F/A-18 Versus F-16
Which aircraft should we be sending to Ukraine?
In an ideal world, the West would have sent to Ukraine at least 200 Swedish Gripen fighter jets, along with requisite armaments, not later than June 2022. This would have had a major impact on the Russian invasion and today thousands of Ukrainians would still be alive. Unfortunately, Western “leaders” and far too many flabby senior military officers (most notably that total disgrace to his uniform, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and all-round dullard General Mark A Milley) pretended that Ukraine “didn’t need” fighter jets or “wasn’t ready” to operate them.
Fast-forward to today and we believe that a trickle of F-16s may perhaps be delivered to Ukraine by the end of the year, and if not then probably at some point in 2024. As for their armaments and equipment, the probability is that these elements will be kept as basic as possible so as to avoid upsetting the Russians. As always, our support is far too late and there will be far too few to make a major difference. But the larger question is: should we actually be sending a totally different aircraft?
Critics of the F-16 make some valid points. It’s a delicate aircraft that requires lots of maintenance, has a myriad of expensive and complicated spare parts, and requires pristine runways in order to take off and land. In…
