Kiev Is Burning

[Josh]

2 hours ago, ink said:

MLRS, sure, HIMARS, surely not? How many launchers have been built in total worldwide? Less than a thousand?

About that I think. 60 were produced last year. How many of the ~40 gifted Ukraine have been killed though?

[Josh]

35 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

 Everyone on this site knows that Russian drone doctrine was massively defective at all levels before the war, and now they've undergone a transformative process that has placed as a top priority drone technology, production, and incorporation into doctrine at all levels and branches of the Russian armed forces. The radical improvement in Iskander targeting performances we are seeing are a manifestation of that process, as well as improvements in command and control doctrine.  All of it happened only because of the war.

As I noted, we do not know for certain that the apparent success of the last couple months was explicitly due to a doctrinal change or simply Ukraine altering its deployment patterns. You explicitly glossed over my question of ‘how do we know these claimed kills were far behind the line?’. It would be weird to my mind that Russia suddenly had a doctrinal change employing Iskander against HIMARS more than two and a half years into the war and two years after the summer of HIMARS.

Edited September 12, 2024 by Josh

[TrustMe]

1 hour ago, bojan said:

Why would that be? Old Tochka TEL could do ~150 launches before overhaul.

I thought it was more around 20.

[Josh]

1 hour ago, TrustMe said:

I thought it was more around 20.

That would still burn through probably every Iskander made without overhaul, given the number of launchers.

[glenn239]

1 hour ago, Josh said:

You explicitly glossed over my question of ‘how do we know these claimed kills were far behind the line?’

When Iskanders kill HIMARS and the video is posted, it's all geolocated very quickly and posted.   

I would add on the doctrinal improvements front another point.  Because of the war, the Russians discarded their stupid adherence to missile treaties on missile range, and are  now deploying an Iskander version with a range of around 1,000km.

Edited September 12, 2024 by glenn239

[glenn239]

1 hour ago, TrustMe said:

I thought it was more around 20.

65,000,000 for an F-35 divided by 625,000 for an Iskander and TEL wear, that's a ratio of 104 Iskanders to 1 F-35, isn't it?

[Josh]

3 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

When Iskanders kill HIMARS and the video is posted, it's all geolocated very quickly and posted. 

Ok, so do tell, where were these kills? You made the assertion; I am not researching it for you.

[Josh]

3 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

65,000,000 for an F-35 divided by 625,000 for an Iskander and TEL wear, that's a ratio of 104 Iskanders to 1 F-35, isn't it?

Assuming Iskander can hit one. I’ll yield to Bojan and Roman on the matter of ISR, but my assumption is that this strike complex is almost exclusively driven by Orlan 10 recon platforms. Now look up the range of that and see how much of NATO that covers. Again: the much smaller PSU somehow still has worker aircraft despite your assertion that Russia has found a work around for NATO air power. In fact the majority of NATO aircraft would be based clear outside of Iskander range altogether, because of that new fangled in flight refueling thing.

[seahawk]

They can hit plenty, as this mean about 3000 Iskander per airfield.

[bojan]

50 minutes ago, Josh said:

Ok, so do tell, where were these kills?

IIRC as close as 10 and as far as 50+km behind frontline. IDK  why that would be surprising, they have managed to have UAV ~90km from frontline over Ukrainian airfields for ~hour and strike MiG-29 (IIRC) when it was refueled and armed.

[bojan]

2 hours ago, Josh said:

About that I think. 60 were produced last year. How many of the ~40 gifted Ukraine have been killed though?

Lostarmour has 7 x M142 and 3 x M270 confirmed, but that is only those where there was no doubt what it was. Most probable total is 13 x M142 and 6-7 x M270.

[Yama]

8 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

You do not win wars by pissing away resources that could be far better employed buying cheaper weapons. Ask the Nazi's.

Case in point. WW2. Germans built the MP40, possibly one of the finest submachine guns of the war. We built the sten, probably the cheapest and the shoddiest. But inside 50 yards, they were just as effective. Then by the end of the war, the Germans were also building Stens, because you know what, we were right.

That's not how it happened  MP-28 and -38 were fine well machined weapons, MP-40 was el cheapo one, which Brits took one look at, and thought "We can make a cheaper one". Result was Sten. Germans took one look at it and thought "That's too cheap for us" until 1945 came and decided "No lets make it even cheaper!"

[Stuart Galbraith]

In fact the British First built a copy of the Mp28 called the Lanchester, also decided it was too expensive (except perhaps predictably the RN, and built the Sten. We just goes to show, when others go low, we go lower!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanchester_submachine_gun

Disturbing to find one turned up in a Hamas weapons cache in 2023, that was used in the 7th October attack.

 

[Yama]

2 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

In fact the British First built a copy of the Mp28 called the Lanchester, also decided it was too expensive (except perhaps predictably the RN, and built the Sten. We just goes to show, when others go low, we go lower!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanchester_submachine_gun

Disturbing to find one turned up in a Hamas weapons cache in 2023, that was used in the 7th October attack.

Yea I just read about it when I remembered Lanchester and googled about it. Really bizarre.

On another subject, funny how stereotypical film weaponry always is. MP-18 based weapons were quite widely used in WW2, yet never shown on screen, it's always MP40/Sten/PPSh-40/Suomi...it's like you need to give soldiers iconic weapons lest moviegoer gets confused. 

[Stuart Galbraith]

It's gotten better in recent years.  I've even seen a Soviet DP28 in Peaky Blinders. Bunch of commie sympathisers I guess.....

Worth listening to a podcast called fighting on film. They do a good breakdown on weapons tally in war films, among other things.

https://fightingonfilm.com/

 

[Josh]

2 hours ago, bojan said:

IIRC as close as 10 and as far as 50+km behind frontline. IDK  why that would be surprising, they have managed to have UAV ~90km from frontline over Ukrainian airfields for ~hour and strike MiG-29 (IIRC) when it was refueled and armed.

I would not call 50 km deep behind the lines (Glenn’s words, not yours) for a 500 km TBM. My point is that whatever the Russians are doing for interdiction seems to still class 2 UAV range limited. That is a threat to artillery systems and forward ZSU bases; it would not a threat to any country that did not border Russia.

Edited September 12, 2024 by Josh

[bojan]

Depth of where they hit HIMARS/MLRS is determinated mostly by detection. Detection is often done by drones, sometimes by following smoke trail of the missiles and circling nearby area where launchers might be hiding.

Idea of observation drones successfully operating 50km behind frontlines was unthinkable in 2023. or in 2022.. IMO that is clear sign of significant degradation of Ukrainian mid-range AD, in particular Osa and Strela-10, as those were most often tasked with shooting observation drones.

 

[Roman Alymov]

Just now, bojan said:

Depth of where they hit HIMARS/MLRS is determinated mostly by detection. Detection is often done by drones, sometimes by following smoke trail of the missiles and circling nearby area where launchers might be hiding.

Idea of observation drones successfully operating 50km behind frontlines was unthinkable in 2023. or in 2022.. IMO that is clear sign of significant degradation of Ukrainian mid-range AD, in particular Osa and Strela-10, as those were most often tasked with shooting observation drones.

 

Now pro-Rus observation drones are increasingly facing another threat - FPV attacks directed by signals intelligence (as observation drones are relatively easy to detect by their constant video/datalink by radio).

[bojan]

49 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

It's gotten better in recent years.  I've even seen a Soviet DP28 in Peaky Blinders...

I would not call it better - in Peaky Blinders DP appear in 1922/23 timeframe (while it was practically unknown to the west until Spanish Civil War), which is 4-5 years before they were officially accepted for service. IMO armorer was too lazy to find working Lewis (plus Lewis dos not really work with blanks...).

Also it is DP-27. DP-28 designation is.. IDK where does it come from, but it is a wrong designation. DT is DT-29 formally, but there is no 28 version - aviation version was just DA, w/o year.

[Josh]

30 minutes ago, bojan said:

Depth of where they hit HIMARS/MLRS is determinated mostly by detection. Detection is often done by drones, sometimes by following smoke trail of the missiles and circling nearby area where launchers might be hiding.

Idea of observation drones successfully operating 50km behind frontlines was unthinkable in 2023. or in 2022.. IMO that is clear sign of significant degradation of Ukrainian mid-range AD, in particular Osa and Strela-10, as those were most often tasked with shooting observation drones.

 

I agree. My point to Glenn was that it seems more likely weak AD or more forward deployment probably explains recent Russian success more that some new breakthrough in employment of systems that existed pre war. Furthermore those limitations would not necessarily apply to NATO and have an upper end range limit.

[Roman Alymov]

26 minutes ago, bojan said:

I would not call it better - in Peaky Blinders DP appear in 1922/23 timeframe (while it was practically unknown to the west until Spanish Civil War), which is 4-5 years before they were officially accepted for service. IMO armorer was too lazy to find working Lewis (plus Lewis dos not really work with blanks...).

Soviet solution of the problem

[Josh]

So did The Empire:

https://starwarsweapons.fandom.com/wiki/T-21_Light_Repeating_Blaster

[Roman Alymov]

P.S.

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 hour ago, bojan said:

I would not call it better - in Peaky Blinders DP appear in 1922/23 timeframe (while it was practically unknown to the west until Spanish Civil War), which is 4-5 years before they were officially accepted for service. IMO armorer was too lazy to find working Lewis (plus Lewis dos not really work with blanks...).

Also it is DP-27. DP-28 designation is.. IDK where does it come from, but it is a wrong designation. DT is DT-29 formally, but there is no 28 version - aviation version was just DA, w/o year.

I think without checking it was probably series 5, so that would be the early 30s by that point. Episode 1 was the 1929 wall street crash, and the rest is dominated by Mosley, who didn't  even become a fascist till 1932.

They has a working Lewis in series 4 and series 1, so that wasn't the problem. I think they wanted something different, but of the period. A Thompson would have been too easy.

[bojan]

They should have got Madsen, or Vickers-Berthier, or even WW1 Hotchkiss portative. DP is just... out of place.