Ukraine War: David And Goliath

[Wilbur]

Once again, it is imperative that the Biden administration get off the stump and send Ukraine the equipment and munitions it needs.

We have 2,500-3,000 Bradleys sitting in East Texas and costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars every quarter to maintain.  Haul them down I-49 to New Orleans, and ship them off to Odessa.

We get to stop spending money to maintain them, Ukraine gets to use them up, everybody wins.

Edited January 13 by Wilbur
Look at the storage and repair facility

[maarsen]

6 hours ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

So Chinese arms manufacturers might not want attack on Taiwan I guess.

No not really. Consider the news just a few days ago about the missiles filled with water rather than rocket fuel in China.

[Werthead]

Because the St. Petersburg authorities and its own fire department still can't agree that maybe they should try putting out a fire, the Wildberries warehouse fire was still going 27 hours after it started, although it seems to have finally been dampened by the cold weather.

Moscow will have rolling blackouts "not to exceed 12 hours a day" from 14 January to 31 March 2024 due to massive infrastructure failures of the main electric grid. Probably not the best thing to happen during the election (if the election meant anything, but still). The temperature today in Moscow is -22 C. Rostov has also been experiencing rolling blackouts for the last few days.

Apparently there's a brewing scandal in Russia with at least hundreds and maybe thousands of Iranian and Russian drones earmarked for the front disappearing from depots and mysteriously reappearing on websites for sale. This is coming as Ukraine's simultaneous domestic production and import of drones has reached new heights, with very heavy drone strikes in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

There's a very unpleasant image going around of a Russian tank apparently covered in corpses. The crew strung up Russian bodies onto the hull to act as a "meatshield" against enemy fire.

Ukraine carried out a limited counterattack at Avdiivka, destroying a Russian position that was being used as a field HQ and then occupying the area.

In one engagement in the area a few days ago, a Russian IFV was destroyed and three soldiers disembarked. Clearly wounded, with Ukrainian forces approaching, they decided to shoot themselves dead rather than be taken prisoner. Some other Russian POWs captured recently have said they have been told to kill themselves rather than surrender and officers have given them graphic descriptions of what would happen to them if they were captured by Ukrainian forces.

Ukrainian intelligence also uncovered a Russian report than an entire 40-man Russian platoon has absconded behind the lines after sustained artillery and drone bombardments and fled to Crimea, with Russia having to divert significant numbers of troops and police to tracking them down.

Rumours circulating that Gerasimov was killed in the Ukrainian Storm Shadow/SCALP strike on the Russian airbase at Saky, Crimea on 5 January. Ukrainian command has ruled this out, but Gerasimov has not been seen in public since 29 December, marking his longest period out of the limelight since the start of the invasion. Some others suggesting that Putin may be lining him up as a scapegoat for the invasion not proceeding to plan, since he seems unable to punish Shoigu (despite Shoigu being inexperienced at military command and Gerasimov being reasonably well-regarded for the operations he had direct command over in Chechnya, including a rather un-Russian commitment to battlefield discipline).

A fourth round of talks has taken place in Davos with 83 countries participating. The goal is to create a peace plan which is robust enough to garner even larger, widespread support in the UN and to then put additional political pressure on Russia to agree to it. Unsurprisingly, Russia has been unmoved by this process. Most notably, Brazil, India and South Africa participated in the talks and apparently made constructive contributions; these countries retain socio-economic ties with Russia and a degree of influence that could be useful. Switzerland, which has been hosting the talks, has said it's important to get countries outside of the "usual suspects" to help formulate and agree to a process to end the war, based on the principle of territorial integrity. Interestingly, and this maybe Switzerland trying to make lemonade out of lemons and attract the attention of countries outside the traditional west, they want to create a conflict resolution process which could be applied to other conflicts, perhaps a nod to the Israeli-Hamas conflict.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

45 minutes ago, Werthead said:

There's a very unpleasant image going around of a Russian tank apparently covered in corpses. The crew strung up Russian bodies onto the hull to act as a "meatshield" against enemy fire.

That’s incredibly macabre.  Would that reduce the effectiveness of something like the bushmaster cannon on a Bradley deployed against a Russian tank?

Edited January 14 by Ser Scot A Ellison

[Jace, Extat]

13 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

That incredibly macabre.  Would that reduce the effectiveness of something like a bushmaster cannon on a Bradley?

Oh god, what a terrible thing to bring back The Mythbusters for.

[Werthead]

39 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

That’s incredibly macabre.  Would that reduce the effectiveness of something like the bushmaster cannon on a Bradley deployed against a Russian tank?

No, of course not. It might stop the paint getting scratched by small arms fire but not a lot else. Most tanks today are being destroyed by drones, which this is useless against (and before that Javelins, which this would also be useless against).

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

8 minutes ago, Werthead said:

No, of course not. It might stop the paint getting scratched by small arms fire but not a lot else. Most tanks today are being destroyed by drones, which this is useless against (and before that Javelins, which this would also be useless against).

Then why try that?  Desperation?

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Reminds me a bit of those stereotypical African Medicine man. May that's the Russian equivalent. An old baba yaga did a ritual: Tie a couple of corpses to a tank and they will make the projectile go away magically.

edit: I probably should add, that this tie corpses to a tank reminded me of that Darwin Award Story from Africa, where a couple of gangsters told a medicine man to make them bullet proof. To their credit they did test on one of them. Unfortunately they didn't pick a non-vital part. The voodoo doctor/medicine man/whateffs was whipped as punishment for that non-functional spell.

Edited January 14 by A Horse Named Stranger

[Werthead]

4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Then why try that?  Desperation?

I think they've just snapped and think they're Chaos Marines from Warhammer 40,000. Sticking the bodies of your enemies on your tank as a sign of supplication to Khorne and hoping it blesses your cause with evil magical power.

Edited January 14 by Werthead

[SpaceChampion]

or they've become Reavers from Firefly / Serenity.

[Wilbur]

I see more and more analysis like this one that is a kind of strategic-thinking echo of the shield of dead bodies on the tank.

Click for the scary Russian attack scenario.

Given the way Putin's mind seems to work, and then seeing those horrific images, I am afraid that the calculus that suggests a Russian attack on NATO isn't far-fetched may not be off base.

[Rippounet]

7 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I think they've just snapped and think they're Chaos Marines from Warhammer 40,000. Sticking the bodies of your enemies on your tank as a sign of supplication to Khorne and hoping it blesses your cause with evil magical power.

Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows, only that it flows.

Sorry, couldn't resist. Once upon a time, I did have a predator tank with a dead body on its front. Chaos Space Marines has always been my primary army.

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

I think they've just snapped and think they're Chaos Marines from Warhammer 40,000. Sticking the bodies of your enemies on your tank as a sign of supplication to Khorne and hoping it blesses your cause with evil magical power.

It reads to me like something out of Mad Max.

[ThinkerX]

5 hours ago, Wilbur said:

I see more and more analysis like this one that is a kind of strategic-thinking echo of the shield of dead bodies on the tank.

Click for the scary Russian attack scenario.

Given the way Putin's mind seems to work, and then seeing those horrific images, I am afraid that the calculus that suggests a Russian attack on NATO isn't far-fetched may not be off base.

The problem with that commentator's statements is that partly as a result of the war, the Russian equivalent of Amazon burned to the ground and Moscow is facing rolling blackouts. If this keeps up Russia will cease to be a functional industrial country within the specified timeline.

 

[Darzin]

I don't think that attack scenario is very likely. Russia is much much weaker then NATO and the war is only making them weaker. Russia zerg rushing the EU is an entirely different beast then them invading Ukraine and it just doesn't seem like they'd get very far. And the idea a Russian strike on critical infrastructure would "weaken Western resolve" is the kind of mistake dictators always make about the West. Japan thought the same thing with their strike on Pearl Harbor and we see how that worked out for them.

[Celestial]

2 hours ago, Darzin said:

I don't think that attack scenario is very likely. Russia is much much weaker then NATO and the war is only making them weaker. Russia zerg rushing the EU is an entirely different beast then them invading Ukraine and it just doesn't seem like they'd get very far. And the idea a Russian strike on critical infrastructure would "weaken Western resolve" is the kind of mistake dictators always make about the West. Japan thought the same thing with their strike on Pearl Harbor and we see how that worked out for them.

The problem with this kind of comment is that it assumes a dictator's thought process functions the same as for your typical Western politician.

I said it before and I will say it again: NATO is as strong as the resolve of its member to actually fight. It is completely pointless to point how much stronger NATO is economically than Russia, when many European armies are in a state of total disrepair and the political future of US is so uncertain.

The example of Japan shows the opposite what Darzin implies. How many times does history have to show us that dictators are prone to overestimate their strength and underestimate their opponents? A dictatorial regime tends to think that their willingness and capacity to force their citizenry to starve or take millions of casualties in order to win a war is evidence of strength - while democracies' incapacity to do the same is a sign of weakness. And it is not a 100% bet that such an assessment is absolutely deluded. Yes, Hitlerite Germany, Japan or Saddam were wrong when they thought they could discourage their enemies through high losses. But North Vietnam and the Talibans won by exploiting this exact same scenario: in their case, the assessment that they could outlast America in the long-term was proven correct.

And Russia won't try to zerg rush EU. But if it would try to do that to Lithuania, are you absolutely convinced that NATO will send a declaration of war to Moscow in the next 24 hours and start bombing Russian columns?

NATO is not some magical formula, where you get to say abracadabra and millions of troops with thousands of tanks and aircraft spring from the ground. Taking it for granted is a major mistake.

Edited January 15 by Celestial

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, Darzin said:

I don't think that attack scenario is very likely. Russia is much much weaker then NATO and the war is only making them weaker. Russia zerg rushing the EU is an entirely different beast then them invading Ukraine and it just doesn't seem like they'd get very far. And the idea a Russian strike on critical infrastructure would "weaken Western resolve" is the kind of mistake dictators always make about the West. Japan thought the same thing with their strike on Pearl Harbor and we see how that worked out for them.

I appreciate your point but I cannot help but recall how many people were saying In December 2021, then in  January and February of 2022 that there is no way Russia will launch a full scale invasion of Ukraine because it would make no sense to do so.  Yet… Putin did.

[Werthead]

Ukraine has launched a significant AA attack on Russian targets over the Sea of Azov. An IL-22M11 command-and-control aircraft was hit but managed to make an emergency landing. An A-50 AWACS IL-76 was shot down and destroyed outright. Both aircraft were just inside "safe airspace" from Ukrainian Patriot batteries deployed in Zaporizhzhia. However, there are some signs that the Americans or Ukrainians (or both) have managed to extend the Patriot range somewhat, creating a grey area where aircraft may or may not be in range. These two Russian aircraft were used to test the limits of that area.

These are two pretty hefty and expensive losses, especially the IL-76 which was likely acting as a replacement for the series of radar stations across Crimea that were recently destroyed.

Some Russian sources saying the IL-22M might have been instead hit by friendly fire as it fled the area.

Edited January 15 by Werthead

[Wilbur]

19 minutes ago, Werthead said:

...However, there are some signs that the Americans or Ukrainians (or both) have managed to extend the Patriot range somewhat, creating a grey area where aircraft may or may not be in range...

"No superior condition exists for a product to exceed documented specs than a motivated user."

- Motorola LMPS engineers

[Kalbear]

Here's a theory on how Ukraine took down that radar plane

 

https://xxtomcooperxx.substack.com/p/ukraine-war-16-january-2024-scratch?r=7jgcu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Quote

    On 13 January 2024, Ukrainian Air Force (PSU) flew a series of air strikes against Russian ground-based radars and air defence systems on the occupied Crimean peninsula.

2.)    A number of radars were knocked out.

3.)    As a result, the Russians ordered one of their few A-50Us into the air. And, to complement the aircraft with insufficient equipment for the task, and as usually, this was accompanied by an Il-22M airborne command post, probably by an Il-20M electronic warfare aircraft, too.

4.)    Problem: the radar range of the A-50U was too short but to detect incoming Ukrainian aircraft and missiles from sufficient distance. Thus, the aircraft had to operate very close to the frontline: as little as 80-90 kilometres from it.

5.)    On its own, ‘no problem’ – at least as long as no Ukrainian surface-to-air systems (SAM-systems) with a longer range were _not_ around.

6.)    On 13 January 2024, not only have Ukrainian air strikes caused Russian super-smart generals to order the A-50U and the Il-22M closer to the frontline, but: simultaneously, the VKS also flew its own air strikes. As usually, the two aircraft were escorted – probably by at least a pair of Su-30SM interceptors. Moreover, Su-34s were releasing Kh-59 stand-off precision guided munitions at targets in Ukraine.

7.) The Russian activity attracted quite a lots of Western attention, too: certainly enough, this helped Ukrainian planning for following operations.

8.)    What is known as next is that the crew of one of Su-34s then reported that its own electronic warfare systems have recorded a radar emission by one of Ukrainian S-300 (ASCC/NATO-reporting name ‘SA-10 Grumble’) – which, previously, was not known as being there.

9.)    Minutes later, the A-50 and the Il-22 were targeted by surface-to-air missiles.

10.)    The A-50 (bort 50, serial RF-50601) was hit, set on fire and crashed in the marshes south of Preslav, probably with the loss of its entire crew.

11.) The missile aiming for the Il-20M proximity fused near its target, peppering it with shrapnel: according to reports in the Russian social media, at least two crewmembers were killed, two others wounded (one of them is still in critical condition). But, the crew managed to fly the badly damaged aircraft back to the Anapa airport and landed it safely.