Russia and Ukraine flashpoint

[Zkuq]

shavenferret said:

Zkuq said:

I don't think any of the things you mentioned are considered game-changers. They've all had their impact for sure, but they haven't done much to change the big picture. Naval drones, maybe, and even that's mainly to allow for safer trade rather than impact on actual warfare. I guess if you consider those three game-changers though, new missiles could have a similar impact. I just don't think they're generally considered game-changers, and wouldn't consider them as such.

Without its F-16s, Ukraine would still be flying soviet heaps of shit.  That won't do squat.  Without the Patriots, they would have been a lot worse off.   Those AAA have kept Russia's planes a lot farther off otherwise.  You can't look at things only from the gain that they've displayed, but consider what would happen if they weren't around and/or had an inferior system.  You have to realize right now that Ukraine is fighting something much much larger than itself.  So, when we are talking about game changers, then it simply means that Russia won't fvck the country up even more in its absence.  You're saying that these are all marginal improvements, and they really aren't.  The things i've listed are necessary, vital, and contributed to a large degree. 

The expert opinions I've read have largely agreed on the effect of any individual weapon not being game-changing, and frankly that matches exactly my observations of the situation. The tides haven't turned after any of these weapons has been made available to Ukraine. Ukraine has too few F-16s to do much with them, so as far as I understand, they're mostly useful for AA and maybe something to restrict what Russia is able to do (without risking even heavier losses). Patriot systems protect Ukrainian cities, but militarily, I would guess they've mostly let Ukraine get away with less risk mitigation actions. I'm sure they've both been impactful and not necessarily even to only a marginal extent, but Ukraine would need a lot more of them for them to be truly game-changing. Without either of them, I imagine Ukraine would be doing worse but still OK-ish.