The War in the Ukraine

Atomicfrog said:

Building concrete hangars would have been a good thing to do, even metal shed would diminish damage... They had two years to do it.

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It doesn't even have to be concrete hangars, just make unreinforced hangars that serve as heat protection, but in the case of Russia it would serve as aerospace anti-surveillance measures.

This would serve as a deception measure against allied space surveillance.

From above it would look like this. Ukraine's allies would have no idea how many planes were at the base or in which hangar.

If the Russians want to take a stronger protective measure, copy the USAF example:
The USAF is developing a transportable hangar capable of housing and protecting aircraft for certain periods during deployments to remote bases and outside the country. According to the USAF, these hangars are capable of protecting aircraft from threats caused by cluster bomb submunitions. Eventually they could also withstand attacks from small drones, like those that wreaked havoc on Russian bombers/fighters.

The estimated cost of each hangar is between 400 and 600 thousand dollars.

The first example case would cost much less than the USAF copied model.

What I can only describe a "MacGyvered T-72" with a extremely jury rigged antidrone jammer


Also, the modified APC T-64 built for Azov a few years ago has been captured

Atomicfrog said:

Building concrete hangars would have been a good thing to do, even metal shed would diminish damage... They had two years to do it.

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People really need to manage their expectations when military do stupid things, not everything needs to be some 5D chess move. Even if the SMO have woken up some of the Russian military brass, the cultural inertia alone from decades of neglect will cause things like this to occur.

The same sort of incompetence occurs in military all around the world, they're just not as visible because they are not at war.

tankphobia said:

People really need to manage their expectations when military do stupid things, not everything needs to be some 5D chess move. Even if the SMO have woken up some of the Russian military brass, the cultural inertia alone from decades of neglect will cause things like this to occur.

The same sort of incompetence occurs in military all around the world, they're just not as visible because they are not at war.

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True, but Russia has now had over 2 years to sort this out and still hasn't. Leaving billions worth of aircraft totally exposed within range of the enemy is either pushing new boundaries of gross incompetence or treason.

Cult Icon said:

Yet at the same time, the Russian force doesn't really capitalize much on the weakness of their enemy. They have the initiative but their units are not seizing upon it sufficiently. Most of the time they are just attacking each other with drones & other munitions.

Since the Adiivka operation they continue this very slow and small scaled pace of positional warfare with a small number of small attacks by squads, platoons and companies to glacially expand the zone of control.

The recent attacks by battalion and company sized armored units don't indicate that they have figured out how to use the tank for maneuver warfare in a sufficiently efficient manner, still the same footage of them getting zero'ed in by Ukrainian artillery. They did not use armor well in the Adiivka fighting last year.

This begs the question- If one day Russia launches massive mechanized offensive at the scale of 2022 will they be as costly as before? Or have they abandoned the classic massed tank attack and moved towards very conservative armor use.

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It is easy to talk. This isn't Iraq with Saddam's huge paved highways.

They are basically advancing on narrow dirt roads which turn into mush during mud season. Which we are in.
If you try going offroad into the farmland during the mud season you will also just sink into the ground.

To make a rapid armored push you need to use the roads. Well there aren't that many of them and they are all targeted with drones. When you get spotted you get either incoming artillery or FPV drone hits.

The same thing happened in WW2. Soviet progress against the Nazis in this region of Ukraine was glacial. Because of the terrain.

I thought this was a joke but Ukraine seems to have a sense of humor while attacking strategic airfields

tamsen_ikard said:

Its not what Ukraine is doing with Drones that is concerning, its a lack of equivalent Russian attack that shows Russian lack of similar drone stockpile or lack of Air Defences compared to Ukraine. At this point Russia is losing the strategic air war and strategic naval war. The only war they are not losing is the ground war.

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True they are not losing the ground war but they aint winning it either. Now to some taking almost 6 months to move 10km at a cost of more than a division of men and armored vehicles is winning of course their reality is not of the majority of the real world.

Maikeru said:

True, but Russia has now had over 2 years to sort this out and still hasn't. Leaving billions worth of aircraft totally exposed within range of the enemy is either pushing new boundaries of gross incompetence or treason.

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I mean you're right of course, but this thread is cluttered as is without people getting into slap fights about which side is more incompetent, I'd rather people point out it happened and move on, just like how I previously dismissed the loss of western armour as shit happens in war.

sheogorath said:

What I can only describe a "MacGyvered T-72" with a extremely jury rigged antidrone jammer

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1776193969623384398

Also, the modified APC T-64 built for Azov a few years ago has been captured

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1776179162694254988

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that tank got taken out by a drone

looks like it was abandoned and the ew system was turned off thats why fpv drone managed to hit it

Sinnavuuty said:

It doesn't even have to be concrete hangars, just make unreinforced hangars that serve as heat protection, but in the case of Russia it would serve as aerospace anti-surveillance measures.
View attachment 127662
This would serve as a deception measure against allied space surveillance.
View attachment 127663
From above it would look like this. Ukraine's allies would have no idea how many planes were at the base or in which hangar.

If the Russians want to take a stronger protective measure, copy the USAF example:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1698368316773912989

The USAF is developing a transportable hangar capable of housing and protecting aircraft for certain periods during deployments to remote bases and outside the country. According to the USAF, these hangars are capable of protecting aircraft from threats caused by cluster bomb submunitions. Eventually they could also withstand attacks from small drones, like those that wreaked havoc on Russian bombers/fighters.

The estimated cost of each hangar is between 400 and 600 thousand dollars.

The first example case would cost much less than the USAF copied model.

Click to expand...

IMO if the common folk on the internet realize that it is quite dumb to use tires as protection for aircrafts against drones then there is no way that people who have been handling strategic bombers for several years don't realize that too. There is incompetence in the Russian military no doubt about it. But the number one enemy to the Russian military is not incompetence, the main enemy has always been the lack of funds. I imagine puting those tires as protection was a pure act of desperation due to the lack of funds to that bomber airbase from the higher ups to build more apropriate protection. Russia uses a small military budget to build and maintain the third largest airforce plus operate the second largest number of SSNs/SSBNs after the US plus the largest ground force in Europe plus a massive strategic nuclear stockpile, add to that funds for R&D and for the surface fleet and the result is that all projects are under funded, delayed and imperfect.

I would argue also that Russia has had a much more difficult time navigating through military challenges than say China for example due to the fall of the USSR. They went from being a country that has around the same population as the US to less than half, then came a decade of catastrophic decline & corruption. Putin really only had 14 years to pick up the pieces from the ashes of the USSR.

I believe once the Ukraine war ends the Russian military will have to downsize to something more sustainable.