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Kavros posted:This war has already been fascinatingly ground-based with relatively few air assets, and I'm assuming this will keep the trend strong for at least one side, The reason for that is that Ukraine has good heavy AA, which greatly limits the freedom of action of the VKS. The problem with this is that they don't have infinite missiles for their S-300 systems, and there is no substantial supply of them outside Russia. This means that eventually they will have to move to western AA systems. It's the same with artillery. It's not that 155mm guns are that much better than the ones Ukraine already has (they are better, but a well-maintained soviet surplus 152mm gun with good ammo is close enough), but that there is simply not enough ammo supplies or production for Soviet heavy calibers outside Russia and China, so eventually the entire Ukrainian army needs to switch over to NATO calibers. Although on that front Russia is apparently helping supply Ukraine by leaving behind so much ammo when they rout.
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Oct 11, 2022 22:07
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aniviron posted:But for example if (hopefully when) the Ukrainian Army liberates Kherson, is it reasonable to expect much of the territory between there and Melitopol to also be liberated, at least up til a natural barrier like a river? aniviron posted:
I think it will happen again. The issue is low morale and lack of good defensive terrain. When your line gets penetrated, you get the gently caress out because no-one feels safe or is interested in fighting to the death. Might not happen again soon, though, because I think the autumn rains have already started in most of the country and hellmud season is about to be back. Then the next real opportunity for offensives is in the north when the ground freezes in winter, and in the south when the ground dries in summer.
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Oct 12, 2022 09:31
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Also I’m not sure what’s exactly up with Hamina, seems to be a toy terminal with capacity of 1/16th of Klaipeda? IIRC It's sized to supply all local demand in the eastern part of the country where there is a direct connection to Russia and no pipe connected to the rest of the country.
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Oct 12, 2022 13:15
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alex314 posted:I somehow assumed at least ammo would be the same The Chunmoo is compatible with the 227mm system that the HIMARS uses. It just can also fire a bunch of different domestic Korean rockets. Those are different because they were designed before the M270 was.
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Oct 13, 2022 19:32
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FishBulbia posted:That really sucks. If its a reverse Mariupol the city will be destroyed. I don't think Ukraine has any need to do that. Anyone who lives in the Antonivka suburb should probably get out while the getting is good, but once Ukraine captures that there is no point in actually fighting for the city itself.
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Oct 13, 2022 22:38
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Owling Howl posted:I don't know how much better yacht internet is? I would assume basic comms and sending images would overwhelmingly be the most important features - they don't need to stream 4K Netflix while playing Xbox in the trenches. The big difference between the expensive and the cheap subscription is that the cheap one requires a fixed service address which you have to tell SpaceX in advance, while the expensive lets you roam around freely. There are some added costs of roaming to SpaceX (again, the system is highly directional, so it always needs to know exactly where you are), but certainly not ~$5k per month.
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Oct 14, 2022 13:48
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notwithoutmyanus posted:He was paid to deploy the basic service I would suspect but from the last Twitter link it sounds like he pocketed the loving money as a grifter as usual. If he didn't deploy them, ahhahaha he pulled an AT&T. I don't understand what you are claiming here. To be clear, Starlink is currently available in Ukraine. USAID paid for 1330 terminals. The company rounded that up to 5000 at their own expense and USAID shipped those to Ukraine. All of those 5000 terminals have been operating for free since then. In addition to that, a lot of volunteers are purchasing Starlink terminals in Europe and shipping those to Ukraine. I think those require paying for the normal subscription to operate. So SpaceX provided a lot more than the service that was originally paid for. It's just that now they want to start getting paid for it. They probably will be, but not the full $5000 per terminal gucci subscription that they are quoting in these tweets. This is just stupid price negotiation on twitter. Owling Howl posted:So this guy is saying this thing Correct, as I understand it the portability charge allows you to change your service location often, but does not allow you to maintain connection to a moving vehicle.
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Oct 14, 2022 16:15
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Chalks posted:If this is real, the first reliable details about it will probably be from Russian sources once OSINT people verify things in a day or so Russia just slapped "discrediting the Russian Army" charges on like the 12 most prominent milbloggers, I'm getting a distinct sense that people who know what's happening are afraid to post anything to avoid getting charged. I doubt we'll get anything but a vague sense of unease from that side of the fence.
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Oct 16, 2022 22:28
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saratoga posted:Payload at those ranges is tiny and would do very little damage. You'd need a much bigger weapon than himara. HIMARS can fire the M57E1 ATACMS missile, which has a 500lbs penetrating high explosive warhead. It's one big missile in a pod instead of 6 per pod. It has enough range to hit the bridge, and was designed partially specifically to take out such targets. That's why it's in the news so often, everyone knows that if Ukraine is shipped any, the Kerch bridge will fall properly. It's also why the Russians are so shrill about it.
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Oct 16, 2022 22:49
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Ynglaur posted:
Not that long ago, if you wanted a radar-guided aa gun, the most expensive part was the sensors and other electronics. These days, the most expensive part is probably the gun itself. Fragrag posted:Are these Iranian drones more akin to a V1 or a V2 rocket? At what point are we going to dust off the old Bofors gun and proximity fuse ammunition? Closer to a V1, but much crappier. V1 was kinda fast for it's time, at ~600km/h. The Shahed-136 drones that Russia is using top out at like 180km/h.
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Oct 17, 2022 23:21
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Pleasant Friend posted:https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-18/russian-warplane-crashes-into-apartment-building-killing-13/101549066 There's no way to tell from the outside. We'll know it's the second if this starts to become really common. So far, there's just two incidents.
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Oct 18, 2022 13:58
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Phlegmish posted:I guess you guys are right, though I was expecting the usual 'Ukrainian nazis have broken through our lines and captured villages X, Y and Z' first. What we're hearing from the Russians now just makes it seem like they're retreating before the Ukrainians have even started attacking. The people who posted those things last time got either threatened with charges or actually charged for "discrediting the Russian army". We are not likely to get anything like the visibility we had into the offensive last time.
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Oct 18, 2022 22:49
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slurm posted:With Iranians on the ground in Ukraine now, why shouldn't the US strike drone factories/military bases/critical infrastructure inside Iran? It seems like they have none of the defenses Russia would (which is basically just the threat of nukes) and a campaign to just basically destroy power/water/transportation, petroleum infrastructure, and dehouse defense workers could be conducted with impunity with none of the concerns of invasion or occupation. Primarily because there is currently some serious civil unrest in Iran. If the US starts airstriking the place, that is going to cause the unrest to end and people to rally to the flag. The unrest might ultimately not lead to anything, but there are reports from several different locations of the military switching sides, so there is still hope. You don't want to sabotage that if there's even a small chance.
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Oct 21, 2022 22:04
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TheDeadlyShoe posted:The irony of that chart is that a lot of California's current GDP growth is credited to renewables. If anything, the current crisis should show Germany / the EU that not only is cheap Russian energy a dire political choice, but a questionable economic choice in the long term. The problem with this is that renewables work a lot better in California than they do in Central or Northern Europe. What renewables do you propose to power Germany with in the winter months when there is basically no sunlight, and when very cold weather typically coincides with zero wind?
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Oct 25, 2022 02:06
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Groda posted:We're not talking about radiation-related health problems or cancer -- we're talking acute radiation sickness. Red forest is where all the heavy stuff fell out of the cloud as it cooled. The surface was extremely radioactive. To make it less dangerous, the Soviets used bulldozers to dig deep trenches, and then push the dead vegetation and other surface material into these trenches. They then covered the trenches with 2 meters of sand. The measured peak dose rates, ~10mSv/h, in the Red Forest are found by measuring from the top of the sand on the location of a trench. That is, through two meters of shielding. The Russians dug their positions on the sand, where the ground was softer. The bottom of some of their trenches got really close to the bottom of the sand. Acute radiation poisoning is absolutely a possibility here.
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Oct 27, 2022 12:19
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah do we know if the boat attack actually did anything? The footage that cuts off just as one boat rams a frigate would very much imply substantial damage, at least assuming that there is enough explosives on it, and that the detonator worked. Immediately after there were reports and pictures of tall pillars of black smoke, which would also imply that something with a lot of flammable stuff was hit, but we don't know what that was. Afterwards Russia clamped down hard, including turning off several public webcams facing towards the harbor, that have for some reason been online for the entire war so far. I would assume this means that something embarrassing to them happened, and that they don't want us to see it. I don't think the amount of explosives you can fit into a canoe being driven by a jet ski motor with enough fuel to cross over to Sevastopol should be enough to sink a frigate, assuming competent damage control. But it's the Russian Navy so lol.
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Oct 30, 2022 21:47
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fatherboxx posted:They can't really afford to to spend them that recklessly, because 1) with sanctions in place they are barely replacable; 2) there always needs to be a reserve for a clancychat scenario - it is not total war so Russia can't commit everything it has to this and leave its reserve units bare. Russia has already effectively denuded their western border. There is almost nothing defending the border for 1500km from Norway to Belarus. They have already made the choice to spend everything and trust that nukes alone will defend them in a "clancychat scenario". They are going to shoot their very last cruise missile while spouting vague threats about how they are going to wipe out all Ukrainian infrastructure forever, and only after they are literally dry will they start thinking about what to do next.
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Oct 31, 2022 15:49
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Ynglaur posted:Naval operations and making poor countries starve: If there were any way of doing it with plausible deniability, I'd love to see some Russian warship which shoots a grain barge get sunk in a hurry with a, "Whoops, we didn't see the Russian flag and assumed it was a pirate." There's no need for plausible deniability. The Turkish Navy is literally escorting the convoy of merchantmen, and the grain corridor deal made it clear that they will fire on anyone who attacks the convoy. It is under their protection. This is specifically why the Russian hissy fit on the subject shot up a tugboat that was very far from the convoy.
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Nov 1, 2022 23:06
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Ynglaur posted:drat. I played an old hex-based wargame called Sixth Fleet years ago, and I don't remember the Turkish navy being that large. That's playing a little fast and loose, and probably counting patrol boats or something. The actual current strength of the Turkish Navy is roughly: 8 Type 209 submarines. (Another 4 in refit.) 8 OHP (ex-USN) frigates refitted with a modernized battle management system, sonar and radar. All have Harpoons. (4 of them also have ESSM.) 8 MEKO200 (German contract) frigates (4 with ESSM and modern radars) 4 Ada-class domestic ASW corvettes. (Very modern and chock full of modern NATO poo poo, no idea how good they actually are.) 6 A69 (ex-french navy (nice  )) ASW corvettes (I think these were supposed to be phased out with the introduction of the Adas, but when those were commissioned, the Turks took a long look at what was happening across the Black Sea and extended their service lives.)18 FACs of various classes (~500-ton platforms that carry up to 8 Harpoons. No appreciable defenses. The plan apparently is a glorious death ride to get to launch missiles and then get sunk, with posthumous commendations.) 16 Patrol boats with ASW sonar. In general, most of these are quite obsolete by western standards, but cutting edge compared to their competition. Turkish training and leadership is also considered to be not the best by western standards, but lightyears ahead of the competition. In reality, the Turkish Navy has been the strongest Navy in the Black Sea since the beginning of this conflict.
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Nov 2, 2022 21:58
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BlueBlazer posted:500 tons is a big ship no matter who you are. 500 tons is really not a lot of ship to carry 8 harpoons. That boat basically consists of engine, missiles, and things needed to support firing of the missiles.
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Nov 3, 2022 00:51
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sean10mm posted:Yeah, the Russian mega tank stockpile numbers need to be taken with a huge grain of salt, most obviously because if they were true they would be nowhere near having to dip into the T-62 shitbox stores. Yet here we are. doesn't contain any such doohickeys (or modern sights, or really anything that's worth money or complex), they can reach a baseline combat readiness with much less work.
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Nov 3, 2022 04:50
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The Lord of Hats posted:If Russia is abandoning Kherson, does that mean that Ukraine's got the entire northern bank of the Dnipro? I admit I haven't been following the maps super closely, given how much they had appeared to have stalled out, but I was under the impression that they were still a ways out from really approaching Kherson itself. Kherson becomes a trap where you die instead of territory you hold if the P-47 road between it and Nova Kakhovka is cut. Ukraine has been slowly inching towards that road from the northeast. If Russia has indeed chosen to withdraw, it would imply that their leadership felt that they cannot defend it and chose to withdraw before it turns into a huge disaster that eats all the troops in it. The stuff seen from it so far seems to imply a successful, orderly withdrawal.
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Nov 3, 2022 15:06
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Bar Ran Dun posted:1000 kgs - metric ton, MT, 1 m^3 of water at 1.0000 apparent density in air at 15C
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Nov 3, 2022 15:10
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Warbadger posted:
I would not say that. It's true that the side armor won't stop a shot coming at it from a right angle, but that's not its job. It's job is to greatly widen the frontal angles that are protected. If someone fires on you from 30 degrees off your nose and hits your side, the armor and ERA will serve a purpose.
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Nov 5, 2022 12:13
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fatherboxx posted:It is very Russian to willingly get into the poo poo to the shoulder deep and then start loudly complaining that you are owed equipment, training and proper leadership. I mean, if you believed the propaganda you might have expected to receive that.
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Nov 8, 2022 22:21
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TheDeadlyShoe posted:The exact quote is that “You are looking at well over 100,000 Russian soldiers killed and wounded,” Milley said in remarks at the Economic Club of New York. “Same thing probably on the Ukrainian side.” The casualties among TDF were also really high in the early days. Back when Russia was trying to encircle Kharkiv, the line in large areas was held by entirely green TDF, basically just volunteers with no training who got handed rifles. I know someone from the area who says that the first few weeks were just really bloody for the defenders. For a long time, Ukraine citied "military deaths" and pointedly avoided questions on whether this covered just the regulars, or also the national guard, or also ad-hoc TDF. Until they had actually trained troops holding everywhere, I don't think the exchanges in lives favored them.
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Nov 10, 2022 18:01
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Herstory Begins Now posted:I do not buy any narrative that Russia is masterminding some grand plan here, the scale and volume of the discontent from basically every corner on the Russian side is way too great. Much simpler explanation is that a huge loving debacle is underway. I think the closest to a "grand plan" they possibly had was to ferry their good troops over while ferrying mobiks to replace them to hold the line. But given how much high-end equipment seems to have been left behind, that's probably not true either.
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Nov 11, 2022 02:53
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cinci zoo sniper posted:It’s quite far away, and would be shot at from basically all directions, including dumb artillery stationed in Russian Federation. Something like like Verkhnii Tokmak would be more practical, since there’s a rail station for the sole railway connecting Crimea with Russia overland. There is no railroad connecting to Crimea overland in Russian hands. The Ukrainians pulled up the tracks after 2014 from a long stretch, and that area is still in mortar range of Ukrainian positions. (It's also the area where Russia is most heavily attaking these days.)
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Nov 11, 2022 17:45
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Right, they did disconnect the peninsula, but I’m not sure which is the area you’re speaking of. I assume that there still is a railway line Novooleksiivka-Melitopol’-Fedorivka-Verkhnii Tokmak-Kamish Zorya-Volnovakha-Dolya-Larine-Dobay’sk-Uspens’ka-Kvashino-Taganrog-Rostov, but thinking more about it you certainly have a point that some areas of that would be more than dangerous to traverse - the Volnovakha-Dolya segment in particular. That connection is cut. The rails have been removed from a long stretch near to the old border of dnr.
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Nov 11, 2022 18:32
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gay picnic defence posted:I think the only realistic option he has is to hold on and hope that a lack of gas causes Europe to pressure Ukraine into accepting something that can be passed off as a win in Russia. The thing is, Europe can't do that. As in, is literally unable to. So long as Poland and the US keep the support up, Ukraine can at least stay in the fight. Laws that have already been passed make sure that US can keep up the support to the end of FY23, and I don't think there's much of a risk of Poland faltering either. And so when you know that acting in one way cannot result in the outcome you seek, might as well go the other way and hope that increased support will result in a shorter war.
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Nov 12, 2022 03:13
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spankmeister posted:Unable to make it through the winter, or unable to pressure Ukraine? I think you mean the latter but I wasn't sure. The latter. The weather co-operated (global warming was useful for once lol) and this delayed the beginning of heating season enough that the eu is now fine until next winter.
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Nov 12, 2022 14:31
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Comstar posted:Unconfirmed reports that Ukraine has got troops on the left bank, on the peninsula at the end of the Dnieper. It's closer to their logistics than the Russian ones, and they have the boats to do it, if not he helicopters and artillery to hold it. Russia has had a whole bunch of arty there, and according to some reports it's where they launched some of their lovely Iranian V1 replicas from. I would not expect Ukraine to hold it, but if it was lightly defended some SOF on speedboats going there to remind the Russians why you do base security even when you don't think you're likely to be attacked might be a very good idea indeed.
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Nov 13, 2022 01:56
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Charliegrs posted:How in the hell would western countries ever have fought a war with Russia? Just the act of supplying a third party with arms is now depleting their ammo reserves I can't imagine what it would be like if NATO countries fought Russia (or China) directly. I know the military industrial complex must be LOVING this though. US has a massive stockpile of air-launched PGMs. In a real war, that's what was expected to do the real work. But since Ukraine has no western-pattern aircraft, they can't utilize them.
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Nov 14, 2022 08:36
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ZombieLenin posted:If it’s actually two missiles as is being reported by some outlets, I find it highly dubious this was anything other than an intentional direct escalation of the Russian government aimed at seeing how far they can actually push NATO. I would assume that one of the missiles was Russian, and the other one was an Ukrainian one chasing the Russian one.
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Nov 16, 2022 00:09
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Nenonen posted:It's not like he's ever going to leave Russia, nor will Russia extradite him. The latest rumours have him fighting in Ukraine.
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Nov 17, 2022 20:48
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Budzilla posted:I am really surprised with all the puncture holes in just the 1 truck. 182000 preformed fragments. cr0y posted:They punch wholes in the loving trucks frame That's why it's tungsten. For hypervelocity impacts, density makes a lot of difference. Also helps a lot with range of effects. High sectional density makes the very small fragments go much farther before they slow down to ineffectiveness.
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Nov 18, 2022 20:46
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Lum_ posted:Russia denied it but after the Soviet collapse their war plans were released which spelled out they also planned on moving straight to nuclear release). To expand on this, Soviet planning seemed to hinge completely on the idea that if they only nuked countries that didn't have any nukes themselves, they wouldn't get nuked back. The 7 days to the Rhine plan started by nuking Vienna, the capital of neutral Austria, killing millions to hopefully scare the Austrian army to not participate in futher hostilities and to allow Soviet troops to pass. This would then be followed up with counterforce nuclear strikes on NATO West Germany, Italy and Denmark, to take out their military capability before they had time to form up. All the while the Soviets would be invading in relatively tight, concentrated groups, which would be very vulnerable to nuclear counterattack, to say nothing about their logistics. The calculus really was that so long as no bombs land on France, UK or US territory or forces, they wouldn't respond in hopes of preventing nuclear attacks on them directly. A Bomber Harris quote would go well here, because the entire reason the NATO nuclear sharing arrangement existed was just this situation. About a hour after the first nuke landed on W.Germany, Russian spearheads would start going up in nuclear fireballs, leading to  faces for all Soviet generals and probably full-scale nuclear war.
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Nov 21, 2022 12:21
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Pablo Bluth posted:Or perhaps they're not being used offensively on the front line but defensively to protect against marine threats (the original assumption of how they were going to be used, before the footage of the truck launches appeared). It's possible they are being used defensively in the front, and so in the absence of threatening Russian offensives, they mostly sit idle. Brimstone 2 has enough range that it's a good solution to have in your rear to backstop your frontline, in case it gets broken through.
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Nov 22, 2022 14:22
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Sir John Falstaff posted:Maybe--a T-62 also requires a crew of 4, while a T-80 requires crew of 3 (the t-62 doesn't have an autoloader), which would seem to present its own problems, logistically and otherwise. It also uses a different gun, meaning different shells (t-62 uses a 115mm gun, while the t-80 and t-72 use a 125mm). Also, Russia was already supporting T-80s--adding T-62s means another MBT variant Russia has to support. But I'll admit I'm not an expert, and that may be an explanation. But most crucially, the T-62 doesn't have an autoloader you need to get functional before you can use it. You can get the diesel engine of the T-62 or a T-72 running without too much effort even if it hasn't been well preserved. But the autoloader? Forget about it. You'd have to just straight up replace it. I think this is the main reason they are pulling out T-62:s instead of the large pool of mothballed T-72s. They just don't have the resources or parts to repair autoloaders fast enough to push the tanks to the front at a reasonable rate. Doccers posted:We should also give them F-14's specifically for shooting down Iranian drones, just to rub it in. There aren't any. The US has preserved all other military equipment as it's been taken off the line, but the F-14:s and all their parts were systematically destroyed. The reasoning was apparently to prevent likelihood of useful parts of knowledge ending up in Iran.
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Nov 24, 2022 01:03
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Mr. Apollo posted:I imagine that all new military vehicles will have to have some sort of counter drone technology The DoD is currently running a program for next-gen replacements for most of their tracked vehicles. One of the requirements seems to be that every single vehicle gets radar-guided light gun AA. ~30mm autocannons on the tanks, and the 50mm autocannon on the IFVs must also be high elevation angle capable with timed airburst shells and AA fire control. That should handle these kinds of crappy commercial drones just fine.
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Nov 24, 2022 11:26
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