From what I've heard through relatives of relatives: popular opinion in India is skewing pro-Russia and see this as being a response to the West/NATO putting the squeeze on Russia. My guess as to why is that India has been on the receiving end of American antagonism for 60+ years now (because socialism!), and of course there's plenty of distaste towards the UK. And they operate few western combat aircraft as far as I'm aware, just some French Dassaults to complement the MiGs and Sukhois which are the backbone of the IAF. Russia is their primary arms supplier by far.
Ukraine is game to you? Part deux.
- Thread starter Slothur the Hasty
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That helicopter strike against the oil depot in Russia reminds me:
I've been wondering if Ukraine might be able to conduct saboteur operations in Russia. Imagine the further damage to Russia's economy if they could replicate the Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia in Russia - shutting down oil refining capacity & gas distribution. Or the PR hit the Kremlin would face from having major disruptions to the gas flowing into Moscow while it was still below-freezing weather.
From Ukraine's point of view though, it would also be cutting energy supplies to Western Europe too, on whose support they depend on right now. So not going to happen.
I've been wondering if Ukraine might be able to conduct saboteur operations in Russia. Imagine the further damage to Russia's economy if they could replicate the Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia in Russia - shutting down oil refining capacity & gas distribution. Or the PR hit the Kremlin would face from having major disruptions to the gas flowing into Moscow while it was still below-freezing weather.
From Ukraine's point of view though, it would also be cutting energy supplies to Western Europe too, on whose support they depend on right now. So not going to happen.
Another interesting video from the Perun channel (formerly all about strategy video games) on the economics of the war for Russia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEpk_yG ... nnel=Perun
Edit: regarding the idea of Russian incompetence on the sinking of the Moskva and it's point defense being crap or turned off, etc. It may have been linked here a page or two ago, but didn't it seem like several (at least two) missiles were fired at it, and it probably shot down one but the other got through?
To me that speaks more to the inherent vulnerability of big ships, and countries should avoid spending on that type of capability unless if it's really necessary (ie to be a forward base for aircraft). Small frigates are plenty big enough to serve as SAM & cruise missile & single-use drone launch platforms to "occupy" a section of ocean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEpk_yG ... nnel=Perun
Edit: regarding the idea of Russian incompetence on the sinking of the Moskva and it's point defense being crap or turned off, etc. It may have been linked here a page or two ago, but didn't it seem like several (at least two) missiles were fired at it, and it probably shot down one but the other got through?
To me that speaks more to the inherent vulnerability of big ships, and countries should avoid spending on that type of capability unless if it's really necessary (ie to be a forward base for aircraft). Small frigates are plenty big enough to serve as SAM & cruise missile & single-use drone launch platforms to "occupy" a section of ocean.
Given that Canada had an active combat role for several years in Afghanistan (esp. Kandahar), I'd hazard to say that the Canadian Army at least is in better fighting shape with that experience, as well as experience from various deployments, peacekeeping & otherwise, which Germany doesn't have. Don't know if one can say the same about the Air Force or Navy though.
Raytheon CEO was quoted saying they won't be able to ramp up Stinger missile production until next year due to parts shortages. Similar must surely happening with all sorts of weapons systems. With many countries sending weapons to Ukraine there will be quite the lag before they can resupply themselves, and the price inflation will be even higher than what the defense industry normally has. One would think that would also impact how much the West can continue to send to Ukraine as this drags on if production can't scale up & they don't want to deplete their own stocks too much.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't there also issues with helicopters providing support in some mountainous areas of Afghanistan? Service ceiling became an issue, especially when it was hot. That's a point in favour of having some fixed-wing air support, though it does not necessarily have to be the A-10 or an A-10-like aircraft.
Most of the video I saw of the explosions were from apparent beach resorts, taken by vacationers.
Yeah, not like Canada didn't build a 5,500km transcontinental railway in the 1880s*. The US did theirs a decade earlier (though about 3,000km). Looking at a map I think the Russian portion of such a railroad would be about 5,500km if the line goes around Mongolia. The Russian portion would be 1,000km shorter if it goes through Mongolia.
Hard to compete with the capacity of modern container ships, but it would cut the travel distance by about half.
* at the cost of many - mostly immigrant labourers - lives. With mechanized construction, today that would be much faster & safer. The hard (and expensive) part about making railways in the
Seems that Ukraine hit a former hotel in Kadiivka, Luhansk that Russian Airborne was using as their base in the occupied territories since 2014, killing 200 troops.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/arm ... 10188.html
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/arm ... 10188.html
New Perun video: "6 Months of War in Ukraine - Economics, Endurance & the Energy War"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce5TR-q ... nnel=Perun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce5TR-q ... nnel=Perun
Sometimes I think that someone should have a smoking accident at the Gazprom facility at Russia's end of Nord Stream just to eliminate it as a bargaining chip.
"Putin: Russia has not lost anything over actions in Ukraine" - that's what all those dead soldiers mean to him.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/pu ... 022-09-07/
"Putin: Russia has not lost anything over actions in Ukraine" - that's what all those dead soldiers mean to him.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/pu ... 022-09-07/
A bit late on the Nordstream leak conversation, but since there was questions about the construction, here's a handy explainer on the Practical Engineering youtube channel:
https://youtu.be/jzibtVSamrY?t=237
TL;DW: Steel pipe with spray-on liners inside & out, and a concrete sleeve (12 tons per segment) applied around the outside. Where the topography allowed it was mostly laid on a gravel bed directly on the sea floor. Where required (ie shallows & areas with strong currents/tides), it was laid into a trench that was backfilled.
https://youtu.be/jzibtVSamrY?t=237
TL;DW: Steel pipe with spray-on liners inside & out, and a concrete sleeve (12 tons per segment) applied around the outside. Where the topography allowed it was mostly laid on a gravel bed directly on the sea floor. Where required (ie shallows & areas with strong currents/tides), it was laid into a trench that was backfilled.
Although jokingly, I posited as much a couple weeks ago:
Though I was thinking of the point of origin of the pipeline, not the pipeline itself.
Isn't the US govt paying for Ukraine's Starlink access? It's not like it was a donation from Musk.
Perun posted that it was resolved for himself & his weekly post went up today after being delayed until that had happened. People are speculating it was a widespread bug. Tinfoil hat version of me wonders about Russia's internet troll army maybe using DMCA & other reporting tools to handicap channels reporting on the war.
Seeing these low cost drones - mostly prop-driven & all subsonic - brought to mind the idea of having inexpensive radar-guided AAA not dissimilar to what we used to see back in the 40s-50s before missiles took over the role. Basically a modern radar & computer guided version of an old 40mm Bofors or pom pom. It evens out the cost disparity between offense & defense in this scenario, and given the apparent flight characteristics of these drones, would probably be effective.
PBS Frontline on documenting Russia's war crimes in Ukraine. I can't check it out right now (geolocked, I'll see about setting the PVR to record it though) but they have a pretty good track record with their news docs.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/docu ... ar-crimes/
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/docu ... ar-crimes/
Baykar announces that they'll soon have the Bayraktar TB2 and Akıncıs drones be able to use Sungar missiles to shoot down Russian kamikaze drones, and other aircraft.
Following the Estonia statement, Latvia is saying that Ukraine should be allowed to hit military targets within Russia proper:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...ary-targets-in-russia-latvia-says/ar-AA14Hg9C
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...ary-targets-in-russia-latvia-says/ar-AA14Hg9C
As far as I'm aware, the only thing that has really prevented Ukraine from doing that is that they don't have weapons with sufficient range to do so (they have for example, conducted saboteur/commando strikes in Russia). So "allowing" it in this context means giving them long-range rockets to do it with, not permission.
Interesting conversation about the state of the air war over Ukraine, the need for NATO air defense and the opportunities of switching over to a western fighter jet.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lot6i8bqvpw
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lot6i8bqvpw
Mmm, Attack-Umms.(On a side note apropos of nothing, does anyone else think of ATACMS as the precision missile version of Steak'umms? I can't not hear it whenever I hear someone talking about ATACMS.)
I posted this a couple pages ago, Military Aviation History had a video discussing the current state of the air war:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lot6i8bqvpw
It's been a few days since I watched it, but one of the takeaways I had was that after a number of losses early in the war, Russia VKS has operated in a fairly defensive posture, not willing to risk aircraft conducting penetrating strikes - indicating that they maybe don't have enough aircraft/aircrew to afford many losses. Neither can Ukraine. So now the air war is more a battle of air denial, not air superiority.
Edit: the interviewee cowrote a paper on the air war & Ukraine's air defense needs, a pdf of it can be downloaded from here: https://rusi.org/explore-our-resear...ir-war-and-ukrainian-requirements-air-defence
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lot6i8bqvpw
It's been a few days since I watched it, but one of the takeaways I had was that after a number of losses early in the war, Russia VKS has operated in a fairly defensive posture, not willing to risk aircraft conducting penetrating strikes - indicating that they maybe don't have enough aircraft/aircrew to afford many losses. Neither can Ukraine. So now the air war is more a battle of air denial, not air superiority.
Edit: the interviewee cowrote a paper on the air war & Ukraine's air defense needs, a pdf of it can be downloaded from here: https://rusi.org/explore-our-resear...ir-war-and-ukrainian-requirements-air-defence
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I saw some reporting that Ukraine hit a Wagner HQ (a converted hotel) pretty hard yesterday. But the BBC report I saw said it wasn't independently verified.
Canada announced that they'll be buying a NASAMS system & ammunition specifically to donate to Ukraine, valued at about $400M CAD. The govt previously announced C$500M in military aid in November, and this is coming out of that amount. In practice, I don't know if this really means an additional system is going over, or Canada is just paying for a system the US is already sending? Canada is not a current NASAMS operator.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-purchase-missile-system-1.6709115
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-purchase-missile-system-1.6709115
Reminds me of some stories about Rommel in WW2 - while he pulled off some very difficult retreats in the face of a much larger & better supplied force with far less loss of life & equipment than anticipated, that did not impress the top political class.
Dear Leaders want victories, not well executed retreats that conserve resources & fighting capacity.
I'm surprised they haven't sent more LAV APCs over. I remember last fall that ~40 brand new ones (v6.0) that were ordered for the Canadian army were sent to Ukraine instead. But Canada already has something like 600 of them. Sending 100 or so should be a no-brainer as soon as you can find a ship to put them on.
Edit: I also saw a story about a couple hundred armoured cars (Roshel Senator) going to Ukraine, and the company that makes them is ramping up & expecting to make 1,000 of them this year, most of them apparently heading over to Ukraine. This type of vehicle is only protection against small arms fire though, more akin to an armoured Humvee.
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Another timely video about IFVs in Ukraine from Perun.
Infantry Fighting Vehicles in Ukraine - losses, lessons & will Western IFVs matter?
Infantry Fighting Vehicles in Ukraine - losses, lessons & will Western IFVs matter?
I remember that. It does become interesting that Russia thinks those Su-35s are more valuable as barter than putting them to use in-theatre. Are they more pilot constrained than airframe? Or some other aspect of logistics? Or they think with the current state of air defense, they need cruise missiles more than another two squadrons of air superiority/interceptor aircraft that can't overfly Ukrainian controlled soil?
I mentioned them a while ago after I saw a feature story on Canadian TV about this company a few weeks ago. They're ramping up production and expect to make 1,000 of them in 2023, with almost all going to Ukraine. Other countries are also paying for batches of them, so they're not all on the Canadian wallet.
They also employ a bunch of Ukrainian refugees in Canada on their production line. And the CEO's wife is Ukrainian.
They're highly motivated.
Germany being able to block re-export of tanks (and other German made weapons & ammo) owned by other countries is really annoying. They're not the only ones - I think there was something about the Swiss doing the same last year.
As a Canadian I fully support sending some of our L2s over. In the meantime we should send LAV 6s or ACSV (a LAV variant) 8x8 IFVs over. We sent 39 brand new ones last year. Need to send additional batches.
Edit: that improvised rocket artillery system looked really interesting when it came up recently. Using in-stock guided bombs with also in-stock, but no longer usable rockets (because they were designed for use with cluster munitions, IIRC), was really clever.
As a Canadian I fully support sending some of our L2s over. In the meantime we should send LAV 6s or ACSV (a LAV variant) 8x8 IFVs over. We sent 39 brand new ones last year. Need to send additional batches.
Edit: that improvised rocket artillery system looked really interesting when it came up recently. Using in-stock guided bombs with also in-stock, but no longer usable rockets (because they were designed for use with cluster munitions, IIRC), was really clever.
Jeez - when looking at the comments on any Canadian media news story on providing military aid to Ukraine, the conservative dipshits are sure out in full force. Yeesh.
(I was just watching an interview with an analyst on Global News that started with this announcement and made the mistake of scrolling down)
It does seem like it will be cheap as these things go - the bomb is $40K per, don't know about the rocket. For accuracy, I've only seen this project described using the GBU-39 ($40K each)which according to it's wikipedia page has 5-8 meter accuracy.
The newer SDB2 (GBU-53) is 1 meter, but I don't think that's part of the GLSBD proposal. And it's $250K each.
Vladimir Putin to send heavy T-14 Armata main battle tanks into Ukraine, says UK defence chiefs
Watch out Ukraine, they may send both of them.
Watch out Ukraine, they may send both of them.
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