MarmiteLover123 [comrade/them, comrade/them]

Yeah the IR SAM threat is not a new thing, 25 NATO coalition aircraft were damaged or downed by IR SAMs during the Gulf war, and that was three decades ago. The IR SAM threat has been understood since the SA-7/9K32 Strela-2. This is why IR signature reduction is so important to stealth/low observability technology.

What’s new are these frankenSAM systems in Yemen and Ukraine using advanced infrared guided air to air missiles with high off boresight capability like the R-73, ASRAAM and latest AIM-9s as SAMs, and advanced ground based infrared search and track systems that can connect to more traditional SAM, which extends the range of the IR threat considerably.

An F-35 is not going to be as good as something like the F-117, B-2, B-21 or YF-23 prototype at hiding it’s engine exhaust from ground based sensors, it’s not even as good as the F-22 at that, nevermind those previous aircraft where the engine exhaust isn’t even visible from below. Such was likely one of the compromises in the F-35s design, to allow for mass production and fulfilling all the different roles all 3 F-35 variants carry out.

My point is that these F-16s are not European technology or Europe’s to send. They are European in name only. The only way to send these aircraft to Ukraine, provide long term support , and provide replacemens to the countries who have sent them to Ukraine, is with extensive United States involvement. The F-35s are also US jets, and the US has no intention to send them over to Ukraine. Europe does not have much of a say here, they are beholden to whatever decision the United States makes.

As for Gripens, Rafales, Eurofighters, the domestic European fighters Europe could give to Ukraine without US involvement, Europe can’t send these to Ukraine without reducing the readiness levels of their domestic air forces to unsatisfactory levels. Europe cannot maintain their own domestic defence and support another high intensity conflict in Ukraine simultaneously. Macron said as much. This is why only a dozen or two Mirage 2000s have been promised so far.

Outside of the Ukrainian context, most European nations want F-35s instead of domestic European fighters as replacements for their ageing 4th generation fleets, because F-35s have stealth capabilities and there is no domestic European fighter with stealth capabilities.

The 80 or so F-16s Europe are planing to send are:

• not domestically produced or supported, they are built in the United States and rely on support (spare parts and maintenance) from the United States itself, hence the recent US $300 million F-16 support package and flights of spare parts and stripped out airframes from the boneyard in the US. They also rely on US weapons/munitions, targeting equipment and intelligence, electronic systems/countermeasures and technicians. Europe cannot provide this support, only the United States can. Europe sending F-16s without US support would amount to sending a bunch of soft locked aircraft that wouldn’t be able to carry out the required missions. I wrote a long post about this when the USA paused intelligence sharing to Ukraine. It’s US technology, not European technology. The US is required as a key player.

• The F-16s Europe are sending are cold war era F-16AM block 15 models, roughly equivalent in capability to the Soviet era MiG-29s Ukraine has/had. These are not the latest F-16V block 70 aircraft, or even the 2000s era F-16C block 50 aircraft. These are the oldest F-16s in service. They lack a lot of capabilities that the newest F-16s have, from radars to targeting systems.

• It is only possible for Europe to send these F-16s because the United States is prepared to supply F-35s as a replacement for those countries giving up their F-16s. Europe has no domestic equivalent to the F-35, and their latest 4.5 generation aircraft (Gripen, Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon) while cheaper to operate than an F-35, cost more upfront and lack stealth capabilities. In theory this is a win-win situation: European countries trade in their cold war era F-16AMs to Ukraine for the latest and greatest F-35s, and the US makes a ton of money on arms sales. But again, this plan requires the US as a key player to work. It’s not possible without US involvement. Europe cannot supply the replacements that the US can.

• As for domestically produced fighter aircraft, France was able to promise a dozen or two Mirage 2000s, but that was it. No one else from Europe has stepped up. This seems to be all that Europe can give independently. Macron said as much.

• The storm shadow/SCALP-EG missiles are fired by Soviet era Su-24 aircraft in the Ukrainian inventory using parts from the UK’s Tornado GR4 aircraft. It’s a frankenstein solution.

This is not to say that Europe doesn’t have high tech weapons in general, they do. But the stuff that they do have they need to keep for themselves for their own domestic security, they cannot support another conflict and keep themselves at the appropriate readiness levels. There are also key shortfalls in certain areas (like air defence) where Europe does not have the domestic production capability, and relies on partners like the US and Israel for them. Hence Germany buying an Israeli Arrow 3 air defence battery (midcourse ballistic missile interception) recently.

Europe doesn’t have the weapons to send: have you seen the state of European armies? For instance if we talk high level air defence, Europe has sent more Soviet era S-300P systems than their domestically produced SAMP/T systems. Europe has sent one SAMP/T battery for the entire war, over three years! And these S-300s and SAMP/T could only be sent to Ukraine because the US promised to send replacement Patriot batteries to the countries that donated their S-300 and SAMP/T, while simultaneously sending multiple Patriot batteries to Ukraine. It’s the same story with every advanced system.

Not a scientist, but an easy improvement would be to use weight instead of volume for most measurements. “A cup of flour” can vary greatly depending on how compressed/dense it is.

Such is the reality of war, civilian infrastructure such as airports, sea ports, etc, is considered dual use (capable of being used by both civilian and military) and is usually bombed. International law does not exist, it’s a facade. Hundreds of civilians were killed or injured during the US Navy and Air Force bombing of Ras Isa Fuel Port in Yemen this month (a double tap strike), including fuel truck drivers and paramedics being immolated by the resulting fires. Israel and the United States have bombed international airports repeatedly in Yemen. Outside of Yemen, both Russia and Ukraine have targeted each other’s civilian airports. The USA, Israel and the UK are effectively at war with Yemen, they’ve conducted over 1000 airstrikes 24/7 over the past 50 days, including airstrikes on airports and sea ports that have killed and injured hundreds. The decision by Ansarallah/the Houthis to target airports in Israel did not come out of thin air, it’s a symmetrical response to the strikes Yemen has been subjected to. Israel or the USA will likely respond in kind now and attack the airport in Sana’a again soon.

US, UK warplanes bomb Yemen’s Hodeidah International Airport - 18 June 2024

US bombs Hodeidah International Airport in Yemen - 23 March 2025

UN chief condemns escalation in Yemen as (Israeli) airstrikes hit Sana’a Airport, key infrastructure - 27 December 2024

The U.S. continues bombing Sana’a International Airport - 28 March 2025

Houthi-Controlled Ras Isa Port Targeted in Airstrikes by US Armed Forces - 22 April 2025

The Houthis have reported a casualty count of around 70 to 80 people and injuries to around 150-170 people, including port workers, truck drivers, and paramedics.

US generals are not idiots, they’re not going to sail their Carrier Strike Groups (CSGs) straight into a hailstorm of Anti Ship Ballistic Missiles (ASBMs) equipped with either Maneuverable Re-entry Vehicles (MaRVs) or Hypersonic Glide Vehicles (HGVs) as warheads. The Chinese DF-17 HGV equipped ASBM, and the DF-21D MaRV equipped ASBM, have a range of around 1600km/1000mi. The DF-21 is said to be a Chinese equivalent to the now retired Pershing-II from the United States. So these weapons will act as area denial weapons, with the CSGs remaining outside of their effective range during the majority of their operations. Aircraft will rely on mid air refueling and/or external drop tanks to have the required range to conduct missions from this far out. This of course restricts their operations, but they can still carry out missions. This is also why there’s a huge focus on increasing the internal fuel capacity and range for the US Navy’s 6th generation strike fighter (F/A-XX), and why the F-35C has such a large internal fuel capacity.

Pershing-II (left), hypothesised DF-21D MaRV on top of DF-15 booster stage (centre), DF-21 with nosecone shield (right):

DF-17 with DF-ZF HGV:

We can see this in Yemen in the Red Sea (where ASBMs were used as weapons for the first time in history), where the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier spends the majority of time around Jeddah, around 700-800km away from the Houthi/Ansarallah controlled parts of Yemen, and resupplies at Yanbu. This keeps them out of range of the Zulfiqar Basir MaRV equipped ASBM (700km range) during normal operations, and keeps them out of range of Anti Ship Cruise Missiles like the Abu Mhadi (1000km range) when resupplying.

Zulfiqar Basir, with a close up on the electro optical sensor on the MaRV for terminal guidance:

Area denial is still a great capability to have, but ASBMs aren’t magic wands that can just eliminate CSGs. They have their own limitations, hitting a moving target such as a ship with a ballistic missile, even one equipped with a HGV or MaRV, is quite complex, especially at longer ranges where you’d have to provide midcourse guidance updates and resulting trajectory changes to a ballistic missile in space. This is why longer range ASBMs aren’t there yet. To try extend the effective range of existing ASBM platforms, they could be launched from aircraft, which give a small range boost from the launch point, and allowing the aircraft to fly out over sea before launching, for a combined range extension (aircrafts range + ASBM range). China does have the KF-21, an air launched DF-21. The challenge then becomes avoiding the launch aircraft being intercepted by hostile combat air patrols before launching, such patrols will limit how far out the launch aircraft can fly.

Air launched DF-21 variant mounted on a Xian H-6, the two solid fueled booster rocket stages and MaRV are clearly visible.

The article mentions equipping a longer range ballistic missile like the DF-27 with a DF-ZF HGV, but I don’t think that’s practical over the ranges mentioned (8000km/5000mi). The DF-ZF is not designed to glide at hypersonic speeds for such a long distance, so your glide phase would take up a small part of the overall flight profile, meaning that such a platform would act like a conventional ballistic missile for the majority of it’s flight time. The DF-ZF is also not designed to handle atmospheric re-entry at the higher speeds and loads that such an extended range would require. A new HGV would be needed.

See this is the exact liberal nonsense I’m talking about. How is Trump “subservient to Russia and China”? Because he views continuing the war in Ukraine as no longer in the United States’ interest? And China? I thought Trump was all about tariffs on Chinese goods and starting a trade war in his last term. I don’t see that as subservient, that’s confrontation. A negative confrontation that just hurt everyone globally, but maybe necessary from a third world perspective, waking up the third world to the reality of the United States and it’s economic warfare. If you’re talking about dialing down the temperature against China in his upcoming term, that would be because the US benefits from Chinese imports and can’t wean itself off of them due to a lack of domestic manufacturing and industry, and because China needs a market to sell their goods to as domestic consumption + exports to the rest of the world can’t make up for US consumption, so they’ll give in to US demands. I fail to see how such a position is “pro China” it’s just self interest.

You have to stop viewing politics through the personalities of world leaders as if it’s some kind of Hollywood movie, and view the material reality. If the USA is no longer interested in pursuing a certain action or decides to escalate on another front in the next four years, ask yourself why is that the case, instead of defaulting to “Trump crazy stupid strongman dictator selling out the USA”. That kind of liberal analysis is not helpful and will leave you lost. Never underestimate your adversary.

For example in Greenland, many people were going on about how Trump is some big idiot that wants a country that looks big on a Mercator projection. Meanwhile, the United States secured a large rare earth metals deposit in Greenland, stoping Chinese mining companies from getting the rights to it. The US company that bought the rights to the rare earth metals deposit signed a contract with the United States Department of Defence to process the metals. While everyone was distracted by Trump talking nonsense, the US pulled of a heist and exerted more political pressure on its allies. When one hand is doing something (in this case Trump’s loud mouth), always look at moves the other hand is making (in this case, the US DoD getting more control in Greenland over their mining deposits). If you fail to do so, the jester will rob you blind. In this case, a large deposit of Rare Earth Ores in Greenland, China excluded and Denmark further vassalised.

Given recent events, I really don’t see how bending the knee to Trump is any different than bending the knee to the Democrats, especially Biden who committed genocide for 15 months. It’s just another capitalist bending the knee to the world hegemon in the United States. Trump is just more straightforward and bombastic about the USA’s position in the world as it’s hegemon and it’s demands, forcing ordinary people, especially liberals in the United States, to confront that reality directly, whilst under Biden that was obfuscated by flowery language and decorum. I guess that decorum and flowery language was enough for US liberals to “turn off” so to speak, and go back to brunch while the world burns.