US lawmakers are discussing a $50 billion aid package for Ukraine. The warmongers have found their next forever war.
They will be wanting to rush that through because after the elections on November 8th or 9th there might be too many republicans to stop them.
It is in Russia's interest to keep the West divided. But the Ukraine conflict has brought the west together.
This is why China too is upset with Russia as they also want a divided west.
The governments in the west are not united, and the people in the EU will be keen to thank the US for the price and lack of gas supplies this winter... inflation and the price at the fuel pumps and of course the increases in defence spending just to make up for donations to the Ukraine let alone creating these new capabilities they keep talking about like a unified integrated IADS for all of HATO... well there are going to be 10 different search radar and 10 different tracking radar and 10 different long range SAM... well you get the picture... and what they are not talking about is how much it is all going to cost...
NATO already has MALD decoy and jammer drone swarms. Thats russian's biggest threat, but I somehow doubt that russian military planners take NATO drone swarms seriously, judging by the lack derivatsiyas produced and lack of peresvet mass production.
I am sure the Russians are testing lots of secret stuff in the background they don't want HATO to know about and also stuff they are keeping in reserve for the same reasons...
The West was never 'divided'. They had issues they disagreed upon, in some areas Europe and America were competitors, just as within the EU itself some countries competed with each other..
The west is defined by those who do what they are told by the US without question...
Russia does not need to divide HATO or EU specifically, their hopes are that the EU will wake up to being used by the US, but they are not going to push anything themselves...
Why interfere when your enemy makes mistake after mistake after mistake.
Many here don't have American TV. at least to me, it's interesting to see what both sides r saying.
That way I can sift trough propaganda & half truths from all sides to form a more complete picture.
They reminded me of a CNN report from about 1988 that was talking about the war in Afghanistan, with the Muj talking about how they were looking forward to the peace and prosperity when the Soviets leave.... ahhahahaha.
regardless one article states it costs 20k to make shahad and this source estimates 30k for the fuel and warhead as well(1700km range with 400kg payload)
Aircraft parts are more expensive than motor mower parts because they are tested and made of specific materials, but components for a suicide drone don't need to last more than one days use so the quality can actually be lowered to the point where they are made from components rejected for aircraft because while they won't last a week on a real aircraft they don't have to on a drone, so not only do they not need to cost hundreds of dollars per nut or bolt, they can be free... taken out of the reject buckets at factories already making higher spec stuff for other things.
They don't even need to be made of exotic materials... drones these days can be made of durable foam that wont fail even when bullets pass through it.
China also has a lot to offer when it comes to drone technology. scratch here is no such visible cooperation here.
I seem to remember a lot of complaints about Chinese drones in use that they were a bit fragile and were not as good as hoped for... by some users.
In the case of the Shahed 136 / Geran-2 they have been using a plastic / honeycomb based composite body maybe with radar absorbing or signal scattering internal structures or matte paints? That might explain why they are so hard to lock on to by existing air defense. It's not like these are really small objects like a DJI drone.
The problem with drones is that you need to get relatively close to spot it let alone shoot it down, which means a few SAMs near your HQs like HATO has is not good enough... you need AD systems that can move around the place, much like the Soviets had and Russians have.
Further more the development of air burst HE rounds in 30mm and 57mm calibre will make shooting down such drones much easier because most IFVs will be getting that capacity because such capabilities is useful for other purposes too like shooting over frontal cover like a stone wall to detonate a HE round above the heads of enemy troops hiding behind said wall... a drone revealing their position... and vulnerability.
Incredibly precise timers are needed which previously made such ammo terribly expensive, but using radio command detonation or laser command detonation means the super expensive timers can be on board the vehicle and the air burst ammo can be super cheap and produced in enormous numbers and widely used.
Putin and Co. were too chummy with the West for a long time. It was a big mistake on their part.
I disagree... I think if they didn't honestly try to cooperate with the west many 5th columnists would complain they never gave the west a chance and it was all Russias fault they could not cooperate. By doing what he did it is pretty clear that the west is the west and there is no being friends on equal terms, no independent development of your own... you follow the US or you are the enemy.
Given those options Russia is on the best possibly trajectory it could be on.
Putin wants negotiations. Ukraine, on the other hand, does not want them. But what does Putin want to negotiate? Neutral Ukraine? Still believes in the power of some pieces of paper?
He knows Zelensky wont agree to the terms he offered before he started this attack and since then Putins terms are only getting worse for Kiev.... he is going to say he is open to negotiation because he knows he is going to get what he wants on the battlefield anyway... like he did with the Crimea... after 25 odd years wanting to join the Russian federation the Crimea got what they wanted... but not by agreement with Zelensky or Poroshenko... by force on the ground and then by referendum... which is how he is going to take enormous portions of the Ukraine.
Once he gets a certain distance across the Ukraine however the referendums are going to start to prefer neutrality instead of joining Russia, and that is fine, but then they will take the rest of the Ukraine and create a neutral Ukraine with politicians Kiev has been banning up to now, and create a new state whose constitution Russia will assist in the writing of... the same way the US assisted Russia in its new constitution like the leadership limit of two terms which most other countries do not have.
It is slow - doppler effect will be less applicable to it, it is something that caused a part of Matthiast Rust "success" - Soviet PVO system was simple set to don't care this type of objects, as no threat was considered.
Radars also don't care for such things because tracking road traffic and birds is not very useful most of the time.