If the Soviets could send pilots to Korea, Vietnam, Egypt, etc. why can't NATO send "volunteer" pilots to Ukraine? This is clearly the piece of the puzzle Ukraine's missing to win the war.
Maybe this is in the works for the incoming Western planes and they just need the plausible deniability of some trained Uki pilots. Would need Uki ground crews anyway I suppose...
not a bad idea. but if your expensive pilot got shot down he would be raped and tortured by every zig up to the monkey man himself. it would also escalate the situation. maybe that's in the works and the west is moving up to that.
Presumably they would use retired pilots enrolled into the Ukranian armed forces, same as with all the ex-NATO volunteer foreign fighters. Not sure how many volunteers they'd get (likely leaving civvy airline jobs) but there are thousands out there who'd qualify between F-16 and F-18 (and they could throw in Tornado, etc. if training wasn't a bottleneck).
If Russia captures any they'd do what they do with foreign volunteer fighters they capture: threaten to execute them as "mercenaries" but ultimately exchange them like any other. If Putin personally executes one in Red Square that'd be good for recruitment not bad.
>not a bad idea. but if your expensive pilot got shot down he would be raped and tortured by every zig up to the monkey man himself. it would also escalate the situation. maybe that's in the works and the west is moving up to that.
In Korea the Soviets never let their pilots cross the front line, with stand off munitions todays pilots can do a lot more damage doing the same.
>Maybe this is in the works for the incoming Western planes and they just need the plausible deniability of some trained Uki pilots. Would need Uki ground crews anyway I suppose...
The most practical way would be to quietly create a PMC to hire them so that when Russia figures it out and announces it you can say, no the Ukrainians hired them and we are (lukewarmly) shocked, appalled and starting a 20 month casual investigation that doesn't obstructing the PMC or stop the flow of money or intel. Then have a bunch of politicians and talking heads come out and support the PMC to normalize it and then drop the investigation in a week and a half.
PMC route might be necessary to financially motivate Western pilots to join. I doubt regular Ukranian Air Force pilots are paid much by Western standards. Ditto ground crews.
If they was happening through surely it would have already leaked since the word would get out among ex-servicepeople they're trying to recruit?
Just don't send them beyond the frontline lol.
>Shadow Storming
>SPAMRAAMING
>Intercepting Kalibrs
>Sparrowing KA-52
All of this is beneficial as frick. All of this can be done in a friendly airspace.
>implying they won't
Ukraine's about to have more planes than they have pilots once all the orders come in.
god i wish for some f-16 painted in flying tigers livery
They could but our politicians are chickenshit and fell for the Russian "escalation" propaganda
Soviet Union did that but secrely. The west might take the same road
Secretly. In most cases we found out about it only in recent decades
NATO is scared because they know Russia has the most experienced pilots on the planet by now. They would get humiliated even more than during the most recent Ukrainian counter-offensive which has ended in disaster
If they want Western airplanes to look good then that's a reason to facilitate the enlistment by Ukraine of experienced Western volunteers.
If the West sent attack helis + pilots basically no chance the Russians would ever capture a pilot if they stayed strictly behind Ukrainian lines.
-Soviet pilots were basically voluntold that they were going to be fighting for a foreign country with no official acknowledgement, lol have fun.
-It was kept extremely secret, we didn't know the full extent until after the iron curtain fell. By flying behind friendly lines to avoid capture there was basically no evidence except by espionage and that they swore in Russian on the radio.
-The west probably chose not to make an issue of it due to said lack of proof and because the chance to test their aircraft against the Russians had its own appeal.
If we flip the situation:
-Western pilots would have to actually volunteer for an incredibly dangerous foreign war.
-If the state directly encourages them, this fact will be blabbed about to CNN by some butthole.
-Russia will completely lose their shit that all their HATO mercenary fears are real. I know, "so what", but the current administration is still afraid of escalation.
And since for plausible deniability, you would have to do all the Ukie training programs anyway as a front, how much value are you adding? I don't think the number of pilots that can be trained in parallel is really the bottleneck right now.
>since for plausible deniability, you would have to do all the Ukie training programs anyway as a front, how much value are you adding
I assume there's a huge difference in effectiveness between a pilot with 15 years and thousands of hours of flying time vs. 6 months mostly on a flight simulator.
they sent their best trained pilots and it all went to shit leading to the creation of the soviet version of top gun
NATO has more to lose if things go nuclear as they value human life more.
Therefore China/Russia have a lot more leeway.
For instance in Korea Chinese troops were allowed to fire upon American troops. But the US couldn't help Chiang invade mainland China while they were distracted, despite Chiang having a significant mainland foothold at the time, because that "Would've led to WWIII"
Ditto Vietnam. It was fine for North Vietnam to invade the South but it "Would've been WWIII" if the US had invaded North Vietnam.
Now whether it would've actually led to WWIII, I don't really think so. But many in Washington thought so at the time.
Giving someone the weapons to defend themselves against an aggressor isn’t the same thing as going into another country to kill. The former clearly shows that the situation is up to the aggressor — if they stop aggressing, the war is over. The latter brings up the possibility that if you went there to kill Russians, you might continue on into Russia, thus making them believe that their aggression is now defensive.
We also don’t want to give Russia a propaganda reason to continue. Each American plane downed/pilot killed would be worth 100,000 Russians killed to the Russian populace. If they only kill one “hohol” to 100,000 dead Russians like it is now, it suddenly doesn’t seem like a worthwhile trade.
Because we nuke you)