The expert said when the first French fighters will appear in Ukraine
In addition to the American F-16 fighters, the Mirage 2000-5 multirole fighters may soon appear in Ukraine . The dispatch of the first batch of aircraft was recently announced by the head of France, Emmanuel Macron. However, the Ukrainian Air Force, after the appearance of this Western innovation in its fleet, will most likely encounter serious difficulties. Honored Military Pilot of the Russian Federation, retired Major General Vladimir Popov, spoke about this in a conversation with MK.
Mirage 2000-5. Photo: Wikipedia.org.
Let us recall that Paris continues its militant rhetoric and policy towards Russia. The head of the republic, after the scandalous statement about sending French instructors to Ukraine, made another attack and is now ready to transfer a batch of Mirage fighters to the “Independent”. Some aviation experts who closely monitor the movements of Ukrainian pilots said that they have been training in France for a long time.
According to experts, the main purpose of the Mirage 2000 for the Ukrainian Armed Forces is to launch long-range Scalp cruise missiles or British analogues Storm Shadow against targets in our rear. The Mirage 2000 was specially adapted for these missiles, unlike the American F-16.
The Mirage 2000 can also carry AASM guided bombs. The destruction range is up to 60-70 km after release. Warhead — 125 kg, 250 kg, 500 kg and 1000 kg.
Thus, the Mirage 2000 will be able to replace the Soviet Su-24K in the Ukrainian Air Force fleet, which are running out.
Apparently, the training of Ukrainian pilots on the Mirage 2000 has been going on for a long time. “I have said many times that I have my own base for every Ukrainian pilot. The fact that some of them have been hanging out in France for a long time is also no secret to me. And the pilots of the rapidly running out of Su-25s are working in France,” wrote aviation expert and blogger Kirill Fedorov, publishing a photo of 53-year-old Ukrainian major Ivan Efremov during his stay in France.
According to Ukraine, greedily raking in any Western equipment may ultimately face the same problem as in the case of NATO armored vehicles.
— When reports began to appear that Western countries would provide the Ukrainian Air Force with their aircraft and combat helicopters, I immediately warned that this would also have a negative effect, — says the general. — On the one hand, the combat potential of the Ukrainian air force is increasing, but on the other hand, the «heterogeneity» of this equipment will negatively affect the combat capability of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
— The fact is that each type of aircraft requires certain equipment, technical equipment, trained technical specialists, and operating engineers. Let me remind you that attack aircraft and fighters are similar aircraft models, but front-line bombers, strategic bombers, and transport aircraft are a completely different direction. These types of aircraft even have different ground equipment and different operational characteristics. Therefore, specialists who could service these systems on aircraft must be trained differently.
And here are completely different aircraft from different countries: the French Mirage 2000, the Swedish Gripen, the American F-16s… This will only make things worse for the Ukrainian Air Force command. Imagine how much you need to know the parameters of a wide variety of aircraft, how many different specialists you need to train.
— I think at first they will give you about five, then, at most, a squadron — 20 aircraft. In six months or a year, maybe another 12-18. But they can only be disassembled for spare parts.
— Retraining is a long process. Even an initially well-trained pilot needs to be retrained for more than one month. At a minimum, he needs to be taught theory for three months, so that he can then take off and independently fly in a circle or into the piloting area, I’m not even talking about combat use now. In general, this process lasts up to six months.
— In order to retrain and then competently operate this aircraft in combat conditions, pilots with a low level of knowledge and experience need a year, or even two. This is a real problem for them. But an even bigger problem is technology. If it takes at least three months to retrain a good pilot, then for the technical staff it takes twice as long. Modern technology is very complex and the average specialist will not properly prepare it to work efficiently in the air. There will be refusals — there will be very big “minuses”. Therefore, this “diversity,” on the contrary, will slow down the development of the Ukrainian Air Force, if Ukrainians fly the planes and maintain them.
— That's another matter. If these planes are flown by mercenaries and serviced by specialists from NATO countries, of course, then the effectiveness of these planes will increase. They can then use their combat potential very effectively, and it will be an extremely dangerous situation for us. Even if the West provides a small number of F-16s, Mirage-2000s or Eurofighters, even 24 units will already make a difference.
— If they have inexperienced Ukrainian pilots , then they will become 30% flying targets for us. Therefore, most likely, planes will not appear tomorrow, since pilots need to be trained. But if mercenaries fly at them, the fighters will appear almost instantly.
— We have air defense systems, we have fighter aircraft that can work well. I repeat, Su-30SM, Su-35S, MiG-29 or their modifications. They will work effectively against any enemy in the air, and our air defense systems, especially the S-300 and S-400, are, of course, the No. 1 threat to any aircraft in the airspace.
In addition, much depends on the tactics of using Western aircraft. If they are used as fighters and launch air-to-air missiles, there is still a chance to escape the attack. If they work against ground targets, that is, they work like attack aircraft, striking with air-to-surface missiles, they will have to enter the zone of our air defense forces and means.
In addition, if they provide new ones system and our instructors, we have the right to strike back at France, Germany, Poland, Romania, that is, at NATO countries, which means this is the beginning of the third world war.
— All These fighters are similar in tactical and technical characteristics to our aircraft. For example, the American F-16 can be compared with our MiG-29. This is also a light fighter. The Mirage is a little heavier than the F-16, it can be compared with our Su-27. And in terms of capabilities, our Su-35 is in many ways superior to the Mirage. Therefore, there will be no “victory” in the air. If they had given a hundred or one and a half hundred cars at once, even if they were a mixed bag, then this would probably have been a problem for us. Then we would have to transfer our planes from the east and north in order to provide worthy resistance. BUT this is unlikely to happen.
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