Editor’s Note: Soldiers in this story are stationed on the front and are identified only by their first name due to the nature of the information they are sharing.
KHARKIV OBLAST – Fighting throughout Ukraine is grueling, even for hardened veterans. For inexperienced troops recently plucked from civilian life, it's
Yeah, I’ve seen a number of different sources basically make this point, that a lot of training focus in the US involves figuring out how to optimally make use of stuff like air superiority, stuff like not having friendly-fire incidents. The US is really good at getting and retaining air superiority, so a lot of what matters is how best to leverage that.
A while back, I was watching this video of a couple of A-10 strikes in Afghanistan, with this in mind, and thinking “yeah, this is actually a really good example”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-5KkadJWAY
The soldiers here are not particularly concerned about the enemy shooting. They’re joking back and forth. The one guy who is deadly-serious is the controller directing the airstrike. Nobody is especially concerned about shooting back, though they’re fighting someone 200m away.
What they are very worried about is being clobbered by the airstrike if the controller messes up where he’s sending the thing. That is, the overwhelming concern isn’t actually the other side, but friendly fire incidents. People don’t stick themselves up to shoot, but to get good video footage of the enemy being clobbered by the airstrike.
The A-10 there wouldn’t be able to survive on the battlefield in Ukraine because of all the air defenses; those air defenses would need to first be destroyed for it to be doing what it is here.