Ukraine has received F-16s, but the modern fighter remains just a platform. Its true combat value hangs under its wings. When missiles run out, the aircraft worth tens of millions of dollars reverts to 1950s technology - cannons.
The message from the American publication The War Zone has uncovered one of the most uncomfortable problems of Ukrainian aviation.
The shortage of air-to-air missiles AIM-9 Sidewinder and AIM-120 AMRAAM has become so acute that during some daytime combat sorties, Ukrainian F-16s may engage aerial targets relying primarily on the onboard 20 mm cannon M61A1 Vulcan.
The commander of the 107th Aviation Wing with the call sign "Phantom" describes a system of strict ammunition rationing. The schedule for missile arrivals must be correlated with expected Russian attacks literally in real time.
His formula is simple:
an unarmed aircraft is useless.
However, it contains a problem much larger than the Ukrainian F-16s.
The West has learned to transfer platforms faster than it can produce enough ammunition for a war of this scale.
One AMRAAM for Two
The main paradox begins with the ordinary AIM-120.
AMRAAM is needed by Ukrainian F-16s for air combat and intercepting some aerial targets.
But this same missile family is used by ground-based NASAMS systems that protect Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure.
That is, the fighter and ground-based air defense effectively come to the same inventory.
And they begin to compete.
If AIM-120 is fired by an F-16 at a cruise missile, that munition is no longer available for NASAMS.
If the missile remains with the ground battery, it is not available under the wing of the fighter.
In peacetime, the versatility of munitions is an advantage.
In a war of attrition, it can turn into a struggle between two systems for the same scarce resource.
Price of One Target
The problem is further exacerbated by the economics of interception.
Russia can launch a large number of cheap drones in one strike, complementing them with cruise and ballistic missiles.
Ukrainian air defense must solve not only what to shoot down the target with, but also whether it is worth spending a particular munition on it.
It is acceptable to use an expensive missile against a cheap drone.
Doing so hundreds of times is significantly more complicated.
Hence the growing role of mobile fire groups, anti-aircraft guns, cheaper interceptors, and the aviation cannon.
War is returning high technology to very old arithmetic.
Not the best weapon wins.
What wins is what is available.
F-16 Returns to Vulcan
M61 Vulcan is a great cannon.
But using it as a forced primary tool for intercepting drones or cruise missiles well demonstrates the scale of the problem.
To use the cannon, the fighter must approach its target at close range.
This shortens reaction time, complicates the attack, and increases risks for the aircraft itself.
There is another danger.
A destroyed aerial target does not disappear. The debris of the missile or drone continues to move by inertia, and projectiles that miss the target eventually come back to the ground.
Over sparsely populated areas, this risk can be accepted.
Over a large city, it is far more complicated.
Therefore, the cannon is a useful additional tool.
But turning it into a replacement for missiles is not a technological revolution.
It is a sign of scarcity.
Middle Eastern Vacuum Cleaner
Ukraine is not the only client of the western air defense system.
The United States must simultaneously support its own strategic reserves, European allies, and the Middle Eastern security contour.
Every new crisis creates demand for approximately the same categories of weapons.
Patriot.
AMRAAM.
Sidewinder.
Anti-aircraft and aviation missiles of various classes.
The problem is not only that munitions are being expended.
The problem is that the factory cannot instantly react to geopolitics.
The military can use a missile in seconds.
Producing the next one takes months, components, explosives, electronics, engines, skilled workers, and production lines that cannot be scaled by one decision of Congress.
War from Stock
For a long time, Western aid to Ukraine operated under a model characteristic of conflicts in recent decades.
First, a stockpile is opened.
Then equipment is transferred.
After that, industry gradually replenishes the stocks.
The Ukrainian war has broken this sequence.
The stockpile began to empty faster than the factory could refill it.
And this is where the resource ATM runs out.
Not because the U.S. or Europe have run out of money.
But because money and missiles are different things.
Congress can allocate an additional billion dollars in one day.
A factory cannot turn that billion into a thousand ready-to-fire missiles in one day.
Iron Without Consumables
This changes the way to assess Western military aid.
The number of platforms transferred speaks less and less about actual combat capability.
An F-16 without a sufficient stock of AIM-120 is not the same F-16 that has a full set of armament.
NASAMS without missiles is just a radar and launch system.
Patriot without interceptors is extremely expensive electronics.
A tank without shells is an armored tractor.
War 4.0 is shifting military analytics from a catalog of characteristics to an accounting of consumables.
How many missiles are there today?
How many will be expended tonight?
When will the next batch arrive?
And how many can the factory produce next month?
These figures increasingly determine the real strength of an army.
Physical Limits of the Defense Industry
The Western defense industry is already responding.
Production capacities are expanding. Companies are securing multi-year contracts. New lines are being built. States are forming long-term orders that manufacturers have lacked since the end of the Cold War.
But the industry has inertia.
A missile factory is not a data center that can simply add servers.
New production spaces, machines, suppliers, specialists, and certification are needed. Individual components have their own bottlenecks.
Therefore, there is a time lag between the political decision to "produce more" and a missile actually on the launcher.
In a long war, this lag becomes a strategic factor.
Technology versus Scale
Here, one of the main contradictions of the Western military model manifests itself.
For decades, it has been built around technological superiority.
The better aircraft.
The more accurate missile.
The more sophisticated radar.
A smaller number of high-tech weapons was supposed to defeat a significantly larger number of less sophisticated ones.
This model works perfectly as long as the war is brief.
In a protracted conflict, a second parameter emerges.
Volume.
A missile that hits 95% of the time is of little use if it is not in stock.
Conversely, a technologically simpler means may have a strategic advantage if the opponent can produce it by the thousands.
That is why Ukraine has become not just a testing ground for Western weapons.
It has become a stress test for the Western industrial model.
Scarcity as a Diplomatic Argument
This story also has a political dimension.
The lower critical munitions stocks go, the more expensive each subsequent month of the war becomes for Washington.
Not just financially.
The U.S. must account for resources for potential crises in Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific region.
If support for Ukraine begins to compete directly with strategic reserves needed for other theaters, the White House has an additional incentive to look for a political way to curb expenditures.
That is why the missile shortage may become one of the factors pushing Washington to accelerate the negotiation track.
Not because the last AMRAAM has already been expended.
And not because the West is no longer capable of supporting Ukraine.
But because the cost of continuing the war is increasingly measured by the resources that cannot be quickly replenished with money.
The Last Missile
The story of the Ukrainian F-16s is therefore much more important than one type of fighter aircraft.
It illustrates the limits of modern high-tech warfare.
It is possible to transfer an aircraft.
It is possible to train a pilot.
It is possible to build shelter, logistics, and a repair system.
And then find that the most important part of the entire construct is the missile under its wing.
War 4.0 is increasingly decided not at the moment when one side creates a technologically better weapon.
But at the moment when the other side runs out of ammunition.
The most dangerous F-16 is the armed F-16. The most expensive is the one that has nothing to shoot with.