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Politico posted another interview with Fiona Hill today which is another fantastic look into what Putin is doing and why along with some clarity into the geopolitical issues with the war and region. Also goes into the Musk stuff for a minute which spoiler alert, he is a useful idiot like most already knew. Really is a must read. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/10/17/fiona-hill-putin-war-00061894
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Oct 17, 2022 15:01
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Charliegrs posted:Are any western air defense systems any good against these suicide drones? I'm not even sure any of them have really been put to the test against this kind of threat. I wonder if the systems that were designed to take out small mortar rounds and rockets would work? Things like the CRAM and Iron Dome. I think a mortar round is even smaller than a Shahed and flies a lot faster. The Iron Dome would probably work great, unfortunately that's probably the system Ukraine is least likely to get. Something akin to a Phalanx CIWS, which would be the LPWS C-RAM would be a perfect system to deal with them. Iron Dome is basically an enhanced version of that. Hell if there are any M163 VADS still around they would work well in the short term. Ultimately the best solution would be finding out where they are launching from and take it out at the source but that likely isn't going to be possible for a while.
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Oct 17, 2022 15:37
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Young Freud posted:I'm going to wager a guess and say the Rivet Joint's international airspace was the Black Sea. It's a signals intelligence aircraft, the type of intelligence gathering that would uncover Russian troop movements, logistics, locations of officers, etc. They have been making missions over the Black Sea and Poland basically since the war started, both River Joint and Combat Sent platforms. The fact that a missile was fired upon one of them is frankly insane of Russia and I don't buy the "malfunction" story one bit. It is going to be real interesting to see what happens now that they will have fighter escort. I assume the RAF will have Eurofighters and the USAF will have F-16s likely. The only thing that makes any sort of sense is that Russia is looking to try and goad NATO into engaging them. It's a bad idea but it is all I got.
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Oct 20, 2022 15:26
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MikeC posted:In general, in the military world, the term released generally involves the weapon being activated. The Guardian and the BBC both have articles in which the verbiage being used is that it was released beyond visual range and that the spy jet promptly retreated. Exactly. Also if it "just fell off" you wouldn't have the need to have fighter escort going forward. Also the River Joint has some of the most sophisticated defensive measures on any airframe so even if it was targeted there is little chance for the missile to actually hit it. There is always a chance that it was a mistake upon the Russians and they reached out to make sure that they don't start a shooting war with NATO over it. Which the way it has been treated certainly makes it sound that way, but the UK is going to make sure Russia is aware they screw around again they will have return fire immediately.
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Oct 20, 2022 18:29
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mobby_6kl posted:As far as I can tell the support has beep pretty negligible when compared to the annual military spending even now, let alone during Iraq+Afghanistan adventures. Considering how mad some people get about a few millions in foreign development aid though, of course this could be leveraged by the chuds too though. But it seems that McCarthy got slapped for this and it's maybe a few dozen assholes who would vote against, at least so far. To be fair McCarthy isn't likely to be Speaker even if they win a majority at this point. If the GOP wins a majority they are so fractured that there is going to be massive amounts of infighting and little accomplished. McCarthy was never a strong leader there in the first place and will be less so going forward there is already several people being floated as replacements for him. Say what you will about McConnell but he has his caucus under a pretty tight leash and carries a big enough stick that even when someone like McCarthy steps out of line he can shut them down pretty quickly. I don't see Ukrainian support drying up any time soon. If nothing else the MIC spending is basically a US jobs program and pulling back spending on that will hurt whomever does it pretty heavily even without the optics currently.
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Oct 25, 2022 13:53
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You also need to remember that they need to keep a set amount of tanks and what not staged elsewhere for national defense as well. They got a lot of land and borders to defend. Them dipping into T-62s means they have hit their limit on what they can spare of the newer, more capable stuff. It is going to be real interesting to see what the Russian military will look like come Spring as a lot of their material is going to fail during the winter months due to age and being unable to properly maintain it in the cold.
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Nov 3, 2022 06:18
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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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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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Random Integer posted:The answer to this question is apparently (mostly) Bulgaria. Bulgaria still has a number of manufacturers producing Soviet standard ammunition, including tank and artillery calibers. They've been quietly selling it to people who are then selling it on to Ukraine since the start of the war. Well that’s interesting. I know there has been plenty of places still making most small arms calibers but obviously tank and artillery stuff is a mystery since it isn’t possible to buy it legally. Also those making such stuff generally aren’t super open about it. Logistics for Ukraine has got to be an absolute mess though with all of the stuff they got. Once the war is over they are going to have to go full NATO and standardize across the board what they are using.
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Nov 5, 2022 04:57
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https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/general_atomics_plans_to_providing_ukraine_with_own_uavs-4754.html Sounds like Ukraine is going to get Reapers and Hellfires. That will change things in theater quite a bit.
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Nov 6, 2022 15:05
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gay picnic defence posted:Is there likely to be an uptick in US aid now the midterms are out of the way and Biden doesn't have to worry quite so much about domestic political blowback if Russia starts rattling the nuke sabre again? I am not sure if there is going to be an uptick but there likely won't be a degrade. We will see what both the House and Senate look like which will likely still dictate how much support can be pushed through. Although giving Ukraine support is popular on both sides so I don't see it drying up anytime soon.
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Nov 12, 2022 04:23
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Chalks posted:Drone footage of the bridge at Kherson. It shows the damage done by the Ukrainians using HIMARS at the end too - looks like they had almost completely destroyed the surface of the bridge in that area by the end Thankfully it looks like the main supports aren't majorly damaged so it should be relatively easy to rebuild it when the war is over.
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Nov 12, 2022 20:58
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Likely it is a response to the G20, the UN vote and the US elections along with Kherson for the Russian Homefront. Putin doesn't have a ton of moves left on the board so they are going to get increasingly brash, outlandish and ineffective as we have seen.
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Nov 15, 2022 17:41
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Kraftwerk posted:Also let's say the Russian military gradually loses any kind of capability to hold Ukrainian territory and retreats to 1994 boundaries. What stops the Russians from just constantly firing missiles every few months to blow up infrastructure, rebuilding efforts and scare away western investors and contractors from ever building up Ukraine? Let's say Russia retreats back to 1994 borders and you see at least a sort of DMZ sort of border ala Korea. You would then likely see NATO troops then be stationed within Ukraine likely nearly immediately. Russia would not want to continue to fire upon Ukraine in chance of hitting foreign troops, which almost certainly bring a response likely in Russian soil. Basically if Russian retreated or is driven back to the 1994 borders or even remotely close to them the conflict is over. Honestly I'd say if they are driven beyond the 2014 borders it is over.
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Nov 15, 2022 17:52
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Just because the missiles weren’t fired from Russia doesn’t mean they were fired by Russia. It is pretty obvious that Biden is going to try and do everything he can from escalating the conflict by involving NATO and in turn having any possibility of boots on the ground. They are going to have to thread this very carefully as I don’t see any way that you don’t escalate things more. Hell this entire exercise may have been Russia trying to get NATO to officially get involved so they can lose and save face doing it. Big bad NATO defeated them not those lowly Ukrainians. Granted I think it is more likely that Russian missiles being used have dogshit for guidance and they have bad intel to be firing at in the first place.
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Nov 16, 2022 05:29
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The whole “threat” of NATO for Russia is that it means they can’t just attack/invade neighbors at will like what we just saw. Russian security guarantees are as worthless as a screen door on a submarine. Russia started an ill conceived war of aggression. They are going to have to deal with the consequences of their actions. I assume that Putin is being pushed by pretty much everyone that he needs to end this poo poo soon. We will see if anyone can get through to him that the conflict is lost and to drag it out more will just cost him more.
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Dec 4, 2022 22:40
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Charlz Guybon posted:But why? Why here? Russia and Wagner have spent so much time, lives, money, material and effort to try and take it that they have invested so much they can't stop now. Russia has been pushing on it since what July? They have likely lost 70k+ and a couple hundred vehicles and heavy weaponry. Any sane leader would have pulled back months ago. It has been a colossal waste of man and material. As you said there is no value gained if they do finally take it outside of some propaganda which I would be unsure of that value at this point since Russia media had been parroting that it was going fall back any day in the summer. That is like saying Alf is back in POG form in 2022.
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Dec 8, 2022 15:17
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saratoga posted:They literally abandoned Kherson and thinned out the lines elsewhere to free up forces to attack Bakhmut. And it wasn't enough to take one relatively small city. Not only that but they are rapidly running out of material. Every tank, BMP, artillery piece they lose is one they can not replace and they have lost an incredible amount of them. That isn’t counting those that are effectively lost due to just wear and tear. The barrels need to be replaced on a lot of that stuff after a certain amount of use which they do not have the spare stocks of. An assault on Kiev would be even more disastrous than the first. The Ukrainians are a much different force than a year ago with more experience and even more weaponry. It would be effectively a slaughter. I can’t imagine any rational commander would allow it. That is not even considering the after effects of such an assault as it would likely come out of Belarus which would likely open Luka up to retaliation which he wants no part of. Russia is going to have to attempt to try one more desperate attempt at making a real break through. They do not have any good options though. Personally I would probably pull back my troops to try and make a line to hold Crimea or at least make it costly enough that Ukraine would have to seriously consider making the push. It is their best chance at holding any territory.
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Dec 18, 2022 18:07
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awesome-express posted:So is Ukraine going to be dropping JDAMs from F16s or what If Ukraine was getting F-16s, and my opinion it is pretty much inevitable, they aren't going to advertise it until the very last moment for various reasons. I imagine the major hold ups are logistics and training for the ground crews still. You have to figure out how to get the airframes into Ukraine safely and without tipping off Russia. Then you have to figure out how to get all of the support kit into the country as well. It is a massive undertaking. You also have the issue of all Russia airframes use TS-1 for fuel where an F-16 uses JP-8 which is another logistical issue. The two are close enough that there is likely a solution for it but it is just something else to have to consider. In the short term JDAMs are basically plug and play so Ukraine likely has a solution in place to use them with the MiG-29s and Su-25s they currently have. They are probably going to keep flying those until the wings come off and by then the F-16 issues should be solved. I would think that Ukraine would be more interested in medium/long range strike drones and missiles in the immediate. They need the ability to strike at air defense assets as well as the various avenues Russia is launching missile/drone attacks at them. You can do that better with a lower value asset with the amount of risk involved. Affixing something akin to a HARM to an MQ-1 Predator would be pretty good for the situation they are in currently for SEAD/DEAD although MANPADs are still a concern. F-16s are sexy and could give a lot of benefits it isn't as game changing now as it would have been 6-8 months ago. Giving them something like a couple dozen Tomahawk missiles would be currently as they could destroy Russian logistical and tactical targets deep within Russia which would cripple their ability to do much of anything within Ukraine for weeks at best and heavily cripple their ability to send much of a reaction. This would be done with little to not risk to any Ukrainians as well.
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Dec 28, 2022 17:37
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mlmp08 posted:Why would F-16s be treated differently from every single other major weapon system? The US has been pretty transparent with major weapon assistance, when it comes to reporting divestitures and expenses to congress and the American people. Electric Wrigglies posted:Yeah, I don't know if it feasible to sneak in F16s of any number without Russia working it out on their own. The Russians probably train and wargame fighting against F16's in any event. What's the element of suprise meant to achieve? Allow F16 attacks where Mig29's/SU27s can't strike now? Attempt to down a Bear loitering hundreds (>thousand?) of km behind the lines? Well one of the big reasons to keep it quiet until you can't anymore is compared to Soviet-era aircraft is that the F-16 is going to require a lot of kit to fly them and keep them airworthy that will likely only be stationed at a couple of airbases at most, at least at first. You want to keep that equipment and more importantly the trained manpower as safe as possible until you can get things staged and defended. It would take a few weeks at least to get things up and running. You would have a giant target on that location in the meantime. That being said the Ukrainians have kept their aircraft safe and airworthy so far. I am sure the story there is going to be REAL interesting in the future.
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Dec 29, 2022 00:46
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mlmp08 posted:I understand why Ukraine might like to keep things secret. I meant why would the US suddenly change its policy on informing congress and the public about our weapons proliferation? With something so big and obvious as F-16s? I do not think that the US would treat F-16s as some black project given how visibly the US treated GMLRS-firing weapons, artillery, etc. Well I believe there is some history of the US and others not announcing stuff is in Ukrainian hands until it is already staged in country, for example HIMARS and GMLRS rounds. Like you can't keep them secret forever but you can keep it secret until they are staged and operational. Once they are flying around it would be impossible to keep them quiet at that point. It isn't like the US isn't going to shout from the rooftops that they are there after the fact either.
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Dec 29, 2022 01:13
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Challengers are supposedly VERY survivable as well from what I have read. I am sure a tanker can give more accurate information about this but just like the Abrams there were reports of them taking dozens of RPG and anti-tank rounds and shrugging them off in Iraq. In the grand scheme of things a dozen doesn't mean a whole lot, they would likely be used for training, but between shaming the Germans and Americans into giving their platforms and when/if the UK gives more a single Challenger is likely worth several T-72s in terms of capability and survivability. A situation where T-72s likely wouldn't survive a Challenger or Abrams would. Also you have a much more accurate gun on them so you are able to hit more precise shots from presumably longer ranges. I am sure a tanker can elaborate on this or correct what I am misinformed about.
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Jan 14, 2023 17:39
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Alchenar posted:There are a few people who make quite tidy sums of money by whenever a large procurement order is made by a country buying a ton of spare parts for that vehicle or piece of kit while the production lines are running and they're extremely cheap, sticking them in a warehouse for 20-25 years and waiting for the state to come running when it needs to keep the stuff running past the original end-of-use date and the original supply of spares has all dried up. It happens is almost every industry out there New Old Stock is incredibly lucrative. For example I know of some company that bought up a TON of various computer stuff about 20 years ago that is now making a killing now because all of what they have is in heavy demand from both companies that have equipment that rely upon it and retro computer enthusiasts. Stuff that you couldn’t give away when they bought it is now selling for 10+ times what it was worth new.
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Jan 20, 2023 11:40
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The reason why the F-16 is a huge upgrade for the Ukrainians is that the platform has been modified to do pretty much every task they need in the conflict. You can do Air to Air, Air to Ground, Air to Sea, SEAD/DEAD and EW all from a single platform with effectively a load out and software change. Comparing a F-16 to a MiG-29 is like comparing a Pentium 1 Laptop from 1995 to a modern smart phone. People get old hardware to do new tricks all the time but at the end of the day a new smart phone can do everything that laptop can do and a ton more faster, better, cheaper and in a more refined package. There are no doubt a lot of missions that the Ukrainians would love to do but with their current inventory and capabilities are unable to do so. With a squadron or two of F-16s and the right kit that changes very quickly. Hell the air launched cruise missile attacks would likely stop due to them having long range BVR missiles and radars to engage the bombers that launch them. A strike on the locations where they are launching the Iranian drones from Crimea could be on the table as well. That is just two off the top of my head. This is totally discounting the changes that the Russians would require in terms of tactics and logistics due to the F-16s being able to target areas previously more secure from Ukraine's current capabilities. mllaneza posted:I'm in the Gripen camp. The Swedes designed that bird to work from rough and ready dispersed strips with relatively low maintenance requirements. It can carry Meteor anti-air missiles and Small Diameter Bombs for PGMs which puts it in the same class as current model F-16s, but is better suited for the operating conditions in Ukraine. Issue with the Gripen is parts and logistics. There are thousands on F-16s built and it is used by a ton of countries. There is a ton of spares out there and the platform has been adapted to pretty much every role one can think of. There are only about 150 Gripens in the entire world and Saab can't magically make 30 or 40 appear out of thin air, let alone all the spare parts one would need for us in an active conflict. You add in that it is not fully NATO compatible so it is incompatible with a lot of the arms that would be offered and wanted to be used by Ukraine. I agree that the Gripen is a fantastic aircraft and if it was peacetime it would fit Ukraine very well in a lot of aspects but with current needs and logistical concerns the best option is the F-16.
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Feb 8, 2023 17:47
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Tomn posted:Would it? I was under the impression that the Russians were lobbing these cruise missiles from an airbase near Moscow. I don't think BVR missiles reach quite that far, do they? The bombers that are launching them are based near Moscow but they aren't launching them from there. They are getting within BVR range of the border for launch for stuff that is hitting Kiev and targets in Western Ukraine due to the range of the cruise missiles. If nothing else it would cause a lot of Western Ukraine to be a lot safer from strikes as they would likely strike targets closer to the border if this would happen. There is still the issue of them being launched from Belarus as some have been and the mess that engaging Russian bombers in Belarusian airspace would be. Also the sub launched Kalibrs have the range to hit Western Ukraine from Baltic which they have used before but who knows how many they have operational and available to use without harming their defenses and operations in other ways. It isn't like they have the ability to replace these easily or quickly which is why they are moving toward cheap Iranian drones for much of their recent attacks. The other issue would the longer range cruise missiles is that they are subsonic to increase their range, which makes them much easier pickings for anti-air defenses as well as stuff like the F-16 or even the MIG-29.
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Feb 8, 2023 18:56
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Hasn’t it been said that the Russian crews lack thermal sights in any numbers in general? Let’s be honest most of the T-72s and 80s that had the most upgraded equipment got destroyed/captured months and months ago or never went to theater in the first place. They could be getting stuff from China to upgrade what they have available but it wouldn’t be in any numbers to make a real difference. From the footage coming out of the hot spots Russia seems to be using fewer tanks in general lately. Part of that is likely because of the weather and that they are fighting mostly in heavily fortified areas but when you do see armor at all it is generally a BMP. Most of what you see anymore is a mixture of human wave attacks, probing scout units and artillery. Russia has been throwing blood and treasure at Bakhmut for what, 6-7 months and have little to show for it other than losing a ton of other territory? As the weather improves and Ukraine gets more goodies things will continue to get more and more bleak for Russia. I honestly don’t even know what objectives Russia are even working toward now. The dream of taking Ukraine is long gone and the longer they keep throwing more and more uneasily replaceable man and material at a failure I don’t think they will be even able to retain 2014 boarders at this point. You don’t even hear Russian propaganda with wild claims anymore like you did last September and October. The recent announcements of equipment that previously was deemed off limits seems to me that you have a lot of players looking to try and end this by the end of the Summer. Politically this will likely start to get dicey in the US by the Fall as the election season starts to heat up. Also I am sure a lot of European countries likely don’t want to have to navigate another Winter with a gas crisis.
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Mar 22, 2023 05:00
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Charliegrs posted:Won't every Winter going forward be easier for Europe to deal with since they basically had to quit using Russian gas cold turkey? And I think they basically found other sources or alternative types of energy. Besides if the war ended tomorrow I still don't think Europe would go back to using Russian gas for a long time if ever. At least I hope not. I believe that they stockpiled before the winter coupled with it being very mild. I am sure someone can give a better answer to it all. The bigger issue isn’t that they would be as reliant upon Russian gas anymore as much as the war has caused prices to skyrocket. There are other causes as well to the massive worldwide inflation in general but I have several friends that live in Europe that had to ration their heat this winter mainly due to cost.
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Mar 22, 2023 05:20
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Kraftwerk posted:I deal in chemical solvents for a living and I can tell you natural gas is the biggest input into producing pretty much all kinds of chemicals you could think of that go into every day life. It's incredibly versatile as a feedstock and also cheaper with better yields than crude. China's domestic demand fell off a cliff since Q4 of last year and they've been dumping their solvent products on western markets at record low prices. Even on commodities like solvents that's not enough to fully absorb the demand. There's also major economic headwinds as countries like the US begin decoupling their economies from the Chinese market. Even now labor costs in places like Mexico have become significantly lower than Chinese labor costs with obviously shorter logistic tails since you can use railways and barges to move materials. All this is to say that over the next 10 years Latin America is going to be a major exporter of manufactured goods to the US in ways China was during the last 20 years. Mexico is leading that pack with the quality of their education system and size of their population sufficient enough to generate substantial savings. The whole concept is called "near shoring" and it's basically the future of international trade. It is also why China is trying to cozy up with Russia as much as possible. I assume they will try and prop them up as long as they can as well. If Putin and the government there collpases there will be a massive void which will no doubt be filled by pro-Westerners. Eastern Russia would be the new goldmine effectively since it could easily become the new China. You have ports that could give you faster shipping to North America coupled with train lines to ship to Europe. You have a better work force there as well. China losing sphere of influence is going to cause them to behave more recklessly. Also it is unknown how they will react as they have the oncoming economic downturn and the large middle class population that has developed over the last 20 years has all of the luxuries they have become accustomed to dry up. That is all a discussion for another thread though.
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Mar 22, 2023 16:03
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aphid_licker posted:There's srsly nothing to be scared of, worst case you can't post for 6h. You can even continue to read all the posts. Some people don't want to deal with it especially if they are active in other threads on the forum. The heavy moderation for sure hinders discussion and drives away engagement. I know I have disengaged because of it myself and only check when something happens which the discussion has become worse over time. I think there is room for things to be a bit looser without ruining the thread. I know in the past there was good discussion going on about subjects and Cinci has came in and squashed it because they felt it had "run its course". I think the lack of levity hurts too because the subject is so heavy often sometimes it is nice to have a joke or two to lighten the mood. Like it shouldn't be a comedy thread and I don't think anyone engaging ever would confuse it with one. I think the current moderation tools given is insufficient for what you are trying to do with the thread as well. Tossing out Sixers for minor infractions that literally a "Hey don't do that" would suffice. I think maybe a popup warning and a 30-60 minute probation might be better tools if you are trying to keep discussion on a certain track. Granted this has been a complaint on these forums for eons and for whatever reason has never been implemented. If you are looking for more engagement then you will have make things much more welcoming for people to engage without fear of moderation for the slightest thing. If you are not interested in anyone new joining then you have a regular group of people involved which again you can likely take a step or two back and let things go with the flow unless there is a fire that you have to deal with.
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Mar 30, 2023 20:28
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