War in Ukraine, technical and military aspects only

[Stefan Kotsch]

43 minutes ago, crazyinsane105 said:

Not denying they are running out of equipment, but I am wondering if they do have underground sites we aren’t of

According to the well-known Russian motto: We haven't started waging war yet?

I see no evidence that the 'Wunderwaffe' will be brought out of Russian hiding places any time soon.

[Perun]

 

[Perun]

 

[crazyinsane105]

1 hour ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

According to the well-known Russian motto: We haven't started waging war yet?

I see no evidence that the 'Wunderwaffe' will be brought out of Russian hiding places any time soon.

No magic weapons for sure, but maybe tons more AFV and tank hulls? I dunno, just a guess. 

[Josh]

4 hours ago, crazyinsane105 said:

Large scale drone and missile attacks can really dent the effectiveness of NATO air power, for a fraction of the cost of what is used to be.

 

Hypothetically. It kind of depends on which NATO bases we are talking about in terms of range, and it depends what defenses NATO deployed. Reaching bases in Germany or the UK is going to require a drone of at least Shahed size or larger. The U.S. has a half dozen different anti done products in various stages of deployment, though I think the only one that exists in any large numbers so far is MSHORADS.

Shelters would be a huge help though since UAVs generally lack kinetic energy and payload; it would not require a NATO standard HAS to stop something like Shahed.

[crazyinsane105]

5 minutes ago, Josh said:

Hypothetically. It kind of depends on which NATO bases we are talking about in terms of range, and it depends what defenses NATO deployed. Reaching bases in Germany or the UK is going to require a drone of at least Shahed size or larger. The U.S. has a half dozen different anti done products in various stages of deployment, though I think the only one that exists in any large numbers so far is MSHORADS.

Shelters would be a huge help though since UAVs generally lack kinetic energy and payload; it would not require a NATO standard HAS to stop something like Shahed.

Wouldn’t a Shahed style drone with a shaped charge warhead be more than enough to punch through a hardened shelter though? 

[Josh]

4 hours ago, crazyinsane105 said:

How confident are we that the Russians don’t have large scale underground areas where equipment is being stored, and that hasn’t been touched yet? Only asking because Ukraine had extremely large underground stockpiles of arms which were unknown to most outside observers as well. 

I do not think the mines were used for vehicle storage. But the OSINT counts of equipment of course cannot quantify how much equipment is stored in warehouses at the same sites. That’s why they specifically note the percentage as being solely related to vehicles stored outdoors.

Russia can pretty clearly support its loss rate for a few years more or less. And vehicles seem to be used less and less in favor of small unit infantry assaults on foot.

[Josh]

1 minute ago, crazyinsane105 said:

Wouldn’t a Shahed style drone with a shaped charge warhead be more than enough to punch through a hardened shelter though? 

If it were accurate enough, maybe? Not sure how concrete compares to RHA. But minimally that would require a high degree of accuracy that baseline Geran does not reliably have.

[ex2cav]

On 7/7/2024 at 12:18 AM, Perun said:

 

I've been waiting for someone to notice that. I haven't seen the recognition here in the US. Funny, he takes credit for an argument the Russians have been making.

[Der Zeitgeist]

1 hour ago, Josh said:

 Reaching bases in Germany or the UK is going to require a drone of at least Shahed size or larger.

Or a bunch of dudes riding around in a car with its trunk full of FPV drones.

[crazyinsane105]

https://www.businessinsider.com/europe-making-half-artillery-shells-it-claims-ukraine-russia-report-2024-7?amp
 

Well, looks like the million shell mark was a bit too optimistic 

7 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

Or a bunch of dudes riding around in a car with its trunk full of FPV drones.

I mean, sure that’s possible. But to be fair..we haven’t seen this happen much in Ukraine even though the Russians have who knows how many loyalists and sleeper cells. May be harder to pull it off in NATO friendly countries 

Though just one team with a few FPVs can still cause havoc if they knock out high value aircraft 

[glenn239]

3 hours ago, Perun said:

 

Seems to be a serious uptick in the effectiveness of Russian deep penetration drone reconnaissance, right at the moment a Ukrainian article appears describing new Russian tactics in such missions.

[glenn239]

2 hours ago, Josh said:

Shelters would be a huge help though since UAVs generally lack kinetic energy and payload; it would not require a NATO standard HAS to stop something like Shahed.

Fortifications are a double edged sword.  Yes, they provide protection against attack.  But they also are in fixed and long identified positions, and therefore surrender the possibility of dispersion and concealment.  If, for example, NATO were to build a thousand hardened shelters, then a logical response would be to construct a missile force capable of hitting all one thousand shelters at once in a massive attack.   

[glenn239]

2 hours ago, ex2cav said:

I've been waiting for someone to notice that. I haven't seen the recognition here in the US. Funny, he takes credit for an argument the Russians have been making.

It's sort of understood here that NATO was intending to continue expanding eastward, the forum just seems divided on whether this was a principled or a stupid policy, (I think it was both).

[Josh]

3 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

Fortifications are a double edged sword.  Yes, they provide protection against attack.  But they also are in fixed and long identified positions, and therefore surrender the possibility of dispersion and concealment.  If, for example, NATO were to build a thousand hardened shelters, then a logical response would be to construct a missile force capable of hitting all one thousand shelters at once in a massive attack.   

HAS are cheaper than missiles, and you do not necessarily have to even use them - they can be mixed with other overhead cover and dispersals. 

[Pavel Novak]

5 hours ago, glenn239 said:

It's sort of understood here that NATO was intending to continue expanding eastward, the forum just seems divided on whether this was a principled or a stupid policy, (I think it was both).

The correct question is if Russia would start to invade its western neigbours if there was no NATO expansion.

Putin's answer is yes. See that Carlson interview which every pro-russian American evade more than LGBTQXZYetc.

[Der Zeitgeist]

7 hours ago, crazyinsane105 said:

I mean, sure that’s possible. But to be fair..we haven’t seen this happen much in Ukraine even though the Russians have who knows how many loyalists and sleeper cells. May be harder to pull it off in NATO friendly countries 

Though just one team with a few FPVs can still cause havoc if they knock out high value aircraft 

I'm pretty sure it's actually easier in a lot of NATO countries. No GPS jamming going on, minimal base security in many places. You could probably take out (i.e. mission-kill) a large part of the NATO E-3 component, for example, before anyone knew what was going on.

I think if we're looking for possible ways of Russian retaliation and escalation, this is one of the likelier scenarios. 

[seahawk]

6 hours ago, glenn239 said:

It's sort of understood here that NATO was intending to continue expanding eastward, the forum just seems divided on whether this was a principled or a stupid policy, (I think it was both).

NATO was expanding east with the idea of breaking up Russia into controllable and exploitable smaller individual Republics. NATO is just a tool used to destroy Russia.

[Roman Alymov]

14 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

I'm pretty sure it's actually easier in a lot of NATO countries. No GPS jamming going on, minimal base security in many places. You could probably take out (i.e. mission-kill) a large part of the NATO E-3 component, for example, before anyone knew what was going on.

I think if we're looking for possible ways of Russian retaliation and escalation, this is one of the likelier scenarios. 

There is no need for Russia to escalate in this way (even leaving aside the simple fact of currebt Russian elite begging for peace, not for escalation): the spread of technology is irreversable, and it is plenty of groups inside the West (and any other place on the globe) who could use this technlologies to communicate their case. Now every student of technology (or even random person with modest ability of handcraft and internet search skills) could create long-range drone with accuracy of PGM of 1990th (or even better, is no EW around). Yes explosives is still the problem, but, say, just having 50 l of fuel crashed into regular building and ignited will do a lot of damage....

[urbanoid]

15 hours ago, crazyinsane105 said:

Though that’s what the Ukrainians did, they had a lot of salt mines. 
 

Not denying they are running out of equipment, but I am wondering if they do have underground sites we aren’t of

And if they do, do they use it for storage of 'big' equipment like tanks, IFVs, SP artillery etc in any significant quantities? Somehow I doubt it. 

[glenn239]

6 hours ago, seahawk said:

NATO was expanding east with the idea of breaking up Russia into controllable and exploitable smaller individual Republics. NATO is just a tool used to destroy Russia.

I doubt NATO's motives were so nefarious.  NATO expansion is good way to dominate arms markets, and with the EU in tow, big civilian contracts like power plants.  But generational projects like NATO expansion often start off with one intention and arrive at another, so it is entirely possible that benign motives to start could morph into more aggressive ones in a decade or two.  

Edited July 9, 2024 by glenn239

[urbanoid]

Way to say that countries that have joined NATO since the end of the Cold War had completely no agency here in the first place, while ignoring that as a general rule it was them that had to persuade NATO members to be allowed to join, not being pulled in against their population's will.

NATO countries could have been happily selling all the arms and power plants without expanding an inch, the way it worked e.g. with Finland and Sweden - other countries that (surprise surprise!) asked to join.

[glenn239]

7 hours ago, Pavel Novak said:

The correct question is if Russia would start to invade its western neigbours if there was no NATO expansion.

The answer to that one I think is no, that it would not have.  In each case, (Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine), the Russian territorial expansion was in response to NATO move - in the case of Crimea, an illegal coup in Kyiv.  The pattern was clear 15 years before the 2022 war that NATO's last expansion in 2006 was also the last time the process would be a net gain to NATO, so why did NATO not alter its behavior?    Your question does not answer that question, and is therefore not the correct question.

[urbanoid]

9 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

The answer to that one I think is no, that it would not have.  In each case, (Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine), the Russian territorial expansion was in response to NATO move - in the case of Crimea, an illegal coup in Kyiv.  The pattern was clear 15 years before the 2022 war that NATO's last expansion in 2006 was also the last time the process would be a net gain to NATO, so why did NATO not alter its behavior?    Your question does not answer that question, and is therefore not the correct question.

Oh, you could always find excuses, it's a bit of a stretch to call them reasons.

[Stefan Kotsch]

7 hours ago, Pavel Novak said:

The correct question is if Russia would start to invade its western neigbours if there was no NATO expansion.

However, I think the question is asked incorrectly.
This question would be more relevant:

Would Russia attack its neighboring states if they were not afraid of Russia, namely because they are willingly obedient to the Kremlin?

NATO did not come to the East. The East came to the NATO. This is the question that @Roman Alymov so persistently avoids. Why is KGB-Putins Russia so unattractive as a political system? And why does Russia want to forbid its neighbors from choosing a different political system?

Edited July 9, 2024 by Stefan Kotsch