How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Haiduk]

46 minutes ago, sburke said:

it's a dangerous thing to have extrajudicial acts like this.  Understandable given the situation, but they might have been better served having him arrested and airing it for anyone else considering betraying their country.

Martial law justice. In Zhytomyr, for example, local mayor ordered to shot death any marauder. 

[TheVulture]

Russia’s Defense Ministry announced that 498 Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine so far. Anonymous U.S. officials told the New York Times on Tuesday that they estimated between 1,500 and 2,000 Russian deaths as of Monday. Another 1,597 Russian soldiers have been wounded, the ministry said.

 

 

[BeondTheGrave]

37 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

That is not what I see.  I see the growing suspicion I have had for some time now that air superiority might be a dead concept, which has enormous implications.  Especially if you are trying to invade/occupy another country.

Why do you say that? Can you elaborate for an idiot?

Edited March 2, 2022 by BeondTheGrave

[Haiduk]

The video how Ukrainian territorial defense hunting for Russians across the fields. The squad engaged three Russian soldiers. One dicided to resist and was killed, two other surrendered. On the video is just a moment of taking the first trooper, UKR soldier asks "Are you from Symferopol division?" and that guy answers "Yes, the sergeant". I don't know what is the unit. Further, this man comes to killed Russian trooper and you can see maybe in first time - Ratnik gear elements on him

https://www.facebook.com/100000828276750/videos/702162847625050 

Edited March 2, 2022 by Haiduk

[DerKommissar]

15 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Follow up: Or this nightmare: https://www.avinc.com/tms/switchblade-600

 

Bloody hell! It's even mortar launched! Soon they'll have anti-tank air-hogs!

High tech c-uav stuff is all well and good, and must be something everyone must look into. However, it seems that age old problems of logistics and planning can erase any tech advantage.

16 minutes ago, db_zero said:

Perhaps the lesson for all is if you want/expect America to keep to its word it will have to be debated in congress and the senate, then formally ratified .

And pray that the next administration doesn't plan to scrap it.

[danfrodo]

17 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

Update from yesterday that I've missed if anyone else has already posted it:

https://defence-blog.com/ukrainian-army-receives-more-turkish-made-unmanned-combat-aerial-vehicles/

Ukrainian Defense Ministry said earlier today that the country’s Armed Forces received additional Bayraktar TB2 Turkish-made unmanned combat aerial vehicles from Turkey.

“New Bayraktar TB2s have already arrived in Ukraine and are at combat positions,” Oleksii Reznikov said.

Bayraktar TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicle can carry a maximum payload of more than 150 kg. The drone can fly up to 22,500 feet and loiter for more than 24 hours.

Bayraktar TB2 drones, which entered the Turkish army’s inventory in 2014, are currently used by Turkey, Ukraine, Qatar, and Azerbaijan.

Separately the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said that the Kremlin was attempting to use heavy bomber sorties to somehow block the growing flow of weapons and military aid from the country’s international partners, especially those in Europe.

This is great news!  I hope there's a big supply.  And so Erdogan is doing this?  Crazy times.

The interesting thing is that while downed drones are a loss, there's no loss of the skilled pilot.  This is a real game changer.  If areas are too hot for jets one might still be willing to sacrifice some drones for the goal of destroying some fuel convoy or taking out a temporary bridge or maybe just blocking a road w a big hole.  All that matters is how many drones you can bring up & how fast as long as the pilots are kept safe. 

I am still in favor of using the enormous humanitarian crisis as excuse to make safe zone in western Ukraine centered around Lviv.  It's a defensive zone that certainly could cause fight, but I would welcome that.  US could send it's drones to help keep the zone safe, thereby keeping US personnel out of it while still helping the cause.   Ukrainian aircraft, drones and supplies would come out of the zone, infuriating Putin, but hey, F U Putin.  See how many of your pilots or tanks want to take on western military power.

[Lethaface]

11 minutes ago, BeondTheGrave said:

Why do you say that? Can you elaborate for an idiot?

I guess drones. Or more specifically that certain forces at certain time windows in the past deployed on certain missions didn't have the capability at hand to deny the airspace under 2000ft to hostile flying objects which where facilitating hostile efforts through airborne observation, coordination, etc.
But I'm not the Capt so guess he'll answer for himself

[The_Capt]

4 minutes ago, BeondTheGrave said:

Why do you say that? Can you elaborate for an idiot?

Sure, it started back in Iraq to be honest, but we also saw signs in the reports coming out the 2014 Donbas fights.  The definition of air superiority is ""degree of dominance in [an] air battle ... that permits the conduct of operations by [one side] and its related land, sea and air forces at a given time and place without prohibitive interference by opposing air forces" (NATO definition, we all got one but close enough)

So it comes down to the semantic definition of "prohibitive interference", so subjective.  There is no real global metric for this as every nation kinda makes up their own.  Most go with an ability to move, communicate and support/enable without major disruptions from enemy air power.  So there is wiggle room here but in the end the modern democratization of airpower through UAVs and self-loitering munitions means that no nation can really achieve this, at least to the levels we used to plan for.  Anyone and everyone can do ISR and we are talking hi resolution stuff and strike is also a big problem as we saw ISIL strapping mortars to commercial systems and dropping them on Iraqi vehicles. 

So in this war, without serious C-UAV capability, the Russians are not going to be able to get control of the air (as demonstrated aptly by all the drone footage), the question will remain "at what altitudes?"  If the Ukrainians get some really high-tech kit/support it could include above 10000 feet.  If the Russians are smart -and we are seeing that is not really their thing right now - they would also be using UAVs everywhere, they did in 2014 and then the Ukrainians also do not have air superiority in any real sense. 

So this would be technically static air parity but even that says you can establish air superiority locally  but not operationally.  I am not sure we have a word for what a bunch of UAVs flying past each other as both sides have ISR and strike from the air everywhere: Air Chaos?

The disadvantage is for the Russians right now, in that they are the ones moving very large hunks of metal all over the place/  Now they will not be able to hide them or protect them from...well...death, and that is not good for morale.  This will likely be a fully illuminated battlefield by doctrine standards, unless someone has an EMP we haven't seen. 

[Haiduk]

Typhoon 4 x 4 

[The_Capt]

13 minutes ago, DerKommissar said:

Bloody hell! It's even mortar launched! Soon they'll have anti-tank air-hogs!

High tech c-uav stuff is all well and good, and must be something everyone must look into. However, it seems that age old problems of logistics and planning can erase any tech advantage.

And pray that the next administration doesn't plan to scrap it.

That Switchblade system is man-portable and made for USSOCOM so idiot proof...snicker...seriously, it is idiot proof so that they can do exactly what they are going to do with it, train really angry civilians whose country just got invaded by a world class tool to use it to make life a living hell for invading forces. 

[BeondTheGrave]

1 minute ago, The_Capt said:

Sure, it started back in Iraq to be honest, but we also saw signs in the reports coming out the 2014 Donbas fights.  The definition of air superiority is ""degree of dominance in [an] air battle ... that permits the conduct of operations by [one side] and its related land, sea and air forces at a given time and place without prohibitive interference by opposing air forces" (NATO definition, we all got one but close enough)

So it comes down to the semantic definition of "prohibitive interference", so subjective.  There is no real global metric for this as every nation kinda makes up their own.  Most go with an ability to move, communicate and support/enable without major disruptions from enemy air power.  So there is wiggle room here but in the end the modern democratization of airpower through UAVs and self-loitering munitions means that no nation can really achieve this, at least to the levels we used to plan for.  Anyone and everyone can do ISR and we are talking hi resolution stuff and strike is also a big problem as we saw ISIL strapping mortars to commercial systems and dropping them on Iraqi vehicles. 

So in this war, without serious C-UAV capability, the Russians are not going to be able to get control of the air (as demonstrated aptly by all the drone footage), the question will remain "at what altitudes?"  If the Ukrainians get some really high-tech kit/support it could include above 10000 feet.  If the Russians are smart -and we are seeing that is not really their thing right now - they would also be using UAVs everywhere, they did in 2014 and then the Ukrainians also do not have air superiority in any real sense. 

So this would be technically static air parity but even that says you can establish air superiority locally  but not operationally.  I am not sure we have a word for what a bunch of UAVs flying past each other as both sides have ISR and strike from the air everywhere: Air Chaos?

The disadvantage is for the Russians right now, in that they are the ones moving very large hunks of metal all over the place/  Now they will not be able to hide them or protect them from...well...death, and that is not good for morale.  This will likely be a fully illuminated battlefield by doctrine standards, unless someone has an EMP we haven't seen. 

Great answer, thanks for getting back to me so quickly.

My question though is: Is this a fundamental problem re: cheap drones, or is the problem cheap ways to defend or attack air space. That is, would the edge provided by UAVs not be countered by a well planned and executed AD and C-UAV plan? Even on the operational level? It has always seemed to me that something like a Shilka or a VADS platform would be a good counter to a light, low durability UAV asset under 2000m say. Or even a radar tracked Bofors. Above 2000m, and moving to the larger loiter end of the spectrum, wouldnt traditional AD assets be able to engage these assets? IF! its planned and coordinated properly. 

Accepting the validity of your argument it seems to suggest that airspace in the future might be a lot like airspace in the late Cold War. Both sides can establish an AD bastion around their positions, but an attacker (tactically) can penetrate the bastion with either cheaper smaller weapons, with Stealth that negates the bastion entirely, or in sword thrust attacks that aim to overwhelm and puncture the bastion to insert strike packages. 

Ill admit that my head is stuck in the Cold War most days. But the more I read about these predictions of future wars, the more I think of the 1970s when technology and doctrine seemed so much in flux and it seemed like the US had no areas of dominance. If the GWOT did one thing IMO it made the US complacent technologically, and now theyre reliving the same lessons that DePuy tried to teach. 

[The_Capt]

Just now, BeondTheGrave said:

That is, would the edge provided by UAVs not be countered by a well planned and executed AD and C-UAV plan?

Hey don't apologize for loving CMCW...tell your friends!

Seriously, you have just articulated the modern military problem of the day, at least as far as air power goes.  No one really knows how to do this at scope and scale.  Almost all AD systems have been designed from the ground up for larger manned aircraft from treetops to 60000 feet.  There are C-UAV systems out there, but these little beasts are really small, some are near impossible to pick up on radar because they are made from composites and they are incredibly cheap compared to a modern AD system ammunition.  Big stuff doing higher altitude strike is going to get got (I have no idea how the Ukrainians still have those Turkish ones in the air), but it is the massive amounts of smaller systems that make "blinding" near impossible and shielding from nasty small strike also hard.  These are the equivalent to the knives the Spanish used on the Peninsula in 1812, every where, sharp as hell and a thousand little cuts. 

The real challenge for Ukraine will be to keep an integrated C4ISR system these little bastards can plug into but right now that is looking like Twitter, which will do in an insurgency.  The US has spent a lot of money (think B dollars) on this problem with everything from jammers, to direct energy lasers to small c-attack drones.  Gawd help the Russians if the Ukrainians figure out swarming, then all those tanks become death traps without a next gen C-UAV system, and I have not seen the Russians cover the more advance concepts like "basic logistics" so I am doubtful they have C-UAV covered. 

[Vet 0369]

2 hours ago, db_zero said:

That should come as no surprise. The American public has a short attention span and never truly hold the government accountable in a truthful non-partisan way. There has been numerous articles about how both parties have enacted reckless economic policies that were promised to be self paying and of limited life, but the policies have not turned out to be self paying or of limited lifespan and nobody cares...

If Americans and their government can't keep promises to themselves, then how can one expect American to keep all the promises it makes to everyone else?

Ukraine is the hot topic for now. If and once it slows down and becomes a long drawn out insurgency you can bet the attention span will shrink and move on to the next hot topic.

Unfortunately, I must agree fully with you. Gone are the days when our Senate and House consisted of mostly moderates who were committed to their constituencies and not pandering to the left and right extremes that exist in both parties. No party leaders have the guts to stand up to the Marco Rubio’s and Elizabeth Warren’s anymore. They are too busy trying to maintain their own positions instead of standing up for what the silent majorities of both parties want them to do.

[LongLeftFlank]

Sobering thread here, from a very interesting feed. 

 

 

[BeondTheGrave]

 

[Kinophile]

Yup, per NYT:

"But Moscow may be losing that many (400) soldiers daily in Mr. Putin’s latest invasion of Ukraine, American and European officials said."

Here

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/01/us/politics/russia-ukraine-war-deaths.html

Surely there's an estimate for UKR losses?

 

 

Edited March 2, 2022 by Kinophile

[Commanderski]

Saw this on the Defcon Level Warning System site: "

There are reports circulating around British news agencies that appear to be from one source, that Russian President Vladimir Putin has moved his family members to a Siberian 'underground city' designed to 'survive nuclear war', as well as claims that Putin is suffering from a secret illness.

Our intel team tracked the circulating reports down to one person, a political scientist and former professor in Moscow Valery Solovey, who claims that Putin has sent his family to a nuclear bunker in the Altai Mountains. The man has recently allegedly undergone an interrogation for 'claims he made about Putin' according to the British Daily Mail news agency.

Solovey is a former professor at the State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). He alleges that Putin suffers from medical problems hidden from the Russian public and has taken part in 'secret shamanic rituals' along with his defense minister Sergey Shoigu.

As the reports originate from one person, one must be careful about believing such claims wholeheartedly as there are not multiple sources to back up the man's claims that we can see thus far. We will continue monitoring the story and post any further findings if we come upon new information regarding the matter. Taken from Defcon Level Warning System: https://www.defconlevel.com/european-command-news.php#breaking-news"

[Vet 0369]

2 hours ago, akd said:

Another Ka-52 down:

 

This is very upsetting to me I enjoy flying the Ka-50 in DCS sometimes, and thought it was a lot meaner than has been shown.

[danfrodo]

5 minutes ago, Commanderski said:

Saw this on the Defcon Level Warning System site: "

There are reports circulating around British news agencies that appear to be from one source, that Russian President Vladimir Putin has moved his family members to a Siberian 'underground city' designed to 'survive nuclear war', as well as claims that Putin is suffering from a secret illness.

Our intel team tracked the circulating reports down to one person, a political scientist and former professor in Moscow Valery Solovey, who claims that Putin has sent his family to a nuclear bunker in the Altai Mountains. The man has recently allegedly undergone an interrogation for 'claims he made about Putin' according to the British Daily Mail news agency.

Solovey is a former professor at the State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). He alleges that Putin suffers from medical problems hidden from the Russian public and has taken part in 'secret shamanic rituals' along with his defense minister Sergey Shoigu.

As the reports originate from one person, one must be careful about believing such claims wholeheartedly as there are not multiple sources to back up the man's claims that we can see thus far. We will continue monitoring the story and post any further findings if we come upon new information regarding the matter. Taken from Defcon Level Warning System: https://www.defconlevel.com/european-command-news.php#breaking-news"

If Putin starts a nuclear war, I doubt there's any point in having his family survive.  They'd be killed the first time they came out in public by whoever was around.  Does he think if he survived he'd stay in power?  He'd hopefully be shot when he tried to order the nukes launched.

[Bulletpoint]

Is that defcon level website even a credible source? Shamanic rituals - really?

[Lethaface]

1 minute ago, Bulletpoint said:

Is that defcon level website even a credible source? Shamanic rituals - really?

[BeondTheGrave]

11 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Hey don't apologize for loving CMCW...tell your friends!

Seriously, you have just articulated the modern military problem of the day, at least as far as air power goes.  No one really knows how to do this at scope and scale.  Almost all AD systems have been designed from the ground up for larger manned aircraft from treetops to 60000 feet.  There are C-UAV systems out there, but these little beasts are really small, some are near impossible to pick up on radar because they are made from composites and they are incredibly cheap compared to a modern AD system ammunition.  Big stuff doing higher altitude strike is going to get got (I have no idea how the Ukrainians still have those Turkish ones in the air), but it is the massive amounts of smaller systems that make "blinding" near impossible and shielding from nasty small strike also hard.  These are the equivalent to the knives the Spanish used on the Peninsula in 1812, every where, sharp as hell and a thousand little cuts. 

The real challenge for Ukraine will be to keep an integrated C4ISR system these little bastards can plug into but right now that is looking like Twitter, which will do in an insurgency.  The US has spent a lot of money (think B dollars) on this problem with everything from jammers, to direct energy lasers to small c-attack drones.  Gawd help the Russians if the Ukrainians figure out swarming, then all those tanks become death traps without a next gen C-UAV system, and I have not seen the Russians cover the more advance concepts like "basic logistics" so I am doubtful they have C-UAV covered. 

Fair points, especially about AD being designed for large manned vehicles. I guess I hadn't considered the size difference. 

A lot of these problems do seem like equal and opposite of those confronted in the 1970s. Then it was defense making the attack feel like it was almost impossible, especially RE: AD and EW. Now it seems like on the attack offensive air assets and offensive 'EW,' now its Cyber, have a big advantage. Be interesting to see what cool toys come out in the next ten years to cover that gap. Lasers would be cool. 

And I'll make you a deal @The_Capt, Ill sing the praises of CMCW if you sing the praises of William DePuy  IMO DePuy and his cronies get forgotten because, well, Donn Starry is just so cool. He confronted the exact same systemic challenges tho. 

[dan/california]

The only way to counter small drones is with a laser. Guns don't have the range to prevent them from calling fires on you, and missiles are so  expensive that using them is just another way to lose the war. I guess there will be lot of drones hunting other drones, too. But I think that takes to long tp prevent the enemy getting valuable intelligence/fire direction information. If wasn't a we don't care what it cost area of work last week, it sure as bleep will be by Monday.

 

[Boche]

2 hours ago, CHEqTRO said:

No Russian involvment on this case. It seems it crashed on land, so hardly it was caused by the Russians.

I was in training a couple of years ago in Romania and 4 Mig-21 where supposed to do drop their bombs during an excercise. Only 3 showed up. Turned out one had crashed on the way. Looked into it and aparently Romania loses a Mig-21 a year due to accidents. So...not suprising really.

[Butschi]

2 hours ago, kraze said:

Ukrainians aren't forgiving people anymore after six days of increasing war crimes and russians murdering over 2000 civilians.

While I don't know if I would be any better in such a situation, murder is still murder even if done by the good guys...