HISTORY

ty Forum in Aspen, Colorado he said that

the USA consider supplying Ukraine with

the 4th generation fighters. According to

him there are several options, from the US

made fighters to the aircraft manufactured

in Europe. He named Eurofighter Typhoon, Swedish Gripen and French Rafale. “It

will be something non-Russian, but I cannot tell you what exactly,” stated General

Brown. Why did we say he was vague?

General named all the existing Western

fighter types. None of those, however, are

available immediately and not in the sufficient quantities. The only available fighter

jets are American F-16 of the older production blocks. There are many of them

and ready for the immediate delivery. This

is also confirmed by the Ukrainian pilots

who only talk about F-16 and about potential deliveries of the A-10 attack aircrafts.

The Air Force State Secretary, Frank Kendall commented on this matter at the Aspen forum. According to him the A-10 deliveries are possible, but it largely depends

on Ukrainians whether they want them at

all. And Ukrainians were quite clear about

it: “Our country doesn’t need A-10s, we

need F-16s,” told Military.com server the

deputy to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense Juryi Sak.

Time Magazine published the report on the

secret training center where the Ukrainian pilots train on the A-10 simulators,

however in this case it is another innovative volunteer initiative of ordinary Ukrainians. There is a soldier behind it who,

while being shot at in the trenches, imagined that A-10, which he knew from Iraq

war footages, would come to his aid. The

simulators were built by volunteers from

the widely accessible components. It is

certainly beneficial to have a pilot with at

least minimal training for various types of

aircraft however officials don’t subscribe

to this. “A-10 will not dominate our skies,

won’t stop the bombers and missiles. They

would become the target for the Russian

fighters and AA defense since we lack the

means to neither effectively cover them

nor break through the enemy AA defense.”

HARM in action

Things are getting better though, at least

in the case of the AA defense elimination.

During the first week in August the Ukrainian armed forces released the surprising

information that in one day they managed

to destroy four S-300 AA systems and one

Pancir-S. It immediately raised the speculations how they achieved this success.

On August 7, the Russian sources followed

up by publishing the photographs of the

fragments that clearly came from AGM-99

HARM (High Speed Anti-Radiation Missile) rocket. Further speculations followed,

this time what the launching platform was.

The ground launch pad was considered

this however was planned but never ma-

October 2022

MiG-29 wing showing HARM rocket on the inner attachment and R-73 rocket on the outer attachment.

The middle hard point is empty.

Detail of HARM missile fitted to the Ukrainian MiG-29.

terialized. Consequently, Pentagon confirmed HARM missiles supplies noting

the Ukrainians integrated them into their

Mig weapons system. Type remained unspecified but the only aircraft the Ukrainian AF deploys in this manner are Mig-29.

I was debated that the aircraft avionics was

modified to be able to use HARM and that

they may carry the targeting containers

AN/ASQ-213 HTS (HARM Targeting System).

The Ukrainians indicated that they had

modified four Mig-29 fighters for HARM

missiles deployment. Oleksy Arestovych,

advisor to Ukrainian president Volodymyr

Zelensky, stated that “with our four aircraft

armed with anti-radar missiles from 1980s

we decimated the Russian AA defense on

Dnieper’s left bank.” By mentioning the missiles from 1980s he may have intended to

say that HARM rockets were developed in

1983 and introduced into service in 1985.

They became famous during the operation Desert Storm in 1991 when they decimated the Iraqi radars. Arestovych could

have also indicated that Ukraine does not

have the latest version of these missiles.

While most of its users operate AGM-88E

type Ukraine received the older versions

AGM-88B, C or D. These rockets are capable of autonomous operation and if Ukrainians gave up some of their features the

modifications for use on Mig-29 could have

been minimal indeed.

Note to modelers

It’s rather improbable that Ukraine will

publish detailed photographs of their aircraft equipped with HARM rockets. Should

that happen the aircraft tactical codes will

be most likely censored. This seems to

be the recent practice – pictures and videos of the Ukrainian aircraft are shot in

a way to hide these numbers, or they are

censored. But if you want to build a scale

model of the Ukrainian fighter armed with

HARM rockets you can try MiG-29MU2 version. Its tactical number is white 12 with

thin blue outline and it is the only aircraft

of this version in the Ukrainian AF inventory. It had been upgraded to specialize in

the attacks on the ground targets and its

data systems enable it to carry the Western weapons. For that reason, it is highly

probable that it will be included among the

INFO Eduard

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