Ukrainian War Developments

enroger said:

It is more surprising how the drone is flying right on top of the erected S300 launchers....

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Lower than minimal height of engagement, perhaps.

meckhardt98 said:

reportedly stores of Iskander and Bastion are running increasingly low.

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That wasn't in the tweet. Who reported that?

ZeEa5KPul said:

That wasn't in the tweet. Who reported that?

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Trust me bro

tphuang said:

I am not arguing against that. I am saying the most recent AWACS with aesa radar is much improved at spotting both fast moving objects and low flying helicopters.

You cannot say that just because e3 from 30 years ago cannot spot a helicopter, that would also apply to something like kj500. The difference is pretty vast.

Actually, recent shilao podcast explicitly talked about this. For most opponents that USAF faces, they cannot keep an AWACS in the air at all times, so USAF can simply evade detection by flying low around the weak points of air defense radar. Plaaf knows this and have made sure kj500 can reliably track low flying objects.

Of course in this case, the Russians do not have anything remotely as advanced as kj500. Neither do they seem capable of keeping a50 stationed at all time. That's why I said if Russians bought 6 to 8 kj500 + a few wz7s and gj2 back in 2019, this war would look a lot different than it does now.

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It would be nice.
But realistically, it's never gonna happen, especially the KJ-500 or KJ-2000. These are major C4ISR platforms. China will NOT be willing to sell them to Russia, Russia will be NOT be willing to make a purchase to accept them into their own structure. These two countries will need to be true allies for this to happen. And even they become allies, the cost involved with integrating KJ-200 to Russia command structure would be quite large and not cost effective.

It'd be much easier just selling components.

yongpengsuen said:

What are the Azovs eating in Mariupol? There's no food there. Are they cannibals?

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They are eating their pride ! Probably theres was a lot of salvage possible in civilian houses and barracks.

Coalescence said:

Wait they've already been sending Switchblade drones before? If 1/4 of Russian armor losses is because of these drones, why don't we see videos of them in action? maybe for Opsec?

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Zichan said:

Kamikaze Switchblade drones used to great effect. Allegedly 1/4 of Russian armor losses can be attributed to the kamikaze drones. The correspondent hints at their swarm attack capability.

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Stock market

Abominable said:

Thinking about it, Ukrainian helicopters flying under radar cover explains the mystery of the ship that was sunk last week and the recent munitions warehouse in Russia that got hit. The only reason we know about this is because someone caught it on camera.

It would also explain why the Americans were proudly proclaiming that Russia hadn't yet achieved air supremacy.

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Combat helicopter is clearly an asset.

In Ukraine, and helicopter with foldable blades can even be stored in a big barn for reloading and refueling. But still.. not a lot of helicopters are listed in Ukraine inventory... I don't trust the number on wiki but maybe they had 60 or so before the war ? Someone have good numbers from somewhere?

Atomicfrog said:

In Ukraine, and helicopter with foldable blades can even be stored in a big barn for reloading and refueling. But still.. not a lot of helicopters are listed in Ukraine inventory... I don't trust the number on wiki but maybe they had 60 or so before the war ? Someone have good numbers from somewhere?

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Ukrainian inventory and losses are absolute junk online. We have no real idea of what is happening.


If only there was another country who could potentially take over these roles. Oh, what possible country could this be?

TBF, it won't happen overnight as new facilities will need to be created, but...

Jingle Bells said:

It would be nice.
But realistically, it's never gonna happen, especially the KJ-500 or KJ-2000. These are major C4ISR platforms. China will NOT be willing to sell them to Russia, Russia will be NOT be willing to make a purchase to accept them into their own structure. These two countries will need to be true allies for this to happen. And even they become allies, the cost involved with integrating KJ-200 to Russia command structure would be quite large and not cost effective.

It'd be much easier just selling components.

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Pakistan operates export model KJ500, so you don’t need to be military allies with China to get those.

In addition, thanks to the PLAAF still operating MKKs and J11As and S300/400s as well as the new Su35s, the Chinese would have already done the hard work of integrating core assets Russia itself operates with modern Chinese battlefield networks and other platforms. Not to mention all the work done to integrate with each other’s systems and networks during joint military exercises.

I think if Russia placed an order, they will have Chinese systems delivered fairly quickly that will be fully compatible with most of the currently primary frontline assets and systems.

I think a major long term strategic shift from this war will be a major modernisation drive with the Russian Air Force, which have made a fine mess of what should have been an easy job.

For too long the Russian Air Force have been overly obsessed with ‘sexy’ platforms like fighters and bombers and badly neglected just as important support assets like UCAVs, AWACS and other special mission aircraft as well as their precision strike capabilities.

That may come down as ‘joint development’ to offer the Russians a fig leaf to cover their pride, but I think that will probably mostly involve cosmetic changes to make the systems look different while the core intervals will be Chinese; and also to fine tune the offerings to Russian needs better.

plawolf said:

Pakistan operates export model KJ500, so you don’t need to be military allies with China to get those.

In addition, thanks to the PLAAF still operating MKKs and J11As and S300/400s as well as the new Su35s, the Chinese would have already done the hard work of integrating core assets Russia itself operates with modern Chinese battlefield networks and other platforms. Not to mention all the work done to integrate with each other’s systems and networks during joint military exercises.

I think if Russia placed an order, they will have Chinese systems delivered fairly quickly that will be fully compatible with most of the currently primary frontline assets and systems.

I think a major long term strategic shift from this war will be a major modernisation drive with the Russian Air Force, which have made a fine mess of what should have been an easy job.

For too long the Russian Air Force have been overly obsessed with ‘sexy’ platforms like fighters and bombers and badly neglected just as important support assets like UCAVs, AWACS and other special mission aircraft as well as their precision strike capabilities.

That may come down as ‘joint development’ to offer the Russians a fig leaf to cover their pride, but I think that will probably mostly involve cosmetic changes to make the systems look different while the core intervals will be Chinese; and also to fine tune the offerings to Russian needs better.

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Do the Russians even use their AWACS extensively like the Chinese and US do? If I remember correctly, the Soviets used their GCI to command their aircraft rather than AWACS aircraft, and the Russians only deployed one AWACS in the beginning stages of the conflict. So I assume they are still reliant on their GCI.