Ukrainian War Developments

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Sardaukar20

Sardaukar20

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Abominable said:
The switchblade is good and one of the few recent western platforms that have come from operational experience rather than a way for the MIC to make money. But doesn't lacks a HEAT warhead, so I doubt it'll be able to penetrate a tank or APCs armour. Maybe they're including soft skinned vehicles.
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CNN and our friend were pitching the Switchblade as a Wunderwaffe for Ukraine. I don't doubt the capability of the Switchblade, it is a useful weapon to have on the modern battlefield. But we have to ask ourselves, is 100 Switchblades gonna seriously change the tide of this war? Even if the US delivers another 1000 Switchblades, could Ukraine realistically triumph over Russia at this stage? We should remember, those Wunderwaffe didn't win WWII for Nazi Germany.
 
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Topazchen

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solarz said:
That was a pipe dream from the start. Hopefully it will awaken some of the Chinese policy makers still enamored with the West.
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What does the West need to do to awaken those Chinese policy makers ?

Park an battle group outside Chinese waters and maybe bomb Shenzen and Beijing ?

Anyone who harbours illusions of rapprochement with the West is either incompetent or a spy and thus should not be government.

China according to Anglos must be contained at all costs whether Russia invades Ukraine or not.
 
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anzha

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If I missed someone else posting this, my apologies:

Of course, Russia wanted us to be more on their side. But Kazakhstan respects the territorial integrity of Ukraine. We did not recognise and will not recognise the Crimea situation and neither the Donbas situation because the UN does not recognise them. We will only respect decisions taken at the level of the United Nations.
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Phead128

Phead128

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supersnoop said:
I don't think for a minute that Russia believed that Ukraine would give up and let them stroll in.
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Well, Ukraine did give up and let them stroll in 2014 Crimea annexation. Based on that experience, maybe they had faulty and unreliable intelligence this time, erroneously believe Ukrainians would fold like wet paper, West would do symbolic sanctions (again) due to pandemic-fall out. The initial stages of the war looked like it wanted to shock Ukraine into folding quickly, a 5-axis simultaneous invasion of entire 2000 mile frontier with 120K troops against 600K defenders, and attempt to surround the capital hoping they sue for peace and quick negotiated victory.
 
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Abominable

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MortyandRick said:
Also I don't see any dead soldiers? Or are they blurred out? Weird.
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No evidence that the Ukrainians engaged retreating forces. The equipment they've left behind is probably broken down that the Russians torched, or things they didn't need or couldn't take back. If they had any meaningful presence there the Ukrainians could have done real damage.

It's still a win for them.
 
Helius

Helius

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Bltizo said:
For modern AEW&C systems in service or developed since the new milennium, the ability to track low flying, slow moving targets (including helicopters) is very much now a standard feature and normal capability. But even those modern systems are at the mercy of limitations imposed by terrain.

The Blackhawk shootdown did have the E-3 capable of maintaining radar tracks on the Blackhawks for long parts of the entire episode, the periods where they were unable to consistently track the Blackhawks was due to terrain/topography blocking the line of sight of the radar.


In this Ukrainian raid, the effectiveness of AWACS (if Russia had any airborne at the time) would have been largely dependent on the terrain -- but I do not think it is anywhere near similar to northern Iraq where the 1994 blackhawk shootdown happened.
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All that is not what AWACS is especially suited for anyway, that much is apparent. That's a job better handled by AGS like the JSTARS and particularly the Tu-214R with its SARs specifically to mitigate blind spots in the terrain, not to mention lines of sight more "optimised" than an AWACS.

Helicopters trying to fly low and slow or hide by idling on the ground or behind relief would get picked out by GMTI like any ground targets.

I doubt there were any Tu-214Rs flying at the time, let alone deployed in-theatre (what with only a pair of them that Russia has... is one of those still in Syria?), even though it would make a lot of sense to, considering how this war is being fought. Otherwise those Mi-24s would've been detected much more likely than any AWACS or CAP could... assuming that op wasn't a false flag, that is.
 
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Abominable

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Sardaukar20 said:
CNN and our friend were pitching the Switchblade as a Wunderwaffe for Ukraine. I don't doubt the capability of the Switchblade, it is a useful weapon to have on the modern battlefield. But we have to ask ourselves, is 100 Switchblades gonna seriously change the tide of this war? Even if the US delivers another 1000 Switchblades, could Ukraine realistically triumph over Russia at this stage? We should remember, those Wunderwaffe didn't win WWII for Nazi Germany.
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Nope, it'll be another case of the javelin, stingers, and everything else that NATO have been throwing at the Ukrainians. If having x number of javelins destroys y Russian tanks, 2x won't necessarily destroy 2y tanks. Eventually it'll reach the point where they get abandoned, stolen or sold to the Russians.

What the Ukraine really needs is tanks, APUs, aircraft, artillery, SAMs, helicopters and trained personnel to operate them all. Basically another army.
 
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Zichan

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Sardaukar20 said:
Are you serious? You had just posted a CNN propaganda piece here and then claim that allegedly 1/4 of Russian armour losses are because of US Switchblade drones? There were no combat footage of those Switchblade drones in action in that CNN report. Also, there were no confirmed footage of those drones in action by both Ukrainian and Russian media.

If Switchblade drones were really being used as extensively as you had claimed, the Ukrainians would gladly release dozens of footage of these kamikaze drones flying into their target. For example in 2020, Azerbaijan proudly released videos from the cameras of their Harop kamikaze drones flying into Armenian targets. The war has been raging for more than a month already. Ukraine had proudly released numerous videos of TB2 strikes. Why haven't they released any of their many Switchblade videos today if they had indeed contributed to 1/4 of Russian armour losses?

Are you still living in the 1990s? CNN is not news anymore in this day and age.
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1/4 was not my claim, but colonel Cedric Leighton's guess. According to public statements, the drones could not have been in Ukrainian hands longer than 2 weeks. The reference must be just to that time-frame.

By the time I made the post, no Javelin video was released either despite 100s of missiles that were sent to Ukraine. Just a while ago, the first, albeit grainy video of a Javelin in action was finally posted. Let's be patient and give it some time.
Abominable said:
The switchblade is good and one of the few recent western platforms that have come from operational experience rather than a way for the MIC to make money. But it lacks a HEAT warhead, so I doubt it'll be able to penetrate a tank or APCs armour. Maybe they're including soft skinned vehicles.
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Switchblade 600 is equipped with a Javelin multi-purpose warhead. It can take out light armored vehicles from 40km away.
 
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MortyandRick

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Abominable said:
Nope, it'll be another case of the javelin, stingers, and everything else that NATO have been throwing at the Ukrainians. If having x number of javelins destroys y Russian tanks, 2x won't necessarily destroy 2y tanks. Eventually it'll reach the point where they get abandoned, stolen or sold to the Russians.

What the Ukraine really needs is tanks, APUs, aircraft, artillery, SAMs, helicopters and trained personnel to operate them all. Basically another army.
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Wait I thought the Ukrainians are doing great. They can try to reinforce their eastern flank against the Russians?
 
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