The War in the Ukraine

[Abominable]

Are you saying Europe can make lots of carriers and frigates, but can't transition into making artillery shells even after 10 months?

Making ships is nothing compared to wartime mass production of shells or ammunition. Where are the factories producing shells? It's going to cost a lot of money to set them up, and by the time they are up and running the war could be over.

I think they will continue doing what they have been so far buying up ammo from all over the world.

 

[gelgoog]

It typically takes between 2 and 5 years to setup your average factory. But to produce explosives you need chemical producing facilities. And those right now are shutting down all over Central Europe because of the high cost of energy. Making explosives isn't that different from making fertilizer. Well the initial steps at least. You then need to make some more complicated steps afterwards. You need the explosives and then you need a production facility to make the shells themselves.

 

[reservior dogs]

It typically takes between 2 and 5 years to setup your average factory. But to produce explosives you need chemical producing facilities. And those right now are shutting down all over Central Europe because of the high cost of energy. Making explosives isn't that different from making fertilizer. Well the initial steps at least. You then need to make some more complicated steps afterwards. You need the explosives and then you need a production facility to make the shells themselves.

The problem is to be able to sign long term contracts. With long term contracts, the ball will get moving. The question is, with the Western economies in shambles, will the politicians be committed enough to sign these contracts? If not, nothing will get done. Every dollar that goes to making cannon shells will be a dollar that won't go to other MIC project, so there will be a lot of lobbying against such unborn project that no one cares about. There is only so much money to go around.

 

[Tam]

Lancet takes out a P-18 radar. Has interesting implications.

A P-18 radar looks like this.




If you think it looks familiar, its a distant cousin to the VHF radar you see on Type 052Ds. The main difference is that the P-18 has double the number of elements. The P-18 is a very old radar but is likely to be upgraded with modern electronics. Its purpose would be for long range volume air search, and would be useful in detection against stealthy objects. Any loss of air search radars is significant as it corresponds to being blinded, and the P-18 loss or damage comes along with other air search radars being damaged, destroyed or disabled. My impression is that the Lancets took out the radars before the two main waves of cruise missiles comes smashing in.

 

[Stealthflanker]

Looks to me they are using combination of P-18 and ST-68/36D6 for early warning. P-18 for low RCS while ST-68 for more accurate and precise tracking plus heightfinding for detected target (P-18 is 2D radar only, measure range and where the target come from).

This means that Russian ESM Assets are airborne and actually do their job. Their problem could be locating the C3 Node which, clearly use Starlink with low sidelobe and basically not pointing at angle where Russian airborne EW would look. While the effectors like SAM's are "nose cold" and not actively using radar to prevent being picked.

 

[FriedButter]

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Drone targets another Russian airfield – governor​

An airfield in the city of Kursk has been targeted in a drone attack, according to the governor of the southwestern Russian border region. The strike comes just one day after two Russian airbases in Ryazan and Saratov Regions far from the border were targeted with similar weapons.

“As a result of a drone attack, an oil storage tank caught fire in the area of the Kursk airfield. The fire is being localized. All emergency agencies are on site,” Kursk Region Governor Roman Starovoyt said in a Telegram post on Tuesday morning around 7:20am local time.

There were no casualties, according to preliminary information shared by the governor.

I don’t know why they keep targeting the fuel storages. Wouldn’t it be better to just ram the drone into one of the planes on the tarmac.

 

[Zichan]

Looks to me they are using combination of P-18 and ST-68/36D6 for early warning. P-18 for low RCS while ST-68 for more accurate and precise tracking plus heightfinding for detected target (P-18 is 2D radar only, measure range and where the target come from).

This means that Russian ESM Assets are airborne and actually do their job. Their problem could be locating the C3 Node which, clearly use Starlink with low sidelobe and basically not pointing at angle where Russian airborne EW would look. While the effectors like SAM's are "nose cold" and not actively using radar to prevent being picked.

What I heard is that Russia primarily relies on collaborators to designate targets for air attack.

While they have the ability to detect them with ESM, their OODA loop is atrociously long. Often targets move by the time the Russians launch an attack.

Furthermore, their AARs are poor and they rarely have a timely picture or what was hit and what wasn’t.

 

[Anlsvrthng]

Ukraine has access to radar sensing satellite imagery. Cloud cover poses no obstacle.

There is magnitude less radar sensing satelite, additionaly they has to use power to use the radar, restricting operation, and quite easy to blind with earth based transmitters.

 

[Stealthflanker]

I don’t know why they keep targeting the fuel storages. Wouldn’t it be better to just ram the drone into one of the planes on the tarmac.

Fuel storage doesnt go anywhere, that helps alot in targeting, while planes. By the time the drone arrive, they may not necessarily be there anymore. Remember that these drones may have speed of only 120-200 km/Hr. Gonna take them at least half an hour of flight. that's a lot of time. You can scramble 12 aircrafts in that time. It can be calculated by simple formula of N-1+9. The formula is from Indonesian airforce's experience so far so i think it's legit enough.

What I heard is that Russia primarily relies on collaborators to designate targets for air attack.

While they have the ability to detect them with ESM, their OODA loop is atrociously long. Often targets move by the time the Russians launch an attack.

Furthermore, their AARs are poor and they rarely have a timely picture or what was hit and what wasn’t.

Well you will still need something airborne anyway. Because collaborators also take time and not necessarily able to provide information for moving target too.

 

[B777LR]

The problem is to be able to sign long term contracts. With long term contracts, the ball will get moving. The question is, with the Western economies in shambles, will the politicians be committed enough to sign these contracts? If not, nothing will get done. Every dollar that goes to making cannon shells will be a dollar that won't go to other MIC project, so there will be a lot of lobbying against such unborn project that no one cares about. There is only so much money to go around.

Not to mention, the MIC makes a lot more money selling advanced missiles and guided bombs than simple artillery ammunition. There has definitely been a push in that direction in the west, even for fairly low-risk counter insurgency warfare. See the constant push to replace the A-10 with stealth fighters, the deletion of the gun on one notorious new western fighter and the entire concept of dropping Paveway bombs on Kalashnikov armed terrorists in rusty old pickup trucks.

Not saying there isn't a place for precision weapons, but the west has put itself in a unecessarily poor position with over reliance on advanced stuff we can't donate to a country like Ukraine.