this post was submitted on 10 May 2024
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They have supersonic jets. How difficult would it be for a Su27 to intercept a driverless sport plane?
Still a win for Ukraine if the Russians have to start burning a lot of precious flight hours on checking out every aireal anomaly.
Maybe they decided is was not worth it and they prefer losing refineries and fuel storage rather than using jet hours
If they lose a few more refineries, that will certainly cut into their jet hours.
The fuel is (relatively) nothing. Interceptors have to haul ass and that means going full throttle for periods which translates into countless hours of maintenance on those planes. This immobilizes the aircraft after the mission and the ground crew to work on it. It also consumes spare parts and reduces the overall lifetime of the airframe.
China does this to Taiwan by playing chicken at the edge of their defensive zone, forcing a smaller air force to keep up with the interceptions.
That was my point indeed.. flight hours translate to wear and tear, maintenance and spare part usage. And sourcing some of the spare parts is getting harder and harder by the day.
Some defense industry in Russia is already buying back airframes from abroad.. this reduces the value of the Russian defense sector as these countries can shop elsewhere.
And countries with large Russian military hardware stocks cannot get parts in the foreseeable future.. so they also cannot wage war without serious risks to their own readyness.