How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[billbindc]

This is 

2 minutes ago, womble said:

And now NORAD have fiddled with the gate parameters on a few signal processing units and the balloons are no longer sneaky, they're not going to be delivering any "kinetic packages" anywhere there's an F-[pick-a-number] within scramble distance...

This is the absurd culmination of this episode. By doing it too aggressively and too early, China just gave everyone else a big heads up on a set of tools it was developing that had been filtered out in the past from NORAD screens. Now, well there goes that in the case things get wild and wooly over Taiwan. 

It's the nth example that the "China plans long term" thing is complete balderdash.

[Haiduk]

Reportedly UKR troops regained control over western half of dachas of Mykilske village SE from Vuhledar. Though, Russians hastily move to this sector additional artillery units, so Russian command doesn't leave intentions to take Vuhledar at any cost.

Edited February 13, 2023 by Haiduk

[chuckdyke]

That's what you're up against. Journalists can't ask rational questions. Well, if he lived in Australia the Russian would be advised to take language classes, I had to turn on the subtitles. 

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by chuckdyke

[FancyCat]

Eng language version: https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/02/13/that-extra-heavy-load

Ahh if only, poetic justice for MH17.

 

[BlackMoria]

7 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

That's what you're up against. Journalists can't ask rational questions. Well, if he lived in Australia the Russian would be advised to take language classes, I had to turn on the subtitles. 

 

Where the hell are they chumming up these idiots?  And Piers is a moron.  

[chuckdyke]

Just now, BlackMoria said:

Where the hell are they chumming up these idiots?  And Piers is a moron.  

I am not a fan of Piers Morgan but against this stooge from the Kremlin I took his side. I also believe a settlement like Korea could be the outcome whether we like it or not. The objectives St, Petersburg, Moscow, Volgograd? I can't see it happening. That is what a humiliated Russia will look like.

[sburke]

33 minutes ago, BlackMoria said:

Where the hell are they chumming up these idiots?  And Piers is a moron.  

that really isn't fair to morons.

[Beleg85]

Something worth mentioning is burning in Moscow. Institution more connected to Roskosmos, but undoubtedly producing/researching for military as well.

1 hour ago, Haiduk said:

Reportedly UKR troops regained control over western half of dachas of Mykilske village SE from Vuhledar. Though, Russians hastily move to this sector additional artillery units, so Russian command doesn't leave intentions to take Vuhledar at any cost.

GreyZone published a rant that by attacking Wuhledar russian MoD tries to take away glory from Wagner. Difficult to tell how much it is true, and how much effects of infightings between various factions.

 

 

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by Beleg85

[DesertFox]

Makes you wonder...if true.

 

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

Makes you wonder...if true.

 

 

 

Not outrageous.  It's a lot easier on logistics to feed troops out of boxes than it is to procure and produce "fresh" meals.  The recent uptick in Russian forces to feed may have outstripped Russia's ability to produce manufactured meals.  I'm sure they long ago used up prewar stocks of meals, so if factories produce X and they need X+Y, then going shopping in Iran makes sense.

Steve

[Jiggathebauce]

1 hour ago, FancyCat said:

Eng language version: https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/02/13/that-extra-heavy-load

Ahh if only, poetic justice for MH17.

 

Have to wonder how vulnerable Russian airspace, and the airspace at the front is, if this is true.

[Beleg85]

"Official" part of training of UA tankers on Leos2 started in Poland:

- dozen hours a day

- 6 days a week

- day and night activities

- fire training, tactical training, cohesion up to the battalion level

- training of logisticians

https://twitter.com/BBN_PL/status/1625169114242097152

Here just a short clip from interview for UA media from training grounds; note that major speaking has 57 years and was taken straight from the line.

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by Beleg85

[Battlefront.com]

11 minutes ago, Jiggathebauce said:

Have to wonder how vulnerable Russian airspace, and the airspace at the front is, if this is true.

Based on Ukraine's success at striking targets inside of Russia from the air, I'd say Putin might want to travel by subway for the rest of this war.

Steve

[NamEndedAllen]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

No they are laughably bad penetrating strategic ISR platforms though.  The fact that we spotted and shot down 4 in a week is a pretty good hint.  The major point of a strategic ISR asset is ability to be undetected and failing that deniable, and failing that be too fast for defensive systems to react. And these ridiculous balloons are failing gloriously on all counts.  I mean seriously they have a top speed of about 120 kph…”oh no, the Chinese are slowly advancing to tap into my SkiptheDishes order!”

Seriously.  Sure balloons can be a platform - we used them for tac ISR in Afghanistan (hilarious story there).  For Operational or even Strategic they need stand-off, normally over a safe or friendly nation or international waters…not freakin Lake Huron.  It is not the platform that should be mocked, it is how they are being employed.  In fact the only thing I can think of is that the Chinese must be tunnelling beneath our feet and this is a clever ploy to keep us looking up.

What they have done is creating an escalating diplomatic incident and shore up NORAD funding for the next decade - seriously what is it these authoritarian governments don’t get with western apathy.  Our North Warning System is from the 70s and we have been delaying the billions required for upgrades for years…and then the Chinese start lobbing freaking balloons everywhere.

Bottom line - these sound like some terrible idea that got out in front of policy makers in China and they have some serious cleanup to do.  In fact this feels more North Korean than Chinese to be honest.

Now if China starts putting kinetic payloads on these or somesuch, well then we just entered into “acts of war territory” and balloons will be the last thing we need to worry about.

Perhaps you are completely right, and the Chinese rather uncharacteristically don’t know what they are doing. Just flailing about wasting time overflying several nations with slow moving intelligence drones. Or maybe their satellites aren’t as advanced as ours. Or maybe they do know about what you have reported but still find these slow, large drones to be useful - for them.  Open-mindedly, we may not know what they know. But we do know they’ve been doing this for years and with rather large, satellite sized payloads. That much is factual. Much else is speculative. 

[NamEndedAllen]

2 hours ago, danfrodo said:

The gain is probably negligible or at most minimal

This is the part that we don’t know much about. We can say what it is from *our* point of view, but we sure as heck don’t know what it is from the Chinese military and government POV. Other than they’ve been flying these drones over many countries for quite a few years. And in several variants. Whether the Big One shot down last week was launched by mistake (unlikely) or in error of judgment (pretty likely!), the open, public clashing is definitely up a few notches. To what end is guesswork.

[NamEndedAllen]

1 hour ago, chuckdyke said:

That's what you're up against. Journalists can't ask rational questions. Well, if he lived in Australia the Russian would be advised to take language classes, I had to turn on the subtitles. 

 

Piers Morgan? PIERS MORGAN! Hardly a journalist. Definitely a twit.

[The_Capt]

8 minutes ago, NamEndedAllen said:

Perhaps you are completely right, and the Chinese rather uncharacteristically don’t know what they are doing. Just flailing about wasting time overflying several nations with slow moving intelligence drones. Or maybe their satellites aren’t as advanced as ours. Or maybe they do know about what you have reported but still find these slow, large drones to be useful - for them.  Open-mindedly, we may not know what they know. But we do know they’ve been doing this for years and with rather large, satellite sized payloads. That much is factual. Much else is speculative. 

Well missing a few facts though.  As strategic ISR platforms these ballon’s have been a complete failure because we are all talking about them.  Another fact, they have lost up to four which were detected shot down using conventional aircraft and current technology so there is no demonstrable advantage to how they are being employed.  In fact they are demonstrating disadvantages of this long held capability.

What is speculation is stuff like, “They must have dozens we didn’t see”.  “They have been working on these for years so they must be a threat somehow”, “They are using them with other intent in mind”…oh and the best one so far “they clearly can put nukes on these things”.

Speculation is fine but like anything else, there is good speculation - a logical extension of assumptions based on a solid foundation of facts.  And bad speculation - a logical extension of assumptions based on fear and hysteria.

A good speculation is that if China needs a payload the size of a school bus to do SIGINT then we have likely over estimated their technological abilities in this area.  Another is that balloons make excellent back up systems for GPS/NAV War so we might want to start paying attention to that angle.

Anyway moving on.

[Beleg85]

Third time today posting something from WarTranslated, but this interview may be interesting to read.Interestingly, he claims they have now 1:1 parity in artillery near Bakhmut:

https://wartranslated.com/pravda-com-ua-interview-ukrainian-colonel-oleh-faydyuk/

Yup, very good piece, highly recommended to read.

Edited February 13, 2023 by Beleg85

[sburke]

8 minutes ago, NamEndedAllen said:

Piers Morgan? PIERS MORGAN! Hardly a journalist. Definitely a twit.

first we insult the morons, now we insult the twits?  Next we'll be trashing the village idiots. this has got to stop.

[alison]

At the risk of going way off topic (don't forget about our Taiwan thread over in the SF2 forum), the Chinese military industrial complex slash surveillance industrial complex is very much a thing. For years now entrepreneurs in China have seen where their bread is buttered, and have been coming up with ever more Orwellian (or Bond villain-esque) gadgets to land those sweet government deals.

As billbindc correctly pointed out, the idea that the Chinese people - or even the Chinese government and military - is an inscrutable monolith that plays three-dimensional chess is Orientalist balderdash. China is full of hustlers looking to make a ton of money and rise up in the system as quickly as possible. I wouldn't be surprised if this balloon program was just another case of throwing a chunk of the government's surveillance budget at the proverbial wall to see what sticks.

Without a doubt, it was politically inconvenient for the Xi administration that the US government reacted the way it did - obviously they didn't want this to happen literally the day before Blinken was supposed to visit. So someone will probably end up getting punished, and their program may be curtailed or canceled, but the structure of the country is such that there will be other, similar, programs, because making money and gaining power is a much safer bet when you are backed by the government. And the government - at least under Xi - is very focused on surveillance, control of the media, competition with foreign powers and so forth. Will we see more balloons? Who knows. But we will definitely see more spying, more disinformation, more propaganda and all kinds of nutty high- and low-tech tools designed to achieve those goals.

Edited February 14, 2023 by alison
typo

[chuckdyke]

33 minutes ago, NamEndedAllen said:

Piers Morgan? PIERS MORGAN! Hardly a journalist. Definitely a twit.

He has the credentials and that is one of the things they are fighting for. Freedom of the press whether we disagree or not. The interviewee definitely was out of order, he gave as a glimpse what the persons putin approves of are like.

[keas66]

I be more concerned if the Chinese were in fact aware of what filters NORAD had in place - knowing such details would allow them to  try such a program out in the first place .

[billbindc]

And the Russian arms industry spirals down the drain: 

https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2023/02/13/rossiya-teryaet-krupneishego-pokupatelya-oruzhiya-indiya-zamorozila-peregovori-po-vertoletam-i-samoletam-a33902

[sburke]

3 minutes ago, billbindc said:

And the Russian arms industry spirals down the drain: 

https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2023/02/13/rossiya-teryaet-krupneishego-pokupatelya-oruzhiya-indiya-zamorozila-peregovori-po-vertoletam-i-samoletam-a33902

I especially liked this part

Quote

 

Demand for Russian weapons is falling, including after the whole world saw them in action in Ukraine: the war dealt a "huge blow" to the reputation of Russian suppliers, says the president of the American Wilson Center, and former ambassador Mark Green.

"I don't think any country, after seeing primitive Russian bombs blow up buildings, will say, 'Yes, that's what we need,'" Green explains.

 

 

[dan/california]

2 minutes ago, sburke said:

I especially liked this part

 

I think the tanks that as dangerous to their own crews as they are anything on the enemy side have actually been a bigger problem. The only adds the flying turrets are going in is for the NLAW.