you got nuked bro. even did it to an ammo dump for plausible deniability - for both sides.
When the target is HE and fuel there is no need for a nuke to set it off.
More importantly using a nuke would be an intollerable escalation that they would reply in kind with because the radiation would make it obvious taht a nuclear weapon was used... and it is rather unlikely... which would not stop the europeans and americans from claiming the Russians nuked themselves, but even if they did... who cares... no one believes them on the Russian side so radiation revealing a nuclear warhead was used is a green light to nuke the west... and if you don't they will do it again...
There is an important aspect to this. Russia has the most powerful AD in the world, and it also has the largest territory. This means that they do not have continuous radar or AD coverage on their entire territory.
They have tens of thousands of air defence assets, but there are millions of targets... but they don't have to defend every square metre of Russian territory.
If this was a HATO attack that would enable them to glass the west... it does not matter if the attack is successful or not the act of attacking is an act of war.
Air defences are not supposed to protect absolutely everything, they are the buffer to stop an enemy attacking anything they please when they like.
HATO destroying one ammo dump is no compensation for a full nuclear strike on the west that would follow if they actually tried such an attack.
Most proxies would also be glassed in such an attack if Russia was not already reducing them to dust as we speak.
Even covering the European part of Russia. Russian AD is just learning about these new threats. Russia will now have the largest and soon the most experienced AD in the world. No exercises will replace this, they have intercepted thousands of drones, missiles, etc.
No one has or will every have a 100% perfect air defence system, but the system the Russians have is second to none. No other country has the level of air defence capacity that Russia has now, and it is only getting better as the west desperately tries to find gaps and hits obscure or just plain civilian targets...
Moreover, Sikorsky always speaks not only on his own behalf, but as the husband of his wife. His wife Anne Applebaum is not just a prominent American propagandist. She is flesh and blood of the US deep state , and one of the most inveterate hawks. The American elite speaks through her lips, and Sikorsky's lips are simply a transmission link. And so, it turns out, the American masters are kicking Kiev not just to the negotiating table, but to capitulation. And what happened? What happened to the face, as they say?
So Kiev will be feeling what the pro US Afghans were feeling as they turned tail and ran...
Amusing... but still a way to go just yet... the referendums will be in the rest of the Ukraine that is not the Russian Federation at the moment... and if any international force is involved it will be a BRICS force rather than any UN concoction the west will load up with their own troops that will be about as unbiased and reliable as the UN force in Kosovo, or indeed any OSCE force ever used anywhere...
And finally, the Ukrainian mobilization resource offers. Yes, millions of people have fled Ukraine – but millions remain. There are still enough men there to grab them off the street and send them to the front lines – and there is also enough fear and servility not to resist these seizures en masse. Therefore, if the regime in Ukraine holds out (that is, gets enough money and weapons), it will be able to resist for a long time.
They are not holding out now... now that their elite western trained super soldiers are dead or running away and their frontline is rolling back the regions they can conscript men from is getting smaller and smaller... a collapse of their military will mean they wont be able to hold out for a long time...
RPL-20 Light Machinegun: A modern take on the RPK, the RPL-20 either fires 7.62 or 5.45 cartridges and can be belt-fed, or use magazines or drums. Matviychuk says this makes it more versatile than magazine-only models, functioning like a heavy machinegun in defense. It can also be mounted on vehicles or helicopters.
AFAIK I don't think it can use magazines or drums. They removed that requirement to make it simpler and cheaper. Mags and drums are heavy compared with metal link... it is much easier to carry 100 round belts than to carry extra mags or drums are the worst... noisy and heavy and not cheap to make and often with reliability issues. And most webbing does not allow drums to be carried efficiently.
Sometimes earlier , I argued against concrete bunkers for planes . I was thinking that these structures , being above ground , can not withstand a direct hit from something like a cruise missile , with 500 kg , conventional warhead . My thinking was , first to move planes back and second to move them continuously . I heard that Ukraine may have used their new jet powered drone ? What size warhead can it carry ? 500 kg ? Are these munition bunkers designed to withstand a 500 kg direct hit ? If not then , they are sub-standard . Because 500 kg , is about the minimum air dropped bomb size . Also these bunkers should be completely underground .
We are not talking about aircraft hangars though... in an ammo dump a box of matches that sets off explosives stored out in the open can set of thousands of tons of open air stored munitions which can level buildings in most directions... not to mention falling burning debris...
Putin knows if he starts a war with NATO not only will his forces get overrun, but eventually Nukes will fly.
Over run by what exactly? Any massing of military forces in Europe can be hit easily enough... western air defences are shit and even cruise missiles can get through let alone ballistic missiles designed to punch through heavy air defences and hit hard targets.
Support for the war will rapidly disappear in the west when they get their draft papers...
The volunteers on the front line now seem to be idiots from the global south no doubt offered enormous fortunes to come and kill some ruskies... now they can't surrender or they wont get paid...
the russians have been unable to soundly defeat Ukraine with NATO help and NATO isn't exactly going in overdrive to help Ukraine. Granted there are reasons why, Putin handcuffing etc.
Totally ignoring the fact that the Russian invasion of the Ukraine was an intervention of a civil war where Kiev and the west was designating ukrainians living where the Lithium and black fertile soils are as being Russians and in need of exterminating.
If HATO joins the party Putin and the Russians have no need to be soft or nice at all... in fact an opportunity for payback really.
If Putin attacks even if claiming "self defense" that will make NATO mobilize, production will sky rocket and Russian AD will be whipped out.
HATO mobilising will destroy quite a few economies and production needs resources and energy to increase and they have neither. Production is gradually increasing but not enough to replace what has been supplied to Kiev let alone what they would need to arm their own forces... their ammo and air defences wouldn't last a day.
Remember Ukraine alone is able to get past Russian AD, it finds holes, saturates etc.
They are losing planes and platforms at a rate that is unsustainable and their success at hitting Russian AD is pathetic. One S-400 TEL in three years? A Joke.
How will western countries do any better... and their planes have not been used yet.... you would think if they were so confident they would send them to Kiev first instead of obsolete old F-16s.
Where is that escalation?
France didn't even send a single Leclerc... what are they afraid of... their hype is worse than their bite?
A mobilised HATO actually gives them some targets to hit... still glad that cluster warheads are now allowed?
Putins problem is he isn't doing what he needs to in Ukraine to bring Ukraine to its knees soundly and again, Russian leaders and what not share the same feeling.
Putin knows destroying the Ukraine is not enough... he has to bleed the west and make it turn on itself as things get more and more desperate...
The next escalation has been mentioned... no Uranium and Nickel and titanium for western export customers... the prices will triple and the Chinese and Indian companies that buy it from Russia can triple the price again because who else can they buy it from. Russia sells at a huge profit and China and India make money too... and Western costs go up enormously... who else can they buy these things from?
And as a follow up Russia can totally bring down Ukraines energy grid and heating systems and watch the mass exodus to Europe begin... millions of Ukrainians headed for the EU... how does that sound...
This is why Putin doesn't really attack NATO.
Putin does not want to fight HATO directly, but he didn't want to invade the Ukraine either and western escalations didn't really give him any choice so here we are.
Fighting with nukes and fighting with HATO is not a desirable thing unless you are a fucking moron... or you are given no choice in the matter.
Putin is no moron.
The only way he could and not cause an article five is IF A NATO member attacks so brazenly that no one can deny they attacked first but we in NATO know how to strike in such a way, you cannot really prove it, granted this is small scale attacks not large ones that we wouldn't be able to cover.
You might think you have plausable deniability, and EU leaders have been claiming that Putin is bluffing... he had a red line for Stingers and javelins and ATCAMS and MLRS and HIMARS and F-16s and the crimean bridge and he has backed down on all of them... except he didn't explicitly talk about red lines in these cases and for each there has been a response that has done rather a lot of damage to the Ukrainian side like damaging the power infrastructure and targeting foreign mercs and HATO generals in various attacks...
Putin has said long range attacks with HATO weapons would be HATO participation in this conflict which will change the nature of the conflict.
If the west is so dumb to not understand that... well it is no surprise really because they have been talking about sanctions getting the job done the last 15 rounds of them... thick as pig shit...
This is Putins catch 22 in a nutshell.
This is one of two red lines he had... one was the entry of the Ukraine into HATO and that hasn't happened yet. This red line of long range attacks into Russia with HATO weapons is another and if it is proven they were involved then we will see what he does.
This also why Nato can't attack genius. No one would care about russian air defence at that point and holes in the cheese.
Russian startegy isn't to win land right now but kill as many as possible. Only a dumbass would think they couldn't mount attacks and wipe out those 2 or 3 Patriots and Iris-T.
They let just enough to Ukraine to think they can win so that they keep going in. Most of ukrainian infrastructure was clean 6 months ago. It's obvious they spare most of Ukrainian targets...
Not to mention a force of HATO countries cobbled together is going to be difficult to manage with each country not really interested in going to the Eastern front to fight the Russians as winter approaches. I can just see the German draft adverts on TV now.... let alone the other countries who also fought and died to kill Soviet troops and steal Soviet land.
I can see protests in Europe starting almost immediately and the KGB wont need to do anything at all. Soldiers called up to fight the Russians having to buy their own flak jackets because all the local stocks have been sent to Kiev.... and we are running low on vehicles that actually run because of neglect for their military over the last 30 years... not to mention the costs of fighting around the world to please their American masters...
Also you're trying to suggest the Russians are allowing Ukraine to have AD which makes their pilots jobs much harder and gets some killed.
Ukrainian launchers remain safe as long as they are switched off and hidden in a building or a hole in the ground. When they get turned on they often get lit up... and it is mostly drones that take them out because they can't defend themselves from drone attack.
That is why drones are so widely used in this conflict.
Thats a completely fucking retarded thing to say, if Russia could they would utterly wipe out all of the AD because that would make their job much easier.
They wipe out what presents itself when it is being used, but it gets replaced over time by new stuff so expecting to wipe it all out is ridiculous...
And ironically that is why your claims that the west will quickly clean up Russian air defences and then run rampant are amusing to say the least.
Air defence networks makes air defence assets more powerful because they can work together and work better as a team than they would on their own, but even if the west could defeat the Russian air defence network on their own the Russian systems are quite capable of sniping and wiping out even large air forces and restricting their operations to render them useless.
Fact is they have done wave attacks with missiles to try and find the launchers to then target and destroy them
And they have been destroying Kievs air defence systems at a very steady rate, but new systems keep arriving so while the quality will go down as they use up Soviet systems and start using western systems exclusively, they are unlikely to run out.
As for the grinding that is partly true, but again you lying their goal is to generally grind down but they also know they need to advance, Russia isn't fighting this war has a only attrition war, they are trying to move forward to seize key ground because they cannot wait 10-15 years to do it.
If it take 10 years then that is what it will take... the west are not going to last that long though... the US likely wont even last the next election... Karmala might want a win and so she might decide on a Cuban Missile crisis negotiation but in reverse...
Putin is unlikely to trust the west anyway...
Also Ukie infrastructure is alive and well, what in the flying of all fucks are you saying, REALITY SAYS HELLO.
Is that because of the amazing air defence, or is it because Russia has chosen not to hit everything and create a complete collapse of their energy grid?
A HATO escalation is going to do what to this soft approach?
The size of the explosion and the continued burn shows it wasn't just shells.
It could have included aviation dumb bombs...
Why do you assume it is missiles?
The fire kept burning to for a long time, there was missile fuel involved that's the only way you get what you got there.
They might have been storing fuel there too.
Liquid rocket fuel generally has two components... a fuel and an oxidiser and such chemicals are generally not stored inside rockets in storage, they are stored separately from different vehicles and are loaded into the missile just before loading it onto an aircraft or just before launch.
For all we know they could have been SA-2 and SA-1 missiles which the Soviets produced in eye watering numbers and continue to use as targets for air defence practise exercises.
Feel free to get one quote from me saying the Russians are losing that isn't taken out of context, I'll wait
But Putin is in charge and he is weak and doesn't do anything right... how could they possibly be winning...
These M2A2 Bradleys are incredibly tough. Russian designs look much weaker.
Any APC is a box filled with people and ammo and fuel... if that Bradley was super tough why is everyone getting out and running away.
Like any box filled with ammo and fuel it depends where the plasma beam travels through it... a direct hit on the front that passes through the drivers position and through the troop cabin and out the back might not hit any fuel or ammo and just make a neat hole. Not nice for the driver and some of the troops in the back but the vehicle is not going to burst into a fire ball. Of course it could also have hit the front mounted engine and passed through and out the back so the vehicle rolls forward with momentum and then stops to be hit a second time, but unless ammo or fuel is hit the people in the path of the beam are unlucky, but there is not big fireball... it will generally start a fire that will spread to ammo and fuel over time and cause the vehicle to blow up but that usually takes a few minutes if there is no direct hit on ammo or fuel.
Another crumb from the food shortage. Another reason to leave the country.
Which means the Russian response to recent attacks is likely to take out their electrical grid as well as food and water supply network to hasten the move of Ukrainians to the EU... let them deal with it.
Mobile supplies , mobile planes , mobile troops .......
Keeping all your fuel and ammo and weapons moving is burning up all your fuel and wearing out all your vehicles and finding moving targets is actually not that hard because decent air defences would need to move with them to protect them.
With a fixed location you can set up listening stations around the target so you at least get some warning of drone attack... a mobile force wont have that.
They were mostly hinding in forests.
After heroically breaking through the Maginot line... oops a ground of conscript border guards...
But it brings a lot of people a lot of money.
And it looks like you are solving problems... like promising to send F-16s to turn the tide and actually not sending enough to even make a difference.
Old F-16s on their own would be useless even with the latest weapons and equipment... and what are they odds they send them with the latest equipment when they have so much old obsolete shit in storage they were going to have to spend money on to destroy...
Of course NATO aircraft far outnumber the Russian ones. And we've seen in this war that aircraft can be pretty survivable if care is taken to conceal them, and airfields aren't easy to disable either.
They do, but how many are they going to send to the Ukraine and how many are they going to hold back to defend their own airspace from sub launched land attack missiles that Russian subs might be carrying?
Equally operating rough is something some European planes can do... but not nearly all of them.
And when those dispersed aircraft take off... they are in a world of hurt because I rather suspect they can't use their numbers advantage when they are scattered over the countryside. The fuel and ammo requirements will be steep... planes burn a lot of fuel so it will need more than one tanker truck per section of motorway.
How many air conditioned hangars are there along European motorways?
This is the greatest advantage that NATO has. But effectively they can only function as launch platforms and radar platforms, unless NATO succeeds in destroying the Russian air defense network.
You reduce their advantage in numbers by the number they want to commit to this conflict as opposed to what they want to defend their own airspace. You then have to divide that number by two because they will be engaged in attacking Russian forces but also engaged in defending their own airspace from missile attacks from Russia... and every aircraft they lose will diminish their capacity to defend and attack.
How many AMRAAMs do they have ready to go?
Do they have plenty of short range AAMs?
Can they deploy them to where there aircraft are located.
What happens when ammo caches start to explode because some Ukrainians don't like what Kiev is doing and see what the west has done to their country...
And the much smaller and comparatively less integrated and less modern Ukrainian air defense network has survived at least enough to prevent free Russian reign over Ukrainian airspace for 2.5 years now, despite being targeted with thousands of missiles over that whole period of time.
I doubt the west could break the Russian AD network, so it will be much more dangerous to HATO aircraft than the Ukrainian forces are to Russian aircraft with their snipe and die tactics occasionally getting them kills.
Home
Latest images
Register
Log in
Mir
The updated combat module "Narval" on the transport and landing boat BK-16 of project 02510
--