knox_harrington posted:

It has to do a particular mission at that range so no. I'm not sure what the considerations are, but ferry range is listed as 1100km so clearly not just a there-and-back.

Even then, the point is that ATACMS range is nominally 300km so the ka-52s have some to spare, contrary to what people were posted upthread. An attack heli with 150km range would not be much use!

Warbadger posted:

Ferry range means no weapons. Weapons and ammunition add weight and drag, reducing the range. It also assumes a one way trip.

With combat range you need weapons, plus have to fly both ways - flying 150km to the front means you also need to fly 50km back. Pushing the base 50km back means adding 100km to the flight. Combat also means you probably aren't flying optimal routes/speed/altitude as they did measuring the range which will further reduce the actual range below the listed value. You also need to keep fuel in reserve so your helicopter doesn't fall out of the sky 5km from base. Taking the 460km range at face value gives the Ka-52 less than a third of a tank to do anything related to combat, and actually maneuvering for combat plus the need for a reserve will cut into what's left quickly.

Volmarias posted:

Can Hungary actually be kicked out of the EU? Or NATO?

Groggy nard posted:

There is a reason that russian ammo dumps are even further away than 50km from the front.

knox_harrington posted:

Combat range means the same as combat radius, the 460km is plausible with an 1100km ferry range.

Now I don't totally believe that the Ka-52 really does 460km, but absent any other info your original point about 150km being at the limit of usability isn't really true.

Warbadger posted:

Combat range is definitely not the same thing as combat radius

knox_harrington posted:

Disagree

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radius_of_action

Warbadger posted:

Your own source lists the Ka-52 combat radius as 250km.

knox_harrington posted:

Is that more or less than 150km, and do you understand what combat range means yet?

Warbadger posted:

The 470km figure is the combat range (distance it can travel combat loaded while keeping a small fuel reserve), not combat radius (distance from the airbase it could be expected to conduct combat operations). Both combat range and ferry ranges assume one way trips in this case, but the combat range is significantly shorter because it assumes carrying weapons/ammo and no additional fuel tanks meaning a lot less gas on board. So at 150km from the front you're already shaving off 300km from a 470km combat range just to get there and back. So you have a third of a tank to do stuff near the front lines. Throw in maneuvers and less-than-optimal speed while near/at the front to avoid getting shot down or to find targets and you further reduce the distance and time on target available. No matter how you look at it, pushing the base back 50km means adding 100km to every flight - which for a helicopter with a 470km range implies a substantial reduction in time spent at the front.

Warbadger posted:

Warbadger posted:

Combat range is definitely not the same thing as combat radius

knox_harrington posted:

Eh no it was you who was talking about a 150km combat radius because:

you don't know what it means.

Now as I've already said sources vary on the Ka-52 range but they are all much further than you were claiming.

knox_harrington posted:

Combat range means the same as combat radius, the 460km is plausible with an 1100km ferry range.

Warbadger posted:

Good luck with that. Moving Ka-52 bases out to 150km from the front means moving them to the edge of their combat range. They could make the flight there and back, but they wouldn't have much time on station.

knox_harrington posted:

^ this is you talking about the combat range.

knox_harrington posted:

Why were you moaning about it not being on that page then?

Warbadger posted:

I correctly indicate it can make a flight there and back, and that it wouldn't have much time on station

Scratch Monkey posted:

let's not turn this place into War Thunder Forum v2

notwithoutmyanus posted:

JFC , take the slap fight to PM's or start hate fuckin each other already.

Honj Steak posted:

That looks like the surface of the moon, is the landscape really that razed?

Honj Steak posted:

That looks like the surface of the moon, is the landscape really that razed?

quote:

In 2016 I traveled up and down this frontline and wrote a piece about the so-called “Gray Zone,” the strip of 15 to 20 kilometers wide no-man’s land that ran for more than 200 kilometers, separating territory controlled by Kyiv on one side and Moscow-backed separatists on the other.

While driving through and around Avdiivka, often over circuitous routes to avoid the sporadic shelling, all roads seemed to overlook the Avdiivka Coke and Chemical Plant spewing smoke into the sky. Adjacent to the factory was the huge slag heap, known as Terrikon. The coke plant, built in 1963 to fulfil the needs of Mariupol’s steel mills some 140 kilometers away, is the largest in Europe. Coke, a solid fuel made by heating coal in the absence of air so that the volatile components are driven off, is needed for smelting iron ore to make steel. The plant also produces benzine, coal tar, coal oil, ammonium sulphate and coke gas.

I’d never seen a slag heap (also known as a “spoil tip”) before coming to the Donbas, which is full of them. Even the name, Terrikon, has infernal overtones. Driving around the city, Terrikon looms over the horizon, rising slightly above the steppe beyond the chemical plant like a greyish black, ancient Scythian kurgan, or burial mound. I tried to imagine how toxic it must be.

From time to time the Russians hit the plant with artillery, the most recent strike being on on Sept. 28.

Like the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, the coke plant was a monument to Soviet industrial glory, and then to post-Soviet oligarchic murk. Both are owned by Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat Akhmetov. Both are quintessentially Donbas.

Today the Russians are feeding thousands of troops and armored vehicles into a wall of fire in a desperate effort to take Terrikon, from whose heights they can control Avdiivka. It’s become a high-caliber king-of-the-hill battle for a toxic hell realm – literally a massive pile of industrial waste.

Nenonen posted:

South of the city there's a massive slag heap from ore processing.

https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/23106

bird food bathtub posted:

gently caress that's bleak. Catch a drone to the face and end it quickly or "win" and deal with turbo-rear end-cancer and heavy metal poisoning later on.

Charliegrs posted:

So they are fighting a literal king of the hill game for a mountain of toxic dirt? And if one side actually claims it then wouldn't it just get pounded to (toxic) dust by artillery?

Charliegrs posted:

So they are fighting a literal king of the hill game for a mountain of toxic dirt? And if one side actually claims it then wouldn't it just get pounded to (toxic) dust by artillery?

Nenonen posted:

Even the name is like something from a bad scifi movie.

"We're going to the Terrorcon, man. No one has returned from the Terrorcon alive... or sane."

fatherboxx posted:

While metal as hell, terrikon is a generic soviet term for large artificial mounds, usually dense garbage dumps.