Russian special military operation in Ukraine #12

Named the number of foreign mercenaries attracted by Kiev since the beginning of the special operation of the RF Armed Forces

Representatives of Poland are the most numerous, followed by the USA, Canada and Romania, after - Great Britain, Georgia and Syria.

https://tvzvezda-ru.translate.goog/news/2022417115-P03Xt.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB&_x_tr_pto=nui

Russia tracking :

6824 mercenaries from 63 countries
Poles make up 25%
1035 known dead
912 quit and left
~400 trapped at Mariupol

To understand that blind spot on Moskva, compare to Aegis cruisers.....they have their phased array radar plate in four directions, covering 360 degrees.

You mean it is a bit like Patriots blind spot with angled launchers only able to engage targets within a 120 degree field of view of the direction the angled launchers are facing?

This is an image of the tracking radar that tracks the targets and the outgoing missiles during interception...



From the rear of the ship it is the large object on the pedastal between the Fort vertical launch tubes and the gray painted helicopter hangar.

From the front:



You can see how far back it is mounted and its rather good field of regard.

If you look at the second image the small radar above the second set of Vulcan missiles on the closest side of the ship and behind the RBU munitions launchers for anti sub and anti diver and anti torpedo work is the radar that would track low flying missiles qued by the search radar which should have detected them at about 12km range or so.

Osas are bad at intercepting and disabling subsonic, sea-skimming targets. On April 16, 1987, an anti-air / missile interception exercise ended in disaster when Musson, a Nanuchka-class small missile boat got hit by an RM-15M target practice missile.

And yet in Desert Storm only a few years later they shot down several Tomahawk cruise missiles...

The OSA is intended to be used together with the 30mm gatling mounts to deal with low flying subsonic threats.

Do you not think that if it failed in tests they might have worked out what the problems were and fixed them?

Early tests with Igla missiles found that against very small targets like ATGMs the Igla didn't make physical contact with the target which meant they just flew past and did not explode because they had contact fuses. The Igla-S with a proximity fuse was the solution, but with naval OSA I would expect an optimised proximity fuse was required to deal with smaller targets than aircraft.

They aren't using anything. No drones, no air force, no artillery. They seem to make war with kalibr and iskanders.

We have seen plenty of videos of Hohol targets being smacked with relatively small warheads that clearly are not Kalibrs or Iskanders which make large holes and big fireballs.

Many of the videos are attack helos with ATGMs but quite a few are also likely guided artillery rounds too.

The hunt for AD is also very poor. No nasty tactics to hunt them like israeli do.

HATO decided to not use helicopters at all and only fly above 8km altitude in Kosovo because it was too dangerous and Serbia had nothing like the equipment the Ukraine has... Serbia would have beaten HATO if they had the gear the Orcs had....

It is quite possible that the Moskva was Torpedoed by a NATO submarine, either an SSK or an SSN.
And now NATO itself is spreading this fake news of Ukrainian cruise missiles backed by Turkish drones sinking the Moskva.

Unlikely for two very important reasons... first they don't have the balls... second the sea bed arrays the Russians have defending the port of Sevastopol would have picked up western subs.

Very little is used. We saw footage of only 3 kub suicide drones and they didn't even explode. Lancet are nowhere, no sign of them.

We didn't see video of Orion launching Kornet missiles till about a month after they were used in Syria.... are you that stupid to think we are seeing video of everything Russia is doing as they are doing it?

Maybe you are trying to goad someone into revealing footage or maybe you want to create the impression the Russians are using drones so the Nazis get lax, but I rather doubt the nazis visit this site for combat advice.

Ukrainian artillery still manage to fire on russian artillery. Lancet would be nice there to take it out. Or some drones to guide russian fire on them.

Ukrainian artillery seems to be scattered individual vehicles right now, which makes them more difficult to deal with, but I am sure the Russians will cope.

Sukhoi are downed as soon as they enter ukraine. Still lot of AD activity.

That is funny because so many Orc planes are being shot down with no SAM being mentioned...

Are there Russian ghosts of Sevastopol in the air knocking them down?

According to one Ukrainian account, a Bayraktar took out the radar. Which left the vessel vulnerable to the Neptun threat.

Hahaha... so how did it manage to take out the radar?

It would have to be the rear mounted tracking radar, but the S-300F can't hit targets closer than 7km anyway... the S-300F is for shooting down launch platforms, not low flying missile threats.

The 6 x 30mm gatling gun mounts are for shooting at sea skimming threats, as are the OSA missiles.

Only reaction you will get in the West on that news would be "F*ck, we were so close to finishing them off, that was awesome idea, hopefully we can try again!"

West wants Russians exterminated, this is the last news that they would be dissatisfied with

Agree, which is why Russia needs to respond in kind because this war wont put them off... they are going to keep trying till they get it right.

Bayraktar bit is bullshit, most likely it was a salvo of Neptunes or older systems that overwhelmed Moskva. Or a mime clown

You think Marcel Marceau did this?

I've been following the news but I don't see any decisive retribution yet as answer to the cowardly attack on the Moskva.

Which suggests the Russians don't think it was a missile attack either.

Fact is both NATO's and Russia's warplans have not gone according to plan, and both of them are suffering higher losses than they anticipated, while trying to adapt to each other's tactics constantly and outsmart the other.

Problem for Russia is Russia probably cares more about the Orcs than HATO does...

If they show no footage, then there was no drone and then the whole story about the missiles is just that, a story.

Good point... if the drone took out all the radars (Soviet ships of that era normally had lots of radar.... radar for S-300F, radar for OSA, radar for the guns (130mm and 30mm) and other navigation and search radar too), but didn't stick around to watch these missiles hit this ship... very unlikely...

"If Ukraine continues its provocations by attacking Russian cities, Russia will be forced to declare war against Ukraine” - Dmitri Peskov.

Which means they will no longer be trying to liberate Ukrainians in teh south and east, they will start destroying the Orcs in the north and the west...

"one solitary mine would not have been able to sink such a massive cruiser" Maybe but a chain of events that it initiated could do so.

Sea mines could easily have been run in to with the mine explosion near the front of the ship where the 130mm gun and its ammo are located... if that started a fire it could do serious damage to the front of the ship. A ship in a storm with a weakened nose could lead to the front of the ship breaking and letting in lots and lots of water...

130mm ammo stores will have sprinkler systems so they might have gotten the fire under control but the damage to the front of the ship might have been substantial... there are no crew areas in that part of the ship so the chance of any casualties would be low except for those fighting the fire.

Oksana Marchenko has suggested that Viktor Medvedchuk should be traded for two Brits captured in Ukraine

How does she know who Russia has captured... sounds like she is being used.

It is Putin and co who caused this disaster

Yes, those Ukrainians killing Russians the last eight years... they were Putin. The bio weapons labs... Putin set those up.

Nuclear weapons.. Putin was going to supply them...

You want some evidence? NOTE THE LOCATION OF THE FIRE!

That grainy crap image could be anything.... that sutton has been spouting Kiev propaganda for a while now... he is as respectable and trust worth as Zelensky.

The sort of troll that gets access to radar data first like Bellingcat and other western intel sources.

Maybe they are waiting for an official russian statement saying it was an accident so that they can release the footage.

Right... of course...

Anyway, since the Neptun plant was attacked the following night, I think it's fair to say Neptun anti-ship missiles were responsible

Or maybe the attack on the neptun plant was in response to the Orc attack on Russian territory...

Too bad those soft ERA bags for the side skirts were totally fucking useless. One side swipe against errant branch and the whole assembly falls apart. Should have invested in a much sturdier mounting like those in the T-14

Sounds like this vehicle took three hits... at the very least NLAW to the SIDE and REAR... no western tank would survive an RPG-26 to the side or rear... let alone an RPG-28.

Zelensky is in a way doing Russia a favour by saying only 3000 Ukrainian troops have died

Why start telling the truth now...

A tu160 flying close to the border, what if Ukr su27 or mig 29 pops up and shoots r27?

Its missiles have a flight range of 4,500km... it could be launching strikes in the Ukraine from the North Pole.

0 naval losses is actually the minimum standard against a 3rd world country without a navy like Ukraine. Cope.

They are a shining european democracy, they are first world and Russia is only still second world.... that is where all the indignation is coming from in the west... I mean murdering Iraqi children or making Iranian children die from sanctions or bombing and destroying Syria and Libya and Afghanistan is OK because they are not white europeans like these Nazis are... they are probably also crying a bit that they are nazis and the nazis were clearly supposed to save them from the Russians this time.

One would assume it's ECM and other soft-kill assets would immediately try to counter.

How could so many things go wrong simultaneously? There is more to it than what meets the eye.

The simplest answer is they hit a mine.

That's correct. NATO lacks the courage to confront Russia directly, but this doesn't mean they won't adopt sneaky methods to hurt Russia.

It is what they do... do you think they weren't encouraging Pakistan to fight India all those decades during the Cold War... even now they are trying to get India to fight China... they are scum.

That's like saying NATO fighting Iraq was like it fighting the USSR because the USSR supplied it with weapons.

The USSR didn't exist when HATO forces were fighting Iraq, during the 1980s Iraq was fighting Iran and the west was helping them because of that, it was only when Saddam invaded kuwait and they feared he might also invade saudi arabia that they got all shitty with him. One man in charge of too much middle east oil is a danger for them.

Yes, I'm calling the commanding officers of the Russian navy incompetent monkeys. Only a monkey can a lose the flagship of the black sea fleet by deploying it in a risky area and not being able to shoot down a couple of missiles. Also the damage control seemed to be worthless. If the ship sank because of negligence bloke some monkeys smoking cigarettes on board or lack of electric maintenance, the black sea fleet officials also deserve to be called monkeys.

Sure, just show us the footage from the drones of the missiles hitting the ship... making up stories to call your enemy incompetent is the pinnacle of cope you idiot.

only 2 gorshkovs are in service. Let that sink in.

They tested them and decided on some upgrades and improvements which they are applying to some new build models that will also be tested before they decide which to put into serial production.

600 F-35s and they don't work so now they are putting F-15s back into production and now potential F-35 customers want F-15s instead...

That is what happens when you put something in to serial production before it is even working properly.

Z is saying if the Mariupol pocket is liquidated, then talks are off. So there is clearly someone valuable there. Russians should give them 24 hours before using thermobarics on the complex.

That is good news...

Are you saying the little ERA plates on the roof of the T-72 can protect against EFPs and tandem warheads?

No, but a poor shot at an angle would set off the ERA and might redirect the second warhead to an angle that makes it useless.

During testing a missile was fired at a T-64 and it hit the ERA and the tool box on the side of the tank and that was enough to stop the HEAT warhead from penetrating the side of the vehicle too.

Also it's high time tanks get MAWS that detect F&F ATGMs.

APS and DIRCMS would be more effective for guided enemy weapons, but useless for the disposable and reusable range of Soviet and Russian RPGs.

So fucking what?

They gave them equipment, big deal, I can give my dog keys to my car it doesn't mean he will suddenly pass a driving exam

You can give Ukrainians M-1 Abrams' and F-15s and Apache gunships it wouldn't matter one bit

These are the same retard pussy apes that they were 50 days ago who only know how to shell civilians and hide in cities and no amount of equipment, intel or training will ever change that

I appreciate what you are saying.... these Orcs are not elite troops, but most HATO troops are not either... there is a reason there were no HATO ground troops sent to Kosovo till after a peace agreement was signed, and there is a reason there are no HATO troops in Ukraine officially now... despite the fact that there clearly are because they have been captured.

But 100,000 people with basic military training driving around in civilian cars following instructions via cellphone, and launching surprise attacks on a much smaller force of Russians is not something that is easy to deal with... 20 years of HATO with all the drones in the world and air power and artillery and they didn't defeat the Taliban... who were stronger when the US left than when they went in there.

Should Russia win you will see these same "non-nazi innocent civilians" the next day protesting against filthy moskals, demanding their European rights and throwing molotovs on Russian troops

Russia expected the locals to want to be freed from their nazi oppressors, and the ones in the east they were right and also probably most of the south coast too and so when they clean out the Nazis in those areas things can return to something like normal eventually, but the rest of the country they are idiots or prefer nazi ukrainians to normal Russians... who cares...

Save the south and the east and let the north and west burn.

To get back to Russia, I'll give Putin credit where it is due, but on Ukraine he's been mostly wrong and his actions were just reactions to US moves.

By all means tell us what you would have done differently... btw reactions to US moves makes it the fault of the US doesn't it?

They should be happy, this is exactly what they wanted... but then they also wanted all the wars they have gotten involved in over the last few decades too.

Everyone saying Putin is an idiot and a fool... funny really that Russia is in its current position to actually challenge the west considering what a loser and idiot he is.

I mean I perfectly understand the west demanding he step down and face war crimes courts in the west, but doesn't that mean they think he isn't making any mistakes and is a real threat to them even now... you don't call for a leader to step down if they are idiots making mistakes.

People just have to get their heads around the simple fact that the US has created this situation.... this is what they wanted but they wanted Russia to collapse and it looks like it might be the west that collapses when they run out of energy and the rest of the world stops accepting US dollars.

The 15-16 refers to his mental age.

Sadly for many such things never chance or they even regress from being mature sensible adults to squealing little girls.

Damages that sink a big ship generally kill plenty of sailors. That was true for all the big ship disasters so it must be the case for moskva too.

Not ones that sink in storms under tow. In good weather it probably would not have even sunk.... two real Uran hits and they would never have gotten it under tow...

They are alive because Russia is allowing it

You do know how long it took the US to defeat the Iraqi army, and they use airpower instead of artillery the way the Russians do it, but those Americans didn't care about civilians at all and were happy to level anything to get Iraqi soldiers and it took months to get those soldiers...

Russia is being careful not to kill civilians but that does not mean they are not killing ukainian soldiers when they spot them.

Two months ago everyone here was in agreement that Ukrainians are what Ukrainians are: Nazi inbred apes but today they suddenly became some NATO looking genius super-soldiers?

Not at all. They have a supply route and a propaganda support section that is world class but they are not going to win... they know it.

Not a single thing about Ukrainians has changed since two months ago but everyone here started proclaiming them to be some kind warrior master race just so they could make excuses for Russian pussyfooting

No one is suggesting they are anything but scum and most need to be exterminated or tried in a court of law... the point is that they get the choice... they can surrender or they can keep fighting.

True, but, you could target the haplogroup and maybe even haplogroup markers which do reflect to very broad spectrum the ethnicity of an ethnic group. Let's assume your haplogroup is R1a (mostly russians) and the guys who want to see you dead, because you inhabit the richest country on earth, have haplogroup R1b (anglo-saxons). These both ethnicities are different and this is of course just uneducated guesses, but, they would be the able to target entire races/ethnicities if they have such technology and precision to target specific genetics like haplogroups and their markers. I bet they have researched that kind of capability for many years already.

The performance of the US and UK in the Covid pandemic clearly shows they are not working on how to deal with pandemics... which means they are working on weaponising viruses... near the Russian border... with adverts asking Russians to donate samples of things... whether they can or not it is clearly what they were trying to do.

Now that Russia has interrupted these games it can look at what was happening and perhaps play her own games.... I mean if the US wants to play such games... lets play.

If you go back on this like PD, you will achieve exactly the Western war aims - which is a permanent alienation between Russians and Ukrainians and a long-lasting insurgency. No, killing them all is not an option, for the last time. There is barely a Russian without Ukrainian relatives and vice-versa. We have so many Ukrainians and Ukrainian-born people in our own country that we will face severe internal troubles from any such tactics too. Fight the regime, it's ideology, its fanatics, its foreign supporters, not the people themselves.

You complain about Putin not doing enough... where were all these relatives while Poro and Zelensky were shelling what they called Russian traitors in the Donbass?

They shouldn't get a say now if they didn't speak up before.

I guess you're Russian and you know what it means PODLODKA ? I believe in submarines.

Subs are important but Russia now needs to expand its reach globally to match its trade ambitions which means a surface fleet...

Bets ; C-130

How many C-130s does the Ukraine military have?

They were allowing transport planes to fly uninterrupted all this time

Got to get their HATO super weapons to the front lines...

As for FP, he lives in Russia and understands dynamics of Ru-Ukr relationship much better and also Russian internal politics.
I hate making saints from politicians. That always backfires in the long run.

I am under the impression he is Ukrainian and a bit butt hurt that Ukraine was so stupid and gullible to fall for the wests temptations of EU and HATO membership... all you have to do is totally destroy your own economy and go to war with the former super power on your border by shelling your own people for 8 years.

Looks like that Ka-52 that was forced to land around Gostomel was blown up before the Russians withdrew after all, assuming the photo is of that one

Didn't you and others bitch and moan about leaving such things to be hauled off by the enemy and how putin should resign over this handling of the war?

Will he ever get an apology from you?

Is black a standard uniform colour or are they wearing that for mourning losses. There is NO WAY there is a fire and explosion big enough to sink a 10K ton ship with 500 people on board that does not result in substantial deaths..

A small fire weakening the structure of a ship in a storm can easily cause it to sink... in a storm anything can sink under tow.

Being hit by two Uran type missiles means it should have sunk straight away and never been put under tow.

The only large actual bomber (as in a plane actually able to carry bombs internally) RU operates is Tu-22M3, when it isn't loaded with 3x Kh-22/32s.

Actually it can carry bombs even when it has three Kh-22/32 type missiles loaded... see the bombs on the multiple ejector racks under the engine intakes:

(1) And no, the "FOAB" was not dropped by a Tu-160 back in 2008 or whenever that demo took place, it was clearly slid out from the cargo hold of an Il-76 or some such.

Blame the media for that... they said the Russian military had just tested the bomb and then they showed footage of a Daisy Cutter bomb from Vietnam era being dropped out the rear of a C-130 Herc, so it was probably dropped by a Tu-160 with its rotary cruise missile launcher removed... the weapon bay is 11m long so it would fit easily enough.

Note the Tu-22M3 can't carry the FAB-9000, it can carry FAB-3000s and FAB-5000s on its weapon pylons (the Kh-22s come in sized of up to 5 tons too).

During the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s they put some Tu-16s back into service specifically to test some FAB-9000s... they weren't as powerful as they were hoping because they didn't detonate properly. A redesign with extra detonators solved that problem.

PS, Russia should really develop a cheap-ish PGM add-on like the U.S. Paveway series.

Actually PGM kits were a sneaky way for US weapons makers to turn cheap dumb bombs into expensive guided bombs... it was just a way to make money.

Instead Russia makes custom designed guided bombs using laser and TV guided versions.

Problem is, Russia (well, the USSR) kinda stuck with the un-aerodynamic M54 bomb models, optimized for internal carry.

The low-drag M62 variants don't show up as often, and aren't ideal for such a "kit" either due to the fin layout (the "ring" in particular) and general stubbiness.

The power of a HE bomb is not improved by impact speed so those unaerodynamic bombs are not a problem for bombers like the Tu-22M3, the M62 are for external carriage on Su-24 and Su-34 types but Su-25s just use the old bombs because they are not fast enough for aerodynamic shape to matter.

Gefest & T systems means cheap iron bombs remain cheap to use against targets with the precision coming from the aircraft and is totally reusable... a much smarter idea really.

The aerodynamics of each bomb type is programmed into the bombing systems so they are all quite accurate in use and can be effectively and safely used at altitude with a reasonable level of precision... while being cheap and using up existing stocks without making them million dollar bombs like the Paveway kits did.

The SVP-24 "Gefest" doesn't solve this issue either, though it certainly is an upgrade over the legacy bomb computers.

It solves the problem beautifully for older aircraft.... newer ones don't need it though.

But there *has* to be some way to properly PGM-ize at least the M62 models.

There is no need to make their cheap old iron bombs expensive. Newer aircraft can deliver them with a level of precision that is good enough for most tasks.

Bear in mind that some targets are precision targets but some times... a lot of the time you know the enemy is there but you don't know exactly where or it is spread out over a relatively wide area and one bomb is just not going to get the job done.

Helicopters often find situations where a spread of rockets is what it needs rather than the precision of an ATGM.

Anyway, the laser guidance add-ons for S-8 and S-13 rockets seemed very clever. Whatever happened to those?

We have seen them on drones with individual launch tubes... the rockets themselves don't need any special modifications as Russian platforms able to launch rockets generally have stabilised laser target markers anyway, which is all the system needs to work.

Kinda funny how the US had to copy the MI-26 gearbox concept to enable the CH-53K enough power.

Of their helicopter engines are so weak the CH-53K needs three engines and it is still not as powerful as the Mi-26.

One issue is that there's a huge inventory of old m54 bombs in the inventory still.

They still do a great job when accurately delivered, and for internal carriage on a Tu-22M3 their shape makes them a more efficient fit for internal weapon bays... which is appearing on the Su-57 and Su-75 and PAK DA.

Can't they just make the kit include a front and rear fairing to improve the aero of the bomb?

Why?

The main planes carrying the bombs are Su-25 and Tu-22M3... with Su-34 and Su-24 they often carry M62 type low drag bombs anyway.

Certainly the M54s are no more draggy than the 20 shot 80mm rocket pods they carry too.