The War in the Ukraine

gelgoog said:

It allows bombing with impunity from Buks are the like. Which have been most of Ukrainian air defenses.
Typically the longer the range of a SAM system the less of them there are in an IADS. Which makes it easier to either defend against or avoid them.

Click to expand...

Of frontline - yes, sure.
Try to overfly the FLOT(i.e. bomb anything beyond tactical rear) and we're back to where we've started.
That's why only drones and munitions overfly the frontline and go deep into Ukraine.

gelgoog said:

It is also useful there in that you can deliver more explosives to frontline bunkers and the like. Which cannot be destroyed with 152mm artillery.

Click to expand...

It is.
It isn't decisive, however, and UMPKs in GPS-jammed environments aren't accurate enough to guarantee the kill.
They kill (more often incapacitate) a lot of their inhabitants, sure - but they aren't reliable enough to ensure no one will come out.
Moreover - most of those bunkers are hidden and unknown - only direct assault(not even drones) allow to really discover all of them.
Their relatively slow reaction time doesn't help either.

Net result - yes, Ukrainian casualty(especially explosion/pressure trauma) rate is affected by them. No, it isn't enough to move the frontline in general (though tactically there were some small, morale-related collapses).

gelgoog said:

With a rocket motor the glide bombs such as Kh-38 Grom-E1 can even have enough range to hit targets hiding behind a S-300PS system.

Click to expand...

Yes, they can. What are you going to hit, though? If your bomb can fly 120km it doesn't mean your plane can see that far.
And GROM bomb doesn't have a seeker to find something on its own, nonr can it take any guidance from drones (which is probably the reason why the 70km Kh-38ML is being used much more).

gelgoog said:

Their latest helicopters the Ka-52M and Mi-28NM can supposedly attack outside the range even of the Starstreak. Let alone other shorter range MANPADS.

Click to expand...

Yes, they can lob salvoes (you have enough rockets for 1 suppressive salvo against soft area targets, which may not even hit), can launch direct attack ATGMs(excellent in defense, not good enough for attack - we don't have any footage of them being used in the offensive since 2022; range is not enough), or launch Kh-39s (too expensive and rare even for tanks).

Result: after 2022, VKS can not provide almost any actual CAS to units on the offensive. Only reasonable, but not crazy amounts of delayed precision bombing and strike within up to 40km from the FLOT.
Just to give numbers - to crack defenses, WW2 stuka units could provide literal 1-2 thousand sorties, on time and against specific targets found by pilots, not just coordinates.

gelgoog said:

They conquered Bakhmut even without them. But they have helped speed up destruction of the Ukrainian frontline.

Click to expand...

With almost 20k fatalities - yes. And while Bakhmut has fallen - the Ukrainian frontline is more or less fine, just pushed back. Nothing similar to the Kharkov collapse has happened with it.
Just a frontline fortress taken through bloody, grinding assault, using disposable(for Prigozhin, not Russia) convicts.

gelgoog said:

This is bullshit. You do not use precision weapons for "terror purposes". For that relatively unguided weapons would suffice. You do not need much precision if your target is a whole civilian city.

Click to expand...

Oh, really?
Tell Palestinians, they need your (precise) guidance.

Btw it should be telling, that two main users of "big" glide bombs before 2023 were indeed Israeli AF and the USN. Doctrinally-telling.

gelgoog said:

Which is the whole point. That is how the Russians and the Soviets before them fight anyway. Flying long distance deep into the enemy territory is something they seldom do. Their air force has historically operated at a disadvantage either numerically or qualitatively. So to conserve aviation resources they typically operate closer to the frontline.

Click to expand...

What is load of bullshit is this.

Russians and Soviets before them were known for aiming at decisive action and deep battle. The reason the Russian army stopped trying since early 2023 is because it can't - and doesn't have the means to change it.
Flying over the FLOT is the normal activity of the air force, unless it's totally forced out by unacceptable casualty rate v replenishment rate (which is the case).

Soviet Air Force never ever operated at a numerical disadvantage in its history. And while it sort of expected to be irrelevant against NATO, being irrelevant against Ukraine was a surprise.

gelgoog said:

Russia already had Strelets. So the claim that Russia lacked a similar system to direct artillery fires is bullshit.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

Kropyva is much more than a C2 system to coordinate artillery fire, it can be used for all types of units, from artillery, air defense to combat engineering.

Furthermore, the Strelets were not used massively in Ukraine because Russian units were not properly trained to operate them, suffering from a lack of trained personnel.

This is so evident that Russian units at the beginning of the invasion used maps from the century before last instead of these digitized situational awareness systems.

By the way, Ukraine not only has Kropyva, but other domestically developed software solutions include GIS Arta, ComBat Vision, and the deployed Delta situational awareness and battlefield management system.

The Russians only began to improve this coordination in 2023 where the results were more visible in this widespread adoption, with the Russians now massively using new software created by the company VPK in Jan 2023, which appears to have been ARM-K-M.

The adoption of this newest software thus allowed complete automation and operation with minimally qualified operators. Running on any tablet or smartphone, it connects users of all strengths, building a single network with push and pull functions. Users can enter the locations of enemy forces – strong points, artillery positions, tank units, etc. The output, for each user, is a comprehensive, top-down view of the battlefield, combining information from many overlapping sources.

Such mass adoption was so vital for Ukraine that it allowed the ZSU to fight even at a material and numerical disadvantage:

Gloire_bb said:

Yes, they can. What are you going to hit, though? If your bomb can fly 120km it doesn't mean your plane can see that far.
And GROM bomb doesn't have a seeker to find something on its own, nonr can it take any guidance from drones (which is probably the reason why the 70km Kh-38ML is being used much more).

Click to expand...

The Russians are also working on such aircraft delivered smart bombs. A similar capability is already available on the Lancet.

Gloire_bb said:

Yes, they can lob salvoes (you have enough rockets for 1 suppressive salvo against soft area targets, which may not even hit), can launch direct attack ATGMs(excellent in defense, not good enough for attack - we don't have any footage of them being used in the offensive since 2022; range is not enough), or launch Kh-39s (too expensive and rare even for tanks).

Click to expand...

For tanks you can use the Vikhr or Ataka. The latest versions can operate outside MANPADS range. The main limitation for the attack helicopters in employing those weapons at distance is more the sensors than the weapons systems.

Gloire_bb said:

Just to give numbers - to crack defenses, WW2 stuka units could provide literal 1-2 thousand sorties, on time and against specific targets found by pilots, not just coordinates.

Click to expand...

A Stuka could only carry 200-250kg of bombs. So comparing number of Su-34 sorties with Stukas makes no sense.

Gloire_bb said:

Soviet Air Force never ever operated at a numerical disadvantage in its history.

Click to expand...

Sure they had a lot of early 1930s technology I-16s in early war. So what.
If you look at Soviet aircraft in WW2 they decided to make smaller aircraft with less usage of strategic materials, shorter range, in exchange for rapidly increasing numbers of modern aircraft. Which they were behind in when Barbarossa happened.
The Soviets bombed Berlin in 1941 with strategic bombers. It was basically as disaster where they lost a lot of bombers for little purpose.

So they basically gave up on it.

Gloire_bb said:

And while it sort of expected to be irrelevant against NATO, being irrelevant against Ukraine was a surprise.

Click to expand...

"Irrelevant" you say. And yet the Ukrainian Air Force needs to operate at low level. When they operate at all. The Russians have air superiority over Ukraine it is as simple as that. Yet you guys continue coping about it.

The US didn't manage to destroy all the Serb's MiG-29s when they bombed Yugoslavia either. And there were much less of them to begin with. In a vastly smaller area.

gelgoog said:

The Russians are also working on such aircraft delivered smart bombs. A similar capability is already available on the Lancet.

Click to expand...

Yes, they do. But as of summer 2024, VKS can't attack anything outside of tactical zone other than with cruise missiles, and can't do battlefield interdiction at all(lancet isn't VKS, and its capabilities in any case are dwarfed by the task - army logistics is thousands upon thousands of targets daily, lancet just recently passed 3000 strike video mark).

gelgoog said:

For tanks you can use the Vikhr or Ataka. The latest versions can operate outside MANPADS range. The main limitation for the attack helicopters in employing those weapons at distance is more the sensors than the weapons systems.

Click to expand...

Manpads don't sit on the defended target, it isn't naval combat.

When tanks attack - yes, you can, we saw it many times; kamovs basically guarantee that any mechanized Ukrainian push is likely to fail in any situation other than complete collapse of Russian lines.
When tanks operate in defense - they counterattack from the depth of the defended zone(when SAM ambushes can easily be anywhere in no-man land) , remaining too far from where helicopters can safely be.
This is why we saw those Bradley counterattack videos, and there has not been a single Ka-52 vikhr video since the counteroffensive.

gelgoog said:

A Stuka could only carry 200-250kg of bombs. So comparing number of Su-34 sorties with Stukas makes no sense.

Click to expand...

A Stuka could bombs up to 1000 kg in caliber(hello Marat?), and routinely operated with 500+4x50.
But this isn't important. important part is that German command could count on concentration of up to ~2000 precision strikes on the axis of main effort within a day, all with a well-trained guidance system(pilot). Allies by ~1944 (and that includes Soviets) could count on even more strikes, albeit with lesser precision. From Vietnam onwards, US routinely ensures higher numbers of precision strikes when they want.

Whole Russian front(from Kherson to Kharkov) at best gets 2xx precision strikes per day (coordinates only for the majority of them)*. Even if we concentrate all of them on the same axis of attack - it's 1/10 number of strikes of what was been done 84 years ago, and worse.

*which is actually a huge number of munitions, just count how much it is per year. But they are spread over area and over time. Thousand of bites isn't the same as smashing someone's head with a sledgehammer.

gelgoog said:

Sure they had a lot of early 1930s technology I-16s in early war. So what.
If you look at Soviet aircraft in WW2 they decided to make smaller aircraft with less usage of strategic materials, shorter range, in exchange for rapidly increasing numbers of modern aircraft. Which they were behind in when Barbarossa happened.
The Soviets bombed Berlin in 1941 with strategic bombers. It was basically as disaster where they lost a lot of bombers for little purpose.

Click to expand...

You use quite a lot of words without countering my point.
I thus assume that you agree.

gelgoog said:

"Irrelevant" you say. And yet the Ukrainian Air Force needs to operate at low level.

Click to expand...

What a great achievement for a force 10x times the size, and orders of magnitude the investment.
By concentrating on NATO, VKS became unable to overcome smaller and weaker versions of itself (which also were built to deny air to a stronger airforce).
Result is the stalemate.

gelgoog said:

The Russians have air superiority over Ukraine it is as simple as that.

Click to expand...

Air superiority is the ability of a force to operate aircraft over contested area at will, within acceptable loss rate.

Russian aircraft don't routinely operate over enemy territory in Ukraine since March 2022 (losses too high), and haven't done it at all since ~spring 2023. Ukrainian aircraft operate over Ukraine at will.

Gloire_bb said:

Air superiority is the ability of a force to operate aircraft over contested area at will, within acceptable loss rate.

Click to expand...

That's air supremacy. Air superiority just means they have an advantage.

Gloire_bb said:

Russian aircraft don't routinely operate over enemy territory in Ukraine since March 2022 (losses too high), and haven't done it at all since ~spring 2023.

Click to expand...

Gloire_bb said:

Ukrainian aircraft operate over Ukraine at will.

Click to expand...

What is this cunning wordplay from you meant to achieve? Ukrainian aircraft do not routinely operate above Ukraine. They may operate "at will" of however much Ukraine itself wishes to take high risk of shoot downs, hence they're not flying often at all. By the same definition, Russian aircraft are also operating "at will" above Ukraine, but as in your cunning little wordplay, "at will" does not mean "routinely operate", it only means they operate as much as the command is willing to risk them.

Which undeniably the risk of being shot down is much greater for the Ukrainian side, which is why so much more Russian sorties than Ukrainian ones.

Hence the phrase "air superiority", not supremacy. Russian Air Force had supremacy against Georgia. They have superiority against Ukraine.

Index said:

That's air supremacy. Air superiority just means they have an advantage.

Click to expand...

And advantage means being able to conduct operations.
Supremacy(not strictly defined, IIRC, but as a superior degree we can continue the logic) means that the enemy can not meaningfully contest operations.

Index said:

What is this cunning wordplay from you meant to achieve? Ukrainian aircraft do not routinely operate above Ukraine.

Click to expand...

This "cunning wordplay" means that over most of Ukraine, Ukrainian planes operate when they want and how they want. They can even use yak-52s as fighters, and are carefree enough to bring fighters into the air for honor passes over the burials.

"Contested" zone (where Ukrainian aircraft are not free to operate, but they still do overfly here and Russian aircraft do not) is a zone roughly 100-150 km from the frontline, depending on the sector and assets involved. Worth noting, that while some intercepts of Ukrainian aircraft happened further than this zone, Ukrainian CAPs loiter at those ranges, and at the very least they consider them workable. Ukrainian aircraft are also frequently on readiness on forward airfields well within this zone, being able to freely take off and land and survive that.
Does it matter that Russian aircraft can't overly this zone? well, of bloody course it does, because:
(1)while Ukrainian fixed-wing aircraft are tied to exploitable gaps in Russian air patrols to conduct their offensive operations, Rotary-wing aircraft aren't - they fly low enough to be more or less safe from long-range radar missile engagement. Those conduct lobbing attacks and (more importantly) high-priority logistics and liaison. VKS could've dealt with them if it could be closer - but it can't.
(2)Remote interdiction is hard for anyone, but for pod-less VKS is impossible. Interdiction also just happens to be the most important offensive task of the air force in support of the army.

Index said:

By the same definition, Russian aircraft are also operating "at will" above Ukraine,

Click to expand...

Show me even a single overflight deep into Ukraine by VKS aircraft after March 2022, Mr. Master of definitions.
That's well over two years, sure you will be able to find something.

Index said:

Hence the phrase "air superiority", not supremacy. Russian Air Force had supremacy against Georgia. They have superiority against Ukraine.

Click to expand...

Against Georgia, it had exactly superiority(over all of Georgia).
Air operations were contested and suffered casualties (affecting the results of missions), but VVS could attack targets anywhere.

Gloire_bb said:

And advantage means being able to conduct operations.
Supremacy(not strictly defined, IIRC, but as a superior degree we can continue the logic) means that the enemy can not meaningfully contest operations.

This "cunning wordplay" means that over most of Ukraine, Ukrainian planes operate when they want and how they want. They can even use yak-52s as fighters, and are carefree enough to bring fighters into the air for honor passes over the burials.

"Contested" zone (where Ukrainian aircraft are not free to operate, but they still do overfly here and Russian aircraft do not)

Click to expand...

Except they do every time they drop bombs or launch missiles into the rear/supply areas of Ukrainian forces.

Your first post talked about Ukraine operating at will above Ukraine, now you decided to define something called "contested area". Is that area not Ukraine?

Air superiority means having an advantage in air sorties above mission zones. Hypothetically why would a VKS plane fly a circle above Lviv? What is the mission realistically being achieved there? Russia obviously only overflies where there's signficant AFU targets and the risk don't outweigh the benefits, which is the front and rear areas of the AFU. And Ukraine, having lost air superiority to Russia, does not fly over Russian formations at all, and is at a disadvantage wherever the Russian air force operates.

Index said:

Except they do every time they drop bombs or launch missiles into the rear/supply areas of Ukrainian forces.

Click to expand...

Into static objects(warehouses, personnel accomodations, command centers, whatever of importance). Yes, that's strike.

Area behind the frontlines, from the military perspective at least, isn't Ukraine anymore; it will only be if Ukraine will fight well enough in the future. It certainly isn't the majority of Ukraine.

Throwing aside sophistry, however, it means that neither of air forces can conquer any command of air by itself, it's done by boots of ground troups, establishing operating grounds for their own SAM systems and denying them to the enemy.
It's a result good enough for a weaker air force. For a larger force, it's damning.

Imagine NATO intervention against Russia, where after a couple of weeks and several hundreds of planes lost, bluefor can't suppress AD and is forced out, leaving it without like 80% or more of its fires. That's a disaster.
And since smaller Russian army was forced into a stalemate in 2022 - one which the larger 2024 Russian army can't break without resorting to mobilization(politically unacceptable). The results here are similar - air power could have broken the deadlock, leaving Russia in a long, hard attrition campaign.
Could have.

Index said:

Air superiority means having an advantage in air sorties above mission zones. Hypothetically why would a VKS plane fly a circle above Lviv? What is the mission realistically being achieved there?

Click to expand...

Like almost all the logistics between NATO and Ukraine come through there; a successful interdiction campaign there by itself would amount to a knockout blow to Ukraine.
One of the largest training camps of the Ukrainian army is located there. It is the site of many important military factories and facilities, including, among others, aircraft and tank repair facilities.

Russia can strike deep into Ukraine with cruise missiles and the Geran-2. Why would they risk losing aircraft by going in there?
Russian military strategy is quite different from US military strategy. Even large bombers like the Tu-160 were primarily designed as cruise missile carriers. Not for dropping unguided bombs. The Tu-95MSM was modified to carry their latest air launched cruise missiles as well.
The exception is the Tu-22M3 which is sometimes used for dropping unguided bombs. It is sometimes used as a large tactical bomber. But the Russians wouldn't risk losing bombers when currently their production of them is quite limited. To use them the high altitude capable air defense would need to be taken out first.

Russia is not just considering the fight against Ukraine but against NATO as well. A considerable loss in their air force's aircraft could tempt the US and its allies to directly attack Russia.

Sinnavuuty said:

This is why the Russians are unable to respond to HIMARS/M270 fire with ATACMS

Click to expand...

another reason they are not able to respond is because air defense systems can be overloaded than just firing one missile at it.

Against this background, missile simulators of air targets 3M20M3 of the target complex "Singing" and RM-75В / MV of the target complex "Armavir", designed on the basis of anti-aircraft missiles 3М9 and 5Я23 / 24 of the Kub and C-XNX missiles of the range of X-NX up to 75 m / s, which does not allow them to be included in the list of advanced target missiles capable of simulating promising air attacks of a potential enemy.

As for the maneuvering qualities of Favorit-RM, the high angular speed of rotation and the range of available overloads (25 — 30 units in the troposphere and lower layers of the stratosphere and 8 – 12 units in the upper layers of the stratosphere), typical for the standard 5В55 missiles allow these target missiles to successfully overcome the most powerful anti-missile "umbrellas" formed by most modifications of the Buk, C-300 anti-aircraft missile systems (including PM1 and BM Antey-2500 and B4) and even C-400 Triumph. After all, it is well known that in order to intercept an air object maneuvering with 25 — 30G reloading, the interceptor missile must have a disposable reloading of the order of 55 — 60 units, while missiles of the types 9M38M1, 9MXMNXXNMXNXMNXNMN —317 units Consequently, the successful repulsion of a conventional enemy’s strike by the Favorit-RM highly maneuverable target missiles could take place only if missile simulators of a flight mission were loaded into the inertial navigation system, providing for maneuvering with overloads of no more than 48 — 6 units. (with the realization of 9% new potential), which, obviously, happened during the last tests of the standard modification of the C-82, equipped with the 25Н35DM missiles.

In the case of the implementation of “Favorite-RM” anti-aircraft maneuvers with 25-30G overloads and complex quasi-ballistic flight paths with large diving angles at the terminal section, they can only be intercepted using the promising Buk-M3, S-350 Vityaz and modernized C-400, the ammunition of which is represented by anti-aircraft guided missiles 9М317МА and 9М96DM.

Thanks to equipping these missile systems with active radar homing heads of the Slate family with terminals of a two-way asynchronous data exchange line, for the first time in

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

the air defense forces and antiaircraft defense of the airborne forces of Russia, it became possible to intercept the “Favorites-RM” and similar high-speed means of air attack of a potential enemy, attacking the “dead funnel”. The latter is located above the position of the anti-aircraft missile battalion and is a cone-shaped sector of the airspace outside the elevation sector of the radar and guidance radar. Target designation of anti-aircraft missiles 9M317MA and 9M96DM in this case will be able to provide third-party means of radar and optical-electronic reconnaissance.

The unique flight performance of the 9X317MA and 9X96DM missiles (maneuvers with 60 — 70G overloads) due to the presence of a gas-jet system for deflecting the thrust vector in the first and gas-dynamic “belts” of the transverse control engines in the second will be revealed before calculating the “MitX X Buk” ”And the updated“ four hundred ”unprecedented horizons in the field of counteracting the promising American operational-tactical ballistic missiles“ Deep Strike ”and aeroballistic missiles AGM-3A. Simulation of precisely these elements of high-precision

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

generated by the erupted arms race amid the Pentagon’s denunciation of the INF Treaty, is the primary vocation of Favorit-RM hypersonic target missiles.

To better know the situation is how much visual confirmed losses of s-300/s-400 launchers and how much ATACMs were used in the war.