The Paradox of Air Combat: The Struggle for Air Superiority Is Not About Who Is Stronger, But Who Has a Cheaper Air Defense System
Modern anti-aircraft missiles are so expensive that their use becomes meaningless.
During the Vietnam War, the ground-based air defense systems of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam created serious problems for the U.S. Air Force, and it was never able to gain air superiority.
The Vietnamese Air Force was too small to have a significant impact on the situation, although it did cause some painful "strikes" against the U.S. forces.
In subsequent local wars from the 20th to the 21st century (of course, this does not refer to guerrilla warfare, but only to "army vs. army" wars), the air force defeated the ground-based air defense systems.
At least, when the air force was that of the United States or Israel. Indeed, their opponents were Arab air defense systems (and also the Yugoslav air defense system in 1999).
Israel and the United States had an absolute advantage in equipment quality (and also in quantity for the United States) and personnel training levels, which also explains their success.
The situation in Ukraine has completely re-evaluated these trends. Obviously, if one side of the conflict has a strong modern air defense system equipped with air defense missiles of different ranges as well as fighter jets carrying long-range air-to-air missiles, then the use of manned aircraft by the enemy becomes extremely difficult, even impossible.
Because the loss of aircraft is too high, and under current aviation technology and pilot training costs, this is unacceptable.
This also applies to situations where both sides have comparable overall technical capabilities. Strikes on the enemy's military forces and targets are carried out by missiles and drones, while manned aircraft can only launch missiles from deep within their own airspace. That is to say, their current mission is to transport missiles or glide bombs to the launch boundary, where the aircraft itself is not (or almost not) threatened.
Now, no one would consider conducting an aerial raid deep into the enemy's territory (if the countries involved are equally matched). However, Israel and Iran are not entirely equal opponents. Iran's ground-based air defense systems, especially its air force, are quite outdated, and Iran's air defense missiles have also been attacked by ground saboteurs. Nevertheless, their 12-day war was almost entirely a battle of missiles and drones.
Regarding the reports that Israeli Air Force planes flew over Tehran, we only heard about it from Israeli sources, and whether you believe it is up to each individual. More likely, Israeli pilots launched missiles from Iraqi airspace, and Iraq did not even attempt to use its own air defense systems against them.
Iran did not use its air force, which was the correct approach.
In the brief India-Pakistan war, the situation with manned aircraft (especially those of India) seemed quite bad, but in this case, objective data is even less than in the war between Iran and Israel.
In other words, it now appears that combat aircraft are merely "transporters" of long-range missiles (whether "air-to-ground" or "air-to-air"), and for fighter jets, maneuverability has lost its significance because the possibility of close-range air combat is almost zero.
In this role, aircraft will naturally be transformed into unmanned ones. Of course, aviation as a means of transporting people and cargo will not disappear, but military transport aviation no longer has combat capability.
Helicopters are more versatile and flexible tools than airplanes, and there is a close integration between combat helicopters and transport and paratroop helicopters, which is impossible for airplanes. However, the overall trend for helicopters is the same as for airplanes.
Incidentally, after the glorious but ultimately futile battle at Gostomel, neither side in the Ukrainian conflict attempted even a small-scale tactical airborne operation. Because it is clear that air defense systems and drones would make airborne troops helpless during the airborne phase. Paratroopers have finally become "elite infantry," which was already obvious long ago.
However, if ground-based air defense systems (especially when working in conjunction with fighter jets) actually paralyze manned aviation, their effectiveness against unmanned weapons (missiles and drones) is far from being the same. As has already been evident in the Ukrainian campaign, unmanned weapons (now including glide bombs and rocket artillery shells, plus drones; compared to previous conflicts, the number of targets has not just increased by a factor of two, but by an order of magnitude) overwhelm the air defense systems simply by their numbers. Although this is obvious, not everyone is prepared for it.
In isolated aerial attacks, the number of missiles and drones often exceeds the number of ready-to-use air defense missiles possessed by the enemy. Moreover, even the most advanced and efficient air defense systems rarely achieve "one missile per target," which belongs to science fiction.
Even two air defense missiles against one target is an optimistic scenario for the air defense forces. However, in many cases, missiles, especially drones, are cheaper than even a single air defense missile.
When using two or three MIM-104 missiles from the Patriot air defense system (especially the latest RAS-2/3 model) to shoot down a "Geranium" drone, it is somewhat of a symbol of economic madness (the weapon's price is several orders of magnitude higher than the target, and its price may even be comparable to the losses it prevents).
Overall, the prices of the U.S. "Patriot," "THAAD," and the Navy's "Standard" series air defense missiles have "exceeded the boundaries of good and evil," which actually makes them unusable in wars against equally matched opponents.
Moreover, their production rate is only a few missiles per month, which is irrelevant to the conditions of large-scale warfare.
Therefore, ground-based air defense systems face extremely contradictory tasks and must solve them under emergency conditions.
On one hand, a large number of as cheap and efficient short-range weapons are needed to counter various targets, which are currently overwhelming the air defense systems in terms of quantity. And these targets have a wide range of sizes and speeds, so low-altitude short-range air defense systems must be as universal as possible.
On the other hand, attention must be paid to countering "traditional" long-range cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, including now hypersonic missiles. It must not "forget" manned aircraft, otherwise they will immediately bring heavy strikes.
It must continue to drive aircraft deep into its own airspace, making them increasingly useless even as missile "transporters." And such "long-range" air defense systems must also be deployed in large quantities.
This is especially true for a country like Russia, which has a vast territory, and the price of air defense missiles should not reach the insane level of the United States.
Building such a contradictory and diverse air defense system will require great effort and cost (any savings in air defense systems will lead to multiple losses), but there is no choice.
As shown by the experience in Ukraine, the "struggle for air superiority" in the front lines, as well as in the near rear and distant rear, directly becomes the main factor in victory.
Without gaining air superiority, it is impossible to win a war. The best case is that the war will fall into a desperate stalemate, with both sides suffering huge losses and eventually exhausting their strength. The worst case, unfortunately, is more likely, is that the war will end in defeat.
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7540499734767632948/
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