danfrodo
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Posts posted by danfrodo
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40 minutes ago, CarlXII said:
The 2023 new years bone got posted on januari 30 it seems...So there's still hope
So there's hope? Oh Joy!
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Jan 1, 2024 and no email from Steve on what is going one w BFC on anything, engine 5 or otherwise. I am deeply saddened.
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Ye old RU stuff blowing up. It may be kinda sick, but I like watching those bent on murder getting blown up.
13 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:As for vehicles, this is also not an endless supply. At several points in this war they've not been able to make up their losses with anything, even museum pieces. With the large scale wastage of vehicles on pointless attacks, we'll again get to see how much longer Russia can put off the inevitable.
I saw a post somewhere today showing an RU train w a dozen or so IFVs of various flavors, allegedly stuck waiting because RRoad was out. I was bummed to see fresh IFVs for RU, then realized it was basically one day's worth given current RU losses.
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46 minutes ago, Bearstronaut said:
There's a pretty big difference between a combined arms assault into Estonia and an errant missile crossing into Polish airspace my dude.
Thanks for saying this, I was going thru the posts from my overnight and waiting for someone to point this out. The last thing RU needs is getting NATO countries angrier by killing some Poles or any other NATO citizens. Stupidest thing that Putin could do, I'd say -- oh, wait, we're talking about Putin, so sure, he might do that. But seriously why would this be on purpose? What positive outcome for RU would be possible?
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just because it makes me feel good. As the thread says, RU stuff blowing up. Also looks like the murderers of surrendering UKR soldiers lived about 30 minutes after their cowardly, despicable deed. Plus some good footage I think mostly not seen here yet.
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3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
I think Russia breaking up is inevitable. It's more inevitable than a positive coup. Because of that, probably the sooner the breakup happens the better.
I've been leaning this way for a long time. General opinion on forum seemed to be that things would be worse, not better, for the world. But right now we have a megalomaniac who is so 18th-century land crazy that he is willing to destroy his own economy, tries to sabotage the world economy, is constantly trying to undermine every democracy, is a serial mass murderer, child kidnapper, and threatens every country in Europe w attack, including nukes. I am firmly in the camp of "I'll take my chances with RU coup/breakup".
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16 minutes ago, Eddy said:
Not a dumb question, Dan. Both Reporting from Ukraine and Anders Puck Nielsen YT channels have asked the same question.
There's no evidence either way except that 5 Su34s/Su30s were shot down by something in the last few days. As Nielsen states, if the F16s were quietly introduced this is probably what it would look like. The trouble is if they were shot down by Patriots (or whatnot) this is also what it would look like.
I've been going through the old Warzone articles on the the timelines for training UKR pilots on the F16 and they basically put forward the opinion that it will takes many, many months. But I wonder whether that's for full training across all missions, like ground attack, SEAD/DEAD etc. I wonder how quickly experienced pilots could be trained to do just AA missile interception and then train them later on the other stuff.
That said, Carolus is correct. Without AMRAAMS/Meteor the F16 would not be capable. (I don't even know if F16 are integrated with Meteor - the only thing I could find on it is that Greece has Meteor missiles and also F16s. Doesn't mean they're integrated. Greece also has Rafales which are integrated).
Thanks all. So I am hearing F16 would be useful if it had the long range radar and the right missiles. And actually existed w trained pilots ready to go, at the front. Would be really fun if this were the case
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Dumb question of the day: does the RU loss of 5 jets indicate some use of F16s? If it is possible, in what way would F16s be able to do this? I thought they wuz just airplanes that would be shot out of the sky if they actually tried to accomplish anything useful. But then again, I have a well known tank bias.
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34 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:
The most recent incidents with which I was involved was just before I retired from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was a program called “Suspected Unapproved Parts”. “A.K.A. counterfeit parts that were being sold to U.S. Air Carriers. It involved parts from non-Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) that U.S. Air Carriers purchased to maintain their fleets. This was a problem that extended across basically all major airframe and engine manufacturers products in service, and throughout most, if not all, Air Carriers in the world. The incidents that really kicked off the program were reports of incidents in engine turbine discs reported by Lufthansa.
Do you all really think the manufacturers of the SUPs have gone out of business in the last seven years? I sincerely hope they have, but I kinda effing doubt it. I was involved in aviation for more than 50 years, and i know what these “Second Source Manufacturers” are capable of!
Graft and lax maintenance are surely involved, but an inability to produce or acquire parts, even if counterfeit, are not the reason IMHO.
Whoa, we have an FAA veteran here? Great to hear from actual expert. Thanks for setting us straight, Vet0369.
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39 minutes ago, dan/california said:
I think you are underestimating three factors that are contributing the Russians commercial aircraft maintenance issues. The first is the extraordinarily tight grip that Airbus and Boeing keep on the parts and maintenance business/process. They do this both because they get the blame when a plane has a problem, and because it makes them a great deal of money. This is facilitated by the highly regulated nature of the business among other things.
The second issue is that Russia did not launch a full scale program ten years ago to ready to get around the first problem. There are a lot of things they COULD have have done with several years of lead time, but the plan to actually invade was very held to an extraordinarily small group, and even that nasty little cabal in the Kremlin did not have a clue that they were looking at a multi year major war, with massive sanctions and so on. Nobody even tried to prepare for this in advance.
The third problem, that massively exacerbates the second one, is that the same limited pool of people and resources that might be able to do something about the problem are also being ordered to make an absolute maximum 24/7 effort to increase the production of everything from small arms ammo to Su-34s and Iskanders. I don't think the Russian airlines are at the front of that line. I am not even sure they are IN that line.
When you add up the three factors, and the general Russian disregard for anything resembling safety, my advice is take the train.
uhhhh, corruption? Graft and corruption in many industries don't have quite the immediate, catastrophic consequences that would occur with aircraft maintenence. Charging for but pretending to replace expensive components when required. Or using substandard components because so much cheaper. Not running proper tests but signing off as if it was done, because running tests costs labor & time. Over time, and not a very long time, corruption in maintenence would start showing up thru mix of planes having issues in the sky, some disasterous, some not.
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42 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:
I have the feeling this war is going to escalate and expand all over the world. Silly perhaps, but I have the feeling we are all heading for war. Or whatever they call it nowadays.
I'd say you are correct. Putin is at war with democracies all over the world for many years now. It's a war he wages by fostering ignorance/stupidity/racism, promoting demagogues and weakening our institutions.
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1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:
Heh... I figured someone would have already posted this by the time I saw it this morning!
The article is probably not telling us anything we don't already know here, which is that Putin has shown a genuine interest in securing a ceasefire since almost the very beginning. However, he's only interested in it if it cements his gains and offers him opportunities to violate it whenever he feels like. For example, no UN force patrolling a line of demarcation.
The only two tidbits that this article discusses that may be new(ish) to us here are:
- some of Putin's earlier demands are no longer "deal breakers" for him. Specifically the end of an independent Ukrainian state and guarrantees that Ukraine will not enter NATO. The implication of the latter is that Putin figures he can restart the war with Ukraine on better terms before NATO membership is practical. In other words, what we've been saying all along... Russia doesn't have to fear NATO membership.
- Putin only wants a deal if the US negotiates it. The article makes only a passing explanation that Putin wants to make sure US assistance to Ukraine is a central part of the agreement and that Washington can impose the conditions on Kyiv. Personally I think it's also part of Putin's attempt to save face and spin this whole war as being against the US/NATO. What better way than to say "see, Ukraine is really just a puppet, not a sovereign nation. We made a deal with the puppet master". Much harder to do this if Russia has to negotiate with Ukraine directly with the US staying out of it.
There was one quote in the article that thought interesting enough to put here:
This is an important point and a common problem with polling. "Do you support our war on Ukraine?" is nebulous and likely to get broad support. "Do you support pushing this war, at all costs, until we get Kyiv and Odessa?" is very specific and probably does not have broad support.
The reason the article brought this up is it may show that Putin understands that his maximalist goals aren't shared by many and therefore pursuing them offers more risk than reward. Which is sensible. The whole notion of trying to take all of Ukraine vs. a land bridge was a dumb idea to start with.
Steve
I'll file this right next to the folder that says "Hitler wants peace for 1943 and with great generosity & compassion agrees to stop fighting and freeze the conflict at the current boundaries"
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32 minutes ago, Zeleban said:
Well, let's see how true this is. Feedback from our frontline fighters about the number of gliding bomb attacks on their positions will be a good marker.
I'd say any local fighter might or might not feel this. It would show up in the aggregate. This is always a problem w frontline narratives. It might be 100% true but it might only be true locally.
Zeleban, perhaps there's a translation issue which makes you sound more strident than you are actually trying to be. As a native speaker of american, one might premise a statement with something that allows for discussion, like "I read that RU aircraft production is X, therefore % losses would be Y". This allows discussion of the premise (production=X) & conclusions (losses=Y) w/o it becoming personal. When it sounds like one is saying "you are wrong because RU production is X!" it closes discussion. Phrasing matters in how a discussion will evolve.
Now if I would just follow my own suggestion above more often...
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17 minutes ago, Zeleban said:
Pekka Kallioniemi is one of the most ardent supporters of Ukraine, why would he spread false information? Western firms are gradually returning to Russia. Without even waiting for the end of the war. Many on this forum argued that Western businesses would never return to Russia due to reputational risks, as well as fear of their business being confiscated by the Russian government. However, we see today that many companies have returned to the Russian market in one way or another. If a Western firm trades with Russia, it loses nothing, and vice versa, if a Western firm refuses to do business in Russia, it loses millions.
I am wondering whether seeing shopping malls in St Pete or Moscow are truly representative of the larger picture. Those cities have all the rich people and the rich can usually get black market stuff. So could be representative but could also be misleading as to the state of the wider population.
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I think the jet packs are only a small part of the operation, with the drone-copters doing the vast majority of the work. First of all, they can easily return home and change from troop transport to supply transport and can also remove wounded better than any system ever. I am happy to see that kimbosbread and I agree on something for a change
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1 minute ago, kimbosbread said:
Instead of a jetpack, use a heavy lift quad/octocopter. Should cut the cost a lot. Same platform for manned, unmanned where it basically has a payload attachment to carry a supply container, a UGV or an infrantryman.
The soldier shouldn’t have the lug the whole thing around; just clips in gets whisked to their destination at very low altitude and then the drone flies back to swap batteries/fuel and pick up the next soldier/UGV/supply.
Exactly my thinking. basically drone helos that can carry ~100kg load for a ~10-20 kilometers round trip. Drone drops off & automatically returns to base go get more soldiers or supplies and to recharge. Drone doesn't even have to be electric, could be gasoline powered.
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7 minutes ago, Kraft said:
Disheartening. Can UKR buy chinese drones? With EU/US money? I suspect will go to the highest bidder.
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19 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
I have been asking that same thing here, rhetorically, on a regular basis since March of 2022. Every time Ukraine blows up an AD, EW, or ISR complex I wonder when Russia will run out.
Logically we know that Russia doesn't have an endless supply of these things. We also know they are slow and expensive to produce. We also know they don't have yards full of rusting ones that they can put into action. They also likely didn't have a large number in reserve at the start of the war because Russia chronically underfunded expansion/introduction of newer systems/capabilities.
That's all factual, not speculative.
Since the war started we know that Russia has transferred a lot of these systems from all over the Federation. We know they've drawn down forces from the Finnish border and long since tapped out resources in the Far east. We've seen intel reports of them moving S-400s from Kaliningrad, which is something they would not have done unless they were running out of places to grab stuff from (Kaliningrad is Russia's most important forward air defense region).
And yet, they still seem to have enough to adequately cover threats in/from Ukraine. Though some evidence suggests that Russia is forced to economize and leave some places less covered than others.
So the question remains... at what point does Russia simply not have enough of these fancy systems to maintain some form of edge over Ukraine? I keep thinking "soon". Someday I'll be correct!
Steve
This gets into the basic problem. For all the faults of RU and the continuing qualitative weakening of its capabilities, UKR does not seem to have the resources to exploit RU weakness. Meanwhile, all the Putin lovers in the US are making it even harder for UKR. I do wonder whether these folks get campaign cash from lobbying groups that are multiple cut-outs from the source -- meaning Putin.
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33 minutes ago, OBJ said:
Ukraine’s Military Chief Says One of His Offices Was Bugged and Other Devices Were Detected
First, thanks OBJ (and Tux) for some excellent posts. Second, this is interesting. How much of RU ability to pre-empt UKR offensive actions is because of treason? I get that moving some mobiks into a threatened sector isn't very hard, logistically, but what about arty & drone assets? Are those getting to the trouble spots faster than otherwise because of insider information?
One thing Putin is good at: leveraging personal greed. And if there are traitors, are they just doing it for money (probably) or some insane love or Russian totalitarian domination?
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16 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
Sorry, you came late. We gotta a guy stringing together just about the weirdest framework to somehow blame this war on the West, while at the same time arguing we should basically abandon Ukraine as a result. It is pretty incoherent and goes all over the place but seems to attack 1) the causes of this war as unjustified, 2) Opposing Russia in Ukraine is bad for global good (?). Because China, and 3) Ukraine has lost already so it is all a waste. Basically the same weird MAGA lines strung together to somehow justify opposing the war.
The weird was when said poster started pulling in liberal theorIes, namely collectivism and global order, as some sort of soft power alternative to opposing what is either a legal war or one we forced Ukraine into (gotta be honest it is really hard to follow).
So my point wasn’t a dissertation on liberalism, it was to point out that someone who is espousing far-right conspiracies trying to employ liberalism was nuts. Particularly when other elements of liberalism - that I recognize from my own nation- would very likely be vehemently opposed by said poster based on his narrative. This has been going on for a couple days now. Sounds like you just walked in and want to compare political systems but that is really off topic and frankly kinda outside the entire discussion. Anyway with luck Steve will ban the guy or he will simply leave.
Dude does love the sound of his own voice. Goes on & on & on saying something-ish, I guess. (not you, fireship4 the other guy). but hey, he knew what was going to happen so clearly enjoys the gift of prophesy and feels compelled to share his great gifts of knowledge, both past & future, with us.
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The usual RU stuff blowing up. And measles outbreak in RU. In 2023. Not sure if due to vax shortage or vax stupidity. Sadly, probably coming to some high anti vax communities in the US soon. More bradley shredding of baddies, and a drone doing a close up w IFV carrying snow-camo troops -- I am guessing the ones w snow camo are pros, not mobiks.
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Drones drones drones. And some anti drone. plus andiivka summary:
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10 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:
"No, to try and force Russia and its population in his mindset. He is turning everyone into a hardcore nationalist. This is probably one of his main goals with this war, to forever drive a wedge between the west and Russia in the Russians minds. So that the only future left is one that aligns with his vision. So that everyone who disagrees with this vision is seen as a traitor. Propaganda and hate speech work miracles. Those that disagree either leave or are afraid to speak out"
I found the above quote on Reddit very accurate and I see Putin and his war in the same light. The most important reason why Putin attacked Ukraine is that he wanted a war to unite his people and burn their bridges, to get rid of the people who oppose him and to make sure there's no way back for Russia, much like Germany in ww2. In that sense Putin has already reached his main goal. The only thing Putin is afraid of is peace.
That is a very interesting way to look at this from Putin standpoint. I had never thought of it this way. Thanks much for sharing that, Bud!
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I'm interested to see how UKR uses those long range strike drones mentioned above. Logistics, obviously. But probably energy infrastructure. Once hundreds of thousands urban Russians have gotten a taste of winter without power for a few days, or a week at a time, where will there anger be directed? At UKR, of course. But maybe at Putin also?
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I still play, currently doing the old Courage Conquers campaign from CMFB. But ready for some new goodies. Or promises of new goodies.