cost of a generation of young men.
So here’s to putting double the energy down a little bit further out than was previously envisioned.