Good morning read about current status. Start of the article focuses on Ukraine annoucing they have a plan now for new fighter aircraft. Many speculating this is for f-16. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...laims-new-combat-aircraft-has-been-determined Here are some standouts: Ukrainian pilots have visited the U.S. and the specific type of aircraft to be provided to Ukraine has already been selected, the top spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force claimed on Tuesday. “Our military pilots went to the United States, funds were allocated for the training of our pilots,” Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuri Ignat said, according to ArmyInform an information agency of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (MoD). “The type of aircraft, which is likely to be provided to Ukraine, and the corresponding terms of [personnel] training have already been determined.” Ignat did not say which aircraft had been selected or offer any timeline for delivery or training. But a Ukrainian defense and military expert in Kyiv told The War Zone on Tuesday that “based on the concept of the Ukrainian Air Force development, we are looking for a multi-role aircraft during the first phase. It could be some variant of the F-16 fighter jet.” That lines up with what Ignat previously told Air Force Magazine. He said that two 12-aircraft squadrons of F-16s, plus reserves, would be sufficient to help turn the tables against Russian airpower. Ukraine, Ignat told the magazine, has at least 30 pilots with sufficient English-language skills ready to travel to the United States for fighter pilot training along with the corresponding engineers and maintenance teams, he said. “To learn the first stage of takeoff and landing and flying from point A to point B, it will take a few weeks, but to learn how to fight on it, to learn how to use missiles, we will take around six months,” Ignat said by videoconference from Ukraine’s Air Force headquarters in Vinnytsia, Ukraine. This is a reality The War Zone has stressed repeatedly. Oher Interesting Things: -US increasing artillery shell production by over 500% over next 2 years to over 90,000 shells a month- highest levels since the Korean war. Cool cool cool cool cool cool A little hometown pride here- our new f-16 production facility just produced the first new build of the latest f-16
Looking at the changes, looks like they added a new EW suite. It's an export variant for countries that don't want to pay for F35s
2 seater variant as well as the conformal fuel tanks running down the top of the spine also what WhiskeyDelta said
Good read on the concerns/challenges with sending Abrams to Ukraine. It all comes down to the secret depleted uranium armor (which was already mentioned in this thread). https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...tory-have-armor-too-secret-to-send-to-ukraine
sucks to lose the hardware but that can be replaced- the experienced crews seemed to make it out for the most part
Not much discussion or focus Wagner's "activities" in Africa (CAR, Mali, Burkina, Libya, probably Eritrea and Ethiopia, etc.) mostly because they simply murder people who oppose them, but they're propping up some of the worst governments / organized crime in the world in exchange for millions of dollars in loot and land.
This is just pure Keystone Kops shit. I was half expecting the driver to keep turning a circle around the other vehicle and run over a dozen of them.
Russia is definitely trying offensives again cuz all of a sudden Twitter is flooded with videos of BMPs and T-80s being blown up again
Maybe means it was not true. It was a tweet saying the abrams we are sending are m1a2 sepv3 without the deportees uranium armor. So basically all the latest tech without the special armor.
If they are being this secretive about protecting that classified armor, I am now more curious about what else they use it to protect. Wonder if we have attempted to use it on aircraft or personal defense gear for SOF.
For both, DU is INCREDIBLY heavy, which is bad both for aircraft and people. Unless it's a dedicated close Air support asset like an attack helo or an A10, maneuverability > heavy armor for aircraft. It's also very toxic, especially if damaged and inhaled, which makes it a bad choice for personal armor. It's a bit of a different calculation for heavy armored vehicles, where the only time you're going to get exposed to the dust is if you are because you AREN'T being exposed to a molten steel rod inside your steel bathtub.
I think they said they got it with an Iskander. S300 too obsolete to deal with those, although yes, surprising they couldn't have gotten the drone.
One of the OSINT experts mentioned this morning that this was likely a decoy since there's nothing around.