The War in the Ukraine

plawolf

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Phead128 said:
The latest missile barrage against energy infrastructure featured six (6) Kinzhal hypersonic missile, which is designed to evade anti-air defenses and bypass it altogether. If the primary objective was to draw out Ukrainian anti-air batteries for SEAD/DEAD strategy, it's probably more cost-effective to use $20K Shahed/Geran-2 drones than multi-million dollar cruise and hypersonic missiles?
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Which is more likely to attract high end SAMs like S300?
 
plawolf

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Aegis21 said:
That’s a hell of an expensive way to do SEAD. I don’t think they’re using million+ $ cruise missiles to just get the Ukrainians to use up their interceptor stocks. Anyway, they will just be equipped with new western designs like Patriot as they use up their old Soviet stocks. The only reasonable way this could be done is if the Russian have a large amount of old missiles that will soon be decommissioned.
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That’s what happens when you cheap out on critical, but less ‘sexy’ support assets and training to afford the big toys. It also doesn’t help that Russia is too weak to play hardball with NATO, so NATO ISR directly taking over key parts of the kill chain for Ukraine makes conventional SEAD effectively impossible.

Thus the only way Russia can currently perform SEAD is by trying to deplete Ukrainian AD missile inventories, while also doing DEAD when they can by using lancets and other suicide drones.

It’s messy, expensive and inefficient, but it’s the best Russia can do in their current situation. The alternative is that the VKS continue to set the war out. In that context, spending a few billion to unlock the fighting potential of hundreds of billions worth of combat assets is a good deal for the Russians.

All the recent air strikes would not have been possible, or at least would have involved far higher risks and likely costs without all the degradation of Ukrainians AD that was achieved due to all the infrastructure strikes beforehand.

Aegis21 said:
Both sides have often reported that the Russians are using S-300s in land-attack mode. My guess is that they’re using up old 5V55s by launching them and forcing the Ukrainians to try to shoot them down. The same cost benefit analysis doesn’t apply to these missiles as they’ve long been out of production and will have to be retired anyway.
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Maybe to start with, but software updates will allow NATO ISR to filter out such obvious decoys.

Aegis21 said:
The last point I want to make is that the campaign against electricity hasn’t worked out very well, much like the attacks against fuel depots earlier into the war. In both cases, when capacity goes down the Ukrainians just shift supplies to the military at the expense of civilians (remember the long gas lines early in the war). That’s why the strikes don’t affect Ukrainian rail logistics that much and in case they have no other choice, they could just fall back on diesel trains. Using their missiles on actual significant targets like the Dnieper bridges probably would’ve been more fruitful (and they had enough to do that).
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This is why attacking infrastructure is not the primary objective of these missile attacks.
 
Gloire_bb

Gloire_bb

Captain
Registered Member
BlackWindMnt said:
Are the patriot system already active in Ukraine?
Maybe saying it were Kinzhals and not Iskanders is a good excuse for the Patriot system not able to intercept the missiles.
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IIRC, they said it's already crossed, but not operational yet.
In any case, i don't think it matters - patriots are nowhere near leakproof even against relatively basic, Iranian "Jihad-IKEA" BMs launched by Houthis.

Passive, tough targets traveling from space at 1-2 km/s are just hard to deal with, it's the nature of things. And that's before any maneuvering, EW and penaids.
 
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Stealthflanker

Senior Member
Registered Member
The Patriots would most likely be placed in Odessa-Nikolaev region. As it give them the clearest horizon to the Black sea, thus more chance to engage Russian missiles.

and as i previously said sometime ago.. they could also threaten Russian AEW, hat if they were provided with 160-200 km range version, the PAC-2/GEM-T or PAC-3. Otherwise it's no different to the S-300P/PS that they already have.
 
A

Anlsvrthng

Captain
Registered Member
MarKoz81 said:
Ukraine not only had not reinforced the border with Crimea to prevent fast crossing by land but had no units stationed in Melitopol. Instead a battalion was stationed in Novoalekseyivka near border as well as in Skladovsk and near Nova Kakhovka to the west. Those units were outmaneuvered and dispersed in the first hours and then Russian forces simply overrun the area through sheer initiative. With proper defense they would have never been able to pass Nova Kakhovka, Kherson and Melitopol without heavy fighting over many days. Compare with advances through DPR/LPR boundary. The collapse of southern front is entirely on Poroshenko's and Zelensky's military genius.

But what that means is that as you look at the map you miss the fact that the only reason why Russia was able to capture that area was because there was no meaningful resistance. Compare with 1st Tank Army advance to Izyum which took ~2 weeks. Ukraine had to defend everywhere else including west of Mikolaiyv and consequently the frontline stabilized around 20 Mar where it is today and then it took a while before forces were amassed on both sides.

Melitopol is the most vulnerable direction after west Dnipro is cleared and it should be prioritized even without Crimea's importance for the war.

Obviously I can be missing important data on Bakhmut or it may be a shaping operation to draw away Russian forces from another direction but other than that it's a strategic error. Hopefully this answers your question.
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Cognitive dissonance again : )

By an outside observer it looks like the Ukrainan units wasn't prepared for defence, but for an offensive in Donbas, isn't it ?

And interenstingly, Zelenitsky failed to withdraw even the heavy weapons from Donbas required by the Minks peace agreement. So, how much chance is to relocate the units from Donetsk to Crimea ?

The unit commanders there sent him to the hell when he mentioned anything like not shelling the ukrainans in Donbas.
 
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Anlsvrthng

Captain
Registered Member
Gloire_bb said:
IIRC, they said it's already crossed, but not operational yet.
In any case, i don't think it matters - patriots are nowhere near leakproof even against relatively basic, Iranian "Jihad-IKEA" BMs launched by Houthis.

Passive, tough targets traveling from space at 1-2 km/s are just hard to deal with, it's the nature of things. And that's before any maneuvering, EW and penaids.
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Patriots usable only to prevent Russian bombers to enter the airspace. No other use.
 
T

Tam

Brigadier
Registered Member
Stealthflanker said:
The Patriots would most likely be placed in Odessa-Nikolaev region. As it give them the clearest horizon to the Black sea, thus more chance to engage Russian missiles.

and as i previously said sometime ago.. they could also threaten Russian AEW, hat if they were provided with 160-200 km range version, the PAC-2/GEM-T or PAC-3. Otherwise it's no different to the S-300P/PS that they already have.
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Kalibers should also be coming from the two Gepard class frigates at the Caspian Sea.
 
T

Tam

Brigadier
Registered Member
Video label says Russian EW station hit by artillery, but that's a Ukrainian flag beneath the station.


FPV drone crashes into a TOS-1A.


First reported instance of Switchblade 600 in action, damaging a Tor-M1 and an S-300V launcher.


Chechen FPV drone operators getting interviewed. Seems like FPV drones are the new hot thing.

 
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