Posted on 03/18/2022 1:03:57 AM PDT by TigerLikesRoosterNew
An American who owns a MiG-29 isn't sure the fighter jets will help Ukraine much
Alex Seitz-Wald
WASHINGTON — Jared Isaacman, a billionaire and astronaut, may be the only American individual to own a MiG-29 — the Russian-built fighter jet line that has become the center of an international diplomatic conundrum in the global effort to aid Ukraine.
And as one of only a tiny handful of Americans to have ever flown the high-performance Soviet-era jet, he doesn't think they’d be very useful to Ukraine.
Isaacman, who made his fortune with a payment processing company he founded as a teen, owns what may be the only flyable MiG-29 in the United States, giving him unique perspective on proposals to send Poland's old MiGs to Ukraine.
“On a purely technical level, I don’t know how the good could outweigh the bad of bringing in those MiG-29s,” Isaacman said. “Are people thinking through the implications?"
He said the Russians could eliminate the jets from the battlefield "in a single shot."
"What a momentum swing that would be for Russia," he added. "What a morale boost it would be for them. And it’s been so publicized by now that the Russians could just be waiting for the moment those jets come across the border.”
Kyiv has been pleading with the West to "close the sky over Ukraine," as a video accompanying President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's address to Congress stated Wednesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Ain’t that convenient. Here’s a little story of how a Zippo can take out an occupying force...
“First, you approach a German sentry with your little pistol hidden in your coat pocket and, with Academy-award sincerity, ask him for a light for your cigarette (or the time the train leaves for Paris, or if he wants to buy some non-army-issue food or a half- hour with your “sister”). When he smiles and casts a nervous glance down the street to see where his Sergeant is at, you blow his brains out with your first and only shot, then take his rifle and ammunition. Your next few minutes are occupied with “getting out of Dodge,” for such critters generally go around in packs. After that you keep the rifle and hand your little pistol to a fellow Resistance fighter so they can go get their own rifle.
Or maybe you then use your rifle to get a submachine gun from the Sergeant when he comes running. Perhaps you get very lucky and pickup a light machine gun, two boxes of ammunition and a haversack of hand grenades. With two of the grenades and the expenditure of a half-a-box of ammunition at a hasty roadblock the next night, you and your friends get a truck full of arms and ammunition. Pretty soon you’ve got the best armed little maquis unit in your part of France, all from that cheap little pistol and the guts to use it.”
He started Shift4.
It’s stable. That’s all I can say about his software.
Is actually funny, I’ve said that software “must be Russian. It’s like a pencil instead of the million dollar space writing pen.”
Ad for the “Liberator”?
WWII- The Free French had a contingent of B-26 pilots who were trained in the U.S. Do that with a rotation of Polish fighter pilots and reconfigured previous generation U.S. fighters, escort them across the pond battle-ready and far enough to where they effectively become the new front line fighters of the Air Force of Poland. Once they return to their home bases, they could be trained for operations in that region. The Migs have nothing better to do than to stick it to Putin.
Ukraine doesn't have a government but a crime syndicate. They should have been spending their Biden payoff money on defense.
Maybe they are saving the MIGs for after the war, when the Ukrainian Air Force will need to be re-built.
Expensive business.
They should use the frozen accounts for reparations.
I ran into a guy last year that actually believes that story. Big lib, anti gun guy that thinks no one need more than a single shot gun. Then he went in that if the country was attacked you could basically do what the Zippo story said. Hacomf talked to the guy for only a few minutes, I assume he would have been likely to shoot himself loading a gun.
Yes
Whatever airfield these MIGS land at will be hit by missiles soon after.
After reading through the article, I:
1) Fail to see any explanation of how the Russians would take out what I would expect to be widely dispersed MIGs in “a single shot”.
2) Fail to see any details on what electronic upgrades have been done to the Polish MIGs. (That has been mentioned as a training issue, elsewhere, so I suspect significant upgrades have been made, but, that IS only a suspicion.)
3) Fail to see any analysis of how the Ukes apparently managed to keep most of their planes not destroyed on the ground in the initial Russian strikes flying for at least a couple weeks.
4) Fail to see any analysis of whether or not NATO would quietly provide surveillance data to Uke pilots flying near NATO boundaries.
From a tactical perspective, it IS obvious the Ukes need many more SAM batteries that can take out higher altitude targets.
Amazed at how the MSM find people like this to do stories that support Biden’s inept handling of the whole matter.
The usual start of a resistance movement, assuming that the country has already fallen, is when the revolutionaries start eliminating collaborators, sympathisers and local officials. Its not about obtaining weapons but to make the place ungovernable. For that part the most useful weapon is likely a concealable and disposable pistol.
A. I expect the Russians will be able to track inward bound flight of the Migs using their own AWACS.
B. That should give them location info for their satellite recon to ID precise locations.
C. Cruise or ballistic missile attack as done near Lviv.
B above is the most iffy part, depending on what further measures the Ukes have managed to move the planes on the ground, and the quality and concealment of revetments, etc.
#3 in your post is on point. I suspect the Ukes are using extemporized strips, like segments of highway.
These are early-model Mig-29, aren’t they? Not even used in Russia anymore, something like the equivalent of a late-model Phantom or an early model F-16? They’d probably be meat on the table if they are used.
Poland offered 30 MiGs. That’s 30 “tries” to strafe Russian tracked assets or to destroy city bridges.
That’s from Unintended Consequences, IIRC.
Good book. Too bad it’s out of print.
L
More like an F-16 in pure flying performance, but the Polish ones have been upgraded with western systems to some degree. How exactly and how significant that is, who knows. They did have radar homing missiles unlike the earliest F16’s.
Got it. I think they are primarily interceptors, so of limited use in ground attack.
Regardless, I’m not sure how excited I’d be about flying a Russian-made jet over a battlefield with a lot of itchy-fingered MANPAD carriers.
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