Ukrainian War Developments

[asif iqbal]

Exactly. In the years since the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. Russian media have been constantly boasting about measures to deal with the famous TB-2 Bayraktars. They have said that they have: Pantsirs, Anti-drone radars, Tunguskas, and AAM-armed Orion drones. They have demonstrated these things in their testing range. Well, where are they now?

How did Russia destroyed those Ukrainian air bases? I think they did a terrible job. Instead of just popping some buildings. They should have been scattering cluster munitions onto the runways. That's what NATO would have done. They should have put those airbases out of commission for weeks, not just 3 days.

When Russia intervened in Syria, they flooded the social media and news channels with countless UAV videos showing the targeting and destruction of enemy forces. Now, in the most important war that Russia is fighting in 20 years, we have seen nothing of such sort. Everything we see from the Russian side are either announcements, or videos taken on the ground by journalists or spectators. Its like as if Russia is trying to lose the information war. This better be worth the price the Russians are paying with blood for each emboldened Ukrainian killing more Russians.

To be fair, the Russians have achieve near air superiority, albeit a porous one. Ukrainian helicopters and jets have largely been silenced. We don't hear about them anymore. But the Bayraktars are still out there, scouting and killing Russian troops. Why haven't the Russians seriously dealt with them? They have claimed to have the solutions. Its quite baffling.

I have observed countries who have used Russian military equipment and doctrine in conflicts. All of them have major issues with regards to air combat. Syria vs Israel, Armenia vs Azerbaijan, and India vs Pakistan. Fortunately China have been observant and have been adopting NATO war fighting concepts. For example, a greater emphasis on BVR combat than WVR combat for newer PLAAF aircrafts.

Ukraine probably might have a few dozen Bayraktars at the start of this war. With a number of them being destroyed on the ground and in the air, it is likely that their stocks would be dwindling soon. Russia destroying fuel and ammunition depots should accelerate their exit from this war. Its only a matter of time before the Bayraktars too would be silenced.

I would agree

but why Russia is doing a half done job baffles me, its not like they dont know how to fight

I mean if anything Russia is one of the most advanced nations when fighting on land traditionally its always been a land army nation with extensive capabilities to move large armies to combat theatres far away ON LAND

I would expect mistakes from the Russian Navy but not the Army and Air Force

the Russian AF did not take out the Ukrainian Air Defences at airport adjacent to Kiev and as a result the IL76 did not do the para drop and as a result of that they never secured the airport which means they cannot get the troops to in to push to the City Centre

those Helicopter Airborne Troops did not do enough and they didnt hunt down the Ukrainian Air Defence and never neutralised the short SAM systems in and around airport, why? Ukrainians weren't even fighting hard then

Short trip to centre of Kiev by armoured column would have put whole operation into Russian hands when they install a puppet government, I mean they have done this many times in many other examples Russian are experts in this kind of warfare

and its not like they didnt have time to plan, they had all the time in the World and yet we are seeing fuel shortages and abandoned Russian heavy armour who have outrun their supplies lines, really? Russian Army outrunning supplies lines, never

Russian armour getting bogged down, never they have built their system so it doesnt bog down due to vast types of Russian geography and multiple purpose Russian vehicles

its a disaster from the start

 

[gelgoog]

Have they even been deployed at all? Like really, almost all the destroyed equipment so far has been older vehicles and not the latest.

To quote from another forum…
2. But is there some credence in arguments that say that these are not all the best troops Russia has available? One analyst on the Duran (I know they're biased) made the argument that a lot of the units are green, and not the battle hardened veterans and other highly experienced troops. The above mentioned twitterer also hinted at this, only he suggested there where inexperienced companies interspersed into larger units. One more thing that makes me suspect there's credence in this argument is the battle damage reports that @Feanor so kindly keeps us updated with. Those show a lot of destroyed T-72's, and BMP2's, some T-80's and in @Feanor 's latest post I saw a destroyed BMP-3. But there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of very new, or top of the line equipment among the wreckage I've seen so far. The lack of air coverage is another indicator of coarse.

These are the main echelon troops. Not the elite ones. But they should still be professional troops.
Russia has 405,000 professional troops, and 225,000 conscripts.

They use T-72B3 and T-80BVM.

Someone here, I forget his handle, had pictures of a couple of T-90s. If those are true those should be elite troops.
They were supposedly entering from the northwest.

So what does this mean? I could be totally wrong and I'm not looking close enough. But are the Russians not sending in their best units just yet? Or do they just don't have enough T-80's, T-90's and BMP-3's to equip these units? Another explanation could be that they are using this conflict to "bloody" their less experienced troops? That could lend credence to the argument that they are encountering more resistance than they where expecting, and they bit of more than their "green" troops could chew? But then again, wouldn't you send in your best troops in the initial assault?

Well that is Russian doctrine. They send a bulk of mass production tanks in front and the elite units are used to crush points of resistance the main wave can't take on. But those shouldn't be "green" troops by any measure. At best it will be a mix of professional troops with conscripts, but I doubt they are using conscripts.

There simply aren't enough T-90 tanks to equip all the units and there will never be. Production has basically stopped. Most tanks are T-72B3 upgrades from old T-72 stocks and T-90M upgrades from T-90/A tanks. Production of new tanks will switch to T-14 Armata starting this year.

 

[Sardaukar20]

Based on the RAND papers I've read, it's not easy to shut down an airbase for more than a day or two by aerial bombardment. The damage to the runway can be quickly repaired and new aircraft flown in. The attacker needs to keep bombing the airbases continuously to keep them out of the fight.

Yes you can. NATO, especially France have developed dedicated anti-runway cluster munitions. Some would explode on impact, damaging the runway. While some would remain dormant as area denial mines, to complicate the repair work. This could put a runway out of commission for quite awhile before the next bombing run. I suspect that Russia does have cluster munitions, but just not those for dedicated anti-runway operations.

 

[victoon]

So it's illegal to take a pro-Russian position now? We're only allowed to take pro-Ukrainian position?

Have you gone off the deep end?

I think PRC's neutral stance is very enlightened. China is implicitly against Russian invasion of Ukraine. China is just not willing to hurt its own interest to sanction others. The west has called it a 'pro-Russia neutral.' But to me, that's a pro-China position.

 

[horse]

Turkey actually made this statement many days ago at the start of the war.

Still too funny!

They are using sophistry to fight the war.

Those Turks!

They manage to stick it to both sides at once!

 

[anzha]

So you are saying that TASS was hacked and its content was changed to "Putin is disappointed", then the right content was restored. The content that I read was the real TASS article?

That's probably what happened. Or some staffer or intern put in some details they should not have. I could see someone looking around for figures to go with the announcement since none were given and then prompted screamed at by their manager.

 

[victoon]

Ukraine better pay back the money for Motor Sich. China has a long memory and doesn't forget when you steal money (billions) from it. Until it returns the money or it honours the contract, don't expect anyone here to even aknowledge Ukraine.

All these billions it stole were earned through the blood and sweat of countless ordinary Chinese people who are working from morning till evening. They represent the work, hopes and dreams of the Chinese people. The gravest offence Ukraine has done is to steal all that and spit on China's face.

Pay back the money or get crushed under Putin's iron boot

I don't think the CCP or the Chinese elites in general is as petty as you are. If China need to get that money back, the Chinese don't need the Russians to get it done.

 

[Zichan]

Yes you can. NATO, especially France have developed dedicated anti-runway cluster munitions. Some would explode on impact, damaging the runway. While some would remain dormant as area denial mines, to complicate the repair work. This could put a runway out of commission for quite awhile before the next bombing run. I suspect that Russia does have cluster munitions, but just not those for dedicated anti-runway operations.

From what I remember, they did take into account cluster munition cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. This was a paper gaming China's invasion of Taiwan where the US intervenes. They tabulated what it would take to keep US airbases suppressed. The premise was that China would have to bomb them almost every day.

 

[Overbom]

That's probably what happened. Or some staffer or intern put in some details they should not have. I could see someone looking around for figures to go with the announcement since none were given and then prompted screamed at by their manager.

Plausible. It also happened when they reported the 45 (I think) PLA casualties when the border dispute happened with India. Because they didn't have the info, they just got the number from Indian sources lol

 

[Mohsin77]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1498023442666434567

This is what those units were waiting for:

Satellite images show large convoy of Russian forces moving toward Kyiv

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Maxar satellite imagery was collected at 10.56am this morning, showing a large deployment of Russian ground forces, containing hundreds of military vehicles, heading northeast of the Ukrainian city of Ivankiv and moving in the direction of Kyiv—approximately 40 miles away.

The convoy extended for more than 3.25 miles and contained fuel, logistics and armoured vehicles such as tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, self-propelled artillery.

Meanwhile, Kiev's mayor just reported the city is completely surrounded (i.e. no reinforcements possible)

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Updated maps show Russians consolidated their supply lines in the North yesterday, while also coming down from the East.