Posted on 08/18/2023 8:46:41 AM PDT by Timber Rattler
The United States has approved sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands to defend against Russian invaders as soon as pilot training is completed, a U.S. official said on Thursday.
Ukraine has actively sought the U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to help it counter Russian air superiority.
Washington gave Denmark and the Netherlands official assurances that the United States will expedite approval of transfer requests for F-16s to go to Ukraine when the pilots are trained, the official said.
(snip)
A coalition of 11 countries will start training Ukrainian pilots to fly the F-16 fighter jets later this month in Denmark, the Danish defence ministry said on Friday.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
“That’s called World War III’: Biden defends decision not to send jets to Ukraine”
You ignored the rest of what he actually said, quote-
“The idea that we’re going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews — just understand, don’t kid yourself, no matter what y’all say, that’s called World War III”
F-16s are 45 year old technology.
They had older equipment than that to begin with. They won’t know how to operate the F-16s.
Strange that you respond to the articles which quote Milley. I am not he.
His address:
General Mark A. Milley
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
9999 Joint Staff Pentagon,
Washington, DC 20318-9999
What a spectacularly bad idea.
Timber, you are without a doubt the biggest Biden fan-boy on FR.
No doubt neocon fed agents consider FR members to just be morons here. And you obviously do not see how compromising this action is to national security for the US and indeed all of Europe.
Up until now, no aircraft and a literal handful of heavy weapons that have any range to them have been sent to Ukraine.
As it is, like the M1 and Leopard tanks, these are not enough F-16’s to be of much offensive effect. And these numbers are certainly not much of a threat to “penetrate” Russia. So, the wild assertions (by anyone making them) about this being a step to nukes or WW3 are the fantasies of weak minds or just propaganda.
OTOH, these F-16’s would be useful to strengthen Ukraine’s defenses against Russian planes over Ukrainian controlled territory (already pretty effective) and maybe lob a few missiles to the front.
Now, IF the US sent some F-18 Growlers to provide SEAD capability, it’d be a different story.
This approval might also open up the sending of Grippens by other countries (which actually makes more sense) but SFAIK there’s no movement on that. (If someone else knows more about potential Grippen deliveries, please update me / us.)
Finally, if the war escalates and allied countries try to claim “no equipment”, there’s this thing called “NATO interoperability”, and in most categories the US has huge inventory and stockpiles. We even have at a minimum 50+ more HIMARS launchers than we had on 1/1/2022, and we had over 400 at that time.
Now, whether this bunch of boobs running the Ukraine support deliveries can actually get equipment to our allies B4 they die of old age, well, that’s uncertain.
I would agree with that. The Ukie AF has done rather well in recent months in conserving their old MIG’s, so I’d expect them to understand what a small number of F-16’s would be good for, and what not: Standoff weapons, and shoring up their Air Defense behind the lines could make sense.
I trust that our daily posted “Ukraine updater” Denys Davydov who is apparently a pilot will be among the 1st to volunteer to do his patriotic duty and go off to F-16 training to defend his country!
https://www.youtube.com/@DenysDavydov/about
Given that after 18 months the Ukes are still flying their old SU and MiGs, that's obvious and logical. Trust the plan !
Red line number 77.
Pleased to see you take note of this, and further awareness of Mister Switzerland....
Heh, I’ve been off this computer for a couple days and my beginning of this post was still open. Might as well finish it...
This discussion is actually hilarious on the part of the two groups who are critical of the European owned(!) F-16’s going to Ukraine.
One group argues this is such a dire escalation / threat to Russia that WW3 will erupt faster than the Lahaina fire.
The other group trumpets that the F-16’s will be shot down the minute they go airborn in the conflict (if they are not destroyed on the ground.) So, essentially the F-16’s are inconsequential.
For some reason, the visual that popped into my mind to describe these two groups was the two SRB’s corkscrewing away from each other in the moments following the Challenger disaster (explosion). Except of course that said event was not funny whatsoever. :-(
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.