At the beginning of the Ukraine War, Russian Air Forces flew into Ukraine’s ground air defenses and did significant damage at the cost of 75 planes. Russia has reduced the loss of planes but had to fly low and less effectively. From March 2022, the VKS (Russian Air force) lost the ability to operate in Ukrainian-controlled airspace except at very low altitudes due to its inability to reliably suppress or destroy increasingly effective, well-dispersed and mobile Ukrainian surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems.
Above- The Russians have also put tires on the wings of some of their bombers to protect the planes against drone strikes and perhaps reduce their thermal signature.
Russia has lost about 90-135 planes in the war so far. Russia started the war with about 900 fighter planes. Extra flying hours is also costing Russia about 27-57 planes. Michael Bohnert, RAND analyst, calculates Russians have burned through more of the expected life span of their aircraft more quickly than anticipated. To make up for it, they’ll have to procure more aircraft, increase maintenance, reduce operations, or accept a smaller force—or some combination of those. Newer Russian aircraft are designed for between 3,500 and 4,500 flight hours, with some as high as 6,000, those Soviet-era aircraft were designed to be in the air only 2,000 to 3,500 hours. Older planes (Su-24, Su-25, Su-27, MiG-29) are nearing the end of their service lives. These have maybe 500 to 1,000 hours remaining.
In the first few months of the war in Ukraine, the VKS was flying as many as 150 to 300 sorties per day—compared with the peacetime rate of roughly 60 per day. Even dropping to 100 sorties a day since, the VKS has basically flown double its normal annual hours since the beginning of the war.
The VKS will continue to lose 30 to 60 airframes a year from combat, accident, and imputed losses and has already lost about 190 airframes. Russia is building about 15-30 new combat planes each year. Russia will have to increase production to make up for the losses. In 2024 (about two years into the war, Russia will be down to less than 75% of its pre-war Air Force strength).
Russian GBAD (ground based air defenses) has also been highly effective since March, 2022, especially the long-range S-400 SAM system supported by the 48Ya6 ‘Podlet-K1’ all-altitude long-range surveillance radar system.
However, there are now some holes in Russian air defenses as Ukraine has been able to crack some of the S-400 air defenses protecting Crimea.
Russian airstrikes have been against pre-designated targets with unguided bombs and rockets. The Su-34 fleet has regularly also fired stand-off missiles such as the Kh-29 and Kh-59 against fixed targets, and Su-30SM and Su-35S fighters have regularly fired Kh-31P and Kh-58 anti-radiation missiles to suppress and target Ukrainian SAM radars.
Without air superiority, Russia’s attempts at strategic air attack have been limited to expensive cruise and ballistic missile barrages at a much more limited scale.
Russia and China currently field superficially similar combat aircraft fleets. Both rely heavily on the Su-27/30 ‘Flanker’ family of combat aircraft and their various derivatives. They have also both pursued a fighter with low-observable (LO) – also known as stealthy – features, and multirole capability for their main fighter fleets. Chinese has been developing better electronics and some other technical improvements with some better combat aircraft development.
Russian Flanker don’t have modern active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar which restricts them to relatively brute force tactics using powerful but easy-to-detect radars and missiles which are outranged by Western planes.
China has developed J-11 and J-16 Flanker version with AESA radars, new datalinks, improved EW (electronic warfare_ systems and increased use of composites. They are a bit better than the latest Russian Flanker, the Su-35S. This advantage is increased by Chinese advances in both within-visual-range (WVR) and beyond-visual-range (BVR) air-to-air missiles. These are mostly offensive advantages. The Chinese planes have the same vulnerabilities exposed in the Ukraine war that Russian planes have.
China has developed and introduced into service the first credible non-US stealth fighter in the form of the J-20A ‘Mighty Dragon’. The first production prototypes of the improved J-20B began in 2020.
Overall, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and People’s Liberation Army Navy are rapidly improving their combat air capabilities, including a focus on the sensors, platforms, network connectivity and weapons needed to compete with the US in cutting-edge, predominantly passive-sensor air combat tactics.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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