I disagree entirely with your statement "Russia has objectively outclassed the West with missile tech (and defense)." Ukraine has shown that the A2AD, "hypersonic" and cruise missile tech touted by the Russians for decades aren't quite as impressive as the marketing brochures would imply.
Let's just look at AA gear. Pantsir has been shown to be ineffective against most drones, Storm Shadow, etc. Same with BUK. S300 and S400 have really good range, but I think that Patriot and SAMP stand up well in comparison. The Ukrainians are using older Patriot missiles and are successfully engaging Khinzal and any cruise missile the Russians can throw at it. NATO has THAAD and better versions of Patriot in their arsenal, so even being generous, I think this is a draw.
For offensive weapons, the Russians have nothing in the class of SCALP/Storm Shadow, much less JASSM/LRASM. They would even have a hard time coping with Tomahawk.
So what weapon system are the Russians going to use against Lakenheath and Mildenhall? A Kalibr is going to have a very hard time making it across the Baltics to the UK, and I doubt any aircraft doing a suicide mission would make it either. How about Aviano? Same problem. Ramstein and Spangdahlem as well.
And Russia sure has done a great job "pummeling" Ukrainian airbases, right? I mean, they've utterly failed at this. The Ukrainians are still flying Fencers, Fulcrums and Frogfoots from their bases.
Indeed it is and the proof shows that Ukraine intercepts a large number of Russian missiles with air defence.
Whilst Russia intercepts a lot of Ukrainian weapons with the intended targets.
The Russians have maybe shot down a single stormshadow out of all the ones that have been fired.
They don’t seem so good at intercepting modern western cruise missiles.
This all ignores that Ukraine managed to get TU141 drones that look like they have the radar signature of a truck past Russian air defence to hit targets within Russia.
> Yeah, they’ve shot down many more than that… plenty of photo evidence.
They have a single photo of a single storm shadow.
Because they haven't shot down anymore, I presume they will move it to 100 different sites to try and claim they have shot down more like they did earlier with the downed drones.
I disagree entirely with your statement "Russia has objectively outclassed the West with missile tech (and defense)." Ukraine has shown that the A2AD, "hypersonic" and cruise missile tech touted by the Russians for decades aren't quite as impressive as the marketing brochures would imply.
Let's just look at AA gear. Pantsir has been shown to be ineffective against most drones, Storm Shadow, etc. Same with BUK. S300 and S400 have really good range, but I think that Patriot and SAMP stand up well in comparison. The Ukrainians are using older Patriot missiles and are successfully engaging Khinzal and any cruise missile the Russians can throw at it. NATO has THAAD and better versions of Patriot in their arsenal, so even being generous, I think this is a draw.
For offensive weapons, the Russians have nothing in the class of SCALP/Storm Shadow, much less JASSM/LRASM. They would even have a hard time coping with Tomahawk.
So what weapon system are the Russians going to use against Lakenheath and Mildenhall? A Kalibr is going to have a very hard time making it across the Baltics to the UK, and I doubt any aircraft doing a suicide mission would make it either. How about Aviano? Same problem. Ramstein and Spangdahlem as well.
And Russia sure has done a great job "pummeling" Ukrainian airbases, right? I mean, they've utterly failed at this. The Ukrainians are still flying Fencers, Fulcrums and Frogfoots from their bases.
Proof is in the pudding.
> Proof is in the pudding.
Indeed it is and the proof shows that Ukraine intercepts a large number of Russian missiles with air defence.
Whilst Russia intercepts a lot of Ukrainian weapons with the intended targets.
The Russians have maybe shot down a single stormshadow out of all the ones that have been fired.
They don’t seem so good at intercepting modern western cruise missiles.
This all ignores that Ukraine managed to get TU141 drones that look like they have the radar signature of a truck past Russian air defence to hit targets within Russia.
Yeah, they’ve shot down many more than that… plenty of photo evidence.
Your true believer enthusiasm is endearing, but it doesn’t win wars.
Relax. You're just a Russian sympathizer. Easy travel partisan.
> Yeah, they’ve shot down many more than that… plenty of photo evidence.
They have a single photo of a single storm shadow.
Because they haven't shot down anymore, I presume they will move it to 100 different sites to try and claim they have shot down more like they did earlier with the downed drones.