@Wood @mmr @F-22Raptor @gambit @Oldman1
I have an interesting talk with an A-Team buddy of mine last night. we chat about the Russian inability to enforce Air Superiority over Ukraine. He bring out 1 very good point. One of these is probably flying close to Polish Border and provide Air Defence Jamming to at least Western Ukraine.
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No, it is not a C-130,
this is a EC-130H Compass Call, we use them to jam Radar and Communication, also to intercept communication.
Think about it, it's one thing we provide target coordinate to the Ukrainian telling them where and when to hit their target, that should not do anything to Russian offensive capability,
so assuming Russia force is not completely incompetent, there should be a reason as to why they under perform. One of this thing can cover a 500km radius, which if they are flying from Polish border, they are more than enough to cover the entire Western Ukraine (Kyiv is 400km from Poland). And they are Spec Op aircraft, so they most likely don't turn on their transponder (so nobody know they were there) and 2 of these will be able to provide coverage 24/7.
Any thought??
This is a grey area.
Providing intel is essentially human to human and any consequence on the battlefields are about two degrees of separation from the 3rd party, meaning US, and any ally, are not directly involved in the conflict. On the other hand, active EW make US and allies direct and active participants in the conflict.
Convention (V) respecting the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in Case of War on Land. The Hague, 18 October 1907
Neutral powers put themselves at risk of being dragged into the conflict under Article 4:
Art. 4. Corps of combatants cannot be formed nor recruiting agencies opened on the territory of a neutral Power to assist the belligerents.
Convention V puts the burdens of respecting neutral powers on the belligerents, meaning belligerents cannot violate articles 2 thru 4. No belligerent can use some parts of neutral territories for its own benefits. Likewise, neutral powers have the responsibilities of ejecting any belligerent attempting to use parts of its territories for war purposes.
But articles 6 thru 8 can be seen as 'escape clauses' for US to provide
ACTIVE AND DIRECT assistance to Ukraine.
Art. 6. The responsibility of a neutral Power is not engaged by the fact of persons crossing the frontier separately to offer their services to one of the belligerents.
Art. 7. A neutral Power is not called upon to prevent the export or transport, on behalf of one or other of the belligerents, of arms, munitions of war, or, in general, of anything which can be of use to an army or a fleet.
Art. 8. A neutral Power is not called upon to forbid or restrict the use on behalf of the belligerents of telegraph or telephone cables or of wireless telegraphy apparatus belonging to it or to companies or private individuals.
Basically, we can use articles 6 thru 8 to fly EW sorties to help Ukraine. We can fly out of Poland or any bordering countries off Ukraine or from the Black Sea.
Now that the legal stuff are out of the way...
My personal take on why the VKS failed to achieve air superiority over
ALL of Ukraine remains with the 'airborne artillery' concept that the Russian military have of airpower. It is not so much a 'failure' as it is a limited perspective on the potentiality of airpower, so the failure here is indirect or the inevitability of that limited perspective. It is like knowing the concept of a spear, creating the spear, and using the spear, but no more. You know the spear give you a longer reach and you are content with the weapon in your hands. Then you
REFUSE to study other ways of using the spear to make a variant call the 'javelin' or ranged weapons based on the spear. This is how the Russian military sees and uses airpower.
I am %100 confident that we are giving Ukraine all sorts of battlefield intel compiled from electronics methods and sources, this includes from jamming. This allows the smaller Ukrainian Air Force the latitude to husband its limited mission capable fighters and select specific missions where it believes the jets can do the most good. This also means that we are providing the Ukrainian Air Force on Russian ground weaknesses and gaps, including situations that we created via jamming, then combined with the limited perspective of airpower that Russia has, the Ukrainian Army is forcing the VKS to remain a local force instead of a regional or even national one. The inevitable result: Ukrainian airspace remains contested.
Linguists are on these SIGINT/EW sorties. When I was at MacDill, or 'the Mac', the base had a lot more organizations than just F-16 squadrons. I know a couple retired guys who flew SIGINT sorties off Soviet coasts. I learned a lot about crypto and EW. Take this statement...
We are having a great time in Disneyland.
A burglar would be concerned with only these words:
'We', 'in', and
'Disney'. Basically, 1/3 or even 1/4 of the message. The word 'Disney' implies time, as in at least three days if not one week of being absent from home. The burglar does not care if you are having a 'great time' away from home. All he care is that he has at least 3 days to investigate and even rob your house.
SIGINT/EW sorties are similar. The crypo/linguist specialist do not have to be %100 fluent in Russian or Ukrainian. If all he can get is 1/3 of the battlefield message, he can get a reasonably accurate electronics image of the battlefield. Even if the messages are encrypted, the radio traffic intensity is enough to give the sortie commander the same reasonably accurate electronics image. Selective jamming is similar to herding in that we can influence the flow of messages which then will give us real time indicators of battlefield activities.
So in sum, I have no doubt that we contributed to the 'open' or contested status of Ukrainian airspace via these EW sorties, which I also have no doubt exists 24/7. From a strategic standpoint, this Russia-Ukraine war is an intelligence gold mine.
