Russian special military operation in Ukraine #21

ucmvulcan wrote:

Isos wrote:
They hope to get f-16 now which won't happen.

Awww, Monino needs an A-10 and F-16 in its collection

I hope they get F-16 and A-10s, we know that they are unable to fly them and by now almost no experienced pilots should be available to the Hohols. That only means we have a chance to kill Wild Weasel Cowboys trying to get some experience against Russian AD and hopefully get them alive after shooting them down. Would be quite a nice picture to keep them as POWs until 9th May and present them there.

ALAMO wrote:
Well, Gepard is much better than Shilka, due to two main factors.
A 35 mm caliber gun, and a much much better ammunition set, that includes AHEAD and airburst pieces. Not to mention a regular APDS that will tear apart everything up to the tank level of protection.
Still there is nothing to impress, if you have in your disposal lets say Tunguska, which - suprice suprice - Ukrs had in numbers.
Where are the Tunguskas and Tors, if one needs to hype on 60 y/o !! system?

Yes, they are overall better than Shilkas, but I doubt that any of the existing Gepards outside testing beds have ever received any upgrades to enable them to use airburst ammunition.

The Hohols had Thunguskas, but rather using or repairing them they set them on fire for a Propaganda twitter video to claim they destroyed Russian Thunguskas. This is just ridiculous. Pentagon demands PR for the idiot western citizens but they have no bloody open wound to show, so they take a shot gun and shoot their own foot and than make a small propaganda video.

I don't know if historians in 200 years will find most of that stuff somewhere on in the depths of kitten videos, stupidity of our youth like tik-tok videos and the massive amount of porn, but if they find such videos what will be their assessment of what happened today? Most people can't process the levels of absurdity today.

ALAMO wrote:Well, Gepard is much better than Shilka, due to two main factors.
A 35 mm caliber gun, and a much much better ammunition set, that includes AHEAD and airburst pieces. Not to mention a regular APDS that will tear apart everything up to the tank level of protection.
Still there is nothing to impress, if you have in your disposal lets say Tunguska, which - suprice suprice - Ukrs had in numbers.
Where are the Tunguskas and Tors, if one needs to hype on 60 y/o !! system?

Well I won't say MUCH better but yes the Gepard was an excellent SPAAG in its day. The Shilka's rate of fire (3400 rpm) and it's 2000 rounds load out is something else though! Granted the 35mm Oerlikon is a excellent gun, but the Germans thought that the Wiesel 2 LeFlaSys with it's 4xStingers were a more than suitable replacement!?

It appears that the Ukrs used their Tangustas and Tors (which were probably non-operational anyway) for propaganda purposes pretending it to be Russian casualties.

ALAMO wrote:
Yup, that is a valid point I have missed - highly unlikely that Germans donated the latest and upgraded ones. Especially if we consider, that they are freezing the donations anyway but in quiet.
Question is open for the readiness of those systems - I mean Tunguska and Tors. Both are quite complicated, and require regular maintenance with spare parts replacements. Still, I suppose that Ukraine could have modernized them with its own assets - they did so with Buk and S-300 for God's sake!
So far, the only visible proof of having them, are junkyards and propaganda vids you have mentioned

The Germans always had upgrades available and did built rather good performing quality but none of that stuff was for domestic use but for potential customers.

They have invested so much money in joint ventures to build quite adequate ATGMs, ASMs, and AAMs however almost nothing of those technologies was ever even available for the Luftwaffe. There is still a huge stick in Germaran's asses as they are still not a Military but a defensive force like Japan has. They are kept away from militarizing and acquiring weapons that could be used offensively against NATO. The Bundeswehr is nothing else but a human shield for the tactical nuke equipped US forces on German soil. Due to this Russia is very reluctant to use tactical nukes to wipe out the US nuclear threat on our doorstep.

ALAMO wrote:
For the whole 90-10s period, Poland was running a Loara program. In theory, that would have been a modernized Gepard concept with some extension, as it consisted of two layers. One vehicle with quite the same 2x 35mm KDA gun, while the other with Tor-like VLS missile component. As the first one was created, the discussion about the second one was jumping dead, and they have not decided on the missiles for them anyway. What is funny, a de facto same concept was created in your country by Kentron. The "only" difference was that your ZA-35 used your OWN guns, and it's missile armed variant od ZA-HVM used your OWN SAVH-3 missiles. Not to mention own radar, IIR suite etc.
But still my point is, that after 20-30 years, both conceptual platforms that would have been the most sophisticated what we could figure out, needed two chassis to carry both missiles&guns. What was an obvious solution for 30 y/o back then 2K22 ... And the distance is just getting bigger after that.

I think the SAVH-3 missiles was also intended for the Loara? Anyway the South African's also dropped this very promising program in the end. The Umkhonto missiles was a further development and there are currently plans to use this missile in a land based system.

According to Western news outlets that are quoting uki officials, the Kherson counter is underway.
Have they the manpower and firepower for this? How well have the Russians dug in there?

The Lancet kamikaze drone destroyed either the radar station or the Internet distribution station - a sort of big router. Let the god of electronics understand electronic hell.
https://t.me/intelslava/34114


The station is very similar to the control point of the bayraktar.
https://t.me/intelslava/34117

Russian forces captured Vershyna

Soon the battle for Bakhmut will begin
https://t.me/intelslava/34115

I was wondering, did Russia took the opportunity to locate the ukrop firing positions to take out their missile launchers? Perhaps Russia needs longer ranged izdeliye 305

They will certainly be scanning the area for such targets, but as we have discussed such targets are not easy and obvious until they launch...

And then it is a case of trying to race eyes to that location quickly enough to watch them leave and see where they go.

That video of that mall that was being used for artillery cover the vehicles drove out about 1 to 2 blocks away from the mall and fired and then raced back to hide in the mall so if you didn't get there quickly you would not be able to locate them because they would already be inside.

Having long endurance drones watching and flying at altitude would be an advantage, but the orcs are not idiots... they will be popping smoke and disguising their weapons as school buses or trucks, and doing everything they can to hide...

They need to bring an artillery radar locate the launch position and send a su-25 to destroy them. If they see no one that means they are hiding in the area of the launch so they can just destroy the big building where an himars can be parked like farms or big garages.

Su-25s would be good because of their speed getting to the location quickly but if they do not spot anything they can leave the area but remained on call fuelled up and armed on their airbases and have a drone loiter in the firing area for the next few days... having other drones replace them on patrol.

The orcs will have more than one battery attacking so they might alternate the rocket or gun teams but the point is not to rush things... watch what buildings they run to hide in and level them with their support crews. On the ground "allies" can report locations they rush into after a fire mission too.

A large part of the area around the bridge is in friendly hands and it is unlikely any rockets or guns would risk operating there... lots of other places within range where it is too open with nothing to hide so you can certainly narrow down the places to look but equally in built up areas they might roll out of a building and fire and then roll back into the building to hide... but that is where the very capable radar on Su-35s and even Su-57s and A-100s can be used to track movements in all weathers even under the cover of smoke... and of course drones and attack helicopters and Su-25s as well also become useful... but not perfect.

They counter artillery radars need a fucking upgrade. Ukrainians are much better at this. Plenty of videis showing destruction of russian mortar positions or Msta's.

Obviously true of course because Kiev is so desperate for new rocket and gun artillery as well as armour and fighters because all the thousands of items of these things they had a few months ago need a short rest before being put back into use right?

Russian forces have already wiped out their armour and artillery and air power and HATO is struggling to send a trickle of replacement equipment in and you think the Russians have the problem... too much Kool aide brother.

The office of the President of Ukraine, as part of the counteroffensive on Kherson, is ready to destroy the dam of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station and the consequences of this decision, which will cause an environmental disaster and flooding of the Kherson region.

Does he understand that the reciprocal attack on western Ukraine against electrical power generation and other infrastructure might be quite damaging in response?

counted 8 hits on Bridge , therefore likely two truck loads of Himars , each with six missiles fired , or twelve Rockets ( 70% destroyed ) . Likely one truck load of S300 or four to six SAM was fired . With 100% ( four fired ) or 70% ( six fired ) success rate . Cost per Himars is 3 million USD and cost per S300 SAM is 1 million USD . Therefore likely 4-6 million USD was spent to take out 12 million USD ! Now supposing Bridge has to be repaired at what cost ........

Except if they were firing SAMs at the incoming rounds I would say first of all they would not use S-300... it is big and expensive and has enormous range, it would make rather more sense to use smaller lighter cheaper missiles like a Pantsir battery which would have taken down 12 rockets easily enough.

Success rate for Russian missiles so far is above the 90 percent rate and assuming that continues with these ordinary targets that would suggest either over 80 rockets were fired and 8 made it through... which in my opinion is rather unlikely... or they were not defending the bridge with SAMs at all and just intending to repair it or when the time comes they need to send a lot of traffic over it to build alternative temporary bridges.

They might have decided that by the time they need to use the bridge to send a lot of support over it the Orc forces will be pushed back beyond the range of their rockets, so let them poke holes in the road that can be patched up quickly and cheaply and then by the time they need to use it heavily the enemy forces will be out of range to do anything and then SAM batteries can be located there to hit the rare rocket that might make the trip to the target.

Also Odessa must be taken by marine invasion from Sea ! Good , a land invasion would be more costly for Russia . Russia controls the Sea !

As they push Orc forces further and further away from these bridges the ability of the Orcs to hit these bridges diminishes rapidly... eventually it will be out of range except with Harpoons and they seem to be hitting those in weapons caches already with reasonable regularity... that was the purpose of the attack on Odessa after the agreement was signed.

There are a lot of assumptions in my statement . That's why I said " probably " and " likely " . But you can work out different scenario with : Himars failing without any SAM engagement or as you said other SAM system being used or only eight Himars being fired .............or a fake video ( we only saw 4 holes ! ) .......

The video showed explosions but the bridge does not explode and the rockets will explode no matter what they hit so some might have hit the water for all we know.

Cute seeing Schroder being sent as a messanger boy to the Kremlin. The kicker is, the Germans send him cause they've made the correct calculated assessment that he can potentially get Russians to stupidly continue to supply Germany with gas... anything > 0 (being a win), while Russia gets nothing in return, except empty words from a corrupt statesman about "being forced", and "everything will get better if".

Oh yea of little faith, Russia has dialed down the gas delivery even further and I don't expect them to dial it up any time soon.

Russian officials have already openly stated that all EU embassies should be closed and only the Russian embassy in the US is needed... until the EU can make its own decisions there is little value in talking to them at all.

After that little speech by Schultz, which read like a declaration of war, after 1990, and all the lies and deceit you would think Russia wouldn't want anything to do with the German elite, but here they're still, mingling like fools, playing a fake "factions" game, where Russia always ends up cozzing up to the losing side (what a coincidence lol1 ). That's one thing, thank god, the Chinese don't have to worry about - a culturally captive (compromised) elite.

The new gas pipeline to China going through Mongolia suggests Germany does not have a lot of time on the clock... they have pissed away any chance of keeping cheap energy till they diversify... with the climate change BS they were always going to be weaning themselves off Russian gas, but they wanted to do it on their own terms getting cheap Russian gas for the next decade or so as they modified their economy for the change.

The US had ripped up that schedule and ruined their plans... Merkel would never have OKed the Kiev attack on Donbass in early March and without that I doubt Putin would have invaded...

The Americans will double down to the last Ukranian and last European, and there is little Russia can do about it.

Who gives a **** what the Americans do, Russia can just keep churning through the Ukrainian Orc population... if they don't understand what is happening then who cares... let them die for America...

The rotten elite in Russia who would gladly wave the white flag right now are truly a cancer within and the empire is definitely betting on malaise. That's one thing the empire doesn't have to worry about on the home front (feckless, weak, Russia sympathizing elites).

If the Russian deep state was dominated by such pro western weaklings Putin would not be in power... the fact is that Putin has made lots of Russians lots of money and improved the living standards of a lot more Russians and they know full well that under US rule like the 1990s that didn't happen because most of the money went west.

Vogue photo shoots are just an extension of the propaganda war which does exactly what it's meant to do. It's the air of impunity.

She can wave any finger she pleases as the Russian forces eliminate an entire generation of Orcs... how long before she gets drafted too... then the waving of the finger will be replaced by the waving of the white flag.... in much larger numbers.

Be patient.

As for dove boy Lavrov's regime change comments... lol1 This is perhaps the costliest regime change op I've ever seen on someone's backyard (former territory). Usually you start at the top, or make the top a priority at the very least. Someone must have stolen the regime manual of the KGB days. That, or the loss of capabilities over time for the SVR are massive.

How many regime changes just flipped back next election time though... this is a fundamental change... not a superficial regime change with one set of puppets changed into a different set of puppets... this is a reeducation for an entire society so of course it takes time and money... but it is worth it.

Appart from showing signs of verbal diarrhea, what is your point ?

EU leaders are not supposed to break ranks and talk to Putin... only supreme leader Biden makes policy and talks to Putin... he is hiding breaking ranks in EU and HATO by pretending the Russians are about to fold to remain friends with Germany like they didn't with France.

Ironically the best relations Russia has with a European countries isn't even in the EU... but it is a crucial part of HATO... Turkey.

We'll, very likely, see Iranian drones in action very soon.

More likely civilian airliner parts than drones...

We only have the word of Sullivan that there is a shortage for Russia, and considering he claimed there was a shortage of everything it is hard to take him seriously.

This does however hint at future cooperation between Russia and Iran over drones and I suspect both will benefit from that.

What else can it be in your opinion?

It is what it says.... Iran has many decades of experience trying to keep western aircraft operational... whether military like the F-14 and F-4 and F-5, or civilian like Boeings and Airbuses, and they have production in place to make most of the parts the west has refused to supply to Russia.

Ironically the EU announced it is relaxing the sanctions on aircraft spare parts for aircraft safety reasons they claimed, but I rather suspect it was to prevent Russia and Iran working together to fill the gap and cut the western countries out of the gravy train that is civilian aircraft support contracts.

This is just brilliant...

Most of us stand by that there is nothing Iran can offer. As someone else said, their drones are mostly knockoffs from captured drones and Iran isn't known for airforce and aircraft development. Russia already has Orion drone and a new factory working overtime for it, and they can easily repurpose for observation and not necessarily just strike. It would be an absolute overlapping of capabilities and a logistical nightmare which Russia isn't known for.

Iran has plenty of experience and capabilities but it would be silly to expect anything signed right now to have any effect on the current conflict... it would take 3-4 months just to test and evaluate what they have to offer and perhaps even if delivered immediately after than 3-4 months more to train their soldiers to use them effectively and to adapt them to Russian EW and communications systems and of course adapt them to the Russian climate and the weapons they would expect them to use.

This deal is about civilian airliners support and it is excellent.

I agree that they don't bring anything new. I am seeing this as a quick fix until Russia ramps up their own production. To plug the holes.

It wont be a quick fix, but it will be an excellent start of cooperation that should lead to Russia looking at what Iran has now and perhaps buying a few cheap mature systems off the rack, but more likely the adaptation needed might mean they will work together in joint development of systems that suit their needs very specifically that they can work together on.

The Russians have revealed a new range of weapons specifically dedicated to carriage by light aircraft and drones that will likely make Iranian drones even better too, and some cheap simple highly expendable drones of Iranian design might be worth a look too, but then they might have some bigger more expensive ones that are interesting too... might even be improved with Russian engines or datalinks or could be fine on their own.

In 2006 the Cheetah (Dutch Gepard with better radar) was considered obsolete against air threats and retired. Also back then, IIRC the Russian armed forces already had EW Mi-8s specially tasked to suppress the radar systems of these SPAAGs. The exact type of Mi-8 I don't know at the moment (Mi-8PP/PPA?)

In the 1980s they had the Kh-25 based anti radiation missiles like AS-12 for tactical aircraft including helicopters that could take out a search radar of an air defence platform from quite a decent distance, not to mention the Kh-31 and Kh-58 anti radiation missiles too...

Now they have a range of other weapons that can also defeat air defence vehicles too from distances that can be considered safe from 35mm guns and MANPADS.

Just remembering that 4 European governments have already fallen, but I think Russia's biggest target politically is the fall of the German government. If the winter is too harsh, the German economy will be in shambles. Nothing would make Putin so happy.

I am sure Putin would prefer Germany to grow a set of balls and tell the US not to screw with Russia because it is destroying their economy.... but then he also wanted Poro and Zelensky to live up to their commitments in the Minsk agreement and they failed that too.

It is not the result he wanted... he wanted much better relations with the west, but what is happening now is because of Americas choices and Kievs choices and EUs choices to do as they are told by the US.

The White House has "no indications of any delivery or purchase of Iranian drones by the Russian ministry of defense," says NSC spox John Kirby.

But adds that just the fact that Putin was pursuing a deal shows that "sanctions are having an effect"

As I said the whole time Russia was never going to receive drones from Iran. Just a way to create an axis for the US to push against and hope that the Saudis bought it.

It is their only way of pretending to have success.... claiming the Russians are doing something they are not, claiming they failed at it and then declaring the reason they tried to do what they claim they failed to do was successful pressure from the west.

Funny that the plan was a short war started by Kiev in which Russias economy was to collapse and the Russian people would rise up and kick him out of office... it was all going to be so easy...

Except the reverse seems to be more likely.

Only way to save their civilian aircraft is to replace them.

Deals with Iran to get necessary parts will keep the western planes operating safely for longer so Russian planes can replace them in a more orderly manner which should improve safety and efficiency... perhaps after they transition away from Boeings and Airbuses they can help the Iranians transition to making parts for the new Russian planes and allow them to contract their services to rest of the world countries that want to buy Russian planes moving forward.

But they need to replace western parts.

Some of those parts might be what Iran is making for its own Boeings and Airbus aircraft which also reduces pressure to change to Russian only parts in Russian planes too.

If the Iranians provide good quality parts, and I don't see why they couldn't... they kept F-14As flying longer than anyone... maybe they can continue to make parts for Russian planes sold around the world to countries that want western parts as an alternative to Russian parts....

What is not clear to me is whether Iran has pieces for Western aircraft that they can send to Russia to support the existing fleet in the meantime.

I suspect they took the western planes they had to pieces and reverse engineered the parts they needed to keep them running and should therefore be able to supply such parts to Russian airlines trying to keep their western planes operational and safe till there are new Russian designed replacements.

I don't think Iran would hand over planes... what would they use instead?

Supplying parts takes the pressure off the Russian industries to replace western planes in a more orderly fashion and build contacts and trade with Iran... and in the future Iran could start making parts for Russian planes and if there are any Iran specific designs they need some joint development and work could lead to Iranian planes being built and sold to the world too.

They managed to keep F-14As flying... don't believe for a second they are fools.

BTW chief of IRGC told few days ago about big plans to build and buy top of the line defence products, in the context of strategic talks with Russia. Iran will be a hardcore member of the multipolar world and a key player in the Eurasian integration.

In the last sanctions package the EU signed off on they relaxed their sanctions on food exports and also on airliner parts for "safety" reasons.... in other words they realised losing out on lucrative support contracts for their aircraft is costing them billions and this deal with Iran might cut them out completely.... I hope.

If the US and EU make a stink, Russia can cut of Titanium and bring plane production to a halt. So everyone will just go along with the charade.

One of the other sanctions the EU backtracked on was against a Russian company that makes steel because it also makes titanium components they need for their aviation and space industries....

But the help would be very very limited and even friendly country would not allow them to fly over their airspace with iranian spare parts.

How would they know?

They would test them and I am sure they would be as good as the original parts... they have a very good record of keeping things flying.

It's the only area where sanctions will be catastrophic for Russia and hardly bypassed since Boeing and Airbus have total control over their planes sold around the world. But on the long terms, it will push Russia to invest in its own industry and airbus/boeing can forget about russian market.

The last round of sanctions the EU rolled back the sanctions on parts for airliners for "safety" reasons they claim... afraid of losing a meal ticket... this agreement with Iran sounds very interesting.

This incident with Bridge , is good opportunity for Russia to exercise a Sea( River ) / Land operation of supply , in readiness for Odessa later .

Orc attacks on bridges in the east is a good excuse to drop some bridges in the west... some Kh-22Ms would be excellent for the job... single hits would do.

Well, Gepard is much better than Shilka, due to two main factors.

Shilka was produced and put into service rather more widely.... it is not better than Gepard, but it is still very effective and it is affordable.

Don’t Russia has like less than 60 Shilka’s in service, with almost all being replaced by Tunguska

Germany approves sale of 100 PzH 2000 self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine.

https://defence-blog.com/berlin-approves-1-7-billion-sale-of-pzh-2000-howitzers-to-ukraine/?fbclid=IwAR0u3TXEXymLiLqi0qnycbF75iehehg9KmtM25FVVjvLTVCeqLiv68NlKKU
https://ukranews.com/en/news/872074-german-government-approves-sale-of-100-pzh-2000-howitzers-to-ukraine-media

crod wrote:According to Western news outlets that are quoting uki officials, the Kherson counter is underway.
Have they the manpower and firepower for this? How well have the Russians dug in there?

They have been talking about it for weeks, attempted several offensives and ended up getting wrecked each time, so answer should be obvious.

https://t.me/asbmil/2923

ucmvulcan wrote:What is going on at Kherson?

Nothing out of the ordinary.

Don’t Russia has like less than 60 Shilka’s in service, with almost all being replaced by Tunguska

True but over 6,000 were made...

Germany approves sale of 100 PzH 2000 self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine.

That is just greed... money for 100 vehicles that likely wont even make it to the front line but no matter what entity replaces the Ukraine they will demand payment of course...

Dunno why this

"Won't make it to the frontline" crap is still be stated, History has shown Ukraine has no problems getting gear to the frontline despite the many claims said gear never will make it.

Panzer 2000 is a very good system, If the russians know what's good for them they will not allow that many of those things to reach the frontline

SeigSoloyvov wrote:Dunno why this

"Won't make it to the frontline" crap is still be stated, History has shown Ukraine has no problems getting gear to the frontline despite the many claims said gear never will make it.

Panzer 2000 is a very good system, If the russians know what's good for them they will not allow that many of those things to reach the frontline

They are indeed very good artillery systems, but with any air cover they will be extremely vulnerable to Russian counter attacks. HIMARS can scoot away quite quickly - but these not so much.

Talk about frontline - have we seen any Leopards in action so far?

SeigSoloyvov wrote:Dunno why this

"Won't make it to the frontline" crap is still be stated, History has shown Ukraine has no problems getting gear to the frontline despite the many claims said gear never will make it.

Panzer 2000 is a very good system, If the russians know what's good for them they will not allow that many of those things to reach the frontline

What history?

Or do you have statistics available as to how many Ukrainian-destined weapon systems and munitions make it to the front-line versus how many are destroyed en-route? Because I sure haven't seen any one way or the other.