russia raises 50-year-old il-22s instead of a-50s to control its aviation
It seems that it’s not just a matter of quantity, but also the reliability of onboard equipment
During the telethon, Air Force spokesman Ihnat noted that as of Sunday morning, July 30, 2023, there was an increase in the activity of enemy aircraft of all types. In particular, Russian UAVs have been active in the skies on the border with Sumy region, and a total of 30 aircraft of all types, including drones, tactical aircraft, and IL-22 air control aircraft, were spotted in the Azov Sea.
In this message, it is worth paying special attention to the fact that the racists are using even their 50-year-old Il-22 aircraft to conduct hostilities against Ukraine, and that these “flying command posts” are mentioned in the plural.
The paradox is not even the fact that the Il-22 was manufactured almost half a century ago. The point is that the VKS RF initially intended to control the actions of combat aircraft of a completely different type of “boards” – radar surveillance aircraft of the A-50 and A-50U types, as part of a copy of the NATO doctrine of aviation employment, which provides for the mandatory use of AWACS aircraft.
The Russians used their A-50s to control the actions of their aviation and control the airspace even during the war against Chechnya in the 1990s and during the fighting in Syria, where Russia had no “conventional” adversaries with aviation at all.
Now we see that it seems that the Rashists have decided to “modify” the doctrine of using their aviation, and have begun to use “flying command posts” such as the Il-22 for control tasks. Probably, the Russians could have gotten away with the fact that there are more Il-22s than A-50s anyway.
According to The Military Balance 2023, there are 5 Il-22 and 12 I-22M aircraft in the Russian Aerospace Forces, as well as three A-50 and seven A-50U aircraft (but these figures probably do not take into account the already known losses, which are available in open sources).
In addition, the fact that the Il-22’s avionics could have been more reliable in terms of the frequency of avionics failures and, accordingly, the level of situational awareness for the “wards” of the Russian Aerospace Forces’ tactical aircraft could have played a role.
