Russian special military operation in Ukraine #20

Regular wrote:Few things I don't understand about rumors regards these drones.
Only reason Russia would purchase foreign drones would be the need to fill the gap in domestic manufacturing. Currently, I can only think of Russia not having have a man-portable quadcopter in service and there is a need for that (as per Russian/DNR soldier interviews). But doesn't Iran has a small capacity to fulfill these needs? Why Iran and not China that is a leader in UAVs?

Because that depends on what drones we are talking about.
If we consider small surveillance ones, then sure - the Chinese are a superpower, and there is no better substitute for them. Wonder why they put a de iure embargo on drones delivery for conflict sides, still, there are hundreds of drones delivered to the Russkies, while the flow for Ukrs had visible dried out?
DJI is a superhero of this war, that is sure.
But if you jump up the ladder, you have bigger in size pieces that sure, the Chinese do produce in numbers, yet none of them is battle proven.
On the other hand, you have the Iranians. They were called pioneers of UAV warfare 15 years ago already. The drones they are using are battle proven against a superior enemy, and the best AD ze Wezt can have - an Israeli one. Plus they obviously have thousands of those, and production running at full swing - they present new models each 2-3 years, and have a solution at any tactical level. They lack the strategic drones only because of a gap in satellite comm they lack, still some of the drones they have an operational radius of 1500 km.
If they can transfer few hundreds of strike drones, let them be an old generation, I wouldn't oppose

Shahed 129, Shahed 149, Mohajer 6, Shahed 136, Kian 2. Iran has invested a lot in drone technology over the years and they've been testing what works and what doesn't for long time and in real conditions. Some of their designs are cheap and effective, others are pretty sophisticated. I don't see a problem if Russia buys several hundred to speed up demise of Ukr military.

Iran has officially stated that it will not provide weapons to either side in this conflict stating that adding new weapons will only increase suffering and make things worse... you know... the sort of thing the US would say when they invade countries and don't want any other country to support their enemies...

when they provide twice the number of HIMARS or provide ATACMS with 300-500km range that can hit near moscow and can be armed with nukes?

Or when they get a death star and can destroy all of Russia and the world at once.

These attacks by the Orcs have been responded to and they are currently being pummeled... if the US chooses to send ATACMS then Zelensky is dead and likely any part of the supply chain that delivers weapons to the Orcs will be targeted... which means death and destruction in western Ukraine that we have not seen so far.

If the US wants escalation the Russia will happily kill more of their enemy... the US is creating a genocide of people they claim are their allies.

So why are you getting upset and even answering to his posts?

To make it clear that not everyone ignores the lies of the west and those cowards that promote such treason should not be left to speak unchallenged... especially when they are reading from Americas hymn sheet.

Very indicative post on level of indoctrination of Ukrainian society. Apparently, Ukrainians are ordering cakes with pics of dead Russian soldiers. It shows that Ukraine needs to be completely defeated and cease to exist in its current form. Outfit that make cakes has almost 3000 followers on instagram.

So effectively the US escalating this situation with new weapons and the Russian military responding by launching more attacks and killing more Orcs is actually a healthy circle that promotes peace and democracy and freedom by killing lots of nazis.

Himars is a multipurpose launcher.. it can fire different kind of missiles ,from different ranges ,that can reach as High as 50km altitude. and its range can go as far as 500km.

HIMARS is a truck mounted launcher with one rocket pod. The M270, which is based on the Bradley IFV carries two pods.

The ATCMS missile you are talking about is big and replaces all 6 rockets in a pod so an M270 with two pods can carry and launch two ATCMS. HIMARS can only carry one ATCMS.

Iskander has two rockets per launch vehicle too and has a reach 200km greater than ATCMs with a much heavier warhead and better accuracy too.

means all Russian air short range air defenses are obsolete to target this missile at mid course. CAn't hit things 50km altitude.

They don't have any ATCMS and the normal ballistic rockets they fire have a range of about 60km and could no way get as high as 50km... the normal rockets the HIMARS uses are the equivalent of Uragan missiles... bigger than Grads but smaller and shorter ranged than Smerch rockets.

The Orcs had Smerch and Uragan and Grads which in many ways are all better than HIMARS.

HIMARS was developed because the M270 was too expensive... to buy and to operate... and they use Bradley vehicles so they already have a supply chain for the vehicles.

Even being a wheeled vehicle HIMARS is expensive and not as capable as Smerch and they have already lost plenty of those too.

Toscka is a soviet era missile , that Russia created and they understand very very well how to intercept those , and don't fly as high and as long as himars missiles.

Bullshit.

HIMARS is easy to intercept... Iskander includes sensors on board to detect incoming interceptors and can manouver to evade SAMs and AAMs... HIMARS has nothing like that.

Himars missiles are more closer to Iskanders ,but with far superior portability . So it would be similar as if NATO provided Iskanders to Ukraine , but that have a much compact portable design.

HIMARS wishes they were like Iskanders... by portability you mean lighter and shorter ranged and easy to shoot down then yes HIMARS is an inferior weapon.

Iskander carries two missiles ready to fire or it can carry 500km range cruise missiles with 1 ton warheads... right now they could load calibres and get 3,000km range missiles too.

If HIMARS were so hard to intercept they would be using them to try to target Russian S-350 and S-400 and BUK batteries, but they are not hard to intercept at all so they look for targets in civilian areas.

A few years later someone was looking into the real success rate of Patriot and it was shitty.

An average of 32 Patriots were fired per Scud target presented, and the vast majority were not shot down.

Shouldn´t Charlie* be on Russia´s side? Laughing Laughing Laughing


* the Americans called the Vietnamese "Charlie"

Charlie Hebdo is very much anti Russia, so not all Charlies are good charlies... and that is not a boob joke.

I agree. That's something Garry would have to look into. Put him on ice for few weeks or a month.

I understand it is annoying, but it would be a bit hipocritical of me to give him a ban for the length of his posts...

I personally think it is good to keep everyone grounded knowing not everyone is smart enough to understand western propaganda against Putin and Russia.

I mean it would make more sense for Zelensky to try and send the most pro-Russian groups to their likely demise from a political standpoint.

In other words, "recruit" and send more Eastern-ish and Central Ukrainians (who are more likely to be pro-Russian) out to the front or threaten them with prison (off somewhere in the West of the country where they won't be freed at some point by Russian forces).

Can only recruit from the territory he holds which greatly diminishes the number of pro Russian bodies he has at his command...

The Russians are not just blindly killing everyone they come across... the Brits and Moroccan that surrendered obviously surrendered, and if you are there because you were conscripted and you hate your nazi officers more than you hate the enemy... well if it comes down to the Russians killing you or your own officers killing you for trying to surrender or you killing your officers and then surrendering I know which option I would go for...

Russia has absolutely no need to buy drones from Iran. Besides that it is dubious that Iran would be able to deliver some and certainly not 'several hundreds'.

Even if they sent thousands... they will be Iranian drones and not Russian drones so any satellite links wont be set up and where are all the operators going to come from... and how long to train them?

Ridiculous.

Ukrainian did very well with dumb civilian drones armed with fancy grenades managing to destroy million dollar tanks. Russians copied this after seeing their good results.

Yeah, because Russia has never seen armed drones before...

And how many tanks were actually destroyed... video lies.

Small drones + artillery isn't as good as bigger armed drones against moving targets

Not true at all. Even the biggest drone might have 4 to 8 missiles and then it is useless... an artillery drone can wander looking for targets... artillery can then be used to attack those targets including an enormous column of enemy forces and it can keep pounding those targets all day and all night... and the weight of 8 missiles might equal 300-500kgs which is a lot of fuel for extra endurance to allow that unarmed drone to continue watching the target and see if any enemy try to escape and their escape routes and what buildings they end up hiding in... they can also remain over the targets to evaluate what needs to be hit again or when you can move on to a different target... which speeds up the engagement and dramatically reduces the amount of wasted ammo.

Drones are also good for intel gathering which would help hunting enemy artillery. They have hard time destroying those HIMARs and relying on AD to intercept their rockets is just dumb and doesn't work.

Larger HALE and MALE drones would be excellent for defeating enemy mobile artillery and AD units.

AD is doing their job protecting the force that is destroying the Orc army.

The very idea that they will take enough AD to cover everything is just ridiculous and childish.

As far as I know Russia has cheap shitty drones in number of thousands and not that it needs Iranian cheap shitty drones that wouldn't not even have integration.

Which just shows your bias... their artillery drones seem to be very good, which explains why their artillery is so effective... but continue to ignore the obvious and bollock on about US accusations intended to tar Russia as incompetent... you are being a good foot soldier for Biden and Zelensky... I doubt you will get a medal.

It makes an impression.

Looks like two columns of Orcs just got plastered with some trying to escape across fields and tangent roads...

Having 6000 of your soldiers dead to go easy on SS units and just test weapons...

If people find out it was what you are saying is true Putin and his generals may end up overthrown by the soldiers.

They are fighting what is effectively a civil war with a peer enemy... lets compare performance with the action in Chechnia... which did not have active direct support from HATO sending Javelins and Stingers etc etc... I would say the difference in performance has been transformational and Putin and his Generals should be rewarded for preventing the Kiev attack on the Donbass to quickly be followed by an attack on the Crimea.

It is hilarious... Putin is weak and a coward for letting Kiev shell the Donbass and Lugansk, now he is a monster for something else... no surprises... just keep barking... it is what barking dogs do... but just remember you are barking for the benefit of the west and they will reward you the way they rewarded the Afghans that helped them...

The Kiev regime forces may collapse faster than expected.

It will likely happen suddenly... certain people at the top will run and the rest will follow and those that remain will wonder how the **** they ended up fighting Russia in the first place.

I guess this partly explains all the yammering about HIMARS and drones and other
crap that is, according to Kiev regime propaganda, ruining Russia's "plans".

Funny how the propaganda intensifies just before a big loss... retreat after failure and withdrawal and all these promised million man counter attacks never materialise, or they do but we don't hear about their defeats...

I don't agree 100% with every conclusion he says , but still is quite good report.

A person from the west putting on a fake accent pretending to be Russian to tell western audiences western propaganda... weak.

My educated guess is that preparation of drone's production was delayed by "deep stat" in Russia i.e. middle management doing a little and not on time. Now Orions' production has been ramped up to 3 shifts yet it will take time to saturate units.

You can ramp up shit drone production easy enough, but if you want decent products you can continue using for years then you need decent datalinks and decent cameras... including IR cameras, and you need to make it out of durable materials to survive multiple uses and rough handling in the field.

Cracking such things out in a month is pointless because they will be as useless as some Chinese drones appear to have turned out.

You get what you pay for... cheap drones are not worth the manpower and efforts to train and put into service.

Russians use what they have what would you suggest they shall use right now? beside obvious more AD?

Ignore the pin pricks... pushing them back moves them further from civilian targets and protects them better than bringing in lots of otherwise useless AD vehicles to sit in civilian areas just in case.

The Orcs have good recon so they will see where new AD vehicles are placed and there will be thousands of other places they can launch attacks at.

Weapon dumps are not enormous to avoid all the eggs in one basket problem buy you can't have one shell in one ammo dump... it is not practical.

Bigger dumps with better AD probably makes sense.

It's not all positive - it's war, Russia is more effective at dealing death to the Ukrainian side, what problems they have to be ironed out if possible, the rest - after the war. Look at what new weapons are Russians testing in Ukraine, I hope you like this video

It is not a Hellfire, more an IIR guided Brimstone with a digital datalink to the launch aircraft allowing them to manouver it to find and engage targets in flight.

A bit like SLAM (AS-13/AS-18), but with thermals.

Unless Russia companies can't mass produce that laptop in the millions , it will not become a very profitable business , because of the high price and the low sales for what it offer.

Russian companies supplying products to only the Russian market could not compete with international companies like Dell that sell their products around teh world and make them in enormous volumes.

Thanks to the current conflict Dell will be out of the market so Russian companies will not have to compete with big western companies... only Asian ones not aligned with the west.

GarryB wrote:

Russia has absolutely no need to buy drones from Iran. Besides that it is dubious that Iran would be able to deliver some and certainly not 'several hundreds'.

Even if they sent thousands... they will be Iranian drones and not Russian drones so any satellite links wont be set up and where are all the operators going to come from... and how long to train them?

Ridiculous.

Only because you consider one scenario and put some trivial pride into the whole quotation.
Most of the UAVs we talk about don't need SAT comm.
Bayraktar didn't have one till 2020, and the model is twice expensive and has not been sold to any customer AFAIR.
Russia seriously lacks the numbers NOW, as the whole business was built from scratch in the last 5 years only.
Some of the drones they are using are heavily dependent on supply they are cut off.
Sure the Russkies have a need to get more of them, the only question is what scenario would have been optimal. Either buy some stock models from another source or put that money to increase your own production capacity. Production cap is not something you take out of thin air and in a night. Sure that Kronshtadt factory can supply drones, but how many? And how long does it take to quadruple the production?
Do you know what is funny?
We discuss some mythical supply from the west being or not being a game changer for the Ukrs, while denying the same reasonable approach to the Russkies based on some immature superiority syndrome.
Russian decision centers have proven already that they can be very pragmatic, and push a strategic goal at the expense of local pushback.
I can bet rubles to peanuts, that if they would have considered the need for fast implementation of big numbers of inexpensive, simple and cheap drones - they know the address.

Hole wrote:

Arkanghelsk wrote:Some unconfirmed reports claiming half of Soledar has been liberated. This would suggest either a collapse or a pull back as I suggested earlier.

Waiting for visual proof, that probably won’t come until the morning.

Wow if this is confirmed seversk and Bakhmut are cut off, and the M03 is under fire control

The famed Charlie company was defending Soledar

Either Charlie ran away, or was fixed and destroyed by the shelling last night,  

Guys tonight will be nasty for them, we are seeing a level of shelling not observed since the beginning of the war

Shouldn´t Charlie* be on Russia´s side? 


* the Americans called the Vietnamese "Charlie"

Who needs "Charlie" when you have the Vee Zee!

Any thoughts who joined the party?



Long&thin, very high attack angle ...  

It's Nikolayev, today morning.

JohninMK wrote:

Did the missile get elongated by the camera? That's a standard Iskander attack path.

It is, that was still the best I could made with pause button.
Seems thin&long anyway.
TRajectory would be Iskander, but the explosion is slightly weak.
Some Bastion, perhaps.

Only because you consider one scenario and put some trivial pride into the whole quotation.
Most of the UAVs we talk about don't need SAT comm.

It is western idiots like Vann who claim more drones of apparently any type will save the day in the Ukraine... ignoring who is actually having the bad day in the first place.

What Russia needs now are medium to long endurance drones to operate over the battlefield 24/7 looking for the smoke of rocket launches or to get directions from radar batteries regarding artillery fire to get eyes on target the fastest. They don't need to be armed, but they need to find the guns and rockets just as they fire or just after so they can track where they go to hide so that hiding place can be leveled along with everyone inside.

No one has thousands of those and it would be more practical to use a satellite link and operate them from Russian territory out of harms way than have operators in the Ukraine that could be targeted based on their emissions.

Bayraktar didn't have one till 2020, and the model is twice expensive and has not been sold to any customer AFAIR.

That piece of crap is easy to spot and easy to shoot down if you have modern AD equipment like the Russians do.

They need something that flys out of range of most AD and the altitude would be useful to view wide areas of territory at one time.

The intel the orcs are getting from HATO means they could probably benefit from it being relatively stealthy, but the presence of a non stealthy model might lead them to scoot more than shoot which means they will be defeated simply by pushing the front line back out of range of friendlies.

Russia seriously lacks the numbers NOW, as the whole business was built from scratch in the last 5 years only.

Bullshit... how many do they have exactly?

If you don't know then how can you claim to know they need more or that more would make any difference at all?

Don't you think their artillery has been so effective because they are good at guesswork?

We have seen small drones being used by troops clearing trenches... does that suggest a lack of small drones?

All this bullshit about lack of drones comes from two sources... sullivan... a known lying  and Vann... our resident and he is our resident because he repeats like sullivan as if they know what they are talking about.

Sullivans job is not to inform western audiences of the truth... his job is to manipulate the public and Americas allies to form a hostile view of Russia and Russians and he will tell any lie to try to achieve that.

Some of the drones they are using are heavily dependent on supply they are cut off.

Drones made in Russia the last 8 years haven't been able to use foreign parts... Western Sanctions prohibit things used by the Russian military... which includes drones.

Sure the Russkies have a need to get more of them, the only question is what scenario would have been optimal.

Artillery drones and long endurance MALE and HALE drones don't get shot down as much as the smaller drones that operate at much lower altitudes.

Who says they need more... you have not established that yet.

Sure that Kronshtadt factory can supply drones, but how many? And how long does it take to quadruple the production?

That factory makes specific drones they might not have any use for in this conflict... there are plenty of drone making companies and factories in Russia making drones of all shapes and sizes... an excellent opportunity to test all those new weapons they are developing for their drones too...

The west claimed they would run out of cruise missiles... after the first two weeks and every week since then... doesn't seem to be true though does it?

The west also claimed they weren't using drones despite drone footage of M777 batteries being chased into a forest and shelled...

Seems the west might not be a good reliable source for anything happening in this conflict.

We discuss some mythical supply from the west being or not being a game changer for the Ukrs, while denying the same reasonable approach to the Russkies based on some immature superiority syndrome.

The Russians have C4IR and well trained forces that work together that include artillery and armour and air power, which makes them mobile and protected and with the ability to mow down conscript troops in the open like nobodies business... and fortunately the enemy is obliging them by marching troops into the maw of the machine.

The results are not surprising at all.

I can bet rubles to peanuts, that if they would have considered the need for fast implementation of big numbers of inexpensive, simple and cheap drones - they know the address.

Except both China and Iran have stated that while they understand Russias reasons for starting and continuing this conflict they have no interest in sending weapons to either side as they both state it would just make things worse and lead to more suffering... morally and ethically a sensible stance in stark contrast to the western stance of feeding the flames and getting their supposed allies killed in much greater numbers by putting pocket knives in their hands and pushing them towards the angry bear.

This conflict is excellent practise for Russia... they use systems like HIMARS... Smerch and Uragan and Grad are essentially the same thing... mobile cheap wheeled rocket vehicles... what they lack is the expensive M270 version even though Smerch carries the same number of rockets able to reach greater distances and with more variety of rocket payloads.... and Iskander of course.

MSTA has proven to be a very capable system but then 2S3 and 2S4 and 2S5 and 2S7 all seem to be excellent vehicles too...

Long&thin, very high attack angle ...  dunno

It's Nikolayev, today morning.

Very hard to say... if it is early morning a longer exposure to gather more light will make moving objects distort more and become more blurry...

Evidence as per Ukraine changing ambassadors in 5 countries a week or so ago. It means 5 'important' families can now leave the country with full pay packet whilst I'd bet that the existing position holders don't return home.

I wonder how much these new ambassadors are paying for such a role.... US campaign fund contributors often got diplomatic roles... we had a US ambassador who objected to being posted to some African country... she claimed the large contribution should have gotten her a nicer country so she came here to New Zealand as ambassador... but the US is not corrupt... only countries we say are corrupt are corrupt.

TRajectory would be Iskander, but the explosion is slightly weak.
Some Bastion, perhaps.

Way too thin to be Iskander or Kinzhal... they are shorter and fatter... I would guess either a Calibr or an Onyx, or possibly a Smerch rocket.

The explosion is not a great measure because a penetrating warhead might have been going for lower levels in a multistory complex that would mute the explosion as it appears from the surface...

Hole wrote:

I guess they failed to agree on a price?

JohninMK wrote:

Mir wrote:
I guess they failed to agree on a price?

Just had to post a link at The Drive

"Just found this, a few days ago the Russians claimed to have hit a warehouse with 2 HIMAR and a large supply of missiles. This photo has appeared and it looks real, not sure now to embed it but I'm sure many here won't want to see it."

It is just another direct proof, that what we can hear at RusMOD briefings is more or less accurate, at least to the level they can check&confirm the things by themselves.
That was already evidenced by tons of destroyed Ukro AF pieces, revealed only when the land was conquered. Accidentally, the numbers started to add up with the Russian statistics.
That is a quite important factor, as tons of propaganda is being produced based on a lack of knowledge of statistics Mr. Johns. For example, there is a new approach to undermine the Russian data, as they already hit 1300+ drones. They are trying to fool this number by putting Bayraktar as the sole variable in whole math. As the audience is dumb, it eats that shit not knowing how many different drones models Ukrs are using, all of them being targeted.

Well, the point is that it is exactly that, and was presented as a warehouse with M777 hit&destroyed.

I was addressing a wider perspective - Russian briefings are accurate, so if they claim that strikes HIMARS, they probably did.
Still don't get that hype, it is just like a Russian MOD stepping into Murican commercial campaign as an actor

It's an FMTV that was towing a M777 that was lost, not a M142. You know that.

If you want the M777 to move anywhere then you need to have a towing vehicle where you have the M777 if you want to be able to move the M777... storing them separately would massively lower the mobility of the M777 because you would need to drive to the M777s location before you could hook it up and move the M777 to where you want to use it... hense common sense means they are stored together.

We have seen captured guns and now destroyed towing vehicles... We will see more and more destroyed equipment as the Russian forces advance and capture sites they cleared of Nazis.

Curious that Russian mil-bloggers have said their forces have had no luck intercepting HIMARS strikes and outside of a heavily cropped photo allegedly of the tail end of a rocket that circulated on Telegram a few days ago there's been no proof Russia has been able to intercept any. Have you seen any actual evidence to suggest that your friends have been able to negate any rockets?

They only seem to hit civilian targets... if the Russians couldn't intercept them wouldn't it make rather more sense to be hitting Russian forces with these rockets?

Except Russian forces are properly defended and even Uragan and Grad and Smerch rockets and Tochka missiles are not getting through to them...

GarryB wrote:

They only seem to hit civilian targets... if the Russians couldn't intercept them wouldn't it make rather more sense to be hitting Russian forces with these rockets?

Except Russian forces are properly defended and even Uragan and Grad and Smerch rockets and Tochka missiles are not getting through to them...

Civilian plus some republican. They are much weaker defended, the only toys they have are Osa, and that would not be in big numbers either.
As Hole said, each destroyed barn will be presented as weapon storage, and each building turned to be a command point or headquarters in the western shitstream.
A reversed reality theory in being...