Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[bickster]

5 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

Not like we saw at the start of the war that massive long convoy waiting to attack.

That massive long convoy was attacked at the head, constantly but that was essentially a supply convoy.

What's pictured up in that video is just a small group of tanks on some sort of mission. Obviously it's now a small group of ex-tanks having failed their mission

But that is mightily accurate artillery, the Russians really don't seem to learn. They'll have so few rersources available soon they won't be able to hold a May Day parade in Moscow.

There were some images of a supply convoy yesterday that was quite big but it was absolutely fuill of museum pieces, they really do appear to be scraping the barrel for front line armour and supply vehicles now

[magnkarl]

4 hours ago, Awol said:

Not rubbish really. It can perform reconnaissance and help adjust artillery fire perfectly well, it’s small and cheap so they can afford more of them, which provides a greater persistent presence in the air and the loss of individual aircraft isn’t so consequential. 

Cheap and cheerful is good, commercial off the shelf even better. More, cheaper, and expendable systems is the only way to beat Defence inflation and increase resilience. Save the exquisite kit for the jobs that require it. 

Surely even a small mavic is cheaper than putting a mirror reflex cannon into a drone? Why go to such lengths making something so crappy when the amateur market has better and cheaper gear?

Can this cannon even send images back, or do they need to land and insert the micro sd into a laptop?

Edited April 11, 2022 by magnkarl

[og1874]

17 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

Surely even a small mavic is cheaper than putting a mirror reflex cannon into a drone? Why go to such lengths making something so crappy when the amateur market has better and cheaper gear?

Going to assume range is the answer to that

[tonyh29]

3 hours ago, sidcow said:

This truly is the war that shows drones are the future of warfare. 

I could have sworn Twitters military experts said it was tanks  ? 

I 'm sure I recall all  the  ridicule once they found out Russia had some tanks and would use them to take Ukraine in 3 days .... 4 months after the PM told a defence review the concept of big tank battles in Europe was over , and FCAS was the future ,

 

[Anthony]

35 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

I could have sworn Twitters military experts said it was tanks  ? 

I 'm sure I recall all  the  ridicule once they found out Russia had some tanks and would use them to take Ukraine in 3 days .... 4 months after the PM told a defence review the concept of big tank battles in Europe was over , and FCAS was the future ,

 

My emphasis.

I believe this was just after he'd been informed that Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine too. Was he being deliberately misleading, or just dumb? He has form on both. Answers on a postcard...

[avfc1982am]

 

[tonyh29]

27 minutes ago, Anthony said:

My emphasis.

I believe this was just after he'd been informed that Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine too. Was he being deliberately misleading, or just dumb? He has form on both. Answers on a postcard...

Looking at the various amounts of footage and the reports (unverified) that Russia has lost 460 tanks and over 2,000 other armoured vehicles , to javelins , NLAW's , drones , and logistic issues (i.e running out of fuel)  then it could be argued , he was being neither 

[bickster]

19 minutes ago, avfc1982am said:

 

I saw that before but not on the Scum website obviously, would look good with the Benny hill Theme dubed over the top

[avfc1982am]

4 minutes ago, bickster said:

I saw that before but not on the Scum website obviously, would look good with the Benny hill Theme dubed over the top

I'd like to have seen something more along the lines of Tchaikovsky's Overture.....Quite appropriate considering he was Russian. Nice short clip

 

[BleedClaretAndBlue]

 

[bickster]

Interesting analysis on the failure of the Russian Battalion Tactical Group approach to fighting and why it is and will continue to fail

Thread of 13 Tweets

 

[sne]

Considering a new war in Bosnia is only a spark away it might Serbia that is the final destination. Or is it going to Russia via Serbia?

Quote

China secretly sends massive arms shipment with surface-to-air missile systems to Serbia

CHINA has reportedly sent a sophisticated anti-aircraft system to Serbia in a veiled operation.

President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, all but confirmed delivery of the medium-range system, saying on Saturday he will present the newest pride of the Serbian military on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Online magazine, The Warzone, said the appearance of the Y-20s raised eyebrows because they flew en masse as opposed to a series of single-aircraft flights.

It described the Y-20's presence in Europe in any numbers as a fairly new development, adding it is "quite probable" that China's People's Liberation Army Air Force used the delivery to demonstrate its own airlift capability given NATO efforts to ferry supplies and materiel for Ukraine’s war effort.

Serbia voted in favour of UN resolutions condemning Russian attacks in Ukraine, but it has refused to join international sanctions against Moscow.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1594227/china-news-xi-jinping-serbia-arms-shipment-russia-ukraine-war-update

[bickster]

17 minutes ago, sne said:

Considering a new war in Bosnia is only a spark away it might Serbia that is the final destination. Or is it going to Russia via Serbia?

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1594227/china-news-xi-jinping-serbia-arms-shipment-russia-ukraine-war-update

Serbia openly bought this Ground to Air defence system from the Chinese ages ago. The Chinese had to fly over Turkey and Bulgaria (Both NATO) to deliver this, they even had to refuel in Turkey

It's the Daily Express being typically alarmist in the face of any logic.

Nothing about this delivery is a secret

[blandy]

1 hour ago, tonyh29 said:

Looking at the various amounts of footage and the reports (unverified) that Russia has lost 460 tanks and over 2,000 other armoured vehicles , to javelins , NLAW's , drones , and logistic issues (i.e running out of fuel)  then it could be argued , he was being neither 

Only by someone wilfully trying not to understand things fully.

War and armed forces are not one dimensional. To control a battlespace it's necessary to control multiple facets. One of those is the air, another is the land...and so on. Keeping it purposely simplified, if you don't control the air, then the opponent is able to inflict massive damage on your ground forces. But if you don't control the ground, then you ain't going to win. In order to have won quickly, Russia needed to control the air, to protect their tanks both from drones but also to understand where UA ground forces were and to then prevent them from using their anti tank weapons.

Ukraine had the benefit of Western ISTAR via satellite and other means - so they had information to enable them to target the Russian tanks, despite being outnumbered. Another issue was the Russian tactics and complacency/unprofessionalism which left them particularly vulnerable - especially when all stuck in a long line behind broken vehicles, destroyed bridges and so on. Lack of ground forces able to use NVGs and so on to spot the Ukrainians who often attacked at night was another problem. And another tactic the Ukrainians used was to wait until Russian drones were in the area before launching their own, because at that point the Russians turned off their jamming systems, because their own drones also get jammed. The jamming systems used appear to be unsophisticated such that they can't tune them for different frequencies and they can't change the frequencies they themselves use for their own UAV C2 links and datalinks.

I can't know if Bunter didn't read his briefing, skim read it, half remembered some conversation with someone or was very badly briefed, but he was wrong.

FCAS is clearly, just by name, part of "the future" (for UK Combat Aircraft ), but the future for ground (and for naval and for space and for cyber and for other Air etc.) is equally important. "FCAS is the future" is just ignorant of so much else.

[magnkarl]

The frightening accuracy of UA artillery in recent videos all but confirm that they’ve likely already received Raptor drones and laser guided artillery system from Germany. It’s state of the art and probably the best artillery in the world. Aim at the target with the drone, fire in the general direction with the artillery and bobs your uncle.

Edited April 11, 2022 by magnkarl

[tonyh29]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

Only by someone wilfully trying not to understand things fully.

 

 I remember now  why I stayed away from the bolitcs stuff , but 

I concur with lots of your post , the last kinda major conflict we saw play out in Iraq  , the allies barely moved a ground troop until they had taken out the Iraq airforce … there was a major tank battle or two after that … BUT , they were in open deserts not in built up cities …

Most of what you’ve listed as to why Russia failed is exactly why he said fighting big tank battles on European land mass are over … and they are ..he wasn’t saying tanks are redundant , only someone will fully trying not to understand things fully would think that .

 if you think otherwise then sure that’s your prerogative , but Germany , France , U.K. nati etc all reduced their tank numbers … …Germany reduced it Leopold 2 numbers from 2100 to around 200 … this chart of tank numbers is quite telling in that regard (taken from here) 

 

[Awol]

14 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

 I remember now  why I stayed away from the bolitcs stuff , but 

I concur with lots of your post , the last kinda major conflict we saw play out in Iraq  , the allies barely moved a ground troop until they had taken out the Iraq airforce … there was a major tank battle or two after that … BUT , they were in open deserts not in built up cities …

Most of what you’ve listed as to why Russia failed is exactly why he said fighting big tank battles on European land mass are over … and they are ..he wasn’t saying tanks are redundant , only someone will fully trying not to understand things fully would think that .

 if you think otherwise then sure that’s your prerogative , but Germany , France , U.K. nati etc all reduced their tank numbers … …Germany reduced it Leopold 2 numbers from 2100 to around 200 … this chart of tank numbers is quite telling in that regard (taken from here) 

 

The stuff about heavy metal being redundant is a post-hoc justification for further cuts to defence, nothing more. The difference between UK and Germany is how we dress that lie up - UK as some wonderful innovation to make us double-hard cyber ninjas, Germany because armed force isn’t a legitimate tool in the international system so why worry anyway? Both are absurd, as reality is now demonstrating in Ukraine.

Zelensky is begging for tanks and IFVs because armoured mobility is necessary to fight a land war at scale, against an industrialized opponent. Plus everything @blandy said. 
 

 

[rjw63]

Just watching the news, hearing about war crimes and seeing the bodybags.

Question; does the NKVD still exist in Russia?

I remember them from the old Sven Hassell war books, they were equally as bad as the Gestapo back then.

 

[bickster]

Reports that RUssia have dropped a chemical weapon on Mariupol, reports saying that it may be a Sarin Gas attack and that people appear to be suffocating

[Awol]

Multiple reports now of a Russian chemical attack on defenders of Mariupol this evening. Pretty inevitable they would go there eventually, it’s unlikely to be the last time. 

I hope the letters of protest are done in our best hand writing to really let them know how cross we are about this.