Wow you just made that up. How was I glowing? I responded to a post about the new mobilized troops already starting to die with a statement that more of it is going to happen with the amount of training time (couple weeks or less) they are getting and posted a telegram tweet of a memorial stating that guy had only couple of weeks of training... how is that glowing? I get you're pro-Russian but don't make things up in your head and call it maybe or borderline. Either I trolled (which I didn't) or not trolled. You jumped the gun on this one but I get it now... the narrative in here is pro Russian therefor some facts maybe deleted.
The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
Kiddo, free life advice: Spend more time on leisure activities or study something that can improve your career prospects, and spend less time on internet forums arguing whether you were glowing or not, or accusing mods of pro-this, pro-that.
We have deleted lots of pro-whatever off-topic posts, the reason why you don’t see them in this thread.
About the same what the Ukranians get, but I don't see you make assumptions or quips about that.
Though unlike Ukranians, at least the Russians are using reservists with previous training. The Ukranians are mostly ex-civilians outside of the mercenaries and nationalist units
Read that in the recent Kherson breakthrough offensive by Ukraine, 70% of the troops are actually foreigners (mercenaries, special forces, former retired troops) from NATO countries. This is from Chinese internet, though not sure where they get that source from. Proportion seems way too high but maybe someone here can confirm. I do recall reading from Telegram that in the Lyman offensive, there were "multiple Polish battalions" involved. We see many instances of American flags on mercenary uniforms as well.
Some interesting news from mid August, not sure if this was posted here before. Ukraine now has it's own SAR satellite, acquired from Finnish commercial satellite company ICEYE:
It's not written in the article but Ukraine bought it for $17 million. Another interesting side note: ICEYE claims to have the largest SAR satellite constellation in the world with 21.
Ukraine is/was already receiving tons of help from commercial satellite companies from the west (over a 100 companies) and of course US/NATO military recon. There's a Ukrainian businessman named Max Polyakov, who owns a company called EOS Data Analytics, that is apparently very involved in processing + analyzing satellite data.
Ukraine claims the SAR satellite has been very useful in combat, mentions Kherson and some part of Donetsk in particular.
Russia has their own SAR satellite called Kondor right? Has it been used in Ukraine?
Some interesting news from mid August, not sure if this was posted here before. Ukraine now has it's own SAR satellite, acquired from Finnish commercial satellite company ICEYE:
It's not written in the article but Ukraine bought it for $17 million. Another interesting side note: ICEYE claims to have the largest SAR satellite constellation in the world with 21.
Ukraine is/was already receiving tons of help from commercial satellite companies from the west (over a 100 companies) and of course US/NATO military recon. There's a Ukrainian businessman named Max Polyakov, who owns a company called EOS Data Analytics, that is apparently very involved in processing + analyzing satellite data.
Ukraine claims the SAR satellite has been very useful in combat, mentions Kherson and some part of Donetsk in particular.
Russia has their own SAR satellite called Kondor right? Has it been used in Ukraine?
it has always been a matter of who can deploy the next batch of new troops faster. Ukraine won the last round hence the major advances. lets see if russia can deploy its 300k conscripts competently, if so then it would be able to pull of a decent winter offensive i wager. otherwise get ready to go home lol.
The sound is ironically pretty similar to the V-1 Buzzbomb that was used back in WW2 from 1944-45 by Germany
Except this one is smaller, more accurate and stealthier.
and it got me thinking of the MiG-29 that got accident pursuing it. Maybe it tries to repeat WW-II maneuver in which the interceptor tries to tip the V-1 wing to make its gyro going haywire.
and it got me thinking of the MiG-29 that got accident pursuing it. Maybe it tries to repeat WW-II maneuver in which the interceptor tries to tip the V-1 wing to make its gyro going haywire.
Russian Long Range Aviation is the only part of Russian Air Force that actually performs well in this war. Considering all the constraints and limitations and institutional and technical problems there's nothing more that LRA can do.
LRA is not USAF Global Strike Command with general purpose bombers but a facilitator of tactical nuclear deterrent. Everything else comes second. Russian strategic bombers also fill the gap between limitations of Russian navy and Moscow's ambition for global power projection. Where USA sends a Carrier Strike Group Russia sends Tu-160 or Tu-95.
The bombers are also used differently. American bombers are exchangeable in most conventional missions. Russian bombers have fundamentally different roles.
Tu-160 is a global power projection tool due to its payload, range and speed. It can carry up to 12 Kh-55/101 or 24 Kh-15 (300km range) missiles internally on two rotary launchers. All 16 Tu-160 are based in Engels in Saratov Oblast north of the Caspian Sea. Recently a modernization program has been started to upgrade all Tu-160s to Tu-160M2 standard and 10 additional new aircraft were ordered. The official plan is for 50 new aircraft to bring the total to 66.
Tu-95 is the workhorse of LRA due to lack of sufficient numbers of Tu-160. It has decent range but limited payload. It can only carry missiles on a single rotary launcher (6 Kh-55 or 12 Kh-15) and on eight underwing pylons for a total of 14 missiles. Kh-55 can be carried internally or externally but Kh-101 only externally due to size difference. Kh-22/32 can only be carried externally. There are three regiments (squadrons) of Tu-95MS - one in Engels and two in Ukrainka in Amur Oblast with approx 42 Tu-95MS (varies depending on the source). Additionally Naval Aviation uses 22 Tu-142 MRA's which are derived from the same platform and share logistics. The Tu-95MS will be modernized to MSM standard with new radar, combat and navigation system.
Tu-22M3 is the gap-filler kept in service due to tactical requirement for a number of available launch platforms. Tu-22M3 can carry Kh-15 internally and three Kh-22/32 externally. It is the only bomber that carries free-fall bombs. Nominally there are approx. 60 Tu-22M2 in service but only about 30 are to be modernized to M3M standard that unifies engines and other components with Tu-16M2 and adds additional 10-15 years of service life. One regiment (squadron) is stationed in Engels and two or three in Ukrainka in the Far East.
Engels is the primary LRA base. Ukrainka is more local with far east and naval operations in focus.
Despite the higher nominal numbers there's only approximately 15 Tu-160, 42 (3x14) Tu-95MS and 42-45 (3x14-15) Tu-22M3 in actual service. Including readiness which is probably at around 50% at any given time you have approximately:
- 7 Tu-160 (12 Kh-55/101) - max. 84 Kh-55/101
- 20 Tu-95 (14 Kh-55 or 8 Kh-101) - max. 280 Kh-55 or 160 Kh-101
- 20 Tu-22M3 (3 Kh-22/32) - max. 60 Kh-22
Desert Storm - overview, data & statistics
The following is a collection of maps, tables and quotations from publicly available sources with heavy emphasis on Government Accountability Office's report "Operation Desert Storm - Evaluation of the Air Campaign". I divided the whole set into five posts: air superiority over Iraq -...
www.sinodefenceforum.com
Compare the number of airstrikes and amount of payload in that operation with what is being done over Ukraine and you'll see why strategic bombers are not the solution. They never were one to begin with. That's why the first think tanks in the US were funded by aerospace companies to convince DC that "air power wins wars".
If over a hundred of Su-34s, Su-30s and Su-24s carrying 1/4 to 1/2 of the regular payload of a Tu-95MS or Tu-22M3 can't do it, then why would a handful of tactical nuclear platforms lobbing conventional cruise missiles be a game-changer? It's easier, faster and cheaper to fix a broken sub-station than to build the couple of long-range missiles that are required to put it out of operation.
There are very few targets i Ukraine that would be worth the trade-off ad Ukraine can survive without them until Russia runs out of cruise missiles that have any combat worth. They are already approaching depletion and encroaching on strategic reserve because of the sheer incompetence of the planners of the operation. Ukraine was meant to be a 1-2 weeks of war at the most. The "shock and awe" in the first days of war was insufficient per objective requirements for such an operation if its goal was to destroy C2 and air defenses. Which I don't think it was.
On that:
In politics when you see a choice of either black or white it means that you're looking at the wrong picture.
Putin is so comically incompetent in this war that it can't be a coincidence. Putin is not a genius but he is not an idiot. He simply can't backpedal on a horrendous bad bet that he made because it will collapse his entire power structure and as he is fighting for his own life he is sacrificing everything else while rivals play the traditional game of "last one to join the fight ends on top".
Russian military is corrupt but not stupid. Russia didn't invade Ukraine in 2017 or 2019 when the country was objectively weaker and the west was busy with Trump because they understood that Russian doctrine and assets made the conquest of Ukraine impossible.
So why did they change that opinion in 2022? My hypothesis is that they didn't.
My posts from Feb 7/8 explaining the political and strategic background. Note how my conclusions logically point that that Russia gains nothing by starting an invasion that they are obviously not prepared to fight.
Ukrainian War Developments
https://www.yahoo.com/news/sullivan-warns-china-could-face-153528464.html “If Russia does choose to move forward, not only will it come at a strategic cost to Russia, but if China is seen as having supported it, it will come at some costs to China as well in the eyes of the world, in the eyes...
www.sinodefenceforum.com
Ukrainian War Developments
A Russian analyst - Mikhail Khodarenok, someone noted as very much a Russian patriot - questions whether the plans proposed for conquering Ukraine (if it ever came to that) would work as well as believed: Generally, there won’t be any kind of Ukrainian blitzkrieg. Utterances by some experts of...
www.sinodefenceforum.com
Russia understands the role of preparation in war which means that they prepared we just have the wrong optics on the issue.
The only logical explanation is that they prepared a covert operation to assassinate Zelensky and turn a number of military commanders against the pro-western factions that would claim power in the aftermath. This is why it is a "special military operation" to "demilitarize and denazify" a country led by a Russian-speaking Jew. It sounds absurd now but with the populist middle-ground candidate of the Russian-speaking (but not pro-Russian) population assassinated by a supposed far right actor and the right-wing (defeated by Zelensky in 2019) immediately clashing with pro-Russian elements you have essentially the repeat of 2014.
That's why Putin assumed that Russian forces would be welcomed as liberators because in his plan they would not be "liberating" Ukraine as they do now but literally intervening to stop a civil war which Russia triggered by removing the middle-ground option.
So what went wrong?
IMO Post-2014 US-led purge in Ukrainian military worked and Ukrainian secret services were notified about FSB attempts to turn UAF personnel.
Working with Pentagon (backing the mainstream military) and against Langley (backing the far-right paramilitary) to create confusion they continued the operation leading Russia into sense of false security. When the US began its psy-op it deliberately did so in a vague and hysterical way that possibly risked failure to protect its sources because knowledge of where the sources come from would compromise the operation if Putin proceeded with invasion but changed the plan.
After all the US gained if war started so they risked little in either outcome provided that this time Russia is seen as the clear aggressor and preventing the repeat of messy 2014. The only thing that the needed was to ensure that the narrative of "Russia invaded Ukraine" won over "Ukraine fights a civil war". That's why it was so blunt, forceful and simplistic.
Putin probably changed the plan at the last minute because he suspected something was wrong but couldn't tell what. Most likely it's the consequence of internal FSB-GRU struggle which is why there are now purges in FSB but not in GRU which advised against the war. The main political dynamic in Russia is not state vs. oligarchs but FSB vs. GRU and unlike in the US civilian intelligence never won over the military but only managed to suppress it. Military planning is GRU so they could know that something was wrong but decided to sacrifice pawns and figures to gain a winning position where it matters.
There are several possible answer to "why the Russian military is not doing what it should be doing" but it might be as simple as "because its intelligence is betting on the defeat". If the FSB power structure weakens GRU emerges on top simply by not being involved in the fight as per Sun Tzu's first principle of warfare.
Remember that both the US and China are afraid of one thing only - what happens to Russia's nuclear arsenal. That is the ultimate bargaining chip that will be valid even if the country collapses and there will be nobody to give the order to launch them. Because it's not about who has them but who doesn't get to have them. Physical access is everything. FSB doesn't have it. The military does.
In poker you can win if you knock over the table as long as people don't realize you were the one doing it. Just make it look like someone else did.
EOT.
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This is only going to take down the search radar. The fire control radar is on a separate vehicle, and it isn't on unless the search radar finds something then queues the fire control radar on it.
If the missile hasn't been detected at all, the fire control radar would never have been used, and only the search radar is destroyed. Sometimes, and quite often, the search radar itself is detached from its command station, so it may only result in the antenna getting destroyed but not the search radar's command and processing station itself. You can claim a valid victory in the destruction of the search radar's antenna, but not a complete kill of the SAM battery itself. It only needs a replacement search radar, or in a more networked scheme, borrow the search radar of an adjacent battery then it's back in action.
If the missiles are detected and engaged, then the HARM has a chance of taking out the fire control radar as long as the S-300 missiles themselves don't successfully intercept the HARM. So this becomes a You vs. Me gunslinger situation.
The missile launcher itself is on a third vehicle, and it doesn't emanate any radar for a HARM to lock on, as its just a truck with tubes. This will have to be eliminated by conventional strikes, as in bomb or missile with GPS+INS or television.
Firing blindly to a pre assigned box opens up a vulnerability to the missile by assigning radar decoys.
Without any confirmed photos, there's always some room for doubt. HARM works best when it is against a unit that integrates missiles, fire control radar and search radar all in one, like that Tor vehicle in the illustration. But a distributed and modular system is something else.
There is intermediate upgrade ( 6 or 8 aircraft) Tu-160M1 for total of 17 Tu-160. Tu-160M2 is a new plane and one in testing.
they are the solution as there airframe life is much longer. than there is efficiency factor of flying from home base with flexibility of staying in air for target of opportunity.