The mainstream media finally got around to acknowledging what air force types like meself have been saying for weeks -- that the VKS sucks and its suckness
IS THE MAIN CAUSE of the shittiness of the war.
Now, I understand that 'theatlantic' is a paywall site with limited free article access, so am just going to quote relevant passages from the article written by Phillips O'Brien and Edward Stringer:
To start off...
Airpower should have been one of Russia’s greatest advantages over Ukraine. With almost 4,000 combat aircraft and extensive experience bombing targets in Syria, Georgia, and Chechnya, Russia’s air force was
expected to play a vital role in the invasion, allowing the Russian army to plunge deep into Ukraine, seize Kyiv, and destroy the Ukrainian military. But more than two months into the war, Vladimir Putin’s air force is still fighting for control of the skies.
The Russian air force’s failure is perhaps the most important, but least discussed, story of the military conflict so far.
I said this several hundreds pages ago. There is no 'perhaps' about this failure. The VKS was
THE point of failure.
In the history of war, there are always points of no return, meaning if a military does not possess this <something> the odds of losing a war trespass greater than 50/50. The horse, the bow and arrow, gunpowder, or the tank, just to name a few. But of all these points of no return, the greatest of them all is the ability to attack from the 3rd dimension. Make no mistake about this, it is not about throwing a spear or using the catapult to lob a rock. These things are sort of 'attacks' from the 3rd dimension, but they are of limited range and flexibility. The weapons of/from the 3rd dimension are the airplane and submarine.
Airpower is potentially decisive in any war, but difficult to wield effectively. Air forces are dependent on an array of technologies that require highly trained personnel who can quickly set up what amounts to an airborne military ecosystem: airborne radar stations to provide command and control, fighters to protect and police the skies, refueling aircraft to keep everyone full of gas, electronic-warfare planes to keep enemy defenses suppressed, and a range of intelligence-gatherers and attack aircraft to locate and destroy enemy forces. These sorts of combined operations involve hundreds of aircraft and thousands of people in a tightly choreographed dance that takes a lifetime to master. But when managed correctly, these overlapping operations allow a military to dominate the skies, making life much easier for the ground or naval forces below.
Unfortunately for the Russians, the recent modernization of the Russian air force, although intended to enable it to conduct modern combined operations, was mostly for show. The Russians wasted money and effort on corruption and inefficiency. Though much was made of the flashy new equipment, such as the much-hyped SU-34 strike aircraft, the Russian air force continues to suffer from flawed logistics operations and the lack of regular, realistic training. Above all, the autocratic Russian kleptocracy does not trust low-ranking and middle-ranking officers, and so cannot allow the imaginative, flexible decision making that NATO air forces rely upon.
Having the weapon is 1/2 of the equation. Knowing how to wield it is the other 1/2. Unfortunately, the VKS is the first 1/2 and not the second 1/2. It is now clear the VKS is mostly an airshow air force.
Instead of working to control the skies, Russia’s air force has mostly provided air support to ground troops or bombed Ukrainian cities. In this it has followed the traditional tactics of a continental power that privileges land forces.
“Russia has never fully appreciated the use of airpower beyond support to ground forces,” David A. Deptula, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general, told us. “As a result, Russia, in all its wars, has never conceived of or run a strategic air campaign.”
It means the VKS is what other Western air forces said in the past, and that I repeated here, that the Russian military view airpower, or at least Russian airpower, as little more than 'airborne artillery'. It means the VKS is independent only in name but not in doctrines. It also means against NATO airpower, the VKS would have been dead on day one, like how the Iraqi Air Force was back in Desert Storm.
Russian aircraft are instead left flying their straightforward missions, many of which use single aircraft without the mutual support from combined air operations that would be expected in an advanced NATO air force. The pilots are given a target; fly in quickly to attack it, in many cases relying on unguided munitions to try to hit their target; and then fly out and try to not get shot down. They are not allowed to act flexibly within their commanders’ intent to achieve a mission. They have task orders and they execute them, come what may.
How many air forces in the world took training from the Soviet Union and later Russia?
The West has much to learn from Ukraine’s successes, Deptula told us. “We have become so dominant in the air that we have never had to think through how we would use airpower if we were the inferior force,” he said. “Ukraine is posing us some very interesting questions that we should seriously consider, if only to understand how a clever opponent would take us on.”
Absolutely Ukraine will teach US and we will learn much from them. But think back to the previous question of how many air forces in the world trained under Soviet/Russia/China airpower doctrines? The Soviet/Russia model is now a proven failure. So what does the China model have to offer when China learned from the Soviet Union?
The bottom line now is that the Western concept of wielding airpower is preeminent with no credible alternatives, and if you want to learn our ways, it will cost you.
instinctmagazine.com
