The War in the Ukraine

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iioklwwelo

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Topazchen said:
Russian air defenses are giving them a very bad rep, which might impact future sales.
Remember how they were being taunted as game changers and the new wonder weapons after their performance in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
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Overexcited marketing campaigns in favour of TB-2 drones aside, I don't see a reason why a major/independent geopolitical power such as Russia would be bothered by minor nuisances such as drones.

It seems quite clear to me that notwithstanding typically exaggerated bombastic proclamations we see/hear from Middle Eastern/other countries such as Iran, Israel or Turkey, none of these countries are capable of challenging the great powers.
 
A

Abominable

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Topazchen said:
Russian air defenses are giving them a very bad rep, which might impact future sales.
Remember how they were being taunted as game changers and the new wonder weapons after their performance in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
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Out of all the "wunderwaffe" given to the Ukraine, they seemed to have won the lottery in terms of PR. You've got Ukrainians singing songs about them, multiple foreign countries praising them. I wonder if they were deemed important enough that they play a role in the current Turkey-NATO negotiations.

In terms of what they actually did, I think the Ukrainians were very skittish to use them at first. When they were finally deployed they were quickly found out. In the end they ended up using them kamikazi style, effectively making them very expensive underpowered cruise missiles. Then either they ran out of them or the Turks got worried about the loss in reputation.

Either way in the eyes of most it seems they will come out of this conflict with an enhanced reputation. Turkey will probably sell more of them because of this war.

Remember for the west all wars are just opportunities for defence companies to advertise their products. You think it's a coincidence we heard so much about M777s, starstreaks, and so on. It was all marketing BS. In Afghanistan wikileaks showed that Sweden wanted the Gripen to conduct strikes specifically to increase the prospect of exports.
 
FriedButter

FriedButter

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kokole said:
“We only had machine guns and AK47s. RPGs from 1986. A Degtyaryov machine gun from 1943. And a Maxim machine gun from 1933. And we also have a Swedish NLAW man-portable anti-tank missile, but the battery didn't work. That's all we had." He points out that none of his men had received night vision goggles, or even binoculars. “We had to bring models from home that are usually used for hunting,” says Volodymyr Kharchuk.
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The batteries don’t work? Where did all the batteries go? First the Javelins don’t have batteries and now the Swedish NLAW has none either. Did the West really just ship a bunch of weapons but left out the power supply? Hard to believe that Russia destroyed all the batteries with missiles and air strikes.

FriedButter said:
It was early March. They were issued antitank weapons and Javelin missiles but no batteries for the launch unit, he said.

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A

Atomicfrog

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FriedButter said:
The batteries don’t work? Where did all the batteries go? First the Javelins don’t have batteries and now the Swedish NLAW has none either. Did the West really just ship a bunch of weapons but left out the power supply? Hard to believe that Russia destroyed all the batteries with missiles and air strikes.
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Misuse most likely, these weapons cannot be left ''ON'' very long on old batteries. They are probably putting them ''ON'' to be ready all the time and they just suck the energy out. They didn't get a lot of training.
 
Temstar

Temstar

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Registered Member
Atomicfrog said:
Misuse most likely, these weapons cannot be left ''ON'' very long on old batteries. They are probably putting them ''ON'' to be ready all the time and they just suck the energy out. They didn't get a lot of training.
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They talked about this on Guancha. Basically people are keen to use ATGM's thermal imager for general purpose observing because their quality are really good compare to commercial ones. This then tend to run the batteries flat and make it unusable when you actually need to shoot the missile.

Chinese export ATGM run into the same issue, Norinco gets around this issue not by trying to educate the users into not turning it on before you're about to take a shot but instead just packaging two batteries with each weapon for your viewing pleasure.
 
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