In 2 recent threads, many on this sub appear to have accepted Western propaganda at face value and drawn some pretty... questionable conclusions on the capabilities of F-16 vs SU-35 that defy common sense. However this was not a platform vs platform fight, it was a 4 on 1 ambush and a tactical win that likely wouldn't have happened without the Patriot. This is one of ways propaganda works: omission of key details that leads to erroneous conclusions.

I quoted FighterBomber in some comment responses, which did not draw the kind of acknowledgement I had hoped for from a Defense sub. You will see in Wes' commentary (and in the defense articles he cites) that FighterBomber's word is credible regarding VKS airframe losses (both in terms of whether it happened and how it happened), and that he's often cited in OSINT circles.

The man I'm linking here is Wes O'Donnell: ex-military commentator, not mainstream, but also not one of those "ex-military buffoon" types. His article sources its claims. https://wesodonnell.medium.com/a-deadly-ukrainian-f-16-air-ambush-just-downed-a-russian-su-35-17c86c27ff4e

Please note that this article was published on July 15 and therefore does not address the claims yesterday by General Dan Caine. I also don't think it matters whether the missile that shot down the SU-35 comes from the Patriot or from a F-16, and that the context of the fight determined the outcome; but I'll let you read and be the judge.

Here's the full text below because I know plenty of people wouldn't want to make a Medium account just to read this:

/===================================

A Deadly Ukrainian F-16 Air Ambush Just Downed a Russian Su-35

Wes O'Donnell Jul 15, 2026

One Ukrainian F-16 Flew Low. Two Waited High. A Patriot Watched the Border

Hey friends. We need to talk about this ambush.

Picture the moment from the Russian pilot’s seat…

You’re flying a Su-35, arguably Russia’s best air-superiority fighter, the plane its own air force hands only to its most experienced pilots.

Your radar is better than what the Ukrainians are flying, and it’s not close. The Su-35 carries the N035 Irbis-E, a big, brute-force phased-array radar that can throw out enough raw power to spot a fighter-sized target somewhere around 200 to 250 kilometers out.

Ukraine’s F-16s, mostly older jets donated by Denmark and the Netherlands, carrying the AN/APG-68, top out somewhere in the 100-to-150-kilometer range against a similar target.

In a straight head-on approach, you’ll likely have the Ukrainian on your scope minutes before he ever gets a return on you.

Plus, your missiles reach farther. You’ve spent months harassing Ukrainian aircraft near the front, forcing them to turn away before they can drop their bombs, and it’s worked every single time.

You feel like the ultimate hunter, perhaps the Predator from the 1980s Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.

Today looks like every other day. One lone Ukrainian F-16 flying low, lining up what looks exactly like a glide-bomb run.

So, you do what you’ve always done. You go get it. Работаем, братья.

Then the trap reveals itself, and by the time you understand the shit stew you just flew into, a missile is already seconds from impact and there’s not a single thing left to do about it.

What Ukraine confirmed, and what it didn’t

On July 8, Ukraine’s Air Force announced it had shot down a Russian Su-35 in the eastern sector. Hours later, Ukraine’s Third Army Corps posted drone footage of the aircraft falling in a flat spin, wrapped in fire, then burning on the ground in its area of responsibility.

Russian sources didn’t dispute the loss. Russian military bloggers, including the well-followed Fighterbomber channel, said the pilot ejected and survived, though Ukraine hasn’t independently confirmed that part.

What Ukraine has not said, publicly, is how the aircraft actually died.

Every detail about the ambush itself, the three-aircraft formation, the Patriot battery, which weapon actually fired, comes from Russian military Telegram channels trying to explain their own loss, not from a Ukrainian after-action report.

So, Ukraine confirmed the kill. Russia grudgingly confirmed the embarrassment. Everything that happened in between remains classified, disputed, or living inside Telegram’s natural habitat of half-facts, bravado, and men with call signs like Fighterbomber.

Here’s the version that’s circulating, sourced to Russian channels including Fighterbomber and a blogger known as Voivode, and picked up by outlets translating and compiling the claims.

One Ukrainian F-16, the bait, flew low toward the front, flying a profile that looked exactly like a Ukrainian jet setting up to drop guided bombs on Russian positions; the kind of mission the Su-35 has been sent to intercept for months.

Two more F-16s reportedly sat higher, out of the Russian pilot’s immediate view, armed with AIM-120 AMRAAMs.

Somewhere behind all three, a Ukrainian Patriot battery had allegedly moved to within roughly 60 kilometers of the front line, close enough to get real eyes on Russian-controlled airspace with its radar.

The Su-35 pilot did the thing he’d apparently done successfully many times before. He moved to intercept the low-flying jet. And once he committed to that intercept, the geometry of the fight quietly stopped being what he thought it was.

Fighterbomber himself, in a message laced with the kind of profanity you’d expect from a man explaining why his side just lost, put it about as honestly as a Russian source ever will. “Three aircraft plus a Patriot against one of ours,” he wrote.

Patriot or AMRAAM? Here’s why nobody can prove it yet

Every version of this story eventually snags on the same question: Did an F-16 kill the Su-35 with an air-to-air missile, or did the Patriot battery on the ground do it?

Some of the reporting says Patriot provided “target illumination” for the F-16s, and I want to slow down on that phrase because it’s not technically accurate.

The older generation of radar-guided missiles, the semi-active radar homing weapons like the original AIM-7 Sparrow, needed the shooter’s own radar locked onto the target and continuously radiating a steady beam for the entire time of flight.

The missile’s seeker wasn’t smart enough to find the target on its own… It just listened for the shooter’s radar energy bouncing off the target and steered itself toward the strongest reflection, which meant the launching aircraft was chained to that target the whole way in, unable to maneuver hard or break its own lock without the missile going stupid.

That continuous beam is what “illumination” traditionally means in the strict engineering sense; a persistent, dedicated radar painting one target for one missile’s entire flight.

AMRAAM broke that chain on purpose.

It’s an active radar homing weapon, meaning it carries its own miniature radar transmitter in the nose. For most of the flight, the missile is just navigating by inertial guidance, dead reckoning based on where the shooter’s fire-control computer calculated the target would be, occasionally refined by a data-link update from the launching jet if the target maneuvers.

Only in the final seconds, at a range Western fighter pilots call “pitbull,” does the missile’s own onboard radar switch on, find the target itself, and guide home independently.

Nobody has to illuminate anything for it at that point. It’s hunting on its own.

Which is why Patriot handing over a usable weapons solution isn’t as simple as it sounds. There’s a real difference between a search track, good enough to tell you something’s out there and roughly where, and a fire-control quality track, precise enough in range, bearing, and closure rate to actually compute a valid missile launch solution.

Patriot’s engagement radar is plenty capable of the second kind for its own interceptors, but handing that exact fire-control-grade data to an F-16’s weapons computer over a tactical data link, in a form the jet’s systems can actually use to generate its own AMRAAM launch parameters, is a nontrivial integration problem; not a given just because both systems are on the same Link-16 network.

It’s far more likely Patriot supplied Ukraine’s broader air-defense network with early warning and a rough vector, cueing the F-16 crews on where to point their own radars and climb into position, after which the fighters closed the loop themselves with their own onboard sensors before taking the shot.

That’s a valuable contribution… But it’s a different job than being the missile’s actual guidance source.

But don’t write Patriot off as just a spotter, because it has real teeth of its own. The PAC-2 GEM-T interceptor Ukraine fields is specifically built to engage aircraft, not only cruise and ballistic missiles, and Ukraine has run this exact play before, moving a battery dangerously close to the front, sitting it quiet under emissions control so Russian sensors can’t find it, switching the radar on only once a Russian aircraft commits to an engagement, firing fast, and then displacing before anyone can retaliate.

If that’s what happened here, the bait F-16 wasn’t luring the Su-35 toward a fighter at all. It was luring the Russian jet into a predetermined box where a ground-based SAM battery had already done its homework on the altitude, the geometry, and the timing.

My honest read, and it’s a lean rather than a conclusion, is that an AMRAAM off one of the covering F-16s is slightly more likely, based on how the two top-cover jets are described and the way the Patriot role gets framed as a sensor rather than an explicit shooter.

But I want to be straight with you. The public evidence doesn’t settle this. And it won’t be settled by burning wreckage, by a Telegram post, or by an aviation blog’s confident headline. It gets settled by missile fragments, radar logs, a cockpit recording, or an actual Ukrainian operational statement, none of which currently exist in public.

Regardless, here’s why I think the credit question, satisfying as it would be to answer, is actually the less interesting part of this story.

Ukraine appears to have studied a standard Russian habit: Spot a Ukrainian strike aircraft, scramble or vector an Su-35, use its superior altitude and missile range to force the Ukrainian jet away before it can drop its weapons.

That pattern has worked for Russia for months, which is exactly what made it exploitable. Ukraine merely needed to understand the Su-35 pilot’s decision cycle well enough to write the script he’d follow, then place the shooters, real or decoy, exactly where that script would lead him.

The old picture of air combat is two fighters finding each other with their own radars and killing each other with their own missiles, a clean duel between two similar machines.

What Ukraine appears to have run instead spreads that single engagement across a network.

One aircraft acts as bait. Two more sit as the hidden teeth. A ground radar feeds everyone a better picture than any single platform could build alone.

Russia’s best fighter may have found itself fighting three F-16s, a Patriot radar, and Ukraine’s entire ground-control network, all at once, several seconds before he understood any of that was happening.

Ukraine can’t afford to trade F-16s against Su-35s one for one. It has too few of the former and Russia has too many of the latter. What it can apparently do is build a temporary, local pocket where several Ukrainian systems gang up on a single Russian aircraft, then dissolve that pocket the instant the shot is taken.

Who cares if that’s not a fair fight? It’s a smarter one.

The gamble hiding underneath the win

Ukraine has painfully few Patriot batteries and even fewer interceptor missiles to feed them, and every single one exists primarily to protect cities from the ballistic missiles Russia keeps throwing at Kyiv.

Pulling a battery forward, within 60 kilometers of the front, to go hunting for a single fighter jet is closer to walking the family silver into a dark alley than it is to standard air-defense doctrine.

That battery has to relocate, establish communications, orient its radar, coordinate tightly with friendly aircraft sharing the same airspace, avoid shooting down its own F-16s in the process, take its shot, and then get out before Russian drones, Iskander missiles, or a Lancet operator hoping to become a local Donbas hero can find it parked in the open.

Just three days after this ambush, on July 11, Zelensky said publicly that Ukraine’s stockpile of Patriot interceptors had run dry, forcing him to push for faster diplomatic and weapons channels from allies.

So, if Kyiv genuinely spent one of its increasingly scarce Patriot missiles to bag a single fighter jet, in the same week its own capital was left thinner on the exact same weapon, that wasn’t a cheap flex. Whether that bet was worth it depends entirely on what Ukraine’s air-defense planners knew about their own dwindling stockpile that week, information the rest of us simply don’t have.

Still, Ukraine hasn’t named the weapon that made the kill. The three-F-16-and-a-Patriot formation comes entirely from Russian sources trying to explain a loss, not from an official Ukrainian account. The precise Patriot position hasn’t been independently verified.

The exact crash location remains vague by design in Ukraine’s own statement, and I’d resist the urge to pin it to a specific town the way some secondary reports have.

“Target illumination” may simply be an imprecise translation of a more mundane sensor-sharing arrangement. No missile fragments have surfaced publicly to settle AMRAAM versus Patriot one way or the other. And the pilot’s survival, while widely reported, still traces back to Russian sources rather than a neutral confirmation.

The history books will eventually credit an F-16 pilot with a missile switch flipped at exactly the right second, or a Patriot crew standing at a console sixty kilometers from a front line they had no business being that close to.

Russia has a more immediate and more uncomfortable problem than sorting out which one gets the credit.

A single Ukrainian F-16, flying low near the front line, can no longer be treated as one aircraft on one mission. It might be a bomber. It might be bait. It might be the visible, deliberately exposed tip of a trap that also includes two more fighters an enemy pilot can’t see and a ground radar he doesn’t know is already tracking him.

Every Russian pilot flying near that front line now has to fly with a new and deeply uncomfortable question riding in the seat next to him. What else is out there that I can’t see yet?

For three years, Russia’s tactical aviation has hunted from a position of confidence.

Ukraine just reminded them that every hunter can become the hunted. As Dutch’s team discovered in Predator: “If it bleeds, we can kill it.”

Слава Україні!

One of the benefits of nuclear powered ships is that they don't need a tanker following them and can go charging around at top speed without worrying about burning too much fuel. Trouble is, none for the escort ships can do so as well because they're all conventionally powered, and uncrewed surface vessels would have a similar issue. Putting a full-blown pressurized water reactor on a drone would negate any cost savings and is probably a bad idea from a safety perspective. Radioisotope thermoelectric generators, however, convert decay heat into electricity, so there's no moving parts to break and no risk of a meltdown. They're already used in uncrewed places like lighthouses along Russia's arctic coast and radar stations in Alaska. Plus the Navy could plug them into a base's electrical grid and reduce their electricity bills slightly when they're in port. RTGa can't be turned off so you might as well take advantage of the power.

The specific scenario that got me thinking about it was that the Defiant class (please hear me out before you smash that downvote button...) are going to be nuclear powered (please humor me and assume they'll be built). They could assemble a task force of the carrier, battleship, and perhaps half a dozen RTG powered USVs with missile launchers and perhaps a towed sonar array that wouldn't require an oiler following them around. A system like the Cooperative Engagement Capability could be used to relay data from the carrier's airborne early warning aircraft and possibly the USVs' sonar to the battleship's Aegis Combat System, which could then use that to order the appropriate USV to fire the appropriate missile or do so itself.

I suppose the two main questions are "can they be built without being too expensive" and "can they generate enough power for a 30+ knot ship". I did Google "radioisotope thermoelectric generator powered ship" and got no results so I'm assuming the answer is no, but I'm curious what everyone else thinks.

(now you may smash that downvote button)

"I'll note that recently we had the first air to air kill where a Ukrainian F-16 shot down a Russian fighter." On the July 8th shoot down of a VKS SU-35S.

I don't think this was ever a topic during the 40 beginning days of the war, or the ceasefire. Regardless of the fact that many people are saying the bunker buster bombs won't be effective against a target like this and so tactical nukes might be necassery, this mountain doesn't have anything to do with Iran's ability to close the strait of Hormuz or its ballistic missile capabilities. So unless the site is somehow so valuable to the Iranians that they would surrender or something for it to not get destroyed, it's not going to affect the important aspects of the war

With recent news of three 09V series boat (which could be one of the most advanced SSN class launched to date) launching in quick succession, the fast production of 09IIIBs (Estimated to be between 688i and early 774 in stealthiness but have much more modern combat systems) in the recent 4 years and the expansion of Bohai and now JN yard for nuclear powered boats, when added together are estimated to be able to construction and launch 7 SSNs per year at optimal capacity. Up to right now of this year, China has launched 1 or 2 09IIIB and 3 09V class SSNs for a total of 4-5 which is absolutely bonkers and is now by far the fastest at nuclear submarine production.

On the SSK side, PLAN has seemingly stopped or has vastly reduced the rate of construction of 039Cs, there was only one delivery this year with no further boats launched at Wuchang. This does also square with PLAN's public announcement of "focusing on nuclear". Though Wuchang still has large amount of assembly space focused on SSKs and despite the shipyard having nuclear certification, the assembly halls are too small for full sized SSNs and even if that were possible, Yangtze is too shallow for them to reach open seas.

As for SSBN, PLAN still seems to be significantly lacking here until the launch and commissioning of the 09VI class. The current 09IV and 09IVA seems to be quite inadequate for sea based nuclear delivery given the obsolete design forcing smaller missiles with limited range and payload and very high noise level making them effectively a moving target once in any semblance of open water. Though it's not all bad, allegedly according to Yankee, JL-4 has already been test launched via ground installation and shares similar technology to DF-51. The missile is expected to be meant only for 09VIs given its large size and should apparently be similar to the latest French M51 except scaled up by a bit in payload and range due to being physically larger.

With the above info in mind, I wonder what you guys think of the future of PLAN submarine fleet in 5-10 years? Personally, I expect the nuclear fleet to grow significantly, possibly to the point of rivaling the USN fleet in size in the next decade along with the retirement of obsolete classes like 09IIIA and relegating 09IIIBs to second line duties as 09V series begins mass production. On the other hand, I also think that the conventional fleet would shrink somewhat but still be modernised via replacement of obsolete units and possibly become more specialised for coastal patrols and defence in the next 10 years. As for UUVs, China is already building huge submersible drones on the length of ~50m and equipped with torpedo tubes along with other sensor drones, it is IMO likely that these could become the active part of an underwater detection network (along with being "royal wingman" type drones with SSNs) meant to eventually achieve autonomous operation at detecting and eliminating threats within the 1IC and possibly even SCS, China has been investing heavily on blue green laser and sound based communication technology which would allow for reasonably long range datalinks even underwater. Wuchang would be quite well suited to mass produce these large UUVs with its existing infrastructure meant for SSKs along with GSI which currently manufactures these experimental drones.

tl;dr: I personally believe it is realistic for PLAN's nuclear fleet to reach a comparable scale to USN within a decade while still preserving most of the SSK fleet for near water defense and patrol and possibly mass producing large autonomous attack drones in late 2020s or early 2030s along with completing the necessary infrastructure like advanced underwater sensor nodes.

Feel free to add or present differing views! I'm quite interested to see what people here thinks about the future of PLAN submarine fleet.

Belgium’s long-running plan to replace its ageing M-class frigates has entered a new and potentially consequential phase. Defence Minister Theo Francken has publicly stated that the joint Dutch-Belgian frigate programme is moving “completely in the wrong direction” on both delivery dates and price, an outcome he described as unacceptable.

The remarks matter because Belgium and the Netherlands had already committed to the Anti-Submarine Warfare Frigate (ASWF) programme led by Dutch shipbuilder Damen. The project was intended to deliver four ships, two for each navy, replacing the Belgian and Dutch Karel Doorman-class frigates. But the programme now faces a procurement problem: an increasingly ambitious design, a stretched industrial schedule, and a bill that has grown far beyond early expectations.

Speaking to Belgian outlet VTM NIEUWS, Francken said Belgium remains in discussions with the Dutch government. At the same time, however, he announced that Brussels will launch a Request for Information (RFI) process aimed at other European frigate builders. He explicitly named Italy, France, Germany, Spain and Türkiye. That is five countries, rather than four, and it is an important distinction. Belgium is not merely seeking leverage in negotiations with Damen; it is signaling that it is prepared to examine a much wider set of industrial and naval options.

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Belgium Eyes ASWF Alternatives as Damen Timeline and Costs Soar

Published on 21/07/2026

By Tayfun Ozberk

In News

Belgium Eyes ASWF Alternatives as Damen Timeline and Costs Soar

ASWF artist rendering. Ultra Marine picture.

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Belgium’s long-running plan to replace its ageing M-class frigates has entered a new and potentially consequential phase. Defence Minister Theo Francken has publicly stated that the joint Dutch-Belgian frigate programme is moving “completely in the wrong direction” on both delivery dates and price, an outcome he described as unacceptable.

Tayfun Ozberk story, additional reporting by Xavier Vavasseur

The remarks matter because Belgium and the Netherlands had already committed to the Anti-Submarine Warfare Frigate (ASWF) programme led by Dutch shipbuilder Damen. The project was intended to deliver four ships, two for each navy, replacing the Belgian and Dutch Karel Doorman-class frigates. But the programme now faces a procurement problem: an increasingly ambitious design, a stretched industrial schedule, and a bill that has grown far beyond early expectations.

Speaking to Belgian outlet VTM NIEUWS, Francken said Belgium remains in discussions with the Dutch government. At the same time, however, he announced that Brussels will launch a Request for Information (RFI) process aimed at other European frigate builders. He explicitly named Italy, France, Germany, Spain and Türkiye. That is five countries, rather than four, and it is an important distinction. Belgium is not merely seeking leverage in negotiations with Damen; it is signaling that it is prepared to examine a much wider set of industrial and naval options.

“In October, I will make a decision on the program. We urgently need new frigates in any case. The current ones are truly worn out.”

Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken to VTM NIEUWS

Francken previously voiced his concerns twice, during National Defense Committee hearings of the Chamber of Representatives in Brussels.

On July 17th, Francken said: “As I indicated during the committee meeting on July 1, the future of the ASWF program currently remains uncertain. At this moment, there is no clarity regarding the final schedule, nor regarding the budgetary impact. The Netherlands still needs to present more concrete options regarding the various points, where the time factor remains of paramount importance, particularly in light of the recent events involving the Leopold I. The ships are simply worn out. All possible options are currently still on the table. Crucial elements are still missing to make a clear decision, and these will be investigated further in the coming period. A clear, feasible, and valid solution for the ASWF program and for the Navy is urgently needed. I am aware of this. I am fully engaged in this. More news regarding this will follow in the autumn.“

While on July 1st, the Belgian Defense Minister said: “Today, the ASWF program finds itself in rough waters, undoubtedly a deliberate pun.

The project, which is being carried out binationally with the Netherlands within the framework of BeNeSam, is grappling with technical and design-related problems. The margins of the original hull design ultimately proved insufficient, which led to a design crisis. In (…) 2026, a new, larger design was proposed, which, however, entails additional costs and further delays. A key decision point regarding the program is expected when the Netherlands presents concrete options. Regarding the delivery schedule, there is currently no definitive or reliable timeline.

An earlier schedule aimed for commissioning around 2031. However, following a previous extension, recent signals point to further delays of two to three years. The legal and contractual leverage available to Belgium to avoid additional costs being unilaterally passed on is the refusal to accept contractual adjustments for cost increases that were not contractually foreseen. Belgium takes such decisions jointly with the Netherlands by unanimous vote in the Joint Steering Committee, as provided for in the memorandum of understanding. This summer it must become clear whether the current cooperation model with the Netherlands can be continued, or whether Belgium must make other strategic choices to avoid a serious gap regarding maritime capabilities.

In summary, the situation today remains very uncertain. There is still no clarity regarding the final schedule. The budgetary impact is still subject to negotiations, and alternative solutions are being explored but have not yet been finalized. So no, I do not expect that. We have already met, the Netherlands has made a number of proposals, additional studies still need to be conducted, and we will look into these during the summer and autumn.”

The original ASWF programme was built around close Dutch-Belgian cooperation, common logistics and shared operational requirements, particularly in anti-submarine warfare. Yet those advantages become less persuasive if the vessels arrive too late. The Belgian Navy’s current frigates are old, increasingly expensive to maintain and nearing the limits of their practical service life. A replacement programme that slips into the mid-2030s creates an uncomfortable capability gap for a country that still expects to contribute to NATO maritime operations in the North Atlantic, Baltic and wider European waters.

Belgium ASWF: Which alternatives ?

The alternatives mentioned by Francken are varied. Each country and shipbuilder will carefully review the RFI before submitting proposals. We don’t know what the exact requirements are. Italy could offer the FREMM EVO (which has just been selected by Portugal, in addition to the Italian Navy) or the PPA design, both of which reflect Italy’s experience in building multi-purpose surface combatants. France’s most obvious candidate would be Naval Group’s FDI frigate, a compact but heavily equipped design now entering service with the French and Hellenic Navy and recently selected by Sweden. Germany could point to a TKMS MEKO-based solution (which was just selected by the Germany Navy in place of the Damen-designed F126) or Rheinmetall’s GMF-120 compact frigate design. Spain’s Navantia would likely promote the F-110 design. The Spanish shipbuilder has a brand new shipbuilding facility in Ferrol to support this program and is able to scale up production and produce F-110 hulls at pace.

Türkiye is the most politically interesting entry on the list and have surprised many. Turkish shipyards could present the I-class frigate as a readily identifiable option, while larger future designs may also be marketed depending on Belgian requirements. The I-class is not a direct ASWF equivalent and would require adaptation to Belgian sensors, weapons and NATO integration standards. Still, Türkiye’s attraction is clear: its naval industry has demonstrated a capacity to build a broad range of warships at pace, including corvettes, frigates, amphibious vessels and auxiliary platforms.

Francken’s interest did not emerge in a vacuum. During his visit to Türkiye in May, the Belgian minister toured Istanbul’s Sedef Shipyard and engaged with Turkish defence companies. He described Türkiye as an emerging maritime power and highlighted what he saw as the country’s ability to produce naval systems quickly and at competitive cost. Those remarks should be treated as political observations rather than proof that a Turkish deal is imminent. Visiting a shipyard and praising industrial capacity is not the same as endorsing a final platform, signing a contract or resolving the difficult questions of combat systems, armaments, support and sovereign maintenance.

Nevertheless, the visit has strengthened the perception that Turkish industry is now part of Belgium’s serious procurement calculation. Reports have linked Sedef to potential interest, but no official Belgian decision has confirmed a Turkish shipyard, a specific design or a contract structure.

For Brussels, the real test is not simply whether another country can offer a cheaper frigate on paper. It is whether that ship can meet Belgium’s anti-submarine warfare requirements, integrate smoothly with NATO allies, be delivered before the current fleet becomes untenable, and remain affordable through decades of operation.

Francken’s October decision will therefore be more than a contract choice. It will determine whether Belgium preserves the Dutch-Belgian naval partnership around Damen’s ASWF programme—or accepts that operational urgency, cost and industrial reality require a different course.

"American and allied warfighters need a solution that is battle-tested and budget-smart, and PAC-3 ACE delivers exactly that by building on the unrivaled performance of the PAC-3 MSE," said Tim Cahill, president, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. "As we look to partner with our allies, we can further enhance resiliency and ensure our forces can swiftly counter emerging threats today and tomorrow."

According to Lockheed Martin, the PAC-3 ACE costs half as much as the PAC-3 MSE, but its performance does not appear to have declined significantly.

A comparison of the images shows that the two missiles are quite similar in appearance, but the PAC-3 ACE does not have a forward-mounted side-thrust engine.

The development of systems such as the PAC-3 ACE, Raytheon’s “Coyote,” Anduril’s “Road Runner,” and the reverse-engineered “U.S. version of the Shahed suicide drone” appears to be a form of self-evolution driven by the realities of battlefield economics facing the U.S. military.

Al Udeid Air Base, located 35 kilometers southwest of the Qatari capital, Doha, is one of the largest U.S. military bases overseas and also hosts a British military presence. According to Iranian claims, a central warehouse used by the U.S. Air Force to store spare parts and logistical equipment was struck by a missile from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC); satellite imagery shows one of the warehouses virtually destroyed, with radar equipment also hit.

Reports also mention damage to Jordan's Muwaffaq Salti Air Base—which houses nearly a hundred U.S. military aircraft—and U.S. facilities in Erbil; satellite photos reveal a direct hit on one of the hangars, indicating a high probability that aircraft were destroyed.

For some reason, this conflict reminds me of the Iran-Iraq War; has the tempo of the war shifted into Iran's "comfort zone"?