Jump to content

How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?


Probus

Recommended Posts

1 minute ago, billbindc said:

Yet another illustration of how Russia continues to be juked out of its shoes on the military intelligence front in this war. The Biden administration signaled strenuously that ATACMS were being delayed. It then sent them, the Ukrainians trained on them, set up a large scale attack and the Russians apparently missed it all completely. Now begins the scramble to pull Russian assets back out of range. All quite well executed.

I think you're giving the Russians too little and too much credit at the same time.  They might have known ATACMS were a immanent risk, but due to the usual Russian problems (bureaucratic intransigents, decision paralysis, arrogance, etc.) nothing happened on the ground.

Imagine the first senior officer to suggest that helicopters should be proactively taken out of the fight or advocating for expensive/difficult work arounds to keep them at the front?  Who thinks there's such an officer in the Russian MoD these days?  I don't.  So even the ones that pretty much knew this would happen said to themselves, "I have to wait until we have a disaster before I'm willing to risk my career".

I could be wrong, of course, however I think most of Russia's intelligence failures in this war are more to do with bungling intel than not having it at all.

Steve

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Hapless said:

If every fire team has a grenade launcher... maybe it's time 40mm buckshot made a comeback for anti-drone use.

As I’ve posted a while ago, that only works if you can see the thing. Better is a mini-SDR drone detector that clips onto your vest, and then auto-launch a little interceptor on a squad basis, and then counter-battery, but for drones, that hunts the control signal.

EDIT: I doubt you can hit a small drone moving at even 25mph with a pistol at 12y. Or a rifle at 100y. No way. Shotgun you have a chance, but a small one.

Edited by kimbosbread
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

AP article (via The Hill) with some details about ATACMS getting to Ukraine.  Apparently they were delivered a few days ago:

https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-politics/ap-for-the-first-time-ukraine-has-used-us-provided-long-range-atacms-missiles-against-russian-forces/

Steve

Interesting. According to this report Ukraine has the M39A version. If true that means most of Crimea is out of range.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Interesting. According to this report Ukraine has the M39A version. If true that means most of Crimea is out of range.

Now give them the  ones that will put the Kerch bridge in the water!

Edit: And put out the production contracts so that the Russians know the Ukrainians can keep shooting them FOREVER.

Edited by dan/california
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Now give them the  ones that will put the Kerch bridge in the water!

Edit: And put out the production contracts so that the Russians know the Ukrainians can keep shooting them FOREVER.

I don't think there is any chance the US will ever order more ATACMs now that it's replacement is nigh.

Supplying the longer ranged versions to Ukraine would be good but the Kerch Bridge is apparently off-limits for western-supplied munitions because of politics.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Interesting. According to this report Ukraine has the M39A version. If true that means most of Crimea is out of range.

I think the US is doing the slow roll out, both in terms of numbers of missiles and which versions.  They seem obsessed

 

13 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

 

I don't care how fanciful I think the concerns about Russian counter offensives might be if it results in Ukraine getting more stuff.

Does anybody know of Russia cooking up brand new forces now that 25th CCA has been committed?  There's supposedly an expansion of VDV, but that's fairly small.

Unless Russia does another large scale mobilization I don't see where they are going to get the forces to conduct anything more than suicide charges against Ukrainian defenses.

Steve

Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Work pretty good on ducks and those little buggers can really move.

I didn’t realize how fast a duck can fly: 40-55mph for most species, but 70-100mph for the faster ones!?

However, they can’t maneuver like a hummingbird, which is the real strength of quads, plus it’s harder to hit something coming at you at speed. At 60mph, you only have ~4s notice if object is 100yds away.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's something that makes me a little concerned about Ukraine's capabilities.  Russia has thinned its lines several times this year to keep the fighting in the south bottled up.  Except for Bakhmut, and a few minor tactical skirmishes here and there, Ukraine hasn't seemed able to take advantage of it.  Even crossing the Dnepr seems to have been fairly limited and (possibly) played out.

With the premature pushing of the 25th CCA into Luhansk positions so that 2nd CCA could move down to Avdiivka, you'd think this would be an excellent opportunity to smash up inexperienced, poorly trained, and probably badly motivated forces.  Every day that passes gives the Russians more time to acclimate, yet we're not seeing Ukraine do anything specific in this area.  This seems to hint at Ukraine having hit some limitations of their own.

Steve

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

I didn’t realize how fast a duck can fly: 40-55mph for most species, but 70-100mph for the faster ones!?

However, they can’t maneuver like a hummingbird, which is the real strength of quads, plus it’s harder to hit something coming at you at speed. At 60mph, you only have ~4s notice if object is 100yds away.

Ducks can zig and zag pretty well on the move.  But not as maneuverable as a humming bird.  I can see some sort of auto shotgun thing being employed for tac AP UAVs.  Of course when we get to the point that using a single tac UAV to kill one person is sustainable as a viable alternative to fires…well just count me out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Work pretty good on ducks and those little buggers can really move.

Something coming straight at you is the easiest shot to make. The question is it worth the immense hassle of issuing every third soldier a modified bird gun. For all that the extended chase cenes make compelling video, most people get taken out by something they effectively never saw. I keep coming back to the idea that it ought to be possible to build small UAVs just to take out other UAVs. It must be harder than I think it is or we would be seeing it already. A lot of RWS turrets with anti UAV capability popping up in dribs a and drabs, but as The_Capt never tires of reminding us, at even a couple of hundred thousand dollars each the number requires quickly exceeds the ENTIRE defense budget of most countries.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For what it's worth, Abrams tanks are ready to roll.

______

The U.S. has delivered all the previously pledged 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, U.S. Army Europe and Africa Command's spokesperson Martin O'Donnell told the Voice of America.

The Ukrainian soldiers who trained on Abrams with U.S. troops in Germany have also returned to Ukraine, along with ammunition and spare tank parts, according to O'Donnell.

"We have lived up to our end of the bargain. From this point forward, it is up to them (Ukraine) to determine when and where they will deliver this capability,"

https://www.yahoo.com/news/voa-us-military-says-31-164251864.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

For what it's worth, Abrams tanks are ready to roll.

______

The U.S. has delivered all the previously pledged 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, U.S. Army Europe and Africa Command's spokesperson Martin O'Donnell told the Voice of America.

The Ukrainian soldiers who trained on Abrams with U.S. troops in Germany have also returned to Ukraine, along with ammunition and spare tank parts, according to O'Donnell.

"We have lived up to our end of the bargain. From this point forward, it is up to them (Ukraine) to determine when and where they will deliver this capability,"

https://www.yahoo.com/news/voa-us-military-says-31-164251864.html

They needed two hundred not thirty. Given the issues with clearing mine fields I not sure if make more sense to commit these to an attack, and try to finally, truly break the Russian lines, or keep them as their last and final operational reserve. I think thirty Abrams would smash any conceivable Russian breakthrough if well handled.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

56 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Something coming straight at you is the easiest shot to make. The question is it worth the immense hassle of issuing every third soldier a modified bird gun. For all that the extended chase cenes make compelling video, most people get taken out by something they effectively never saw. I keep coming back to the idea that it ought to be possible to build small UAVs just to take out other UAVs. It must be harder than I think it is or we would be seeing it already. A lot of RWS turrets with anti UAV capability popping up in dribs a and drabs, but as The_Capt never tires of reminding us, at even a couple of hundred thousand dollars each the number requires quickly exceeds the ENTIRE defense budget of most countries.

Underlining by me.

Had the same thought, and someone asked earlier what to do against underwater-attackdrones and I think the same answer, anti-underwaterdrone-drones.

Autonomous drones, like there were corvettes and frigates escorting WW2 convoys. May take some time, but should be possible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, mosuri said:

Baltic sea, such a rough place for undersea infrastructure... another telecom link damaged, this time between Estonia and Sweden.

https://www.dn.se/sverige/forsvarsministern-haller-presstraff-om-kritisk-infrastruktur-i-havet/

Must be earthquakes. Or Jaws.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67138269

image.thumb.png.58983953487db058dfe0979c9e70d3da.png
https://yle.fi/a/74-20055713

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...