Let me repeat it for the people in the back - You cannot bullshit air defense like russia is.
So, they didn’t detect anything until the drones were almost there and scrambled to respond with the only thing around - a shiny new Su-57 being kept safely away from combat?
TBH these kinds of small, relatively slow moving and low flying targets are a terrible match for jet fighters so it’s not a surprise they didn’t stop most of the drones. I think we’d see other modern fighters struggle against them, too, especially without radar support from the AA batteries they’re using to protect Moscow, Kerch, and Valdai.
Aside from the obvious implications, using a 5th-gen fighter to shoot down attritable, saturation-strike drones is a hilarious mismanagement of resources. This is not a threat they should be throwing Su-57s at for any reason other than PR - and they fucked that last bit up too.
The likely only reason they were in the air was to prevent them from being hit out in the open on the tarmac.
Since they were in the air anyway, they might as well attempt (and fail) to hit the drones.
It’s probably not very cost effective compared to better-suited alternatives, but if they don’t have those alternatives, it’s probably better than letting the thing hit its target.
The next drone strike package needs to come with a few drones equipped with anti-air missiles. I don’t know if that is possible, but shooting down a fighter is just as valuable (or more) than whatever target the other drones are going for.
I imagine an AA missile would probably do some damage to a ground target as well if no aircraft engage it and it flys into a ground target as well.
