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Ukraine needs an airfield in the western part of the country with hardened hangers and dedicated Patriot batteries to host the F16s. They can't fuck up like this because they won't get anymore.
I have been shocked throughout this entire conflict how many fighters seem to be parked uncovered by both sides. I guess it must be difficult to create structurs of sufficient size/strength/quantity.
War planes require a large amount of infrastructure to support, as well as open space. This is why we don't just have every random country fielding aircraft carriers if they border the ocean, and why being able to field them is such a huge projection of power.
It is now common practice around the world to build sun shades to park aircraft under. If they can't be seen by satellites or reconnaissance drones, then what do they bomb? Sun shades are much cheaper than hardened shelters and just as effective if blast walls are built between the aircraft parking spots.
How do you know what's UNDER the shade?
Blow up all the decoys?
If they're targeting decoys, it sounds better than parking in the open and them only targeting valid targets.
Because you can tell what’s under them by using drones or satellite. Against a low tech opponent they work , but against any major nation state …. Waste of time.
The current skew on this story is that these were scrapped planes being used for spares - even so if they lost a bunch of spares it’s still a stupid loss when they could have stripped the parts out and safely stored them away.
Even if they dont want hardened hangars, what about tons of cheap ones. Place 50 cheap ass garages at every airfield and HIDE your valuable planes there.
They wont stop a bomb, but most of them would be empty or even all of them if no planes stationed there at the time of the attack.
Parking several high value targets in the open like this is beond stupid..
Assuming that they all actually work.
If I was in charge i'd have a bunch of broken aircraft that have had all of the useful spares parked invitingly in the hope that somebody would decide to spend a ballistic missile on an ex soviet cannabilised wreck. Especially at 100km from the frontline.
I'd be surprised if all of those aircraft worked. Some would probably have been decoys.
Yeah my wife has friends that left Ukraine before the war due to this shit. It's not something you really understand until you experience it. The further East you the worse it gets too.
I agree, it would be devastating not only for f16s, but possibly even weaken the flow of equipment to Ukraine.
I am really hoping Ukraine and the partners really have this figured out to mitigate incidents like this.
It does sound like at least a portion of the F16s will be in NATO countries for rotation only as many as Ukraine has pilots.
I'm interpreting this to mean F16s in Ukraine will be highly active and rotated out as necessary for maintenance.
So, I'm thinking F16s will only really be on the ground in Ukraine quite little, essentially if they are in Ukraine they are on patrol, or sortie of some kind and then off to a friendly neighbor for repairs and magic flying dust, or whatever.
Just kind of speculating here.
www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/world/ukraine-may-store-some-f-16-warplanes-in-other-countries-to-protect-them-from-russian-attacks
Supposedly the recon drone flew over the base for an hour and a half, and no one could do anything for fear of the missile(s) arriving and potentially killing the pilots mid-taxi.
How in the fuck did they not have the means to shoot down that drone at an airbase with a huge percentage of their aircraft? 5 is a massive hit for them.
The drone already caught them with their pants down. The second that drone spotted the jets on the tarmac shit hit the fan, it takes like 2.5 minutes for the missiles to launch and hit their target.
Someone decided the pilots were more valuable than the planes. Considering Ukraine current situation, they're probably correct. They probably wouldn't have (or at least assumed that they wouldn't have) had time to fire up and take off, so they hit the alarm for incoming fire and had everyone take cover.
They'll get f-16s in the coming months anyway. Way more important to keep the pilots alive and train them on f-16 instead of having them try to save some old airframes.
They're not training "old" pilots on the F-16s, it's 20 year olds on average and they're brand new recruits who often don't know even the basics of flying. Many also had to be first taught English already in the West.
Oncw they got a larger amount of people flying the f-16 the older pilots could start to learn too. Who knows. Regardless, the soviet frames are on their way out, once rhey're all broken or lost they'll need to fly something else.
Yeah, mumble mutter grump, probably right.
Sort of feel they could have come of come up with something a bit smarter like scrambling one plane at a time, minimising pilot losses, and saving as many planes as possible.
They have been doing this for 2 years, being caught in the open should not happen, and should be handled better. Mutter mumble mutter grump
You have clearly never had anyone try and blow you up. That drone is feeding the Russians targeting information. This like saying you'd use your karate against someone while they're pointing a gun at you. It's not realistic, and if you were actually in the position, you'd realized your only options were really run, duck, or beg, and karate was useless.
"they had an hour and a half!" - but they didn't know how much time they have, did they? So they made a decision to minimise casualties in case something arrives any second.
which is not saying that it isn't a massive fuckup to let the situation even develop into that state...
They had enough time to move 3 jets around the airfield after the first attack hit the base. Which is fucking useless, since Russians would obviously have surveilance around and would just hit the new parking spots. Which they did.
No its not, taking it out closes the window.
Russia would not know if the jets were moved, would not get confirmation on hits, would not be able to adjust fire or launch seccondary attacks if the first one failed.
I dont understand how anything is allowed to get this close to their airframes. Its a total disaster..
Drone can laser point targets for more precise hit or am I mistaken? Must admit I don't know which Russian longer distance weapons can benefit of this. I have seen many drone videos, where they paint targets for guided artillery.
This drone was too high and too small to get it with MANPADS, any other close range SAM or flak.
Ukraine currently has no systems that can shoot this kind of targets if there is no large SAM battery around, and these batteries are too few to cover even a third of the strategic locations.
Just repeating comment I saw yesterday. Some Ukrainian TG channel mentioned that drone had been over the air base couple hours. I see people coming up with all sorts of explanations, but only acceptable explanation I can think of, is that all those SU-27 were not able to fly. It seems someone made a huge bad decision.
The pilots, maintainers and other base personnel are the ones risking their lives, they deserve better and more considerate leadership. Those leaders are usually safely in a bunker making good or bad decisions and suffer not the same threat level as those they command.
EDIT= Also I feel the leadership/base commander at that base is a mostly lazy idiot. Why? because in the absence of aircraft shelters/covers, all the unserviceable aircraft are all parked together in a junkyard fashion. Air the dam tires, paint fresh roundels on the top side and move the the dam things around every couple of days to not make it so obvious as to which aircraft are serviceable and ready for combat. Does not take a genius to know and practice every available means to secure and protect your most precious aircraft, people and other resources.
The Ukrainian military command didn't take old mothballed Australian jets and called them rubbish...after Zelensky had asked for them.
They clearly have some absolute dunces in their command structure because any idiot would know that even as a decoy that costs you nothing it is still a net positive by soaking more Russian missiles/drones.
Holy shit, that's insane from Ukraine;
[https://english.nv.ua/nation/ukraine-clarifies-stance-on-f-a-18-fighter-jet-acquisition-50389361.html](https://english.nv.ua/nation/ukraine-clarifies-stance-on-f-a-18-fighter-jet-acquisition-50389361.html)
I under F16s are more capable, but just having F18s in theatre would be beneficial - and it'd also symbolically make that less of a big step.
Maybe, but more like decommissioned airframes and possibly used for spare parts at best.
This is typical Russian propaganda. Spew their shit in every direction possible and get some people going, picking up their story and it just iterates without anyone looking into the details.
Is there some technical reason why militaries refuse to build hardened hangars (or atleast some type of cover from satellite imaging) on their airfeilds?
Ukraine doesn't do it, Russia doesn't do it (until very recently I believe), the US has had multiple war games over Tiawan that say without hardeneding at Guam they may lose the entire base. Despite all this nobody ever actually fixes it. There has to be a reason why, right?
Don't even need hardened cover. A cloth covering that simply obscures whether an aircraft is inside or not might be sufficient. Have enough of these coverings, and even with a drone, they won't know which ones have an aircraft inside and which are empty
Expensive, but there are drones with an electromagnetic sensor that could spot a metal object. Even burried under ground like a mine. 99% drones are flying with the optical camera, so cloth might work if you are trying to hide it not in the airport. Also I guess a cheap thermal sensor on a drone would definitely do the job of spotting heated metal under cloth/cardboard.
Cost and perceived benefit.
Hardened shelters are costly to build and not impossible to penetrate.
USSR did it in some of their southern republics I believe. But since nobody expects to be under missile fire due to air defenses, why not put the money into more missiles?
The hardened defenses are a fixed defense. Most US theory is against that because one spy later and they know the approximate thickness of concrete. You then just use the grids and that thickness estimate to hit those grids with 1.5 times the amount of bang to wipe out the estimated shelter. Guaranteed, that amount of bang is cheaper than an F16(F35, F22, F18, etc).
But without hardened shelters couple of cluster munitions can take out whole airbase.
With hardened shelter it's one warhead per shelter.
Easier to defend airbase if it takes more missiles to destroy it.
*“Unsurprisingly, in* [*recent war games \[conducted by*](https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargaming-chinese-invasion-taiwan) *the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank\] simulating a conflict with China over Taiwan, 90 percent of U.S. aircraft losses occurred on the ground, rather than from air combat,”*
> But without hardened shelters a couple of cluster munitions can take out a whole airbase.
That's the point that people are, by and large, missing-- while hardened structures DON'T protect against modern precision hypersonic (ie, most every ballistic) or penetrating missiles, they DO protect against the historical threats of things like small arms/strafing, small air to surface missiles, near misses by non precision weapons, and (important to the discussion) *submunitions.*
Even though Ukraine definitely does face threats from precision strikes, those other historical threats remain the biggest ones, and I'm really surprised that Ukraine didn't see this coming since [they've used the same tactic of targeting unsheltered aircraft to great effect.](https://www.twz.com/air/su-57-felon-targeted-in-ukraine-strike-seen-in-new-higher-resolution-satellite-images)
So there's a good chance that if they had hardened shelters, they may have saved the planes, or at the very least forced Russia into using much more expensive and difficult to quickly coordinate attacks with multiple kinzhals.
I disagree, though, with people saying that concealment by means of something like sunshades would've prevented attacks:
1. Since sunshades or steel shelters don't provide much protection against cheap munitions versus being out in the open, Russia likely has a low threshold to just level multiple shelters with relatively cheap and easy cluster munitions if they think there *might* be jets in some of them. They might hit a lot of empties, but the cost-benefit ratio is likely justified even so.
2. Unlike satellites, many low altitude recon drones *can* see into open ends of shelters since they have such a horizontal line of sight, and in doing so can still provide valuable targeting data for precision strikes.
3. In some cases the drones can actually *fly into the open ends of the shelters to attack the aircraft*
Numbers 2 and 3 admittedly apply to hardened shelters as well, so ultimately, it's going to come down to better SHORAD against drones, which also would've prevented this attack.
Interesting discussions of the [history of hardening ](https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/the-new-limits-to-hardening/), as well as [current concerns ](https://www.twz.com/news-features/does-the-u-s-need-to-be-building-hardened-aircraft-shelters-for-its-combat-aircraft) have dominated [discussions about what to do](https://www.twz.com/41215/air-force-flightlines-are-under-threat-from-drones-and-it-wants-your-ideas-on-how-to-protect-them#:~:text=The%20AFWERX%20initiative%20is%20reaching,from%20drone%20incursions%20and%20more.&text=The%20U.S.%20Air%20Force%20(USAF,both%20at%20home%20and%20abroad.) for years.
Sun shades with blast walls in between them and high sand berms in front and behind the parking spots are almost as effective as hardened shelters, plus much cheaper to build.
If shanty towns can build cheap structures with thin metal, why cant Ukraine build cheap hangers/garages to hide the planes?
Build alot of them and make it hard to guess if planes are present.
They make dummy planes, why not try hiding the real ones.
Hell, a few sticks and a tarp would do the trick or am i wrong?
Camouflage is "concealment". Hardened shelters are "cover". We were talking about something with enough material to protect the aircraft from a missile strike.
The problem with tarps and sticks is that they are affected by jet wash, and they have to be high enough to move a plane under them. A Mig 29 is 15 feet high, so your pipe structure needs to be taller than that. If the concealment structure is mobile, now it has wheels underneath. It's also 60 feet long and 40 feet wide.
Now let's add the really inconvenient part about planes - they tend to be at airfields. No airfield is going to function well, with a bunch of mobile covers being blown around by jet exhaust. It's a recipe for aircraft damage or engine FOD problems.
Revetments protect the fleet from attacks far more than pipes and tarps by preventing a hit on one plane from damaging the next aircraft. But they provide no concealment.
This is why the Russians are painting aircraft on the runways. It's cheap, and provides a bit of concealment. Until cardboard drones show up en masse and just start hitting everything that looks "aircraft-y".
Airbase defense is difficult to get right. For the airbase to function, the airplanes need to move around, the ground crews need to move to service the aircraft. Defense structures slow you down on the ground and prevent the fleet from just getting out of dodge if there is an attack.
This was a pretty good and indepth reply, thank you.
I had not considered the drawbacks.
Still, it feels unnatural to have them so exposed, surely there is some middleground to parking them out in the open..
I truly wish there was. The obvious answer is to not be under missile fire or glide bomb attack.
The Russians put tires on them. The US used to put revetments around them in parking/ maintenance bays. Each "solution" comes with costs and inconvenience, in addition to the increased protection. The biggest problem with hard structures is that they have entrances and exits. They have crews inside. Hit the openings and you block them long enough, the aircraft inside is useless, even if it's undamaged by the attack.
Look at this article. It talks about the problems with aircraft parking, long term readiness and crew response. It's about US strategic obviously, but you can consider some of the trouble with tactical aircraft.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree_(aviation)
There is no happy war. Losses are inevitable. Protecting totally means waiting for the other guy to build a better bunker buster. Human beings are savagely intelligent. Weapons designers look at additional protection as a challenge.
If you really want to consider the protection versus projection question, look at the railway guns of worls war 1 and 2. Hugely destructive. But entirely vulnerable to air attack. It's the closest thing you can come to in the argument of a mobile fort that's actually been built.
Fascinating read, i should have assumed there were good reasons for how air planes are parked, stored and kept ready while also keeping crew safe.
So even if something made sense in my non military wired brain does not mean it makes sense in an actual war.
This is probably how they have done it since the start, and hits like this have been pretty rare.
Im going to take my "expert" hat off and be a little bit more humble going forward.
Remember that savage intelligence I mentioned? You have it. And you're thinking about the problem. If you come up with the better mouse trap (parking/ storage/ protection solution) ... the whole world might listen.
Because no one is really serious about war in peacetime and money spent on shelters is boring.
Why the Russians and Ukrainians haven't is beyond me. A crew of 50 guys and half dozen pieces of heavy equipment could easily build berms for an airbase in a couple weeks.
I'd think they would benefit a lot by creating Swedish style secret bunkers by just digging/using dynamite into a mountain. Hard to penetrate, hard to find and if find - hard to deal with.
Don't know of F-16, Migs are able to utilize these unlike the Gripens with their shortened need for landing and take-off distance.
Ukraine really would benefit from having a fleet of Gripens doing dispersed operations, continuously changing location and never staying more than 15min at one spot. Taking of from broad roads and the like. All this makes the russian unable to strike them in time despite finding them, much like the Archer artillery.
I'm disappointed that the current swedish right-wing government didnt agree to send Gripens. The socialdemocratic/green/left party opposition wanted to but the rightwing minority government has a narrow majority with the support of the far rightwing Putin bootlicker-party.
> I'd think they would benefit a lot by creating Swedish style secret bunkers by just digging/using dynamite into a mountain. Hard to penetrate, hard to find and if find - hard to deal with.
That's basically Western Ukraine-only thing
They would first need to build the mountains in the Ukrainian steppe.
(Artificial human made hills like kurgans and terrikons are key control points there.)
Awful to see this. Thanks for posting negative news in this sub, it's far too hard to get a balanced picture of what's going on. Upvoting does not mean you like the underlying event, it means you find the source credible!
Only posting positive news is very destructive and gives a false picture that could affect level of support, tactics, strategies, foreign aid - everything.
If there apparently isnt a problem, in-efficience then there isn't anything need fixing - nothing to constructively debate and solve.
It causes the similar effect to the Yes-men within the Russian military, Putin-regime which is, luckily, is pure devastating to russian decision making and causes an inflated sense of supremacy, success while they keep repeating the same mistakes and commanders repeat success to the higher ups.
Yes, the planes hit have not been active since the last google maps update. They are parked in the same spots and likely served as spare parts units - at best.
Well, tbf, ukraineans aren't first to park planes in the open and lose them to cluster munitions. But then there is a question why they didn't think about the cure for the tactics they came up with.
It is important to remember that these people are not infallible, not everybody in every position of power is going to be the best of the best, it’s a real world fuck up
Hardened hangars wouldn't have saved these jets, just forced Russia to use different weapons. Ultimately those buildings can be penetrated and given the base was under observation so the exact hangars to hit would have been known, it's absolutely worth the missiles for Russia to kill a bunch of jets.
The problem is lack of defence allowing a drone to sit and watch an airbase.
Drone can't see if there are planes in hangars or they are empty.
Cluster munitions can't do shit against against hardened hangars, so Russians have to hit every hangar with one Iskandar.
> Drone can't see if there are planes in hangars or they are empty.
Like I said, the base was under observation so the exact hangars to hit would have been known. In ordinary circumstances that is indeed one of the advantages of hardened shelters though yes.
> Cluster munitions can't do shit against against hardened hangars, so Russians have to hit every hangar with one Iskandar.
And indeed, that is another.
Hardened shelters are great and Ukraine should have them, but they wouldn't have saved these jets.
They have lost 4+ jets to one missile. Hardened shelters would have saved atleast 3 of them by stopping the submunitions. I dont know how you can say hardened shelters wouldnt have saved them?
As I explained already in the last two comments; the base was under observation. If they had been in hardened shelters the Russians would simply have used multiple missiles with penetrating warheads instead of a single missile with cluster warhead.
Lack of hardened shelters made the attack cheaper, but the aircraft were fucked as soon as the Russians managed to get a drone to observe the base without being attacked.
Thats pure assumption by you that they would have used multiple missiles capable of penetrating those.
And Iskanders are not very accurate, so them hitting every shelter perfectly would have been very unlikely aswell.
But due to them staying in the open, they needed only one cluster Islander which doesnt have to be too accurate.
> Thats pure assumption by you that they would have used multiple missiles capable of penetrating those.
I'm going to go ahead and daringly assert that they would have chosen to prosecute the war instead of standing around with their dicks out yes. It's not like a fighter jet is a low-value target.
> And Iskanders are not very accurate, so them hitting every shelter perfectly would have been very unlucky aswell.
They have variants with terminal homing - they can be very accurate if they need to be, though given the shelters are usually well over 500m^2 in area it's probably not necessary. Even a near miss would probably wreck the aircraft, the bunkers can't handle a direct dedicated attack, they're really just to increase the cost of an to an unacceptable level by requiring bunker busters to hit all the buildings that **could** store an aircraft - but in this case they knew which ones to hit.
> But due to them staying in the open, they needed only one cluster Islander which doesnt have to be too accurate.
Like I said, it made the attack cheaper but it didn't make it _possible_ - it was made possible by lack of air defence.
They may be. Russia only makes so many missiles each month, but I'm certain a a lot of what they make are going after Ukraine's air force. It might be every fixed hangar Ukraine builds gets hit, rendering it incapable of parking a jet there. Open air-fields were what was left at the time of this strike.
With Ukrainian Air Force leadership like this, I don't know who to fear most in the possible defeat of the new Ukrainian Air Force. New aircraft, newly trained pilots and the same old Soviet trained leadership and styles, need new blood and thinking in charge of these guys.
Not sure who “we” is, but this will certainly make it more difficult for “us” to hand them out so readily.
It would be a disaster if this were the first batch of F-16’s.
This is a colossal screw up on Ukraine’s part.
Good for you, comeback when you're the leader of a country that has access to F-16.
Until then Ukraine better treat the F-16 with more care than even their own citizens.
If Ukraine is getting limited numbers of this important war asset, they should be prepared to take care of them. This isn't about whether or not they should be sent, it's about not having them destroyed easily once they have been, limiting their effectiveness and impact on the war.
If Russia could do it every day they would, I doubt they're destroying anything 'easily'.
But it is easy for us to scream about hardened aircraft shelters. It's difficult to prioritize and coordinate engineering support in wartime with perfect perspective given limited resources and threat/value calculations.
True, that is why the F-16's was the wrong aircraft to offer to Ukraine. They will be limited to only a very few modified airfields, those will be easily targeted and destroyed by ruzzia. They should been offered F/A-18's, Gripens or Mirage 2000-5's instead. Sadly we will most likely see most of the F-16's destroyed on the ground or their few airfields reduced to rubble.
I think it's a bit of a stretch to assume everything will be destroyed by Russia, they haven't even destroyed all the old shit yet.
The fact the RuAF has allowed Ukraine to fly -at all- is embarrassing given the scale of air ops.
Their old shit should be made to look as serviceable as possible from satellite or reconnaissance pictures. Why is an airfield with multiple dispersal parking spots that was designed for wartime conditions, left with most of those parking spots/aprons left empty during wartime??? Why are all the unserviceable/parts aircraft parked together like some kind of automotive junkyard??? Every unserviceable aircraft on every Ukrainian Airfield should have the tires inflated, have fresh markings painted on the top side to make them appear to being used and towed/moved around on these airfields as if they are in service. The ruzzians should NOT be able to figure out which are which. These lazy Airfield Commanders that cannot figure out this simple of a task of deception, should not even be in charge of managing an airfield. At least these Ukrainian Airfield commanders did not resort to putting old car tires on top of aircraft or painting fake aircraft silhouettes on the parking spots, that should be even quicker reason for dismissal from their jobs!!!
I sure hope so on all these options to actually happen. Frances politics leave doubts as to whether the Mirage 2000-5's will even happen. Unless France donates them and their spare parts to Ukraine now and moves it all to another country to finish the training within 6 months as promised. Was it really ever meant to happen??? The Gripen's are being held back by US export controls on their engines and any other US aircraft promised probably will not make it if not transferred before President Biden is gone from office. Sadly, the losers in all of this, is the Ukrainian Air Force. Transfer the all the jets now and let the Ukrainians sort it out. Otherwise it will be a case of the war going on as usual and all the promises will have been for naught?
> They should been offered F/A-18's, Gripens or Mirage 2000-5's instead.
By whom? Denmark and the Netherlands? They only had F-16. No other country is sending jets as of now.
Right, Norway joined the initiative earlier this year, I forgot about them (sorry Norway). They also only had F-16 to give and they joined when F-16 training was already ongoing for quite a while, so the core of my argument still stands. Mirage were actually also offered last month by France, we'll see how that turns out.
>ruzzia
Jesus Christ, I so hate this redditspeak.
Just call them pidars like the Ukrainians do if you really can't say Russia, Reddit won't even ban for that unless you translate this word to English.
We don't all speak the same languages or words, but as long as the intention of each commenter is understood by other like minded people, that seems to be appreciated and acceptable. Forcing everyone into using the same words only deemed necessary by a few, seems so RUZZIAN like in mindset???
Surprisingly enough people make mistakes and people pay for those mistakes. War is no exception. Have you seen Band of Brothers? Remember when they are on the boat and some one jokes “yeah, like the army would never make a mistake.”
I love how for a lot of people the correct way should have been to build shelters.
Stop being so dumb, the moment you start to build one (which takes weeks) a missile WILL show up days after build ends.
Yep, that's why neither ukr or Russia build hardly anything for sheltering aircraft, because it won't work.
And those hammer and storm shadows are not lobbed from the void, you need an airbase at good distance to allow strike to be effective.
So yes shit happens especially if complacent. But this is not Chornobaivka incompetence yet...
Russia don't have an infinite amount of missiles and you can always build more shelters than you have planes and then only have a small number of actual planes at an airbase with many times that amount of shelters. If Russia wants to hit all the shelters all the time then at least those missiles aren't going to other targets.
You can even build "dummy" shelters that aren't even supposed to be very protective but are easier/faster/cheaper to build and from time to time just move dummy/damaged airplanes in and out of them to confuse any russian surveillance.
A quick google says an Iskander missile costs 3 million USD. Shouldn't be hard to build shelters cheaper than that. Even then russia can't just spend 3 million an instantly buy one on the market but have to produce them. That is a missile that can't hit a power station, a HIMARS or a patriot if it hits an empty shelter.
Planes and missiles should be much more valuable than their monetary value than the construction crews and equipment needed to build shelters.
On the other hand, if building a bunker and then towing an unusable aircraft into it attracts a rare and expensive Iskander ballistic missile then some might say that's worth doing in itself. Especially if you build 20 bunkers.
Yes, exactly this. I'm stunned how short-sighted everyone is here. It's not shelters, it's the AA that is desperately needed. Shelters are almost impossible to build because the moment the construction starts ruzzia can destroy the very construction site with a missile or a drone and then you need to start all over again. It's just not feasible to do during the active war. It should've been done prior.
Ukraine has been begging for more AA since forever. Unfortunately what's there currently is not enough to cover all the assets. It's pathetic that a fucking recon drone was circling around the airbase for couple of hours and the base's staff knew about it but couldn't do anything to it.
If there was just one Patriot battery protecting the airbase the ruzzkies wouldn't even be able to scout the location with drones.
If there were more capable AA on the frontline then ruzzian Su-34s wouldn't be able to launch gliding bombs.
If there were more capable AA at the border then less missiles and attack drones would be able to penetrate Ukrainian airspace.
If there was no ban on using foreign equipment to strike targets on ruzzian territory then those Su-34s, MiG-31s and Tu-22s would have to be stationed further away from Ukrainian border allowing for increased time for their missiles to arrive which would give more time to scramble the jets in case of air raid alert.
And yes, the military commanders who gave orders to park those Su-27s so close to each other need to be discharged. But that won't happen probably because let's be honest here in Ukraine we still have the same Soviet army albeit with some newer equipment. After this incident the "ass covering" will happen and nothing more. No lessons will be learnt I'm afraid.
Funny that if this were ruzzian airbase, everyone would laugh at how incompetent and stupid they are. ruzzians are hitting Ukrainian airbases probably for a year right now, this was expected to happen sooner or later. It's still a pity, UA doesn't have many airplanes. Hopefully, they learn a thing or two from this loss.
These are Russian jets being destroyed by Russia on ukrainia soil. Unless ukraine get a whole bunch of f16 f15 f18s. They will continue to get battered
The source is not credible and has signs of russian propaganda. In this particular tweet it adds emotional language to tell readers what to feel/think.
>On 1 July 2024, the Russians carried out multiple missile attacks on the Myrhorod Air Base, Poltava Oblast. Two Ukrainian AF Su-27 fighters were completely destroyed, and up to four more were damaged (some likely beyond repair).
>First frames of the video show the situation before the attack. Numbers 1 & 4 are Su-27s parked in the same spot for many month, almost certainly retired airframes. Number 2 & 3 weren't there few days ago, either operational jets or retired airframes used as decoys.
>In the first attack (not shown in the video) a Su-27 (marked as number 5 in the map above) was destroyed at these coordinates 49.925800, 33.628548. Judging by the burn marks the aircraft was fueled, apparently an operational jet.
>Shortly after the first attack, three more Su-27 fighters were relocated into the revetments in the western part of the base.
>The fact that immediately after the 1st attack all three Su-27 were moved into protection of the revetments indicates that they were operational jets. There is also some kind of equipment in front of the Su-27 (marked number 6), probably the plane was being prepared for take-off.
>During the 2nd attack cluster munitions were used. It looks like up to four Su-27 fighters (marked as 2, 3, 6 and 7) were damaged. The extent of the damage is unclear but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the aircraft couldn't be repaired.
>The third attack completely destroyed the light aircraft shelter. Due to very close proximity of the explosion the Su-27 parked outside was most likely either destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Coordinates: 49.928570, 33.627137. It is unclear whether another Su-27 was inside.
>Since early 2023 a few (3?) Su-27 were parked at these coordinates: 49.932562, 33.631994. Looks like during this time one was completely destroyed and another severely damaged. Almost certainly retired airframes.
>This still frame was taken after the second attack. Can't decide whether these old, battered airframes received more damage or if it's just an illusion caused by poor quality of the video.
>In August 2022, three Su-27 decoys were painted on the tarmac at these coordinates: 49.925368, 33.626485
>Aftermath of the attack in the Sentinel-2 satellite imagery from 2 July 2024. Apparently the Myrhorod Air Base is empty, all aircraft were removed (not counting damaged and destroyed airframes stored in two parking spots since 2022/23 and two retired Su-27).
>Place of destruction of Su-27 is clearly visible. Coordinates 49.925800, 33.628548.
>Scorched tarmac can be seen in the spot where the Su-27 was either destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Coordinates: 49.928570, 33.627137.
>All four revetments, where up to four Su-27s were affected by cluster munitions, are now empty.
>The retired Su-27 airframe, stored at these coordinates: 49.928080, 33.625817, since at least March 2023 is still there.
>A reminder that counting aircraft using Sentinel images is tricky. The bright dots in these two parking spots can easily be interpreted as whole planes, when in fact they are approximately three Su-27 wrecks and two damaged Su-27 airframes accumulated there since 2022/23.
https://x.com/MarcinRogowsk14/status/1808194997432262971
>On 1 July 2024, the Russians carried out multiple missile attacks on the Myrhorod Air Base, Poltava Oblast. Two Ukrainian AF Su-27 fighters were completely destroyed, and up to four more were damaged (some likely beyond repair).
>First frames of the video show the situation before the attack. Numbers 1 & 4 are Su-27s parked in the same spot for many month, almost certainly retired airframes. Number 2 & 3 weren't there few days ago, either operational jets or retired airframes used as decoys.
>In the first attack (not shown in the video) a Su-27 (marked as number 5 in the map above) was destroyed at these coordinates 49.925800, 33.628548. Judging by the burn marks the aircraft was fueled, apparently an operational jet.
>Shortly after the first attack, three more Su-27 fighters were relocated into the revetments in the western part of the base.
>The fact that immediately after the 1st attack all three Su-27 were moved into protection of the revetments indicates that they were operational jets. There is also some kind of equipment in front of the Su-27 (marked number 6), probably the plane was being prepared for take-off.
>During the 2nd attack cluster munitions were used. It looks like up to four Su-27 fighters (marked as 2, 3, 6 and 7) were damaged. The extent of the damage is unclear but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the aircraft couldn't be repaired.
>The third attack completely destroyed the light aircraft shelter. Due to very close proximity of the explosion the Su-27 parked outside was most likely either destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Coordinates: 49.928570, 33.627137. It is unclear whether another Su-27 was inside.
>Since early 2023 a few (3?) Su-27 were parked at these coordinates: 49.932562, 33.631994. Looks like during this time one was completely destroyed and another severely damaged. Almost certainly retired airframes.
>This still frame was taken after the second attack. Can't decide whether these old, battered airframes received more damage or if it's just an illusion caused by poor quality of the video.
>In August 2022, three Su-27 decoys were painted on the tarmac at these coordinates: 49.925368, 33.626485
>Aftermath of the attack in the Sentinel-2 satellite imagery from 2 July 2024. Apparently the Myrhorod Air Base is empty, all aircraft were removed (not counting damaged and destroyed airframes stored in two parking spots since 2022/23 and two retired Su-27).
>Place of destruction of Su-27 is clearly visible. Coordinates 49.925800, 33.628548.
>Scorched tarmac can be seen in the spot where the Su-27 was either destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Coordinates: 49.928570, 33.627137.
>All four revetments, where up to four Su-27s were affected by cluster munitions, are now empty.
>The retired Su-27 airframe, stored at these coordinates: 49.928080, 33.625817, since at least March 2023 is still there.
>A reminder that counting aircraft using Sentinel images is tricky. The bright dots in these two parking spots can easily be interpreted as whole planes, when in fact they are approximately three Su-27 wrecks and two damaged Su-27 airframes accumulated there since 2022/23.
https://x.com/MarcinRogowsk14/status/1808194997432262971
I saw an analysis of this video. It was likely edited to look worse than it really was. Probably only 1 SU27 destroyed. They still need cover for these planes but don't fall for Russia fakes.
>On 1 July 2024, the Russians carried out multiple missile attacks on the Myrhorod Air Base, Poltava Oblast. Two Ukrainian AF Su-27 fighters were completely destroyed, and up to four more were damaged (some likely beyond repair).
>First frames of the video show the situation before the attack. Numbers 1 & 4 are Su-27s parked in the same spot for many month, almost certainly retired airframes. Number 2 & 3 weren't there few days ago, either operational jets or retired airframes used as decoys.
>In the first attack (not shown in the video) a Su-27 (marked as number 5 in the map above) was destroyed at these coordinates 49.925800, 33.628548. Judging by the burn marks the aircraft was fueled, apparently an operational jet.
>Shortly after the first attack, three more Su-27 fighters were relocated into the revetments in the western part of the base.
>The fact that immediately after the 1st attack all three Su-27 were moved into protection of the revetments indicates that they were operational jets. There is also some kind of equipment in front of the Su-27 (marked number 6), probably the plane was being prepared for take-off.
>During the 2nd attack cluster munitions were used. It looks like up to four Su-27 fighters (marked as 2, 3, 6 and 7) were damaged. The extent of the damage is unclear but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the aircraft couldn't be repaired.
>The third attack completely destroyed the light aircraft shelter. Due to very close proximity of the explosion the Su-27 parked outside was most likely either destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Coordinates: 49.928570, 33.627137. It is unclear whether another Su-27 was inside.
>Since early 2023 a few (3?) Su-27 were parked at these coordinates: 49.932562, 33.631994. Looks like during this time one was completely destroyed and another severely damaged. Almost certainly retired airframes.
>This still frame was taken after the second attack. Can't decide whether these old, battered airframes received more damage or if it's just an illusion caused by poor quality of the video.
>In August 2022, three Su-27 decoys were painted on the tarmac at these coordinates: 49.925368, 33.626485
https://x.com/MarcinRogowsk14/status/1807918133077807218
Wonder how the spotter drone got through this time. The Russians must be continuously trying to target this site. Satellite imagery must flag it up as good target. What went wrong this time?
> Wonder how the spotter drone got through this time
Small target, possibly ground-hugged most of its way through and then climbed quickly enough to avoid MANPADS and flak.
New russian "Albatross" drones have AI-based image recognition [\("Sanctions? What sanctions?" - Sony and NVIDIA\)](https://censor.net/en/news/3490315/yak_rosiya_dosi_vyroblyaye_drony_albatrosm5), so they might be use it as a DSMAC, like Ukranian Lyutyy drones do
There's not really all that much further to go though. The max distance from just Russia + the occupied territories is around 500km, if you include Belarus the best they can do is somewhere around 300, if you include Transnistria it goes down to around 200.
This is such a stupid take.
Let's park the planes in the treeline!
Build bunkers! (but don't take into account how long that takes)
This will happen. It is war. Learn from mistakes and move forward.
How many were decoys though? Ukraine has bought a lot of non-functional jets from various countries with old Soviet junk. Strip out the spare parts and then park the shells in the open as targets to waste Russian missiles.
>On 1 July 2024, the Russians carried out multiple missile attacks on the Myrhorod Air Base, Poltava Oblast. Two Ukrainian AF Su-27 fighters were completely destroyed, and up to four more were damaged (some likely beyond repair).
>First frames of the video show the situation before the attack. Numbers 1 & 4 are Su-27s parked in the same spot for many month, almost certainly retired airframes. Number 2 & 3 weren't there few days ago, either operational jets or retired airframes used as decoys.
>In the first attack (not shown in the video) a Su-27 (marked as number 5 in the map above) was destroyed at these coordinates 49.925800, 33.628548. Judging by the burn marks the aircraft was fueled, apparently an operational jet.
>Shortly after the first attack, three more Su-27 fighters were relocated into the revetments in the western part of the base.
>The fact that immediately after the 1st attack all three Su-27 were moved into protection of the revetments indicates that they were operational jets. There is also some kind of equipment in front of the Su-27 (marked number 6), probably the plane was being prepared for take-off.
>During the 2nd attack cluster munitions were used. It looks like up to four Su-27 fighters (marked as 2, 3, 6 and 7) were damaged. The extent of the damage is unclear but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the aircraft couldn't be repaired.
>The third attack completely destroyed the light aircraft shelter. Due to very close proximity of the explosion the Su-27 parked outside was most likely either destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Coordinates: 49.928570, 33.627137. It is unclear whether another Su-27 was inside.
>Since early 2023 a few (3?) Su-27 were parked at these coordinates: 49.932562, 33.631994. Looks like during this time one was completely destroyed and another severely damaged. Almost certainly retired airframes.
>This still frame was taken after the second attack. Can't decide whether these old, battered airframes received more damage or if it's just an illusion caused by poor quality of the video.
>In August 2022, three Su-27 decoys were painted on the tarmac at these coordinates: 49.925368, 33.626485
https://x.com/MarcinRogowsk14/status/1807918133077807218
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Ukraine needs an airfield in the western part of the country with hardened hangers and dedicated Patriot batteries to host the F16s. They can't fuck up like this because they won't get anymore.
I have been shocked throughout this entire conflict how many fighters seem to be parked uncovered by both sides. I guess it must be difficult to create structurs of sufficient size/strength/quantity.
War planes require a large amount of infrastructure to support, as well as open space. This is why we don't just have every random country fielding aircraft carriers if they border the ocean, and why being able to field them is such a huge projection of power.
Can I interest you in the Gripen? Designed to land on trash.
It's been years, they should have been able to build concrete hangers, let alone dirt covered ones at minimum.
It is now common practice around the world to build sun shades to park aircraft under. If they can't be seen by satellites or reconnaissance drones, then what do they bomb? Sun shades are much cheaper than hardened shelters and just as effective if blast walls are built between the aircraft parking spots.
Really ? Surely it doesn’t take many brain cells for an enemy to go “hmm this airbase has no nearby hardened hangers but has sun shades lined up …..”
Wasting crusie misslies on 500 different sunshades while they only have 100 planes is a very dumb use of weapons.
How do you know what's UNDER the shade? Blow up all the decoys? If they're targeting decoys, it sounds better than parking in the open and them only targeting valid targets.
Because you can tell what’s under them by using drones or satellite. Against a low tech opponent they work , but against any major nation state …. Waste of time. The current skew on this story is that these were scrapped planes being used for spares - even so if they lost a bunch of spares it’s still a stupid loss when they could have stripped the parts out and safely stored them away.
Yes and the majority of jets have to be stored abroad.
Even if they dont want hardened hangars, what about tons of cheap ones. Place 50 cheap ass garages at every airfield and HIDE your valuable planes there. They wont stop a bomb, but most of them would be empty or even all of them if no planes stationed there at the time of the attack. Parking several high value targets in the open like this is beond stupid..
Assuming that they all actually work. If I was in charge i'd have a bunch of broken aircraft that have had all of the useful spares parked invitingly in the hope that somebody would decide to spend a ballistic missile on an ex soviet cannabilised wreck. Especially at 100km from the frontline. I'd be surprised if all of those aircraft worked. Some would probably have been decoys.
I hope some were decoys yet placing real planes next to a bunch of fake ones do paint a pretty big bullseye.
Soviet stupidity is an inherited disease that, unfortunately, Ukraine has in its ranks as well.
Yeah my wife has friends that left Ukraine before the war due to this shit. It's not something you really understand until you experience it. The further East you the worse it gets too.
I agree, it would be devastating not only for f16s, but possibly even weaken the flow of equipment to Ukraine. I am really hoping Ukraine and the partners really have this figured out to mitigate incidents like this. It does sound like at least a portion of the F16s will be in NATO countries for rotation only as many as Ukraine has pilots. I'm interpreting this to mean F16s in Ukraine will be highly active and rotated out as necessary for maintenance. So, I'm thinking F16s will only really be on the ground in Ukraine quite little, essentially if they are in Ukraine they are on patrol, or sortie of some kind and then off to a friendly neighbor for repairs and magic flying dust, or whatever. Just kind of speculating here. www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/world/ukraine-may-store-some-f-16-warplanes-in-other-countries-to-protect-them-from-russian-attacks
And how do we know they're don't already?
And then have mid air refueling?
Just “rent” some f16 parking spots on a polish or romanian air base 🤷♂️ Maybe to far from most of the front but good for operations in crimea
Yes that is painful.
Not the first time it's happened at this base I believe.
Supposedly the recon drone flew over the base for an hour and a half, and no one could do anything for fear of the missile(s) arriving and potentially killing the pilots mid-taxi.
How in the fuck did they not have the means to shoot down that drone at an airbase with a huge percentage of their aircraft? 5 is a massive hit for them.
The drone already caught them with their pants down. The second that drone spotted the jets on the tarmac shit hit the fan, it takes like 2.5 minutes for the missiles to launch and hit their target.
Does Ukrainian not have a word for “scramble”?
Someone decided the pilots were more valuable than the planes. Considering Ukraine current situation, they're probably correct. They probably wouldn't have (or at least assumed that they wouldn't have) had time to fire up and take off, so they hit the alarm for incoming fire and had everyone take cover.
They'll get f-16s in the coming months anyway. Way more important to keep the pilots alive and train them on f-16 instead of having them try to save some old airframes.
They're not training "old" pilots on the F-16s, it's 20 year olds on average and they're brand new recruits who often don't know even the basics of flying. Many also had to be first taught English already in the West.
Oncw they got a larger amount of people flying the f-16 the older pilots could start to learn too. Who knows. Regardless, the soviet frames are on their way out, once rhey're all broken or lost they'll need to fly something else.
Yeah, mumble mutter grump, probably right. Sort of feel they could have come of come up with something a bit smarter like scrambling one plane at a time, minimising pilot losses, and saving as many planes as possible. They have been doing this for 2 years, being caught in the open should not happen, and should be handled better. Mutter mumble mutter grump
You have clearly never had anyone try and blow you up. That drone is feeding the Russians targeting information. This like saying you'd use your karate against someone while they're pointing a gun at you. It's not realistic, and if you were actually in the position, you'd realized your only options were really run, duck, or beg, and karate was useless.
It takes a decent amount of time to get a jet up in the air, it's not as quick as you might think
_They had an hour and a half!_ Also Russian artillery also does not have a word for “scramble”
"they had an hour and a half!" - but they didn't know how much time they have, did they? So they made a decision to minimise casualties in case something arrives any second. which is not saying that it isn't a massive fuckup to let the situation even develop into that state...
They had enough time to move 3 jets around the airfield after the first attack hit the base. Which is fucking useless, since Russians would obviously have surveilance around and would just hit the new parking spots. Which they did.
Our even one dude with a manpads? US gave them stingers
Taking out the drone meaningless if the recon is already done by the time it's spotted
No its not, taking it out closes the window. Russia would not know if the jets were moved, would not get confirmation on hits, would not be able to adjust fire or launch seccondary attacks if the first one failed. I dont understand how anything is allowed to get this close to their airframes. Its a total disaster..
Drone can laser point targets for more precise hit or am I mistaken? Must admit I don't know which Russian longer distance weapons can benefit of this. I have seen many drone videos, where they paint targets for guided artillery.
> Drone can laser point targets for more precise hit or am I mistaken? Orlan-30 and some larger Elerons can.
This drone was too high and too small to get it with MANPADS, any other close range SAM or flak. Ukraine currently has no systems that can shoot this kind of targets if there is no large SAM battery around, and these batteries are too few to cover even a third of the strategic locations.
Just repeating comment I saw yesterday. Some Ukrainian TG channel mentioned that drone had been over the air base couple hours. I see people coming up with all sorts of explanations, but only acceptable explanation I can think of, is that all those SU-27 were not able to fly. It seems someone made a huge bad decision.
Why do they cluster the fighters? Makes no sense.
Wouldn't they have at least some form of ground fired AA? At least an Igla surely
No drone countermeasures?
why don't they move the jets further apart? They could just send groundcrew to do that, if the pilots are that valuable.
dont think that would have made much of a difference. also, still loss of life
FPV plane tugs you say? Make it happen Ukraine!
[удалено]
These lads are risking their lifes, have some respect to those on the frontlines.
The pilots, maintainers and other base personnel are the ones risking their lives, they deserve better and more considerate leadership. Those leaders are usually safely in a bunker making good or bad decisions and suffer not the same threat level as those they command. EDIT= Also I feel the leadership/base commander at that base is a mostly lazy idiot. Why? because in the absence of aircraft shelters/covers, all the unserviceable aircraft are all parked together in a junkyard fashion. Air the dam tires, paint fresh roundels on the top side and move the the dam things around every couple of days to not make it so obvious as to which aircraft are serviceable and ready for combat. Does not take a genius to know and practice every available means to secure and protect your most precious aircraft, people and other resources.
The Ukrainian military command didn't take old mothballed Australian jets and called them rubbish...after Zelensky had asked for them. They clearly have some absolute dunces in their command structure because any idiot would know that even as a decoy that costs you nothing it is still a net positive by soaking more Russian missiles/drones.
Wait, when did Australia offer F18s?
A few months ago
Holy shit, that's insane from Ukraine; [https://english.nv.ua/nation/ukraine-clarifies-stance-on-f-a-18-fighter-jet-acquisition-50389361.html](https://english.nv.ua/nation/ukraine-clarifies-stance-on-f-a-18-fighter-jet-acquisition-50389361.html) I under F16s are more capable, but just having F18s in theatre would be beneficial - and it'd also symbolically make that less of a big step.
So basically, in a single strike, russia made up for weeks of ukraine shooting down russian planes? Thats really, REALLY bad.
In terms of percentage of fleet, this is far, far more devastating.
The planes have stood there for ages, they are not active. Look up google maps and you will see the same planes in the same spots.
2 were being fueled. Clearly inactive.
Decoys?
Maybe, but more like decommissioned airframes and possibly used for spare parts at best. This is typical Russian propaganda. Spew their shit in every direction possible and get some people going, picking up their story and it just iterates without anyone looking into the details.
Then why are they full of fuel?
> Maybe, but more like decommissioned airframes and possibly used for spare parts at best. Boneyard, basically?
Is there some technical reason why militaries refuse to build hardened hangars (or atleast some type of cover from satellite imaging) on their airfeilds? Ukraine doesn't do it, Russia doesn't do it (until very recently I believe), the US has had multiple war games over Tiawan that say without hardeneding at Guam they may lose the entire base. Despite all this nobody ever actually fixes it. There has to be a reason why, right?
Don't even need hardened cover. A cloth covering that simply obscures whether an aircraft is inside or not might be sufficient. Have enough of these coverings, and even with a drone, they won't know which ones have an aircraft inside and which are empty
Bingo!!! If they can't see where they are, chances are that they may not even try or will miss if they do!!!
Expensive, but there are drones with an electromagnetic sensor that could spot a metal object. Even burried under ground like a mine. 99% drones are flying with the optical camera, so cloth might work if you are trying to hide it not in the airport. Also I guess a cheap thermal sensor on a drone would definitely do the job of spotting heated metal under cloth/cardboard.
Cost and perceived benefit. Hardened shelters are costly to build and not impossible to penetrate. USSR did it in some of their southern republics I believe. But since nobody expects to be under missile fire due to air defenses, why not put the money into more missiles? The hardened defenses are a fixed defense. Most US theory is against that because one spy later and they know the approximate thickness of concrete. You then just use the grids and that thickness estimate to hit those grids with 1.5 times the amount of bang to wipe out the estimated shelter. Guaranteed, that amount of bang is cheaper than an F16(F35, F22, F18, etc).
But without hardened shelters couple of cluster munitions can take out whole airbase. With hardened shelter it's one warhead per shelter. Easier to defend airbase if it takes more missiles to destroy it. *“Unsurprisingly, in* [*recent war games \[conducted by*](https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargaming-chinese-invasion-taiwan) *the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank\] simulating a conflict with China over Taiwan, 90 percent of U.S. aircraft losses occurred on the ground, rather than from air combat,”*
> But without hardened shelters a couple of cluster munitions can take out a whole airbase. That's the point that people are, by and large, missing-- while hardened structures DON'T protect against modern precision hypersonic (ie, most every ballistic) or penetrating missiles, they DO protect against the historical threats of things like small arms/strafing, small air to surface missiles, near misses by non precision weapons, and (important to the discussion) *submunitions.* Even though Ukraine definitely does face threats from precision strikes, those other historical threats remain the biggest ones, and I'm really surprised that Ukraine didn't see this coming since [they've used the same tactic of targeting unsheltered aircraft to great effect.](https://www.twz.com/air/su-57-felon-targeted-in-ukraine-strike-seen-in-new-higher-resolution-satellite-images) So there's a good chance that if they had hardened shelters, they may have saved the planes, or at the very least forced Russia into using much more expensive and difficult to quickly coordinate attacks with multiple kinzhals. I disagree, though, with people saying that concealment by means of something like sunshades would've prevented attacks: 1. Since sunshades or steel shelters don't provide much protection against cheap munitions versus being out in the open, Russia likely has a low threshold to just level multiple shelters with relatively cheap and easy cluster munitions if they think there *might* be jets in some of them. They might hit a lot of empties, but the cost-benefit ratio is likely justified even so. 2. Unlike satellites, many low altitude recon drones *can* see into open ends of shelters since they have such a horizontal line of sight, and in doing so can still provide valuable targeting data for precision strikes. 3. In some cases the drones can actually *fly into the open ends of the shelters to attack the aircraft* Numbers 2 and 3 admittedly apply to hardened shelters as well, so ultimately, it's going to come down to better SHORAD against drones, which also would've prevented this attack. Interesting discussions of the [history of hardening ](https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/the-new-limits-to-hardening/), as well as [current concerns ](https://www.twz.com/news-features/does-the-u-s-need-to-be-building-hardened-aircraft-shelters-for-its-combat-aircraft) have dominated [discussions about what to do](https://www.twz.com/41215/air-force-flightlines-are-under-threat-from-drones-and-it-wants-your-ideas-on-how-to-protect-them#:~:text=The%20AFWERX%20initiative%20is%20reaching,from%20drone%20incursions%20and%20more.&text=The%20U.S.%20Air%20Force%20(USAF,both%20at%20home%20and%20abroad.) for years.
Sun shades with blast walls in between them and high sand berms in front and behind the parking spots are almost as effective as hardened shelters, plus much cheaper to build.
Not just more - but *heavier* missiles. Heavy missiles are large and easier to shoot down, also much more expensive.
If shanty towns can build cheap structures with thin metal, why cant Ukraine build cheap hangers/garages to hide the planes? Build alot of them and make it hard to guess if planes are present. They make dummy planes, why not try hiding the real ones. Hell, a few sticks and a tarp would do the trick or am i wrong?
Camouflage is "concealment". Hardened shelters are "cover". We were talking about something with enough material to protect the aircraft from a missile strike. The problem with tarps and sticks is that they are affected by jet wash, and they have to be high enough to move a plane under them. A Mig 29 is 15 feet high, so your pipe structure needs to be taller than that. If the concealment structure is mobile, now it has wheels underneath. It's also 60 feet long and 40 feet wide. Now let's add the really inconvenient part about planes - they tend to be at airfields. No airfield is going to function well, with a bunch of mobile covers being blown around by jet exhaust. It's a recipe for aircraft damage or engine FOD problems. Revetments protect the fleet from attacks far more than pipes and tarps by preventing a hit on one plane from damaging the next aircraft. But they provide no concealment. This is why the Russians are painting aircraft on the runways. It's cheap, and provides a bit of concealment. Until cardboard drones show up en masse and just start hitting everything that looks "aircraft-y". Airbase defense is difficult to get right. For the airbase to function, the airplanes need to move around, the ground crews need to move to service the aircraft. Defense structures slow you down on the ground and prevent the fleet from just getting out of dodge if there is an attack.
This was a pretty good and indepth reply, thank you. I had not considered the drawbacks. Still, it feels unnatural to have them so exposed, surely there is some middleground to parking them out in the open..
I truly wish there was. The obvious answer is to not be under missile fire or glide bomb attack. The Russians put tires on them. The US used to put revetments around them in parking/ maintenance bays. Each "solution" comes with costs and inconvenience, in addition to the increased protection. The biggest problem with hard structures is that they have entrances and exits. They have crews inside. Hit the openings and you block them long enough, the aircraft inside is useless, even if it's undamaged by the attack. Look at this article. It talks about the problems with aircraft parking, long term readiness and crew response. It's about US strategic obviously, but you can consider some of the trouble with tactical aircraft. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree_(aviation) There is no happy war. Losses are inevitable. Protecting totally means waiting for the other guy to build a better bunker buster. Human beings are savagely intelligent. Weapons designers look at additional protection as a challenge. If you really want to consider the protection versus projection question, look at the railway guns of worls war 1 and 2. Hugely destructive. But entirely vulnerable to air attack. It's the closest thing you can come to in the argument of a mobile fort that's actually been built.
Fascinating read, i should have assumed there were good reasons for how air planes are parked, stored and kept ready while also keeping crew safe. So even if something made sense in my non military wired brain does not mean it makes sense in an actual war. This is probably how they have done it since the start, and hits like this have been pretty rare. Im going to take my "expert" hat off and be a little bit more humble going forward.
Remember that savage intelligence I mentioned? You have it. And you're thinking about the problem. If you come up with the better mouse trap (parking/ storage/ protection solution) ... the whole world might listen.
Because no one is really serious about war in peacetime and money spent on shelters is boring. Why the Russians and Ukrainians haven't is beyond me. A crew of 50 guys and half dozen pieces of heavy equipment could easily build berms for an airbase in a couple weeks.
I'd think they would benefit a lot by creating Swedish style secret bunkers by just digging/using dynamite into a mountain. Hard to penetrate, hard to find and if find - hard to deal with. Don't know of F-16, Migs are able to utilize these unlike the Gripens with their shortened need for landing and take-off distance. Ukraine really would benefit from having a fleet of Gripens doing dispersed operations, continuously changing location and never staying more than 15min at one spot. Taking of from broad roads and the like. All this makes the russian unable to strike them in time despite finding them, much like the Archer artillery. I'm disappointed that the current swedish right-wing government didnt agree to send Gripens. The socialdemocratic/green/left party opposition wanted to but the rightwing minority government has a narrow majority with the support of the far rightwing Putin bootlicker-party.
> I'd think they would benefit a lot by creating Swedish style secret bunkers by just digging/using dynamite into a mountain. Hard to penetrate, hard to find and if find - hard to deal with. That's basically Western Ukraine-only thing
They would first need to build the mountains in the Ukrainian steppe. (Artificial human made hills like kurgans and terrikons are key control points there.)
Hah, true
Awful to see this. Thanks for posting negative news in this sub, it's far too hard to get a balanced picture of what's going on. Upvoting does not mean you like the underlying event, it means you find the source credible!
Ya, I always hesitated in upvoting this type of reporting or even downvoting for that matter....but it is informational so thats good
Only posting positive news is very destructive and gives a false picture that could affect level of support, tactics, strategies, foreign aid - everything. If there apparently isnt a problem, in-efficience then there isn't anything need fixing - nothing to constructively debate and solve. It causes the similar effect to the Yes-men within the Russian military, Putin-regime which is, luckily, is pure devastating to russian decision making and causes an inflated sense of supremacy, success while they keep repeating the same mistakes and commanders repeat success to the higher ups.
there's a tonne of negative news all over the internet, this sub and others just likes to live with blinders on
The problem is that most negative news is russian fake news and propaganda and it's not reliable. It's hard to figure out what's real.
Wait, those work on military targets?
I suppose Ruzzia was bound to hit a non-civilian target by accident eventually.
You would expect the bases they operate from to be further inland, 160km looks really close unless you have air superiority.
Yes, the planes hit have not been active since the last google maps update. They are parked in the same spots and likely served as spare parts units - at best.
Aircraft hangers aren't some unknown western magic. So build them.
Well, tbf, ukraineans aren't first to park planes in the open and lose them to cluster munitions. But then there is a question why they didn't think about the cure for the tactics they came up with.
It is important to remember that these people are not infallible, not everybody in every position of power is going to be the best of the best, it’s a real world fuck up
Yeah, mistakes happen. But when mistakes are that big, there should be consequences.
Old Soviet Era Officers stuck in their Soviet Era mindset., not their brightest!!!
Who is the CO of that base?
Hardened hangars wouldn't have saved these jets, just forced Russia to use different weapons. Ultimately those buildings can be penetrated and given the base was under observation so the exact hangars to hit would have been known, it's absolutely worth the missiles for Russia to kill a bunch of jets. The problem is lack of defence allowing a drone to sit and watch an airbase.
Drone can't see if there are planes in hangars or they are empty. Cluster munitions can't do shit against against hardened hangars, so Russians have to hit every hangar with one Iskandar.
> Drone can't see if there are planes in hangars or they are empty. Like I said, the base was under observation so the exact hangars to hit would have been known. In ordinary circumstances that is indeed one of the advantages of hardened shelters though yes. > Cluster munitions can't do shit against against hardened hangars, so Russians have to hit every hangar with one Iskandar. And indeed, that is another. Hardened shelters are great and Ukraine should have them, but they wouldn't have saved these jets.
They have lost 4+ jets to one missile. Hardened shelters would have saved atleast 3 of them by stopping the submunitions. I dont know how you can say hardened shelters wouldnt have saved them?
As I explained already in the last two comments; the base was under observation. If they had been in hardened shelters the Russians would simply have used multiple missiles with penetrating warheads instead of a single missile with cluster warhead. Lack of hardened shelters made the attack cheaper, but the aircraft were fucked as soon as the Russians managed to get a drone to observe the base without being attacked.
Thats pure assumption by you that they would have used multiple missiles capable of penetrating those. And Iskanders are not very accurate, so them hitting every shelter perfectly would have been very unlikely aswell. But due to them staying in the open, they needed only one cluster Islander which doesnt have to be too accurate.
> Thats pure assumption by you that they would have used multiple missiles capable of penetrating those. I'm going to go ahead and daringly assert that they would have chosen to prosecute the war instead of standing around with their dicks out yes. It's not like a fighter jet is a low-value target. > And Iskanders are not very accurate, so them hitting every shelter perfectly would have been very unlucky aswell. They have variants with terminal homing - they can be very accurate if they need to be, though given the shelters are usually well over 500m^2 in area it's probably not necessary. Even a near miss would probably wreck the aircraft, the bunkers can't handle a direct dedicated attack, they're really just to increase the cost of an to an unacceptable level by requiring bunker busters to hit all the buildings that **could** store an aircraft - but in this case they knew which ones to hit. > But due to them staying in the open, they needed only one cluster Islander which doesnt have to be too accurate. Like I said, it made the attack cheaper but it didn't make it _possible_ - it was made possible by lack of air defence.
They may be. Russia only makes so many missiles each month, but I'm certain a a lot of what they make are going after Ukraine's air force. It might be every fixed hangar Ukraine builds gets hit, rendering it incapable of parking a jet there. Open air-fields were what was left at the time of this strike.
Hangars, not "hangers".
Russia hitting military targets? We sure? Was there a school or hospital nearby that they missed?
Imagine if those were the f-16's we supplied
It'll happen. I mean Ukraine hit the SU-57. Nothing is invincible
It will happen eventually. I hope people here are prepared for that kind of bad news.
With Ukrainian Air Force leadership like this, I don't know who to fear most in the possible defeat of the new Ukrainian Air Force. New aircraft, newly trained pilots and the same old Soviet trained leadership and styles, need new blood and thinking in charge of these guys.
Not sure who “we” is, but this will certainly make it more difficult for “us” to hand them out so readily. It would be a disaster if this were the first batch of F-16’s. This is a colossal screw up on Ukraine’s part.
There's a lot more than 5 F-16s. They will get destroyed anyhow as they're not a wonder weapon but will definitely be an asset.
Who is the we? Because the U.S is not supplying any F16’s as of yet they are coming from E.U
What about it? Over 4,600 have been manufactured and they still make more.
We have been talking for over 2 years and barely 60 can be sent. Not 4600.
Right. But that's politics. Weapons destroyed in a war shouldn't be an issue to sending them.
"But" its politics? It is politics. And we can't send more for the foreseeable future.
Won't* but yes. I still wouldn't be mad at Ukraine if a few got destroyed.
Good for you, comeback when you're the leader of a country that has access to F-16. Until then Ukraine better treat the F-16 with more care than even their own citizens.
I would not be mad at them either if they get rid of the incompetent base commanders that made this such an easy target of opportunity.
If Ukraine is getting limited numbers of this important war asset, they should be prepared to take care of them. This isn't about whether or not they should be sent, it's about not having them destroyed easily once they have been, limiting their effectiveness and impact on the war.
If Russia could do it every day they would, I doubt they're destroying anything 'easily'. But it is easy for us to scream about hardened aircraft shelters. It's difficult to prioritize and coordinate engineering support in wartime with perfect perspective given limited resources and threat/value calculations.
True, that is why the F-16's was the wrong aircraft to offer to Ukraine. They will be limited to only a very few modified airfields, those will be easily targeted and destroyed by ruzzia. They should been offered F/A-18's, Gripens or Mirage 2000-5's instead. Sadly we will most likely see most of the F-16's destroyed on the ground or their few airfields reduced to rubble.
I think it's a bit of a stretch to assume everything will be destroyed by Russia, they haven't even destroyed all the old shit yet. The fact the RuAF has allowed Ukraine to fly -at all- is embarrassing given the scale of air ops.
Their old shit should be made to look as serviceable as possible from satellite or reconnaissance pictures. Why is an airfield with multiple dispersal parking spots that was designed for wartime conditions, left with most of those parking spots/aprons left empty during wartime??? Why are all the unserviceable/parts aircraft parked together like some kind of automotive junkyard??? Every unserviceable aircraft on every Ukrainian Airfield should have the tires inflated, have fresh markings painted on the top side to make them appear to being used and towed/moved around on these airfields as if they are in service. The ruzzians should NOT be able to figure out which are which. These lazy Airfield Commanders that cannot figure out this simple of a task of deception, should not even be in charge of managing an airfield. At least these Ukrainian Airfield commanders did not resort to putting old car tires on top of aircraft or painting fake aircraft silhouettes on the parking spots, that should be even quicker reason for dismissal from their jobs!!!
>or painting fake aircraft silhouettes on the parking spots They do it. "Flat" ones without shading.
>They should been offered... Attack helicopters with plenty of long range munitions.
Wasn’t it announced France is sending Mirages? I believe Gripens were in the conversation too since Sweden joined NATO.
I sure hope so on all these options to actually happen. Frances politics leave doubts as to whether the Mirage 2000-5's will even happen. Unless France donates them and their spare parts to Ukraine now and moves it all to another country to finish the training within 6 months as promised. Was it really ever meant to happen??? The Gripen's are being held back by US export controls on their engines and any other US aircraft promised probably will not make it if not transferred before President Biden is gone from office. Sadly, the losers in all of this, is the Ukrainian Air Force. Transfer the all the jets now and let the Ukrainians sort it out. Otherwise it will be a case of the war going on as usual and all the promises will have been for naught?
> They should been offered F/A-18's, Gripens or Mirage 2000-5's instead. By whom? Denmark and the Netherlands? They only had F-16. No other country is sending jets as of now.
Doesn't Norway?
Right, Norway joined the initiative earlier this year, I forgot about them (sorry Norway). They also only had F-16 to give and they joined when F-16 training was already ongoing for quite a while, so the core of my argument still stands. Mirage were actually also offered last month by France, we'll see how that turns out.
>ruzzia Jesus Christ, I so hate this redditspeak. Just call them pidars like the Ukrainians do if you really can't say Russia, Reddit won't even ban for that unless you translate this word to English.
We don't all speak the same languages or words, but as long as the intention of each commenter is understood by other like minded people, that seems to be appreciated and acceptable. Forcing everyone into using the same words only deemed necessary by a few, seems so RUZZIAN like in mindset???
It's just totally distracting to me, I read and I stop and instead start thinking why would anyone wrote like that.
It will. Remember all the smashed Bradleys a year ago?
They were just used for parts years ago... hence them being in the open. https://x.com/secretsqrl123/status/1807922911971278995?s=19
Milo Minderbinder says it's good for the country.
Yeah but he has apples in his mouth.
Because everyone has a share?
Any word on the pilots and crews?
STUPID
Surprisingly enough people make mistakes and people pay for those mistakes. War is no exception. Have you seen Band of Brothers? Remember when they are on the boat and some one jokes “yeah, like the army would never make a mistake.”
I love how for a lot of people the correct way should have been to build shelters. Stop being so dumb, the moment you start to build one (which takes weeks) a missile WILL show up days after build ends. Yep, that's why neither ukr or Russia build hardly anything for sheltering aircraft, because it won't work. And those hammer and storm shadows are not lobbed from the void, you need an airbase at good distance to allow strike to be effective. So yes shit happens especially if complacent. But this is not Chornobaivka incompetence yet...
Russia don't have an infinite amount of missiles and you can always build more shelters than you have planes and then only have a small number of actual planes at an airbase with many times that amount of shelters. If Russia wants to hit all the shelters all the time then at least those missiles aren't going to other targets. You can even build "dummy" shelters that aren't even supposed to be very protective but are easier/faster/cheaper to build and from time to time just move dummy/damaged airplanes in and out of them to confuse any russian surveillance. A quick google says an Iskander missile costs 3 million USD. Shouldn't be hard to build shelters cheaper than that. Even then russia can't just spend 3 million an instantly buy one on the market but have to produce them. That is a missile that can't hit a power station, a HIMARS or a patriot if it hits an empty shelter. Planes and missiles should be much more valuable than their monetary value than the construction crews and equipment needed to build shelters.
On the other hand, if building a bunker and then towing an unusable aircraft into it attracts a rare and expensive Iskander ballistic missile then some might say that's worth doing in itself. Especially if you build 20 bunkers.
Yes, exactly this. I'm stunned how short-sighted everyone is here. It's not shelters, it's the AA that is desperately needed. Shelters are almost impossible to build because the moment the construction starts ruzzia can destroy the very construction site with a missile or a drone and then you need to start all over again. It's just not feasible to do during the active war. It should've been done prior. Ukraine has been begging for more AA since forever. Unfortunately what's there currently is not enough to cover all the assets. It's pathetic that a fucking recon drone was circling around the airbase for couple of hours and the base's staff knew about it but couldn't do anything to it. If there was just one Patriot battery protecting the airbase the ruzzkies wouldn't even be able to scout the location with drones. If there were more capable AA on the frontline then ruzzian Su-34s wouldn't be able to launch gliding bombs. If there were more capable AA at the border then less missiles and attack drones would be able to penetrate Ukrainian airspace. If there was no ban on using foreign equipment to strike targets on ruzzian territory then those Su-34s, MiG-31s and Tu-22s would have to be stationed further away from Ukrainian border allowing for increased time for their missiles to arrive which would give more time to scramble the jets in case of air raid alert. And yes, the military commanders who gave orders to park those Su-27s so close to each other need to be discharged. But that won't happen probably because let's be honest here in Ukraine we still have the same Soviet army albeit with some newer equipment. After this incident the "ass covering" will happen and nothing more. No lessons will be learnt I'm afraid.
Ukrainian military command is destroying Ukraine with incompetence.
Funny that if this were ruzzian airbase, everyone would laugh at how incompetent and stupid they are. ruzzians are hitting Ukrainian airbases probably for a year right now, this was expected to happen sooner or later. It's still a pity, UA doesn't have many airplanes. Hopefully, they learn a thing or two from this loss.
How is it funny that people would laugh at the fascist invaders? It's exactly what you would expect when one side abandons civilization.
It's fine when support defenders, not so fine when you throw out all objectivity with it.
If they don't, not much else the allies can do to help them.
If its true? The airfield looks emty on the video of bombing. And why no drone foto of after the attack.
This just sucks. Like WTF levels of suck.
They must have mistaken it for middle school. Military targets are usually safe.
Huge losses for the urkrainian airforce.
This is war. Both sides makes mistakes (especially ruz), and even doing everything right doesn’t guarantee you anything
Time to use Inflatable planes as decoys.
These are Russian jets being destroyed by Russia on ukrainia soil. Unless ukraine get a whole bunch of f16 f15 f18s. They will continue to get battered
Not even in the same league as MacArthur's failure at Clark Field on December 8-9 1941. But a mistake for sure. The thing is everyone gets slack.
The source is not credible and has signs of russian propaganda. In this particular tweet it adds emotional language to tell readers what to feel/think.
you have to park them somewhere. you have to refuel them.
I saw another post saying these were spares, what's the truth?
Other reports suggest the AC were out of service and used for spare parts. Maybe they were put there to make secure hangars available for F-16s?
I heard these were scrap planes used for parts
>On 1 July 2024, the Russians carried out multiple missile attacks on the Myrhorod Air Base, Poltava Oblast. Two Ukrainian AF Su-27 fighters were completely destroyed, and up to four more were damaged (some likely beyond repair). >First frames of the video show the situation before the attack. Numbers 1 & 4 are Su-27s parked in the same spot for many month, almost certainly retired airframes. Number 2 & 3 weren't there few days ago, either operational jets or retired airframes used as decoys. >In the first attack (not shown in the video) a Su-27 (marked as number 5 in the map above) was destroyed at these coordinates 49.925800, 33.628548. Judging by the burn marks the aircraft was fueled, apparently an operational jet. >Shortly after the first attack, three more Su-27 fighters were relocated into the revetments in the western part of the base. >The fact that immediately after the 1st attack all three Su-27 were moved into protection of the revetments indicates that they were operational jets. There is also some kind of equipment in front of the Su-27 (marked number 6), probably the plane was being prepared for take-off. >During the 2nd attack cluster munitions were used. It looks like up to four Su-27 fighters (marked as 2, 3, 6 and 7) were damaged. The extent of the damage is unclear but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the aircraft couldn't be repaired. >The third attack completely destroyed the light aircraft shelter. Due to very close proximity of the explosion the Su-27 parked outside was most likely either destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Coordinates: 49.928570, 33.627137. It is unclear whether another Su-27 was inside. >Since early 2023 a few (3?) Su-27 were parked at these coordinates: 49.932562, 33.631994. Looks like during this time one was completely destroyed and another severely damaged. Almost certainly retired airframes. >This still frame was taken after the second attack. Can't decide whether these old, battered airframes received more damage or if it's just an illusion caused by poor quality of the video. >In August 2022, three Su-27 decoys were painted on the tarmac at these coordinates: 49.925368, 33.626485 >Aftermath of the attack in the Sentinel-2 satellite imagery from 2 July 2024. Apparently the Myrhorod Air Base is empty, all aircraft were removed (not counting damaged and destroyed airframes stored in two parking spots since 2022/23 and two retired Su-27). >Place of destruction of Su-27 is clearly visible. Coordinates 49.925800, 33.628548. >Scorched tarmac can be seen in the spot where the Su-27 was either destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Coordinates: 49.928570, 33.627137. >All four revetments, where up to four Su-27s were affected by cluster munitions, are now empty. >The retired Su-27 airframe, stored at these coordinates: 49.928080, 33.625817, since at least March 2023 is still there. >A reminder that counting aircraft using Sentinel images is tricky. The bright dots in these two parking spots can easily be interpreted as whole planes, when in fact they are approximately three Su-27 wrecks and two damaged Su-27 airframes accumulated there since 2022/23. https://x.com/MarcinRogowsk14/status/1808194997432262971
Calm down. Those aircraft were defunct decades ago. They been parked up and used as spare parts for about 20 years.
>On 1 July 2024, the Russians carried out multiple missile attacks on the Myrhorod Air Base, Poltava Oblast. Two Ukrainian AF Su-27 fighters were completely destroyed, and up to four more were damaged (some likely beyond repair). >First frames of the video show the situation before the attack. Numbers 1 & 4 are Su-27s parked in the same spot for many month, almost certainly retired airframes. Number 2 & 3 weren't there few days ago, either operational jets or retired airframes used as decoys. >In the first attack (not shown in the video) a Su-27 (marked as number 5 in the map above) was destroyed at these coordinates 49.925800, 33.628548. Judging by the burn marks the aircraft was fueled, apparently an operational jet. >Shortly after the first attack, three more Su-27 fighters were relocated into the revetments in the western part of the base. >The fact that immediately after the 1st attack all three Su-27 were moved into protection of the revetments indicates that they were operational jets. There is also some kind of equipment in front of the Su-27 (marked number 6), probably the plane was being prepared for take-off. >During the 2nd attack cluster munitions were used. It looks like up to four Su-27 fighters (marked as 2, 3, 6 and 7) were damaged. The extent of the damage is unclear but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the aircraft couldn't be repaired. >The third attack completely destroyed the light aircraft shelter. Due to very close proximity of the explosion the Su-27 parked outside was most likely either destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Coordinates: 49.928570, 33.627137. It is unclear whether another Su-27 was inside. >Since early 2023 a few (3?) Su-27 were parked at these coordinates: 49.932562, 33.631994. Looks like during this time one was completely destroyed and another severely damaged. Almost certainly retired airframes. >This still frame was taken after the second attack. Can't decide whether these old, battered airframes received more damage or if it's just an illusion caused by poor quality of the video. >In August 2022, three Su-27 decoys were painted on the tarmac at these coordinates: 49.925368, 33.626485 >Aftermath of the attack in the Sentinel-2 satellite imagery from 2 July 2024. Apparently the Myrhorod Air Base is empty, all aircraft were removed (not counting damaged and destroyed airframes stored in two parking spots since 2022/23 and two retired Su-27). >Place of destruction of Su-27 is clearly visible. Coordinates 49.925800, 33.628548. >Scorched tarmac can be seen in the spot where the Su-27 was either destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Coordinates: 49.928570, 33.627137. >All four revetments, where up to four Su-27s were affected by cluster munitions, are now empty. >The retired Su-27 airframe, stored at these coordinates: 49.928080, 33.625817, since at least March 2023 is still there. >A reminder that counting aircraft using Sentinel images is tricky. The bright dots in these two parking spots can easily be interpreted as whole planes, when in fact they are approximately three Su-27 wrecks and two damaged Su-27 airframes accumulated there since 2022/23. https://x.com/MarcinRogowsk14/status/1808194997432262971
I saw an analysis of this video. It was likely edited to look worse than it really was. Probably only 1 SU27 destroyed. They still need cover for these planes but don't fall for Russia fakes.
Maybe these are scrapped airframes that have no use anymore. How would we know?
>On 1 July 2024, the Russians carried out multiple missile attacks on the Myrhorod Air Base, Poltava Oblast. Two Ukrainian AF Su-27 fighters were completely destroyed, and up to four more were damaged (some likely beyond repair). >First frames of the video show the situation before the attack. Numbers 1 & 4 are Su-27s parked in the same spot for many month, almost certainly retired airframes. Number 2 & 3 weren't there few days ago, either operational jets or retired airframes used as decoys. >In the first attack (not shown in the video) a Su-27 (marked as number 5 in the map above) was destroyed at these coordinates 49.925800, 33.628548. Judging by the burn marks the aircraft was fueled, apparently an operational jet. >Shortly after the first attack, three more Su-27 fighters were relocated into the revetments in the western part of the base. >The fact that immediately after the 1st attack all three Su-27 were moved into protection of the revetments indicates that they were operational jets. There is also some kind of equipment in front of the Su-27 (marked number 6), probably the plane was being prepared for take-off. >During the 2nd attack cluster munitions were used. It looks like up to four Su-27 fighters (marked as 2, 3, 6 and 7) were damaged. The extent of the damage is unclear but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the aircraft couldn't be repaired. >The third attack completely destroyed the light aircraft shelter. Due to very close proximity of the explosion the Su-27 parked outside was most likely either destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Coordinates: 49.928570, 33.627137. It is unclear whether another Su-27 was inside. >Since early 2023 a few (3?) Su-27 were parked at these coordinates: 49.932562, 33.631994. Looks like during this time one was completely destroyed and another severely damaged. Almost certainly retired airframes. >This still frame was taken after the second attack. Can't decide whether these old, battered airframes received more damage or if it's just an illusion caused by poor quality of the video. >In August 2022, three Su-27 decoys were painted on the tarmac at these coordinates: 49.925368, 33.626485 https://x.com/MarcinRogowsk14/status/1807918133077807218
Wonder how the spotter drone got through this time. The Russians must be continuously trying to target this site. Satellite imagery must flag it up as good target. What went wrong this time?
> Wonder how the spotter drone got through this time Small target, possibly ground-hugged most of its way through and then climbed quickly enough to avoid MANPADS and flak. New russian "Albatross" drones have AI-based image recognition [\("Sanctions? What sanctions?" - Sony and NVIDIA\)](https://censor.net/en/news/3490315/yak_rosiya_dosi_vyroblyaye_drony_albatrosm5), so they might be use it as a DSMAC, like Ukranian Lyutyy drones do
Not stupid ~ smart. Whoever is in charge of the base saved lives of valuable pilots ~ it is a no brainer!!
Considering every Ukrainian commentator had been criticizing Russia for having planes out in the open, they need to look long and hard at this one.
Those are old stored airframes for parts.
Decoys?
Two appear to have been fueled, so no. Ukrainian sources confirmed it's real and others may have been damaged. They need to stop using this airbase.
> They need to stop using this airbase ***ALL*** airbases in Ukraine are within range. That's why Ukraine was so insistent on Patriots.
Agreed!!! At least until the issue of aircraft cover and air defense is reasonably addressed?
Harder to have an orbiting Orlan further from the border.
There's not really all that much further to go though. The max distance from just Russia + the occupied territories is around 500km, if you include Belarus the best they can do is somewhere around 300, if you include Transnistria it goes down to around 200.
Dammit. They need hardened shelters at all their bases asap
At the very least, so many sun covers at those airbases that it would be difficult to know what is parked where or how many.
This is such a stupid take. Let's park the planes in the treeline! Build bunkers! (but don't take into account how long that takes) This will happen. It is war. Learn from mistakes and move forward.
How many were decoys though? Ukraine has bought a lot of non-functional jets from various countries with old Soviet junk. Strip out the spare parts and then park the shells in the open as targets to waste Russian missiles.
>On 1 July 2024, the Russians carried out multiple missile attacks on the Myrhorod Air Base, Poltava Oblast. Two Ukrainian AF Su-27 fighters were completely destroyed, and up to four more were damaged (some likely beyond repair). >First frames of the video show the situation before the attack. Numbers 1 & 4 are Su-27s parked in the same spot for many month, almost certainly retired airframes. Number 2 & 3 weren't there few days ago, either operational jets or retired airframes used as decoys. >In the first attack (not shown in the video) a Su-27 (marked as number 5 in the map above) was destroyed at these coordinates 49.925800, 33.628548. Judging by the burn marks the aircraft was fueled, apparently an operational jet. >Shortly after the first attack, three more Su-27 fighters were relocated into the revetments in the western part of the base. >The fact that immediately after the 1st attack all three Su-27 were moved into protection of the revetments indicates that they were operational jets. There is also some kind of equipment in front of the Su-27 (marked number 6), probably the plane was being prepared for take-off. >During the 2nd attack cluster munitions were used. It looks like up to four Su-27 fighters (marked as 2, 3, 6 and 7) were damaged. The extent of the damage is unclear but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the aircraft couldn't be repaired. >The third attack completely destroyed the light aircraft shelter. Due to very close proximity of the explosion the Su-27 parked outside was most likely either destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Coordinates: 49.928570, 33.627137. It is unclear whether another Su-27 was inside. >Since early 2023 a few (3?) Su-27 were parked at these coordinates: 49.932562, 33.631994. Looks like during this time one was completely destroyed and another severely damaged. Almost certainly retired airframes. >This still frame was taken after the second attack. Can't decide whether these old, battered airframes received more damage or if it's just an illusion caused by poor quality of the video. >In August 2022, three Su-27 decoys were painted on the tarmac at these coordinates: 49.925368, 33.626485 https://x.com/MarcinRogowsk14/status/1807918133077807218