Simp hard as you want, but Air Superiority requires stealth fighters, AWACS, a massive tanker fleet, only things America has.

* where a single grunt can bring down aircraft.

#2 | POSTED BY DOC_SARVIS AT 2023-03-18 11:10 AM | FLAG:

* If the aircraft comes down to them. People do have to carry a MANPAD, which limits your rocket motor size and flight times to under a 3 mile slant range. Against jets you need to know it's coming to have the reaction time to make the most of your shot opportunity. Short range, low reaction time. It's most lethal against helicopters and the Ka-50/52 losses reflect that.

MANPADS force them to fly higher which makes them vulnerable to the far, far more lethal S-300 batteries that will spit a missile that flies mach 9 at you. Hence the current stalemate of hanging out behind their front lines where their fighters can simply point away and run from the S-300 launch, but still have engagement range to shoot down at Ukranian CAS efforts.

"Easy access to SAMs". It'd be great if it was easy. An S-300 system which is just the middle tier of air defenses needs multiple vehicles. There's multiple very large trucks with 2 missile each, their ammo train, the multiple vehicles each with their own radars that perform different but required functions, command and control vehicles, and the supply train for all of those troops. Minimum amount of time to make the system operational is half an hour. Doing it real dicey for both sides, as the moment you start transmitting everybody can see you. Then anti-radiation missiles get launched at your sensor vehicles. Ukranians are doing well with this using adapted US made HARMs. Russians have their own versions and are shooting them back.

Civilians with shoulder mounted SAMs and phones, plus many other integrated air defense assets, are doing a number on slower cruise missiles and the very slow Iranian drones. Great results there.

You're looking for Saint Mim.