The War in the Ukraine

SlothmanAllen said:

Do we know how many Storm Shadows have been produced? Does a significant number of them exist to be donated to Ukraine to make an significant impact on the course of the war?

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UK made 800 Stormshadows so they could likely part with 3-4 dozen of their shorter range Stormshadows.

They are way more survivable than ATACMS which is why the US refuses to give Ukraine this weapon system. Ukraine would have to launch at least 10 ATACMS to successfully hit a far away target protected by IADS.

HighGround said:

They figured it out for other Western missiles and Mig-29s, they can figure it out for Su-24s.

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The Storm Shadow is potentially game changing, because it gives another credible strike capability that could possibly be sustained long-term. I don't know how many Tochkas Ukraine has, but they haven't been used much. The Storm Shadow should be stealthier as well, which would increase its chance of penetrating air defenses.

I am curious how RuAF will adapt, but also, how they will "escalate" the conflict.

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I don't think Tochka-U still exists anymore, they have either been expended, shot down or destroyed on the ground.

SlothmanAllen said:

Yeah, I get they strap it to a Soviet/Russian jet, but how does it know where to go/receive targeting information? There must be some sort of translation layer between the Russian programing language and the Storm Shadow. I think that is very interesting. I work in IT and those types of things interest me.



I don't know a lot about the MALD, but from what I understand it can be quite an effective jammer/spoofing device.

If you think about Storm Shadow and MALD, then you have quite a potent combination of NATO weaponry being launched from Russian/Soviet aircraft.

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I don't know how they do it, but it seems the Russians have been able to counter jamming devices used by the Ukrainians while being able to geolocate, intercept and jam communications and links the Ukrainians use, including the supposedly unjammable Starlink.

The Ukrainians used the Tochka-U more when the conflict started. They have not used it in a long time so if they have any stocks left they are likely quite limited. They have been mostly using 220mm and 300mm rockets in the last months.

The Storm Shadow has reduced RCS. So I would not call it less advanced than the Tomahawk. It has less range because it is an air launched weapon supposed to be carried by a regular fighter bomber. The Russians have the Kh-59. So it is not like they do not have a similar weapon.

gelgoog said:

The Soviets introduced the Shtora-1 soft-kill APS in the late 1980s. All the Russian T-90 tanks have the system. The US will only be adding laser warning receivers to the M1 in the M1A2SEPV4 package. Since the Krasnopol uses laser guidance this does provide some kind of defense against it. So, unlike all in service US tanks which have zero protection against Krasnopol attacks, all T-90s have it.

Now you expect Russia to have APS in service which is not in service anywhere else. Something which detects any incoming missiles or artillery projectiles and intercepts them. Even Trophy cannot intercept artillery shells. The Israelis started using Trophy in 2009 and the US only started using it in 2018. Only a limited amount of M1 tanks have Trophy in them.

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Will that magical APS system from Russia come with those 2000 Armatas? Israelis have used real APS for a long time and Abrams units also have same system.

SlothmanAllen said:

How do they launch the Storm Shadow? Also, a twitter post I read earlier also indicated Ukraine had MALD? That seems like a major increase in long range strike and jamming for Ukraine!

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Brits said that Ukrainian aircrafts were modified with capability to launch Storm Shadow.

It's a big missile so I would guess Su-24.

The LPR reports that during the attack on Lugansk on May 12, British-French Storm Shadow missiles and one US-made ADM-160B MALD missile were used.

Germany will provide Ukraine with the largest military aid package since the beginning of the war.
Spiegel writes that the €2.7 billion package will include:
- 20 BMP "Marder";
- 30 Leopard 1 tanks;
- 4 air defense systems IRIS-T-SLM (12 launchers and hundreds of missiles to it);
- 200 reconnaissance UAVs; - 100 combat vehicles (probably light armored personnel carriers).
- 100 logistic support vehicles.
- A large supply of ammunition. In addition, 15 Gepard anti-aircraft systems will be removed from conservation and delivered to Ukraine.

Deino said:

Really? I see by far still not the best from NATO … no fighters, no longe range missiles (except the Storm Shadow) … not yet any modern tanks in great numbers …

by the way, the latest "Wagner map"

View attachment 112494

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I have published a map of the previous day.

So it is not the same.



As for "not the best".

Of course it is not the best as NATO does not equip all its units with "the best", go and check how many Leopard A7s Germany operates. and how many of older models, so yes, the AFU is a de facto NATO army, not only that, but one of the largest and best equipped.

HighGround said:

Why? I don't understand why people keep treating anecdote, rumors, and "confirmations" from biased parties as credible inputs.

All of these are speculations or loose inferences at best. It's like the whole "casualties" and "attrition ratios" discussion. We cannot put any degree of confidence on such numbers or "trends".

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So Ukraine is operating with NATO frontline equipment, but they have not been given a communications one. It's simple logic.

There are 8 AFU brigades equipped with NATO line equipment, trained in NATO training camps, the AFU air force is using decoys used by the US Air Force, but in all of this, no one has given Ukraine communications equipment even though NATO says in their aid packages that they are doing so?

Not to mention that in 2014-2022 NATO was also helping the AFU to modernise ....

About the night news, there was a lot of VKS activity in all the Ukranian territory, including the destruction of a big number of ammo depot as fas as Lviv (under NATO AWACS hehe).


In turn AFU managed to hit the former offices of LPR Interior Ministry in Lugansk.

Also another M777 got rekt:

Storm shadow fragments found at Lugansk strike site,at a distance of 80km from the front.

Russians allegedly shot down (again) their own Su-34 (some claim Mi-8).

Edit; TASS reports it was Su-34 and Mi-8.