Codename Duchess

The US and Russia have thousands of missiles and warheads against <100 ABM missiles each. If we want to wipe each other out we still can. There's like, 24, VLS cells in Romania. Preeeeeeetty sure Russia can handle that.

Again, NATO only expands where it's invited. Eastern European countries felt they needed a security assurance from Russia and thus asked to be let in. If they didn't feel threatened they wouldn't have asked. Again, prior to Crimea, there was talks of breaking up NATO, and efforts to improve Russian relationships with the US and organization. They screwed the pooch royally on that one, and they can spin it all they want but that's how it is. Russia isn't exactly making any efforts to ease NATO weariness. And if we lost the Pacific Islands we'd still have the entire Pacific Coast, so not the best comparison. There is no US choke point like that, and you also have warming arctic ports as well.

Joke's on you, I have DCS too.

The article I posted as well as one from RT citing a source on base (as reported by RIA Novosti) says it was an accident/fuel fire that occurred during a mortar attack, which would make sense given the level of precision and obvious signs of fire. US intelligence officials also reported that an accident was suspected as opposed to an attack. Personally I think that the truth is somewhere in the middle, but I believe enough information exists to confirm that four helicopters and a handful of trucks were indeed lost at that airfield sometime between 14May and 17May.

I don't believe that Russians are intentionally bombing civilians either and I don't think anyone here does. I do believe they're not able to avoid it though based on level bombing with big dumb bombs often with cluster munitions. I have literally used US Navy CCIP and CCRP dumb bombing functions and am aware of their limitations and capabilities. It's reasonable to assume that Russian systems are, at best, on par (physics knows no political boundaries). Your best results are low and in a dive which you don't see a lot of Russians doing, again by your own admission as well as evidence provided by Russian and independent sources. There's official Russian footage of medium altitude level bombing with unguided munitions. This is in fact the bulk of what we have seen. You won't see 3-5m CEP at that altitude at that configuration. Hell it's hard to get that in a low dive in a training environment. Russian TGP footage shows plenty of bombs seeming to miss what is an obvious target (or your pilots don't like to center the TGP on their target which defeats the purpose). All the ballistics computers in the world can't change physics, and they won't beat laser/GPS/GLONASS level of precision, ever. You'll note 3-5m is given as the CEP for those guidance systems, even if in practice it can be better. As for the helicopter base attack, the satellite images are pretty conclusive something happened, definitely to the flight line and to a storage area. Whether they were Hinds or KA-52s isn't super important in that both are a not insignificant blow. As for no reports of casualties, the Russian government has done a pretty good job in the much bigger involvement in Ukraine so it wouldn't be hard to hide them in a remote semi-official base in Syria. Alternatively, there could very well be none. The helicopters were almost certainly unmanned and if it was a dull moment (say at night) there might not have been anyone in the logistics depot.

That wasn't directed at you @Raptorx7

Dude there's video evidence of them using cluster munitions on neighborboods and city blocks. I'll be the first to admit the US has absolutely bombed civilians in the past, but at least our government admits it. You seem to think that the RuAF, in 10,000 bombs dropped on Syria, 80% of which are unguided, has never killed civilians? As for KA-52 vs something else that is hard to verify, but that those four black wrecks with rotor blades used to be RuAF is pretty obvious from the images.

I recognize there are loads of differences in the political system, but I just wanted to point out that metric you use isn't perfect. And there are plenty of folks outside Russia who think that if Putin isn't a dictator, he certainly flirts with the definition. I'm not saying I am one of those people but there are clues out there, a big one being unfortunate accidents happening to dissident leaders and journalists. If Frank Underwood can do it, so cano Putin.

As a comment on approval ratings and the like, that's not a fair assessment of legitimacy. Kim Jong Un receives something like 99.9% of the vote and he's not exactly a stellar guy. The US Congress meanwhile has like a 10% approval rating which I think actually lends to the legitimacy of the system in our honesty.

Thing is, it tends to be poor form to use unguided weapons in urban settings for pretty obvious reasons. Unless you don't care about collateral. Edit: Relevant article just released giving a focused but shallow look at RuAF operations in Syria. Note that it mentions the loss of helicopters at that base as being due to an accident and identifies them as KA-52s. Ouch. https://warisboring.com/heres-the-key-to-understanding-the-russian-air-force-s-actions-in-syria-68aa3e4f8d0d#.7g5yrsezc

Just finished up the FOB Defense. This campaign is excellent, exactly what I wanted!

This is off topic in that it's not about Armata, but the themes apply. Tell me to stop and I will: I've seen certain military vehicles celebrated as icons before as well, often unnecessarily (Tank fights always turn into this, no offense). Where I think it gets most interesting is in the discussion of Navies and Warships. I obviously have some bias on the topic, but hear me out: Capital ships are designed to last for generations and carry the individual quirks of age and the men who sailed them over time. You can go in spaces of a Nimitz class carrier and see murals from the 70s, 80s, etc. Enterprise would have given you the same, and I've seen them on the Iowa class battleships I've been on. They really do tend to take on their own life and get associated with a nation. This also plays into the "showing the flag" effect they have. The US uses its positioning of carriers to send messages, and Navies across the globe send their ships into foreign ports on liberty stops that are often welcomed (and not just by the bars and loose women)*. I personally toured the Varyag in SF Harbor back in 2011. A ship visiting tends to go over a whole lot better than a tank visiting, and it certainly carries a higher significance. You really do embody American (or Russian, Australian, etc) culture when you pull into those ports, and you're expected to act it. This usually doesn't go poorly, all things considered. Finally as these ships are tracked and logged, you encounter situations where comparable foes clash in small (or grand) battles where national direction can be shaped by a few vessels. Tsushima, Jutland, Bismarck vs. Hood**, Midway, Leyte Gulf, etc. The ships that participate in these actions are remembered and bickered over to this day (go to the World of Warships forum, for example). I have no particular draw to anyone who's flown my plane before, and I would be surprised if tankers felt differently. *Recent Hong Kong kerfuffle notwithstanding **Didn't change the course of the war (Germany pretty much gave up on surface actions but they weren't nearly as effective as U-Boats anyway) but does serve as a fine example of the pride of a nation fighting the pride of a nation.

There is now coffee all over my monitor.

I'm not sure what we are arguing. Either a mortar/rocket destroys the aircraft via direct impact, or it ignites POL/ammo that spreads to the aircraft and destroys it. Both sound like the aircraft were destroyed in a mortar/rocket attack to me. Or, you can't say that they were destroyed by a totally fire that was totally unrelated to the ongoing attack on the base and expect anyone with a shred of awareness of these things to believe you. I don't think a cigarette did that. As for the idea of it being spread by POL on the deck, I've spent a lot of time on airfields and I don't buy it, unless the Russians are criminally negligent. We don't park our aircraft in standing fuel puddles, and a spill isn't just ignored because maybe it will go away. So the ground fire doesn't seem likely, although one burning aircraft can spread through direct fire to another nearby one. The Russians in Syria seem to be keeping their kit in close proximity to make defense against sabotage and the like easier (photos of the S-400 put it within a couple dozen meters of the flight line). This is one of those risks.

So if it wasn't ISIS, and it wasn't negligence/an accident, then what was it? It wasn't a western strike (bet your ass Russia would know and would be open about it, nevermind the West has no reason to do that). If ISIS has gotten within a few kilometers, and has acquired some of those lose Grads lost in the country, this is totally doable. With a tight target, a physics book on a calm day, and a smart phone they could easily (well maybe not easily but believably) pull this off. It sucks for your countrymen, but this has happened many times in recent years.

I'm not sure what AWACS had to do with that but I guess it's conceivable that it was fully planned for 100 MT but didn't reach it. I do recall reading somewhere that they replaced part X with Y so that it was reduced in yield, but my callsign isn't Oppenheimer so I don't know specifics. Edit: I just checked Wikipedia (not quite ONI, I know) and they rather convincingly said something similar about replacing things with Lead because otherwise the bomber wouldn't make it and most of the fallout would end up in the Soviet Union. Be that as it may, you took one sentence from my post and ran with it rather than acknowledging anything else I said. Furthermore it proves my two main points: 1) Russian (Soviet in your case) military propaganda isn't reliable and 2) lot of little bombs > one big one. Go to nuke map and compare the area covered by Tsar with one covered by 8 300kT warheads. Anyway, this thread isn't about nuclear specifics, although I don't see why one of those wouldn't be the most effective way of neutralizing Mariupol.

That's the video in question. It's some clever editing but again no proof that's dropped from a TU-160. Watch a daisy cutter drop and it's very similar. Also why would a high performance jet bomber need a parachute retarded bigass bomb? It's not going to be affected by the blast wave. No, methinks that the chute is opened to pull it from the cargo bay, again exactly like a C-130. If it was a TU-95, why not show the TU-95 drop it? In the absence of other evidence I call propaganda footage. And two things about Tsar: it didn't fizzle, it was deliberately restricted to only 50MT. I think they didn't want to ruin the Earth. Good on them. Second and more relevant, that TU-95 was specially modified for the drop and the bomb didn't fit fully in the bomb bay. So either Russia has specially modified TU-95s for one bomb or it's cargo dropped. Furthermore I stand by my belief that Precision Munitions are going to be much more effective than a single big but not nuclear bomb, especially in an urban fight. There's a reason why the US has grown fond of smaller standoff bombs that can choose which tooth you want the bomb to hit, and it's not because no one ever talked about a bigger bomb. Edit: it seems I'm not the only one who smelled fish https://www.wired.com/2007/10/russian-father/ http://www.dw.com/en/russian-bomb-claims-questionable-expert-says/a-2782398-1

Is there any footage of it actually coming out of the TU-160? I couldn't find any on YouTube. Plenty of videos of the TU-160 AND the FOAB, but never the latter actually falling from something clearly the former. The video you posted (and the shot seen most often) looks an awful lot like it's coming out of the back of a cargo plane MOAB style. As for the effectiveness of this bomb, yeah it's scary but that's about it. A B-1 packed to the gills with SDBs (Small Diameter Bombs) will do far more meaningful damage than that thing. Leveling neighborhoods tends to go over poorly when you can put a bomb through the firing pits in a bunker instead. Of course there was a distinct lack of PGMs in the Russian campaign in Syria, so I'm not really surprised by this mentality.

I'll admit I haven't tried that specifically, but intuitively I think you should just be able to move away, and if they are stationary for 10 seconds or so it initiates the reload. As for the appreciation of later threats I think immediate survival should trump that. As it stands you have to wait for the reload to complete before the shooter moves (his assistant will run off just fine) so you're making yourself an easy target and defeating the purpose of fire and forget.

I'm currently playing through the Task Force Spartan Resolve campaign and I've encountered a situation that's proven costly for me multiple times that I don't think is working as intended. Currently, after launching a Javelin, the shooter stays in place to reload it even if ordered to run/evade/move away. This defeats the whole fire and forget method of using the launcher and I've lost crews because of it (I play real time vs AI) as it takes ~15-30 seconds to reload, giving enough time for survivors to locate him. I haven't tried it with other launchers. Would it be possible to implement a grace period to move away before initiating the reload cycle?

I will concede you that one.

That's a funny story about the rank thing. The whole Lieutenant thing can get confusing as well. On behalf of the US Navy I apologize that you guys do ranks wrong.

This is entirely believable. The biggest difference between USAF and USN aviation (besides us having to wear snorkels so we don't drown in women while they [CENSORED FOR THE KIDS]) is that Air Force pilots are told what they can do while Navy pilots are told what we cannot do. Seriously. It's great and I think it let's us get a little, uh, creative. Not recklessly so, but USN aviation is a whole different ballgame. Credit where it's due, they do have some great aircraft and can handle a dogfight. As for the Marine readiness level. Marine hornets are old. Like, real old. They fly the A-D models, which are all beat to hell museum pieces anyway. The USMC is a heavily underfunded branch of the US military (to the point where they basically pride themselves on it) and yet they still earn quite the reputation for making do with what they have. They are almost entirely focused on the CAS mission too, so those hornets weren't going to go up against the RuAF anyway. Navy levels are much higher (talking 80%+ region), and I'm sure the Air Force is as well (they don't have to buy ships too). Ninja'd by panzer. We could also absolutely do things like taking ready aircraft from non-deploying squadrons to get ours up to 100% in the event of war. Our flying hours are also much higher than the Marines, (and Russians and Chinese). I've broken 100+ hours in a month before, which is the number I saw thrown around for Russian Fighter/Attack pilots yearly amount from multiple sources. Additionally, over half of RuAF Flanker squadrons are flying the original Soviet era models that don't feature the advanced avionics needed for your fanciest weapons. You guys make some pretty good missiles and the like, but you don't make very many of them and half your planes can't use them. I came up with something like ~209 modern Flanker variants in the Russian Air Force vs. 342 Super Hornets in the US Navy alone. That doesn't include our modernized Legacy Hornets, or the entire USAF. Our country also isn't under sanctions, and the 90s were not nearly as harsh on us. So if you want to play the numbers and readiness game...

I came up with a week on the assumption that we did Libya's Air Defense network in a day and we anticipate North Koreas lasting three days*. Those are both archaic systems, yes, but very thorough and expansive. There absolutely will be long range Russian strike attempts on Deeper NATO bases (although with NATO/USAF/USN disbursement these won't slow much) and runways can be repaired fast. We also have plenty of tankers and the like that can let us operate further back, and there's no good way for you guys to attack a Carrier Strike Group in the med. Plus, it's not like these strikes will be in a vacuum. The USN has a whole lot more experience launching Tomahawks than the Russians do Kalibr. And the US has a whole lot more assets they can commit than the Russians do. Backfires/Blackjacks/Bears focusing on the Black Sea are not focusing on the Baltics, and they don't exactly have a fast turn around rate. So yeah, tell NATO to crack the Black Sea A2/AD network with a dedicated buildup and I'd say give us a week to degrade it enough to where we can start doing other things. That doesn't mean every single SAM will have been destroyed, but we will definitely have opened up options. The debate then is can Russia accomplish it's ground objectives in this week. With a significant buildup and lacking a heavy NATO ground force in place, you'd grab a lot of Ukrainian territory. *This statement is the humble opinion of discussions among this LT and his JO peers and does not reflect any sort of official assessment from the US Navy.

Russia is going to run out of A2/AD assets long before NATO runs out of warplanes. The air power disparity has been beaten to death previously. That said, those assets (assuming a thorough bubble was in place at the start of the conflict) could deny the black Sea for up to a week in the best case scenario for Russia. It'd be up to them to make the most of that week. As for submarines, the best thing to hunt them with is another submarine followed by aircraft. Of the 6 Kilo class in the Black Sea Fleet not all would get underway (the Russian navy hasn't been kind) but they would still need to be accounted for. Turkey has German made D-E subs of comparable quality, some of which are presumably Black Sea based. There are other NATO countries with very good D-E boats that could be sent in as well to help. I cannot confirm any instance of US SSNs entering the Black Sea, but my gut tells me they might be weary of doing so. There is the Montreux Convention regarding warships but it's really hard to say how any of that would play out in a full blown war. No one on this thread is a Turkish politician as far as I'm aware. There are also plenty of NATO ASW ships and aircraft that could help hunt them down, although this requires some degradation of the aforementioned A2/AD network. So bottom line? Those Kilos have maybe a week if they're lucky, although it all depends on how they're used. I'm not a bubblehead, but I'd probably use them defensively guarding potential beach heads and friendly ports rather than offensively where they play into Turkish ASW defenses.