poesel
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Posts posted by poesel
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7 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:
I am hoping for that as well, but I am not sure how this could happen.
Russian glide bombs are tossed from the distance of 50 km to front line on the Russian side. AFAIK Su 34 (and as of late also Su 24 unfortunately) approach high
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This means, that in order to counter those attacks Ukrainian aircraft would have to be able to reliably shoot down Su 34 and Su 24 on their approach flight to the bomb release point (say 70 km behind the front on the Russian side?). Assuming the Ukrainian aircraft are F-16 with AIM 120 C they theoretically could do it, the missiles having a 100 km. range. However, F-16 would be fighting from big positional disadvantage. In order to hide from RUS SAMs and air-to-air patrols, the F-16s would probably be approaching very low.
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I'm not disagreeing with you, but there are a lot of 'ifs' in this calculation.
First is if the F-16 will have data integration with an AWACS. That would allow the Ukrainians to fly and shoot without active radar. Huge advantage.
Next is the type of missile. If they get the AIM120D instead of the C they have 160km instead of 105km. Or they get Meteors and now they have 200km.
The attacking SUs can't hog the ground to drop their bombs. They would be vulnerable until they can loose their loads.
OTOH the R37 missile is supposed to have a range of 300km. Who knows how much it really has. A S400 has +500km range, but Russia has already lost some of them.
Range doesn't mean you have a certain kill, but you can still spoil an attack even with a missile that missed in the end.
So the F-16 is no Wunderwaffe, but it makes the life of the Russian pilots much more difficult. Especially if they get that AWACS integration. And history has shown that the Russians need some time to learn, and this is where I hope they will fall out of the sky.
3 hours ago, Grigb said:In other news - Whoever blew Nost Stream up very conveniently (for RU) left one pipeline undamaged and ready to work.
Won't help you much if the other end of that pipe is closed.
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8 hours ago, Grigb said:
Airplanes. RU demonstrated extreme sensitivity to airplane losses.
If airplanes are the Russian resources that run out first, then the F-16 (or rather its possible stock of western missiles) will make a difference.
It would be interesting to know which missiles they get. But obviously they won't tell for good reason.
I predict a short flurry of downed Russian planes and then an end to the (mass) use of glide bombs from the Russian side. -
As I understand it, the Russians need: airplanes to drop glide bombs, artillery, (any) IFVs, (any) tanks & lots of men for their 'successes' on the battlefield.
Which of those will run out first?
I thought that would be artillery, as that was heavily targeted by Ukraine for a while. The hope was that Russia would run out of tubes. But that didn't happen, no?
The types of IFVs or tanks used seems to be irrelevant. The difference in duration on the battlefield (between old & new types) seems to be negligible.
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Panther turret '24. Not that useful anymore.
Destruction of an unusual Russian firing position, which is a BMP-2 buried in the sand. By the 38th Brigade of Ukraine. https://t.me/argus38/68 -
25 minutes ago, Carolus said:
If you think South Africa could in any way meddle with that, you are vastly overestimating the influence of South Africa.
RSA could restrict the export of arms & ammunition. IANAL, but I'm pretty sure they have laws for that. But I doubt they would use that card unless they want to be cut off from western arms, too.
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26 minutes ago, Kinophile said:
I read a lot of 'too little, too late' comments to this post. I have some experience with production lines and at that scale it is usually one year to plan, on year to build. Under the assumption that the decision has already been made and you have the funds.
In this light, this is not too bad.
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15 hours ago, Kinophile said:
Wot?
With such a defensive line, aren't you basically giving up the territory between the line and the enemy? Because that line works both ways and will make supplying the western side very difficult.
Train cars seem to also be very susceptible to HE fire so you can't put anything in them. You can hide behind them, but why?
I don't understand how this would be useful at all.
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Sorry to derail the thread with stories from Ukraine...
Not that much news for the folks here, but still interesting:
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38 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
Olaf "Treebeard" Sholz?
Steve
Probably of this kind:
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Wrt to Scholz meeting with Biden: it's a bit funny that Germany, who was scolded for its pusillanimity, seems to have become one of the main driving powers behind the support of Ukraine. How the tables turn.
Even inside Germany, there is no real opposition against that support. There is an ongoing-heated debate here about the funds for the fiscal year of 2024 with, amongst others, huge farmer protests. But no one (important) has proposed to cut the funds for Ukraine. That has surprised me TBH.
But then it is very German to take a long time to get around to one thing, but then we stick to it forever (for better or worse). -
Who in the US needs to sign off on arms purchases from NATO partners, and who sets the price? Is there a loophole for delivering arms to Ukraine?
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2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
GPS is not the only means of navigation, so again... EW can be completely countered except for an EMP type weapon.
The alternative to GPS is not ideal for most purposes, but for CASEVAC it works well. ...
I'd like to add that the CASEVAC drone just needs a magnetic compass and a barometer (or LIDAR) to fly towards the friendlies. Neither of which can be jammed.
As soon as it is out of EW range, it can fly with all sensors towards its destination.
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Could someone please explain what this Zelenskyy / Zalushny thing is all about? Is that only a political quarrel, and Zelenskyy is trying to get rid of a rival? Or is there some real concern that a general is trying to reach for political power?
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Adding to what @TheVulture said: there is not much difference in the end result between sending a drone into a zone with the order to kill any human it can find and sending an artillery shell into the same area.
Apart from hand-to-hand combat, everything is a remote kill. The really scary part is when the AI can decide when to send a drone to kill somewhere. Hello Skynet.
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Germany considers delivering Taurus to the UK in exchange for Stormshadows for Ukraine.
Is 'Ringtausch' already an English word?
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DW has a longer article (in German) about the situation in Baschkortostan.
TL;DR: will it topple Russia? - no, but it is a sign.
https://www.dw.com/de/was-es-mit-den-protesten-in-russland-auf-sich-hat/a-68026361
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2 hours ago, The Steppenwulf said:
I continue to maintain, as I stated on this thread a few months into the very start of this conflict, that the specific strategic goal here is about maintaining off-ramp conditions for the Kremlin. In other words, 'you (Russia) cannot win this war so negotiate your way out of it, when you are ready, and whenever that might be!'
Let's assume that this is correct (and I think it's likely) and also that Putin is aware of this.
So his counter-strategy is to dig in to keep what he has and to mount some attacks to be seen active to the Russian public. And at the same time not annoy the important people and get rid of the unwanted or unnecessary.
I don't see Putin run out of money or people anytime soon. The same goes for (enough) support from the West, and the Ukrainians have no choice.
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4 hours ago, Hapless said:
Reputed reasoning for that chunky fire in St. Petersburg: the company has been forcing employees to join up and the employees have had enough.
This sounds so amazingly corrosive, in so many ways.
How come that they can press those company workers into service? I thought Petersburg & Moscow were mostly exempt from such actions?
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Ecuador and The US concluded an agreement on the exchange of Soviet weapons worth $200 million for modern equipment. The deal should be completed by the end of this month. Ecuador doesn't know for which purpose the US is receiving them.. could be Ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Ecuadorian_Armed_Forces
Ecuador has some Soviet manpads and light AA. Nice to have, but nothing fancy. But why is the west not doing that more often? Should be quite some kit floating around.
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40 minutes ago, Butschi said:
I this anecdotal evidence? Because as far as I am informed this is not true.
Thanks Butschi for writing that, so I don't have to write it.
There has been some slight grumbling about Ukrainians having it a bit too easy wrt to other refugees, but this will be normalized. Apart from that, there have been no noteworthy troubles.
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9 minutes ago, Seedorf81 said:
Maybe a painful question, but why do democracies have to prevent "unnecessary" (a very debatable term, as I see it. Any death can be deemed unneccessary, if one tries hard enough) deaths? Is there an obligation, other than morality?
Because politicians want to stay in office. It doesn't help if your voters are dead.
As an autocrat, you don't have to worry about that. It may even help if the right ones die. Case in point: Russia.
9 minutes ago, Seedorf81 said:And a cruel reality perhaps, but what you call "unneccesary deaths" are also happening in Sudan, Chad, Mali, Nigeria, Congo, Somalia, Gaza and the rest, but they seem less important than the Ukranian deaths?
Because we don't relate to them culturally. You care about people you 'know'.
I do care more about Ukraine than Gaza, although my co-worker is Palestinian and I personally know no one from Ukraine!?!
I guess this is some basic human tribal thing. -
10 hours ago, Beleg85 said:
It seems Ukrainians also successfully work in this field; here drones possibly working without GPS (some believe observed from Warmate) reportedly targeting two pieces of Pantsir.
That does not surprise me. Object recognition and tracking are well into the capability range of €10 microcontrollers for years now. It just (*) needed someone to merge it with the flight control of a drone, and here we are.
(*) just is the engineer's term for a few months to make it work
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Thanks all for the S-300 answers. Yes, it was really a question.
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How come that S-300 rockets are so good at ground attacks? They were build for ground-to-air combat!? Why do they hit anything, and why are they intercepted so seldom?
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
China would never ever do anything that jeopardized international waterways. This would directly cut into their trading revenue and they would bleed themselves.
Even if Putin wouldn't for once been lying and the pipe were operational tomorrow: a pipe has two ends and one end is closed. And it won't open again (at least not for natural gas).
Germany has long term contracts with other suppliers. We don't need Russian gas anymore. Even if it were politically possible to buy Russian gas again, it would take years before we would. That ship has sailed, working pipeline or not.
Drones of this size usually use Lithium-polymer (Lipo) batteries. Fully charged, they have 4.2V. If you care about the longevity of your batteries, you don't discharge them below 3.5V. If you go below that, you get a 'low battery' alarm (the threshold is of course adjustable).
If you don't care (and you don't for kamikaze drones) then you can suck them dry. But if the voltage gets too low, your control electronics will fail. Much of these electronics run at 3.3V so 3V is really close to the edge of losing the drone.