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

[Zoraptor]

8 hours ago, Elerond said:

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. 

Or the Patriot doesn't perform as well in real world scenarios as it does in demonstrations. Demonstrations are after all designed to sell the product, not test it, and you don't sell the product by having it fail in demonstrations. It's hard to believe the Saudis would spend billions on missiles and launchers, then gimp them with a bad home brew radar. That certainly makes for a good excuse though.

There have been a fair few well publicised failures specifically in Saudi Patriot missiles too, failures Raytheon et al can't blame on Saudi incompetence. And an actual factual 1960s vintage S-200 missile also flew most of the way across Israel from Syria and landed near the Dimona Nuclear Reactor without a successful interception.

[Gfted1]

I dont see any mention of the air defense missiles used in the failed intercept. Do you have another link?

[Zoraptor]

I don't think they've ever specifically said which missiles they used* but I'd be very surprised if they didn't primarily fire Patriots. Iron Dome is mostly used against relatively slow rockets and is itself both short range and slow compared to Patriots- and hence a lot cheaper per shot. An S-200 is up to mach 8, so twice the max speed of even a Patriot (and 4x that of Iron Dome).

Alternative would be David's Sling. If they used that though, well, it would have failed both times it's been used in anger which would be slightly embarrassing.

*of course, next article I had cued up does say which system they used, and it was the Patriot.

Edited May 8, 2023 by Zoraptor

[BruceVC]

https://eurasiantimes.com/india-russia-ties-nose-dive-after-suspending-s-400-shipments/?amp

Trouble in paradise with the new BRICS led global economy, dedollarization at its finest 

[Mamoulian War]

Seems like, some Russians are finally starting to pass the reality check after sobering a little 

 

[BruceVC]

Big day for Putin today, 9 May and Victory Day. Here is a  link summarizing the days theater and grandstanding

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/09/europe/russia-victory-day-parade-moscow-intl/index.html

To quote my best parts "

"A true war has been unleashed against our motherland,” Putin said on Tuesday, claiming falsely that the West had provoked the war in Ukraine. “We have repelled international terrorism and to fit we will defend the residents of Donbas and secure our own safety. Russia has no unfriendly nations in the West or in the East.

“As the majority of people on this planet we want to see the future peaceful, free and stable. We believe any ideology of supremacy due to its nature is repulsive, criminal and deadly,” he added"

I love the " we want to see the future peaceful, free and stable. We believe any ideology of supremacy due to its nature is repulsive, criminal and deadly " 

And here is a hilarious Putin Bingo meme, so true as usual

 

Edited May 9, 2023 by BruceVC

[xzar_monty]

Snipers on the rooftops of Moscow during Victory Day: https://t.me/ostorozhno_moskva/5123. What a happy place to be on this happy day: apparently there are also much more policemen than ordinary citizens on the streets; this according to reporters present.

 

EDIT: I cannot verify that the comment is true, but a Finnish military professional said that the parade in Moscow looked essentially "pitiful", as an ordinary Finnish Independence Day parade will showcase both more and more modern military force (nukes excluded). Given the relative sizes of the countries, Russia really ought to look much more imposing.

Edited May 9, 2023 by xzar_monty

[Sarex]

Have you ever seen the security during the Olympic events? Or the any larger sport event in the US? I think they build sniper nest for stations now.

[Malcador]

46 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Have you ever seen the security during the Olympic events? Or the any larger sport event in the US? I think they build sniper nest for stations now.

No in Democracy™ things are done differently.

[xzar_monty]

59 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Have you ever seen the security during the Olympic events? Or the any larger sport event in the US? I think they build sniper nest for stations now.

Of course I have, and you're right, they do. But those two questions don't constitute an argument, and if you have one, I don't quite gather what it is.

[Malcador]

4 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Of course I have, and you're right, they do. But those two questions don't constitute an argument, and if you have one, I don't quite gather what it is.

You pointed out an incredibly standard practice as significant somehow.

[BruceVC]

4 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Of course I have, and you're right, they do. But those two questions don't constitute an argument, and if you have one, I don't quite gather what it is.

 Its not an argument, its just whataboutism. You should know by now how this works  

[Gorth]

 

[xzar_monty]

What I was getting at was that the combination of strict security measures, not a lot of citizens attending (in comparison to the amount of security personnel attending) and a fairly shabby military parade paints a picture of a not-too-happy Moscow in the middle of this war. Anyone is free to disagree, of course, preferably with "No it isn't!", as per above.

Putin's speech didn't make an awful lot of sense, either, in terms of facts, for example. One of his arms continues to look extremely awkward as well, but that doesn't have to be anything more sinister than a frozen shoulder, which can really be a nuisance.

[Malcador]

38 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

 Its not an argument, its just whataboutism. You should know by now how this works  

People still don't know what that is, I see. 

[Mamoulian War]

4 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Snipers on the rooftops of Moscow during Victory Day: https://t.me/ostorozhno_moskva/5123. What a happy place to be on this happy day: apparently there are also much more policemen than ordinary citizens on the streets; this according to reporters present.

 

EDIT: I cannot verify that the comment is true, but a Finnish military professional said that the parade in Moscow looked essentially "pitiful", as an ordinary Finnish Independence Day parade will showcase both more and more modern military force (nukes excluded). Given the relative sizes of the countries, Russia really ought to look much more imposing.

You can consider this article as an confirmation maybe

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/tank-putin-russia-victory-day-b2335411.html

Only one tank was showcased on the Red Square and it was T-34.

[xzar_monty]

(Probably should be an edit but here goes: to make a comparison, London just recently had snipers, too, and pretty heavy security measures, in the coronation. It also had some disturbances, demonstrations and so on. But what it also very notably had was an awful lot of people celebrating. Victory Day is the big day in Russia, as far as celebrations are concerned, but it appears that this time they had the snipers, they had all the security and then some, but they didn't really have all that many people celebrating. And that is significant.)

[xzar_monty]

And now for something not completely different: an interesting thread on Russian misinformation campaigning. Note that although this looks shabby and unprofessional indeed, it works, as there are plenty of people who do fall for it.

Credit where it's due: Russia has chosen a good way of furthering its aims. Obviously it relies on the credulity of others, but that's not Russia's fault.

 

[Mamoulian War]

[Malcador]

 

[Zoraptor]

Oryx is: a completely unbiased and authoritative source who can be trusted 100% because of his impartial analysis.

Oryx: lol look at me own the RuZZkies with my sarky comment about a T-34 (in a completely unbiased and authoritative way, of course). Updoots to the left!

..

Not really much of a Goldilocks zone for the Russians, they're either militaristic goons thumping their chests and threatening the peaceful west by displaying too much hardware in a parade, or, they're pathetic wieners who can't put a decent parade together to save themselves. Which pretty much sums up the whole exercise really; on one hand they're arming conscripts and prisoners with shovels and marching slowly towards Ukrainian Maxim guns (ironically, the only accurate part) to be mowed down like grain, but also have to be defended against by buying billions in military hardware because lord knows they'll roll straight over 500 million europeans and be at the Rhine by lunch time.

Waiting for the list of who did and didn't attend now, that was good for a laugh last year in the midst of Shoigu/ Gerasimov are dead/ fired/ launching a coup hysteria.

[Elerond]

 

[Malcador]

22 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

Oryx is: a completely unbiased and authoritative source who can be trusted 100% because of his impartial analysis.

Oryx: lol look at me own the RuZZkies with my sarky comment about a T-34 (in a completely unbiased and authoritative way, of course). Updoots to the left!

I had thought the guy behind Oryx took a break due to personal reasons.  The snarky stuff is annoying with almost all of these OSINT types on Twitter at least, I guess they think they're fighting the war, rather than just doing cheap marketing or giving chances for people to be bloodthirsty

[Mamoulian War]

1 hour ago, Malcador said:

 

If you are wondering, why Khabarovsk and Vladivostok might get the best of the best parades, maybe we should look how far it is from Ukraine, and how close it is to China, who definitely would like to resolve its claims on Manchuria

 

Can’t wait to read an analysis from **** Girkin, how he sees it.

[Zoraptor]

50 minutes ago, Malcador said:

I had thought the guy behind Oryx took a break due to personal reasons.  The snarky stuff is annoying with almost all of these OSINT types on Twitter at least, I guess they think they're fighting the war, rather than just doing cheap marketing or giving chances for people to be bloodthirsty

May well have. It's blindingly obvious a lot of twitter accounts are run by multiple people and not just because even the saddest of the sad twitteratti need some sleep- sometimes the same account has wildly divergent and almost contradictory views of what is appropriate or constitutes proof/ evidence depending on time of day.

Geoconfirmed was the most obvious one recently. Positively bipolar when it came to that Pavlograd explosion.