Land superiority is easier to match with improvisation, weather conditions and expendable soldiers. Air superiority is pretty much guaranteed with superior technology (which F16 might be) and well trained pilots. Also air superiority can shit the balance for land superiority

[–] sonori@beehaw.org 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I’m not sure a handful of old jets will be enough for proper air superiority, seed is hard and all that. I think the primary benefit is being able to much more effectively use a large part of the nato arsenal, which is much heavily foucoused around air launched munitions.

[–] thepreciousboar@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago

You might be right. F16 are close to 50 years old after all. Maybe they will just boost land superiority using the more available nato missiles. Still it's obvious that Russia is scared of them, threathening escalation if F16 were to be supplied to Ukraine