The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
Another way of thinking this is what is more expensive, keeping Ukrainian government afloat or giving them more military gears? It is not like not giving them more gears and US stop paying them. There is a minimum cost involved just to keep the war as is. I am sure smart people in Washington made the calculation already we just do not know.
As for lowering American readiness, maybe it is worth it. For example, fighting a war also lowers military readiness by attrition, but it is the good kind of attrition because the job is done as opposed to high readiness but you are just sitting at home. Nothing is done. I think as long as there are work being done some lowering of American readiness is a good thing, if it is also weakening Russia sufficiently.
and why there seems to be not many more Tochka-U remnants found in Ukrainian side i wonder ?
surovikin's MO: leave no vulnerabilities on the frontlines (hence the retreat from kherson) and strategic bombing until ukraine breaks?
this still needs to be resolved on the battlefield imho. at some point russia will have to commit a vast number of forces to destroy a sizeable portion of ukraine's military, Russia will need at least half a million troops to do that.
my opinion stands that as the war drags on russia will find fortune to be turning in its favor. war production will be more streamlined, recruiting and training will be more streamlined, and its officer corp's understanding of the battlefield will also improve. ukraine's situation as a result of electricity shortage will only worsen in January, my prediction stands that winter will favor russia.
Take down of an M777. This is different, and interesting because the identification and targeting was done from a high altitude.
Ukrainian government have urged citizens not to record and upload videos of missile hits but whose following? Video has an IRIS T taking out a Shahed but the missile is far more expensive than the drone.
This time it's an S300 fire control radar that's taken out by a Lancet. Also destroyed is another Grad MLRS.
Ukrainian government have urged citizens not to record and upload videos of missile hits but whose following? Video has an IRIS T taking out a Shahed but the missile is far more expensive than the drone.
This time it's an S300 fire control radar that's taken out by a Lancet. Also destroyed is another Grad MLRS.
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Ukraine keeps shooting down 7 out of every 10 cruise missiles which hit 6 targets as usual.
Highly "successful" air defense where the Russians still end up hitting all the targets. Even if they lose some of the cruise missiles.
As for the "billion dollar raid" I highly doubt Russian cruise missiles cost the price of US ones. It is pretty obvious they are mass manufacturing those turbine engines. And those engines are common to all their cruise missiles. Naval launched ones, land launched ones, air launched ones, etc. So the price for the engines is probably pretty low. Just for reference the Yak-130 costs the RuAF 7.5 million dollars and that is a twin engine aircraft with way more complex electronics. These cruise missiles might be costing the Russians 3 million dollars or less each. Might be as low as 1 million.
Was this mentioned yet? The missiles blew up a gas production plant in the East. It was mostly limited to the power grid for the last several weeks.
Ukraine keeps shooting down 7 out of every 10 cruise missiles which hit 6 targets as usual.
Highly "successful" air defense where the Russians still end up hitting all the targets. Even if they lose some of the cruise missiles.
As for the "billion dollar raid" I highly doubt Russian cruise missiles cost the price of US ones. It is pretty obvious they are mass manufacturing those turbine engines. And those engines are common to all their cruise missiles. Naval launched ones, land launched ones, air launched ones, etc. So the price for the engines is probably pretty low. Just for reference the Yak-130 costs the RuAF 7.5 million dollars and that is a twin engine aircraft with way more complex electronics. These cruise missiles might be costing the Russians 3 million dollars or less each. Might be as low as 1 million.
Many Chinese military commentators have come to the unanimous conclusion that the Russians seem to intend to turn the war into a long war of attrition at a lower cost.
But I don't think the long war of attrition is a clever way to do it. It is just the price paid for the wrong and confused strategy.
Is anyone else following Micheal Koffman’s The Russia Contingency podcast?
This week he published part 1 of the Russian Air Force analysis where he invited two RUSI senior research fellows to discuss their article:
A lot of interesting material there!
For example, the Bayraktar drones had their greatest impact in the first 3 days of the war when the Russian ROE prohibited striking air targets by the ground based air defenses. By day 10, the majority of them were shot down. According to the RUSI fellows, Ukraine was distributing for weeks footage captured in the first days of the war for propaganda effect, at which the drones were a tremendous success.
They praised Russian fighter patrols as the best operational performance of the Russian Air Force. These aircraft operate very close to the battle front and have inflicted tremendous pain on the Ukrainian Air Force during the last month and a half of strategic bombing of Ukrainian energy infrastructure, during which Ukraine heavily relied on its fighter aircraft to shoot down Russian missiles and drones.
This week he published part 1 of the Russian Air Force analysis where he invited two RUSI senior research fellows to discuss their article:
A lot of interesting material there!
For example, the Bayraktar drones had their greatest impact in the first 3 days of the war when the Russian ROE prohibited striking air targets by the ground based air defenses. By day 10, the majority of them were shot down. According to the RUSI fellows, Ukraine was distributing for weeks footage captured in the first days of the war for propaganda effect, at which the drones were a tremendous success.
They praised Russian fighter patrols as the best operational performance of the Russian Air Force. These aircraft operate very close to the battle front and have inflicted tremendous pain on the Ukrainian Air Force during the last month and a half of strategic bombing of Ukrainian energy infrastructure, during which Ukraine heavily relied on its fighter aircraft to shoot down Russian missiles and drones.