Probably because Iran has immediate available inventory whereas to spool up production of Orion or other Russian drones needs time, and time is precious (or it is a prolonged conflict the original plan all along, please let me know).
The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
not to ruin the mood for them that it is a T-90 but is there a way to tell a difference between a T-72 or T-90?
Russian allocation of resources is really bad. I've said it before and I'll say it again: they need to cut back on Russian Navy because their biggest threats are on land, and saving $5 billion USD equivalent immediately + hundreds millions USD per year instead of repairing their Cold War era cruisers and SSGNs would let them procure multiple squadrons of Su-57, an entire brigade of T-14s, dozens of drones and issue NVGs and radios to their entire army. If they had 30 more Su-57s, 200 more T-14s and 50 more MALE drones along with another 5000 trained infantry, they would've halted the Ukrainian Kharkiv offensive in its tracks.
Russia should go all in on their ground and air forces, and just leave naval affairs to their frigates, SSNs, and China.
That is a T-90M. At least the exterior is, and the interior also looks like a T-90M since it has the white screens for ballistic protection.
Yes there is, the RWS and CITV are indicators that's an T-90M, also the interior, the third picture, the gunner sight of a T-72B3M has both the old sight and the new sight next to each other, on a T-90M only the new sight remains and the whole console for the gunner is reworked.
Attached picture is an old T-72 but, you can see the two sights the gunner works on, which is only one for t-90M
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Screenshot_2022-09-19-04-17-18-52_3aea4af51f236e4932235fdada7d1643.jpg
The Russian military doctrine is to use brute force to archive their military objectives, basically to pummel enemies into a bloody pulp and you can see it in their weapons who are usually made to cause mayor damage, nothing tactical just brute force, from thermobaric weapons to their nuclear doctrine. That is what makes them dangerous, according to an U.S general they still have a lot of firepower unused. I think if they go full force into Ukraine against an exhausted army they will commit a war crime.
The point is that they used to see weapons like drones as sophisticated toys that the Americans use to kill goat keepers in the desert. Now they are seeing the reality that drones are serious weapons of war.
The Chinese in the other hand their doctrine has been asymmetrical,has changed to be more conventional in recent years but still with a lot of asymmetry and drones have been part of that doctrine for quite some time and taking into account that they have big electronics and semiconductor industry, so, why not?
from your earlier post there is nothing wrong with purchasing iranian drones if they used the crap out of their drones.
I dont think they are going to have any problems with their economy based on the pages i have read skimming through all the news section on these threads.
NATO when they conducted war with Serbia hit power grids when they started the War. Russia did this like 200 days later, but are also hitting water facilities and gas pipelines. We are going to see how Europe will be this winter with ukrainian soldiers being cold and hungry before starting the next phase of the war like mobilization besides sending scouting out prisoners for Wagner to join war or sending more chechens
With US still hell bent on sinking and crushing Russia as a country, SSGNs is still an important part of Russia's strategic deterrence. Removing them would be like a new Gorbachev moment. With the West celebrating that decision and the Russians spitting on the decision maker many years later down the road.
I'm not sure Russian conventionally armed SSGNs like Oscar class can do anything their new SSNs like Yasen can't. Yes Oscar class still has the P-700s but do they have enough of an advantage over Kalibrs to justify spending all the money on maintaining and modernizing them? Yasen class still has some VLS, just not as heavy as Oscar, but are more modern, cost only a little more to buy new than to modernize an Oscar class, and cost less to operate due to smaller size (requiring less dock facilities) and 30% less crew size. Replacing Oscars with cheaper Yasens and using the savings for more ground and air forces wouldn't be too big of a sacrifice in terms of naval capability while boosting ground/air capability.
It's definitely cheaper than a guided missile for the same range.
The most expensive component would be the engine which costs around $10,000. alibaba and taobao aren't listing prices anymore, but I saw a similar one for that price. Electronics won't add too much, the airframe doesn't need to be too sturdy as its single use. I don't know what price Iran would be selling them for but I think the BOM is less than $20,000.
As I've said before, there is no cost effective way to defeat drones like these right now. They can be detected and intercepted by most SAMs, but is it worth firing missiles that cost millions at a target that costs the same a second hand car? It's cost effective just to use them as SAM decoys.
I wonder if Russia still has any of those suitcase nuclear primaries lying around....
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