It seems non-guided bombs are obsolete in modern warfare outside a few niche cases. Russia shouldn't have been losing this many modern aircraft to shoulder launched missiles.
I think the main issue is RuAF ground attack aircraft sensors are not good enough. They are also increasingly needing to search for small targets like individual soldiers in cluttered areas like inside of cities instead of vehicles and troop formations in the open. Su-34M is supposed to have better sensors and they are working on targeting pods for Su-57. Those will be tested in Syria.
But the main deal to improve their situation in this part of the conflict, I think, would be to have combat drones. And Russia still lacks these in numbers.
You also cannot compare this with conflicts the US was involved in, like Iraq, a place which had been under sanctions for a decade.
I think so. The Su-30 and Su-34 are definitely new. A video of one Mi-24/35 shot down by MANPADS was published today. Another destroyed Mi-24/35 was photographed and that looks unique as well. At least one of the Su-25 looked new to me. I haven't studied the others yet.
Mi-24/35 are Soviet era aircraft designs. They made countermeasure upgrades to them during and after Afghan war but these are not as good against MANPADS are more recent Mi-28. Mi-28 was explicitly designed to reduce IR signature. The Su-25 has only had minor upgrades made to it adding GPS/Stellar navigation and little else. The design predates the Aghan war. Most Su-25 in RuAF do not even have those upgrades.
The RuAF is clearly intensifying its operational tempo, but are they running low on smart munitions and forced to fly low? One of the aircraft shot down near Chernihiv carried unguided FAB-500 bombs.
I think the problem is a combination of bad aircraft sensors and lack of smart weapons yes. But this campaign is just too large to use smart weapons like that even if the Russians had them. Not cost effective at all. The Russians do have helicopter systems with laser guided rockets which are really cheap but these are still not in mass production.
How were the Su-30 and Su-34 shot down? If it was MANPADS, that's really embarrassing.
I doubt it. Probably an Osa or something like that. The Osa can track a target without radar and then fire a missile at it.
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