I fully support Ukraine, if it were up to me we’d be giving them fifth generation F-35 fighters so they can achieve air supremacy.
But I’m wondering what giving them F-16s is going to accomplish. I don’t know a ton about their capabilities or why a 4th generation fighter like the F-16 is going to be an advantage of other jets Ukraine already has like the MiG-29 or the Su-27, which are also 4th generation fighters like the F-16.
What advantages will the US made F-16 give Ukraine over the Soviet made 4th generation fighters Ukraine already has?
Does the F-16 have stealth capabilities so it can perform attacks deep in Russian territory? I thought only 5th gen fighters and bombers had that capability.
Will this affect Russias ability to fly jets and helicopters over Ukrainan territory?
Will it help Ukraine liberate territory in the east and south of Ukraine from the Russians?
Are the F-16s going to be upgraded to give them some 5th gen fighter jet capabilities?
Will it allow Ukraine to perform missions to attack Russian military and economic facilities deep inside Russia?
Mainly, compatibility with American weapons. It’s a pain to try to rig Ukraine’s Soviet-type jets to carry Western arms like the British Storm Shadow or HARM, but with F-16s they could carry AMRAAM and other American things with ease. And if America is indeed going to give AIM-120D as some rumors have said, that could give Ukraine a longer-ranged air-to-air missile than it’s had at any point in this war.
But also, Ukraine has been operating with a very small warplane fleet with little margin for error or spare since the war began. 85 additional fighters would give a lot more breathing room. One problem, though, is getting enough pilots trained; they have a shortage of that as well.
The F-16 has no stealth capabilities, and in fact, all of the ones that the Dutch, Norwegians or U.S. are donating are pretty old, only meant to serve a little while longer. None of them are the latest/advanced ones like the V-version being sold to Bahrain, etc. It’s not likely that they will undergo much meaningful upgrade since they are so old and long in the tooth, but AESA radars would sure be nice. My guess is that once the war is over, Ukraine will hurriedly try to replace them with new jets - perhaps new F-16s (if the production line is even still open by then) or some other new Western plane.
The F-16 (and other Western jets) are known to have better avionics and give the pilot better awareness, picture of the situation, etc. than Soviet jets. The F-16’s bubble canopy and high position of the pilot (sitting higher up in view than a MiG-29 pilot would) gives better view of what’s going on. I would imagine, also, that the F-16 is better capable of receiving data from the Swedish AWACS (being donated to Ukraine) than Soviet-type planes would.
Finally, one big advantage of the F-16 is that it’s the most plentiful Western fighter jet ever manufactured, so getting spare parts and maintenance for it would be a lot easier than the West trying to help Ukraine repair its Soviet jets.
Availability. The MiG-29s and other Soviet aircraft left over from the Cold War in NATO inventories have already been handed over to Ukraine, just like virtually all of the Soviet era tanks and IFVs that were lying around in NATO inventories. They also don’t have to be jerry-rigged to be compatible with Western weapons systems.
Believe it or not, even Russia is running out of Soviet era equipment to pull from storage.
They don’t really even do this now. Both sides mostly use aircraft to deliver ranged ordnance from within their own airspace, even if it means flying at low altitude to climb and pitch bomb or have helicopters do the same with rockets. Even flying within their own airspace close to the border isn’t safe, as the number of Russian aircraft downed in Patriot traps when Patriot batteries were moved close to the frontline testify to. Going in the other direction, Russia has enjoyed a monopoly on very long-range air to air missile and has shot down a number of Ukrainian aircraft with them from within the safety of being well within their own airspace.
The United States did buy 21 Fulcrums (MIG-29) from Moldova before, apparently for use in aggressor training in the States. Wish we could give it to Ukraine but it’s probably been stripped of anything useful by now.
Actual existence. Ukraine has lost a substantial chunk of its air force and is in an increasingly deep hole in terms of air support vs Russia. It needs planes of any sort. If not for all the aircraft shipped to Ukraine since the war began, their air force pretty much wouldn’t exist anymore, as it is it’s still shrinking and substantially out numbered. That’s #1 with a bullet.
#2 - There is 4th Generation and then there’s 4th Generation. The grouping covers a huge array of capabilities and unfortunately for Ukraine, their older versions were/are far inferior to the updated Russian aircraft they are up against. Particularly in terms of radars, ECM and engagement range. A Russian and Ukrainian variant of the same general class like the SU-27 are NOT the same at this point in time
The F-16s narrow that mismatch. Longer range radars with better engagement ranges. Better (vs frequently none) electronic counter-measures. As noted much, much better integration with the Western munitions that have been sent, particularly air-to-surface and air-to-air missiles that can only be crudely mounted and integrated on the Russian-designed air frames they currently have.
Basically Ukraine just needs more warplanes period and there are no more modern Russian-designed planes to easily source anymore. The kicker is that these F-16’s, though older, are still a good step up from what they were flying before, which were/are aircraft that have functionally already been either retired or heavily upgraded by their Russian opponents.
ETA: There are some problems with them of course. They’re limited to better, longer runways than most Soviet-designed planes and proper training is a massive logjam. Reports seem to indicate that transitioning pilots experienced with Russian air frames to American air frames is rather difficult. Just learning the basics of flying is easy - it’s all the automatic reflexes that will save your life in combat that are hard to unlearn/learn.
Isn’t the F-16 the plane that the US usually uses for Wild Weasel missions, finding and destroying enemy air defenses? If Ukraine could take out the Russian air defenses, that’d be game over, right there.
Basically yeah, since the original dedicated Wild Weasel program has been retired, but that’s a big ask. It’s not that simple as Russia has a lot of anti-air assets, losses are to be expected in SEAD (suppression of enemy air defense) missions and the Russian air force will not just sit there ineffectually watching their missile sites explode.
Best case scenario is probably punching a hole in enemy air defenses in one locality to then allow a CAP that can keep Russian air assets at bay while an offensive is launched (including Russian helicopters, which apparently did a lot of damage blunting the last Ukrainian offensive in the south). Better yet it would also allow for close support of attacking ground forces. This is kinda how Western combined arms offensives are designed to work. It is has been argued that the fatal flaw of the last offensive is that it was a Western plan without the normal Western combat infrastructure to support it.
Whether this will eventually be a force large enough and skilled enough to pull that off is an open question.
I don’t know what the JASSM-ER’s anti-radar capabilities are, but if the U.S. is willing to provide it and mate it to Ukrainian F-16s, it might be much better for Ukraine when going after Russian SAMs than using the Wild Weasel HARM approach, given the JASSM-ER’s longer range.
I know Tamerlane already responded to your question, but that program was in Vietnam 50 years ago. Wouldn’t the modern US military use F-22s, F-35s and cruise missiles to take out enemy air defenses nowadays?
Eventually the F-35 is intended to take over the duties. But they’re arriving slowly - deliveries are currently scheduled out to 2044. They’re still a shit ton of F-16s in service and a large number have been further modernized to close the gap while the F-35s arrive. They’re still even building a few for the export market.
That the F-16 is currently used by the USAF for SEAD missions doesn’t really mean anything, the HARM and other anti-radiation missiles have already been supplied to Ukraine for years now, and as has been noted the problem that both sides have been facing in using aircraft is that the Soviet Union invested a hell of a lot into effective surface to air missiles which both Russia and Ukraine inherited.
The USAF has historically used modified older airframes as dedicated Wild Weasel platforms, starting with the F-100F Super Saber in 1965 and ending with the F-4G Phanton in 1996. The F-4G was the last airframe specifically dedicated to the Wild Weasel mission. F-16s assigned to the SEAD mission are basic C/D models unofficially designated as F-16CJ/DJ.
