Ukraine Conflict

[Gfted1]

22 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

Well I am not sure about that part about 'dummy' - navigation and rocket itself are the most 'costly' parts of the system itself. payload is just a bonus - does not make much sense to take it out if you are going to shoot it anyway no?

Russia firing unarmed missiles to deplete Ukraine air defense, says U.S. military official | Reuters

That may be why some of the shot down missiles are still mostly intact, no boom.

[Lexx]

Still makes no sense to me. Like others said before, there could be at least some explosive warhead, not just nothing. Just jeeting missiles like that into ukraine feels weird.

[xzar_monty]

Btw, not particularly pertinent to Ukraine per se, but further evidence of Putin's Russia's long-standing position as a country devoted to brutality: in my current work project related to sexual violence and its deliberate use in conflicts, I have now discovered that throughout the 2000s, Russia has been against everything that might help the problem and its recognition as a major scourge. Potential resolutions of the UN Security Council around this topic have been repeatedly nixed by Russia, most notably in 2006.

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, Mamoulian War said:

According to Arestovych 2 strategic bombers were damaged, and 2 destroyed. Which is approximately 20% of all Russian strategic bombers, out of which TU-22M and Tu-95 are not produced anymore and TU-160s are constructed in tempo of 1 piece over several years. So this is significant loss to Russia.

Well checking Wiki, Russia has  ~90 Tu-95s,  60 Tu-22Ms and 17 Tu-160s.  Bit less than 20% there.  I had skimmed people sharing images from the strike and didn't see any destroyed planes.  Not sure why they bother with the coyness about these strikes, like the bridge, guess it sells well as trolling.

25 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Still makes no sense to me. Like others said before, there could be at least some explosive warhead, not just nothing. Just jeeting missiles like that into ukraine feels weird.

Maybe was expedient to just grab a missile with a dummy warhead ?

[BruceVC]

Girkin's impressions from his mobik trip
 

"And now also briefly on the impressions of the trip, which was inconclusive, but not useless (since my eyes and ears remained with me, and my head is also still working).

Naturally, I intend to keep the vast majority of my impressions and conclusions to myself. To, so to speak, "not to discredit". Positive impressions - I will share in the upcoming (hopefully) video conferences. But there are not too many of them - in relation to the negative ones.

I will only note that the basis of all our "increasing victories" on the fronts and directions of the NMD is the deepest crisis of strategic planning. Simply put, the troops are fighting "by inertia", not having the slightest idea of the ultimate strategic goals of the current military campaign and only guessing about the vague plans of the command for such grandiose senseless gestures as the construction of a completely insane in uselessness (but wildly expensive in terms of execution cost) Surovikin Lines.

The so-called. "Ukraine" will NOT freeze in winter, will NOT rebel and will NOT fight worse. Vice versa. Its soldiers, who have already believed in their strength as a result of the autumn victories of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and are fully supported by NATO, will only fight harder and harder against the "Muscovites", avenging the hardships that their relatives and friends in the rear are forced to bear. And they will be met only by apathetic performance of duty, behind which many fighters and commanders have long been looming the unresolved question: "What are we doing here, if Moscow is most concerned with the implementation of" grain deals ", the unhindered pumping of ammonia through Odessa and the" price ceiling " on gas and oil supplied to numerous Western partners?

In most parts of the RF Armed Forces, soldiers and officers do not understand: for what, for what and for what purposes they are fighting in general. For them, a mystery - what is the condition for victory or just a condition for ending the war? And the authorities of the Russian Federation are not able to explain this to them, since setting a clear goal for the NWO means "limiting room for maneuver" - that is, losing the opportunity to declare the goals of the NWO as achieved at any moment that the Kremlin leaders consider convenient. (For the thousand and first time, I remind you that the passionately desired “reconciliation with partners,” for which many steps are being taken to this day that demoralize society and the army, is unattainable in principle, but the Kremlin and Staraya Square do not want to believe in it).

Such sentiments specifically in the troops lead to apathy. Apathy, on the other hand, leads to a drop in morale and the fulfillment of the tasks set "for show" and "slip of the sleeves", without a real interest in their successful result. In the army of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation apathy prevails.

Watching how the enemy slowly (and without encountering any opposition) implements his own strategic tasks with the complete passivity of the military and political authorities of the Russian Federation, I do not expect anything good at the front in the coming weeks"

[xzar_monty]

As you only use the name Girkin, you must mean the rather well-known ultra-nationalist veteran, right?

Where was this text?

[Malcador]

On his telegram - t.me/strelkovii/3495

 

[kanisatha]

2 hours ago, Lexx said:

Still makes no sense to me. Like others said before, there could be at least some explosive warhead, not just nothing. Just jeeting missiles like that into ukraine feels weird.

It's because many of these missiles are old nuclear-armed missiles from the Cold War, which were decommissioned after the end of the Cold War. So their nuke warheads were removed, and then the missiles placed in storage. Now, when those missiles are returned to operational use, there is no conventional warhead available that can be installed in them.

[pmp10]

Hungary blocks EU aid to Ukraine.
Predictable hostage in dispute over rule of law and the EU recovery funds.

But for once there is a deadline and someone will have to give-in before the year is out. 

[xzar_monty]

Putin has Hungary in his pocket; this is another of those political situations it would be marvelous to get to the bottom of. We may have to wait decades for it...

[Mamoulian War]

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

Well checking Wiki, Russia has  ~90 Tu-95s,  60 Tu-22Ms and 17 Tu-160s.  Bit less than 20% there.  I had skimmed people sharing images from the strike and didn't see any destroyed planes.  Not sure why they bother with the coyness about these strikes, like the bridge, guess it sells well as trolling.

Maybe was expedient to just grab a missile with a dummy warhead ?

Not going to argue, but on paper Russia has approx 8000 T72s as well, and I think, we can say, that we all know how many have been in combat so far. Russian paper can hold a lot of stuff, most likely very different from reality. So the question is how many of these planes are flight/fight ready or in active duty, as there are very few airports in Russia, which can hold/prepare them for strategic missions.

The 20% was said by Arestovych, not me, and he said this:

 

“Today’s destruction (4) is 1/5th of Russia’s active strategic bombers, and they can’t be built anymore. It is also very complicated to rebase due to storage, servicing personnel, hardware, and buildings.”

Edited December 6, 2022 by Mamoulian War

[xzar_monty]

As a side note, using Wikipedia as a source is one of those "don't know whether I should laugh or cry" situations. There is no doubt that it can be good, but it absolutely shouldn't be relied upon. In military matters, I wouldn't even dream of using it as a source.

[Malcador]

Sort of funny to mention on that, based on the bull**** sources posted throughout these threads, but as you do.   The point in referencing Wikipedia was just for a ballpark, and also was due to time. In any case, I think it's a bit far to say they've 20 across 3 models of bomber, though. Arestovych says a lot of things, as well.

At least for the Tu-160s and Tu-95s, those are reported as part of New START, it seems.  But not a very granular breakdown there, e.g. https://www.state.gov/new-start-treaty-aggregate-numbers-of-strategic-offensive-arms-3/

 

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Malcador

[Zoraptor]

Yeah, dissing on wikipedia when the alternative is Arestovych is... an interesting take. Especially when it isn't difficult to check. 66 Tu160s and Tu95s per new start (different link from the one above, no download req)

The weasel word is, of course, 'active' though more likely 'damaged 20% of the bombers present' is way closer to the truth. Could even be one of those translation errors.

6 hours ago, Chilloutman said:

Well I am not sure about that part about 'dummy' - navigation and rocket itself are the most 'costly' parts of the system itself. payload is just a bonus - does not make much sense to take it out if you are going to shoot it anyway no?

As Gfted said, in this case old stocks so no cost. Also, since they were intended for a nuclear payload +/- a few hundred metres didn't matter so they just use bog standard inertial guidance which is, at heart, the same thing a V-1/2 used in the 40s.

More generally, any dummy will not be a 'smart' missiles, and rocket fuel is also very cheap unless it has to be something unusual (which of course you wouldn't use for dummies). Even machining isn't expensive if you don't need precision, no one will care if the odd dummy goes off course. Israel has been using the same sort of thing in Syria for years to overload Syrian AD, their ratio has sometimes been as high as 9 dummies to 1 live. Dummies just need to look like 'real' missiles on radar; which is trivial to achieve since they are missiles, they just don't have a warhead.

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, Zoraptor said:

Yeah, dissing on wikipedia when the alternative is Arestovych is... an interesting take.

Ahem. My scepticism towards Wikipedia in no way implies any kind of faith in what Arestovych says. You sometimes have a mightily strange way of reading stuff. It's not as if it's a choice between those two as sources to be relied upon.

Edited December 6, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, Zoraptor said:

Yeah, dissing on wikipedia when the alternative is Arestovych is... an interesting take. Especially when it isn't difficult to check. 66 Tu160s and Tu95s per new start (different link from the one above, no download req)

The weasel word is, of course, 'active' though more likely 'damaged 20% of the bombers present' is way closer to the truth. Could even be one of those translation errors.

I had found that, but figured it'd fail the source police here not being straight from BLUFOR or something. 

Speaking of

Probably will come out to clarify this, but pretty clear the current objective isn't the final one.

Edited December 6, 2022 by Malcador

[xzar_monty]

My less than charitable stance on Wikipedia is based upon quite a few years of experience with the world of fact-checking, the kind of work that publishers and better newspapers have to engage in for legal reasons, among others. The funny thing about Wikipedia as a source is that it can be anything from superb to awful, and therefore it isn't one to be taken seriously. Anyway, I've got no desire to take this any further (as far as discussions / arguments go).

As for several other sources cited in these discussions, they sometimes fall into the category of "not even wrong" in the Wolfgang Pauli sense (in my view), so not much point in debunking them.

[Mamoulian War]

Whatever you "have to" say about Arestovych, he is still 1000x more reliable source than anything, that has ever come out of Russia

[Mamoulian War]

A little bit more down to earth analysis of kaboom at Engels airport

 

 

[BruceVC]

Wikipedia is fine as a   reference,  you can then do further research if you interested or dispute the link. Its always a convenient starting point but its not as credible than the History channel links or normal media house links like BBC or Reuters 

[Zoraptor]

Wikipedia is precisely as good as its references. Which for simple stuff like numbers are usually* as good as any other source. I wouldn't go to wikipedia for anything close to an 'opinion' based analysis for anything remotely political or current though; at that it's generally useless- and far too often worse than useless.

*with some notable exceptions. It will always be amusing looking at the casualties for Operation Bagration as ultimately all its 'credible' estimates are based on German sources (which mostly resolve to... Joey Goebels, in the end). All the glorious victories kept getting closer to Berlin indeed.

[xzar_monty]

Every once in a while, the results of rampant Russian corruption can even be just funny.

 

[BruceVC]

https://www.today.com/news/time-2022-person-of-the-year-volodymyr-zelenskyy-rcna60487 

Zelensky has been named Time person of the year, a well deserved accolade considering Ukraines stand for freedom and rejecting the warmongering and tyranny of Russia 

[Malcador]

18 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Whatever you "have to" say about Arestovych, he is still 1000x more reliable source than anything, that has ever come out of Russia

Well if you have to fall back to that, sure.

In related news, as Arestovych's a hype man.

 

Edited December 7, 2022 by Malcador

[Zoraptor]

I didn't think Time could get more cringe than awarding 'you' the Person the of the Year in 2006, but that at least comes close.

(Zelensky is a perfectly fine choice, but jesus f christ the Star Wars Poster Format should only ever be used ironically guys)

Edited December 7, 2022 by Zoraptor