How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[LongLeftFlank]

51 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Excellent read, thank you very much for that.  Everything he said has been said here several times over, though we've all skipped the kinda obvious about the money blown on a weak navy could have instead been spent on a stronger army.  I remember a point in time (mid 2000s?) when there was a big debate within Russia about the wisdom of revamping their failing navy. Ego and threatening NATO won out and so the Russians have an expensive navy that really isn't of much use.  Exhibit A?  Russia can't get any ships through the Bosporus Straights without attacking a NATO country.

All the praise aside, I'd nitpick this one point he made:

While I agree with him that Russia should have taken the hit and invaded Ukraine fully in 2015 (after a year of buildup) when it was considerably weaker, I don't agree that Ukraine's forces were "easily destroyed".  Russia had, in fact, quite a bit of difficulty dealing with them...

Yes, Kamil is a fantastic strategist and historian, but is less sound on pure military stuff, so YMMV....

His tweet threads have become popular and so many get bombed midway through by the usual Twits.

So for those interested, here are links to the 'unrolled' versions (although these don't have most of the images he puts in the tweetstorms).

Not in order of posting:

Russian demographics 1: geography
https://kamilkazani2.substack.com/p/how-did-russia-get-so-big?s=w

 

Russian demographics 2: the southern 'ganglands'
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1493602653586264076.html

 

The Russian economy 1
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1501360272442896388.html

 

The Russian economy 2
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1499855858456567809.html

 

The rise of Putin
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1496711906412933121.html

 

Dormant Russian institutions
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1499048492358111235.html

 

Russia's State Security State
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1496506490202513413.html

 

Putin's elite
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1495790874235744258.html

 

Kadryov's Chechnya: Putin's warlord vassal
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1497612331953577991.html

 

Political institutions of the Mongol Golden Horde 
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1492164056962195457.html

 

Assabiyahs: Russia's autocracies over time
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1492549093771694082.html

 

Why doesn't the Russian Army rule Russia any more?
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1493968165717561346.html

 

The decay of the Russian Army
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1502673952572854278.html

 

Russia didn't launch a war, but a 'special operation'

 

 

Crisis and Jubilees: barons vs courtiers
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1503430216554795014.html

 

No, Ukraine isn't just a separatist Russian province...
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1495469553136066572.html

 

Geography shapes Ukraine's history
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1495200579919958021.html

 

Ethnopolitics in Ukraine (and Russia)
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1494334415446577153.html

 

A short background on Russian expansionism
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1492960693737463813.html

 

So who are the 'Nazis' anyway?
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1497306746330697738.html

 

"Z" Russia has gone full fascist
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1500495309595725831.html

 

Should we be 'giving Putin a way out?'
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1503053699798769666.html

 

Napoleon's 1812 error: deescalation
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1503768312236421120.html

 

How Putin 'derussified' East Ukraine
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1504103672019513345.html

 

Edited March 18, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[danfrodo]

Just got back from being 99% off-grid in the desert for a while, was good for my mental health.  Too much work and too much Hitler -- I mean Putin. 

Caught up on posts, a lot going on, but seems that if something non-linear does not occur it could be long, bloody, destructive slog. 

I just checked weather for Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mariopul.  Warm days w no rain for a week.  Are we now rooting for or against rain for those here how are pro-UKR?

[Machor]

6 minutes ago, Cobetco said:

a very smart friend informed me that the TB2 moves slowly enough that enough Russian SAM systems have a hard time tracking it.

There has been word out there since its use in Syria that Russian radars mistake it for a flock of birds. I do know that marine life is an issue for sonars; no idea about radars. The losses to aircraft, however, have me thinking about all the Russian Ka-52 losses, since the original Ka-50 was supposedly developed by the Soviets as a 'helicopter-killer.'

[Battlefront.com]

9 minutes ago, Cobetco said:

a very smart friend informed me that the TB2 moves slowly enough that enough Russian SAM systems have a hard time tracking it. now I have no way to verify this and I have my doubts, but considering he was dismantling a AIM9 (L?) on his webcam I give the information more weight that your average joe.

Drones have posed all kinds of problems for traditional AD systems.  Which makes sense because when you design something (like an SAM system) you have to make certain assumptions.  Nobody had drones in mind when the traditional (legacy) systems were designed.  Likewise, designing a heat seeking missile doesn't do much if the target doesn't have enough of a heat signature to track.

I wonder what Russia is using to shoot down the TB2s.  Cannon from helicopters might be the most effective?  Helicopters have far more control over speed and altitude than a fixed wing aircraft does.

Steve

[Machor]

8 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I just heard a first person account of escaping Irpin.  I hate to say it, but I didn't hear anything unexpected of the glorious liberators' behavior.

• a squad came into his house and demanded paperwork
• they didn't like what he had to say
• asked him if he had weapons, and he said he had a shotgun.  He handed it and the shells over
• they said they decided to kill him.  They put in in the kitchen and closed the door
• he heard some discussion on the other side and then a burst of gunfire through the door.  He barely didn't get hit
• he ran outside via the back door with arms raised and pleading for them to not shoot him
• the shooter came out, expressed surprise he wasn't dead, then agreed not to kill him
• they went back into the house and directed him to help find all his electronics, money, and valuables.  They took all of them, of course
• the squad also took all his alcohol and told them they were going to spend the night because they didn't want to be caught out in the open (fear of Ukrainian artillery)
• they got very drunk and the guy feared that one of them would decide to kill him just for fun
• the guy said that the unit had looted all the neighboring houses and killed any large dogs they found
• in the morning he and small group of other civilians were allowed to leave on foot for Kiev
• they made it to Kiev and he was reunited with his parents

When I first watched this video of Russian soldiers enjoying themselves in a Ukrainian home today I genuinely wondered whether it might be Ukrainian propaganda, but both your post and the details in the WSJ article I linked to yesterday sadly confirm that this is, indeed, the truth. Beyond being an issue of military discipline, I am starting to think Russia has a zoomer problem (And I am aghast at their use of the derogatory 'ukrop' to refer to Ukrainian civilians):

 

[Machor]

13 minutes ago, Machor said:

The losses to aircraft, however, have me thinking about all the Russian Ka-52 losses, since the original Ka-50 was supposedly developed by the Soviets as a 'helicopter-killer.'

 

12 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I wonder what Russia is using to shoot down the TB2s.  Cannon from helicopters might be the most effective?  Helicopters have far more control over speed and altitude than a fixed wing aircraft does.

We may be onto something here. 

[LongLeftFlank]

6 minutes ago, Machor said:

And I am aghast at their use of the derogatory 'ukrop' to refer to Ukrainian civilians

Well, a Ukrainian field media crew in an earlier posted clip referred to the Russians repeatedly as 'Mosculs' and occasionally 'orcs' (although others reserve that for Chechens).  So, that dehumanizing is gonna happen as more blood is shed.

[sburke]

1 hour ago, BeondTheGrave said:

Sorry if this was covered earlier then, Its been hard keeping up with the fast moving thread lol. But thanks for that, its sort of what I was suspecting but was hoping to get some confirmation. 

ha you step away to hit the head and you'll likely be 30 posts behind at peak time.  I'm not even sure how far back that post was.  it just stuck in my head.

[THH149]

This YT channel gives unit dispositions on a day by day basis across the fronts, describing Russian Brigades (not regiments) and Divisions. This has probably been posted before but nice for others to know...

 

[BletchleyGeek]

2 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Full thread here. I cannot recommend Galeev highly enough.

Let me second that, the insights on how Russian "democracy" functions were very good.

[Aragorn2002]

2 hours ago, danfrodo said:

Just got back from being 99% off-grid in the desert for a while, was good for my mental health.  Too much work and too much Hitler -- I mean Putin. 

Caught up on posts, a lot going on, but seems that if something non-linear does not occur it could be long, bloody, destructive slog. 

I just checked weather for Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mariopul.  Warm days w no rain for a week.  Are we now rooting for or against rain for those here how are pro-UKR?

Welcome back, Dan. Yeah, it's good to take some distance now and then. At the moment it seems like a long, bloody and destructive slog ahead indeed. But history has it's own way of doing things, so we should prepare ourselves for everything. Personally I hope the optimistic posters on this forum are right and Putin is running out of steam. But even then this will only be the beginning of something far bigger. Troubled times ahead, me thinks.

[chuckdyke]

Ukraine and Russia: A Troubled History | History Today

 

 

[TheVulture]

2 hours ago, Cobetco said:

a very smart friend informed me that the TB2 moves slowly enough that enough Russian SAM systems have a hard time tracking it. now I have no way to verify this and I have my doubts, but considering he was dismantling a AIM9 (L?) on his webcam I give the information more weight that your average joe.

Low speed can be a problem for some systems. There is a real world anti-missile tactic of pilots called "going in to the notch" or "notching a missile", which basically involves turning to move at 90 degrees to the incoming missile and descending. This doesn't work against IR tracking missiles, but can be effective against radar tracked ones.

The reason this works (when it does) is because radar needs to filter out all of the crap in its field of view to decide which bit is the plane. One component of this is "Doppler filtering". This uses the Doppler effect, which is sensitive to the component of the objects speed along the line of sight. The idea is that all of the ground clutter (which is at a variety of distances, and so hard to filter on that basis) is all moving at the same speed relative to the plane (i.e. the ground is stationary). So everything that is moving at the same speed as the ground is filtered out, which in theory just leaves you the fast moving aircraft.

Except if the aircraft happens to be flying exactly across your line of sight, with no speed (relative to the ground) towards or away from you, when it also has the same Doppler speed as the background and gets filtered out, which makes it vanish as far as the tracking is concerned.

The reason to descend while doing this is so that the missile tracking you is above you, so that you are in front of the ground from its point of view. If you are above the missile, then the background to your aircraft is the sky, and that's not giving any Doppler return so the aircraft sticks out like a sore thumb. Obviously ground based radar isn't going to be too affected by this - all the aircraft are above it.

A lot of modern missiles use radar within the missile for the final approach to target - they may be guided by the launching aircraft or ground station for most of the flight, but often the missile's radar takes over for the last few seconds, during which Doppler filtering can cause it to lose its tracking.

So its certainly plausible that a slow moving drone could get itself lost in the Doppler filtering for radar tracked missiles, depending on the nature of the attacking missile system. Missiles that gain altitude to take advantage of the reduced drag to increase speed and range will end up above the drone and if the have terminal self-guidance they could lose the drone in the background. But its going to do depend a lot on the nature of the tracking and the missile flight profile.

[TheVulture]

Update on the mystery Croatian Tu-141 drone crash from the Wikipedia summary

Quote

On 15 March 2022, a source close to the MoD of Croatia was cited as saying that the investigation had concluded that the crashed drone belonged to the Armed Forces of Ukraine and carried a bomb that was meant for striking Russia′s positions, but the drone had strayed off course and crashed after it ran out of fuel. Prime minister of Croatia, Andrej Plenković said to the media on March 17, that UAV flew all the way to Croatia because Romanian and Hungarian radars did not identify the incoming object as a real threat, due to the fact that there were several false alarms in days before the incident and thought that it was a glitch. Given the fact that neither Romanian or Hungarian radars reported the object, NATO in turn could not order the interception of the UAV.

On 17 March 2022, Ukrainian Minister of Defence Oleksii Reznikov continued to insist that Ukrainians were "not the ones who launched that drone towards Croatia"; he also expressed incomprehension of NATO′s apparent failure to prevent the incident, saying, "The drone flew over several member states. How come you didn’t see it? Why didn’t you destroy it? Can you cover your own airspace?"

 

[BletchleyGeek]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Drones have posed all kinds of problems for traditional AD systems.  Which makes sense because when you design something (like an SAM system) you have to make certain assumptions.  Nobody had drones in mind when the traditional (legacy) systems were designed.  Likewise, designing a heat seeking missile doesn't do much if the target doesn't have enough of a heat signature to track.

This article (via an Indian think-tank) is quite didactic

https://www.vifindia.org/article/2020/december/04/why-drones-turned-the-tide-for-azerbaijan-an-analysis

From the piece

Another point very conspicuous to note is the near absence of anti-drone weapons in the arsenal of the Armenian air defence forces. Following points are made as regards anti-drone arsenal:-

1. Drones throw two challenges to conventional air defences:-
   1. Their RCS is generally too small to get detected by conventional air defence radars be it early warning, fire control or missile guidance radars.
   2. Being extremely low-cost, these demand low cost kill means. There is no point of killing a few hundred dollars drone with a million dollar missile. This ratio becomes further skewed if the opponent is a swarm drone, off which the best of SAMs worth millions can take out only a few.

RCS=Radar Cross Section

The thinking of countries like India, Indonesia, Vietnam is interesting to follow, as it offers the point of view of those that need to "buy smart". 

@LukeFF is the flight sim expert, but a ground attack Sukhoi with its cannon could be quite effective to take down bigger drones like the TB2.

[Panserjeger]

22 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

This article (via an Indian think-tank) is quite didactic

https://www.vifindia.org/article/2020/december/04/why-drones-turned-the-tide-for-azerbaijan-an-analysis

From the piece

Another point very conspicuous to note is the near absence of anti-drone weapons in the arsenal of the Armenian air defence forces. Following points are made as regards anti-drone arsenal:-

1. Drones throw two challenges to conventional air defences:-
   1. Their RCS is generally too small to get detected by conventional air defence radars be it early warning, fire control or missile guidance radars.
   2. Being extremely low-cost, these demand low cost kill means. There is no point of killing a few hundred dollars drone with a million dollar missile. This ratio becomes further skewed if the opponent is a swarm drone, off which the best of SAMs worth millions can take out only a few.

RCS=Radar Cross Section

The thinking of countries like India, Indonesia, Vietnam is interesting to follow, as it offers the point of view of those that need to "buy smart". 

@LukeFF is the flight sim expert, but a ground attack Sukhoi with its cannon could be quite effective to take down bigger drones like the TB2.

Systems like the Protector RWS C-UAS looks like a promising way to deal with drones, especially the cheap commercial ones. The US Marines have signed a contract for it, using 30mm grenades with proximity fuses. 

https://defence-blog.com/us-marine-corps-awards-contract-to-kongsberg-for-counter-uas-weapons/

 

[BletchleyGeek]

9 hours ago, Vacillator said:

Although there's something about that page that makes me think AeroVironment wrote most of it.  Nevertheless, if it works it works.

The Wikipedia entry on the Switchblade does read like the fact sheet you would find in an aerospace fair. But also AeroVironment has decades long track record in delivering quite robust UAVs over a great variety of environments (e.g. Ingenuity, the little helo-like robot NASA got flying over Mars was the result of a partnership with JPL and NASA Ames).

Edited March 18, 2022 by BletchleyGeek

[The Steppenwulf]

General Roman Gavrilov, deputy chief of Russia's Rosgvardia Unit, has been arrested - reasons for his imprisonment unclear.

Head of the Russian Central Bank. Elvira Nabiullina has resigned after arguing with Putin over the devastation on Russian economy caused by sanctions.

Early evidence that Putin's 'Special Operation' failure is now transmuting into a domestic crisis?
 

Edited March 18, 2022 by The Steppenwulf

[Sgt Joch]

13 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Respect is something that is earned, but it can also be something that is lost.  Once someone starts shilling Kremlin talking points on Russian state media, well...

Steve

well I guess I am a bit disappointed. I think it would be important to have clear rules on what is allowed or not allowed in this discussion so that it does not degenerate into a free for all. I thought we were trying to keep this as an objective discussion of the war and strategy by both sides and not trying to drag domestic politics into it.

What col. Macgregor as said in various interviews, basically that the U.S. has no vital security interest in Ukraine is an opinion held by a lot of people, both democrats and republicans. You can agree or disagree, but that does not mean he should be painted as a Putin stooge or as U.S. Democrats have been saying that there is a "Putin wing of the GOP", which basically means anyone who does not think we should back Ukraine 110%.

also copying @BFCElvis, as moderator of the thread.

 

Edited March 18, 2022 by Sgt Joch

[Ultradave]

Concerning relative losses, this is pretty interesting to explore. Starts with Russian losses and scroll way down for Ukrainian losses, totals, and by actual vehicle type. If you hover over the individual numbers it links to a pic or video documenting it.

Disclaimers at the top about accuracy. If nothing else, a ton of quick pics showing destroyed equipment. I haven't seen anyone post a link to this but may have missed it so apologies if so. 

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html

Dave

Edited March 18, 2022 by Ultradave

[Haiduk]

12 hours ago, General Jack Ripper said:

Starlink.

No. We have very flexible internet architecture, which hasn't some "main center". Starlink, of course now is an alternative, but Russians don't understand our realities. They are striking to this time TV-towers, because they believe all our information streams are centralized like in Russia. They tried to wipe out GSM antennas or jam it, but turned out their "encripted" comms use GSM equipment, so their communication also doesn't work in that case.

Edited March 18, 2022 by Haiduk

[Vacillator]

3 minutes ago, Ultradave said:

Concerning relative losses, this is pretty interesting to explore. Starts with Russian losses and scroll way down for Ukrainian losses, totals, and by actual vehicle type. If you hover over the individual numbers it links to a pic or video documenting it.

Disclaimers at the top about accuracy. If nothing else, a ton of quick pics showing destroyed equipment. I haven't seen anyone post a link to this but may have missed it so apologies if so. 

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html#comment-form

Dave

I think it was posted a while ago but good to highlight it again.  The link doesn't need the bit at the end, so

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html

[Haiduk]

10 hours ago, DesertFox said:

100mm AT Gun wow...

 

 

Not so 100 AT wow, like BMP-1! I was shure Russia already doesn't have it in service, only LDPR forces, but... This is already second captured BMP-1 on Kyiv diredction. There is motor-rifle units of Far East Military district involved (or Syberian... I forgot), Probably they have some old equipment among conpanies. Also two Russian, not DLPR, T-72A were spotted. 

Edited March 18, 2022 by Haiduk

[Haiduk]

Here you can see that rare case, when Stugna-P fires the miisile not directly, but above LOS trajectory. Also you can see measured distanse on display - 5000 m. Such type of launch is possible only if the launcher equipped with special thermal sight, which measures a range and gives this data to guidance module.

The second launch on the video is at direct LOS

 

 

Edited March 18, 2022 by Haiduk

[Haiduk]

New crash sites of Russian helicopters. Data and location unknown

Mi-35

Mi-8AMTSh, shot down 5th of March near Mykolaiv, 39th Helicopter regiment, Dzhankoi, occupied Crimea.

Lifetime photo. The writngs "НА БЕРЛИН" - "TO BERLIN"