• cygnus@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    Does Russia even have 1000 operational aircraft at this point?

    • Tosti@feddit.nl
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      11 months ago

      They are also used against hypersonic missiles the Russians have (kinzal etc.) and ballistics like s300 and s400.

        • Tosti@feddit.nl
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          11 months ago

          Yes they are, but in this conflict the Russians reconfigured some of them and use them in a ground to ground attackrole.

          They had shortages of other tactical weapons and apparently a nice stockpile of these missiles.

      • 100_percent_a_bot@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        You might want to put the hypersonic part in quotes, they’re basically just really expensive ballistic missiles that fly slightly faster. Considering their price tag, Russia would have probably been better off never developing them anyways

        • Tosti@feddit.nl
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          11 months ago

          Yes, but afaik the hypersonic term applies to weapons over mach 4. NATO also adds additional requirements for hypersonics, such as manourerability. But they have enough speed to qualify.

            • Tosti@feddit.nl
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              11 months ago

              Yes exactly, also each icmb would qualify (during re-entry they also pickup “some” speed)… but it seems like hypersonic is sort of a marketing sticker thing, like “green” and “low fat”.

              The NATO hypersonics that are being worked on should be able to make evasive manouvera at speed, will be interesting to see.