Quote:
Originally Posted by Suhiir
Given the expectations from Gulf-I it appears 25% losses in the initial strike to suppress opposition air defenses was considered high, but acceptable. After that initial strike I'd guess no more then 10%.
With the stealth, stand-off weapons, and smaller numbers of aircraft currently in use I'd suspect maybe half those numbers.
So in theory 5-10 days after the initial strike air losses could equal about 50% of the starting aircraft. At that point I'd suspect only high value missions would be undertaken so ground support for anything but a major attack/defense would be essentially nonexistent. Of course this assumes opposition air defense has not been eliminated or suppressed to the point of being noneffective.
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Interesting thoughts. I doubt too much will change v Third world and non State forces (at least until they can get their hands on more modern Chinese and Russian kit in the form of area SAMS, etc).
But I am sure you are about right if facing the likes of a major Chinese or Russian force.
In terms of UK forces the British Army really lacks any kind of area air defence right now (Rapier is getting very long in the tooth and lacks range), although RN Type 45 Destroyers could probably provide some in littoral operations.
On a more directly related to this thread point the British Army also lacks any kind of ATGM
under armour at the moment, and that is something they surely do need to fix for the proposed mobile 'Strike' brigades to make much sense.