the_dunk_tank
It's the dunk tank.
This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.
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They're in there creaming over the F-35 and the F-22 and the F-15EX, despite the fact that the 15EX was an entire new fighter program they started to make up for deficiencies in the other two top of the line fighter programs. Yeah the F-35 rolled out its 1000th airframe recently - that's one thousand stealth aircraft that can be seen by the latest radar and that can't fly in the rain.
Not that the Felon is in a better place, mind. It might be better bang for buck and plenty capable in a modern air war, but the Chinese could probably take out Russia's entire air force with just their outdated aircraft if they needed to, the numbers are just so low. That said Ukraine should have taught us all by now that air superiority is great to have but hardly the top priority in any given conflict, so maybe Russia's right to keep the number of Sukhois low and focus their efforts on ammunition and hypersonic cruise missiles.
Minor quibble, but I don't think Ukraine has shown that air superiority is not important. I think it's shown that air superiority is easier and more cost-effective when achieved with surface-to-air missile systems like the s400. Overall, air superiority fighters are still an important part of the Air Force, but they are not The only way to deny your enemy access to the airspace.
Russia is still regularly flying MiG 31s with beyond visual range air-to-air missiles, they are still maintaining combat air patrols, they still have AWACs and other sensor platforms in the air. The only reason Ukraine is able to maintain awareness of the battlefield, is NATO AWACs and airborne sensors feed intelligence to them, and Russia has not wanted to escalate the war by attacking them directly.
But the main reason that Ukraine is having trouble, is NATO's combat doctrine always assumes that their first step is maintaining air superiority. It's hard to do that when an s400 can shoot your plane down from 100 miles away, airborne radar is searching for you, MiG 31s are just waiting to make themselves useful by intercepting you at Mach 2.5 to blow you out of the sky, and every inch of the front has instant communication lines to regional HQ.