Russian missile barrage tests Ukraine's new F‑16 fighter defence

Russians have conducted massive airstrikes on Ukraine in recent days, using their entire available arsenal. One of the key means of attack, aside from ballistic missiles, was cruise missiles, which the freshly delivered F-16 aircraft were also supposed to counter. Here’s how they performed.

The Russians launched hundreds of objects at Kyiv and other locations, comprising ballistic missiles Iskander-M, cruise missiles Ch-101 launched from Tu-95MS strategic bombers, and 3M14 Kalibr missiles fired from surface or underwater units, as well as numerous Shahed drones.

The Shahed drones served to complicate Ukrainian air defenses in dealing with the more difficult targets and were also used for mapping Ukrainian activities.

The real threat was the aforementioned cruise missiles. Aside from a more precise guidance system with a declared accuracy of about 20 feet (in wartime production, it will be worse), they have a much stronger warhead. For example, the standard Ch-101 has an approximately 880-pound high-explosive or penetrating warhead, but recently an improved model with an additional cluster warhead has appeared.

Missiles from the Ch-101 family can fly at low altitudes, often relying on terrain depressions such as canyons or riverbeds. Combined with a design incorporating stealth features, this significantly hinders efforts to hunt them using ground-based air defenses. To cover the entire border, Ukrainians must deploy radars every 25 miles due to the so-called radar horizon, which is practically unfeasible.

This is unfeasible, so the best approach is to use aircraft capable of supervising vast areas. Currently, the Ukrainian Air Force has a handful of MiG-29s and Su-27s. However, these are less effective as cruise missile hunters than the newly received F-16s.

The F-16s have significantly better radar systems for detecting difficult targets flying at low altitudes. They also have targeting pods adapted for detecting and tracking such objects. Subsequently, cruise missiles or drones are destroyed with AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles or even with the onboard six-barrel M61A1 20mm caliber gun.