Biden says 'no' to sending F-16s to Ukraine as allies mull request

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: watchitburn

Congress won’t even let the Air Force retire aircraft that are obviously vulnerable to anything but a completely permissive environment (unless it’s something we’re desperately short of). Removing F-16s would be the same thing. They’re not going to override him. They’ll get F-16s from other countries that are retiring them.

They may allow some from AMARG if things appear to be stable enough to give them the time they need to regenerate them, but for now they won’t come from us.

Warthog: Hold my beer.

So we'll be sending them F-16s in about 6 months.

Biden backtracks on pretty much everything. Pretty good sign he has no idea what he's doing.

How many will Joe need back in the US to repel the local militias?
I mean, he's said a few times an AR can't compete with F-16

a reply to: Arnie123

There are actual A-10 pilots that have said oh hell no about flying over the battlefield in Ukraine. The IADS Russia uses would be brutal on them.

a reply to: Zrtst

The Air Force is mandated by the Key West Agreement to have a minimum number of aircraft available in flying status.

I guess that´s it for the Ukrainian fascists megalomaniac dreams of the final Endsieg against Russia. The support for Selenskyi is dropping because the average ukrainian population meanwhile recognized that the Ukraine is used and controlled for the profits of whoever but the Ukraine. They have to arrest people on the streets in the Ukraine meanwhile and then send them to the front. Because the people have enough of dying for all the lies and corrupt BS, they want peace and nothing else. Soon there even will be nobody to arrest anymore, what then? Doing it like Nazi-Germany and sending kids to the front for the glory "Endsieg"? Those that had enough money left the Ukraine when all that BS began because they didn´t trust their own government and knew they would be send to the front because Selenskyi and the west wants to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. And these people were absolutely right as we see now.

The average Ukrainian people know about the influence of the USA and EU in that wag the dog proxy war scenario, they know about how corrupt their leaders are. Not every Ukrainian citizen is a Bandera or Nazi lover like their foreign controlled and corrupt politicians/"leaders" are. Many Ukrainians now recognize that Selenskyis dreams of beating Russia is nothing but the fascist and impossible idea of a megalomaniac, obisiously coke sniffing WEF Young Global Leader. They recognize that nobody has the intention to build a wall, sorry, to end that madness over there, that Selenskyi would rather sacrifice the last Ukrainian for the role he plays in that money bag gang show to fool the world. And they simply have enough of that BS.

And now it seems that USA(Davos(NATO/WEF-etc-gang) has used the Ukraine long enough, not really achieving what it wanted to achieve over there (defeating Russia if that ever was their real intention with all that BS there) and now rather concentrates on Taiwan, to eff up the Chinese next.

Avoiding a long war (RAND Corp)
"U.S. Policy and the Trajectory of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Discussion of the Russia-Ukraine war in Washington is increasingly dominated by the question of how it might end. To inform this discussion, this Perspective identifies ways in which the war could evolve and how alternative trajectories would affect U.S. interests. The authors argue that, in addition to minimizing the risks of major escalation, U.S. interests would be best served by avoiding a protracted conflict. The costs and risks of a long war in Ukraine are significant and outweigh the possible benefits of such a trajectory for the United States. Although Washington cannot by itself determine the war's duration, it can take steps that make an eventual negotiated end to the conflict more likely. Drawing on the literature on war termination, the authors identify key impediments to Russia-Ukraine talks, such as mutual optimism about the future of the war and mutual pessimism about the implications of peace. The Perspective highlights four policy instruments the United States could use to mitigate these impediments: clarifying plans for future support to Ukraine, making commitments to Ukraine's security, issuing assurances regarding the country's neutrality, and setting conditions for sanctions relief for Russia."

As i said, i guess that´s it now for the Great Ukrainian Reich, for the dream that Crimea becomes Ukrainian again and all that nonsense. Selenskyi gets new orders now but not anything anymore he demands without being able to pay for it. He will have to do peace negotiations or will stand there completely naked soon, dropped like a hot potato like seen many times before when the morally best west, especially the USA, its vicarious agents are no longer required. Some of them end up getting killed (Hussein & Gaddafi for example) when there is no need anymore for them, if they know too much or if they start to generate profits for their own nations and people.
Cheers

a reply to: Zaphod58

Thats a shame.

Needs must all the same.

Better a chance of defense, than no defense.

Or they end up with US F16's, A-10's, F35's, et all via a cool new US/NATO base once everything simmers down... LOL. It's the American way!

a reply to: andy06shake

The big learning curve for them is going to be that every report I’ve ever read on Soviet design style is that it’s very head down. You have to look into the cockpit a lot. Western fighters were designed using the HOTAS concept. Once your Master Arm switch is on, your hands will almost never come off the throttle or control stick. Every switch you need to fight the jet is on one of them. The training syllabus is designed to give you an almost instinctual knowledge of where each switch by the time you have to use them. That’s what’s going to take the most time.

They said the same **** about patriots and tanks.

America and NATO are using Russia to destroy their evidence of their bio-labs, chemical labs, and organ harvesting operations. They will continue to arm Ukraine until they are satisfied there is nothing left.

That is why Russia appears to care more about Ukranian infrastructure than Ukranian or NATO does. There is evidence in Ukraine of some seriously sinister stuff going on.
linky

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: andy06shake

The big learning curve for them is going to be that every report I’ve ever read on Soviet design style is that it’s very head down. You have to look into the cockpit a lot. Western fighters were designed using the HOTAS concept. Once your Master Arm switch is on, your hands will almost never come off the throttle or control stick. Every switch you need to fight the jet is on one of them. The training syllabus is designed to give you an almost instinctual knowledge of where each switch by the time you have to use them. That’s what’s going to take the most time.

So they are going to have serious problems finding pilots to fly them regardless...

thought this was interesting and found it on F-16.net which backs up Belgium mothballing F-16s they had 160 F-16s and Poland had 48 F-16s and both have ordered F-35s. So it would seem they would potentially have F-16s to send

www.f-16.net...

January 9, 2023 (by Lieven Dewitte) - The F-35 Joint Program Office and Lockheed Martin have finalized the contract for the production and delivery of up to 398 F-35s for $30 billion, including U.S., international partners and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) aircraft in Lots 15 and 16, with the option for Lot 17.

The agreement includes 145 aircraft for Lot 15, 127 for Lot 16, and up to 126 for the Lot 17 contract option, including the first F-35 aircraft for Belgium, Finland and Poland.

Lot 15-17 aircraft will be the first to include Technical Refresh-3 (TR-3), the modernized hardware needed to power Block 4 capabilities. TR-3 includes a new integrated core processor with greater computing power, a panoramic cockpit display and an enhanced memory unit.

These aircraft will add to the growing global fleet, currently at 894 aircraft after 141 deliveries this year. The F-35 team was on track to meet the commitment of 148 aircraft as planned; however, due to a temporary pause in flight operations, which is still in effect, necessary acceptance flight tests could not be performed.

The finalized contract caps off a year of the F-35 delivering combat-proven airpower around the world and continued international growth. This year, Finland, Germany and Switzerland signed Letters of Offer and Acceptance (LOAs) as an important step in their procurement of F-35 aircraft.

F-35 program participants currently include 17 countries. To date, more than 1,870 pilots and 13,500 maintainers have been trained, and the F-35 fleet has surpassed more than 602,000 cumulative flight hours.

Wow, that goes fast now.. The first headline of this kind, in the war-mongering, bellezistic german MSM:

Warum es fast ausgeschlossen ist, dass die Ukraine noch siegt
Why it is almost impossible that Ukraine will still win

Till today they told us every single day that Russia has no more soldiers, no more ammunition, has no nothing anymore, especially not a chance of winning anything. And now, the article is no 30 minutes old:

"As bitter as it is, a Ukrainian victory is becoming less likely every day. Kiev's army is running out of men and material, the enemy is adjusting better and has huge supplies at its disposal. No wonder Western diplomats are now increasingly talking about ceasefires."

Rest of the article is behind a paywall so leaving the link doesn´t make much sense.

If i would have written these facts into a comment section of any MSM here in Germany i would have been banned instantly and called a Putin lover or even worse. But now it´s exactly the war hungry propaganda MSM that tells us the facts everybody whoonly wanted to see could see anyway. We pumped billions of tax money and weapons into a barrel without a bottom, to achieve nothing more than more dead young people on both sides. Without all the west´s money, equipment etc that thing over there would have ended three weeks after Russia entered the stage over there, to protect the ukrainian citizens who´s only fault it was to live in the eastern of the Ukraine, terrorized for that by the fascists and foreign-controlled criminals in Kiev and their Azov Nazi troops.

Seems like the wind has changed pretty fast.
Cheers

originally posted by: JAY1980
They said the same **** about patriots and tanks.

America and NATO are using Russia to destroy their evidence of their bio-labs, chemical labs, and organ harvesting operations. They will continue to arm Ukraine until they are satisfied there is nothing left.

That is why Russia appears to care more about Ukranian infrastructure than Ukranian or NATO does. There is evidence in Ukraine of some seriously sinister stuff going on.
linky

a pre-emptive

Wow, Biden grew a set. Color me shocked.

originally posted by: Creep Thumper
Wow, Biden grew a set. Color me shocked.

Biden probably couldn't get his usual 10% in the deal

a reply to: BaconCrusader
or...as in Afghanistan...they leave all the topnotch stuff for the Ruskies to get upon their arrival.

originally posted by: putnam6

originally posted by: Creep Thumper
Wow, Biden grew a set. Color me shocked.

Biden probably couldn't get his usual 10% in the deal

The question is why will he send everything BUT fighter jets. What's the angle?

the F16 disposition is still in number-crunching mode, i think those crafts are destined for Taiwan Defense now & later or else a nagging problem to China strategists vs USA planners to keep them moving all around the orient/oceania

a reply to: Zaphod58

Interesting.

Good luck to them, my guess is they will be fast learners, because they will have to be.

originally posted by: putnam6
thought this was interesting and found it on F-16.net which backs up Belgium mothballing F-16s they had 160 F-16s and Poland had 48 F-16s and both have ordered F-35s. So it would seem they would potentially have F-16s to send

I think you have the number of Belgian F-16s a bit off. Multiple sources state they have 44 F-16As and 8 F-16Bs. The -B is the training model, though combat capable.

Flight Global page 13 (PDF)
WDMMA.org

It will be years before the Belgian and Polish F-35s and built and deliveries are complete. It will be even longer until the squadrons will be operational. Neither can do away with the F-16s before then.