Russian special military operation in Ukraine #36

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:
"Germany could supply 10-15 Leopard 2 tanks next year, if the government places an order immediately."

Whole 10-15tanks and only next Year? Must be tge renowned German industry's performance.

the simple fact is Germany is being put under massive pressure, from Washington and London to allow leopards to Ukraine to which Germany is opposed to, Germany is being forced into doing things it doesn't want to do, they should just say NO and that's the end of the matter, most of these EU nations are bowing to extreme pressure from Washington, Washington is a big bully and it does not care about democracy, it's only interested in countries doing what America demands of them, when the American economy does finally fall, loads of countries will line up to kick them on the way down

billybatts91 wrote:To the Serbs on this forum, pipe down please..... we all know where you future lies. You're surrounded by NATO/EU nations...

Not just any NATO nations but NATO superpowers like Bulgaria and Romania which routinely manhandle Russia, boss her around and treat her like their bitch

Respect that raw power, it's not to be trifled with as Russia has learned

billybatts91 wrote:No need to act more Russian and militaristic than Russians themselves...

Nobody is acting, that's what we are like, this is default level of militarism here

If it's too hard core for you just don't read

We have been pussyfooting 30-something years ago and got what we deserved

Russians​ can learn from our mistakes or make their own, it's all the same to us

billybatts91 wrote:I mean...revenge fantasies against NATO that you want Russia to carry out in real world conflicts....

Confusing us with Middle Easterners here?

We don't have revenge fantasies against NATO, our revenge list is very short and very local

billybatts91 wrote:Where most of the Serbian diaspora lives -

Hey, if Russia wanted more Serbian immigrants maybe it shouldn't have spent 99% of it's history as backwards dilapidated primitive shithole with colossal inferiority complex which is still raging strong?

Ever seen how this missile operates in real? That would help ... I will check for some maneuvers wit them hitting the target, should have them somewhere.

It has two rocket motor nozzles fed from a shared fuel supply, one is a cruise motor to overcome drag and maintain speed and the other is very powerful and is used to climb to operational altitude and accelerate up to a high flight speed that the sustainer motor can maintain by just overcoming drag to maintain speed and massively increase range.

It is not ballistic.

See the strike angle? It is different for both cases.

You think dive angle means it is ballistic?

What angles can a plane crash at... from a 2 degree glide slope soft landing to a 90 degree vertical descent and crash... is a plane ballistic?

The dive attack angle can be determined by the autopilot and guidance... Brahmos is Onyx... a ramjet powered anti ship and land attack cruise missile that can hit from any angle you please including vertically at supersonic speeds.

Angle of impact does not even have much to do with operational height because sea skimming anti ship missiles can be programmed to climb and then dive on their targets when approaching from some angles to maximise the effect of the warhead.

Shortly thereafter, Prigozhin himself commented on it, and said that the guy in question is in fact a Norwegian citizen and was being investigated by Wagner itself for crimes and had a warrant out after him, which prompted him to flee:

Repeat of Wada... criminal escapes Russia claiming persecution and claiming innocence is embraced by the west with a wild story of widespread criminality going all the way up to Putin himself... no evidence for any of it. He will be a hero in Norway...

So you can expect it to fly much higher than 20km in altitude.

With more modern navigation electronics I would agree, but for many missions it might not waste the fuel to climb higher and with having them in large numbers just accept the occasional one being shot down and count that as one less long range high performance SAM the Orcs no longer have... or probably two or three depending on how many they launch to try to shoot it down.

When launched at some targets they might expend as many SAMs as they can to stop it...

when the American economy does finally fall, loads of countries will line up to kick them on the way down

Hard to get some real kinetic energy into a kick when you are falling too... and the thing you are kicking is pushing you down to slow their own rate of fall.

Pretty much Gopnik. Now don't get me wrong, I would love a beautiful pincer which cuts Ukraine in two and effective chokes off supplies of western aid, but that would require four or five times more troops than Russia has in theater because while you could take the terrtitory with 300 K you will probably need about a million to occupy it. However, I think Russia is more than content to let the fighting come to it and let Ukraine break itself by trying to take well entrenched and well armed Russian forces. Verdun writ large is what this latest chapter in the Great Game is. Russia's whole history in this war is to temporarily seize a town who they can always retreat from without risk, but which Ukraine must liberate. Bakhmut, Soledar, Kherson, etc can be captured and withdrawn from repeatedly by Russia. The whole aim of the Russian command is to bleed the nazis and NAFO mutts white. They still need to finish the job in Donetsk, Zaprozhiye, Kherson, and maybe Sumy and Kharkov, and ideally Odessa, but the mission now appears to be to bleed Ukraine dry. Now, I wake up in the morning and the Russians are barrelling towards the Dniepr, no complaints but I am just not seeing it.

Bleed Ukraine dry?
It’s no longer a country anymore. Just a an army with territory. There’s nothing there to bleed only manpower. Even if to believe casualties- purely manpower wise they will be able to bleed for few years. Taking into account this conflict will not slowdown, even more than it already has.

NATO still hasn’t exploited all possible scenarios, they can prolong this for very long time as their escalations are impossible to answer. Poles, Romanians fighting under Ukrainian flag is already becoming a reality.

Bleeding NATO dry is also not an easy task, they only drip feed ukrs to prolong this. Most importantly, US still has tons of reserve crap to give.

Bleed dry ? Well , Dogs have lived with humans for 40,000 years , and prophets of God , have lived with humans for 2000 years . So what is more important ? Dog's law or God's law ? Did God learn from Dog , or vice versa ? Are they the mirror image ( literally ) of each other . Like someone only able to read the " Ambulance sign , " written backwards , in their Car's rear view mirror ? I think God learned from Dog . So it is Dog eat Dog , and it is fair and good . Therefore bleed dry .

Tanks but no thanks . I was never a Tank-man fan , and am still less so today . But , old habits die hard . Like a townsfolk keeping a Dog , while non of us hunts with Dogs anymore . That was 40,000 years ago , but old habits die hard . The political and social impact of yester- year economics , lives on for millennia . So with Tractors that turned into Tanks , 100 years ago , still being used today . In an age of satellites and drones . Tanks but no thanks .

Here's a great description of the Kh-22 and it's capabilities:

https://youtu.be/CtTy8_T3HU8

Realistically, when you look at the piles of corpses in Soledar, you do have to say the Russian MoD made the right decision to retreat and minimize losses. Probably they should have never crossed the Dnipro in the first place, and it would have been better if they could have held the line at the Oskol river, but Kiev is insane to take these kinds of losses.

So Andriy Yermak, the head of the UA presidential staff said yesterday that the war so far has killed "over 9000 civilians."

The UN has slightly more than 7000 confirmed, but adds that there are likely some more, so that is a rough match.

If a year of all-out war produced less than 10k civilian deaths, that is absolutely remarkable. That's like the first eight weeks of "Iraqi Freedom", perhaps even the first four.

And mind you, this is the war that is supposedly all about Russia trying to kill as many civilians as possible, as per the generally agreed-upon story...

Also, can't help but to mention that Ukrainian officials earlier claimed that some bizarre number like 100k were deliberately killed by Russians in Mariupol alone.

Surely some people must have started noticing the wild discrepancies in the narratives by now? Ukraine and its fanclub has been in a constant hyperbolic frenzy since day one, with western media making sure to instill it in everybody. It's gotten to the point where it's simply become "common knowledge" that Russia is fixed on outright genocide.

What will the next spin be? Russia is so bad they even suck at genociding?

PS big chunk, at the very least half of those ~10k were killed by Ukrainian forces, in this I have no doubt.

If it was a genocide there would ve 10-12 million dead and kiev would be a burnt pile of rubble and bones.

Ukrainian helicopter crashed in Brovary, near Kiev:
https://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2023/01/18/7385344/

Apparently it smashed into a kindergarten. Many deaths.

Is Anton Gerashchenko still an official in Ukraine? I hope so, can't wait to hear his take (Russian computer virus, mind control of the pilots, whatever)

edit: supposedly a western-sold/donated Super Puma. IIRC Ukraine actually bought a few years ago, but were gifted more in 2022, remains to be seen which batch this one came from.

Seems like Ukrainian MVD hotshots were onboard.

If it was an AD mishap, oh boy.

Realistically, when you look at the piles of corpses in Soledar, you do have to say the Russian MoD made the right decision to retreat and minimize losses. Probably they should have never crossed the Dnipro in the first place, and it would have been better if they could have held the line at the Oskol river, but Kiev is insane to take these kinds of losses.

Their job is to plan, but also to change plan and adapt plans and even mix plans to get the best possible result, and I think they have adapted well to the situations presented to them and have shown greater flexibility than any western force in any conflict I have read about.

What happened mostly happened because of what was done by both sides... saying not doing that would have reduced loses ignores that both sides acted based on what each side was doing... if you change one aspect of what either side did the options the other side might have taken could have been totally different and completely changed everything.

Holding less ground would just allow Orc artillery to reach further into Russian held territory... eventually they need to take it all... which is not to say kill every Ukrainian and creep forward slowly like they are now... they now have rather more men... rather more fire power so when enemy forces group up in different places they should be able to hit them harder and do more damage behind the front lines, and of course the enemy is going to give up in places and perhaps even collapse which might lead to massive unopposed advances in some areas. We will just have to see. Cutting off western support would be very useful... if we can see them achieve that politically then that would be huge... but then cutting off support might not be in an obvious way... perhaps like Germany saying no tanks for a year and no one that has our tanks can send them no matter what their condition at the moment... and when they can be sent a dozen or so at a time... drip feeding them into a conflict zone to minimise their possible impact on the battlefield (except political of course).

It is not ballistic.

Probably that is why Russkie call it "аэробаллистические".

The definition of Aeroballistic is to combine the features of a ballistic and non ballistic vehicle, so combining the features of a rocket and a cruise missile... because it is a rocket powered cruise missile that uses altitude and coasting and energy management to maximise range and speed.

Is an R-27 a ballistic missile?



It is an Air to Air missile that uses a lofted flight trajectory to maximise flight speed and flight range... you can tell because when launched from higher flight speeds and higher altitudes its max range increases dramatically.

Not normally called a cruise missile either of course... generally just called a missile.

Some reports that it was shot down by the Ukro AD. Eyewitness claim that it was on fire in the air already.

Would not be a surprise... soldiers often automatically fire at unfamiliar designs...

Poor kids

Did it happen inside school hours?

They call it a Kindergarten... was it being used as an HQ and it crashed there because that is where it was landing or taking off from?

Not good then...

Seen Twitter people claim that footage exists of it burning in the air, but I haven't been able to find any.

In fact, can only find one short clip of it flying overhead in a wooded area, presumably on the outskirts of Brovary. It is not on fire there, but the ventral anti-collision light is quite bright. Perhaps people misinterpreted that?

An eyewitness quoted in Ukrainian media said that it flew in a wide circle for a while, before suddenly rapidly losing altitude. Technical fault is IMO the most likely cause. I'd imagine that maintenance is a bitch.