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Kaput in Bakhmut! A thread on [Ukraine]
Inquisitor77
2 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered User regular
2 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered User regular
This thread is for discussion of the illegal and immoral Russian invasion of Ukraine, the latest large-scale action of a broader conflict that started in 2014 with Russia's "annexation" of Crimea.
Here is the previous OP for this thread: hhttps://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/246945/ukraine-oh-himars-a-thread-on-russias-illegal-and-immoral-invasion/
Courtesy of War Mapper, here is the latest map of the conflict as of 12 May 2023:
Since the end of winter, Russia has spent thousands of lives attempting to take the city of Bakhmut, a strategically-questionable decision. Recently, there has been news that Ukraine has begun retaking small sections of the city via opportunistic counterattacks at the tactical command level.
Although there is widespread expectation of a broader Ukrainian counteroffensive, thus far none has been forthcoming. For his part, President Zelenskyy declared in a recent BBC interview that no offensive would be launched as Ukraine was still waiting for important materiel to be provided by its allies.
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Global Thermonuclear War:
Azov Nazis:
Fuck Putin:
Crazy P is Awesome:
News & Information:
Gore and NSFW/NSFL Content:
Perun:
Here is the previous OP for this thread: hhttps://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/246945/ukraine-oh-himars-a-thread-on-russias-illegal-and-immoral-invasion/
Courtesy of War Mapper, here is the latest map of the conflict as of 12 May 2023:
Since the end of winter, Russia has spent thousands of lives attempting to take the city of Bakhmut, a strategically-questionable decision. Recently, there has been news that Ukraine has begun retaking small sections of the city via opportunistic counterattacks at the tactical command level.
Although there is widespread expectation of a broader Ukrainian counteroffensive, thus far none has been forthcoming. For his part, President Zelenskyy declared in a recent BBC interview that no offensive would be launched as Ukraine was still waiting for important materiel to be provided by its allies.
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Global Thermonuclear War:
- Please note that while discussion of nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation are inevitable, there does exist a G-ddamn Separate Thread for that topic.
Azov Nazis:
- Previous mod declarations have included not discussing the Azov Regiment in the context of it supposedly being a Neo-Nazi group, and a general call for decorum against personal attacks.
Fuck Putin:
- Acceptable topics include saying, "Fuck Putin!" and all permutations thereof, including just repeating the phrase "FuckPutinFuckPutinFuckPutinFuckPutinFuckPutinFuckPutinFuckPutin" ad infinitum (no promises you won't get banned for spam being too awesome, though).
Crazy P is Awesome:
- If you Awesome a post by CrazyP, it is assumed you are Awesome-ing the fact that CrazyP is alive and well, not that you are Awesome-ing the contents of his post. (CrazyP is a Russian forumer who currently resides in a place that is not Russia.)
News & Information:
- While the fog of war always exists and it is very difficult to verify all reports, there does exist a standard of credibility. Major, established news outlets such as The New York Times or Reuters are generally accepted sources. Independent journalists, open source intelligence analysts, and official government sources should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Blog posts from J. Random Dickbag should be avoided or placed in the correct speculative context. All news should be prefaced with the source and, where appropriate, caveated as unreliable or speculation. Niche or less well-known sources should have corresponding descriptions of their reliability and sourcing.
- Please remember that many forumers visit this thread precisely because it typically eschews random internet speculation and propaganda talking points.
Gore and NSFW/NSFL Content:
- In addition, all content which shows gore, horrific injuries, corpses, mass graves, and similar themes must always be spoilered and tagged appropriately. Failure to do so in the past has resulted in moderator intervention. Inflicting trauma on other forumers is not cool. Please remember that this place is still considered PG-13.
- Also, be cautious when viewing such content, as you can inflict trauma upon yourself in doing so. Please take care of your mental health.
Perun:
- Videos from Perun have proven to be a very good source of analysis for this war, particularly in the contexts of logistics and procurement. He has received the PA Thread Seal of Approval.
Echo on
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The chance of interception was literally 0% according to the people who built the hypersonics, I’m sure. More than one missile is tantamount to admitting they’d lied to their Glorious Leader by overstating their weapon’s efficacy.
Of course now that their very very expensive weapon has shown it is not everything they promised, the people responsible are turbofucked and likely to be suctioned up and out of the nearest 10+ story window.
I think I’m okay with this series of events.
I recall similar unhappiness when it turned out that the S-300 wasn't actually capable of intercepting HIMARS strikes.
-Biggest con be that they are extremely pricy and that often times there are much more cost effective options that at worse, might be slightly less effective. Also governments don't have infinite resources. that stash of hypersonic missiles means that you stifled government investment in other areas; especially, if you don't have a huge amount of money to throw at things.
-The proponents of this tech, write off how people counter the whole "but it hugs the curvature of the earth and that make sit harder to see!" A smart military doesn't just limit itself to being able to only seeing around things that their adversaries might want to eat. They try to get eyes everywhere they can, so that they see incoming threats ASAP. The US's solution is to have eyes in space, which does negate the whole curvature of the earth advantage. If you can see it at launch or very soon after, it's not really going to have the element of surprise anymore and that gives you more time to figure out how to intercept it. Sure, it's not guaranteed that you always will, nor will it be cheap, but it does remove the whole, "you can't counter it because you won't see it coming." The other option is that you have radar further out from things that someone might really want to hit with a hypersonic missile and make it very cost prohibitive if their kit only includes those because those radar systems are going to be orders of magnitude cheaper, if you force them to have to chip away at the outer radar edges of your detection range.
-They still have to obey physics. Yes, they are more maneuverable than some other missiles but they do not turn on a dime and they are going very fast, which means if you hit them with something that has very little give, there is going to be a fuck ton of force being exerted on that missile.
Obviously, hypersonic missiles can be a nasty thing to deal with, but they are not an impossible platform to counter and they do have some other serious cons. At best, they are just another platform that could give you some additional options, but are still pretty niche.
My observation of Russian weapons design is that while they have some solid researchers in the relevant fields (mind you this might not be the case any longer). They do seem to have a history where vain, petty dick wavers get to call the shot on what gets to be developed and you get a fair number of inefficient platforms that seem to exist more for dick waving than being practical. Yes, you have some differences in doctrine between Russia and the US, but usually if the US forgoes some extremely advantageous missiles, it's like that someone concluded the returns are just crap tier because the US doesn't exactly struggle to fund weapons development, nor do they shy away from funding it.
The Bryansk that's 379 km from Moscow and firmly in Russia.
They're claiming engine fire for at least one except there's already multiple videos showing a missle impact.
Good job, team. Keep it up.
Edit: looks like one over Klintsky in Bryansk and one over Crimea a day or so ago.
Meanwhile, the UAF continues to make gains in the north and south of Bakhmut. It is evident that the Russians are not going to encircle the remaining defenders of the city. In fact it seems more likely that it is the Ukrainians who will be doing the encircling here.
Videos are alleged friendly fire shootdowns of Russian aircraft behind Russian borders.
Tweeter is Oliver Alexander, an analyst who has worked with The Telegraph, The Washington Post among others.
Maria Avdeeva is a Kharkiv-based Ukrainian security analyst. Image shows a SECOND strike in Luhansk. Russian media has also been reporting it.
Going back to last thread, it's been a perpetual thing going back to the Soviet Union that the US and Russia fudge their numbers in opposite directions while assuming they're both fudging in the same direction.
They say their stuff does X. And X is a big number.
So the US prepares a defense for X+5 because X is probably misleading. And we say our new weapon can beat X+5 but secretly it's built to beat X+10. Meanwhile theirs had actually been X-5 all along.
It's the British with that carrot trick all over again.
I really hope this helps get the American government off it's ass about supplying longer range weaponry. These results are disproportionately great for the amount of investment put into them.
Dammit Biden with cost-to-benefit ratios this great you can't afford to not send Ukraine longer range weaponry.
Or to put it another way, sanctions cost the Russians $5 Billion in relation to their oil sales. Because they wouldn't be selling at that deep a discount if they didn't have to.
Tweeter is a collaboration of a few MIL-Twitter types such as CalibreObscura.
Debris from Luthansk (allegedly) looks to be a Storm Shadow, including one of its interface lugs (helpfully naming it as being for Storm Shadow).
Now, it's not beyond the ability of the Russians to falsify this by using debris from Storm Shadows used in Syria or Iraq (the latter being where the weapon made its debut in a hurried entry into service), but seems a lot of effort for no real gain.
Nice to see it in the wild already.
Ah yes the engine is on fire lessee.... Now look I'm no helicopter engineer but I believe the engine is on fire due to having just been struck by a missile.
I have a feeling it's going to be a long summer for Russia.
But a very very short one for a lot of Russians.
Can anyone give me a good reason why the United States should advertise this in advance? What value is there in tweeting out that in X days/weeks/months, Ukraine is going to be able to hit targets X miles away courtesy of American technology?
I'm of the mindset that way more is happening behind the scenes that we're being told, and we'll only first hear about it when more Russian stuff starts blowing up.
These Storm Shadow missiles are an example. And reading more about the operation, it's clear that this wasn't a spur of the moment decision by the British government. There was a lot going on behind the scenes to give Ukraine this capability. And it's also unlikely that this was a surprise to the US Military.
But I'm not going to be surprised at all if in the near future, we start seeing more explosion courtesy of 'Merica.
We can only hope. By God if my country is only going to do one thing well, then this is the time to do it.
What more. considering the short time span between the announcement of the transfer and the Luhansk strike, this has clearly been planned for a while. You don't hand over something like the Stormshadow one day and use t perfectly the next. Especially since we have seen that it was used in combination with the ADM-160 MALD decoy missile. Which still hasn't been officially announced.
This was a combined Ukrainian(UKR?)/UK/US ops that used everything for maximum effect. Tech, Planning, Intel and most importantly the Element of Surprise. Ukraine deserves most of the credit, but there are peeps in the MOD/Pentagon that have earned high fives out of this. Can't give them anything else sadly.
Sounds like it was an internal affairs building, probably being used as a command post of some sort.
The MiG-25 was never a fighter, it was designed as an Interceptor aka a plane that launched quickly and intercepted an incoming bomber before it could drop its bombs. It also moonlight as a recon plane. In both roles it was very good. It was only when forced into a dogfight with an actual fighter plane that its short comings came to fore. As an interceptor in 1970, it was unrivaled, to the point that America's entire Stealth Bomber program was made because, they knew that against the MiG-25, the B-52 was in big trouble. It was made of mostly steel because the Soviets need a lot of them and if they use an all Titanium body, they would never be able to afford a fraction of what they needed. With a steel chassis, they made 1200 of the damn things.
As a recon fighter its only competitor was the SR-71 Blackbird and while the SR-71 was better, once again the Soviets had 1200 vs 32. What made the MiG-25 especially dangerous wasn't its ability to fight 1v1 against a US fighter in a dogfight, but its ability to carry AA-6 acrid/R-40 Missile. A missile designed to shoot down B-52 from long range. It also doubled as an anti-AWACS missile and the trade of half a dozen MiG-25s for a single AWACS was a trade that no US general would make.
Why is this relevant? Because the MiG-25 was developed into the MiG-31 and the R-40 into the R-37/AA-13 Axehead. The Russian Airforce uses these planes and missiles to maintain air superiority over Ukraine. They have divided the Country into various zones and keep eight(8) MiG-31s flying CAP over the battlefield 24/7. Whenever the UAF tries to fly missions, they fire of R-37s from high altitude behind Russian lines and because of their range and speed, they force the UAF to limit their engagements. The UAF does not have any planes that can engage the MiG-31. They fly to high, to fast and too far away to engage with the limited arsenal the MiG-29 has. Its why people are talking Meteor and AMRAAMs and Gripens,F-16s and Typhoons. The MiG-31 is also the launching platform for the Kinzhal missile. While debate on if it counts as a true hypersonic missile can be settled elsewhere, until the Patriot system arrived, the Ukrainians had nothing that could intercept it. So the debate was irrelevant, because hypersonic weapon or not, only the Patriot can stop it. Better targeting, more missiles and we see the reverse of the Luhansk strike.
What is especially brutal is that what is happening in Ukraine is probably a close approximation of what would have happened in a hypothetical F-4 vs MiG-25 fight. The Migs using their better range and speed to force the F-4s on the defensive. If not for the US going all in on the F-15 and stealth, there but for the grace of god...
Remember the Soviets and the Russians are not stupid, they are just the victims of a system that doesn't reward creativity. Under a better system the Russians would be every bit as scary as their propaganda says.
Remember how everybody said "At least it wasn't War Thunder this time?". Yeah. At this point I think that yes, it should be a disqualifier for managing classified information, Wikipedia currently lists ten, TEN leaks, and this is confirmation that the count will go up to 11.
EDIT: Oh and back on 2021 the War Thunder developers got busted sponsoring pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine. So there's that.
I didn’t chip in to the hypersonic missile yet, but I think that:
-the Patriot battery got lucky at a pretty hefty expense of missiles fired. You can tone down the U-S-A chanting.
-Interception is all about energy, so it’s not a dig at Patriots which have improved (tho jeez, so did all other electronic systems) since 1981 or the 1990ies when Patriots allegedly still sucked. Any other system would be lucky to intercept hypersonic missiles.
-Russia does not have true hypersonic missiles. They don’t have the tech.
-Others do, and if those go up against Patriots again we’re looking at energy issues. Probably by then Patriots will be upgraded with newer rockets that have more energy (faster, nimbler).
-That’s the issue with hypersonic missiles afaik: there’s a missile gap. The longer the nations with true hypersonic missiles don’t use them the smaller that gap gets as air defense gets upgraded.
-lasers.
Kinda tangential, but that NYT description of the article is a great example of how frustrating it can get when people who don't know a thing about the platform they're talking about start writing articles. "10,000 active posts?" It's a busy Discord server. I can accumulate fifty "posts" in an afternoon griping with friends about an annoying neighbor.
Lasers are one of those things that could be a gamechanger because while IIRC they are very expensive and power hungry right now a laser doesn’t really give too much of a shit about your missile speed.
Lotta cool engineering challenges there.
There's a bunch of rumors floating around that he's in a coma.
Grain of salt and all that.
This shit *constantly* comes up with heads of state and similar. Anyone remember the, "Putin looks bloated and unsteady he definite had a stroke and is going to die soon"?
Unless people at that hospital are saying it I'd ignore those.
He's sixty-eight, is missing public appearances in highly unusual-for-him ways, and either hurt his hand or had an IV sometime shortly before he started missing those. Much of anything past that is, at best, people throwing guesses at the wall to see what sticks.
Yeah Khamenei was supposedly dead last year for a bit before he zombied up.
Dictators and heads of state are generally old, old people have medical issues that often take them off their feet for a week or two now and then. No reason to automatically assume he’s dying or anything.
All that said, there's never really a good time to be sick or otherwise indisposed in a personalist regime like Minsk or Moscow
So many questions.
So many current journalists are just not equipped to handle the online world and how it works. I remember listening to a podcast about one of the major Canadian reddits and how the moderation team was being taken over by the alt-right and the journalist doing the podcast and interviewing the guy talking to him about this clearly just didn't understand anything about how a reddit/forum/discord/etc work or why someone would want to remain anonymous when talking about the alt-right on the internet and just seemed endlessly cranky at the whole affair. It was just a really stark "You don't understand anything about the world of People Talking To Each Other On The Internet" moment.
Man, if Lukashenka dies I don't even know wtf is going to happen with this entire clusterfuck of a war. It'd be just a huge chaotic wrench throw into the political situation.