Russian Warplanes Breach Nato Airspace Over Estonia
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Russian warplanes breached NATO airspace over Estonia, prompting a discussion on the capabilities of modern fighter jets and the effectiveness of military strategies.
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Sep 19, 2025 at 11:26 AM EDT
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Earlier this year, HN discussed the value of the F-35 (a plane I'm quite fond of!)
During that discussion, one overlooked point was the top speed of the F-35. At-altitude, the F-35 cannot intercept a MiG-31. Flying nap-of-the-earth would be a different discussion, but Russia knows this. Their planes commit an incursion, waited for a response, and then exited once they detected the response. They were in control of the entire intercept, from the start to the end.
This is what we mean, when we say Russia is "testing" us. They want to see if a serious response exists to these threats; an F-35 is a glorified ground-attack jet. It's an amazing piece of kit, but it can't do much besides lob an AMRAAM in a situation like this.
That's pretty much the status quo during the cold war anyway, speed or not. You measure response times, where it came from, and so on.
(IIRC the laws against weaponised lasers are only for intentional blindness, not incidental while e.g. cutting a fuel line).
The fact is that the F-35 was not designed to be an interceptor fighter jet. Rather, it was designed to use its stealth features, advanced sensors, and long-range missile capabilities to detect and destroy a MiG-31 well before the MiG-31 could even become aware of it. Whether the F-35 is a suitable aircraft for dealing with the aforementioned MiG-31 provocations is another question.
For a pure interception-style mission profile, an F-15 or even F/A-18 would perform much better. A Rafale or Eurofighter platform would also suffice. The F-35 is a Joint Strike Fighter though, and I think people forget why it was made. It's a bomb dropper, the F-16 will outperform it in a one-circle and two-circle engagement. The F-35 is just not built to dominate air combat, and that's okay. It only becomes an issue when customers don't know what they're buying.
Let's start with this, Russia knows that NATO fears escalation. As long as their MiGs don't open fire, they can maintain an ambiguous international stance (even if they were definitively wrong). SAM operators would hesitate to open fire; in training they learn that modern decoys can spoof RCS and potentially endanger civilian aircraft in the confusion. So, they raise the issue with their allies and see if a response can be scrambled to deter further airspace violation. Assuming Russia never intended to escalate, this is the point in their plan which they bail out.
You're correct that Zaslon is largely useless here; the IRST is much closer to SOTA and well-integrated with the R-77 and R-73 missile family. These are pretty demonic missiles if you're a stealth aircraft, and they can be queued off-boresight to deter anyone from wanting to get close: https://youtu.be/a6TiPNW512g
Ukraine might have demonstrated that smart, smaller weapons will or even have taken over the battlefield. And they brought down a stealth fighter with boring old flak in the Balkans decades ago.
Part of the issue is optimizing for weight/G pull, versus a high-sustain motor. A lightweight 50G missile has a very high P/K off the rail, but the longer it flies the harder it is to capitalize on your G rating. If the pilot notches it, you can potentially outrun the dangerous portion of the missile burn and force it into a sustained glide where the warhead is harmless.
Contrast this with other missile designs like the MBDA Meteor, which probably has a relatively low G pull. Much less maneuverable, but it also remains dangerous for much longer than even an AMRAAM. Optimizing for these kill envelopes is what you want, if shooting down MiGs is your goal. By the time you're close enough to fire a 50G missile, you've got a helmet-queued R-73 hot-and-ready delivered through your canopy.
I will leave you with the audio of an Su-34 defeating a MiM-104 (content warning: distressing) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD_en_xvSvU