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Vox Nihili posted:I'm talking about the systems operating in the Kherson theatre. There are a bunch on the Eastern fronts as well. Also not at all clear whether any have been lost, Ukraine does a very good job of keeping its own losses under wraps and there is scant credible reporting out of Russia, so we get a very rose-tinted impression of things here. I'm sure they are protecting them diligently with their best anti-air and such, but poo poo happens in war. that would make sense you meant that by front then lol. idk if you read Russian reporting it's really not that different currently. If Russia had the slightest evidence that they'd hit them they'd be parading it everywhere.
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Nov 4, 2022 10:33
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Have you ever been to a funeral expo? Seems like great wholesome fun! Be sure to ask for a mass burial discount. https://twitter.com/InsiderEng/status/1588200992553979904 https://mobile.twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1588188901197373441 Nenonen fucked around with this message at 10:52 on Nov 4, 2022 |
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Nov 4, 2022 10:50
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Vox Nihili posted:I'm talking about the systems operating in the Kherson theatre. There are a bunch on the Eastern fronts as well. Also not at all clear whether any have been lost, Ukraine does a very good job of keeping its own losses under wraps and there is scant credible reporting out of Russia, so we get a very rose-tinted impression of things here. I'm sure they are protecting them diligently with their best anti-air and such, but poo poo happens in war. We probably can't assume that many are destroyed if they're still hitting enemies regularly and Russia is living in absolute fear of them and hasn't been able to credibly claim any kills.
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Nov 4, 2022 11:48
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Kchama posted:We probably can't assume that many are destroyed if they're still hitting enemies regularly and Russia is living in absolute fear of them and hasn't been able to credibly claim any kills. The launchers are just a glorified Studebaker, right? The sekret sauce is the relatively cheap miniaturized guidance electronics and servos/aero to mount onto economical rockets. If the Studebakers are getting blowed up, it would be child's play to surreptitiously supply enough parts to fix them up again without calling it a replacement or a new unit.
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Nov 4, 2022 13:17
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Electric Wrigglies posted:The launchers are just a glorified Studebaker, right? The sekret sauce is the relatively cheap miniaturized guidance electronics and servos/aero to mount onto economical rockets. If the Studebakers are getting blowed up, it would be child's play to surreptitiously supply enough parts to fix them up again without calling it a replacement or a new unit. They’re also running a ton of decoys, which might be partly responsible for how many the Russians were claiming to have blown up earlier this year.
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Nov 4, 2022 14:37
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Charlz Guybon posted:‘A joke that went out of control’: crowdfunding weapons for Ukraine’s war I know these are old etc. but I'm still pretty impressed that you can get 50 APCs for only 5.5 million. Seems like good value.
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Nov 4, 2022 14:41
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Electric Wrigglies posted:The launchers are just a glorified Studebaker, right? The sekret sauce is the relatively cheap miniaturized guidance electronics and servos/aero to mount onto economical rockets. If the Studebakers are getting blowed up, it would be child's play to surreptitiously supply enough parts to fix them up again without calling it a replacement or a new unit. Not really, the launcher-carrier is truck based but it's a single integrated weapons system. All of the controls for programming the rockets, gunlaying, and firing the weapon are contained within the cab of the vehicle. The truck and the rockets aren't separate for any practical purposes; if the truck gets smashed, the unit is dead. People also seem forget about the M270s that have been donated. (Or they use HIMARS as shorthand for all GLMRS long-range rockets, which is kind of understandable). The M270 is tracked and carries twice as many GMLRs per launcher. There were 12 in service with AFU in June and I believe both the Germans and Norwegians have indicated they will donate more. The AFU has a lot more GLMRS platforms than just the HIMARS systems the US has donated.
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Nov 4, 2022 14:47
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That's around $100k per vehicle which is quite a bit more than the usual price I be think I've seen for surplus fv103s. Google turns up old listings for 30k. Could be because they're high quality examples combination with buy large numbers for war (rather than somebody buying one as a novelty hobby and driving it to the supermarket)
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Nov 4, 2022 14:54
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Pablo Bluth posted:That's around $100k per vehicle which is quite a bit more than the usual price I be think I've seen for surplus fv103s. Google turns up old listings for 30k. Could be because they're high quality examples combination with buy large numbers for war (rather than somebody buying one as a novelty hobby and driving it to the supermarket) Are those demilitarized examples? Pretty different market if so.
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Nov 4, 2022 15:06
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Icon Of Sin posted:They’re also running a ton of decoys, which might be partly responsible for how many the Russians were claiming to have blown up earlier this year. The truck frame the HIMARS system is based on is a common one that is all over the place. So its less that there are decoys faking them out and more that the Russians were purposefully misrepresenting them as destroyed HIMARS for propaganda purposes.
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Nov 4, 2022 15:10
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Are those demilitarized examples? Pretty different market if so.
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Nov 4, 2022 15:25
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I don't think putting in some machine guns is likely to be a problem, though, and presumably whatever armor they had is still in place?
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Nov 4, 2022 15:37
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The Ukrainians seem pretty adept at cobbliing stuff together. The cost is almost certainly because they're low milage, high quality examples. Anyone want to chip in for a Herc? https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/defence-equipment-sales-authority
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Nov 4, 2022 15:45
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Scratch Monkey posted:What's the next logical objective? Establish a bridgehead across the Dnipro, take Nova Kakhovka, and secure the dam and the highway towards Melitopol? The troops that were stationed in Kherson are some of the best Russia has at this point. It's pretty clear that doing an opposed crossing of the Dnipro south of the reservoir just doesn't make sense for Ukraine, unless the defenses have been severely weakened. My uneducated guess it there's going to be a push to take the highway between Vasylivka and Tokmak and then a battle over the M-18 highway between Vasylivka and Melitopol. Taking those would deny the Russians major roads to the south bank of the Dnipro reservoir. The ultimate objective is to get within range of the bridges over the Molochna and Tashenak rivers to cut off Melitopol from every direction except north. Once the bridges have been destroyed, supplying the Russian troops in Melitopol becomes untenable and Crimea is effectively cut off from the DNR. It's unlikely we're going to see great gains during the winter though, as both sides dig in. Ukraine will probably make fuel supplies of the Russian troops a priority target, because cold, wet and hungry levies aren't going to bother maintaining equipment or fortifications.
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Nov 4, 2022 16:00
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Wherever the next offensive takes place, if the winter ground is frozen enough to move vehicles I would think the Ukrainians would be incentivized to take advantage of what seems to be Russia's lack of winter equipment. Fighting half frozen, demoralized conscripts is good position to attack from.
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Nov 4, 2022 16:19
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During a live stream with one or another Russian opposition person, Arestovych (advisor to the president doing PR and a beefcake) said that Ukraine exhausted its attack potential weapons wise and there won't be any Kharkov-like offensives until that is replenished by Western military aid. At this point even Kherson is looking unlikely this year, nevermind the other bank Edit: https://twitter.com/PutinDirect/status/1588524589948506113 Grandpa that likes to complain about gays and transgenders with 35 pronouns is now mocking people that ran away from his invading rapist army and bombings for having it too good Somaen fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Nov 4, 2022 |
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Nov 4, 2022 16:36
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Scratch Monkey posted:Wherever the next offensive takes place, if the winter ground is frozen enough to move vehicles I would think the Ukrainians would be incentivized to take advantage of what seems to be Russia's lack of winter equipment. Fighting half frozen, demoralized conscripts is good position to attack from. It's worth remembering that southern Ukraine doesn't ever get that cold. It's more comparable to Italy.
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Nov 4, 2022 17:29
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https://mobile.twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1588559831849267201
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Nov 4, 2022 17:30
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Man. Restomodding is so hip now. In all seriousness, do we have data on how well modernized old tanks do in battle? I remember reading how Slovenia was giving T55s to Ukraine to get upgraded and put into action. Eric Cantonese fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Nov 4, 2022 |
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Nov 4, 2022 17:33
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FishBulbia posted:It's worth remembering that southern Ukraine doesn't ever get that cold. It's more comparable to Italy. It certainly gets plenty cold in Kherson.  (source: https://weatherspark.com/y/97401/Average-Weather-in-Kherson-Ukraine-Year-Round) quote:Billings, Montana, United States (5,634 miles away); Continental, Ohio, United States (5,248 miles); and Northumberland, Pennsylvania, United States (5,003 miles) are the far-away foreign places with temperatures most similar to Kherson (view comparison).
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Nov 4, 2022 17:35
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Eric Cantonese posted:Man. Restomodding is so hip now. If you have good optics and communications then basically you rely on the advantages of 'a bad tank is better than no tank' and 'the best armour is to shoot the enemy before he shoots you'. Fortunately the easiest bit of refurbishing and modernising a tank is to replace the radio and optics.
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Nov 4, 2022 17:43
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Eric Cantonese posted:Man. Restomodding is so hip now. The Slovenian t55 were frankenmodded to sorta Leo 1a5 standards http://www.army-guide.com/eng/product1398.html which make them sorta weird logistic wise(they use a nato 105 gun plus a lot of custom Israeli tech).
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Nov 4, 2022 17:44
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I wonder how much longer they can supply the T series of tanks with ammunition. At a certain point one would think moving Ukrainians to NATO standard material would have to happen just to supply them with ammo. It isn't like small arms where there is plenty of manufacturers making Warsaw Pact standard ammo and it is easy enough to spin up production of that.
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Nov 4, 2022 17:44
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Djarum posted:I wonder how much longer they can supply the T series of tanks with ammunition. At a certain point one would think moving Ukrainians to NATO standard material would have to happen just to supply them with ammo. It isn't like small arms where there is plenty of manufacturers making Warsaw Pact standard ammo and it is easy enough to spin up production of that. At this point I would bet that 125mm has better stockpiles in continental europe, double so if they cannibalize Russian ammo depots.
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Nov 4, 2022 17:49
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Somaen posted:During a live stream with one or another Russian opposition person, Arestovych (advisor to the president doing PR and a beefcake) said that Ukraine exhausted its attack potential weapons wise and there won't be any Kharkov-like offensives until that is replenished by Western military aid. At this point even Kherson is looking unlikely this year, nevermind the other bank It is important to remember that the 2 biggest instances of Ukranian troops recapturing territory was either the voluntary withdrawal by Russian troops out of the Kyiv area in late March during their strategic refocus as and their fuckup falling for Kherson feint which allowed the Ukrainians to overload in Kharkov. Outside of those two instances, it has been a war of grinding inches. There isn't any evidence that the Russians have damaged Ukranian regular forces to the extent that they couldn't pull off another Kharkov if they found an area as weakly held as it was in September but at the same time, there is no evidence the Ukrainians can launch an attack with similar results unless they found the conditions similar to before. This is exactly what the mobilization and the construction of fortifications is aimed to deal with. Have enough bodies to avoid another shitshow and wait out the winter. But if the Ukrainians do find another opportunity, I don't see any reason why they couldn't so something similar, allowing for weather and logistics. As before, Ukranian success will largely be dependent on how bad Russia's generals perform. For all the talk of demoralised troops that will just surrender or flee in a moment's notice, when placed in a good position, the Russian forces have proven that they can and will defend competently and keep the Ukrainians at bay, even if at great cost. Their resilience in spite of constant pressure in Kherson despite multiple local disasters over the past two months despite shaky logistics is proof of that as is their ability to limit further Ukrainian gains to a slow pace after recovering from the Kharkov disaster.
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Nov 4, 2022 18:31
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MikeC posted:It is important to remember that the 2 biggest instances of Ukranian troops recapturing territory was either the voluntary withdrawal by Russian troops out of the Kyiv area in late March during their strategic refocus as and their fuckup falling for Kherson feint which allowed the Ukrainians to overload in Kharkov. Outside of those two instances, it has been a war of grinding inches. There are different degrees of voluntary withdrawal, it's not like things were going fine and dandy and the Russians just decided that they don't like Kyiv anymore and would prefer to bash their heads against Pisky and Bakhmut for a few months. They had severely stretched logistics that were getting attacked constantly, and their attempt at a thunder run had clearly failed. Attacking into Kyiv would be a complete bloodbath, and at best it would have resulted in the city becoming Mariupol ten times over. Calling it a voluntary withdrawal is giving them a lot of credit. Ukraine could similarly destroy logistics in other areas, by e.g. destroying railway communications (Kerch bridge) which Russian troops clearly struggle to deal with. That doesn't mean Ukraine can drive into Melitopol with a few AK47s stapled to some Ford Focuses, but Russians have shown multiple times that they will withdraw if their logistics can't sustain their presence. Sustaining the whole southern front through roads coming out of Donetsk does not sound like an easy thing to do, especially if you add hundreds of thousands of mobilised Russian troops.
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Nov 4, 2022 18:54
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https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2022/11/04/us-netherlands-go-dutch-to-refurbish-czech-tanks-for-ukraine/ for twitter reporting: https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1588568511714324483 the original press event: https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Videos/videoid/863236/ Not sure if this is old news, don't think I've seen it posted yet. New batch of support, headlines seem to be about 90 T-72s. That's quite a bit from the Czech Republic, I think Poland has sent at least 240 tanks so far? If you want to read about somebody nerd out about tank specs this is a fun read: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sebastienroblin/2022/10/28/czech-super-t-72m4-tanks-seen-headed-towards-ukraine/?sh=668a757f3ce7 There's so many flavors of weapons in Ukraine I have no idea how they're doing logistics at all. WarpedLichen fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Nov 4, 2022 |
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Nov 4, 2022 20:48
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WarpedLichen posted:There's so many flavors of weapons in Ukraine I have no idea how they're doing logistics at all. At least for the traditional stuff they share either NATO or old Soviet ammo standards. At least everything we have seen Finland donating either uses ammo they already have, or stuff that NATO can provide. I have the same question for the 5+ different anti-air systems they have, though.
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Nov 4, 2022 20:53
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WarpedLichen posted:
US paid for repairing/upgrading of 45 T-72s, the Netherlands of 45 more.
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Nov 4, 2022 20:58
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Der Kyhe posted:At least for the traditional stuff they share either NATO or old Soviet ammo standards. At least everything we have seen Finland donating either uses ammo they already have, or stuff that NATO can provide. Yeah but reading into it, the donated ex-soviet gear from the surrounding countries have all been retrofitted to probably different internal standards. So you got T-72s with different sensor packages, possibly different powerpacks, different electronics. If your depot has to service X different flavors the same tank, I have no idea how it doesn't get confusing as hell.
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Nov 4, 2022 20:58
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WarpedLichen posted:Yeah but reading into it, the donated ex-soviet gear from the surrounding countries have all been retrofitted to probably different internal standards. So you got T-72s with different sensor packages, possibly different powerpacks, different electronics. I can't imagine these high-performance tanks being useful if they use unfamiliar tech with all kinds of custom mods. All that high-performance tech and retrofitting doesn't seem useful if you don't have a tank crew that's trained to really take advantage of it or a repair crew that can easily maintain it. One engine breakdown, and that tank is as dead in the water as a Russian vehicle fresh out of deep storage.
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Nov 4, 2022 21:34
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Der Kyhe posted:At least for the traditional stuff they share either NATO or old Soviet ammo standards. At least everything we have seen Finland donating either uses ammo they already have, or stuff that NATO can provide. I am betting that the AA systems are probably set up per region and some stuff is likely getting retired due to lack of munitions. For example some of the Russian stuff the stocks for missiles are probably gone or near gone. Positioning those system’s radar in areas to beef up coverage for elsewhere is likely being done with those as we have seen with their hacked together distributed network so systems with stocks can fire upon targets. It’s just a guess but based on what we have seen it makes some sense.
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Nov 4, 2022 21:39
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WarpedLichen posted:https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2022/11/04/us-netherlands-go-dutch-to-refurbish-czech-tanks-for-ukraine/ wait where the heck did they scrape 1117's up from? [edit] huh I had no idea they were put back into service. I thought they were still the original V-150 Gage models from the 70's. The more I know! Doccers fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Nov 4, 2022 |
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Nov 4, 2022 21:49
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Alchenar posted:If you have good optics and communications then basically you rely on the advantages of 'a bad tank is better than no tank' and 'the best armour is to shoot the enemy before he shoots you'. You also slap on as much reactive armor as humanly possible onto it. Reactive armor as a % of total coverage appears to be one of the single biggest things currently for vehicle survivability.
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Nov 4, 2022 21:56
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Doccers posted:wait where the heck did they scrape 1117's up from? According to Wikipedia the US has over 1800 of them so I guess that's where they are coming from?
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Nov 4, 2022 21:59
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Charliegrs posted:According to Wikipedia the US has over 1800 of them so I guess that's where they are coming from? Yeah I just saw that too. I somehow thought these were all 1970's relics (local sheriff's office has an old V-150 displayed in their impound lot), I didn't realize they produced an updated version of them in the 2000s.
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Nov 4, 2022 22:15
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Herstory Begins Now posted:You also slap on as much reactive armor as humanly possible onto it. Reactive armor as a % of total coverage appears to be one of the single biggest things currently for vehicle survivability. It's more like it's the only cheap option available to improve protection without replacing the entire chassis. Reactive armor has limitations to how effective it can be, serving more as a supplement to the armor protection behind it by soaking up a bit of energy and mass (by throwing a thin metal plate into the path of a penetrator) than a replacement. How much of a difference it makes also depends greatly on what specifically the tank gets hit by.
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Nov 4, 2022 22:20
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Herstory Begins Now posted:You also slap on as much reactive armor as humanly possible onto it. Reactive armor as a % of total coverage appears to be one of the single biggest things currently for vehicle survivability. One of the things I really want to read about from an academic/doctrinal standpoint is whether each side has been actively choosing to use tanks to engage other tanks, or whether they have been trying where possible to use them to blast away at infantry while ATGMs/drones/artillery goes after the other side's armour.
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Nov 4, 2022 22:22
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WarpedLichen posted:Yeah but reading into it, the donated ex-soviet gear from the surrounding countries have all been retrofitted to probably different internal standards. So you got T-72s with different sensor packages, possibly different powerpacks, different electronics. Now consider AFVs - all separate platforms and not "just" variants. Some Soviet era, Ukrainian, more modern Russian stuff that has been captured, Yugoslavian, Australian, British, French, Turkish, South African. Although of course you still have variants like the M113 which have been donated by DK, NL and DE and BMP-1s also from several countries. Quick scan of the donation list: - M113 - LAV 6 - Alvis 4 - Patria Pasi - Véhicule de l'Avant Blindé (VAB) - ACMAT Bastion - YPR-765 - Iveco LAV IIIs - AMC Dzik-2 - Kirpi MRAP - FV103 Spartan - M577 - BVP M-80 - Senator APC - M1117 Guardian In addition to Ukrainian BMP 1, 2, 3s, MTLB and all the other Soviet stuff and also all the later stuff of Ukrainian design. And all the lighter vehicles: - HMMWV - Husky - Mastiff - Wolfhound - MaxxPro - Bushmaster - Iveco LMV - AMC Dzik - Saxon - URO VAMTAC - BMC Kirpi No doubt some donated Russian Tigrs and Typhoons and whatnot.
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Nov 4, 2022 22:28
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HolHorsejob posted:I can't imagine these high-performance tanks being useful if they use unfamiliar tech with all kinds of custom mods. All that high-performance tech and retrofitting doesn't seem useful if you don't have a tank crew that's trained to really take advantage of it or a repair crew that can easily maintain it. One engine breakdown, and that tank is as dead in the water as a Russian vehicle fresh out of deep storage. I agree in principle but the nations donating stocks had them for a long time. It would be surprising if they didn't attempt any modernization efforts as parts go out of stock. It would be even more surprising if they were able to coordinate multi-nationally and end up with the exact same configuration. Like East German MIG-29s being the exact same as Polish MIG-29s would be amazing after all these years. You do hear about them donating spare parts in lieu of planes, likely for this reason, though the same is not for tanks so who knows why that is. I think in some ways not being just "variants" makes it easier. Having it be almost the same but requiring a serial number to figure out what it is vs knowing right off the bat. Though admittedly you got a lot more parts to stock. WarpedLichen fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Nov 4, 2022 |
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Nov 4, 2022 22:35
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