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Posted

 

There certainly are airbases, but if you look at them on Google earth, very few of them seem to be expanded.for anything like the capacity NATO would need.

 

Some are currently being modernized (actually a lot of bases is), for example Dęblin airbase is currently being upgraded, I had there my initial 3 months service and I remember how they were doing some construction work there.

 

One base I looked at had a Warsaw pact style HAS complex at one end of the runway and a US/NATO style one at the other.

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Posted

Yep, you know, transition didn't completed yet, and still will take many years.

Posted

Yep, you know, transition didn't completed yet, and still will take many years.

 

Would the NATO HAS complex have been a replacement or additional? I hope the latter.

Posted

 

There certainly are airbases, but if you look at them on Google earth, very few of them seem to be expanded.for anything like the capacity NATO would need.

 

Some are currently being modernized (actually a lot of bases is), for example Dęblin airbase is currently being upgraded, I had there my initial 3 months service and I remember how they were doing some construction work there.

 

Fair one Damian, I suspect the Google imagery must be several years out of date. And yet, I can looked back to World Airpower Journal dated 1999 and see a LOT of airfields that were open then that are at best in care an maintainance. in fact at least one has been turned into a regional airport, now being the site of the new ABM complex. (I forget the name, slupsk?)

 

It probably looks a lot, except when you think of quite how many aircraft will likely deploy here. I reckon about 45 British Eurofighters at least. Then you think of maybe a similar number of A10s, 90 or so F16s. Probably 36 F22s, then the likely contribution of single squadrons form many Eastern European states. That would just be the first wave And then you think, there is a bit of an overcrowding problem here. Probably far more aircraft than there is any immediate prospect of having HAS for.

 

You can base as far away as the UK, in fact for tankers that probably is a good idea. But wheras it made sense for A10s in the 1980s with West Germany barely an hour and a half away, its not going to work for combat aircraft today. So you either have to expand facilities in Poland, or facitiles in Denmark and Eastern Germany. Which like as not is going to be as politically awkward for the alliance to countenance as funding in Eastern Europe. It indicates reinforcement, which Im fully in favour of, yet its going to cause division among the allies as they all argue on how best to defend without pissing off Russia. Poland wont worry about this, Germany very likely will.

 

If there is investment to make all this happen, then all well and good. Has anyone see any NATO press releases on airbase improvement in the area? At the very least they want plumbed in a common fuel pipeline, just as we had in the UK, to make good distribution to all the bases in good order. Be worth its weight in gold that. Also, hardened coms networks, preferably fibre optic. All these bases are going to need to be part of a raid warning system, and one has to ask is it fully up to date, or just updated Pact era systems?

 

Its a NATO problem, arguably a NATO funding solution to the problem too. I really dont think we have taken on board quite how many combat aircraft would be needed for an operation like this. Look at Operation Desert Storm and you begin to see the nature of the problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_air_campaign

 

Has anyone seen a RAND study on this? I see a lot of discussion of ground campaigns, but air campaigns are just not discussed, and are probably rather more relevant.

Posted

Assuming you put a carrier wing into Poland (a daft idea, but I'll run with it for a moment), if you believe the Russians could mount direct air attacks on a base (and the Poles are working on putting a good IADS in place, with NATO reinforcement a near certainty), you probably wouldn't want to park the planes in obvious known locations like HAS anyway. Concrete, PSP matting or even that green plastic stuff they use to stablise turf in car parks could be used to create parking areas that aircraft could be juggled around in and HESCO could be used to create revetments. The North Vietnamese even moved Migs with heavy lift helos to hides well away from their bases to keep them safe. Added to that that the Poles would presumably disperse to highway bases, freeing up space at airbases. You also have changes to technology meaning that one aircraft can attack a lot more ground targets than before. In the case of F-15E that's 28, so a smaller number of aircraft can do a lot more.

 

The wild card here is standoff weapons. What if it turned out the Russians had amassed large stocks of land attack cruise missiles and perhaps modified Iskander launchers to fire them, as we think they may have? If that's the case, given that there would probably not be enough to attack individual HAS (one base I looked at (Swidin) had 38 plus numerous revetted hardstands) they could attack specific structures on airfields such as command and control centres, tank farm manifolds, taxiways where they join runways etc. They could also use them to deploy scatterable mines. However, if we start to get into long range standoff weapon attacks vs bases in Western Poland, the question arises as to where you would stop. We can play that game too. However, the bases we would have to target would be well inside Russia (not just Kaliningrad) and Belarus, which puts us into a very dangerous scenario indeed. Likewise, if things kicked off in the West, would Russian forces in Far East get involved too? Would they use conventional ALCM/SLCM to attack CONUS and if so, would they confine these attacks to military targets? It's a horrible can of worms. The best thing we can do is try to deter it by significantly reinforcing means already in place.

 

PS: Thank you Bojan.

 

Fair one. Ive been considering they would be far more likely to reinforce the west, but of course the Americans have considerable resources in the region. They would clearly have to retain forces there. I cant see them going on the offensive there though, I mean why would they choose to kick off with Japan if they had the choice not to.

 

Worth pointing out though, Russia has recently sharply decreased the number of airfields it maintains too. I think in 2008, around the time they reconfigured the air force, they sharply dropped the number of airfields they maintained under care an maintainance. On the positive side that means more resources to update and equip the ones they have, the spectre of airfield overcrowding and lack of HAS might still be a problem however. In short, both sides might be equally vulnerable to first strikes. Which is probably not good news as far as deterrence is concerned. Whom wants to get caught on the ground?

 

 

 

Re Bojan, thanks also. Strikes me Osprey would do well to do a book on this, because the campaign clearly didnt go all NATO's way. And they tend to be more rewarding of study than successes, ie Desert Storm.

Posted

Stuart, the ABM base is builded in Redzikowo.

 

As for airbases. For example this is how Krzesiny airbase looks today:

 

P1150502.jpg

 

I also heard about plans of building up airbase in Radom. Dunno how that ended, I am in ground forces so that is something that do not interest me much.

Posted

Well ive got ODON, can I ask whom the other ones are? I really cant see them pulling off forces in the Caucasus, particularly now Kadyrov seems to be off the chain.

The inventory of BMP-1 and BMP-2 is ~ 1600 (according to Russian newspaper "Kommersant" (http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2968686), i.e 17 brigade equivalents. Other sources say that's total BMP&BTR inventory, but generally Kommersant is very reliable. Allowing for training units, storage, etc. 12 operational brigade equivalents seems like a reasonable figure. The usual practice seems to pair a BMP battalion with 1-2 BTR battalions.

 

Here are some specific examples I was able to find:

21st OBRON - 1 BMP battalion, 1 BTR battalion, 2 motorized battalions (though equipment totals indicate 2 BTR battalions).

33rd OBRON - 1 BMP battalion, 3 motorized battalion

34th OBRON - 1 BMP battalion, 3 motorized battalion

22nd OBRON - 1 BMP battalion, 2 unknown battalions

Posted

This is how airbase in Redzikowo looks today, it's mostly non used.

 

 

And how it will look like after ABM base will be completed.

 

57138c65703f7_o,size,969x565,q,71,h,47b9

Posted

Waste of a good runway IMHO. Though the HAS would be useless for NATO aircraft, I gather most of ours would be too big to fit in Eastern Bloc HAS. Amazed I got the name right, Slupsk was the old air force name, or at least according to one of my old books.

 

Krzesiny is impressive, yet again you can see my point. Thats what, 16 NATO standard HAS? Short of having 16 aircraft in the air at all times, you are going to have a fair number sat vulnerable on the ramp. Its an excellent start though.

Posted

The airport in Redzikowo actually should be named Słupsk-Redzikowo, because there are just two town nearby, Słupsk and Redzikowo. ;)

 

As for Krzesiny, keep in mind not all of airbase is seen, tough yes indeed, still lots of work ahead of us. Still I just took a look at google maps, seems that many satelite images over military instalations are blurred, low quality or simply outdated. Perhaps our military have a hand in it, they dislike when someone looks at them. ;)

 

One peculiar thing I noted is that in ground forces bases, majority of vehicles are mostly hidden in hangars when satelite photos were made.

Posted

 

Well ive got ODON, can I ask whom the other ones are? I really cant see them pulling off forces in the Caucasus, particularly now Kadyrov seems to be off the chain.

The inventory of BMP-1 and BMP-2 is ~ 1600 (according to Russian newspaper "Kommersant" (http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2968686), i.e 17 brigade equivalents. Other sources say that's total BMP&BTR inventory, but generally Kommersant is very reliable. Allowing for training units, storage, etc. 12 operational brigade equivalents seems like a reasonable figure. The usual practice seems to pair a BMP battalion with 1-2 BTR battalions.

 

Here are some specific examples I was able to find:

21st OBRON - 1 BMP battalion, 1 BTR battalion, 2 motorized battalions (though equipment totals indicate 2 BTR battalions).

33rd OBRON - 1 BMP battalion, 3 motorized battalion

34th OBRON - 1 BMP battalion, 3 motorized battalion

22nd OBRON - 1 BMP battalion, 2 unknown battalions

 

Komersant, thats interesting I was reading about its foundation in Arkady Ostrovsky's 'The Invention of Russia'. Thats one of the surviving post perestroika newspapers. No idea what its like now, but it had a reputation back then of kicking over anthills.

 

Thanks for that, I had a job determining how many battalions these units had. Thats for the most part one BMP battalion more than I thought they had. Do they have artillery?

Posted

 

 

Well ive got ODON, can I ask whom the other ones are? I really cant see them pulling off forces in the Caucasus, particularly now Kadyrov seems to be off the chain.

The inventory of BMP-1 and BMP-2 is ~ 1600 (according to Russian newspaper "Kommersant" (http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2968686), i.e 17 brigade equivalents. Other sources say that's total BMP&BTR inventory, but generally Kommersant is very reliable. Allowing for training units, storage, etc. 12 operational brigade equivalents seems like a reasonable figure. The usual practice seems to pair a BMP battalion with 1-2 BTR battalions.

 

Here are some specific examples I was able to find:

21st OBRON - 1 BMP battalion, 1 BTR battalion, 2 motorized battalions (though equipment totals indicate 2 BTR battalions).

33rd OBRON - 1 BMP battalion, 3 motorized battalion

34th OBRON - 1 BMP battalion, 3 motorized battalion

22nd OBRON - 1 BMP battalion, 2 unknown battalions

 

Komersant, thats interesting I was reading about its foundation in Arkady Ostrovsky's 'The Invention of Russia'. Thats one of the surviving post perestroika newspapers. No idea what its like now, but it had a reputation back then of kicking over anthills.

 

Thanks for that, I had a job determining how many battalions these units had. Thats for the most part one BMP battalion more than I thought they had. Do they have artillery?

 

The ones deployed around Chechnya do. Here is one list I found, you may find it useful.

http://www.milkavkaz.net/2016/04/nacionalnaya-gvardiya-rf.html

Posted

...

Re Bojan, thanks also. Strikes me Osprey would do well to do a book on this, because the campaign clearly didnt go all NATO's way. And they tend to be more rewarding of study than successes, ie Desert Storm.

 

 

There is Dani's movie/story and Anicic book (Made mostly from unit's war diary logbook). They both exaggerated some things and downplayed each other (they were not in best personal relations to say at least, openly accusing each other of laying), but studding both, together with some other accounts, Including Zelko's account of shutdown you can get a pretty full picture of what happened.

Ofc, good luck getting most of it in language other then Serbian...

Posted

Waste of a good runway IMHO. Though the HAS would be useless for NATO aircraft, I gather most of ours would be too big to fit in Eastern Bloc HAS. Amazed I got the name right, Slupsk was the old air force name, or at least according to one of my old books.

 

Krzesiny is impressive, yet again you can see my point. Thats what, 16 NATO standard HAS? Short of having 16 aircraft in the air at all times, you are going to have a fair number sat vulnerable on the ramp. Its an excellent start though.

 

Given their lack of standoff weapons (they're unlikely to fire 32 Kh 55s at every Polish airfield), the Russians are likely to go for higher value targets than the HAS. The runway, tank farms, and command centre/operations room would be likely targets. HAS would become vulnerable if air superiority was lost, but if it was lost, the runway would be moonscaped anyway making destroying the aircraft unnecessary. As for HAS capacity, in wartime it is highly unlikely that aircraft would be parked in linear formation on the apron. Those bases have acres and acres of concrete, other buildings and easily reinforced grass where aircraft could be parked in pseudo random fashion. They could possibly even be parked off-base and use could be made of decoys (a great use for some retired, life expired F-16As, suitably marked). The highly publicised US B-2A attack on a Libyan airfield that took out almost every HAS presumably only took place in that fashion because it was a dual use facility and the Americans didn't want to take out the runway and civil airport buildings. Four or five GBU-31s dropped down the centre of the runway and set to go off deep underground would have obviated the need to take out the shelters, but would have been much less impressive.

 

It's highly unlikely we would sent 45 Typhoons to Poland - we'd need a heap of them to make some token effort at defending the UK which would be an obvious target for Russian standoff weapons (whether we received backfill from USAF reinforcements would depend on how likely attacks on the US were perceived to be). I have also covered the fact that we can now send one aircraft after 28 targets rather than 28 aircraft after one, so I doubt we need to base as many aircraft forward. There is also the knotty problem of how we would locate ground targets for them (hence the need to train staybehinds - I doubt we would risk ASTOR or J-STARS forward early in a conflict). Remember that the Russians would also be operating out of a limited number of airfields, mostly with the same vulnerable single runway layout. I'm pretty sure that that is what some of the 200 or so Polish JASSM will be allocated to. In the meantime it would be down to other NATO countries that already possess stealthy standoff missiles.

Posted

Interesting Stuart.

 

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2015/12/27/russian-airbase-belarus-remains-limbo/

 

And on the subject of airfield overcrowding... :) Seriously though, look at the length and width of the runways vs the scale on the google map. The Su-27 was designed to operate from a 1200 metre runway, which is very good performance, but you still wouldn't have to put many standoff weapons into the Runway to render the airfield closed to fast jet ops. We would also want to target the tank farm, command centre etc.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Baranovichi,+Belarus/@53.1082361,26.0523738,294m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x46d8cfe9b9e4eda3:0xc8878cbb5b9a36e8!8m2!3d53.1255737!4d26.0091683

 

Can someone please tell me under what circumstances large number of interior ministry troops would actually be tasked to hold down the Baltic Republics for a protracted period? Presumably we are talking a situation where Article 5 had not been invoked, because counterinsurgency would be the least of the Russians' problems in such an eventuality. Given that we have multinational NATO forces in all three countries, how would that happen?

Posted

Re Russian strip basing, well I can only repeat what ive read about what critics said of it in Central Europe in the 1980s. That it was all very well to base aircraft in woods an on road airstrips, but there was good evidence from the Germans doing forward basing in WW2 that it created untold problems. When you base forward, you lose most of your servicing equipment. Battlefield repair, routine maintenance, armament stockpiles, they are all difficult to achieve when you are living in a tent and your aircraft are operating off roads. You can say also that was in the days when the most sophisticated piece of equipment in an aircraft was the gunsight. Today, with the considerable number of electronic systems you have, you have to question how easy its going to be for the Russians (anyone really) to go and live in the woods and base off airstrips. Yes, I know it can be done in exercise. How well is that really going to work out in reality for a couple of months? And then having to up sticks and move in a couple of hours because someone pinpointed your location and is throwing long range missiles or even cruise at it?

 

At the very least, I think you can confidently say, sortie rate is going to go down. Certainly compared to prepared facilities. And looking at the remains of airbase airstrips in Estonia, I cant say they struck me as being anything other than a wide road and an extra light configuration. They had more facilities at WW2 dispersal airfields in the Uk, which were distinctly bare bones as it was.

 

The problem with assuming article 5 will always apply is the assumption that NATO will vote to approve it. I cant really recommend the Sherriff book as literature, but he raises a plausible scenario when article 5, through a series of mistakes and political self serving hacks, is avoided until its well past too late to send anything to the Baltic states. You have to assume that hybrid war WILL be the first weapon of choice in the Russian arsenal if it comes to a conflict. Im not suggesting that it will stop there, but its unreasonable to think that Article 5 is drafted with that kind of conflict in mind. And indeed everyone will be on the ball as far as determining that Russia is involved, when its remembered quite how many NATO nations see trade with Russia as good for their economy. After all, wasnt it just this kind of mindset to look the other way that occured all through the 1930s?

 

Its perfectly true they dont have a hostile Russian population in Estonia and Latvia aspiring to join Russia. The cynic would point out, they didnt have one in Ukraine either till the Green men turned up.

 

So in those kind of circumstances they will need a force there to 'peacekeep', whilst they negotiate a solution. The interesting thing is, that im told in the Russian language the word for peacekeeping is the same for peacemaking. Which kind of explains the vigorous nature of operations in Syria I suppose.

Posted

 

Waste of a good runway IMHO. Though the HAS would be useless for NATO aircraft, I gather most of ours would be too big to fit in Eastern Bloc HAS. Amazed I got the name right, Slupsk was the old air force name, or at least according to one of my old books.

 

Krzesiny is impressive, yet again you can see my point. Thats what, 16 NATO standard HAS? Short of having 16 aircraft in the air at all times, you are going to have a fair number sat vulnerable on the ramp. Its an excellent start though.

 

Given their lack of standoff weapons (they're unlikely to fire 32 Kh 55s at every Polish airfield), the Russians are likely to go for higher value targets than the HAS. The runway, tank farms, and command centre/operations room would be likely targets. HAS would become vulnerable if air superiority was lost, but if it was lost, the runway would be moonscaped anyway making destroying the aircraft unnecessary. As for HAS capacity, in wartime it is highly unlikely that aircraft would be parked in linear formation on the apron. Those bases have acres and acres of concrete, other buildings and easily reinforced grass where aircraft could be parked in pseudo random fashion. They could possibly even be parked off-base and use could be made of decoys (a great use for some retired, life expired F-16As, suitably marked). The highly publicised US B-2A attack on a Libyan airfield that took out almost every HAS presumably only took place in that fashion because it was a dual use facility and the Americans didn't want to take out the runway and civil airport buildings. Four or five GBU-31s dropped down the centre of the runway and set to go off deep underground would have obviated the need to take out the shelters, but would have been much less impressive.

 

It's highly unlikely we would sent 45 Typhoons to Poland - we'd need a heap of them to make some token effort at defending the UK which would be an obvious target for Russian standoff weapons (whether we received backfill from USAF reinforcements would depend on how likely attacks on the US were perceived to be). I have also covered the fact that we can now send one aircraft after 28 targets rather than 28 aircraft after one, so I doubt we need to base as many aircraft forward. There is also the knotty problem of how we would locate ground targets for them (hence the need to train staybehinds - I doubt we would risk ASTOR or J-STARS forward early in a conflict). Remember that the Russians would also be operating out of a limited number of airfields, mostly with the same vulnerable single runway layout. I'm pretty sure that that is what some of the 200 or so Polish JASSM will be allocated to. In the meantime it would be down to other NATO countries that already possess stealthy standoff missiles.

 

We probably have enough to do it now, that we are holding onto the tranche 1's for air defence. Though as I pointed out to DB, the fly in the ointment there is that anyone defending the UK wont have the ability to fire Meteor, which is a bit of a handicap. Maybe AD using F35 and forward deploying the Typhoons might be an option. With stand off weapons it shouldnt make too much difference that lack of stealth, or at least, one would hope.

 

I do have to agree about has, nobody is going to be targeting them individually till they have complete air superiority and you want to bounce rubble. That said, lacking knowledge about Russian long range weapons and any cluster weapon capablitiy (I gather TLAM DID have this, and might still if they have not all been scrapped) what concerns mes is lots of aircraft parked neatly on ramps turned into scrap inside 30 seconds. After all, Iskander as we know has thermobaric warheads, and they would work perfectly well in this role.

Posted

 

...

Re Bojan, thanks also. Strikes me Osprey would do well to do a book on this, because the campaign clearly didnt go all NATO's way. And they tend to be more rewarding of study than successes, ie Desert Storm.

 

 

There is Dani's movie/story and Anicic book (Made mostly from unit's war diary logbook). They both exaggerated some things and downplayed each other (they were not in best personal relations to say at least, openly accusing each other of laying), but studding both, together with some other accounts, Including Zelko's account of shutdown you can get a pretty full picture of what happened.

Ofc, good luck getting most of it in language other then Serbian...

 

Might be an online translation out there I guess. Thanks for the recommendation.

Posted

Its perfectly true they dont have a hostile Russian population in Estonia and Latvia aspiring to join Russia. The cynic would point out, they didnt have one in Ukraine either till the Green men turned up.

 

So in those kind of circumstances they will need a force there to 'peacekeep', whilst they negotiate a solution. The interesting thing is, that im told in the Russian language the word for peacekeeping is the same for peacemaking. Which kind of explains the vigorous nature of operations in Syria I suppose.

From what I read from Facebook page of Estonian friend of mine (ethnic Russian, born in Estonia, educated in UK, fluent English and Estonian speaker, Estonia citizen, construction business owner) - it is not exactly the case now. Estonian state propaganda (very awkward) supposed to “deal with Russian propaganda” is actually making local Russians angry (especially when Estonians are bringing in pro-Western liberals, loaded with their social Darvinism, from Moscow to teach local Russians what they have to think about this or that); More over, it is radicalizing local Russians. Russians are not afraid of raising his voice now (especially post-Soviet generation born and raised in Estonia) – they do not consider ethnic Estonians to have more rights than local Russians just because of their ethnicity, and decades of being told to be second class people are bringing its fruits. No they are not particularly pro-Russian (meaning not “Russian unionists”) but if something happens it will be the only choice. Protests in Ukraine also started with demands for more rights and regional autonomy – but when bullets start flying things are becoming different.

 

Re “peacekeeping –peacemaking” – “миротворец» (peacemaker) is single word in Rus, so it is usually used to describe peacekeepers, but official word for peacekeeping is “операции по поддержанию мира» (operations for supporting\maintaining peace) http://www.un.org/ru/peacekeeping/about/dpko/

Posted

 

Its perfectly true they dont have a hostile Russian population in Estonia and Latvia aspiring to join Russia. The cynic would point out, they didnt have one in Ukraine either till the Green men turned up.

 

So in those kind of circumstances they will need a force there to 'peacekeep', whilst they negotiate a solution. The interesting thing is, that im told in the Russian language the word for peacekeeping is the same for peacemaking. Which kind of explains the vigorous nature of operations in Syria I suppose.

From what I read from Facebook page of Estonian friend of mine (ethnic Russian, born in Estonia, educated in UK, fluent English and Estonian speaker, Estonia citizen, construction business owner) - it is not exactly the case now. Estonian state propaganda (very awkward) supposed to “deal with Russian propaganda” is actually making local Russians angry (especially when Estonians are bringing in pro-Western liberals, loaded with their social Darvinism, from Moscow to teach local Russians what they have to think about this or that); More over, it is radicalizing local Russians. Russians are not afraid of raising his voice now (especially post-Soviet generation born and raised in Estonia) – they do not consider ethnic Estonians to have more rights than local Russians just because of their ethnicity, and decades of being told to be second class people are bringing its fruits. No they are not particularly pro-Russian (meaning not “Russian unionists”) but if something happens it will be the only choice. Protests in Ukraine also started with demands for more rights and regional autonomy – but when bullets start flying things are becoming different.

 

Re “peacekeeping –peacemaking” – “миротворец» (peacemaker) is single word in Rus, so it is usually used to describe peacekeepers, but official word for peacekeeping is “операции по поддержанию мира» (operations for supporting\maintaining peace) http://www.un.org/ru/peacekeeping/about/dpko/

 

Well leaving aside the political situation (which I probably should not have brought up and should have kept myself to strictly military limits) it strikes me that anything in such a conflict that would divide NATO is something Russia would look closely at. I dont see it as nearly as easy to do as in Ukraine, but clearly its not impossible.

 

Thanks for clearing that up about Peacekeeping btw. i think the translation I read was imposing peace, or peace imposition, but im no Russian linguist, what the hell do I know. :D

Posted

Well there is a very simple solution to Baltic states problems with Russian minority... if Russia is so close, just behind a border, and cares so much about Russians abroad, why they just won't return to Russia? Simple solution, nobody is harmed, problem solved.

 

And I am certain that Russian goverment who cares so much about wellbeing of Russians abroad will help them!

 

Oh wait, we all know it won't happen because it's not about wellbeing of tools in Putins grand game. :glare:

Posted

Stuart, hi! :) I'm not sure if it was my post you were responding to, but I don't think I actually mentioned basing at forward locations, roads etc, - I just said you could spread aircraft around an airfield and it's surrounding areas, using decoys, hesco revetments etc. They would still need to use the runway.

 

Those nations that do off-base operations generally practise them regularly and I would think they're probably rather good at it, having had decades of practice. You have to remember that the Germans were operating in primitive conditions, off grass strips an awful long way from their main bases, with a tenuous supply link interdicted by partisans. We're now talking about a good all weather road network, probably devoid of interdiction, and your deployment operating from climate controlled vehicles and containers. With precision weapons you need a lot less ordnance. The Germans also had to operate for years in this fashion whereas it would all be over one way or another vs the Russians in a few weeks at most. Again, if you are going to postulate that off airfield basing would impose great restrictions on NATO airpower, the same must be true for the Russians.

 

I do expect the Russians have a TLAM-D/Apache equivalent, quite possibly capable of delivering mines and/or anti runway munitions too. The thing is, an airfield (let alone the area around it into which aircraft could be dispersed) is a HUGE target, so you have an awfully large area to carpet bomb with submunitions. Simple concrete walling or HESCO would mean they would need to achieve a very near miss or direct hit to take a plane out. If your Kh-55s can reach a polish airfield it would be far better for them to deliver a combination of penetrating munitions and SCATMIN onto the runway than to mess about trying to guess where aircraft have been dispersed to at the moment it will arrive.

 

Meteor will be a huge force multiplier for NATO, but AFAIK it is only in service in limited numbers with Sweden. Meteor was to come in on the Typhoon around the time of the last Tranche 3 delivery in 2017 wasn't it? Vs incoming cruise missile it's arguably wasteful to use one if you still have stocks of legacy AMRAAM to use up.

 

If we don't go Article 5 over an invasion of any Baltic state, it is all over for NATO.

Posted

Stuart, hi! :) I'm not sure if it was my post you were responding to, but I don't think I actually mentioned basing at forward locations, roads etc, - I just said you could spread aircraft around an airfield and it's surrounding areas, using decoys, hesco revetments etc. They would still need to use the runway.

 

Those nations that do off-base operations generally practise them regularly and I would think they're probably rather good at it, having had decades of practice. You have to remember that the Germans were operating in primitive conditions, off grass strips an awful long way from their main bases, with a tenuous supply link interdicted by partisans. We're now talking about a good all weather road network, probably devoid of interdiction, and your deployment operating from climate controlled vehicles and containers. With precision weapons you need a lot less ordnance. The Germans also had to operate for years in this fashion whereas it would all be over one way or another vs the Russians in a few weeks at most. Again, if you are going to postulate that off airfield basing would impose great restrictions on NATO airpower, the same must be true for the Russians.

 

I do expect the Russians have a TLAM-D/Apache equivalent, quite possibly capable of delivering mines and/or anti runway munitions too. The thing is, an airfield (let alone the area around it into which aircraft could be dispersed) is a HUGE target, so you have an awfully large area to carpet bomb with submunitions. Simple concrete walling or HESCO would mean they would need to achieve a very near miss or direct hit to take a plane out. If your Kh-55s can reach a polish airfield it would be far better for them to deliver a combination of penetrating munitions and SCATMIN onto the runway than to mess about trying to guess where aircraft have been dispersed to at the moment it will arrive.

 

If we don't go Article 5 over an invasion of any Baltic state, it is all over for NATO.

Exactly. Which is precisely why I think hybrid is the way it would go, at least at first. Its simply the easiest way to split NATO. Look at all the humming and hawing there is about contributing troops to the baltic states at all. If the Russian wanted (im not saying they actually do intend this but follow my logic) to split NATO, there are two split points. One is Turkey (and that arguably is still beyond Russias easy reach) and the Baltics (which arguably are not).

 

I dont really see us deploying on roads at all. I mean even the USMC is finding it difficult to use the F35B in that role because its chewing up tarmac with its exhaust. Its not like the old days with Harrier and Jaguar where we can easy base on roads. Maybe the Russians have equipment better suited to it, but I dont see their sortie rate being much better if they are forced to deploy in such a manner.

 

Deploying near airfields is of course one option.

Posted

The USAF were operating A-10s off roads in Estonia this year:

 

https://youtu.be/Ty3NDyhbWrg

 

I have to hand it to the Russians - they have an incredible deception plan in place if they are getting ready to kick off, to the point of camouflaging their dispersals with spoil heaps and having their aircraft in the open, partially dismantled with trees growing through them :)

https://www.google.co.jp/maps/@54.7727178,20.4052688,332m/data=!3m1!1e3

Posted

The USAF were operating A-10s off roads in Estonia this year:

 

https://youtu.be/Ty3NDyhbWrg

 

I have to hand it to the Russians - they have an incredible deception plan in place if they are getting ready to kick off, to the point of camouflaging their dispersals with spoil heaps and having their aircraft in the open, partially dismantled with trees growing through them :)

 

https://www.google.co.jp/maps/@54.7727178,20.4052688,332m/data=!3m1!1e3

Agreed, though it doesnt approach in sophistication something like F35, which Im buggered if I know how they are going to maintain the stealth coat, let alone anything like all the systems by parking up in a wood harrier style. Even an F16 surely cannot be simple to do routine maintenance in the field.

 

There is some good Google imagery of Western Russia now. I forget where it was, but I was looking around a backfire airfield somewhere to the southeast of Pskov. Russian railfreight yards still look like something from Britain Pre Dr Beeching, and they still have signalboxes, lord bless them. :)

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