The War in the Ukraine

gelgoog said:

I agree with most of that you said. But Ukraine did upgrade at least some of their air defenses with more modern electronics and radars. They also have made software which enables them to see the whole air defense sight picture using a regular tablet. Even operators with MANPADS can use this software on their smartphones. So they are not exactly as they were in the Soviet era.

The main issue Ukraine is having is that they are running out of air defense missiles and a lot of their launcher platforms and radars were also destroyed by the Russians. So it's not like they can cover their whole territory like they used to. And the few Western supplied systems aren't enough to cover their whole airspace. There are significant gaps in coverage and the Russian Air Force can exploit them if they want to.

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On the front line, most of what operates are still Soviet-era SAMs. The more modern Western SAMs that are in Ukraine were largely to defend Kiev, the Ukrainian oblast governors themselves complained when Russia started bombing saying that Zelensky only placed anti-aircraft defenses in the capital and this partly explains the reason for the lack of anti-aircraft coverage in the Ukrainian counteroffensive, Soviet SAMs are also out of missiles and Western SAMs that were sent to Ukraine are positioned to defend the capital.

What nonsense. If Russia had air superiority over Ukraine the war would be over by now. Lobbing ballistic missiles and cruise missiles aint gonna cut it and by the way the war has gone for Russia it hasn't cut it. Air superiority means Russia can fly over any part of Ukraine at any time to drop heavy penetrating ordinance without being challenged by the enemies air force or IADS. It means having real time ISR over Ukraine and not hours old intel. Before Ukraine got western SAMs Russia couldn't get air superiority over Ukraine and now with western long range SAMs it's definitely never going to happen.

Losing that AWACS and almost losing the air control aircraft has made it clear that they aren't safe even well within Russian controlled air space.

Western long range SAMs... You mean Patriot basically.
The other systems they have supplied have less range than the S-300PT/PS that Ukraine had.

Patriot has lots of issues. If it worked that well Saudi Arabia wouldn't have gotten its oil refineries bombed by Houti cruise missiles.

Lancet takes out this Ukrainian tank in the Kupyansk. Lots of Lancet attacks as of late.


Compilation of recent ATGM strikes at Ukrainian DRGs, tanks, strongholds and vehicles by the 58th Special Forces Battalion of the 1st DNR Army.


T-90M shelling Ukrainian positions towards Georgivka. Ukrainians fired incendiaries at it but to no avail. Perhaps the incendiaries were the only thing the Ukrainians have available instead of proper ATGMs and artillery.


Baba Yaga gets bombed on the ground followed by its team support getting bombed as well.


Ukrainian tank gets hit by Lancet in the Yuzhno Donetsk direction.


One of the many missile hits at Kharkhiv.


Three Ukrainian tanks hit by Lancets from the 6th MR Division.


Ukrainian deployment points or AFU warehouses being hit by FABs on the right side of Kherson.


FABs going off somewhere on Ukrainian positions in either Zaporozhye or South Donetsk.


Long range precise artillery targeting AFU locations of interest in the Kharkhiv and Sumy regions. This appears to be softening up operations ahead of an imminent offensive.


Ukrainian vehicles gets hit by FPV drones in Spirne.


Russian artillery worked on Ukrainian positions in the forest.

gelgoog said:

Western long range SAMs... You mean Patriot basically.
The other systems they have supplied have less range than the S-300PT/PS that Ukraine had.

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Patriots range was long enough to down and severely damage two aircraft over the Sea of Azov.

gelgoog said:

Patriot has lots of issues. If it worked that well Saudi Arabia wouldn't have gotten its oil refineries bombed by Houti cruise missiles.

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If you think the Patriot has issues then you must think the S400 is almost useless at defending. Only issue for Patriot in Ukraine there's not enough. Russians have tried and failed at overwhelming PAC battery in Kyiv. Russians have pretty much given up taking them out.

TK3600 said:

There are a lot of lessons to be drawn from the war, but tech is really not one of them. I agree. The war shows Ukraine is not falling behind due to technology. The fancy things like Khinzal, SU-57 are not the game changer despite resource invested. Things like drones, EW, ISR are where things matters, and difference is not that large between the two. Where Ukraine is losing is on the political side and economic side.

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I don't think the issue with advanced weapons is them not living up to their hype. I think it's more of a problem with them not being available in high enough numbers. Russia has succeeded (before the war) in sprinkling some really avant-garde systems throughout their military, but they failed to achieve critical mass in any of them.

Actually, this was also the issue with things which ended up working out (like drones). Towards the start of the war, drones were (relatively) few and far in between, but since their production scaled easily, now they're everywhere, and they're seen as revolutionary. I'd be willing to wager that if Russia, instead of 10 Su-57s, had a fleet of 200 of them, they also would be seen as a gamechanger.

Which I think is the problem Russia had for the entire duration of the war. They did the hard things well (developing good weapons - R&D is expensive) but then did the easy part badly (procurement).

Tootensky said:

I don't think the issue with advanced weapons is them not living up to their hype. I think it's more of a problem with them not being available in high enough numbers. Russia has succeeded (before the war) in sprinkling some really avant-garde systems throughout their military, but they failed to achieve critical mass in any of them.

Actually, this was also the issue with things which ended up working out (like drones). Towards the start of the war, drones were (relatively) few and far in between, but since their production scaled easily, now they're everywhere, and they're seen as revolutionary. I'd be willing to wager that if Russia, instead of 10 Su-57s, had a fleet of 200 of them, they also would be seen as a gamechanger.

Which I think is the problem Russia had for the entire duration of the war. They did the hard things well (developing good weapons - R&D is expensive) but then did the easy part badly (procurement).

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Thats the whole point. Too advanced to achieve critical mass. That is no coincidence they didnt.

Things like getting Ukrainian and western parts replaced was what they did best. If they instead used budget for scaling up su57, it would have been a mistake.

You could say Russians failed their mission succesfully. They dodged a bullet by not going for advanced weaponry but promoting readiness instead.

It all boils down to mismanagement. Maybe going down the "middle road" with modernization instead of high-tech procurements is more resilient to corruption somehow.

Video of an IL-76 crash in Belgorod. Rumours that it was shot down by Ukraine

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SolarWarden said:

Patriots range was long enough to down and severely damage two aircraft over the Sea of Azov.


If you think the Patriot has issues then you must think the S400 is almost useless at defending. Only issue for Patriot in Ukraine there's not enough. Russians have tried and failed at overwhelming PAC battery in Kyiv. Russians have pretty much given up taking them out.

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How come no one is talking about the possibility of the USAF sending F22 to shoot it down?

For patriots to shoot down the AWAC, there are so many factors that need to be correct, and the probability of everything lining up is very low.

For Russians to shoot it down themselves, there are so many factors that need to be wrong, and the probability of everything lining up is so low.