I just wanted to point out that there are major shortcomings (you talked of the planning, how come that the air force wasn’t prepared for this likely scenario? Russia knew it would step in if Georgia threatens the autonomous regions). And these shortcomings are not solved by investing into the MiG-31 fleet.
There are certainly shortcomings. I do agree on that. Of course, every serious air force will have contingency plans and will be less or more prepared in case something happens.
Russia knew it (they would be rolling into Georgia in case something happens), but they couldn’t be certain of the exact moment of Georgian attack. In case they knew it (exact time of attack) then they could have been prepared accordingly – like the NATO was.
Everything else would be waste of resources. They would have to use their satellites extensively, do more recce flights, use their UAVs (I don’t know how many Russians have and in what condition they are) and conduct some “ground” intelligence – all in order to get locations of the air defense network (and this becomes even harder with mobile SAMs being present).
All I was saying is that they had to react fast (taking the situation on the ground into consideration) without many calculations and they had to undertake certain risks (having their men on the ground who needed CAS at the time).
If S-300 would have moved into Serbia, that wouldn’t have crushed NATO Air, but it would have slowed down the campaign. If we imagine Russian ground troops haven’t progressed that well and they would have been the need for more air assistance, there is a chance that we had seen more losses, maybe leading to a suspension of aerial attacks under certain conditions.
Even several battalions of S-300 would not save Serbia then, but would give some headache to the planners of the campaign and would cause some more losses from the NATO. Anyway, that’s irrelevant for this case as it is pure hypothesis.
Again, my point is that before money is wasted on MiG-31 it gos into relatively low profile investments of Suchoi 24 and 25 countermeasures and increase of training for those units.
Well from this position we don’t have a clear overview of what they really want right now. We can just assume. They (RuAF and armed forces in general) know much better their what their priorities are and from where the biggest threats are coming, so they are adapting according to their priorities. I am not saying that the RuAF will fall apart in case they don’t do their Foxohund modernization, or they they are about to face an imminent threat that will require that step to be undertaken. Just that they are doing what they need most (or can do most efficiently at the moment).
In my point of view those Su-24s and 25s of RuAF would be used only in case of some low-intensity conflict, and this means against much weaker adversary. And this kind of conflicts are not to repeat any time soon (well I may be wrong, but I really hope they don’t happen).
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