Ukraine Conflict - The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his

[Mamoulian War]

Do you still remeber the brilliant idea of Russian commander to dig in Chernobil soil? It looks like some other commander came with similarly brilliant idea in Zaporhizhzhia Oblast and decided to dig in a graveyard for the last rest of infected cattle. After short while his troops contracted and started to spread Anthrax withun their units

[Malcador]

So this drone that got shot down over Kiev was a TB2, bit of an antclimax to the news there, heh.

[Zoraptor]

Bayraktars: so useless the Ukrainians have started using them for target practice.

Oddest drone fact of the war is still the Shahed having one certain and another probable air to air kill despite having zero air to air capacity.

 

[Mamoulian War]

Prigozhin has stated, that he will be withdrawing his forces from Bakhmut on May 10th.

[Gorth]

 

[HoonDing]

He's literally Blofeld.

[Malcador]

Russians really like fire

 

[Zoraptor]

Don't think he needs the equivocation since that's very obviously thermite.

Some claims that a Patriot downed a (hypersonic) Khinzal near Kiev yesterday. Very much in the 'more evidence required' though; one of the pictures provided is literal lol and could be anything. May well be distraction from the drone fiasco too.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Zoraptor

[BruceVC]

20 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Prigozhin has stated, that he will be withdrawing his forces from Bakhmut on May 10th.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65493008

Yes I noticed this story as well, with the overall failure of Russia to provide adequate military  equipment I wonder if it is true?

[Lexx]

One can dream.

[Mamoulian War]

Commander of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has confirmed today, that the Kinzhal was indeed successfully intercepted near Kiyv by Patriot air defence system.

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/05/6/7400941/

[Malcador]

Strange didn't they deny it yesterday?

https://english.nv.ua/nation/ukrainian-air-force-denies-reports-kinzhal-hypersonic-ballistic-missile-downed-over-kyiv-50322488.html

Confusing to do so, Russia is likely aware it didn't hit their target and as can be seen by the reaction, it's a decent propaganda haul (and gets Americans to jerk it over their weaponry).

 

 

[kanisatha]

2 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Commander of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has confirmed today, that the Kinzhal was indeed successfully intercepted near Kiyv by Patriot air defence system.

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/05/6/7400941/

Buy Raytheon stock now.

[BruceVC]

18 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Commander of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has confirmed today, that the Kinzhal was indeed successfully intercepted near Kiyv by Patriot air defence system.

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/05/6/7400941/

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-says-it-downed-hypersonic-russian-missile-with-us-air-defence-system-2023-05-06/

Updated link on this, the US Patriot system was only delivered last month

I love the part " The Kinzhal, which means "dagger" in Russian, is one of six "next generation" weapons unveiled by President Vladimir Putin in 2018 when the Russian leader boasted that it cannot be shot down by any of the world's air defence systems "

 

 

[Lexx]

Why would it not be possible to shoot down a missile?

[pmp10]

Ukraine is trying to lower expectations for the offensive.
Makes sense as they likely lack the necessary means but are politically forced to go ahead.

There have been diplomatic signals that they will only get this one shot before west starts to negotiate.

[Gorth]

2 hours ago, Lexx said:

Why would it not be possible to shoot down a missile?

If it flies considerably faster than any intercepting missile, math says it's it will outrun the intercepting missile. But if you can track it fast enough and hit it at an angle (literally intercepting it), then yes. It's just not something the Russians imagined air defense missiles would be able to. I.e. track it's movement and change its own course fast enough to hit it somewhere on its flight path.

[Zoraptor]

Standard ballistic missiles are intrinsically predictable, precisely because they're ballistic: they go up, they go sideways, they go down. It's what they do.

There's no reason you can't shoot down any missile, it's a matter of probabilities and the faster and more manoevrable they are the harder it is. The Saudis were at times firing entire batteries of Patriots to take down one ancient Scud though, hence their constant requests for more missiles. A Kinzhal is basically an Iskander missile fired horizontally from altitude, and is not ballistic* in the normal sense despite what many articles say, it's far closer to a glide bomb, just not gliding, obviously. Or a very fast ATGM maybe.They say it was ballistic though because, of course, the Ukrainians said at the time a ballistic missile was fired. In any case, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and, well, people would be ridiculing Russia if they claimed something with the level of proof Ukraine has for that shoot down which amounts to the most generic 'warhead' imaginable with a hole in it and a... pipe which is even less identifiable than the warhead.

It's particularly funny after we had a drone toodling over central Kiev for 20 minutes during which time the Ukrainians hit one of their own buildings with a missile again (having initially said it was... a drone attack, of course). Thank goodness they found some good news the same day.

Note also: this is not the first time it's been claimed that a kinzhal has been downed- it was also claimed with no evidence on 26 Jan 2023. As always, one suspects you weren't really meant to remember it a few months later though.

Quote

Air defences shot down 47 of 55 missiles that included at least one Kh-47 Kinzhal hypersonic missile, said General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine's top military commander.

This is, of course, the first time the claim has been made, when, hmm, a US firm stands to benefit. I wonder if the NYT sources work for Raytheon. Oh well who knows.

*technically of course even a rifle bullet describes a ballistic trajectory, just a very flat one. If you said you received ballistic fire and meant rifle rounds though people would think you were taking the mick, or being incredibly precious. Since the kinzhal is fired horizontally it's far closer to that rifle round in terms of trajectory.

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, Gorth said:

If it flies considerably faster than any intercepting missile, math says it's it will outrun the intercepting missile. But if you can track it fast enough and hit it at an angle (literally intercepting it), then yes. It's just not something the Russians imagined air defense missiles would be able to. I.e. track it's movement and change its own course fast enough to hit it somewhere on its flight path.

I can't help thinking that with all the missiles fired and all the air defence work being done, the odds of shooting down one Super Missile are bound to increase by the sheer force of numbers, even if skill has essentially nothing to do with it. So I won't be all that impressed if one Kinzhal is demonstratably shot down. If someone manages to bring down three, I'll definitely change my mind.

 

[Incidentally, the American author John Barth has, in his book Sabbatical, a nice side note concerning the power of numbers. It states that while any individual sperm ejaculated is almost certain to perish, the fact remains that if the average male in the average marriage wishes to conceive two and precisely two children, odds are that he will. ]

Edited May 7, 2023 by xzar_monty

[Elerond]

1 hour ago, Zoraptor said:

The Saudis were at times firing entire batteries of Patriots to take down one ancient Scud though, hence their constant requests for more missiles.

That seem bit expensive to shoot 16 missiles to intercept one, when you are paying 5 billion dollars for 300 missiles.

Maybe Saudi's should upgrade their targeting systems.   

[Zoraptor]

Raw expense isn't the whole consideration though. It's also balanced by mitigation. Take the Shahed/ Geran drones- a Stinger used to shoot one down actually costs more than the drone does. But if the drone is going to hit something worth more than that Stinger then it's a worthwhile trade. Same with Hamas bottle rockets and Iron Dome only there's even more disparity with the interceptors costing 100x the cost of the rocket intercepted.

The Saudis had at least one particularly unpleasant experience early (2015) in their war with Yemen from Scuds that informed their apparent profligacy- their head of the air force was killed at King Khalid AFB by one. They'd happily have swapped 50 million for the embarrassment that caused, let alone any other damage caused to the air base. The UAE had a similar experience when their barracks near Aden was hit and they lost something like 100 troops by far their biggest loss in the intervention and which caused a pretty big stink in Fujairah because it was their troops doing the actual dying for Dubai's ambitions. The Burkan (the specific Houthi scud variant so yeah, there might be some complaint about my use of 'ancient scud' at least in some cases since it's relatively advanced) is also pretty hard to deal with intrinsically, since the warhead separates from the fuselage.

Really though they're paying well over the odds, especially if they're getting old PAC-2s. The consistency with which that happens specifically to them is one of the reasons they're not so keen on the US any more.

Edited May 7, 2023 by Zoraptor

[Elerond]

Little correction, Saudi-Arabia bought 300 MIM-104E GEM-T (2018 upgrade version of PAC-2) Patriot missiles with 3 Billion and dollars (so only ~10 million dollars each ), deal included separate sale of THAAD missiles to UEA worth of 2.25 billion dollars. 

Single MIM-104E GEM-T is enough to shoot down any drone, ballistic/cruise missile, but problem is targeting. Saudi-Arabia uses their own variants of Patriot launchers and radars. If Saudi-Arabia needs to shoot multiple missiles to ensure interception, there is probably issues in how well their radars can identify targets and their trajectories and how fell their fire control coordinate launch to launcher in best position to intercept. Missiles' own guidance system can do only limited amount to redirect it if original targeting was wrong. 

[Mamoulian War]

UK intelligence take on Russian labor market, which was discussed here few days ago.

 

 

[Mamoulian War]

And translation of latest social post by Girkin.

 

[xzar_monty]

What's with the Ponies, Elephants and Unicorns? Is that a reference to something, or is he just rambling?