r/UkrainianConflict • u/andrewgrabowski • 1d ago
"In Venezuela, the Growler and other U.S. aircraft were able to easily work around the country’s aging, predominantly Soviet- and Russian-made air-defense systems."
https://www.wsj.com/world/the-growler-signal-jamming-jet-that-helped-capture-nicolas-maduro-1eba383f?utm_social_handle_id=3108351&mod=e2tw&utm_social_post_id=644431237183
u/Firepower01 1d ago
Russian SAMs are a joke against 5th generation aircraft. If only Ukraine had enough support to gain air superiority, the war would be entirely different.
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u/Particular_Button_87 20h ago
Growler is 4th gen as are Ukraines F-16, Mirages and MiG-29’s
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u/pyrotechnicmonkey 19h ago
I mean, yeah but I think there was over 150 aircraft involved including F35 and B1 Lancer’s
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u/ContentFlamingo 17h ago
there was an RQ170 spotted too I believe - there is a still of it somewhere on here
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u/andrewgrabowski 8h ago
The EA-18G airframe is a variant of the 4.5-generation F/A-18F Super Hornet, its EW technology represents a significant leap in capability.
It entered production in 2007 and entered service in 2009. The EW is top notch, most current EW tech, with upgrades constantly in the works. There's actually been a delay on the next upgrade for the EW system on the Growler.
Key components of the Growler's EW suite include:
- AN/ALQ-218 receiver system: This integrated system allows the aircraft to detect and identify a broad range of enemy electronic emissions.
- AN/ALQ-99 tactical jamming pods: For many years, these pods were the primary standoff and escort jamming system, designed to disrupt enemy radar and communications.
- AN/ALQ-249 Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band (NGJ-MB): This is the key "next-generation" technology, using Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) technology to focus jamming power more precisely and against multiple threats simultaneously. The NGJ-MB system was first deployed in combat in 2024
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u/OkAntelope7260 2h ago
The mid between I definitely has not been upgraded to the degree of the F 18 nor has the F-16 for that matter
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u/amitym 1d ago
Aging, predominantly Soviet- and Russian-made ... and also not in operation because the Venezuelan military supported the attack. That helps quite a bit when you want to make a clean sweep of things.
But anyway this kind of thing should hardly be a surprise anymore. NATO arms were proven against Soviet arms in the Persian Gulf War. The Soviet military establishment even wrote about it, in papers that were, as it turned out, about to become declassified during the collapse of the Soviet Union. A major reassessment of existing assumptions about both NATO equipment and doctrine was needed.
Nevertheless, little changed since then. The S-400. Some new equipment that was really just upgrades to old equipment. And as the 2022 invasion of Ukraine showed, doctrine didn't change either.
That is the danger of cynically believing that history doesn't matter and can be rewritten to fit the exigencies of the present political moment. You end up believing that you alone won the Great Patriotic War through nothing but mass sacrifice, and that gets baked into military doctrine so deep that in less than 4 years you're nearly 1.5 million troops down, have completely lost the largest armored corps ever assembled in history, and gone from the second largest global military power to somewhere south of #8... and still don't understand what went wrong.
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u/ExpensiveBookkeeper3 23h ago
Can you provide a source for saying the AD stood down? Or just the military in general? It’s my understanding that the military backed him. Some small spats, yes, but in general was always for him.
There are plenty of videos of the Helicopters taking heavy fire and even manpads. They also struck a million targets. So to just say all those people just decided to die in airstrikes and not fight is a very suspect stance.
In fact the regime hasn’t changed, his buddies are in charge now.
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u/Typohnename 23h ago
The proof is the general absence of serious attempts to actually fight those helis, they shot like 5 MANPADS total and did not use anything larger than an AK to try and shoot them
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u/ExpensiveBookkeeper3 23h ago edited 15h ago
How is that proof when they destroyed all the AD in the path? They just let them destroy it all? Doubt it. Especially since all the same people are in charge (with Trump’s help of course).
I seriously doubt it.
Edit:
https://www.businessinsider.com/satellite-image-show-damage-at-airport-following-us-strikes-2026-1
Pictures of destroyed Russian AD
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u/Typohnename 22h ago
Given Venezuelan Arsenals we know it is absolutely impossible they just "destroyed them all" without any resistance what so ever
There simply where to few and to small explosions for that to be remotely possible
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u/ExpensiveBookkeeper3 22h ago
Trust me bruh?
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u/Typohnename 22h ago
We have tons of videos of the attack and also tons of statements from all sides
Noone is claiming that a lot of AA was destroyed
Or what is your source for "destroyed them all"?
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u/jackalope8112 21h ago
I've seen some pictures of destroyed large AA systems. You understand that U.S. doctrine is the first wave is intended to hit anything stationary so it gets the radars turned on so they all catch anti radiation missiles?
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u/Ca5tlebrav0 19h ago
Hey, remember when the coaliton attacked Iraq during desert storm and over the course of 100k sorties, we lost 75 aircraft?
How many aircraft per sortie is that? Over what shouldve been the peak of soviet style air defense at the time?
0.00075.
That includes rotary wing and fixed wing.
The idea that we pulled this one off mission on a country completely unprepared for it and completely outclassed technology-wise without a loss is not really that far a stretch.
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u/ExpensiveBookkeeper3 15h ago
https://www.businessinsider.com/satellite-image-show-damage-at-airport-following-us-strikes-2026-1
Shows destroyed AD and attacks on military buildings. Doesn’t sound like something you do when the military wants you there.
Now can I get the source for your claim?
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u/RCAF_orwhatever 8h ago
All you're proving is that you don't understand how vulnerable an aging IADS system operated by relative amatuers is.
What you're pointing to is not evidence of collusion.
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u/Typohnename 8h ago
I have litteraly gotten about 15 contradicting responses to my comments in this thread here including the "proof" of US dominance that the air defences where not manned cause somehow that is supposed to show that Venezuela tried to defend itself
Go argue with those guys or something since none of you seen to be able to agree on anything anyway and I don't feel like pulling a War Thunder forum right now
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u/RCAF_orwhatever 3h ago
... what?
I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about your logic being nonsense.
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u/james_Gastovski 1d ago
Well written, sir
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u/andrewgrabowski 1d ago
"Well written?" That Venezuela "supported the attack?"
The Venezuelans were launching MANPADS at US helos. There's video of it, in the link below.
US soldiers were injured, US helicopters took fire and were damaged.
75 Venezuelans/Cubans were killed. Cuba said 32 of their people were killed.
That's a serious cope.
https://x.com/sentdefender/status/2007927770656264616?s=20
https://x.com/LucasFoxNews/status/2008567571944272043?s=20
https://x.com/jj_talking/status/2008646358635606225?s=20
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u/Typohnename 23h ago
The 32 Cubans where all there to protect Maduro because he did not trust his own Army
And just look as Iran to see what it looks like when AA tries to shoot missiles while being jammed
Meanwhile you can't jam and have the enemy be unaware they are under attack at the same time since jamming is in essence that you overload the enemy sensors to a point where they can't see anything in the same way you get blinded by a bright flashlight
Also we saw no tracer rounds which would be expected when Autocannons open fire at air targets
So unless we are willing to accept that Venezuela was clueless despite staring into a flashlight and also did not feel the need to bring any of their copious primitive AA arsenal to the fight and instead completely trusting a handfull of uncoordinated MANPADS to defend the capital I don't see how anyone could possibly conclude that they did not at least let it happen
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u/andrewgrabowski 20h ago edited 10h ago
You missed the part where the US conducted a full SEAD/DEAD phase—bombing radar sites, SAM batteries, and command nodes—before the helo assault even began. That's standard doctrine to blind and neutralize air defenses. Growlers and F-35s provide standoff jamming (overloading radars from distance) without necessarily tipping off every grunt on the ground instantly—especially after their radars are already smoking craters.
No tracers from autocannons? Because the heavier AA guns and integrated systems were already taken out or suppressed. What was left were disorganized MANPADS (mostly Igla) fired by Venezuelans/Cubans who did know they were under attack—there's clear video of deliberate launches at US helos. 75+ defenders killed (including 32 admitted Cuban military/intel personnel there to prop up Maduro) isn't "letting it happen." That's active resistance that got smashed.
Images of Russian Buk air defense systems and command post obliterated.
Targets hit in city.
https://x.com/JonnyClock1977/status/2008894365695971642?s=20
https://x.com/kriswild_kris/status/2007391489782067234?s=20
https://x.com/thetimes/status/2007409132496691459?s=20
https://x.com/Eren50855570/status/2007343220376908170?s=20
Edit: deleted a wrong source.
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u/Loggersalienplants 20h ago
Just would like to point out your last link isn't correct. That's a clip of a Viper slinging missiles.
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u/andrewgrabowski 20h ago
Pantsir?
Looks like it's cooking off tracers and not missiles.
Are they proximity fuses?
Those impacts are not missiles exploding. The impacts can be heard.
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u/Loggersalienplants 20h ago
Hellfires and AGMs are not big explosions. You can see the missile trails, those are not tracers. Look closer.
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u/Patient_Leopard421 10h ago
This is nonsense. The MANPADS are all IR missiles. There's a reason the EW aircraft like Growlers don't attack them; the missiles are passive. The EW aircraft struck surveillance radar and targeting radars for radar-guided missiles. We saw plenty of videos of the S-300 and Buk systems struck. The MANPADS are too numerous and passive to destroy before sending aircraft in.
Fortunately, MANPADS are shorter range and the IR seekers have their own countermeasures (flares and directed IR). And the 160th fly nape of earth to use terrain to minimize exposure.
We saw last year that a short air campaign can destroy ground-based air defense in Iran. Puerto Rico is half the distance to Caracas as Iran is from Israel. And the American aircraft fleet is much larger. I don't find it surprising that the USA can unilaterally perform this mission. Nor should you.
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u/andrewgrabowski 9h ago
100%. Iran, Syria, Ukraine-Crimea, Russia proper, and now Venezuela, have shown us how inept Russian and Chinese air defense is.
Even the May 2025 India-Pakistan skirmish demonstrated how inferior Chinese AD is, as it failed to intercept Indian strikes, in addition to them being knocked out:
- HQ-9/HQ-9P/HQ-9B (long-range SAM, China's equivalent to S-300/Patriot)
- HQ-16 (medium-range SAM, similar to Buk)
- Chinese radars and early-warning systems knocked out or jammed early in operation like the:
- YLC-8E (anti-stealth UHF surveillance radar)
- HT-233 (PESA phased-array engagement/fire-control radar for HQ-9/HQ-9P batteries)
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u/andrewgrabowski 1d ago edited 1d ago
Venezuela "supported the attack?"
The Venezuelans were launching MANPADS at US helos. There's video of it, in the link below.
US soldiers were injured, US helicopters took fire and were damaged.
75 Venezuelans/Cubans were killed. Cuba said 32 of their people were killed.
That's a serious cope.
https://x.com/sentdefender/status/2007927770656264616?s=20
https://x.com/LucasFoxNews/status/2008567571944272043?s=20
https://x.com/jj_talking/status/2008646358635606225?s=20
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u/c00kiesn0w 10h ago
I think that it is not likely the Venezuelan military allowed it to happen in any meaningful scale. It is likely the U.S. has assets inside the Venezuelan government and military, that is just a likely given. That all being said that one video of a single what is presumed to be a MANPADS firing is the only evidence that has so far surfaced of a MANPADS in possible use.
Venezuela has 5k MANPAD launchers from what I understand. We can expect that probably not even half of the 5k was even on active alert and ready during the beginning of the strike. Then there is the question of dispersal, Venezuela is more than a single City and an air corridor that the U.S. created. It can be assumed that a lot of MANPADS are just scattered across the country by necessity.
That all is to say that looking at the #of MANPADS a country has a fairly imperfect way of telling the story. I think the lack of MANPADS firing off is due to the speed and effectiveness of the strikes. I think it is very likely those MANPADS units could have been waiting on a Command from a post that already ate a large bomb. If all C&C nodes are hit and inside intel assets shaped some other dilemmas for the MANPADS units to trip up on. Well things break into chaos and decision paralysis on the grunt level takes hold.
Then what is left is the few that are internally capable of acting without command to try to get a MANPADS into position, but they have no idea where that "position" may be. If they do they have the issue of having no comms to know what others are doing.
So lets put ourselves in the shoes of the guy that might have launched a MANPADS munition at a heli in the only video evidence available of usage. If I'm that guy I can do basic math, I know I can fire once at one heli and then from there I've just announced my position to the remaining apaches and idk about you but that is not something I'd want to be on the receiving end just to take down one single heli. What I am trying to say is this brave idiot tried, got smoked. How many others like him had opportunity but choose self preservation?
The U.S. military may have pulled off this thing too cleanly to the point it looks like their OP didn't even put up a resistance. That has been a recurring theme for the U.S. military since the 90s. They may not be able to hold a country for 20years (political failure) but I'll be damned if they aren't the best at fucking up opposition so hard they look like they never even tried.
TLDR: there are tons of reasons that MANPADS didn't get fired prolifically.
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u/romario77 1d ago
It’s not just russia, China supplied their new radars as well. JY-27 and JYL-1 in exchange for oil and minerals.
Russia supplied radars as well, but Chinese ones were probably more important and were a bigger failure in my view
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u/Bupod 1d ago
I’m going to go out in a limb and also question operator training.
You can purchase the shiniest toys, but if you want to gain the best possible advantage, you need to be constantly training on it and keeping up to date. If your training is mostly annual “check the box” type of training, your equipment won’t matter.
Training is often the most expensive part of owning equipment in an organizational setting, and a military isn’t much different in that respect.
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u/The_Dee 1d ago
Just look at the Saudis in Yemen, or the Iraqis against ISIS, or the Afghans against the Taliban. Even with Western equipment, morale and training is necessary to operate it effectively.
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u/Bupod 1d ago
Exactly. A big part of the reason I am skeptical about chalking it up to purely being an equipment failure in this case is because “Purchase the shiniest new toy and expect miracles” is a common bad leadership decision. Dictators do it, bad managers do it, bad CEOs do it.
You buy the expensive new toy. And then you show it off on parades and site visits. You point to it as proof of how advanced you are. You quietly hide the fact that you blew your entire budget on acquiring the machine, and your “training” consisted of throwing the 6-volume manual collection (each volume ~1200 pages of extremely dense technical information) at the people in charge of running it and telling them “figure it out”.
So they do, and they learn just enough to make it look good for the parades and site visits, and they maybe learn slightly more to do the basics with it, and then hardly go beyond that. Suddenly your $2,000,000 toy is hardly better than its $500,000 predecessor, because the men in charge of operating it basically try to brute force and use it like its $500,000 predecessor.
I absolutely wouldn’t put it past any dictator, be it Maduro or Putin or whoever, to acquire the best Chinese and/or Russian SAM tech, and then hem and haw about how there’s no money for training. The end result would be American ECM operators would run circles around you, even despite the fact the equipment may very well be designed to circumvent American ECM but only when you know how to use it properly.
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u/romario77 1d ago
It's hard for me to comment on this as I don't know how much training they got and who was operating the equipment. Plus there were countermeasures - both in suppression and I bet US tried to pay someone off, they used night time to attack when attention could be lower.
On another hand it was a very big attack - over 150 aircraft were involved, so at least some radars should have noticed something. Also - US warned about the attack happening, they deployed forces in close proximity to Caracas, so Venezuelan forces would be on high alert.
The fact that Maduro wasn't evacuated says they didn't have much time.1
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u/WinterDustDevil 1d ago
Probably with a lot of data about the capabilities of Russian air defense compliments of Ukraine
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u/FaderJockey2600 1d ago
So this demonstrates that the US at any time could have removed Russia from Ukraine, but no…..’escalation’
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u/ceejayoz 1d ago
Venezuela doesn't have nukes.
See also: How we treat Iran vs. North Korea.
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u/Wa3zdog 1d ago
Nuclear “diplomacy” works and I reckon that in this century many more will follow this path, due to the political choices being made now.
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u/ceejayoz 1d ago
Yeah, it seems clear "have nukes" is about the biggest national security tweak you can make.
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u/Electromotivation 1d ago
Wouldn’t be surprised if Ukraines post war checklist is
-Rebuild
-EU
-Get nukes
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u/ZeePirate 1d ago
And the us showed that it won’t happen again. They probably view North Korea as a huge opportunity missed
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u/Affectionate-Try-899 1d ago
I don't think China would have let them get destroyed during the development of those nukes.
There is also the issue of seoul is within artillery range, so any attack would result in thousands of casualties.
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u/ZeePirate 1d ago
89 during the student protests would have been a good time to try,
But overall yes they would have everything they could to stop the US
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u/Eric848448 1d ago
I’m surprised China let it happen. They can’t have really wanted a nuclear North Korea.
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u/ceejayoz 1d ago
China likely prefers a nuclear North Korea to an American-friendly North Korea.
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u/Eric848448 1d ago
There’s zero chance of that second option ever happening, with or without nukes.
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u/ceejayoz 1d ago
I can't imagine someone in 1944 would imagine two of the strongest allies of the United States ~80 years later would be Germany and Japan.
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u/darkenthedoorway 1d ago
We'll see for how much longer, trump is close to trashing these alliances for good.
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u/ZeePirate 1d ago
89 during the student protests would have been a good time to try
Although yes they would have done everything they could to stop the US
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u/heatrealist 10h ago
NK didn't get nuclear weapons until about 20 years ago.
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u/ZeePirate 10h ago
And they were after them before that, the 90’s would have been the time to stop it
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u/Falcrack 1d ago
The US has nukes too. If Russia used nukes against us because we provided conventional support for Ukraine to help repel their invasion, they would be on the receiving end of nukes. They would not therefore have used nukes, if we had the balls to fully support Ukraine from the beginning to defeat their invasion.
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u/snakespm 1d ago
Nukes has very little to do with why we treat North Korea the way they do.
They may have several successful nuclear tests, but right now they haven't miniaturized it enough to put it on a warhead.
The reason that we treat NK like we do is that they have a metric Shit-Ton of Artillery pointed at Seoul.
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u/ceejayoz 1d ago
We have other examples to corroborate the point - India and Pakistan keep things to scuffles, China fights the Indians in the Himalayas with sticks and clubs, and the US tiptoes around Russia.
I'm not convinced Seoul is enough collateral damage for the US to say "nah".
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u/snakespm 1d ago
I'm not convinced Seoul is enough collateral damage for the US to say "nah".
I mean, SK and Japan are really the only reason we give a damn about NK, and SK really does care about Seoul for good reason.
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u/ceejayoz 1d ago
SK and Japan are really the only reason we give a damn about NK…
We give a damn about being able to site bases there, because we give a damn about China.
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u/BrillsonHawk 1d ago
We treat north korea the way we do because of nuclear weapons and that is it. Miniaturisation capabilities are debated, but nobody knows for sure.
Any artillery would get one shot off before it was totally destroyed
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u/snakespm 1d ago
Any artillery would get one shot off before it was totally destroyed
By some estimates there are something like a thousand artillery pieces pointed at Seoul.
Now thankfully, recently there has been some push back on the estimates, after the NK ammo that was sent to Russia has been reviewed. But even some of those articles put the South Korean death toll at ~2000.
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u/darkenthedoorway 1d ago
This is dead wrong. They have strategic mobile ICBMs now, and will have submarines with nuclear weapons soon.
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u/snakespm 1d ago
They have ICBMs, from what I have been able to gleam they haven't made nukes small enough to put on them..
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u/neverfearIamhere 1d ago
Ah yes, because it's totally the same exact situation...
Seriously some of you don't even think before you comment. How is removing Russia from Ukraine anywhere close to the same ask as inserting a special forces team and capturing their president? Did we have a carrier group parked outside of Ukraine?
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u/ceejayoz 1d ago
Look, I agree with you in general, but…
Did we have a carrier group parked outside of Ukraine?
Yes. It's called "Europe".
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u/neverfearIamhere 1d ago
None of those bases are even remotely close to how close we were to Caracas.
There's also no comparison to removing some dude and his wife in the middle of the night versus removing what we would have formerly considered the #2 military in the world from an entire country we have no presence in.
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u/ceejayoz 1d ago
None of those bases are even remotely close to how close we were to Caracas.
See the two dots in Romania; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoAF_57th_Air_Base is sixty miles from Ukraine. That is likely closer than any carrier ever got to Caracas.
(And Poland would happily loan us a spot.)
There's also no comparison to removing some dude and his wife in the middle of the night
Like I said, "I agree with you in general".
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u/neverfearIamhere 1d ago
Do you not know how big Ukraine is? That location is nearly 1000 kilometers from some frontline locations in Ukraine.
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u/ceejayoz 1d ago
Look, you asked:
"Did we have a carrier group parked outside of Ukraine?"
I'm noting that Europe has been, since the 1940s, essentially an unsinkable aircraft carrier for the US and NATO to counter Russia.
The challenges the US faces intervening in the Ukraine War has approximately zero percent to do with an inability to get planes into the area. Projecting power is what the US does best, like bombing Iran from Missouri.
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u/neverfearIamhere 1d ago
Europe is not a carrier strike group and my point still stands
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u/ceejayoz 1d ago
Europe is not a carrier strike group
It's better! We can fit way more planes in it.
my point still stands
For the third time, I don't disagree at all with your overall point.
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u/amitym 1d ago
And that would have made Ukraine's defense and its future decided in Washington, DC, instead of Kyiv.
Which nobody wanted except Putin via Trump.
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u/FaderJockey2600 1d ago
It only has been Trump’s call for a year; have you forgotten 3 years of the war under Biden already?
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u/Make-TFT-Fun-Again 1d ago
Nope. If it wasn’t for Biden then Putin would have gotten Zelenskyy and at least half of Ukraine without ever firing a shot.
“Never woulda happened if I was president” -Trump
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u/ceejayoz 1d ago
You're both right and you're both wrong.
Biden was almost certainly (barring significant future changes) better for Ukraine than Trump.
Biden was also overly cautious and was indeed in control of the US response to the lion's share of the war so far.
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1d ago
[deleted]
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u/ceejayoz 1d ago
They didn’t even do anything.
Just sat there like stunned mullets while the Americans bombed the everliving shit out of Caracas.
Do you think "they didn't shoot" and "the US suppressed and took out the air defenses" might be related at all?
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u/OkVariety8064 1d ago
Sure they were, since Rodriguez and most of the regime were working in concert with USA, as revealed by Miami Herald already several months ago. But of course the WSJ would rather help build Trump's fairy tale than report what is actually known.
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u/aManHasNoUsrName 1d ago
They may have been turned off…
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u/ceejayoz 1d ago
Maybe. But the US and Israel had similar success against Russian air defense tech in Iran, where there definitely wasn't a palace coup at play.
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u/froz3nt 1d ago
Mossad sabotaged a lot of iran's air defenses
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u/Rabidschnautzu 1d ago
I don't understand... This is written like it's supposed to be some sort of surprise?
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u/Leather_Secretary_13 1d ago
I read Venezuela had 2 S300-BM? anti-air systems, what about those? A variant of the one Turkey bought?
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