How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[FancyCat]

 

[Pete Wenman]

7 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

“‘Who ever heard of Moscow Rules in the middle of bloody Hampstead anyway?’ Strickland asked, waving out the match.

‘Bloody Hampstead is right,’ Smiley said quietly.”

you get a like, for the Smiley quote alone.

P

[Grigb]

9 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Strange choice if one wants to put down Russian nationalists. Even Dugin himself would be strange choice; he is second-row ideologian and probably appeal only to a bunch of old ladies and religious freaks form Tsargrad. He was rather far from more practical, militaristic nationalists like Strielkov. Their circle (centred around oligarch Konstantin Malofieiev) of course maximally support war and view Putin as half-saviour. They all should generally feel safe in Russia.

Targeted assassinations are rare within nationalistic political circles, unless somebody has business ties with wrong persons. And killing women is considered passe even by gangsters in Russia.

Unfortunately they almost 100% blame Ukrainians. But as a false flag it is strange choice also, not enough to incite rage in wider population. So i would vote for now for some more private business killings targeted at Dugin.

A pitty Grigb is off now, this death will shake Russian right-wingers.

Hi, I am back. I was helping my friend. He was trying to access the men who supposed to deal with RU Nats. You know it is difficult to sit idle in a chair when people are dying. Also, I am of the opinion that things will get worse and better to start defending Europe now. It took significant efforts and time, so I had to go offline for some time. Unfortunately, my friend was not successful. Well, he will try to figure out some other ways to contact the men.

Back to Dugin daughter assassination:

• Clearly, it is FSB false flag operation. FSB false flag ops are very easy to recognize - they are useless for other side yet aimed at generating some shock value at RU population. That is exactly what happened.
• UKR would use Switchblade. Full stop.
• From details of assassination, you can see strange occurrences. Dugin miraculously escaped it - at the last moment he decided to go to a different car and assassins did not detect it. IED was under driver seat which given age of Dugin was unlikely to be occupied by Dugin. The explosion miraculously happened not when a lot of RU Nats were around the car - a bit of more explosives and lot of RU Nats would go to Stalin.
• Strange target for assassination is not that strange - they do not want to generate excessive shock, so Dugin as useless but infamous target is good (general public does not care about him to uncontrolably freak out) . Also, FSB likes to test public reaction first, so killing Dugin daughter is even a better way to see how general public reacts. So, they selected Dugin but decided to kill his daughter first as a test.
• Actually, there is whole RU narrative behind the attack - unofficial RU propaganda claim that because UKR is losing (according to RU propaganda) Zelinsky planning to wage terror campaign in mainland RU in late August-early September. So, this is supposed to be the first terror attack of the campaign.
• RU Nats are grieving but subjectively I do not feel as much shock as in the case of Saki strike. That strike left them speechless. This one left them grieving. Let see how it will develop.
• On the separate note they call for terror strikes against UKR and Europe. Most likely Putin
  having exhausted RU military options (Donbass offensive is stalled and they have severe manpower crisis blocking them from launching any big offensive elsewhere) is planning to wage non-military terror campaign himself. First in RU to influence RU population to support the war and give him more cannon fodder. Then in UKR and possibly in Europe to increase support of peace deal. They literally do not have anything left. 

[Cederic]

12 hours ago, Kinophile said:

Now,  I'm very ignorant of Air, in general, buuuut.... A10 would be a good fit for for UKR,no?

Tactically oriented platform,  combat proven and perfectly designed to slaughter SOV vehicles in a contested air space.

I mean, This is the war it was born to fight. 

RUS doesn't have air dominance, so tactical UKR A2AD could provide attack corridors,  HIMARS et could suppress RUS SAMs, although not Iglas etc.  

It also feels like a lower, entry rung on the way up the Air ladder to NATO level SEAD and 4-5th Gen air platforms.  

Running ops in contested tactical air space is something UKR Air Control already has experience in, so "plugging in"  a better Frogfoot would give them starter experience with NATO platforms, systems and procedures, without the organizational complexity, massive tech requirements and systems upgrades that 4th gen+ air frames need. 

Thoughts..? 

No.

It's too slow, Russia does have aircraft flying safely behind the lines that could target it and Russian SAMs have better range than HIMARS.

Don't take my word for it. https://www.airforcemag.com/ukraine-says-it-needs-fast-and-versatile-aircraft-not-the-a-10/

But even beyond that. The A-10 will cause Ukrainian deaths. Not just the pilots, who'll have WW1 levels of life expectancy (see all those videos of attack helicopters above the front lines? No? Guess why..) but also Ukrainian troops and civilians.

Terrible visibility, poor accuracy, even ignoring the many many friendly fire incidents there'll be friendly deaths because it pretty much isn't fit for that battlefield.

If you're defending a WW2 style push across the steppes by 200 tanks and supporting infantry, sure, go right ahead. Ukraine isn't.

I admire the A-10 but this is the wrong war for it. Here, have an acerbic hour long video that goes into more detail.

 

[Calamine Waffles]

With regards to active radar-homing AAMs, there actually is one that could be integrated into the MiG-29 and Su-27, and it is the I-Derby ER.



https://caucasuswatch.de/news/4341.html

It has a range > 100 km and is known to be integrated on Azerbaijan's MiG-29s (some of which are now in Ukraine), and it is also advertised as being compatible with the Su-30MKI (India is acquiring it). However, I-Derby is an Israeli weapon, and thus far Israel has been reluctant to send weapons to Ukraine, so I am doubtful of that occurring in the near future.

[Haiduk]

2 hours ago, Cederic said:

But even beyond that. The A-10 will cause Ukrainian deaths. Not just the pilots, who'll have WW1 levels of life expectancy (see all those videos of attack helicopters above the front lines? No? Guess why..) but also Ukrainian troops and civilians.

Our pilots already have more 100 sorties each for 6 months of war and if we take CAS jets - Su-25, we lost 9 visually confirmed Su for this time and two Mi-24 (I suppose we lost more choppers, but anyway this is not catastrophical losses in front of the face of Russian AD). Is this too much? Especially in first two months, when Russian fighters flew in our airspace. A-10 has more optoins for guided weapon, so can be very useful. As variant even Tucano would be very good as alternative of "MLRS style" firing of helicopters 

[akd]

Interesting interview with the commander of the 3rd BTGr of the 80th Air-Assault Brigade:

 

[pavel.k]

3 hours ago, Grigb said:

• On the separate note they call for terror strikes against UKR and Europe. Most likely Putin
  having exhausted RU military options (Donbass offensive is stalled and they have severe manpower crisis blocking them from launching any big offensive elsewhere) is planning to wage non-military terror campaign himself. First in RU to influence RU population to support the war and give him more cannon fodder. Then in UKR and possibly in Europe to increase support of peace deal. They literally do not have anything left. 

Could they take some islamist eager to explode in the middle of some EU capital, put suicide vest on him and drop him from a van there? They have resources for it i guess?

[Artkin]

47 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Our pilots already have more 100 sorties each for 6 months of war and if we take CAS jets - Su-25, we lost 9 visually confirmed Su for this time and two Mi-24 (I suppose we lost more choppers, but anyway this is not catastrophical losses in front of the face of Russian AD). Is this too much? Especially in first two months, when Russian fighters flew in our airspace. A-10 has more optoins for guided weapon, so can be very useful. As variant even Tucano would be very good as alternative of "MLRS style" firing of helicopters 

Seeing the resupply operation in Mariupol, and how helicopters still operate flying low, I think the A10 would be a good fit. The higher survivability of heavily armored planes has saved lives. I don't think an A-10 will survive a hit from S-400, but I can see it surviving a hit from a tunguska/manpads.

[Kinophile]

3 hours ago, Cederic said:

No.

It's too slow, Russia does have aircraft flying safely behind the lines that could target it and Russian SAMs have better range than HIMARS.

Don't take my word for it. https://www.airforcemag.com/ukraine-says-it-needs-fast-and-versatile-aircraft-not-the-a-10/

But even beyond that. The A-10 will cause Ukrainian deaths. Not just the pilots, who'll have WW1 levels of life expectancy (see all those videos of attack helicopters above the front lines? No? Guess why..) but also Ukrainian troops and civilians.

Terrible visibility, poor accuracy, even ignoring the many many friendly fire incidents there'll be friendly deaths because it pretty much isn't fit for that battlefield.

If you're defending a WW2 style push across the steppes by 200 tanks and supporting infantry, sure, go right ahead. Ukraine isn't.

I admire the A-10 but this is the wrong war for it. Here, have an acerbic hour long video that goes into more detail.

 

You should have ended with "A10 sucks. Fight Me" 

 Just kidding,but that reply seems a bit severe. The A10 isn't just for strafing, it can carry many different  NATO ordinance. 

Also,  UKR has continuously  used its SOV Su-25s during the war, in their intended role despite RUS AD. They've suffered losses but nothing catastrophic,  and certainly within the thresholds of a high intensity, technological modern war space. Still, it's a very old platform in a very modern war,  with no room for improvement. Yet the vehicle obviously fills a battlefield need, so a drastic upgrade is needed. 

I'm pretty sure we all have a high opinion of the UKR military leadership, including  the Air Force. They don't waste assets and they seem very receptive to battle lessons and very adaptive to them. 

Also, the training has already been in progress for at least 2 months, so I highly dount the UKR Air leadership is going to say Oh No, Wait, The A10 *DOES* suck! and reassign everyone back to perfecting Frogfoot death runs. 

So I doubt the A10

1) Sucks

2) is not needed

3) inappropriate for the UKR AF

I've no interest in the technical back-forth because, for me, in my ignorance,  it all boils down to this:

1) The A10 is a combat proven platform and this is the combat situation it was specifically designed for. 

2) UKR wants it and has been training  on it. 

 

 

 

Edited August 21, 2022 by Kinophile

[dan/california]

 

6 hours ago, kraze said:

Not letting them in is a much better and simpler solution. Not to mention safer, in the long run too.

They'll have the rest of the planet to tourrorize anyway.

The Albanian thing is not going to get Article five invoked, but it is exhibit A for the visa ban. Anything the Russians are squeaking about that loudly is obviously a good idea. This war ends when Moscow feels enough pain.

1 hour ago, Haiduk said:

Our pilots already have more 100 sorties each for 6 months of war and if we take CAS jets - Su-25, we lost 9 visually confirmed Su for this time and two Mi-24 (I suppose we lost more choppers, but anyway this is not catastrophical losses in front of the face of Russian AD). Is this too much? Especially in first two months, when Russian fighters flew in our airspace. A-10 has more optoins for guided weapon, so can be very useful. As variant even Tucano would be very good as alternative of "MLRS style" firing of helicopters 

Anything with NATO hard points and avionics is better than nothing with NATO hard points and avionics. They just need to figure out what the best type of guided of munition is for the super low flight profile that seems to be the only survivable one for either side, and send trainloads of them, literally. Mind if it was up to me I would give them F-15Es and cruise missiles.

28 minutes ago, pavel.k said:

Could they take some islamist eager to explode in the middle of some EU capital, put suicide vest on him and drop him from a van there? They have resources for it i guess?

The Russians could definitely do some amount of this, or commit some other sort of mid grade atrocity in a European capital. However, it would move the visa ban they are so eager to avoid from probably not happening to a dead certainty. They really don't seem to want that.

Edited August 21, 2022 by dan/california

[Letter from Prague]

It is a matter of perspective.

If you look at A-10 as at "Su-25 replacement that should be a bit sturdier, can carry NATO ordnance and most of all there's a lot of planes and spare parts available that US doesn't really want anymore" then that is not bad at all. If you look at it as "either A-10 or F-16" then A-10 is obviously inferior.

If F-16s are around the corner, the A-10 might be a distraction. if they're not ... who knows. And that is all assuming the "A-10 training using DCS" isn't actually a lan party someone stumbled on and the dudes were like "nonono of course we're not just playing video games, we're training!" 

If it were up to me, you would see things blown up by mysterious planes that look like F-22s but definitely aren't because we said they aren't, but there are probably good reasons I'm not the SACEUR.

[akd]

41 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Anything with NATO hard points and avionics is better than nothing with NATO hard points and avionics. They just need to figure out what the best type of guided of munition is for the super low flight profile that seems to be the only survivable one for either side, and send trainloads of them, literally. Mind if it was up to me I would give them F-15Es and cruise missiles.

Toss bombing JDAMs would be way more effective than current flying MLRS, while incurring similar levels of risk.  But faster jets would be better.

Edited August 21, 2022 by akd

[Letter from Prague]

By the by, yesterday was an anniversary of Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. There were quite a few speeches about how Russia have not really changed since then and how we have to support Ukraine. According to Ukraine Embassy in Prague twitter, a lot of people started sending 1968 Czech Crowns donations, with "several millions" collected already.

EDIT: of course local cockroaches are saying that "in 1968 Ukraine invaded us too" before skittering back to their holes, just as you would expect.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Letter from Prague

[billbindc]

13 hours ago, billbindc said:

I agree that the Dugins, père et fille are (or were) not big movers and shakers. My point is that the remoras are starting to fight over the scraps because the shark has other things on its mind. 

Looks like Galeotti is thinking what I'm thinking: 

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/alexander-dugin-darya-putin-russia-ukraine-assassination

[dan/california]

27 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

It is a matter of perspective.

If you look at A-10 as at "Su-25 replacement that should be a bit sturdier, can carry NATO ordnance and most of all there's a lot of planes and spare parts available that US doesn't really want anymore" then that is not bad at all. If you look at it as "either A-10 or F-16" then A-10 is obviously inferior.

If F-16s are around the corner, the A-10 might be a distraction. if they're not ... who knows. And that is all assuming the "A-10 training using DCS" isn't actually a lan party someone stumbled on and the dudes were like "nonono of course we're not just playing video games, we're training!" 

If it were up to me, you would see things blown up by mysterious planes that look like F-22s but definitely aren't because we said they aren't, but there are probably good reasons I'm not the SACEUR.

If they are worth what we paid for them, you never see them at all...

Edited August 21, 2022 by dan/california

[dan/california]

9 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

By the by, yesterday was an anniversary of Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. There were quite a few speeches about how Russia have not really changed since then and how we have to support Ukraine. According to Ukraine Embassy in Prague twitter, a lot of people started sending 1968 Czech Crowns donations, with "several millions" collected already.

EDIT: of course local cockroaches are saying that "in 1968 Ukraine invaded us too" before skittering back to their holes, just as you would expect.

Cockroaches are sadly hard to get rid of completely.

[Grigb]

1 hour ago, pavel.k said:

Could they take some islamist eager to explode in the middle of some EU capital, put suicide vest on him and drop him from a van there? They have resources for it i guess?

RU Nats ideology is not compatible with Islamists ideology. So, they are unlikely to be able to recruit Islamic suicide bombers. Also, it does not encourage suicide practices unless you are cannon fodder on the field of battle with the order to stop enemy tanks with Molotov cocktail. Finally, we must keep in mind that open terror attacks are not in RU interests. In RU interests there are false flag attacks to blame everything on UKR. Suicide attacks are very difficult to blame on UKR for foreign audience (for internal audience they just say that ISIS support Ukraine, here are captured forged documents!).   

As result we are back to two types of terror attacks - classic cold war attacks. Most likely it will be assassinations similar to Dugin daughter assassination. Imagine anti-UKR German politician assassinated in his car with similar explosion and UKR passport found nearby.

The second type is more creative - imagine RU captured intact Switchblade in UKR. Then RU embassy organize event with RU citizens protesting against UKR "war crimes". At some point FSB deploys Switchblade, kills dozens of RU and several western bystanders, leaves Switchblade launcher intact and puts UKR contact card nearby.

These are the type of attacks I am talking about.   

[dan/california]

7 minutes ago, Grigb said:

RU Nats ideology is not compatible with Islamists ideology. So, they are unlikely to be able to recruit Islamic suicide bombers. Also, it does not encourage suicide practices unless you are cannon fodder on the field of battle with the order to stop enemy tanks with Molotov cocktail. Finally, we must keep in mind that open terror attacks are not in RU interests. In RU interests there are false flag attacks to blame everything on UKR. Suicide attacks are very difficult to blame on UKR for foreign audience (for internal audience they just say that ISIS support Ukraine, here are captured forged documents!).   

As result we are back to two types of terror attacks - classic cold war attacks. Most likely it will be assassinations similar to Dugin daughter assassination. Imagine anti-UKR German politician assassinated in his car with similar explosion and UKR passport found nearby.

The second type is more creative - imagine RU captured intact Switchblade in UKR. Then RU embassy organize event with RU citizens protesting against UKR "war crimes". At some point FSB deploys Switchblade, kills dozens of RU and several western bystanders, leaves Switchblade launcher intact and puts UKR contact card nearby.

These are the type of attacks I am talking about.   

Any violence in Europe increases the risk of a visa ban. Of course the Putin regime is run by coked up imbeciles, so they will probably dive right in.

[FancyCat]

 

[Grigb]

Just now, dan/california said:

Any violence in Europe increases the risk of a visa ban. Of course the Putin regime is run by coked up imbeciles, so they will probably dive right in.

The currently discussed visa ban is mostly about tourist visas or Shengen visas. They are somewhat painful and do limit Kremlin options but do not eliminate all RU routes to Europe. Also, Kremlin view the ban differently - because it does not affect them that much, they hope the ban will drive liberals to their side (it would not but as you said we are dealing with imbeciles abd they are grasping for a last straws).

[kraze]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

The Russians could definitely do some amount of this, or commit some other sort of mid grade atrocity in a European capital. However, it would move the visa ban they are so eager to avoid from probably not happening to a dead certainty. They really don't seem to want that.

Article 5 is more likely in this case since russians are notoriously bad at hiding traces.

I mean Scholz may BS about how it's better for Germany to do barely anything, but try doing 'just' visa ban when FSB ends up being responsible for murdering 30-40 people in the center of Berlin.

And russians are extremely awful at timing and targets. Said Albania is a great example - just before the visa talks they mess things up next to another potential hotspot everyone is watching. What a talent to f everything up.

Edited August 21, 2022 by kraze

[Kinophile]

https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1561141293190991873?t=n8a2Hc--2QSGrFQju454Jg&s=19

[Combatintman]

32 minutes ago, Grigb said:

RU Nats ideology is not compatible with Islamists ideology. So, they are unlikely to be able to recruit Islamic suicide bombers. Also, it does not encourage suicide practices unless you are cannon fodder on the field of battle with the order to stop enemy tanks with Molotov cocktail. Finally, we must keep in mind that open terror attacks are not in RU interests. In RU interests there are false flag attacks to blame everything on UKR. Suicide attacks are very difficult to blame on UKR for foreign audience (for internal audience they just say that ISIS support Ukraine, here are captured forged documents!).   

As result we are back to two types of terror attacks - classic cold war attacks. Most likely it will be assassinations similar to Dugin daughter assassination. Imagine anti-UKR German politician assassinated in his car with similar explosion and UKR passport found nearby.

The second type is more creative - imagine RU captured intact Switchblade in UKR. Then RU embassy organize event with RU citizens protesting against UKR "war crimes". At some point FSB deploys Switchblade, kills dozens of RU and several western bystanders, leaves Switchblade launcher intact and puts UKR contact card nearby.

These are the type of attacks I am talking about.   

Yeah ... this.  Russia is concerned about Islamic terrorism on both its own soil and in the CSTO 'Stans bordering Afghanistan.  Using an Islamic militant for an attack would also not go down well with China.  A definite non-starter.

[Combatintman]

9 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

We have precedent on Russia poisoning people and blowing up ammo storages in NATO countries. With minimal response. 

Well they're getting it in spades now ... wonder why the United Kingdom supplied shedloads of NLAWs etc to Ukraine?