The War in the Ukraine

Broccoli said:

Ukraine is also soon receiving first patch of GLSDB's and unlike ATACMS those are still in production and large quantaties can be delivered.
Daily +150km precision strikes against logistics.

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Totally different. ATACMS is a 1670 kg missile, and GLSDB is a glide bomb with 270 kg.
The GLSDB is just a different way of providing the same capability as the GMLRS-ER is supposed to have. Since that is not available yet.
The ATACMS also has like twice the range of the ground launched GLSDB.

Atomicfrog said:

They will need to depend on makeshift bases that are moved all the time if they want to stay in range of these standoff ammunitions. Cluster ammo are quite devastating for aircrafts because they cover a large area against these thin skinned and costly system.

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Yes. Using a cluster ATACMS against highly expensive soft skinned vehicles like aircraft is pretty much the optimum result. The Russians will have to disperse their aviation more while within ATACMS range.

In the long term I suspect a lot of the front line attack helicopters will be replaced with drones.

Sheleah said:

Major attack on the Berdyansk airfield, hitting ammunition depots and destroying Russian aircraft.... good target to use the ATACMS, I wouldn't be surprised if the Russian bases in Crimea start burning soon.

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Ukraine was only given the ATACMS missiles with cluster warheads which have a max range of 160km. That puts most of Crimea out of reach of this system.

Will be interesting to know more details about the attack and how these missiles managed to get through Russian S-400 and S-300 ABM shield. Possibly a combination of saturation attack with S-200s and decoy/jammers like in the Sevastopol naval base attack.

Zichan said:

Ukraine was only given the ATACMS missiles with cluster warheads which have a max range of 160km. That puts most of Crimea out of reach of this system.

Will be interesting to know more details about the attack and how these missiles managed to get through Russian S-400 and S-300 ABM shield. Possibly a combination of saturation attack with S-200s and decoy/jammers like in the Sevastopol naval base attack.

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Even if Ukraine is given missiles 300 KM range, what is Russia going to do about it? Nothing at all. They have no cards left to play other than nukes.

Russia's strategy right now is to simply survive Ukrainian attacks long enough until the west stops supporting Ukraine. No a good strategy since it depends on the West losing its interest in Ukraine. Nothing preventing the West from radicalizing further and spending much higher money on defense and weapons production and giving those weapons to Ukraine, Israel or whoever else needs it.

Russia will need a pro-active strategy like bigger mobilization to blunt any kind of western support for good.

the ATACMS strike hold some lessons for the PLA for AR. if they were to take penghu, what can they place on Penghu vs what is ROC able to hit with their missiles? distance between Penghu and Taiwan is about the same as Berdyansk from the frontline.

at the same time, the PLA has some rockets that are just as capable as ATACMS, with longer range, they can be used to a similar effect. it is good for PLA to know that this type of weapons can devastate enemy airfields.

The ATACMS just returns Ukraine the capability they lost when they used up their stockpiles of Tochka-B missiles. A lot of people forget but when the war started Ukraine used the Tochka-B against a couple of Russian Ropucha boats in Berdyansk and they also used them against Russian air bases in occupied Southern Ukraine and against Millerovo Airbase in Rostov.

As long as they don't use the ATACMS on targets deep within Russian territory itself it is unlikely that Russia would escalate with nukes. But Russia has plenty of options to escalate the conflict if they want to. They already started destroying bridges over the Oskol river. They can also destroy the bridges over the Dnieper if they wanted to.

gelgoog said:

The ATACMS just returns Ukraine the capability they lost when they used up their stockpiles of Tochka-B missiles. A lot of people forget but when the war started Ukraine used the Tochka-B against a couple of Russian Ropucha boats in Berdyansk and they also used them against Russian air bases in occupied Southern Ukraine and against Millerovo Airbase in Rostov.

As long as they don't use the ATACMS on targets deep within Russian territory itself it is unlikely that Russia would escalate with nukes. But Russia has plenty of options to escalate the conflict if they want to. They already started destroying bridges over the Oskol river. They can also destroy the bridges over the Dnieper if they wanted to.

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bridges over the dnieper are not the same as those over oskil. they are bigger, harder to damage, and further away. there are also a few dams that double as crossings, cant exactly blow up those. the most russia can do is concentrate on the rail crossings and destroy those to slow down ukrainian rail transport.

drowingfish said:

bridges over the dnieper are not the same as those over oskil. they are bigger, harder to damage, and further away. there are also a few dams that double as crossings, cant exactly blow up those. the most russia can do is concentrate on the rail crossings and destroy those to slow down ukrainian rail transport.

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Of course they can. The Russians can use the Iskander or the Kinzhal to destroy the bridges. The Russians also have the glide version of the FAB-1500.

As for the dams, those can be destroyed as well. It is not like destruction of dams in war is something new. The Germans destroyed Soviet dams in WW2, and the British destroyed German dams.

drowingfish said:

bridges over the dnieper are not the same as those over oskil. they are bigger, harder to damage, and further away. there are also a few dams that double as crossings, cant exactly blow up those. the most russia can do is concentrate on the rail crossings and destroy those to slow down ukrainian rail transport.

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Oskil bridges were destroyed with Kh-38, which is a rather small Maverick class of missile even helicopters are capable of carrying. They only have a range of about 40km. You haven't even begun what a FAB-250 can do, much less a FAB-500 and a FAB-1500. The range of a FAB-250 is around 140km.


News from the front.

A new extender has been added to the Upyr (Ghoul) FPV drone that doubles it's range.


Destroyed pontoon vehicles of the AFU at their side of the Dniepr.


Shown here is a 120mm 2B11 mortar used by the Russian Army. Mortars have become exceptionally critical in the conflict in urban and trench warfare.


Photo of a recently introduced TOS-2 Tosochka thermobaric rocket launcher.


Destruction of an UAV control post of the AFU along with vehicle and personnel at Pervomaisky.


It is reported that a Mil-28N took out a tank and three IFVs in a single sortie.


An MT-LB of the AFU gets knocked out by the Osman special forces together with the 42nd in the Orekhiv sector.


Soldiers from the Russian 83rd and 85th Brigades took out two Polish Rosomak carriers, a T-64BV and a BMP-1 or -2 somewhere in the Artemovsk region.


Ukrainian SPG gets taken out by a Lancet. Lancets are primarily used against longer ranged targets, as FPV drones have taken over the duty for shorter ranged targets.


Some skill and maybe some luck exhibited here. A Russian soldier popped a Mavic-3 drone with rifle fire at night.


Ukrainian vehicles taken out by a Ka-52 in Zaporozhye.


Footage of a LMUR missile strike from a Ka-52M.


Russian Bukhanka. Both sides use improvised MLRS for infantry support.


Ships being used to deliver goods from North Korea to Russia in the Far East. Then similar containers used in the transport are spotted near the Ukrainian border where storage facilities have been greatly expanded.


Ukrainian mortar nest gets knocked out by artillery in counter battery operation in Kremennaya region.


Russian artillery work at Spirne. A couple of field ammo depots may have been hit based on the intensity of explosions.

Tam said:

Oskil bridges were destroyed with Kh-38, which is a rather small Maverick class of missile even helicopters are capable of carrying. They only have a range of about 40km. You haven't even begun what a FAB-250 can do, much less a FAB-500 and a FAB-1500. The range of a FAB-250 is around 140km.

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Eh no. Kh-38 is way larger than Maverick. Kh-38 is a 520 kg missile with 250 kg warhead. Maverick is a 210-304 kg missile with 57-136 kg warhead. The Kh-38 has roughly twice the weight and warhead of the largest Maverick.

For comparison the FAB-250 has 100 kg filling weight, FAB-500 has 300 kg filling weight, FAB-1500 has 675 kg filling weight. So the Kh-38 has close to the same warhead weight as the FAB-500.

Also, for comparison, the Iskander has a 480-700 kg warhead weight. Kinzhal is probably the same with regards to explosive. But it has much higher kinetic energy due to higher speed.

gelgoog said:

Of course they can. The Russians can use the Iskander or the Kinzhal to destroy the bridges. The Russians also have the glide version of the FAB-1500.

As for the dams, those can be destroyed as well. It is not like destruction of dams in war is something new. The Germans destroyed Soviet dams in WW2, and the British destroyed German dams.

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the bottom line is, if russian has the ability to do it they would have done it already. it is just so obvious, so simple. if you have the patience to scroll back, i was saying that they should have done this at the start of the war. i only assumed they didn't do it because they had bigger ambitions like odessa. but now that odessa is clearly out of reach, there is absolutely no reason to not sever the lines of communications between east and west ukraine. the fact that they havent done it suggests to me that they actually cant.