The War in the Ukraine

Well there you go, MiG-29 confirmed to have been downed by debris from Shahed-136. First confirm aerial kill by autonomous thinking machines.

Consider the problems of trying to engage Shahed-136 with a jet fighter:

• it's has a small RCS as it's mostly made out of fiberglass, it also flies so slow compared to normal aircraft that radar might filter it out as noise
• it presents a very small heat signature with its moped engine
• it's a small target, not easy to spot by mark 1 eyeballs
• it flies very slowly, hard for a jet to get a good shooting angle on it due to approach speed unlike Spitfire vs V1
• it flies very low to the ground, making engagement risky

Weather it's BVRAAM or SRAAM or gun, none of them seem like a good safe option to engage those drones with.

Temstar said:

This war has gone on for long enough that all sorts of weird things are happening. First we got that news of MiG-29 vs Shahed-136 and the manned fighter was the one that went down. Now we have this:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1580492869705822208

Drone on drone dogfight.
Would this count as another instance of China arming both sides ala Iran-Iraq War?

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Nice...I think this is the first videoed instance of drone on drone warfare? I think it's the only cost effective option to countering drones.

Reminds me off the start of WW1 before fighter planes existed when pilots first encountered each other and tried ramming each other and shooting each other down with pistols.

With several UAF aircraft downed over the last day or two I guess that photo of the mystery missile was posted here could very well be R37M afterall? I mean Ukrainian sources say all those planes "crashed" but most people know what that actually means... heh

Sounds like these pesky little gerans make some really good bait. Either let them through to destroy their targets or turn on your radars and send the fighters into the air. Jeeze. Actual Russian DEAD, who would of thought we will live to see the day

Abominable said:

Nice...I think this is the first videoed instance of drone on drone warfare? I think it's the only cost effective option to countering drones.

Reminds me off the start of WW1 before fighter planes existed when pilots first encountered each other and tried ramming each other and shooting each other down with pistols.

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I said before command detonated (maybe with a radar signal) fragmentation rounds from medium caliber guns like that Russian 57mm one in the Kugarnets family or whatever it's called would be pretty good against these things in large numbers. Such a shell should be fairly cheap and simple enough to be cost effective

I think that gun is meant to shred lighter armor and fortifications but this should be a pretty feasible use for it as well

Also, doesn't Bofors already have something kind of like this with the 3p ammo for the 57mm naval gun? It's programmable ammo and not command detonated but similar idea

The 3kg warhead on the Lancet-3 is more or less the same payload as an RPG-7 warhead.
Lancet-3 can carry optionally HEAT, high explosive fragmentation, or thermobaric warheads.
So you can think of it as a loitering RPG-7 round.

Seems there is another round of cruise missile attacks on the way

TongHua said:

Russia does not accept Ukraine's fake independence referendum. 91% voted for yes? Who would even believe that.

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Like other people said, Soviet citizens in Ukraine voted for continuation of the USSR in the previous referendum.
This was just a matter of the comprador regime forcing people to vote until they got the result they wanted i.e. breakup of USSR.

Crimea also voted in a referendum for its breakup from the Ukraine SSR in 1991. It had 94% majority in favor of breaking up from Ukraine SSR and independently joining USSR with its own SSR.

Of course the Ukraine SSR basically quashed that.

This is the most up to date count of all the artillery systems that have been delivered and are in process to be delivered to the Ukrainian Army.

redion said:

This is the most up to date count of all the artillery systems that have been delivered and are in process to be delivered to the Ukrainian Army.

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I do feel grouping up delivered with to-be-delivered is some sort of political sleight of hand to inflate the numbers when there is no asurance they will be able to receive all of them.

TongHua said:

A short while ago, the Kharkov electricity plant got bombed again. You can see in the footage there is a sudden blackout. Safe to assume Kharkov is not Ukraine's second most populous city anymore as civilians flee.

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Ukraine attacked civilian targets in Belgorod this morning local time. This is a direct retaliation for that attack, it looks like the attack was really heavy.


The new general apparently has his hands free to attack what he wants and when he wants, as I had published in previous days, except with nuclear weapons.