TheVulture
-
Posts
2,295 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by TheVulture
-
-
4 minutes ago, c3k said:
I think it's a combination:
3. Stugna-P is "safer" to fire. Remote launch, vs., over the shoulder.
4. Stugna-P gets set up in a static position: much easier opportunity to video and to watch the operator video link. Javelin, being shoulder-launched, the video opportunities are more fleeting, and the impact footage would be missing (depending on range and how many Russian tanks/IFVs are going to be looking for the launcher and shooting back.).
IIRC The british version of the javelin has remote launch capability. The CLU can be detatched and used to fire the launcher from around 50m away. (As can the British NLAW)
I think the US versions don't have this, which is probably what the Ukrainians have.
-
Captured Russian artillery near Mykolaiv:
-
Quote
Cyberwar? France's Army Ministry and the director of mobile network Orange France warned that the possibility of Russia cutting off the internet to France is a “credible threat.” The director of Orange France said Moscow has been "interested" in the underwater fiber-optic cables that connect the internet for years. The company recently detected “a spy vessel connected to the Russian Ministry of Defense, and a class of submarines with the capacity to work at extreme depths.”
-
12 minutes ago, DesertFox said:
I guess we shall know by tomorrow, but if true this is a huge blow for the Iwans.
That sounds like it falls in to the "too good to be true" category for me. Russia has a lot of forces in the south, and even with their low competence levels, it's hard to believe they could miss a force large enough to destroy a circa 200 vehicle column without the Russians noticing at all.
As you say, reality will probably become clearer soon.
-
9 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
That does not change the assessment. All these high level assets, Arty, AD, Engineering, Comms and CPs, logistics (e.g. re-fuelers) are not normal losses. Tanks, IFVs are supposed to die...it is their job. All this other stuff is not, at least not in the volumes we are seeing.
And certainly not supposed to be captured intact or simply abandoned.
-
Just to finish off the Iraq sidetrack, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Council confirmed that Iran launched the missiles that hit Erbil in Kurdish Iraq. They say it was an attack against Israeli targets in the city in retaliation for Israel killing two senior IRGC officers in Syria recently.
-
3 minutes ago, Markus86 said:
Twitter is flooded with posts of an supposedly iranian rocket attack with six Iranian "Fateh-110" tactical short-range ballistic missiles on US targets in iraq (erbil).
Do you think this is connected to the current situation in Ukraine?
Strangely no US news website is covering the topic. I hope I'm not spreading fake news.
My first reaction is that I'd be surprised. The Ukraine was has put pressure on US - Saudi relations, and with Iran and the US looking to make progress on the nuclear deal, and Iran getting its oil and gas exports (which can exceed Russia's) out on the market again, this is the perfect time for Iran to be working on rapproachment with the US, not attacking it.
Right now, Israel is more likely to attack Iran than Iran to attack the US, in my estimation.
-
Not impossible, but I'm not sure what they'd really gain versus having a logistics base just over the border in Belarus.
-
3 minutes ago, Haiduk said:
UKR SOF with captured Russian Eleron-3 UAV
That's not a drone - that's a Klingon bird of Prey model.
-
50 minutes ago, Hister said:
Glad you guys liked the Julia Ioffe interview.
Will ask again about the TU-142 Strizh incident. What is your take on it, was it more likely operated by Russia or by Ukraine and why you think so? Thanx.
Here's my analysis:
Wikipedia lists the following details
QuoteThe unmanned aerial vehicle entered Romanian airspace around 23:23 EET, where it was observed by the Romanian Air Force and flew for 3 minutes.[5] Afterwards, it continued flying through Hungarian airspace for the next 40 minutes, where it was also observed by the Hungarian Air Force.[6] It then entered Croatian airspace flying at a speed of 700 km/h (380 kn; 430 mph) and altitude of 1,300 metres (4,300 ft),[7] where it was picked up by Croatian military radar.[8] After spending 7 minutes in Croatian airspace, it crashed in the Croatian capital, some 50 m (160 ft) away from the Stjepan Radić Student Residence Hall.
Taking that speed and those timings, that's about 35km through Romanian airspace, 470km through Hungarian and 80km through Croatia, ending at Zagreb. The Tu-141 has a range of around 1000km, although that looks rounded off and is also going to depend on weather conditions etc.
Taking all that at face value, 1000km in a straight line doesn't put it anywhere inside Ukraine that Russia could have launched it. Vinnytsia is about as far into Ukraine. Since it is essentially a cruise-missile it doesn't have to travel in a straight line though, but obviously that gives it the furthest range. Transnistria might just about be a possibility if you definitely want it to be a Russian launch, but it looks far more likely that it was Ukrainian.
-
2 minutes ago, Taranis said:
12:54
Russia Threatens to Target Western Arms Deliveries to Ukraine
Russia's deputy foreign minister threatened the United States on Saturday, saying Russia could target its arms shipments to Ukraine, where the Russian military has been advancing for two weeks. Sergei Ryabkov warned in an interview with the Pervy Kanal TV channel:“We have warned the United States that the delivery of weapons it orchestrates from a number of countries is not only a dangerous move, it is an act that makes the mentioned convoys legitimate targets. »
Mr Ryabkov also said that the “security guarantees” demanded by Russia from the West, including an assurance that Ukraine would never join NATO, were no longer valid. “The situation has changed completely. The question now is to obtain the implementation of the objectives of our leaders,” he said, referring to the “demilitarization” of Ukraine that the Kremlin is calling for. "If the Americans are willing, we can of course resume the dialogue," he nevertheless added, specifying that Moscow was ready on the subject of the Start agreements, the limitation of nuclear arsenals. “It all depends on Washington,” he said.
Personal opinion
According to me an other proof of the russian difficulties and incapacities against strong UKR resistance. A sign of weaknessAgreed. They've already said at the start of the invasion that they regarded western aid to Ukraine as an act of war, and if they had the ability to hit weapons convoys before now I'm pretty certain they would have. This looks a lot more like empty rhetoric than some change in Russian willingness to do things.
-
Picture from Chernihiv this morning of what looks like a knocked-out Russian self-properlled artillery (2S19 Msta?) with 'O' mark
-
Here's a claim, although I have no idea how much evidence there is to back it up ((or whether they are talking about a single event or ongoing attrition over 2 weeks)
QuoteUkrainian Joint Forces Operation troops have almost completely destroyed battle-tactical group of 102th regiment of 150th Rifle Division near Mariupol
-
1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:
Yup, but then again not doing it and getting ambushed does kinda slow things down too
Steve
It's the Soviet philosphy: would you rather have 10 convoys get safley through at walking pace, or 15 get through fast and 3 get whacked?
-
15 minutes ago, Haiduk said:
Bayraktar hit a vehicle of Russian command center, Kyiv oblast
The command vehicles look like they're sitting in something like mud patches. Is that camoflage netting as seen by IR / night vision optics, or something else?
-
9 minutes ago, DesertFox said:
column rolling towards Brest (belarussian - polish border)
If Ukraine are right that Belarus are being pressured into joining Putin's war this evening then maybe they want to beef up their western border in case of NATO action against them.
-
Additional reports of strikes on Belarussian border villages:
https://t.me/hromadske_ua/17757
Також Командування Повітряних Сил ЗСУ повідомляє, що обстріляли населені пункти Бухличі та Верхній Теребежів у БілорусіQuoteUkrainian Air Forces command says Russian bombardment at the border of Rivne region and Belarus targeted Bukhlichi, Verkhniy Terebizhiv settlements
-
Quote
Ukrainian border guards say that Russian fighter jets took off from Dubrovytsa Belarus, and launched missiles from airspace of Ukraine over Horodychi and Tumeni villages towards village of Kopani in Belarus
Interesting to see if this is actually true. Kopani is a fair way west of any ground forces: https://www.google.com/maps/search/kopani/@51.7636451,26.8009627,14z
Someone got confused and bombed the wrong place (seems the most likely - the border there is erratic)? Ukraine units wandered across the border (seems unlikely).
-
Some other news items from yesterday:
9 a.m.: The latest intelligence report from the British Ministry of Defense indicates a “notable decrease in overall Russian air activity over Ukraine in recent days,” likely due to the effectiveness of Ukraine’s air defenses.
7 p.m.: Russia is suspending exports of wheat, meslin, rye, barley and corn to the other members of the Eurasian Economic Union until Aug. 31.
11 p.m.: The U.S. is looking at ways of transferring advanced Soviet-era air defense systems to Ukraine. They include SA-8, SA-10 and S-300 systems capable of shooting down cruise missiles and aircraft flying at high altitudes. Bulgaria, Greece and Slovakia all have S-300s.
-
5 minutes ago, db_zero said:
Based on a video posted earlier today a picture is emerging regarding the Ukrainian army. Apparently it was riddled with corruption and in a piss poor shape in 2014. It was re-organized and the western nations tasked with training it started from the bottom up working on the basics like tactics, weaning it away from the over-centralized Russian model and empowering the NCO's to make decisions instead of relying on officers to micromanage.
Sounds like the past few years much was done on a higher level training mid and senior level officers the operational skills like combined arms and coordinating units and other operational skills.
I think that is what has impressed me most about the Ukrainian military. In 2014 I gather they were pretty much still in the Soviet era Red Army mode, much like the Russians still are. To turned around the whole institutional culture in just 8 years is an incredible achievement.
I guess having the incentive of knowing they were almost certainly be going to fighting the Russians again at some point was a great motivator - they knew that sticking with the old way was suicidal - but even when you're motivated, wholesale institutional change like that is very, very hard, and to do it competently as well is even more impressive.
-
24 minutes ago, DesertFox said:
There is nothing wrong with that translation:
View on the meliorative canal and a water meadow Stock Photo - Alamy
Well I live and learn. Might just be that I'm a city dweller, and people living rurally would be more familiar with the term. Or if might just be a US / UK language difference ('berm' for example seems in more common use in the US, and probably is in the UK in engineering circles, but I'd guess that the majority of brits have never come across the word in their life)
-
5 minutes ago, Haiduk said:
Hm... But there is English word for this. Floodplain of Irpin' river hystorically was swampy, so in post-war Soviet times with swamp terrains struggled with special meliorative canals, which bypassed the water from the swamps to the rivers. This allowed to dry the terrain at least partilaly. You can find WWII type map of the same place and see the difference.
"Drainage channels" or "drainage ditches" sounds like it would fit as a translation, although there might be a more technical term.
-
10 minutes ago, dan/california said:
My view is 100% the other way on Xi attacking Taiwan. This has been a brutal demonstration of what can happen to your plan for a "short, victorious war". And Taiwan is ten or a hundred times harder. A ~hundred miles of unfriendly ocean, and infinitely better defensive terrain when you get there. Helicopter born assaults have been demonstrated to just not be a thing anymore. Ponder transports going down with a thousand troops each on them, the bodies washing up on the Chinese coast. If you do win all you get is an expensive, and violently unhappy ruin. Xi is great many very bad things, but stupid isn't one of them. Xi also hasn't been at the center of the self licking ice cream cone of what he wants to hear for long enough to lose his marbles, yet.
And aside from anything else, China is still years away from having a navy capable of launching a serious amphibious assault and being able to keep the logistics lines running over the 200km-ish strait of Taiwan to overwhelm Taiwan's army even in the absence of an US Navy carrier groups trying to stop them.
-
6 minutes ago, kraze said:
Every single country has biolabs researching pathogens, unless it's an absolute backwater ****hole with zero medical research budget.
Because to produce meds you need that stuff you are targeting with meds to produce meds.
Saying that "omg a country has biolabs with dangerous viruses" is a great argument only for absolutely uneducated people who have zero clue about how anything works.
Yup. As far as I can see, there's nothing in the list of 'pathogens' to indicate this is anything more sinister than testing disinfectant on common every-day pathogens that you'd find in the average kitchen.
Suggesting that its a bio-weapons facility is ridiculous with the evidence provided so far.
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
Kherson is the only district capitol they've taken (not sure what the Ukrainian's call those cities), and for bonus points is their main bridgehead across the Dneipr. Recapturing Kherson would be a big win for Ukraine. Although I can't imagine the Russians would abandon it easily unless they are really in the crap: it will cost them dear if they ever try to force their way back to the west of the Dneipr if they give it up now.