Los F-16 fighter jets supplied by Europe to kyiv are giving great performance to Ukrainian forces when repelling attacks with cruise missiles launched by .
A good example of this is what happened in the early hours of December 22 to 23, when managed to shoot down 34 of the 35 cruise missiles that the country chaired by Vladimir Putin fired on several Ukrainian cities.
In this sense, Colonel Yurii Ihnat, head of communications of the Ukrainian air force, confirmed to the Ukrainian media what the demolitions of those cruise missiles were carried out “mainly” with European F-16 fighters.
This great effectiveness when intercepting cruise missiles is due to their renewed technologyspecifically to a new set of sensors which is improving the performance of combat aircraft.
Ukraine has almost 50 F-16 fighter jets. The fighters are being used to try to jam Russian radars, drop satellite-guided bombs on Russian troops and patrol to detect and intercept Russian cruise missiles and Shahed drones.
The Key: Sniper Aim Pods
As reported from it was at the beginning of this month of December when the first images appeared on the Internet showing F-16 aircraft belonging to the Ukrainian forces that had Sniper aiming pods under their entrances.
A series of subsequent images have confirmed that fighter jets fly with the aforementioned pods, which include daytime and infrared cameras, plus a laser designator.
“Although the F-16’s nose-mounted APG-66(V)2A radar remains its primary sensor, $2 million Sniper pod is a major addition. This is a passive sensor, which means that It does not emit radiation and therefore does not give away the location of the F-16. The pilot can turn off his radar, go ‘silent’ in terms of emissions and continue detecting and firing at Russian targets,” they detail from Euromaidan Press.
