The War in the Ukraine

supersnoop said:

KSA used Patriot to shoot down a Houthi drone
Pakistan shot down a Shaheed 129 (with JF-17 guns)
USA shot down a Shaheed 129 with an F-15E (did not have information on what weapon)

It isn't just the cost of the interceptor, but also what you are protecting.

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The problem here is that Medium and Long range air defense are at a premium in Ukraine.

Ukraine can't replenish its Buk missiles stocks, and once you run out of missiles for it, you aren't really receiving enough replacements in the form of Iris-T or NASAMs to really cover the gap left.

So you just wasted a precious, finite resource in a cheap drone.

Sinnavuuty said:

Very cool. How to explain now when you have dozens of Houthi drones and dozens of Shaheed 129s to intercept? This is Ukraine's current dilemma. These situations you listed are important yes, I could give another example, a British fighter shot down a cheap Iranian drone near Al Tanf with a $200,000 air-to-air missile, but in none of these circumstances were they facing a mass of several dozens of drones.

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My point is just cost is less the issue. For Ukraine, they are playing with "house money" anyway. Just beg for more Starstreak or whatever.

As you said, it is quantity. Seems like the Ukrainian Air Defense is deployed in a way that is optimized for conventional aircraft rather than larger quantities of drones.

Supposedly the "poor" performance of Pantsir in Syria was less because of the capability, but rather Israel was willing to saturate the defenses with missiles and Harops. The guns and missiles would be fully expended leaving a sitting duck.

Atomicfrog said:

How many aa missiles they have to be able to spend them on Shahed-136 ? Someone have an idea of the prewar stockpiles ? 72 command post or so for BUK, listed but how many missiles ?

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There was a "prank" by Russians of Sergei Pashinskiy recently. Where they had posed as US former ambassador McFaul. And managed to get some interesting info.

Like 1) Whole Bayraktar thing is just PR and corruption and all of them that Ukraine had prewar were shot down in first two weeks. They are not effective vs a working air defense network.

2) Ukraine has massive problems with air defense missiles. With the current intensity of conflict, they would run out of missiles for S-300 by November. And they cannot replenish them.


For those that do not know. Pashinskiy was the guy that got caught on video helping to smuggle a sniper rifle to maidan during protests in 2014. He is head of Ukrainian defense industry association right now.

Atomicfrog said:

I know that Ukraine want to blow that dam, and the US are talking nonstop of Nuclear strike but it change nothing on the fact that you don't blow your own territory with nuke... clearly don't know why would someone propose to use nuke in Kherson ?

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Perhaps not on Kherson itself, but you know what I mean. There are some actions that are so destructive it should be considered a nuclear attack equivalent. Then perhaps a tactical nuclear missile can visit certain area of equal importance.

SolarWarden said:

60k is not even close to the kitchen sink. Ukraine has millions of fighting age men and unlike Russian "recruits" that get two weeks or less training Ukraine new recruits are trained by US/NATO to US/NATO standards, the same training doctrine Ukraine got after 2014 invasion in which they were able to expel Russian forces from Kyiv and all of north/north east of Ukraine. Remember on Feb 24th the only western weapons Ukraine had were Javelins, NLAWS and stingers everything else was soviet era military equipment. A couple weeks ago 10k new Ukrainian soldiers finished training in UK fully geared and with transport vehicles. Germany is training 15k and Poland/US is training 10-15k. It may take a lot more time than Russian "recruits" but when they do join Ukrainian units they make a huge difference.

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Well fuck me, they're trained to the same standards as the guys who ran from talibans.

Yeah I do remember the only time Ukraine had battlefield success using their original soviet equipment and how it has been throwing western equipment with unknown levels of casualties at Russia for more than a month now, with the only major progress being a bombed out town with originally 50k inhabitants.

Biscuits said:

Well fuck me, they're trained to the same standards as the guys who ran from talibans.

Yeah I do remember the only time Ukraine had battlefield success using their original soviet equipment and how it has been throwing western equipment with unknown levels of casualties at Russia for more than a month now, with the only major progress being a bombed out town with originally 50k inhabitants.

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Like it or not Ukrainian is winning at trading manpower for land. Russia has about 200k total troops without actually mobilizing and put conscripts into combat. Ukraine can at least get another million. Lets say if somehow Ukraine manage to push Russia out of Kherson oblast entirely at cost of 100k death and 20k dead Russians, it would still be a loss to Russia.

Biscuits said:

Well fuck me, they're trained to the same standards as the guys who ran from talibans.

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Is that what happened?

That training worked well for Ukraine, huh?

Biscuits said:

Yeah I do remember the only time Ukraine had battlefield success using their original soviet equipment and how it has been throwing western equipment with unknown levels of casualties at Russia for more than a month now, with the only major progress being a bombed out town with originally 50k inhabitants.

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Soviet equipment was used for defense and to stabilize the front when they started getting heavier western equipment they went on the offense and last time I checked 99% of Kharkiv Oblast was in Ukraine's hands in which Russia had months to strengthen its defenses there but instead gave Ukraine another goodwill gesture like in Kyiv and all of north east of Ukraine. They have also taken a huge chunk of Kherson before todays major offensive and it looks like the coming days or lil over a week Ukraine will control all of Kherson west of Derp river likely due to another goodwill gesture by Russia.

It's right there in front for all to see what is happening, Ukraine with heavy western weapon systems is going on the offensive and taking back its land.

A House with Republican majority may cut aid to Ukraine.

Alleged tap water in Kiev after Russian strikes. The U.S. military would have destroyed water supply in day one of their warw.

"Western heavy equipment"... Mostly old crap which had been retired like that death crate the M113.
The West did send Ukraine some actually modern MLRS and mobile artillery but only in homeopathic amounts. With the exception of the Pzh2000 maybe none of it was better than Soviet and own equipment Ukraine already had.
The Western equipment sent to Ukraine is basically a giant money laundering scheme for the MIC. Europe and the US are going to send all the obsolete weapons to Ukraine and use the money to buy new weapons from the MIC.

TK3600 said:

Like it or not Ukrainian is winning at trading manpower for land. Russia has about 200k total troops without actually mobilizing and put conscripts into combat. Ukraine can at least get another million. Lets say if somehow Ukraine manage to push Russia out of Kherson oblast entirely at cost of 100k death and 20k dead Russians, it would still be a loss to Russia.

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While I agree that losing Kherson is bad for Russia, I disagree about the million men thing. I see this floating around at different places. Ukraine has a million men to throw at the Russians.

In modern warfare, you need cannons and armor. This is especially true if you are going on the offensive. All the signs point to Ukraine depleting most of its armor and cannons. This is why they are using technicals for their offensive.

You also need NCOs, which take years to train. In the West, a soldier that went through a few months of training is called passing basic training, that is not really ready to fight. Ukraine is losing these in a very rapid rate. In a war, if your men went through battle, their combat effectiveness increases significantly. However, if you loses a lot of those that actually went through combat, your combat effectiveness decreases.

When the Ukrainian offensive finishes, they will face even a more severe equipment shortage which are not replenished by NATO. 16 HIMARS, more than half of which are already gone, is not a lot of firepower. sending a few tens of thousand who went through basic training from the West leading a bunch of conscripts is what I call the blind leading the blind. You have to stop in the middle of a fight and get out and read your army handbook to see what steps to take next, that is not a good thing.

Even if you do have a million men, your logistics and equipment only allow you so many. If the Russians go on an offensive and you got a lot of guys with broomsticks, it doesn't do any good. You need to supply these people. Modern warfare is a very material intensive, which requires logistics. If your entire country is out of power, you need to devote a huge portion of the meager logistical resources just to keep your people warm and fed.

Once Donbass is done, Ukraine no longer have well constructed defensive lines that took eight years to build. In vast open plains, soldiers in civilian vehicles with a few IFV, one or two tanks against tanks, IFV and warplanes is a one sided slaughter. A million men against a million bullets from IFV and tanks, the bullets win every time.