Kiev Is Burning

[Roman Alymov]

1 hour ago, Markus Becker said:

Dozens of Russian marines were killed by a Ukrainian strike during an awards ceremony in Donetsk Oblast on Nov. 19, the Ukrainian army's strategic communications unit reported on Nov. 22.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukrainian-military-dozens-russian-marines-144930115.html

Probably, they mean recent case, when concert hall in village Kumachevo (Starobeshevo district, about 50 km from frontline) was hit by five HIMARS missiles. There was a concert for military personnel (Army, not Marines) in this hall, and total number of KIA is stated to be from 7 to 25 by most sceprical pro-Russian sources who are newer shy to expose stupidity of top brass who allowed mass events within reach of enemy. The case became widely known as among those killed was theater director and choreographer from StPete Polina Men'shikh

 

One HIMARS hit the scene area

and another exploded in the library above the hall only partly damaging the hall - significantly reducing the effect. see no shrapnel damage on wall and seats

The same case covered by NYT

Video shows Russian actress killed on stage by Ukrainian missile (nypost.com)

Her friends said her groom died fighting in Donbass back in 2014, so it was important for her to take part in events there.

[Perun]

3 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

Rare 9К55 «Grad-1» MLRS (compact version of Grad, on ZIL-131 chassis, originaly created for Marines) in use by pro-Russians https://t.me/ZParaBellumMD/4341

Do you have some other linik, I cant see this one

[glenn239]

47 minutes ago, Josh said:

What has NATO lost?

Ukraine.  

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Meanwhile, how many years do you think it will take for Russia to rebuild its modern vehicle fleet and amass anything like its pre war artillery levels?

On artillery shells maybe 4-5 years to replenish a full war reserve.  For vehicles much faster to replace from stores, but modernizing the fleet to fight a modern war?  This will take a long time.

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IMO, Ukraine could surrender tomorrow and NATO would face a Russia with exhausted artillery and vehicle reserves and no ability to quickly fill the gap. 

Frankly, I'm not seeing where armored vehicles in the Ukraine war are making a case for being indispensable to modern warfare.  

[Roman Alymov]

3 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

Ukraine.  

First and foremost, NATO (or, rather, West) lost Russia, turning loyal junior parthner controlled by West-dependent elite into enemy.

[Strannik]

30 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

First and foremost, NATO (or, rather, West) lost Russia, turning loyal junior parthner controlled by West-dependent elite into enemy.

That and Ukraine.

And EU will have already lost and continue to loose competitiveness due to lost access to cheap Rus energy.  Which depending on the circumstances of how it will all go over next few years can undermine EU proper and/or particular countries transatlantic special relationship.

Russia will gain at least a part of UA and the rest would be rendered harmless as far as a functioning Western anti-Rus outpost.

And the Rus comprador class has been dealt a permanent blow.

To summarize: tactical losses  but strategic gains.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Strannik

[glenn239]

1 hour ago, Josh said:

If Russia wants to engage NATO aircraft on the ground, it’s going to have to do it at ranges far exceeding its current campaign against the Ukrainian Air Force. And none of its new toys are sufficiently capable for that.

Yes, we know that.  That's why literally just a few days ago yourself, myself and Strannik were discussing whether the Russians might want to to mount  Lancet or Shahed style drones on carrier missiles in order to conduct deeper range strikes with reusable delivery platforms.   At that point you didn't see the reason why they'd want to do that because Ukraine is close by to Russia.  Now, just days later, you can see the reason perfectly.   

When you say that none of it's "new toys" are capable of overcoming the range problem, well, that's  not quite true.  What it seems from my POV to require is a re-assembly of the existing toys into new toys.  For example, the latest Lancets have AI autonomous targeting capability, but maybe only 70km range.  The Shaheds have 1,600 mile range, but can apparently only target by Glonass signal.  So what if they mount the Lancet AI targeting system on the Shahed 1600 mile range drone?    Then, step two is stockpile 50,000 of them.  That's only 3,300 tons of drones, right?   At 25 a day it would take about 5 years.

Another example would be the Iskander/Kinzhal complex.  Currently they sport a 1000-1500lbs warhead.  But in the future, and not too distant a one, I think they will be fitted with  AI guided submunitions.  Maybe a missile sprays 50 of the the things over a target and they're self-guiding darts descending from 100,000 feet looking for targets.  Aircraft shelters won't help much - they just require the AI submunition to hit it at hypersonic speeds.  

 

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Compared to the thousands of JASSMs or tens of thousands of SDB, or > hundred thousand JDAM, they are small potatoes. 

It'll be a battle between the air force struggling to maintain operational tempo and the drone and missile forces trying to disrupt that tempo in conjunction with air defenses.  

 

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Again, you seem to assume western production and weapon development hold still while Russia rebuilds.

No.   I'm assuming the Americans cannot outproduce the Chinese.

 

[Stefan Kotsch]

1 minute ago, glenn239 said:

Another example would be the Iskander/Kinzhal complex.  Currently they sport a 1000-1500lbs warhead.  But in the future, and not too distant a one, I think they will be fitted with  AI guided submunitions

With Ai guided submunitions? AI? And not too distant a one? I think that's an illusion.

[Sardaukar]

7 minutes ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

With Ai guided submunitions? AI? And not too distant a one? I think that's an illusion.

It's "glennspace".

Bit detached from reality. 

[Roman Alymov]

1 hour ago, Strannik said:

And the Rus comprador class has been dealt a permanent blow.

Well, only most stupid of it, who failed to change tune when time came.

  Still, there are some positive steps. For example, today former Prime Minister of Russia ( 2000–2004 ) Mikhail Kasyanov was added to list of official foreign agents. Now he is excile. No reason to believe he was less "foreign agent" when he was top Gov official of Russia   - and the logical question to ask is who had appointed him to this job?

Edited November 24, 2023 by Roman Alymov

[glenn239]

1 hour ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

With Ai guided submunitions? AI? And not too distant a one? I think that's an illusion.

We shall see. If you watch some of the updates on the internet these days, the most modern Lancet version is reported to be able to acquire targets on their own now.  

Edited November 24, 2023 by glenn239

[glenn239]

Finland is now telling the Russians that they must stop allowing migrants to flow across their border,

Finland shuts more Russia border points, says asylum inflow must stop (msn.com)

Russia must stop sending illegal migrants to its frontier with Finland in what amounts to a "hybrid attack", Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said on Friday, after the Nordic nation temporarily shut all border passenger crossings bar one.

 

[Roman Alymov]

20 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

Finland is now telling the Russians that they must stop allowing migrants to flow across their border,

Finland shuts more Russia border points, says asylum inflow must stop (msn.com)

Russia must stop sending illegal migrants to its frontier with Finland in what amounts to a "hybrid attack", Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said on Friday, after the Nordic nation temporarily shut all border passenger crossings bar one.

So they want Russia to stop people who are so eager to reach paradise Garden that are ready to challenge the hardships of Northern Russian weather at winter? It would be humane for Russia to assist this freedom loving men and women (and all other genders), soon to become proud citizens of Finland, in their journey - for example, transport them by warm trains/busses.....

[Roman Alymov]

2 hours ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

With Ai guided submunitions? AI? And not too distant a one? I think that's an illusion.

It depends on your definition of AI - for example, AT landmine got basic "AI"  - is able to tell tank from foot soldier.....

[Stefan Kotsch]

1 minute ago, Roman Alymov said:

is able to tell tank from foot soldier.....

Thats not AI. 

[X-Files]

How 'dummy tanks' and decoys in Ukraine war help deceive enemy forces (msn.com)

[Roman Alymov]

1 minute ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

Thats not AI. 

There is a famous quote from great Polish Sci-Fi writer Stanisław Lem : "The intelligence of a bee is quite enough for an ordinary soldier, as long as he is transformed accordingly. Combat effectiveness and intelligence are different things, at least on the battlefield."

[crazyinsane105]

2 hours ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

With Ai guided submunitions? AI? And not too distant a one? I think that's an illusion.

It’s not the most sophisticated tech though. US has something quite similar where individual cluster bomblets can detect a target on the ground, spin towards its and detonate an EFP at a certain distance. 
 

US used it once in Iraq over an Iraqi armored division (this was back in 2003). The only concern I have is that it was dropped from a B-52, and no mention was made on just how many individual bombs were dropped to have the intended effect. 
 

Given that two decades since then, I’m assuming the tech is probably refined. And something from 2003 tech wise is probably something the Russians can easily achieve. Just a matter of then actually doing it and implicitly it…they seem to have prototypes but never go beyond that..

[mkenny]

7 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

   Gepard AA gun somewhere in Kiev region https://t.me/c/1771711124/1849

I noticed the Russians have an example on display in Moscow in the 'Captured Weapons' display. It  looks undamaged and is in among all the other NATO equipment they collected from Ukraine. Its not in the 'old' clips of this exhibition but a recent one. Was one captured?

 

It is at 14:04

 

Edited November 24, 2023 by mkenny

[glenn239]

47 minutes ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

Thats not AI. 

 

 

Around the 40 second mark, indicates that the newest Lancet, something called product 53, flies in swarms and communicates amongst themselves to find targets and share targeting information.   Now, in Glenn space, it's a shit ton harder for drones to hunt and find tanks on a huge battlefield than it is for them to be dropped near the target and search an airbase looking for big fat airplanes sitting on the tarmac.  

System is indicated as being in service now.  If you look at the launch cannisters (around the 1:14 mark), they look like they could be adapted to a custom designed missile, maybe 8 per round. 

Edited November 24, 2023 by glenn239

[BansheeOne]

9 minutes ago, mkenny said:

I noticed the Russians have an example on display in Moscow in the 'Captured Weapons' display. It  looks undamaged and is in among all the other NATO equipment they collected from Ukraine. Its not in the 'old' clips of this exhibition but a recent one. Was one captured?

 

It is at 14:04

 

It's a Tunguska. The only major Western AFVs captured by Russia are one each AMX-10 RC and CV-9040.

[Roman Alymov]

14 minutes ago, mkenny said:

I noticed the Russians have an example on display in Moscow in the 'Captured Weapons' display. It  looks undamaged and is in among all the other NATO equipment they collected from Ukraine. Its not in the 'old' clips of this exhibition but a recent one. Was one captured?

It is not Gepard but Tunguska ( SA-19 Grison )  And it is standing on opposite side of this display ground  from "Captured" exposition (but it is not obvious from this video - i can tell it as former department head of Patriot Park :)))

Edited November 24, 2023 by Roman Alymov

[Josh]

2 hours ago, glenn239 said:

Yes, we know that.  That's why literally just a few days ago yourself, myself and Strannik were discussing whether the Russians might want to to mount  Lancet or Shahed style drones on carrier missiles in order to conduct deeper range strikes with reusable delivery platforms.   At that point you didn't see the reason why they'd want to do that because Ukraine is close by to Russia.  Now, just days later, you can see the reason perfectly.

I don’t see why they would want to do that in the short term because they have no suitable off the shelf platform to achieve that result and Russia can always throw some cruise missiles, or even Iskander, at anything it deems worthy enough. I don’t think such a deployment scheme works against NATO for very different reasons, not the least of which is the lack of ability to maintain a direct link to the munitions. NATO airpower probably also gets a vote as to how many slow drones get to cross into NATO airspace for hundreds of miles.

 

2 hours ago, glenn239 said:

When you say that none of it's "new toys" are capable of overcoming the range problem, well, that's  not quite true.  What it seems from my POV to require is a re-assembly of the existing toys into new toys.  For example, the latest Lancets have AI autonomous targeting capability, but maybe only 70km range.

Prove it. I’ve seen nothing to support autonomous target ID and I believe even Roman was skeptical in one of his posts.

 

2 hours ago, glenn239 said:

The Shaheds have 1,600 mile range, but can apparently only target by Glonass signal.  So what if they mount the Lancet AI targeting system on the Shahed 1600 mile range drone?

That seems a little generous; I thought more like 1600km. In any case, that would give them a weapon with a flight profile worse than a WWII torpedo bomber. If they are blowing up civilian infrastructure, sure. Any airbase with a Gepard level of air defense is probably going to have sporadic interruptions of service at worst. Any aircraft in a HAS, which most NATO airbases have all the way to the UK, is safe from the dinky non penetrating 20kg/40lb warhead delivered at 100 mph/150kph. This assumes the Russian have that level of terminal homing, which I doubt, see above.

 

2 hours ago, glenn239 said:

Then, step two is stockpile 50,000 of them.  That's only 3,300 tons of drones, right?   At 25 a day it would take about 5 years.

 

Again, where is Russia going to get 50,000 autonomous seekers in five years? They almost certainly can’t produce them and China likely can’t provide that many in that time frame even if they wanted to. At a minimum, I know of no Chinese weapon with autonomous target identification capabilities that exists in anywhere like those numbers. If you do, please specify.

I also am skeptical Russia can make 50,000 Shaheds even just using satellite guidance and nothing sophisticated. Is there anything to support that number or is it made up?

 

2 hours ago, glenn239 said:

Another example would be the Iskander/Kinzhal complex.  Currently they sport a 1000-1500lbs warhead.  But in the future, and not too distant a one, I think they will be fitted with  AI guided submunitions.  Maybe a missile sprays 50 of the the things over a target and they're self-guiding darts descending from 100,000 feet looking for targets.  Aircraft shelters won't help much - they just require the AI submunition to hit it at hypersonic speeds.

Russia isn’t doing AI and Iskanders aren’t exactly growing on trees right now. Nor will they be. That system would also still leave the majority of NATO bases out of range.

And again, when you talk about AI weapons and autonomous targeting, you speculate about things even China hasn’t fielded. When I talk about US weapons that might have that capability a few years from now, I can mention existing munitions and known development programs like SDB II (everything you want magical Russian Shahed to be guidance wise but a glide bomb) or Golden Hoard (giving munitions swarming intelligence and prioritizing high value target engagement - not AI but a simpler rules based swarm).

Im sure China has there own secret programs, but Russia doesn’t enter the conversation when it comes to AI, and China is hardly going to compromise its capabilities by providing any.

 

2 hours ago, glenn239 said:

It'll be a battle between the air force struggling to maintain operational tempo and the drone and missile forces trying to disrupt that tempo in conjunction with air defenses.

CONUS based units would not be interrupted, even if we buy into your fantasy. A dozen B-52s can deliver 240 JASSMs. A half dozen B-1s can deliver 144. Three B-2s can deliver 240 500# JDAM. The US could maintain that sortie level every day easily without a bomber or even tanker ever touching the ground in Europe, assuming the Russians did to all of NATO what they cannot do to Ukraine.

 

2 hours ago, glenn239 said:

No.   I'm assuming the Americans cannot outproduce the Chinese.

 

The Chinese are a separate fight and thread. It is possible they might sell the Russians weapons in the future, but they are not yet and they most certainly won’t give anything away. For years you have stated that China will enable the Russians and for years, even now with a full on war, they never have. Why would they? If they pick a fight with the US, they will do it directly.

[glenn239]

1 hour ago, Roman Alymov said:

So they want Russia to stop people who are so eager to reach paradise Garden that are ready to challenge the hardships of Northern Russian weather at winter? It would be humane for Russia to assist this freedom loving men and women (and all other genders), soon to become proud citizens of Finland, in their journey - for example, transport them by warm trains/busses.....

I'm sure Moscow would be more than happy to shut down the flow if Finland stops sending weapons to Ukraine.  But that might not be likely.  Interesting to look at the border and ponder ways for large numbers of civilians to move into Finland.  A big boating club in Vyborg seems logical.  Hiking clubs all over the border region for summer.  But I also see some lakes where enterprising tourists could start their toot on the Russian side and land for some hiking on the Finnish side.  

 

Edited November 24, 2023 by glenn239

[mkenny]

9 minutes ago, Josh said:

For years you have stated that China will enable the Russians and for years, even now with a full on war, they never have. Why would they? If they pick a fight with the US, they will do it directly.

It is no secret China is next on the Neocon hit-list. With a Russian Alliance China secures her food and energy needs across a land border and is  no longer is as  vulnerable to naval blockade.  Russia is China's resource-rich cornucopia.

Edited November 24, 2023 by mkenny

[mkenny]

4 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

I'm sure Moscow would be more than happy to shut down the flow if Finland stops sending weapons to Ukraine. 

 

It is amusing to see  how the west believes it can do what it wants to 'sanction'  Russia and they will not be able find ways to return the favour.