Russian special military operation in Ukraine #49

Regular wrote:

franco wrote:Constantly surprised at how people cannot grasp that the second largest military force in Europe with the full support of NATO will occasionally get a hit in via whatever means.  

Yes, but Ukrainian tochkas were completely negated and shot down and nothing was hit apart train station that belong to Ukraine themselves. Even when they attacked Donetsk city, it was shot down. 

They weren't. Tochkas hit Donetsk at least a couple of times, killed civilians. They hit Berdyansk where that troop transport vessel was and sunk it. They hit an airbase used by Russia in the Kherson region, took out a few Mi-8s on the ground. They hit an airbase in either Belgorod or Kursk region, toasted some Russian aircraft on the ground too. I seem to recall them hitting a large concentration of Russian troops too, killed perhaps 30 or 40 although that might have been a HIMARS (no, it wasn't the New Year's strike)

You are missing the problem- UA keeps reusing same planes for how many times? According to some Telegram chair generals, Ukrainian airforce and specifically SU-24M were destroyed 50 times. It’s not that they can be resupplied? Ukrainians shouldn’t be allowed to fly anything above the sea. Every time NATO assets are in the air, it should telegraph that something will be up, like now when P-8s were flying. CAP should thin SU numbers. 

NATO assets are probably up all the time or half the time. They have plenty of them. They have the Turkish frigates in the Black Sea which have their own radars. They will know everything that Russia has above and around the Crimea at any given moment.
The Su-24 is a low-altitude penetration bomber. Your ground and air defense radars won't see them coming if they fly within their dead zones or behind terrain. The AWACS and aircraft radars might but it depends how far they are and if the Su-24s are flying above land then maybe they won't be picked out from the clutter.
The NATO assets can relay information to the Su-24 group so that if any dangerous Russian anything is up in the air and too close, they can turn back. So it's just a matter of finding a gap in the patrols.

Another problem - Red lines. Both Medvedev and Shoigu drew them. Just fucking don’t. They look like utter idiots as if their bluff is being called out. There should be a line when crossed - all Ukrainian politicians, their properties, their business, their family members get geraned. Now escalation is all done by NATO and Ukraine and Russia just says - one step closer and I will shoot… When shot in the balls was already needed when Crimean bridge was targeted. It’s pretty simple, no one would have dared to play this game with Soviets and you know it

As someone else said, neither Medvedev or Shoigu or anyone else are obligated to act according to your own schedule. The red line has been crossed, that's enough for us to know.

JohninMK wrote:The Ukrainian channel Legitimny reports:

"Onyx-class missiles (according to preliminary data) have struck the Odessa region. The explosions were very loud and numerous, affecting Zatoka/Sergeyevka and the entire coastline. They targeted sanatoriums where 'non-holidaymakers' reside and also struck coastal batteries, airfield strips, and hangars. Please exercise caution."

@Slavyangrad

Reports from turkish sources indicate that Kremenchug Airport, the launch site for the cruise missile strike on Crimea-Sevastopol, has been targeted by Russia with a significant barrage of cruise missiles. No air raid warning was issued. It is presumed that low-observable Kh-50 cruise missiles were utilized.

Both SCALP and Storm Shadow missiles, which were stationed at the airbase, along with the Su-24M/MR bombers responsible for today's attack, have been destroyed.

A substantial number of firefighters and ambulances have been dispatched to the airfield. There are significant casualties among pilots, ground personnel, and even NATO personnel, including Poles, who were involved in coordinating the operations and maintaining the missiles.

#source

@Slavyangrad

Can only hope that report is true

About the other report with the vaunted ATACMS and Taurus and M1A1 Abrams - who the hell cares

flamming_python wrote:
They weren't. Tochkas hit Donetsk at least a couple of times, killed civilians. They hit Berdyansk where that troop transport vessel was and sunk it. They hit an airbase used by Russia in the Kherson region, took out a few Mi-8s on the ground. They hit an airbase in either Belgorod or Kursk region, toasted some Russian aircraft on the ground too. I seem to recall them hitting a large concentration of Russian troops too, killed perhaps 30 or 40 although that might have been a HIMARS (no, it wasn't the New Year's strike)

The scale of ignorance some here present makes me seriously wonder what are you folks even doing at a military forum, yet specialised in Russian matters
Your brilliant analysis, where from the first line it gets crystal clear that you don't know how to look at the map.
Your pro grade military advice, presenting that you have no bloody clue about the range of the systems you are happily arguing about.
Your constant whining, making it obvious that you lived in some la la land all of your life, separated from common sense, and your perception of military matters came from Counter Strike.
Amazing! Simply amazing!
Russkie just smashed the Ukro army. Again, and it is the third one, being the weakest.
Every next army they have assembled after April 22, is weaker.
The recruitment base shrinked radically, and I mean not only the physical liquidation of manpower, but its quality and moral condition.
Ukrs are hunting the man down on the streets like some dogs.

All around Europe, there are military units with no gear left.
Polish 3rd AD Missile Brigade is left with no missiles. In one battery, they have a few working Pilica left. A ZU-23-2 with attached Grom.
Everything that was more or less operational was transferred to 404, and in cases when it was impossible - S-200 stationary battery at Mrzeżyno - missiles are gone.
Shilkas are gone.
Osas are gone.
There are hardly any MiG-29s left to pose for pictures hiding the fact, which ended up with sort of a mutiny.
There are no Mi-24 left.
Only a few Mi-8 stayed.
Polish generals started to fly around using ... Mi-2.
Our latest announcement that we won't deliver the gear anymore is not a political gesture, but the fact that there is nothing to give away left.
The same is true for every ex WarPac country that had some Soviet heritage systems Ukrs could use.
Bundeswehre is being stripped off operational equipment, and its already miserable shape before the war is only a warm memory of the past.

What is the most shocking and scary part of the whole equation, is that Russkie did that without sweating, using 1/3rd of their force, limiting collateral damage, and attacking dual purpose infrastructure per se.
Ukraine was the heaviest army in Europe, second to the Russian only.
Operated around 200 (!TWO HUNDRED!) S-300PS systems, some 70 (!SEVENTY!) Buks, some 3000 armored vehicles, +/- 400 airplanes.
After the military reforms, on the eve of the war, it consisted of 280 000 army, assisted by 60 000 National Guard, 50 000 territorial defence, 50 000 border troops, and 10 000 civil defence.
It was being armed to the teeth, with the help of all NATO, both material and financial. Heavily trained, the investments in military infrastructure were mindblowing concerning the general misery of the failed Ukro state. Army and other power structures used to be the best employer, with good and stable money assigned.
Ukrainian MIC was heavily developing.
Just to give you a thing, and concerning the "NATO ammunition supply", Ukrainian army was supplied with more than 520 000 pieces of ammo in 2018, 1.3mln in 2019, and 3.3 mln in 2020. THREE POINT THREE MLN. Own origin.
The number of yearly produced armored units was more than 300.
In 2018-2020, the number of delivered Stugna missiles closed to 500 pcs.
For the same period, the number of new radars produced and delivered totaled the number of the radar Poland operates. All of them.
Aside from the production, a heavy refurbishment program was on track - for 2018-2020, around 50 both aircraft and air defense systems has been repaired/modernized.
They have been gearing up for war, since 2014.
This force was annihilated in two months, by the Russian combined forces of a regular army, republican militias and internal troops totaling less than half of the OpFor.
And some of you really need to have his nose wiped, because two out of 10 the most modern cruise missiles NATO has slipped into Crimea, making the catalog number of the probability of kill given to the best Russian AD systems.
Gee!

Jokes aside, if that is how a direct hit of Storm Shadow looks like, rather hard to be impressed.
Those damages are somehow paired with misfired 5V55 missiles ...

Have to agree... it just looks like a bit of fire damage...

The idea being a morale boost, and hopefully an angry Russian retaliation as a secondary goal, that Zelensky can point to, while he's safe and sound elsewhere.

According to the HT the response was to hit residential buildings in the Donetsk... presumably in Ukrainian held areas and buildings believed to be occupied by Ukrainian soldiers. Should be interesting but Kiev will spin it as being civilian housing that is hit.

The frustration in Russian circles is understandable, and I don't know what the reasoning is.

There would be no point in attacking nazi government buildings because just after they launched an attack they would not continue to hold meetings in such places and knocking down buildings is just symbolic bullshit that changes nothing in this conflict. It makes more sense to wait a month and hit those buildings when they are full.

Or find out where the alternative venue is and hit that when they are having a meeting.

if the VKS cannot contain a small fleet of ancient SU-24's then I really question their ability to protect Russia TBH.

This conflict is not all out war... if HATO was a real party to this conflict most of their aircraft would get smacked very quickly... as would all their force multiplier aircraft like AWACS and JSTARS etc etc.

The aircraft was designed to be difficult to deal with and even with the entire HATO supporting them they are running out of everything... their air power is largely insignificant... and largely ineffective... their last two attacks took out two vessels that would likely not take part in the rest of this conflict anyway and an attack on an important building and may have killed one man... so 160 million more attacks like that and they win right?

Had they been the U.S. they would at the very least have leveled Kiev by now with conventional weaponry.

America likes to level places and then wins the contracts to rebuild the place... badly.

Flying top cover all the time looking for enemy aircraft and HATO will monitor them and look for gaps where they can take off and launch an attack and then run away to HATO territory.

There is a Nato liaison office in Kiev. There are all kinds of bureaucratic buildings that can be destroyed. Bring the war to the heart of Kiev.

I personally think the US Embassy should be targeted in the middle of the day when it is full.

So according to Rybar, 4 Su-24M and 7 missiles were involved. And this was enough to saturate Russian AD and sneak past CAP?
How not to question this?

7 SS on four Fencers sounds a little strange... surely they would carry two each, they could probably carry four each... so what were the rest carrying and what else did they carry... I would expect decoy drones and HARMs would likely also be carried and an external fuel tank so they could go full AB all the way in and out.

these constant su-24 strikes on Crimea makes me so relieved they are not fielding F-16s yet.

Su-24 is a vastly more effective low level strike platform than a shitty old F-16 piece of crap.

Another problem - Red lines. Both Medvedev and Shoigu drew them. Just fucking don’t. They look like utter idiots as if their bluff is being called out.

Well they laughed at Putin and his red lines and documents he sent to the EU and HATO regarding Russias red lines and they just laughed at him and said he would do nothing about it... because if they had sat down and talked through and negotiated either of those documents this conflict probably would not have started so really there was actually a consequence for HATO and the EU ignoring his red lines... ironically half the consequences are from their own sanctions against Russia...

Funny how people talk about red lines like they are trip wires to land mines that have to go off immediately and kill anyone and everything near by... like the US invading Afghanistan because a Saudi Nation OBL living in Pakistan attacked the US.... 20 years in Afghanistan and he wasn't even there.

There should be a line when crossed - all Ukrainian politicians, their properties, their business, their family members get geraned.

I totally agree the assets and investments of Ukrainian politicians and oligarchs supporting them should be targeted over and over... they should not profit from this conflict.

No need to do this, seems to me a MIG-31 patrol over the black sea would hone down the Ukrainian SU-24 fleet pretty quickly.
Regular

The black sea is enormous and the MiG can only reach so far and occupy a certain position in space at any time.... HATO forces are watching and will tell the orc pilot when and where to go to avoid it.

Most likely that is what they are already doing...

The advantage Kiev has is that they don't need to get through all the time, they can wait and pick their times to get through that give them their best chance of getting away alive.

Pushing the line back to HATO borders is their long term solution I am sure and will be effective.

When they cross a real red line like they say Polish forces will cross into the Ukraine and protect the western regions that have small groups of poles as citizens... that is when Putin needs to say no and if you do you will pay heavily for that...

Making the Ukraine landlocked is the only way realistically to end these attacks on Crimea.

Exactly... they can use the flight ranges of ATACMS and Taurus and other systems as a justification for how far back they need to push Ukrainian forces from Russian territory.

There was one video channel saying if Zelensky keeps up with this counter offensive his own troops will rise up and get rid of him... well a news programme showed him claiming the offensive will continue into winter if needs be... that should be interesting.

Russia does not have to fight to the HATO borders... if the Ukrainian army surrenders then they should be able to just march through and occupy the area while referendums are organised and nazis and those wanted for war crimes are rounded up and put into custody.

@garryb it wasn't me who classed then as MLRS it was u. And no a platform doesn't constitute if it's a MLRS or not. It's the system itself. MLRS rocket being the key word isn't a guided missile as I mentioned just because it has two missiles doesn't mean it's a MLRS. And I certainly never said anything was MLRS.

It is a group discussion and not all my comments are directed at you, so I can see how confusion arises.

The members suggesting Russia should expand the Smerch to make it like the MLRS systems China and North Korea and Belarus operate were suggesting Russia needs a MLRS with the performance of Iskander with of course the cost of Smerch and I have since been trying to tell them about the difference between the two systems as to why the Iskander costs more than Smerch and that an Iskander ranged Smerch is not needed nor is it desirable.

What Russia needs is a simpler cheaper Iskander and extended range simpler and cheaper Iskander that can reach further and hit targets that are quite strongly built, but they still need Iskander and a longer range Iskander that can penetrate enemy defences when needed.

For a battery they might want a modular system with different warhead options and different ranges but I suspect they will adopt scramjet propulsion because it is cheaper and makes for smaller and more compact weapons.

The Tartus and ATACM missiles are on the way. They will probably even try and ship them through the odessa port on civilian ships. These spoiler attacks are going to continue indefinitely. This is the new counter offensive. Once a week there will probably be one of these kinds of attacks.

Which is why Kiev needs to be defeated on the battlefield and the current borders are not acceptable because too much Russian territory is in range of Nazi weapons... even if the rest of Ukraine is neutral.

I fail to see how doing nothing is the only answer here.

Only the weak pussies have been saying Putin will do nothing. John has already posted a report that suggests the airfield the Su-24s has been hit and planes and missiles have been destroyed and pilots and support people have been killed including HATO support people... but lets just pretend that is nothing because obviously destroying missiles and aircraft and the people who fly and support them is doing nothing... they should let off a tactical nuke in the middle of the Black Sea and show everyone they mean business... except that would just make them look unstable... like the Americans.

@Alamo... excellent post... giving you a bonus extra 100 points.

The lesson is short-range SAM system, designed for short duration high intensity warfare, face reliability problems in years long attrition conflicts. Both Pantsir & Tor need hydraulics to align to the threat. If their engagement radars are still PESA, it means they are relying on singe RF energy source. Though Panstir M2 sports a AESA.

I would say a better lesson would be that very large radars mounted in the sky that are operational 24/7 are more valuable now than ever and they have tethered airships with radar arrays that are used in mountains... why not a large tethered airship to operate over cities or just in open terrain to provide 24/7 coverage.

The tether could include power and communication cords so you could have radar antennas in every frequency within the structure of the airship that can see super long range with very high definition... if Taurus has a RCS of a small bird or insect it should still stand out because there are not many birds or insects flying that fast.

But then their new photonic radar might replace everything... in a decade or two.

Of course even such an all seeing eye can do little against a tiny drone launched 100m away from the target...

Also, Tor does not need to face the target. The missile orients itself on launch unlike with Pantsir.
It only has a rotating turret because of the radar. But it can also cue in targets guided on other radars.

A battery of 4 to 6 TELAR vehicles could cover every direction with their tracking radars and maybe one or two could operate their search radars looking for targets and the vehicle in the most suitable position could launch its missile at the target with the vehicle with the tracking radar pointed in the correct direction could guide that missile to impact.

Plus you can of course connect the vehicle to local mains power if they were stationed there... or extra generators could be used when needed.

lancelot wrote:Also, Tor does not need to face the target. The missile orients itself on launch unlike with Pantsir.
It only has a rotating turret because of the radar. But it can also cue in targets guided on other radars.

I guess you have missed the Tolstoys point.
What he said, having perfectly right, is the fact that 18+ months of extensive use of a military equipment is an extremely harsh condition.
For multiple and rather obvious reasons, malfunctions might appear, hitting the overall performance of the system.
Sure it is nothing that can't be sorted out, but that requires an intense production/repair cap, which was established in Russia with the war in a background.
And still, take a look at the numbers, because those are much telling.
Russian AD system performed with a real-life effectiveness on pair with the one from the catalogs. Which is impressive concerning the scale of the conflict. Give them a moment, they will do better - Storm Shadows are being intercepted on a daily basis, and heavily studied, weak points will be revealed and exploited. Soon, entire salvos will end up hitting the sea or something, as it was with the Tomahawks.

The overall shape and mental condition of the Ukro cannon fodder, written by The Times.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-draft-dodgers-dream-up-extreme-ways-to-avoid-the-front-p87kdjxgj

What is here not to like?

ALAMO wrote:The overall shape and mental condition of the Ukro cannon fodder, written by The Times.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-draft-dodgers-dream-up-extreme-ways-to-avoid-the-front-p87kdjxgj

What is here not to like?

Care to give us the text from behind the paywall?