Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[bickster]

11 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

 

 

Some people didn’t believe the today version of that, so someone got hold of a video driving down the whole road. They’ve done a great job of rebuilding

[magnkarl]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

Some people didn’t believe the today version of that, so someone got hold of a video driving down the whole road. They’ve done a great job of rebuilding

I’m amazed at how quickly nature’s managed to heal those trees. They’re essentially kindling in the first photo and now are green and lovely. 

[avfc1982am]

On 14/05/2023 at 15:58, Mandy Lifeboats said:

This guy is a Finish military reserve.  He is also well connected with Russian sources.  His stuff is normally reliable. 

 

 

 

I think this is a direct result of being accused of feeding Ukraine information.

It seems he's been set up as the Fall Guy. God I loved that show in the early 80's....."I might might fall from a tall building, in the name of the brand new Tzar"

 

 

[bickster]

Ukraine are claiming that 18 missiles were launched at Kyiv last night and all 18 were shot down. There’s nothing particularly unusual about that in itself but they also claim 6 of them were Russias new hypersonic Khinzal missiles.

If that is true, they aren't going to sell many of them, they were supposed to be impossible to shoot down. If Ukraine shot down all 6 of them fired as they claim then the Patriot system can already deal with them

[Genie]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

Ukraine are claiming that 18 missiles were launched at Kyiv last night and all 18 were shot down. There’s nothing particularly unusual about that in itself but they also claim 6 of them were Russias new hypersonic Khinzal missiles.

If that is true, they aren't going to sell many of them, they were supposed to be impossible to shoot down. If Ukraine shot down all 6 of them fired as they claim then the Patriot system can already deal with them

Wow, big news. How much are these hypersonic missiles supposed to cost? I assume Russia can’t really afford to keep sending them up for Ukraine shooting practice. 

[bickster]

53 minutes ago, Genie said:

Wow, big news. How much are these hypersonic missiles supposed to cost? I assume Russia can’t really afford to keep sending them up for Ukraine shooting practice. 

It isn't thought that they have that many because they are so new. This is Russia's newest nuclear capable missile that was boasted about as being unstoppable.

The US not so long ago said they didn't think the Patriot was capable of downing the Kinzhal. It was thought theoretically possible but in reality not so probable. If this story is true, Ukraine have obviously found a way and with a weapons system they only took delivery of last month

[LondonLax]

You also have to take claims with a pinch of salt. 

Russia has also been claiming it has shot down Ukrainian storm shadow missiles in the last few days. 

Both sides will be trying to discredit the other side’s weapons capabilities. 

[sidcow]

I'm sure the US and Allies know the truth of it. 

They'll have all sorts of tracking info and satellite images of what's going on surely? 

All those spy planes constantly circling. 

Russia have given away a hell of a lot about their capability (or lack of it) in this war. 

Edited May 16, 2023 by sidcow

[bickster]

Oh dear... Macron and the French have just given Ukraine their version of the Storm Shadow (it was a joint development)

Except SCALP has a much longer range, about 560KM.

Hello Kerch Bridge

[sidcow]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

Oh dear... Macron and the French have just given Ukraine their version of the Storm Shadow (it was a joint development)

Except SCALP has a much longer range, about 560KM.

Hello Kerch Bridge

What? The French version of the missile is better than ours? 

Don't let The Daily Mail Et al hear you say that 

[Genie]

1 minute ago, sidcow said:

What? The French version of the missile is better than ours? 

Don't let The Daily Mail Et al hear you say that 

The EU made us hand over our technology and now we’re at risk of being bombed from Paris. 

[chrisp65]

Cheese eating surrender missiles.

[LondonLax]

They even painted theirs white. 

[PussEKatt]

3 hours ago, LondonLax said:

You also have to take claims with a pinch of salt. 

Russia has also been claiming it has shot down Ukrainian storm shadow missiles in the last few days. 

Both sides will be trying to discredit the other side’s weapons capabilities. 

I know which side I would believe.

[blandy]

3 hours ago, bickster said:

Ukraine have obviously found a way

I doubt that it would be Ukraine finding a way, if one was found.

It's one thing to provide Ukraine with the weapons, such as Patriot (or whatever), it's another to let them have access to the software and hardware design information. Knowing how zealously guarded this information and data is, I'd say there's absolutely zero chance Ukrainian folk fettled anything. Possible is that the US engineers may have adapted the system parameters to (try to) improve the effectiveness against hypersonic (or other) threats.

As you suggest, the war will be a proving ground, one way or another for all kinds of weapons and iterations and equipment and techniques. Broadly it seems that the western stuff is proving to be significantly more effective than Soviet/Russian stuff.

There's all kinds of "on the go" UOR type work going on into "how can such and such a problem be overcome"  - for example we know from media reports that drones have been very effectively used, and we know how that's iterated - at the start of the war, Ukraine flew their drones when Russia was using theirs - this was a workaround to avoid Russian jamming of GPS signals - obviously if the Russians were operating their own drones, then they wouldn't jam the GPS in that area when they were flying their own UAVs. Then as the war extended, the Russians started using hand held and more mobile jammers, so work, might have gone on, say, into fitting UAVs with anti-jamming GPS receivers which use intelligent antennas and beam forming to point at the GPS satellites and attenuate jamming/spoofing signals from the ground, and/or to use M-code GPS which is far, far less susceptible. Obviously that only really is practicable for larger, more expensive and complex UAS, but that's the sort of direction things might be going, for example. Same with the Air Defence systems - fettling Radar and IR sensors, fettling software code and targetting algorithms to adjust to faster threats, or to detect at greater range...etc. etc.

[Mandy Lifeboats]

Ukraine is now shooting down unstoppable missiles. 

How many more XP do they need until they can unlock F16? 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

3 hours ago, bickster said:

Oh dear... Macron and the French have just given Ukraine their version of the Storm Shadow (it was a joint development)

 

 

It can deliver a message of surrender from Paris to anywhere on earth in 3 minutes. 

[magnkarl]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

I doubt that it would be Ukraine finding a way, if one was found.

It's one thing to provide Ukraine with the weapons, such as Patriot (or whatever), it's another to let them have access to the software and hardware design information. Knowing how zealously guarded this information and data is, I'd say there's absolutely zero chance Ukrainian folk fettled anything. Possible is that the US engineers may have adapted the system parameters to (try to) improve the effectiveness against hypersonic (or other) threats.

As you suggest, the war will be a proving ground, one way or another for all kinds of weapons and iterations and equipment and techniques. Broadly it seems that the western stuff is proving to be significantly more effective than Soviet/Russian stuff.

There's all kinds of "on the go" UOR type work going on into "how can such and such a problem be overcome"  - for example we know from media reports that drones have been very effectively used, and we know how that's iterated - at the start of the war, Ukraine flew their drones when Russia was using theirs - this was a workaround to avoid Russian jamming of GPS signals - obviously if the Russians were operating their own drones, then they wouldn't jam the GPS in that area when they were flying their own UAVs. Then as the war extended, the Russians started using hand held and more mobile jammers, so work, might have gone on, say, into fitting UAVs with anti-jamming GPS receivers which use intelligent antennas and beam forming to point at the GPS satellites and attenuate jamming/spoofing signals from the ground, and/or to use M-code GPS which is far, far less susceptible. Obviously that only really is practicable for larger, more expensive and complex UAS, but that's the sort of direction things might be going, for example. Same with the Air Defence systems - fettling Radar and IR sensors, fettling software code and targetting algorithms to adjust to faster threats, or to detect at greater range...etc. etc.

But surely if one is good enough at physics and can pinpoint the launch of said missile, one can always lob enough lead\missiles AA-type stuff into the trajectory of the 'hypersonic' (what a name by the way) missile. It's going faster than mach 5, but it still has a trajectory. It's not like it's invisible. Well - it might be to the Russians.

[magnkarl]

3 hours ago, bickster said:

Oh dear... Macron and the French have just given Ukraine their version of the Storm Shadow (it was a joint development)

Except SCALP has a much longer range, about 560KM.

Hello Kerch Bridge

Not unlikely, but the trend is that Ukraine are hitting Luhansk\Donetsk and facilities in areas where the Russians can relocate first. That way they're creating space between the front and the rear first with storm shadow, and then they'll likely move to the areas where the Russians can't just retreat out of range (Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Crimea).

I'll give it to Macron on this one, he's actually gone a step further than anyone else. Of course he's been egged on by U.K and Turkey delivering long range stuff, but at least now he's got a win. As a caveat with all the French stuff I'm skeptical of when their stuff gets delivered, Macron's offered things before for the PR and waited months with the actual delivery.

[blandy]

44 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

But surely if one is good enough at physics and can pinpoint the launch of said missile, one can always lob enough lead\missiles AA-type stuff into the trajectory of the 'hypersonic' (what a name by the way) missile. It's going faster than mach 5, but it still has a trajectory. It's not like it's invisible. Well - it might be to the Russians.

A missile traveling at extreme velocity creates a number of difficulties - firstly you have to be able to track it accurately in order to determine its trajectory, and that is difficult with the speed it's going and the processing time and computing necessary. Then you have to take that predicted trajectory and calculate where it will be at a specific moment, and that moment will be extremely fleeting, with almost no margin for error. Then you have to very accurately place the intercepting item (whatever that is, a missile or "lead" or whatever) in the exact position you've calculated, at the exact moment that the hypersonic threat is going to be there. You have to account for wind speed and direction, variations in the precise velocity of your intercepting agent, variations in guidance accuracy, the precise timing of any explosive triggering in your missile (does the fuse always trigger after 0.1 second, or does it sometimes take 0.2 secs - because in that 0.1 sec difference the threat has moved - something travelling at 1000 mph moves 45 metres in a 10th of a second, and you've missed... and so on.