Completely aside from the geo-political/war implications, as a general data point this supports one of my pet "things I think which a lot of other people don't." In short, it's the idea that a lot of activities people usually assume require extensive (ie multi-year) training to be even somewhat capable at, can in fact, often be taught to reasonably intelligent, capable and motivated people in a much shorter amount of time. To be clear, I'm not saying that the resulting skill set is the same in all ways, it's certainly not. It's more that in an emergency scenario where higher effort is available and some compromises may become acceptable, adequate levels of competence can be achieved in a narrower subset of tasks. Especially as compared, to the alternative which is often assumed to be "doing without."
A classic example is the studies which found if we suddenly needed to do many thousands more respirator intubations of chronically ill patients, veterinarians can be cross-trained to replace doctors in a week to perform around 90% of normal intubations, leaving the specially-trained doctors to handle the remaining difficult cases. Note: Vets were notably better than other seemingly more related disciplines like e-room and surgical nurses because vets do intubations on animals quite often. That direct experience has a lot of elements which transfer quite well to intubating humans. Apparently, much better than the experiences of nurses who often assist doctors in intubating humans.
No, this doesn't support the idea at all. They didn't take non-pilots and train them quickly on F-16s. They took experienced fighter pilots and ran them through a conversion course on the F-16. I would expect these pilots to have thousands of hours in the cockpit.
Capable doesn't mean previous experience though. It means having basic physical capabilities; good eyesight, good reflexes, good 3D visualization. Stuff that is used by air forces world-wide to narrow their training pool. This pool would be responsible for acting as a feeder to flight schools which can take several years to progress a candidate through propeller aircraft, to fast jets while weeding out candidates who aren't up to standards.
In contrast, these Ukrainian pilots are very experienced in flying fast jets. They don't require lowered standards, or exceptions at all. They just need to be fed the syllabus as fast as possible, and get them time in the cockpit.
> Note: Vets were notably better than other seemingly more related disciplines like e-room and surgical nurses because vets do intubations on animals quite often.
That's exactly it, and it almost makes it an unfair example. Veterinarinans are trained to work with a fairly wide variety of animals, and most small-animal vets will have extensive experience intubating cats and dogs for surgery. Adding one more species to their repertoire isn't hard.
For example, if you want to clean the feet of horses you need a bachelors degree in horse feet cleaning. Why? It’s literally just scraping their foot with a scraper. That’s the extent of what you do. But society says you need to spend 3 years in order to do it.
We basically just invent these arbitrary time requirements in order to restrict the supply of people and allow morons to do these careers. Without the time requirements, anyone could do it. That’s bad for the people who currently do it.
Take doctors for example. Multiple years of medical school and then 10 years of GP training… for what? They don’t invent treatments or do surgery. They basically don’t do anything. So why does it take 15 years? To stop people competing with them.
> Take doctors for example. Multiple years of medical school and then 10 years of GP training… for what? They don’t invent treatments or do surgery. They basically don’t do anything. So why does it take 15 years? To stop people competing with them.
The market is starting to price in that extra regulation and protectionism with the rise of alternate providers such as nurse practitioners.
It's unclear to me, as a consumer, why I should prefer a general practitioner to a nurse practitioner considering the number of relevant years of schooling are roughly the same.
I don't think training in VR translates to the real world. I once had an idea to create a juggling VR-simulator to help users overcome the initial barrier of learning the basic moves by slowing down time. Then I found out someone had already implemented this idea and published a paper about how it didn't have any effect
The normal training process is optimized for different things than training time, and different trade-offs can be made in costs, safety, depth and breadth of knowledge/capability etc.
In the long term, Ukrainians have a defensive need for fighter jets.
One of the major uses of a fighter jet is "interception". That is, to fly out and patrol the skys while you think the enemy might launch an attack on your cities. When an enemy attacker (formerly an enemy bomber, but today it could be a Missile or rocket) starts to attack your city, your fighter-jets fly out and try to shoot it down.
Its not always successful, but its better to leave the chance of successful interceptions open, rather than have nothing else. Of course, other defense measures (ie: missile defenses, like Patriot missiles) are useful. But Patriot missile batteries cannot fly or move. Once you place a Patriot Missile in one area, you cannot move it elsewhere (ex: If you expect the enemy to "focus fire" and try to overwhelm one area of your defenses, you can't move your Patriot missiles to guard that one area).
In contrast, you _can_ fly more airplanes from around the country to defend the area of focus fire. The base level of ground defenses are there to handle the average cases... but a proper "air force" is needed to handle exceptional cases.
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But all due when needed. I think its obvious that the first step is to build the cheaper ground defenses around Ukraine (ex: the current Patriot missile defenses going on right now). In the long term, the F16s will probably be needed.
Planes are too valuable to risk. Modern interception occurs at 100+ miles, well before visual contact.
Enemy air defenses are mapped and no one will fly a plane in range of them. Planes are used to fling things at the enemy from safe positions. Air defenses are too cheap and good to risk valuable planes on. What Ukraine really needs is a massive donation of air defenses so Russia doesn't have free reign over most of Ukrainian airspace. Problem is those air defense systems don't presently exist in anyone's inventory to make a substantial contribution to Ukraine.
Russia doesn't have free reign over Ukraine. They are flying very limited mission sets due to the threat from Ukrainian SAMs. Ukraine already has a decent AD setup with SA2/S300/NASAMs etc, and then an excellent inventory of MANPADs that forces the VKS to use their aircraft as glorified flying Katyusha launchers.
Yes, but the Ukrainian air defense gets attrited and missiles get used up. There's no production of missiles for these systems and the western made systems like NASAMS, IRIS, Patriot come too slowly and in small numbers. Air defense is certainly a big worry in the medium term.
NASAM uses AIM-20 (Amraam) missiles, and there are plenty of these in stock worldwide. IRIS-T and Patriot are trickling in, but the big threat currently is the lame Iranian Shaheed drones. Those are better handled by NASAM and even gun based AA then with multi-million dollar Patriot missiles.
Patriots should be there by summer, and IHAWK launchers as well from Spain (with refurbed US missiles). Italy and France are providing at least one SAMP/T system, which is comparable to the Patriot. That system should arrive this spring. I think Ukraine has been getting reloads of 9M82/9M83 from either Slovakia or Bulgaria.
But the issue isn't reloads so much as TELs. Ukraine has pretty deep missile inventories, but not enough TOR/BUK/S300V launchers and radars. Eventually they'll run out of spares and need to rely completely on Western SAMs.
I can't see the VKS risking any bombers over Ukraine. They'll continue to use them for launching missiles from Belgograd Oblast, but the PR damage if a Backfire or Blackjack was shot down would be unbearable to the Russians.
I have a feeling that the 30mm Bushmaster chaingun with air-burst rounds is being severely underutilized.
Not only is it clearly an effective anti-drone weapon, I have to imagine that its an effective anti-trench weapon as well. Small enough to transport in an F150 standard pickup truck, it seems like a gun that will solve a lot of these problems in Ukraine.
I know that gun exists because I like browsing weapon systems on Youtube :-). I hope we're giving it to Ukraine.
Russia knows where the Ukrainian air defenses are and avoids those areas, but can fly everywhere else, and more importantly can get in range of Ukrainian targets.
Ukraine can barely even fly because Russian air defenses are so tight.
Russia doesn't know where the Ukraine AD is. That's why they failed to disrupt them and why the initial air offensive was ineffective. Ukraine continually moves their systems around so that the VKS can't target them effectively.
When Patriot comes on line, that will be largely a static deployment around Kiev, but the VKS doesn't have much that can counter Patriot.
A year ago Russia had very strong words for Polish transfers for Soviet-era Mig29's being transferred to Ukraine and the idea was scrapped. Interesting to see how much has changed over the course of a year (I'm sure they're still not happy about it).
What do you mean scrapped? Poland transferred 4 MIGs last year. Meme circulating at the time:
"Polskie MiG-i nie trafią na Ukrainę. Ponadto Polska nie ma żadnych Mig-ów. Nie wiemy, skąd Ukraina ma MiG-i. Pragniemy zauważyć, że MiG-ów jest bardzo wiele i można je kupić w dowolnym sklepie z MiG-ami, na przykład na terenie Federacji Rosyjskiej."
"Polish MiGs will not go to Ukraine. Moreover, Poland does not own any Migs. We do not know where Ukraine got the MiGs from. We would like to emphasize that MiGs are plentiful and can be bought in any MiG shop, for example, in the Russian Federation."
and just yesterday pledged 4 more right away with another 6 being prepared, 14 total.
Iirc the offer was that Poland gives Migs to Ukraine and to replenish the missing jets, the US would give either F-16 or F-22 to Poland. It was scrapped because the White House, not Russian words.
They are not happy but they are not showing it, they put a face that the weapons civilized world delivers to Ukraine will make no difference. Surprisingly the Zeds claimed now that Finland entering NATO is not a big deal, when we Easter Europe we remember Putin and his dogs threats about entering NATO or NATO bases.
There is no diplomatic talent in that country politicians.
People in power in Russia are gopnicks with prison values and behavior, and so is their diplomacy, when looking crazy tough and dangerous is a primal objective. Alas it works on the more civilized folks who take it at face value and try to make a deal when they don't even have to.
This is wishful thinking backed up by dropped standards.
Yes, a fighter pilot can quickly enough learn to fly another fighter in terms of basic flying functions, but a fighter is an advanced weapons system built to interact with a constellation of advanced weapons systems.
Not only does a fighter pilot need to learn the particular performance features of the plane, but also the weapons systems, and then combine them in real time to have a reasonable chance of returning the plane whole in a combat environment.
But does a Ukrainian pilot need to train for all of the F16 missions?
I don't think so. Some of the most difficult training missions are "Wild Weasel" roles for example... IE: The F16 being used as anti-antiair. Its dangerous mission and difficult training.
But if the Ukrainians never plan to use the F16 as anti-antiair / Wild Weasel, then the training can be cut out of the routine entirely. Maybe the Ukrainians just wanna focus on missile interception, for example (IE: forming a missile shield to block out Russian rocket attacks on their cities).
The problem is that F-16s are rare and expensive. If a pilot screws up due to a failure that could have been addressed with training, it's a huge loss.
Rare? It's one of the most common fighters in the world.
And the cost of the airframe is moot during a war. Ukraine needs them, has pilots capable of handling it, and can learn to maintain them as needed. But the US is holding back for fears that Ukraine would use them to attack Russian territory.
This is the same thinking that held back tanks for so long (and continues to hold back ATACMs). We're scared of the Russians.
USA is holding back tanks because IFVs (like the M2 Bradley, German Marder, or Swedish CV90) are more important for this upcoming fight.
M2 Bradley is an excellent vehicle. No, its not a tank, but its the vehicle the Ukrainians need today. With over 100+ M2 Bradley donations, and 90+ Strykers (a lighter vehicle that serves a similar troop-transport / mechanized infantry role), its clear to me that the USA cares more about practical battlefield issues rather than the somewhat political "Tank" question.
Based on the reports of Trench-warfare, masses of Russian infantry, and satellite photographs... we can see that the 25mm autocannon on an M2 Bradley with 900 rounds stored is going to be more useful than the 120mm cannon of an M1 Abrams with only 40 shots.
Furthermore: the Stryker vehicles with Mk 19 machine-grenade launchers are obviously better for clearing enemy trenches at long range than any other vehicle.
Yeah, tank blasts are ferocious, but not the best weapon against the huge network of trenches Russia has setup. Grenades, heavy Mortars, self-propelled artillery, and IFVs / M2 Bradleys are whats needed.
M2 is an excellent system for Ukraine, but they need tanks too. Abrams will be able to take far more damage than a Bradley, and they really have different roles. If Ukraine tries to use the Bradley as a light tank, they will have issues. CV90 is an excellent IFV also, probably the best in the world.
While you're correct about that... IIRC, Ukraine actually has plenty of tanks. Albeit Soviet-tanks like T-72... but that's still a proper tank.
Its the IFV department where Ukraine was severely lacking in... and where we can get the best improvement to Ukrainian strength per ton-of-weapons shipped over.
Well, their tanks are shite compared to Western tanks. They've also captured a lot of the various BMPs, but again those are shite. As of Oct 2022, Ukraine has captured roughly 500 IFVs. I don't have the patience to go through all of Oryx's data to see how many they've lost to the Russians, but they seem to have a decent number.
I think that the Bradley will be a big help in comparison to the performance of a BMP-3, but the delta between a Challenger or Leopard (especially Leo 2A46) to any T series tank is huge.
There are maybe 25 F-16s that can be spared for Ukraine and not much more than a few thousand active airframes. Nobody wants to lose a $20M fighter to a $100k missile.
Combat flight missions are too dangerous to risk on a rush trained pilot.
1. These are not "rush trained pilots." Most of the candidates have seen more combat than USAF pilots.
2. The USAF has over 500 F-16 in service that are being replaced by the F-35. There are over 3000 F-16s in service worldwide, and it's still in production, so spare parts (and new airframes) are going to be available for a long time.
3. Ukraine doesn't need 100s. They need 24-36, enough to equip two full squadrons and have a small training squadron.
A plane originally built in the 70's that's fly-by-wire and requires computer control since it's unlikely any human can fly the inherently unstable design. 1 engine so there's that SPoF.
As but another PC joystick jockey, I played Falcon A.T. (2.0), Falcon 3.0 Gold, and Falcon 4. If I had been 4" / 10 cm shorter, I probably would've been a USAF fighter pilot rather than a startup flunkie and "engineer".
F-35's intending to replace Vipers are a moneypit boondoggle. At some point, even with investment bias, that program will need to be killed because it's a POS.
Ukrainians continue to impress in spite of the horrors being inflicted against their country and people by the genocidal Russian war machine. May they obtain all the advanced weapons, ammunition, and support they need to inflict a thoroughly devastating victory against their murderous oppressors.
Western advisors have both underestimated the Ukrainians and overestimated the Russians since day one. First they thought the Russians would capture Kiev in a week, then thought there would be some negotiated settlement.
Plus most Western governments (other than Poland and UK) went "wobbly" as Margaret Thatcher was reported to have said. Biden's security advisors didn't want to have the conflict escalate, and much of the EU felt the same way. This led to hesitancy on providing anything that could be "offensive." Providing Stingers and Javelin were fine, but ATACMS, tanks, F-16? Nope.
Only once Ukraine demonstrated both a chance of surviving and even winning did this mindset begin to change. Every Ukrainian victory or Russian defeat encouraged the West to provide more equipment and munitions. But we're still providing too little.
Both Poland and the UK really deserve huge amounts of credit for their stalwart support of Ukraine (as well as the Baltic states). The US may be providing the most in terms of raw dollars, but without Poland and Ukraine pushing as hard as they have, Ukraine would be in a much tougher situation.
A classic example is the studies which found if we suddenly needed to do many thousands more respirator intubations of chronically ill patients, veterinarians can be cross-trained to replace doctors in a week to perform around 90% of normal intubations, leaving the specially-trained doctors to handle the remaining difficult cases. Note: Vets were notably better than other seemingly more related disciplines like e-room and surgical nurses because vets do intubations on animals quite often. That direct experience has a lot of elements which transfer quite well to intubating humans. Apparently, much better than the experiences of nurses who often assist doctors in intubating humans.