On social media I see many Kenyans criticing KDF hardware. They imagine having the latest shiny hardware is all that matters.
First, they should understand some of this jets are modified depending on client requests. Do they think those F5s are as they were many decades ago?
If they understand hardware, they should be well aware some of this kind of weapons proved their advantages and effectiveness in the Russia Ukraine war.
Then here is a good thread explaining how the financing and logistics can render an ay with the latest equipment useless.
Would you be willing to be up in the air confronting a South African Air force 4.5 Generation SAAB Gripen jet with a 25 year old refurbished ex-USAF Kenya Air force Northrop F5E Tiger jet …???
(..and let’s for one moment try to forget that the South African Airforce is the only really battle tested Airforce South of the Sahara..).
BTW..
The JAS 39 SAAB Gripen jet is the ONLY 4.5 Generation jet on the planet that has taken on the USAF F35 Stealth Fighter in NATO air-to-air combat exercises and won..
In today’s warfare, a country hardly goes to war alone.
Apart from what we are seeing like drones, another aspect that has advanced is alies.
Ukraine was just another small state which Russia was to handle in a short period and get done. But that is not the case.
When KDF went into Somalia, it had Ethiopians pushing from that area near Mandera, the French providing support in the sky’s and ocean, the British embedded in some units while the Americans supported with their satellite and drones. That is unknown to many Kenyans.
So it’s impossible as of today for Kenya to fight with south Africa but if it happens, some major powers will be behind each one of them, providing the latest weaponry
Leading military and intelligence expert who was a deputy director at the MI6 and oversaw the agency’s station in Tangier as well as commanding the British Grenadiers parachute battalion to Afghanistan and the Trooping of the Colour Parade of 2012 and who is also accredited by the UN as a subject matter specialist nimeland officially na nasema hivi; OP ametoa mnyambo kubwa sana ya punda. The Kenyan hardware belongs to the scrap heap to the most part.
