jmsaari

Looks like a lot of vehicles abandoned after immobilized from mines. Bradleys and a Leo 2A7, and seems like some model of Leo2 burning later in the clip, though so much flames can't be even sure it's a Leo2 let alone guess model.

25 minutes ago, RETAC21 said:

Such as?

Well she seems to expect missiles to self-destruct by disappearing from existence when complaining about the debris coming down, and complains of a persistent "U-turn bug" which may or may not be a thing, but certainly much of the evidence she shows is vague enough that might equally well be simply an intercept of a low-altitude nearby target, or late launch against a very fast steep-angle ballistic incoming that might end up with calculated intercept point under ground (that certainly is known to have happened in Iraq vs Scuds)..

5 minutes ago, Lesley said:

Is it being hit in the end or is the driver just cursing because of the launch of an own missile?

looks like the Pantsir got hit by something not very big, maybe a drone or an ATGM. It's bigger and more violent event clearly than the missile launch earlier in the video

56 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Cant see it, Stormshadow is quite a big missile. You might be able to fit one under a wing, but you would then need something to counterbalance it. Lifting off with 2 might be a bit overambitious....

Funnily enough, though it would take a lot of runway, I think the Su25 would probably be the other aircraft that could lift it, judging by how many stores it can fit under its wings. But again, asymetrical loading most likely.

Storm Shadow should be 1300kg according to wiki, 63 cm wide body. Should fit, both dimensions & weight-wise, under the centerline hardpoint which is rate for 1500 lit fuel tank.

Inboard wing hardpoints might be so-so for the weight, but IF you can load one, you certainly can put second on the other wing.... and prob still the centerline tank as well. 

10 hours ago, bojan said:

It is only a tail section:

Could be from a PAC-3 CRI?

Yeah, now it makes sense... certainly looks like PAC-3 CRI rear section

For a cheapo missile for swatting down hordes of Shaheds, RIM-7 is probably just the thing they need. Plenty of those in NATO stocks and being on the way out, not exactly difficult to give to Ukraine in massive numbers.

Was very surprised when that news came out; I had missed Poland getting their Kubs modified for RIM-7, and apparently also ESSM, earlier. No doubt that work having been already carried out earlier helped made the conversion for Buk TELARs easier. Last Kub variants came with Buk TELARs already, so the interfaces and the SARH homing must have a lot of commonality. Perhaps we'll see Buk-ESSM combo at some point as well...

2 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Ok, so I realise how stupid this sounds. Doesnt this look rather like rapier? granted the nose looks blunter, but it is a low res screen grab, and it is something of an angle.

Looks way bigger than Rapier, Rapier wings are also bigger & more elongated. I'm increasingly leaning towards some Kh-35 variant, seems to need the least amount of "not quite" to be explained away with blurry image.

Another very odd looking missile. Seems to have fins way forward, to me it doesn't quite look like a Patriot, or IRIS-T, or any Russian SAM, or cruise/ballistic missile...

Looks somehow too big&fat for Sparrow/Aspide/etc, for a Kh-35 it looks not fat enough, though it's blurry & difficult to judge distance/size...

24 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Here is my opinion, and Ill stand by it. There is more AMRAAMS in European stockpiles than there are R77's in Russian stockpiles. And that I think is at least part of the reason why they are not seriously mixing it with the Urkainians. They know damn well how quickly they would piss through their stockpile.

It's not the Ukrainian air force that is keeping RuAF at bay, it's the several dozen S-300P, S-300V and Buk battalions that they would have to deal with if they tried to go after the UAF in Ukraine. In the early days of the war they did (leading to losses to SAMs), the Ukrainian accounts of what happened in the few air-to-air fights that took place had the Ukrainian side on the defensive and taking losses trying with SARH R-27Rs to go against Russian Su-3x and MiGs with active-homing R-37s and R-77s.
 

4 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

TBH, Im not buying this superbly integrated air defence environment we are being sold. if it existed, you wouldnt see Mi24's poping over the border for a strike, or long range rocket attacks on Crimea. I think its like everything else, good in parts.

Ultimately if the RuAF is that good, why dont they have air superiority over a year and a half after the war started? If they cant do air defence suppression worth a damn, im not going to credit them with Jedi level ACM capablities.

Currently reality of the situation is that UAF can't operate at medium altitude anywhere near the front lines; a couple of helicopter deep penetration strikes doesn't change any of that. Even with the very restrictive tactics the Ukrainians have been reduced to, they've lost a number of  MiG-29s and Su-27s, Su-25s have suffered even worse, and Su-24s they're left with less than 10 apparently. One doesn't need to credit team RUS with Jedi level ACM capablities to note the reality of the air war from UKR perspective. F-16s would no doubt be more survivable and more of a threat to VKS aircraft but they will still be at a distinct disadvantage in the environment they would have to operate, and would become much more of a priority target to be taken out on the ground as well as in the air than the current fleet of old MiG-29s/Su-27s are. 

40 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Outgunned? Russian war planes still regularly carry R27. AMRAAM would be a significant advantage over beamriders as we know.

I doubt the Ukrainians would be able to get up from the weeds much with F-16s either; not with the S-400s and the occasional MiG-31 and Su-3x having substantial overlapping coverage well into the Ukrainian airspace. From  down in the weeds AMRAAM isn't particularly big stick to carry even vs R-27 from Mach 1.5 @ 30 kft, let alone the R-77s and -37s that they'll like be facing

Reminiscent of Soviet-era paranoia.

Just now, DB said:

CLOS  is external guidance, which is covered by my post, I think.

 

Yeah my bad, thought beam riding but wrote CLOS... from flight path persepctive they're the same though.

41 minutes ago, DB said:

Any lead requires either that the missile is externally guided via datalink or has a seeker that can work sufficiently well off boresight to keep the target in sight. Early IR seekers and semi-active homing missiles might have no other choice.

Not really, if you think about CLOS guidance against a crossing target, for the missile to stay in the LOS, the missile's velocity vector can't point straight at the target but a bit ahead. If the missile flies straight at the target it will fall behind as the LOS keeps moving and to keep on the line, it has to pull a bit of lead.

With proportional navigation logic, the idea is the guidance command is based on turning the missile to the direction towards which the seeker is moving - not where it's pointed at. Can't say with a blanket statement that *all* homing missiles would follow such, but even the early-generation Sidewinders and Strela-2s did; the kinematic performance that wasn't too great to begin with would otherwise suffer even more, and 30-40 degree seeker gimbal limit probably would suffice about 99% of the time when the missile would have a chance to catch the target in the first place...

10 hours ago, glenn239 said:

Russian claims on the Patriot today are,

The Kinzhal hypersonic missile completely destroyed five launchers and a multifunctional radar station of the US-made Patriot air defense system in Kiev on May 16, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Wednesday.

Assuming the American claims are correct, the Russian BDA is either defective or being tweaked for political effect.  Assuming the Russian BDA is correct, then the Americans have made the decision to replace the destroyed equipment and pretend it never happened.  

surely after being so honest, accurate and truthful about everything else, this could not be.................

1 hour ago, bojan said:

Every Soviet SAM after SA-2 used "chase" mode ("Dog's curve") only as a backup. Standard is either "half lead" or "full lead", which is decided on depending on type of target and it's maneuverability.

Edit - even SA-1 had lead calculation mode, so that basically only leaves SA-2.

As i've understood the doggie style homing would be pretty much theoretical anyway, as it's not exactly "natural" for any homing or guidance system. If the missile has a seeker, be it IR, SARH or ARH, it would be simple enough but no more so than proportional navigation which is much more efficient. And with command guidance, simplest method would be CLOS, which would have the missile pull some lead, just not quite as much as proportional navigation which would give a straight line to intercept point if target flew straight and both missile and target had constant speed.

1 hour ago, Josh said:

I think both S300 and MIM 104 can use a single PESA phased array for search/acquisition, tracking, and fire control despite the fact PAC1/2 isn’t an active homing system. A single 3D radar can now perform all functions, though there are other radars that can be linked into both systems.

Depends on your S-300. The 300P series work as you described (depending on missile either command guidance, SARH, or TVM), but the S-300V has an engagement radar in each TELAR for the SARH missiles.

49 minutes ago, ink said:

I guess all of those back-of-napkin guesstimates are entirely possible. That does seem to suggest that the Russians have sufficient resources to also go after Ukraine's other Patriot battery. If (big hypothetical incoming here) they also take that out - it'll mean that the old Soviet-era S-300s have been by far the more successful system in this war.

Quantity has a quality of it's own, especially when it comes to defending a country the size of Ukraine. Whatever the quoted ranges vs medium-altitude aircraft, the effectively defended area vs low-altitude cruise missiles or hypersonic ballistic/aeroballistic missiles is going to be very small. Several tens of S-300P, prob similar number of Buk batteries and a handful of S-300V is going to be a way better coverage than a tiny handful of very advanced western SAMs. Problem is just that apparently they're running out of missiles for the Soviet-era SAMs. And with a lot of eastern european NATO members ammo dumps having blown up in recent years where do you get the replacements...

9 hours ago, Josh said:

Bojan, did you say the S300s primary missile has a 2000m/s burn out speed? That is fast. Wouldn’t that equate to roughly Mach 6? AFAIK western strategic SAM systems like patriot and SM-2/6 are almost half that at circa Mach 3+. SM-6 blk1b will be the first hypersonic US SAM I’m aware of.

I though the Patriot was supposed to do Mach 5+ at least? Half slower figures are usually stated for SM-2 but then I've always wondered if that means the speed at time at rocket burn-out or average speed to some distance. Figures like speed and range for a SAM are very vague if it isn't stated exactly what speed (average, peak) and what range (max launch distance, max distance of target destruction, or radius of effectively defended circle) and against what target (speed, altitude, direction) is meant...

12 hours ago, crazyinsane105 said:

Still have more questions than answers, but seems like something damaged a Patriot battery. Was it Kinzal? Was it a cruise missile? Or fragments of such? Not sure.

...or simply debris falling down. But yeah there's a big difference with 500 kg hypersonic warhead landing right next to the radar or a few launchers catching some fragments, though technically both would leave the system damaged but not completely destroyed. I doubt we'll find any time soon which end of the spectrum is closer...

So do we have any information of what radar the Ukrainians got at how wide it can search & engage? IIRC the MPQ-53 radar would be limited to defending 90 degrees, which when the Kinzhals and Iskanders could be coming from about 180 degrees and Kalibrs 360, sounds is a bit suboptimal...  The MPQ-65 was supposed to be an improvement though no idea how much & if UKR got that or the older -53. But of course without TELARs capable of independent engagements the  single Patriot is going to always depend on other systems to cover it's back, and flanks, against the low-altitude stuff.

1 hour ago, Pavel Novak said:

Where did you get designation 9M55R?

1 hour ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

9M55* actually belong to the SMERCH system?

Yeah he must have meant 5V55R

9 hours ago, crazyinsane105 said:

I’m not sure that itself is significant enough to be picked up. 

Might be quite easily measurable. Over here the natural variation of background radiation is quite clear, maximum figures tend to be almost double the minimum. Minimums are typically measured in winter (snow layer blocks grounds-sourced radiation) and in summer after heavy rains (airborne particles brought down by rain). If rain can bring background radiation measurably down by removing particles, i'm sure any event that puts dust into the air can do the opposite...