The F-16 should not be underestimated, but Zelensky will need a lot of time if he wants to change the decline.
Zelensky recently delivered a New Year's speech, in which Zelensky responded to rumors that Ukraine had received F-16s with Western aid and was ready to fight. Zelensky said that the F-16 will be delivered to Ukraine in 2024, and Ukraine is still carrying out pilot training, that is, the previous news that the Ukrainian army uses the F-16 is all false. So, can the upcoming F-16 fighter jet bring the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which is in its third year, into a new stage?
Among the various ** equipment that NATO member states have provided to Ukraine, the F-16 is not a new **, it was mass-produced in 1979, and it is now dying. In the 90s of the last century, the F-16 was upgraded, but at present, in the ** arsenal of most countries, the F-16 is basically in a state of "old disrepair", which is about to be retired and eliminated, and it will not be sent to Ukraine, and it can only be put in warehouses to eat ashes. So can these fighters, which have been "over-protected", still play a role in the face of such a strong enemy as the Russian Aerospace Forces?
First of all, the F-16 will never be "good-for-nothing", as the previous bloggers said, and it will not disgrace the West. You must know that now Ukraine has some fighters left over from the Soviet era, which are still inferior to the F-16, and once you need maintenance and parts, you can't go to the Russian factory to buy it, and the F-16 is just needed. After the Russian-Ukrainian conflict began, the Ukrainian Air Force not only suffered a devastating blow for the first time, but the part that was fortunately retained has no sense of existence in the face of the powerful fighters and anti-aircraft firepower of the Russian army. They need to be able to keep flying at a low altitude the whole time and "throw" ** to the Russian fighters at a safe distance as far as possible.
However, the Ukrainian Air Force fighter was shot down by the Russian air-to-air missile R-37 at a distance of 177 kilometers; In addition, the Ukrainian fighter plane was shot down by a Russian anti-aircraft missile when the flight altitude was less than 15 meters, these two cases not only reflect the serious air equipment disadvantage of the Ukrainian army, but also show that the F-16 may not be able to improve. But Zelensky himself has ideas about the F-16, and he has been emphasizing in the process of asking for it that with the F-16, Ukraine will be able to guarantee the security of the airspace, that is, the F-16 will at least be able to "defend itself".
Although the F-16 model is old, it has a good fire control radar, and it can also use the NATO-standard medium-range air-to-air missile AIM-120, which is still a relatively large threat to Russian fighters, and the Russian army may have to consider the existence of the F-16 more when designing attack operations. At the same time, the F-16 is a multi-purpose platform that can integrate air-to-ground guided munitions produced by NATO countries to strike at ground targets of the Russian army.
However, the F-16 has a lot of problems to solve, and the most critical of them is the matter of time. According to the statements of the US personnel, it will take at least half a year for an experienced fighter pilot to transfer to the F-16 and learn basic combat skills. In addition, in Russia's air combat equipment, typical Western equipment such as F-16 has long been regarded as the main target. And if you want to wait for the pilots to train perfectly and fully understand the multi-purpose capabilities of the F-16, it is estimated that it will take two or three years or even longer.
Of course, it is possible that the West preset a long-term line at first, and Ukraine got the F-16, and all the ** equipment systems in the future may have to break away from the "Soviet-style" flavor and all fall to the West. The delivery of the F-16 by Western countries is to allow Ukraine to integrate into NATO's first-class equipment and combat system, so that it can continue to play the function of consuming Russia in the future, and "fight to the last Ukrainian" in order to safeguard the geopolitical and security interests of Europe.