Kiev Is Burning

[Roman Alymov]

FPV drone and ATGMs vs. abandoned Leopard-2 with Soviet ERA

https://t.me/milinfolive/111769

Location - West of Rabotino https://t.me/creamy_caprice/3394

Edited December 1, 2023 by Roman Alymov

[Roman Alymov]

Wreck of AGM-140 decoy missile somewhere in Kherson region

https://t.me/c/1771711124/2029

[Roman Alymov]

Meanwhile Donetsk under bombardment as usual

 

[sunday]

7 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

 

Yes, you wrote it, but left unsaid the very high importance of that tunnel in BAM.

[Josh]

1 hour ago, sunday said:

Yes, you wrote it, but left unsaid the very high importance of that tunnel in BAM.

Wiki seems to indicate there is a bypass that goes around the tunnel, but it costs time. It also states that the bypass was generally used for west bound traffic and the tunnel was used for east bound. Also the trans-siberian should still be clear as well. So the tunnel fire seems like an inconvenience, not a major choke point.

[glenn239]

Surely repairing a rail tunnel will be only a few weeks at most.

[JWB]

22 hours ago, Josh said:

What exactly was the sake of attacking Ukraine?

To protect Ukraine against Ukrainian aggression.

Master strategy.

[JWB]

In Krynky, Russians Are Safe From Ukraine’s Drones For Just One Minute (forbes.com)

[glenn239]

On 11/29/2023 at 11:24 AM, Josh said:

That's how the Russia has been using their glide bombs, so I don't see why NATO couldn't. The VKS isn't going to be anywhere near the border if it wants to survive, given that it is outnumbers by NATO 5th generation aircraft *already*. NATO aircraft either come in at high altitude and speed to maximize range like the Russians or if the SAM threat is too great, skim the surface and pull up last minute like the Ukrainians.

Ukrainian air defenses are far behind Russian air defenses, mostly Soviet era relics in comparison to what the Sino-Russians can field.  No doubt NATO aircraft can make large numbers of glide bomb attacks, but there will be losses and the Russians will do what the Ukrainians do - disperse, conceal, dig deep.

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Why? They would need minimal airborne refueling to make the thousand mile round trip. I only picked the UK because it is outside the effective range of most munition types and because historically that is where the US keeps a fighter wing of them.

I doubt that tankers can safely operate for extended periods in the same areas, even if deep behind the front lines.  The better option would be for jets to land and refuel on their return flight.  Tankers are generally used in places where air bases are not an option, and between the UK and Russia, there are plenty of them.

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It is out of range of most munitions, and those that can make the trip have to travel across more than a thousand miles of NATO controlled airspace in a more or less straight line, over water, to make the trip. Good luck with that.

In one discussion you mock the idea that the Russians have a requirement for a drone carrier to allow for cheap drone attacks to the 2000nm range, and on another thread you state that a 1,000 mile range from bases makes an air campaign based in the UK immune to attack.  Care to pick a lane?

Anyways, at the moment the Russians have cruise missile bombers and cruise missile submarines capable of hitting the UK.  These will be inadequate to the task, but they are there.  They are currently developing S-70 strategic ranged UAV also with this type of target in mind, and you can expect in coming years for Russian drone attack complexes to be fielded that encompass the UK.   NATO assets in the UK will of course be safer than if based closer to the front, but not altogether immune.

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And no doubt most of it will. I'm just picking individual examples to illustrate what a massive air defense/air force suppression problem Russia will have. I'm not going to bother detailing the entirety of a NATO air campaign; these posts are long enough as is. Perhaps Stuart can accommodate you.

I think NATO will be unable to sustain the required tempo of operations to achieve victory and that their aircraft losses will be unsustainable.  If they attempt the type of large based heavy tempo Gulf War style heavy logistics, about the third mass missile-drone attack that ends in a NATO tragedy, they will give up and start dispersing, at the cost of tempo.  

 

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I don't see the Russians being able to equip, train, and support such a force and I see it largely as just a series of 200s waiting to happen were they to try to concentrate such a force in face of NATO air power and artillery. And US artillery would likely not need to particularly husbanded for a China war, since there would be minimal ground fighting. 155mm production will be increased six fold inside the next several years

 Ukraine has demonstrated beyond any possible doubt in your mind that infantry can be quickly trained in huge numbers, and Kyiv did this with only a fraction of the competence that the Russians and their mobilization system are able to bring to the table.  

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I'd be shocked if NATO aircraft ever traveled more than a few dozen miles into Russian airspace.

And yet the first time TU-95's plaster British base from the Artic, you'll be first in line calling for B-2's to fly deep into Russia to hit their bases. :^)

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They wouldn't particularly need to and Russia is still a nuclear power; any aircraft penetrating deep into Russian airspace is going risk a nuclear exchange. I don't think Russia as a country will fall ever apart; I think its army as fielded on the NATO border would fall apart. 

The advantage of having, say, 3 million troops for a front that requires maybe 1/6th of that total for defense is that no particular formation would be required to stand in the line taking casualties for too long before it was rotated back into the 'sanctuary' zone to rest.

[Markus Becker]

5 hours ago, sunday said:

Yes, you wrote it, but left unsaid the very high importance of that tunnel in BAM.

There's said to be another incident on the BAM. A train of fuel tanker cars caught fire. 

[lucklucky]

Said that Putin order an increase of 170000 troops

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/12/01/russia-boosts-troop-numbers-by-15-a83294

Edited December 1, 2023 by lucklucky

[Roman Alymov]

6 hours ago, sunday said:

Yes, you wrote it, but left unsaid the very high importance of that tunnel in BAM.

This tunnel was only opened in 2003, before that since 1985 bypass railway was used (this bypass is still in use). By the way i do not understand why BAM is called "road to China" as this railroad was constructed, among other reasons, to be at a safe distance from China border in case of USSR/China war....

[DB]

This was to me an interesting critical assessment of Russian oil exports, with a number of key takeaways. I'm not in a position to deep dive this to gain a better feel for how accurate the assessment is, perhaps those with a good graps of international markets can comment.

The essence of the video seems to be as follows:

- The US (and by extension its satrap/vassal states) imposed a price cap on Russian crude oil of $60bbl

- this means that Russia cannot in effect sell oil to the countries enforcing the sanctions for a higher price (the sanctions would be imposed on companies enabling trades above the cap, resulting in fines and possibly asset confiscation in the US.)

- Russia continues to export loads of oil, and it appears that it's exporting it at a price above the sanctions cap.

- The Ruble's exchange rate against the USD is about 88, (above its low soon after the war started)  which appears on its face to show that the ruble is doing just fine, and by extension, Russia's economy must be ticking along beautifully and the sanctions must have failed.

- Russia has pivoted a significant fraction of its crude oil exports to China and India.

- Neither China nor India has any interest in exchanging oil for either dollars or rubles. Respectively, they pay in yuan and rupees.

- The oil price in yuan and rupees may have been stable since the pivot, but the exchange rate between those currencies and the ruble has dropped by over 40%, and so Russia's oil is worth commensurately less and is being exchanged for currency that is of limited utility in the first place.

Consequently, Russia has moved from being "at the mercy" of the USD and thus the US Government to being in an equivalent position with near-worthless yuan and worthless rupees as a reward.

If you want to know who Daddy Warbucks is in this war, it's China and India. They're coining it, whether by getting cheap oil for direct use, or by selling it on at market prices whilst bleeding Russia white.

[Josh]

6 hours ago, glenn239 said:

Ukrainian air defenses are far behind Russian air defenses, mostly Soviet era relics in comparison to what the Sino-Russians can field.  No doubt NATO aircraft can make large numbers of glide bomb attacks, but there will be losses and the Russians will do what the Ukrainians do - disperse, conceal, dig deep.

Ukrainian air defenses are still enough to keep the Russians from making almost any direct attack, and Russian air defenses still aren't sufficient to prevent Ukrainian aircraft from making their attacks. NATO would just be doing the same with vastly greater SEAD, ECM, volume, and precision. Like I said, they can either push the long range SAMs far enough back from the front to do high altitude glide bombs like the Russians or they can do low altitude pull ups like the Ukrainians. My bet is on the former, but there's nothing stopping them from the latter if Ukraine can still manage it.

 

6 hours ago, glenn239 said:

I doubt that tankers can safely operate for extended periods in the same areas, even if deep behind the front lines.  The better option would be for jets to land and refuel on their return flight.  Tankers are generally used in places where air bases are not an option, and between the UK and Russia, there are plenty of them.

The USAF uses tankers pretty much everywhere and there is already a permanent presences at RAF Mildenhall. It isn’t hard to establish point defenses at a high value site; every branch of DoD has multiple C-UAV solutions. Protecting every single vehicle or infrastructure site in NATO would be impossible; protecting a half dozen airbases is relatively easy. Just using C-RAM or Gepard would probably suffice, though there are much more modern solutions now. Kh101s would probably be the most challenging targets; engaging a 100mph/150kph UAV isn’t especially demanding.

 

6 hours ago, glenn239 said:

In one discussion you mock the idea that the Russians have a requirement for a drone carrier to allow for cheap drone attacks to the 2000nm range, and on another thread you state that a 1,000 mile range from bases makes an air campaign based in the UK immune to attack.  Care to pick a lane?

I think it’s ridiculous to have a 2000nm drone carrier if it isn’t super stealthy. Were you thinking a Reaper or TB-2 analog was going to survive a ten hour trip through NATO airspace? And I didn’t say “immune”, I said it would require a long range munition making a fairly straight and predictable flight path partly over water, where it would have no terrain to hide behind.

 

6 hours ago, glenn239 said:

I think NATO will be unable to sustain the required tempo of operations to achieve victory and that their aircraft losses will be unsustainable.  If they attempt the type of large based heavy tempo Gulf War style heavy logistics, about the third mass missile-drone attack that ends in a NATO tragedy, they will give up and start dispersing, at the cost of tempo.

I simply don’t see NATO aircraft as that vulnerable, or conversely don’t see Russian defenses as being that effective. It seems to me given the range of cheap glide weapons and the number of available standoff missiles and decoys that NATO aircraft would barely need to cross the FLOT at all. They wouldn’t have to deal with A50s or MiG-31s; those could not maintain patrols close to the border like in Ukraine. NATO could fling JDAM-ER and SDB from ~40mi/60km away and still hit tactical targets on the front. Stealth aircraft might venture closer, but deep penetrations at targets in the rear could be addressed by old A model JASSM inventory from tactical fighters. No need to even deploy bombers or waste AGM-158B inventory if you wanted to save those for China.

 

6 hours ago, glenn239 said:

Ukraine has demonstrated beyond any possible doubt in your mind that infantry can be quickly trained in huge numbers, and Kyiv did this with only a fraction of the competence that the Russians and their mobilization system are able to bring to the table.

I made no such statement regarding ZSU training cycles. Neither side seems to be able to adequately train its reserves at the moment. Perhaps Russia will extend conscription or reform its reserves to include regular training post active service, but just calling up ex conscripts isn’t going to make useful new formations. Russia is having at best mixed success with its mobilized. Also a several million man army is going to require expansion of the officer pool far beyond pre war levels (and even further past current attritted levels), and that’s not a thing that happens overnight. Just getting an extra million or two enlisted fed is non trivial task.

 

6 hours ago, glenn239 said:

And yet the first time TU-95's plaster British base from the Artic, you'll be first in line calling for B-2's to fly deep into Russia to hit their bases. :^)

Well fair is fair. If you’re going to start hitting airbases, you can’t get upset when the other side does so as well. Though there numerous other locations not directly related to Russian nuclear deterrence that would be less escalatory and easier to hit than where the Bears live.

 

6 hours ago, glenn239 said:

The advantage of having, say, 3 million troops for a front that requires maybe 1/6th of that total for defense is that no particular formation would be required to stand in the line taking casualties for too long before it was rotated back into the 'sanctuary' zone to rest.

The disadvantage is how many mouths to feed.

 

More broadly I think another disconnect between our opinions is that I’m using NATO numbers and capabilities now and in the immediate future, where as you seem to be projecting into a post Ukraine war situation after an extended Russian build up. NATO is not going to hold still over the next five years. Look at the furious rate of Polish defense purchases. The U.S. is ramping up missile, munition, and UAV production. It is upgrading and widely exporting the F-35. It is completely rebuilding its satellite communications and missile tracking infrastructure (with a secondary PNT role as a GPS backup). If you’re thinking of a Russia-NATO conflict five years from now, you’ll have to factor in things like B-21, HACM, SiAW, Proliferated Satellite Architecture, F-35 blk4 in full rate production, PrSM, GMLRS-ER, and Collaborative Combat Aircraft. Those are all things projected to be in service circa 2027-28. The U.S. will be producing 100,000 155mm a month and 850 JASSM a year within a couple years. It plans to purchase two thousand UAVs in the next 18-24 months. So long as the war grinds on, Russia is running in place at best, relying on DPRK ammo at worst.

Edited December 2, 2023 by Josh

[Josh]

1 hour ago, DB said:

Consequently, Russia has moved from being "at the mercy" of the USD and thus the US Government to being in an equivalent position with near-worthless yuan and worthless rupees as a reward.

 

The Rupee is useless; I've read about this being a big problem. There's nothing Russia can buy with it. But I would think Russia could buy plenty things with Yuan; I mean, its China. I can't imagine they have any problems spending the oil sales on something. What they probably cannot do easily is shift that yuan oil revenue into domestic purchases for the war.

[Strannik]

18 minutes ago, Josh said:

The Rupee is useless; I've read about this being a big problem. There's nothing Russia can buy with it. But I would think Russia could buy plenty things with Yuan; I mean, its China. I can't imagine they have any problems spending the oil sales on something. What they probably cannot do easily is shift that yuan oil revenue into domestic purchases for the war.

Rupees buy tankers nowdays, domestic purchases are in rubles and quelle surprise Russia can print them at will just like US.

The rest of that bullshit report is not even worth talking about.

Edited December 1, 2023 by Strannik

[Josh]

13 minutes ago, Strannik said:

Rupees buy tankers nowdays...

Are you referring to the purchase of small ships for Russia's internal waterways? Or was there a buy of actual ocean going tankers? The former didn't strike me as a major purchase.

[Strannik]

1 hour ago, Josh said:

Are you referring to the purchase of small ships for Russia's internal waterways? Or was there a buy of actual ocean going tankers? The former didn't strike me as a major purchase.

Yes. 24 river-sea class carriers

https://indiashippingnews.com/india-to-build-24-cargo-ships-for-russia/

Nowadays India pays in "combination of the Chinese yuan, the Hong-Kong dollar as a transition currency into the yuan and the UAE dirham, which is pegged to the US dollar".  

Edited December 2, 2023 by Strannik

[Yama]

16 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

FPV drone and ATGMs vs. abandoned Leopard-2 with Soviet ERA

https://t.me/milinfolive/111769

What ATGM's are those, seem pretty fast and move straight?

[bojan]

Vikhr or possibly Ataka.

[glenn239]

16 hours ago, DB said:

 

- The oil price in yuan and rupees may have been stable since the pivot, but the exchange rate between those currencies and the ruble has dropped by over 40%, and so Russia's oil is worth commensurately less and is being exchanged for currency that is of limited utility in the first place.

I've seen reports that the Russians find the Rupee of limited use, but I've seen nothing anywhere that suggests anything along the lines as that holding Yuan is not valuable to Russia?

 

[glenn239]

16 hours ago, Josh said:

NATO would just be doing the same with vastly greater SEAD, ECM, volume, and precision. Like I said, they can either push the long range SAMs far enough back from the front to do high altitude glide bombs like the Russians or they can do low altitude pull ups like the Ukrainians.

I don't think NATO glide bomb attacks will be decisive.  Nor, having watched the parade of Western weapons perform in Ukraine, do I believe that much of anything the USAF brings to the table will work as well in action as is claimed in the advertising.

Quote

The USAF uses tankers pretty much everywhere and there is already a permanent presences at RAF Mildenhall. It isn’t hard to establish point defenses at a high value site

Tankers have to go to pre-established rendezvous points and fly figure 8 tracks under full observation of thousands of people and civilian radars while lazily refueling aircraft within SU-57 strike range.   This sounds more vulnerable to me for the tankers than just having the F-15's landing at different airports and refuel.

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I think it’s ridiculous to have a 2000nm drone carrier if it isn’t super stealthy. Were you thinking a Reaper or TB-2 analog was going to survive a ten hour trip through NATO airspace? 

Who said anything about non-stealthy drone carriers?   Why would anyone go through the trouble of building a drone carrier intended for deep operations and then not bother with building in stealthy features?  Is this is a movie and the Russians are Scooby-doo villains following a Hollywood script?

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They wouldn’t have to deal with A50s or MiG-31s; those could not maintain patrols close to the border like in Ukraine. 

 The USAF could barely handle MIG-25's in the Gulf War and were damn lucky on numerous occasions the Iraqi jets were old planes with old missiles.  You list MIG-31's and A-50's as if these are the same level of problem for NATO.  I think your claim that NATO can take care of Russian A-50's has considerably more merit than your claim that they can take out the MIG-31's.  

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I made no such statement regarding ZSU training cycles.

You made wildly unsubstantiated claims about how many million troops the Russians can field with their own and their allies' resources.  I mentioned the Ukrainian example to show that even Ukraine can field more troops than NATO could easily bomb.  

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Neither side seems to be able to adequately train its reserves at the moment.

Adequately train them FOR WHAT?  Sorry for the bolding, but you're jumping all over the place.  In one moment you say NATO canl kick the Russians out of Ukraine, which means the Russians need only train and equip large numbers of infantry for static defense to prevent that happening.  In the next moment you say that Russia takes a long time to train and equip mechanized formations for offensive warfare.  Those are two very different missions, and the requirements for static defenses are far less for one than the other.

Quote

Well fair is fair. If you’re going to start hitting airbases, you can’t get upset when the other side does so as well.

In one post you say that the USAF must not bomb deep in Russia because, obviously, the USAF can cease to exist if it does.  Then here, without further explanation, you throw all that restraint out the window at the first Tu-95 missile raid on a UK airbase.   But surely you realize that if F-15's in the UK are bombing Russian troops that these UK bases are targets for Russian attack, and that your first principle of not making deep bombing raids still holds provided that Russian raids are restricted to UK infrastructure involved in the Ukraine war?

Quote

More broadly I think another disconnect between our opinions is that I’m using NATO numbers and capabilities now and in the immediate future, where as you seem to be projecting into a post Ukraine war situation after an extended Russian build up.  

You were thinking that Russia will attack NATO, but without having done an extended period of buildup first?   The  Scooby-Doo villain theory is gaining strength.  :^)

Quote

NATO is not going to hold still over the next five years. Look at the furious rate of Polish defense purchases.

I don't think NATO can hold industrial pace with the Sino-Russian coalition going forward.  I think every year they will fall further behind.  It's as simple as that.  

 

[seahawk]

Russia to add 170.000 troops in response to NATO aggression, Hopefully only a first step and Russia will soon have 2.000.000 soldiers under arms.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/vladimir-putin-to-increase-russian-troop-numbers-by-170-000-in-response-to-expansion-of-nato/ar-AA1kTdGy

[Roman Alymov]

Bradley wreck towed by M88 ARV https://t.me/milinfolive/111854

[Josh]

46 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

I don't think NATO glide bomb attacks will be decisive.  Nor, having watched the parade of Western weapons perform in Ukraine, do I believe that much of anything the USAF brings to the table will work as well in action as is claimed in the advertising.

HIMARS was quite decisive. I don’t think it would be over hyped to say it had a strategic level effect - I don’t think either the Kharkiv or Kherson offensives could have occurred without them. I think the USAF would bring a lot more volume and a much deeper reach than a couple dozen artillery systems.

 

46 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

Tankers have to go to pre-established rendezvous points and fly figure 8 tracks under full observation of thousands of people and civilian radars while lazily refueling aircraft within SU-57 strike range.   This sounds more vulnerable to me for the tankers than just having the F-15's landing at different airports and refuel.

Su-57 is currently outnumbered nearly 100:1 by NATO fifth generation aircraft and there is little prospect of that situation improving. If they want to try to fly clear across Poland of Scandinavia, that will save NATO some time and trouble finding them on their side of the border.

 

46 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

Who said anything about non-stealthy drone carriers?   Why would anyone go through the trouble of building a drone carrier intended for deep operations and then not bother with building in stealthy features?  Is this is a movie and the Russians are Scooby-doo villains following a Hollywood script?

Ok, when the S70 enters full rate production, you have your long range stealth UAV. I think you’ll be waiting awhile.

 

46 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

 The USAF could barely handle MIG-25's in the Gulf War and were damn lucky on numerous occasions the Iraqi jets were old planes with old missiles.  You list MIG-31's and A-50's as if these are the same level of problem for NATO.  I think your claim that NATO can take care of Russian A-50's has considerably more merit than your claim that they can take out the MIG-31's.

If the MiGs loiter around running a racetrack like they likely are now, yeah I think they will be fired upon before they know they are even being tracked. If they race in and out again, I expect they can survive a lot longer, but they aren’t going to be providing a persistent CAP or significantly expanding ground based radar coverage.

 

46 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

You made wildly unsubstantiated claims about how many million troops the Russians can field with their own and their allies' resources.  I mentioned the Ukrainian example to show that even Ukraine can field more troops than NATO could easily bomb.

I think NATO airpower can destroy Russian logistics pretty easily. Actually bombing troops probably wouldn’t have to happen on a particularly large scale. The goal isn’t to invade Russia, the goal is to put them on there side of the border and keep them there.

 

46 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

Adequately train them FOR WHAT?  Sorry for the bolding, but you're jumping all over the place.  In one moment you say NATO canl kick the Russians out of Ukraine, which means the Russians need only train and equip large numbers of infantry for static defense to prevent that happening.  In the next moment you say that Russia takes a long time to train and equip mechanized formations for offensive warfare.  Those are two very different missions, and the requirements for static defenses are far less for one than the other.

Ah, I think this conversation is a big misunderstanding. I am discussing a hypothetical Russia-NATO conflict post Ukraine war involving Russia invading a NATO country. I don’t believe NATO will take any military action against Russia under any other circumstances. That is the only scenario I am discussing; NATO is never going to try to dislodge Russia from Ukraine. On that note I’ll just drop this; we are talking past each other.