| crissindahouse said: Too bad there aren't so many Storm Shadow and the French SCALP in stock. I hope Germany will also send some Taurus which are pretty similar. But we also don't have many of them (and even less which are ready to use) |
On the other hand, they surely won't need that many if it has a 100% hit rate as it will primarily be used for Russian bases and ammo depots and only in Ukraine territory. UK has an estimated 700 - 1,000 Storm Shadow missiles. France should have a couple hundred SCALP. Reportedly Ukraine has asked for Taurus which Germany should have a few hundred of.
The biggest issue is probably figuring out how to attach 3 different kinds of missiles to one Soviet jet, Storm Shadow and SCALP are essentially the same except they are designed to attach to different aircraft, I imagine the same applies to Taurus. I'm a little concerned wondering how long Soviet-era jets can keep this up, being adapted to all different sorts of missiles.
If the Jets hold up, a combo of Storm Shadow, SCALP, Taurus and ATACMS should be more than enough for Ukraine to cause serious damage to Russia's entire logistics and command setup inside of Ukraine. And they don't even have Storm Shadow's best version, the export version which Ukraine is using has a range of 290km but the UK used version has a range of 560km.
Wish we could send them to the best version, it'd be a lot safer for the pilots and nowhere in Ukraine will be safe for Russians including Crimea.
Funny to see Storm Shadow is 20 years old and Russia's Kinzhal is only 6 years old. Also I see that Storm Shadow is intended to be withdrawn from service in 2032 and replaced by the British/French made SPEAR 5...Maybe we can bring that timeline forward a little and send Ukraine more Storm Shadow.
