Ukrainian War Developments
- Thread starter james smith esq
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not a military person, but it really comes down to a matter of math and logic
if a 1 or 2 man squad can hide anywhere and not be spotted UNTIL they fire the anti-tank or anti-air weapon, then Russia will continue to suffer heavy casualties regardless; this wasn't an issue during WWII because of how the Soviets used infantry;
it really is the same concept as the chinese term 马前卒 - the foot soldiers running ahead of the cavalry during an assault - essentially a death sentence
the only way out of this conundrum is to have autonomous drones and reconnaissance vehicles root out the enemy instead; but Russia simply doesn't have enough of these; can they concentrate enough of what they have on the pincer movement for it to change the math?
or maybe Russia really is about to return to Soviet era tactics
if a 1 or 2 man squad can hide anywhere and not be spotted UNTIL they fire the anti-tank or anti-air weapon, then Russia will continue to suffer heavy casualties regardless; this wasn't an issue during WWII because of how the Soviets used infantry;
it really is the same concept as the chinese term 马前卒 - the foot soldiers running ahead of the cavalry during an assault - essentially a death sentence
the only way out of this conundrum is to have autonomous drones and reconnaissance vehicles root out the enemy instead; but Russia simply doesn't have enough of these; can they concentrate enough of what they have on the pincer movement for it to change the math?
or maybe Russia really is about to return to Soviet era tactics
soviet era tactics requires technical
near parity and numerical superiority on the offensive, and a ruthless willingness to practice scorched earth policy in own territory matched with a enemy that must oligatorily live off the land while on the defensive.
The reason is Russia had since time immemorial customarily began any war with a considerable deficit in the actual combat effectiveness of her forces.
but Russia is in trouble now because neither the numerical superiority during offensive, nor an enemy that must live off the land that could be denied by scorch earth policy applies to probable future hostility with Europe. Yet at the same time, Russia has not broken the old habit of beginning any hostility was a considerable deficit in the combat effectiveness of her forces.
near parity and numerical superiority on the offensive, and a ruthless willingness to practice scorched earth policy in own territory matched with a enemy that must oligatorily live off the land while on the defensive.
The reason is Russia had since time immemorial customarily began any war with a considerable deficit in the actual combat effectiveness of her forces.
but Russia is in trouble now because neither the numerical superiority during offensive, nor an enemy that must live off the land that could be denied by scorch earth policy applies to probable future hostility with Europe. Yet at the same time, Russia has not broken the old habit of beginning any hostility was a considerable deficit in the combat effectiveness of her forces.
No recon drones in Vietnam but the US still was able to root out ATGM and MANPAD teams by a tactic called reconnaissance in force.
Intrepid
Major
... but it is forbidden by law to call war war.
Flankers variants get shot down, not once, but handful of times, should really count as an alarm for the performance of VKS. Especially against an enemy who is not even countering with a fleet of cutting edge US equipment. The people at the top of VKS should really do some deep analysis and reform after this war.
I am not arguing against Su-34. In fact, I would certainly rank Su-34 above Su-30, especially for a country as big as Russia.
I just think that the Su-34 should be equipped with targeting pod that is more advanced and robust than its current internal electro-optical targeting systems. And I also think VKS should field an ocean of 250kg class GLONASS/INS PGMs, instead of carrying dumb bombs like we are seeing in Russian TV videos.
They might have already been doing so, but really, The longer this war drags on, so much that even the brits can get anti-ship missiles to Odessa, should really be a wake up call for VKS to ramp up their game.
Dude! Cost, efficiency.
How many assembly plants does the US has for F-35? The US produces more F-35's than Russia produces flanker versions, every year. Yet the US has only one assembly plant for F-35.
Do you really think this model of having two or three different plant producing essentially different variants of the same airframe, each with different major subsystems (radar, engine), and ONLY with a handful order each year per each variant is a good manufacturing model?!?!
It looks like Su-35, Su-34, Su-30SM are the three currently produced models for Russian Air force. My question will be why these three all have different engines and radars?
Well, at least from the trend of things, it looks like Russia is already moving towards more shared components and less platform variants. The VKS stopped purchasing Su-30M2 for quite a few years already, it seems. There is also the KAB-250 family proliferating. And the Su-30SM2 project of getting Su-30SM to the level of Su-35.
If Russia can eventually make Su-35 and Su-30SM with the same major components (engine, avionics). They simply become a single-seat, double-seat combo.
And Su-34 is kept as the long-range long-endurance tactical bomber with fighter DNA.
This would be a good thing to see in the future.
I still hold the suspicion that the Russia strategic doctrine towards procurement is flawed and lacking in foresight. This is causing them valuable time and resources. And resulted in this current situation where Russia has all these repetitive PPT "newest cutting edge programs", but perpetually in the development phase, with no meaningfully large enough procurement to allow Russian VKS to have the fists to punch.
It's like they have the technology, they can make those equipment, and they have new stuff in the testing, but they simple don't have enough working systems in actual service in the VKS.
This strategy works if the stars are right, so the international ballance of power, interest of the population and elite alligning with each other.
And it is not the case anymore.
US never faced decent air defense(they do choose war targets wisely and do block building of air defense by countries that they consider as possible targets, it is one of the reason why Turkey despite being NATO member was forced to buy S400 from Russia). All what had Iraq was export variants of S125. Serbia same story. And it is not like they did not get losses in Serbia(and in case of Serbia main damage received civilian infrastructure that had forced surrender, army losses were quite minimal actually), not to mention that Serbia still retained some air defense capability by the end of operation. Russia could have pulled a tactic similar to US in Serbia and just shut down all power generation(NPPs power lines are extremely vulnerable targets) and bridges over Dnepr basically killing any hope of Ukraine economy. But there are political reasons why such actions were not chosen.
Ukraine had ended with whole western military district of USSR that was aimed at holding entire NATO force with arms of armies that were pull out from Europe being stationed there. And those systems are not a joke, especially in such quantity and radars that you cannot shut down due to them being on NATO AWACS that patrol Ukraine border 24/7 and live feed data.
Not to mention thanks to NATO Ukraine has much better radar coverage. All air defences can sit undetected in predetermined positions happily with their radars turned off and their crews on standby as AWACS monitor all RuAF movements. If a jet approaches they'll be given a time, position and azimuth. The radar only needs turned on for as little time as possible.
Exactly. Trump won't be the nominee. Republicans won't risk running a loser twice, esp. if Biden is still alive and running again. Establishment Republicans would rather wage a civil war to oust Trump than risk losing two times against Biden.
And yes, even a half-dead Biden with high inflation and mediocre growth can beat a Trump again.
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