>>15095 The Russians should put a custom made level 4 vest and helmet on bear, give it some meth or PCP or something, and sent it into Ukrainian trenches. It'd be unstoppable without heavy weapons.

>>15100 I think in that hypothetical the play would be a lot different. It wouldn't be opening with shock'n'awe, but instead a lot of standoff distance shit to slowly degrade Russian AA. Realistically, I don't think Russia could win this scenario, the US would just do the same Russia is doing right now, stay at standoff range and lob stuff at the enemy. >Afraid not Found a description along with a picture of the visor. Interesting stuff, I just thought they made the missile better. https://www.army-technology.com/projects/verba-9k333-man-portable-air-defence-system-manpads/?cf-view&cf-closed

>>15106 >I think in that hypothetical the play would be a lot different. It wouldn't be opening with shock'n'awe, but instead a lot of standoff distance shit to slowly degrade Russian AA. Realistically, I don't think Russia could win this scenario, the US would just do the same Russia is doing right now, stay at standoff range and lob stuff at the enemy. I think that in that hypothetical scenario Russia would hit targets with nuclear weapons if needed. The conflict might not escalate into a massive general exchange of nuclear warheads between the US and Russia, but Russia would use nuclear weapons to neutralize the air bases the strikes were being launched from if it couldn't do it with conventional weapons. Russia might be able to do it conventionally though, since the US only has so many bases that can support those kinds of operations, and the USAF only has so many stratotankers and AEW&C planes. I wouldn't want to be in Europe if it happened, since I think there is a non zero chance Russia would decide that in order to avoid escalating into a general nuclear exchange, they would use chemical and biological weapons to clear a path for their ground forces to reach the air bases in Germany. The conflict would very quickly turn into WWIII no matter how the European front escalates though, because with the US busy with Russia, China would definitely take a crack at Taiwan and North Korea at South Korea, and Iran might even take a swing at Israel. I am sure other conflicts would flare up all over the world, like maybe there would be another Yugoslav war. The only thing we can really talk about in a hypothetical scenario where the US is conducting SEAD against Russia is the scenario and the first strikes, since after that it'd become way too chaotic to have any idea what would happen. > I just thought they made the missile better. Yeah, I thought so too. Having MANPADS be part of your IADS aside from giving them an IFF interrogator is pretty crazy, but it's damn cool. It shows to the importance Russia places on networking their IADS capabilities together. A lot of Russian air defense stuff has capabilities I tend to think of as "party tricks". Another example of a capability I think of as a party trick is that the TOR can apparently lock onto and destroy bombs that are dropped at it. I am sure it's got legitimate uses, but it's kinda a weird capability and stands out. I've got a whole book about the TOR system that I've been meaning to read.

>>15095 Russia can’t do SEAD, and I’m trying to explain WHY. You just want to hide behind the overwhelming dominance of the US which you feel is a good-enough excuse.Ie, no one can do SEAD like the US can so obviously Russia can’t do SEAD. The REASON WHY Russia can’t do SEAD like the US can is only partly due to technology and budget. The MAJOR reason, the MAIN reason, is that the Russian military does not have the organizational power to tie all the moving parts of a SEAD campaign together to make it work. AD is a SOLVED PROBLEM since Vietnam when the USAF and USN had to learn how to deal with SAMs. The first, and most powerful way was to use Wild Weasel tactics. Leveraging the physics of rocket-powered missiles (No-Escape Zone) a doctrine was developed for baiting AD to engage planes at bad ranges allowing planes to reliably evade thereby wasting those missiles. By the end of Linebacker 2 the NVA had stopped using SAMs altogether in order to preserve the few shots they had remaining, they were utterly defeated. For those who are interested to learn: No-Escape Zone refers to the powered flight envelope of a missile. The rocket motors on missiles use up all their fuel once ignited, and do not shut off / re-start, their energy is used up all at once (ignoring things like Meteor which aren’t relevant in Ukraine anyway). It’s a bit more complicated of course when you add in multi-stage boosters and multi-density rocket fuel etc but the fundamental principal still applies. In that period of time in which the missile still has fuel, it is said to be inside of the No-Escape Zone, named for the fact that no plane will be able to evade a missile that is still in powered flight. However, MOST of a missile’s maximum range is OUTSIDE of the NEZ. To engage at longer ranges, a missile boosts high into the air in a wide ballistic arc and then spends most of its time gliding passively downward towards the target. Each time it maneuvers it bleeds energy further. Wild Weasel is based on exploiting this low terminal performance of SAMs being used at long range; within the NEZ the plane will probably die but outside of it the plane will probably survive — BUT only if certain conditions are met: 1. Skilled pilots working in formation. 2. Good radar coverage to detect incoming missiles. 3. Strong coordination between air control and pilots And THAT is why Russia can’t even do Wild Weasel, let alone more advanced forms of SEAD. They have the planes and they have (probably) the pilots — but they do NOT have the other critical pieces such as good radar coverage and most importantly STRONG COORDINATION between all these pieces. The organizational power of the Russian military is poor, it’s really that simple. Because even IF they could bring all three factors together — for how long? As an ongoing campaign over many days and weeks? No, because the Russian Air Force will probably fall apart along the way for one of many sundry reason related to having a WEAK ORGANIZATION. Planes under such heavy stress will quickly run out of spares because critical logistics chains aren’t up to snuff. Radar specialist gets injured / sick and the AWACSs fails because the training pipeline didn’t supply a sufficient number of specialists. Someone in the command staff screwed something up causing a glitch in the chain of command thereby grounding the whole operation because Russia’s command staff is really weak and failure-prone. The REASON why I named, specifically, Russia’s weak OFFICER CORPS is because that’s the institution which makes a modern high-quality military capable of doing things like SEAD. A strong officer corps must be there to set up robust logistics trains, make complex operations run smoothly, deal with all the complex moving pieces in something like SEAD. It’s a complex human endeavor and without a strong leadership component it will simply fall flat on it’s face. It’s the reason why peasant militaries do so poorly in modern warfare. Did you read the leaked readiness report of the Moskva? Want to know why it was a barely functional heap of garbage? Because there wasn’t a strong chain of command in the navy and MoD generally which would have made sure the ship’s readiness met an acceptable standard. That’s one tiny example, the lack of leadership is ENDEMIC throughout Russia’s armed forces and the thing which turns it into a JOKE. I didn’t just make it up to make you feel bad or to tickle my racism.

>>15122 He’s right though

>>15109 Everyone is probably aware that Russia would be forced to respond in a nuclear manner eventually, that's why nobody is going to intervene, despite the bluster. >>15121 Your conclusion is just plain wrong. Russia (or rather the SU) did not structure its air force to focus on such missions, it was always an emphasis on a frontal aviation aspect combined with long-range interceptors. And that's exactly how it's being employed. Again, the way the US does SEAD is due to their massive investments into it as part of their doctrine, nobody else can do that, not the French, not the British, not the Germans, nobody. So apparently all of those are peasant militaries.

>>15125 >Your conclusion is just plain wrong. Of course his conclusion is wrong. His points don't even actually make sense as arguments in support of his conclusion. He might not even believe in his supposed conclusion. He's just trolling you. You need to stop gulping down all that yummy bait. You will literally never convince him. Everything he knows about SEAD is stuff you could learn in 20 minutes by reading some articles. If you argue with someone who isn't engaging in good faith, you're going to lose no matter what.

>>15125 >Everyone is probably aware that Russia would be forced to respond in a nuclear manner eventually They might not, it'd require a lot of very careful diplomacy from both sides to avoid it, but there are paths that both sides could take that would not require nuclear escalation. An example would be the use of chemical weapons to open a large gap in the defenses at the front extremely quickly and just end the conflict before the US strategy of standoff attacks could tip the war in Ukraine's favor. The standoff attacks would still be dangerous to US planes, since Russia's air force is geared for long ranged interceptions, and the standoff strikes would be operating near the edge of their envelope. There are escalation options that aren't nuclear war, but some of them are arguably worse, like decimating Ukraine's population with biological weaponry.

>>15134 Hence why I said I won’t engage the discussion with you. I KNOW you don’t care. I went against my better judgement to respond anyway and this is the result There is literally no point discussing it with you because you don’t WANT to learn anything, you want to just enjoy social feedback loops — just like most everyone. Sure I got to flaunt my superior knowledge but what was the end result? I may as well flaunted it on Substack or something, it’s pointless here

>>15142 >reee you pointed out that I'm a fucking moron and laughed at me rather than taking my shitty bait If you had worked harder to make your bait believable I might have kept taking it. Don't be mad at me for not taking the bait, be mad at yourself for making such shitty bait.

>>15134 I don't think he's trolling. He's just blind to his predjudices and can't think.

>>15149 Regardless of whether he's really retarded or just pretending, he's not engaging honestly. If he were he wouldn't try to pretend he is an expert because he read an article or two about SEAD once, and would instead just say what he is really thinking. Everything he's saying is just rationalizing backwards from the conclusion that Russians are inferior/incompetent. Just like how you can't convince a young earth creationist that Noah's flood wasn't real by showing them evidence of the geologic column, you won't convince this guy that he's wrong by explaining how military operations work, because creationists don't talk about geology because they care about geology, they do it to try to defend their faith. Similarly NAFO people don't talk about military matters because they care about them, they do it to defend their belief in a hierarchy of races where Russians are at the bottom.

>>15140 In today's environment I doubt Russia could do any large push like you describe. Modern ISR and drones everywhere make that a pretty daunting task. Not to mention the insane losses of equipment already sustained. Plus, using chemical weapons is exactly what planners envisioned as a precursor to using nukes back in the day. Personally I am really concerned of the mental conditioning that was/is going on about nuclear war. As in, Russian nukes don't work, they're old, they're not that bad, nuclear war is survivable, the Chinese steal fuel from theirs too btw.

>>15150 >Russians are at the bottom At least they have good company along with all the other peasants that can't do SEAD.

>>15155 >In today's environment I doubt Russia could do any large push like you describe. I think that it wouldn't require a particularly large force. A large section of the front suddenly being cleared out by chemical weapons would free up all the troops who were fighting there, and chemical attacks on logistical hubs would massively slow down any response to the breakthrough. Chemical weapons aren't just lethal after all, they're also capable of area denial. >Not to mention the insane losses of equipment already sustained. While Russia has lost a decent amount of equipment, they've hardly taken heavy enough losses to prevent them from conducting major offensives. They've just learned that big mechanized columns aren't exactly optimal for the current kind of fighting going on. >using chemical weapons is exactly what planners envisioned as a precursor to using nukes back in the day. It'd require careful diplomacy and clear communication as to what they'd consider to be worth escalating to nuclear warfare over, but it might be possible to prevent it from escalating into a general nuclear exchange. It's just interesting to think about alternative escalation paths other than nuclear weapons, I don't think any of it will happen. >Russian nukes don't work I don't get this, like part of the New START treaty was that we got to go in and inspect them. We know they work. >nuclear war is survivable It is, but the breakdown of the logistics needed to get food from farm to table probably wouldn't be. >the Chinese steal fuel from theirs too btw. Sorta related, I remember in an old Oppenheimer thread he mentioned that the Chinese actually kept their nukes partially disassembled for a long time after Mao's son tried to take control of some nukes during a coup attempt or something. Not that they didn't have a ton of working nukes or anything, just that they were kept in an insanely low state of readiness most of the time.

>>15155 >Modern ISR and drones everywhere make that a pretty daunting task. One thing I think is interesting to note is that nobody outside of Ukraine and Russia seems to be taking the lessons of this war particularly seriously. Drones being everywhere on the battlefield in Ukraine doesn't mean that they would be everywhere if Russia attacked Europe, and even once they acquire drones in adequate quantities, they're still years behind Russia and Ukraine in terms of experience in using them and fighting against them. Nobody in Europe is making a big push to acquire huge quantities of cheap drones to ensure every infantry squad has a few, and nobody is updating their doctrine to account for the increased importance of infantry with drones. If Russia decided to try to neutralize US air bases in Europe with a ground offensive, I think the Russians would make progress much more quickly against opponents who haven't spent the last 3 years learning alongside them at a breakneck pace.

>>15163 Yeah, it's survivable, bjt I don't want the experience either way. And it would make sense for the Chinese to keep low level of readiness for their nukes, as they mostly only have to be concerned with an Indian arsenal, everything else would have a buildup to war, kind of like now.

>>15165 We don't really know that. For all we know there are supply lines to make their own cheap chink drones being organized right now. And we definitely know they're all looking for antidotes to the drone menace. It's amazing they haven't been picked up by terrorist cells in the West yet.

>>15196 Actually I think the capability gap between armies at war and peacetime armies is genuinely concerning a lot of officers around the world right now, but it's not something they can easily remedy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv2fjrJt3LU&t=933

>>15196 The procurement procedures may differ from country to country and I'm unfamiliar with them but heavily relying on Chinese-made parts to equip regular army would probably be generally frowned upon. I assume that spinning up (pun not intended) domestic production would make the news before it reaches the scale necessary to sustain an actual war (that's thousands of drones every day). Seen news articles about European car manufacturers and similar factories looking for ways to stay afloat and offering their production capabilities to MIC. If one of them were to get a contract, it would probably leak. Moreover, it's not just the drones themselves that need to be constructed, but their operators have to be trained. They're much harder to operate than the commercial dji's. There is no stabilization or gps. Radio-controlled ones are extremely agile and easy to crash. Fiber-optic ones are more unwieldy and have a lot of inertia to them. Operators need to learn to recover from getting jammed, spot and avoid nets in time, dodge ground fire, account for lag when aiming at weak points of moving vehicles etc. When a government does something like that by the numbers and not at a frantic pace like Russia&Ukraine are, bureaucracy slows things down further. Maybe the West will opt to skip the operator part entirely and invest in the more automated drones with computer vision (aka man-made horrors) instead though. What the West is definitely doing, although probably not fast enough, is explore tech-based anti-drone measures, e.g. lasers or mgs wired to radars and/or cameras to intercept them. I also hear that the reason there's fewer lancet footage lately is because some portable Israeli-made radar is that good at pinpointing Zala's recon drones (works in conjunction with Ukrainian-made quadcopter drones who intercept these) as well as the proliferation of jammers. >t.NTA

>>15202 Yeah, bureaucracy and dinosaurs in the general staff are always a detriment. >>15208 I get that, but there's very few countries that can fully domestically produce their own drones without oitside supply. I know the French were to try and make their own semiconductor plant in the next years and probably others too. I agree with the thoughts about the rest, you still need to teach people how to use it, coordinate between units for maximum effect and all that. >I also hear that the reason there's fewer lancet footage lately is because some portable Israeli-made radar is that good at pinpointing Zala's recon drones (works in conjunction with Ukrainian-made quadcopter drones who intercept these) as well as the proliferation of jammers. I don't think so, there's still footage of Lancets regularly, they just don't see the light of day in the West. Also not as interesting to the public as chasing some unfortunate soul with an FPV drone.

>>15208 That's far better than I, the anon who he was replying to, would have been able to put it. >>15213 >Yeah, bureaucracy and dinosaurs in the general staff are always a detriment. Don't forget politicians. It's not like it's possible for the relatively young officers whose brains aren't calcified to get funding for a major restructuring of the armed forces onto the next appropriations bill. >there's still footage of Lancets regularly, they just don't see the light of day in the West. Also not as interesting to the public as chasing some unfortunate soul with an FPV drone. I find it really annoying that nobody has taken it upon themselves to make a big archive of all the Ukraine war footage that's come out. You'd think that'd be a big priority for OSINT types.

>>15208 >What the West is definitely doing, although probably not fast enough, is explore tech-based anti-drone measures, e.g. lasers or mgs wired to radars and/or cameras to intercept them. Cheap drones in the hands of infantry aren't the end all be all of weapons systems, but they're a major shift and it seems like a lot of western militaries are pretending we can just make counter measures that will bring back the good ol' days before they existed. A lot of people have vested interests in making sure things don't get shaken up too much. I know I keep bringing this up in the thread, but it's fascinating to think about how the Russian military is going to restructure itself in the years immediately after this war, and if they use their newfound and nearly unique prowess in this new style of warfare to curbstomp some of their neighbors like Georgia. Someone brought up a comparison to the Winter War in the refugee thread, and I think that's apt, but I also think there are strong analogues to the Russo-Japanese war in how the whole world watched a WW1 style battle take place and just ignored it because the people participating "weren't white". I mentioned that parallel on 4/k/ once and iirc the only response I got was "well Russians aren't white".

>>15213 >I get that, but there's very few countries that can fully domestically produce their own drones without oitside supply. Oh for sure. Producing a prototype is one thing, but a full cycle production, on large scale is something else entirely. We've all been lulled by the comfort of globalization and cheap Chinese labor for too long. As it is, afaik, practically all electronics (PCBs, cameras, motors, batteries) used in Ukrainian and Russian suicide drones are imported from China. Frames are 3d-printed locally. Fwiw, I've seen a post about some Russian manufacturer having spun up a domestic production of drone PCBs, so that's a start; realistically this is the best possible opportunity to revive this industry. > coordinate between units for maximum effect and all that. Totally forgot about that part, yes. >I don't think so, there's still footage of Lancets regularly, Hm you're right, at least I expected the numbers to be lower. Consulted https://lostarmour.info/tags/lancet and they've been sort of on par with the same months last year. Except for April, which has been a bad month for them Let's see if it's a fluke or a trend. Admittedly, I haven't been paying as much attention lately and just repeated what I heard from a milblogger/volunteer who brushes shoulders with folks directly involved. Wish I remembered which video it was, had it on as background noise a few days ago. I'll go over the recent vids when I have the time, just to get better context. Haven't heard or read anything else of the sort lately, though it is, of course, evident that a drone arms race is on. Wars truly do wonders to R&D. >>15216 >a big archive of all the Ukraine war footage that's come out. Still bashing myself for not having archived every obscure piece of media from the 2014 phase of the war. So much content gone. Early on, before things got too violent, there were independent livestreamers walking around with their phones out delivering visceral, unedited footage. Today, almost everything is filmed by drones, faces are masked or blurred, it's depressing. This time there's multiple major aggregators of the footage that comes out (some of them based in telegram though), but all of them seem biased and focusing on one side of the story so a one single archival place doesn't seem to exist and probably won't for a while until after this ceases to be a hot topic. >>15217 >a lot of western militaries are pretending we can just make counter measures that will bring back the good ol' days before they existed. Yeah, it's silly seeing some militaries placing more orders on tanks instead of drones when the current nature of warfare is such that tanks can't even properly serve their purpose and are often used from distances where they'd need a drone to correct fire for them anyway. It's not so simple, of course, e.g. Americans have had pic related for almost a decade, but it seems to only be issued to spec ops or something. >how the Russian military is going to restructure itself in the years immediately after this war Russia has entered the war completely unprepared in that regard and the less corrupt and indifferent officers have been moving heaven and earth to plug the most glaring gaps. There have been some improvements, e.g. easier fire mission approval, anti-air units now a part of the airforce (or was it the other way around? Either way, it improved coordination and reduced the amount of friendly fire) and forming an entire branch of military around UAV systems. Some areas will take ages to fix, e.g. military communications is a hot mess of baofengs, civilian dmrs, starlinks, telegram, discord and Soviet era wired phones. Also, to their credit, Ukrainians were the first to separate UAVs into a new military branch. For them, suicide drones have been such a perfect asymmetrical response and equalizer that I'm surprised more small countries don't invest in those instead. FSA did and it paid off handsomely (though arguably SAA would've broken all the same regardless). >curbstomp some of their neighbors like Georgia. Imho if the troops from Ukraine were to suddenly be freed up, they could overrun Georgia with or without the drones, just because Georgia is a small country with shitty neighbors, armed forces that aren't much to write home about and they don't have the land to trade for time to be used to speedrun their own drone program, so to say. Thankfully, the relations between the two countries are currently rather warm. I could see them invading Belarus if Lukashenko kicks the bucket and the pro-Western part of population does a Maidan though. Obviously not looking forward to it. Anything more serious than that I'm not sure Russia would have the resources and willpower to attempt for a while now. Too much Soviet surplus has been burnt through — and while most of it is junk by modern standards it still beats driving into battle on a spraypainted convertible'd Lada. The Soviets were an industrial powerhouse, Russia is not. I can't remember the last time I saw frontline footage featuring Tigr or Typhoon MRAP (maybe they'll show them on parade on the 9th?). Drones are amazing for widening the gray zone and locking areas down, but unless slugging it out (like R&U are now), you have to also advance. This modern take on Western front has become so tiresome and painful to watch.

>>15082 Goddammit after I went on and on about not taking the bait, here I am coming back and gobbling down that yummy yummy bait. >they launch jdamski's at maximum ranges from a long way inside russia that are just about able to hit forward and rearward positions on the frontline. That means they have air supremacy over their own territory and the front line, and air superiority deep enough into Ukraine's territory to prevent Ukraine from conducting their own CAS. >i do think that's different from actual heavily utilized air superiority. That doesn't match the definition of air superiority used by the USAF, or of any other military I know of. One of the many indications of a complete lack of understanding of the topic is simply not knowing basic terminology, like the difference between air superiority and air supremacy. Another indication of poor understanding is treating air superiority and air supremacy as real things which exist, rather than abstractions designed to communicate complex states of affairs that are typically highly localized in both time and space. >during operation desert storm, the US faced a much denser and arguably more intergrated air defense system than russia did in ukraine That is untrue in every way that matters. While the popular accounts of the war claim that the Iraqi air defense network was formidable, in reality it was quite frankly totally inadequate, with no strategic SAMs at all, and the French made KARI system which you describe as being "more integrated" was only capable of tracking about 40 threats simultaneously, and didn't integrate any of their AAA at all. Here is an interesting article about Iraq's air defenses: https://balloonstodrones.com/2022/10/19/looking-back-at-iraqi-air-defences-during-operation-desert-storm/ This stands in contrast to how Ukraine has had large quantities of strategic SAMs since the very start of the war, and they have received constant supplies of new systems. Additionally their air defense network is highly integrated. While it's difficult to know the exact capabilities of Ukraine's IADS at this point, due to wartime secrecy and the unknown ways in which various systems have been integrated, it's likely to be a major point of focus for western assistance since it is easily put under the umbrella of intel sharing and advising rather than direct military aid. >please go ahead and tell me how turning off your targeting and acquisition equipment because dozens of SEAD aircraft are flying sortees over your head daily, is going to magically shoot down said aircraft and stop them from carrying out their missions. Modern IADS like those operated by Ukraine and Russia are actually capable of acquiring targets using targeting data from long ranged early warning radars, and can launch based upon that data and only activate their targeting radars for the last few seconds before the missile hits. I say modern, but really even the Krug was capable of that. If you can't suppress the long ranged early warning radars, then you can't really do much to suppress a modern IADS. More importantly, shooting down planes is not necessary for air defenses to achieve the goal of hampering enemy air operations, in fact shooting down planes implies they haven't accomplished that goal very well, since the attacker should be able to pick and choose where to employ their planes, and if they think there is a high chance of being shot down, they are simply not going to send their planes and pilots into that situation. >sure, you can absolutely do SOME damage by occasionally setting up and trying to shoot down some aircraft Modern air defense systems stay in near constant motion, even systems like the S-300 can go from marching to combat positions in five minutes. >russia, since the end of the beginning of the war, has absolutely refused to go anywhere near ukrainian AA coverage if at all possible It speaks volumes that you have to use such a grammatically tortured sentence. At the start of the war Russia had suppressed nearly all of Ukraine's air defenses through a combination of cyber warfare, air power, missile strikes, and aggressive ground operations. To use a bit of jargon that I think has fallen out of favor at the Pentagon, they conducted J-SEAD operations across multiple domains. >that's air superiority to you? yes, it is. It's also air superiority according to the US military and NATO definition. >yes, and? Being ignorant of 50 years of development in air-defenses is like someone in 'Nam thinking that air power is inconsequential because their understanding of air power comes from the use of biplanes in WW1. >i'm talking about a scenario where russia is flying over all of ukraine and hitting any transport they can No, you were talking about supply lines being constantly disrupted and storage depots being hit constantly. Both those things are happening. >you seemingly refuse to acknowledge that this is possible It's probably possible for Russia to temporarily suppress all of Ukraine's air defenses and strike wherever the hell they want, but it'd be insanely costly and they can already hit anywhere in Ukraine by means other than air power, so doing so would be stupid of them. Saying that Russia's air force should prove they are competent by launching a wasteful campaign to suppress Ukrainian air defenses across the whole country is like a creationist asking for a crocoduck to prove that evolution is real. It's not only not proof, but it'd disprove the thing it's supposedly proof of. >oh i know that, i've made numerous references to continuous aircraft coverage but you seemingly just ignore those A common tactic in online debates is to make an offhand reference to something and acting dismissive of it so that when people later go "you fucking moron, you completely ignored the importance of X" the person who didn't want to actually engage with that can just go "nuh uh, I already covered X, so I already won that argument and now I'll move on and act like you're an idiot if you keep bringing it up". >complex and extremely difficult is right, which is why countries with an afterthought airforce like russia and many others are not capable of this. For any airforce there is a level of opposition a point where they simply cannot sustain a SEAD campaign indefinitely, and one where they can't suppress enemy air defenses it in the first place. Even the US is unlikely to be capable of sustaining an air campaign against Russia for long. >if you're willing to give me that reading list, i'd appreciate it, there may be something of interest there for me. I actually didn't get this far into the post when I first read it, since I didn't want to take the bait. It'll take some time to make a reading list, and I'll try to keep it to stuff on libgen or otherwise available online. You should start with Clausewitz's classic "On War", that one's on Gutenberg. Next read Soviet Military Operational Art - In Pursuit of Deep Battle by David M. Glantz to get a general idea of Soviet doctrine and keep in mind that they have updated their doctrine much like we have. In terms of acquainting yourself with the specifics of anti-aircraft systems, I'd suggest Defending Putin's Empire - Russia's Air Defense System by Mihajlo Mihajlovic. I've mentioned it before in this thread, it's the best and most recent book on Russian air defenses, and to be honest I'm not aware of many books that provide in depth information of the systems Ukraine uses that aren't Soviet in origin, although I've never really looked since a lot of them are either so new as to be unlikely to have good books written about them, or are things that Ukraine has in small numbers that aren't really going to make a huge difference to the overall situation (I should probably find a book to recommend with good information on the Patriot though). I'll need some time to find good sources on the other side of things, since even if I remembered the titles of all those books about air power I checked out from the library as a teenager, most of them were pretty out of date even then. There are tons of other things I think it'd be good to read, like manuals about how to plan operations, some more in depth histories of wars like Iraq and Yugoslavia, but I'm going to try to keep this short, I've had to pair it down a lot because even my reading list keeps pushing this post over the 12000 character limit. >>15087 >i understand how complex and difficult these OPS are, and how they have to be performed intensively over weeks to months It's easy to say you understand something, but much harder to demonstrate it. I hate bringing up Dunning-Kruger, but it can be very difficult to be aware of one's own ignorance. >i'll excuse all the downright resentful and angry end points as you just being angry and resentful because cuckchan What I resent is having someone who clearly doesn't have a deep understanding of the topic try to lecture me about something I've had an interest in since childhood. It's not hard to tell that you don't know what you're talking about. >actually show it off instead of alluding to it every next sentence like it's a dragon ball Z outro The issue is that aside from correcting things, explaining why you're wrong on a fundamental level would require an education, not just a post on an imageboard. I could quite literally write a book about what you've got wrong, condensing it down into just a few pages would be pretty difficult. This isn't like a DBZ outro where they could just answer the question in one sentence (Goku is going to beat whoever the current arc villain is, but not for another 20 episodes). >>15121 >For those who are interested to learn This is going to be funny isn't it? >No-Escape Zone refers to the powered flight envelope of a missile. no, it absolutely doesn't. It's the zone where a plane is unlikely to evade a missile by maneuvers. >It’s a bit more complicated of course this is another example of that sort of cop-out I mentioned earlier. The definition you give is fundamentally wrong, but any response can just be ignored by going "well I said it's a bit more complicated". >MOST of a missile’s maximum range is OUTSIDE of the NEZ. A fundamental misunderstanding of the very concept of a no-escape zone will obviously lead to not knowing how to apply it. As an illustrative example, the NEZs for a B-52, stratotanker, or E-7 being targeted by a S-300 are very different from the NEZs of an F-22 or F-15 being targeted by the same. >To engage at longer ranges, a missile boosts high into the air in a wide ballistic arc Some systems do that, not all. It's also not very relevant since a missile coming down from a ballistic trajectory is typically moving at fairly high mach numbers.

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>low terminal performance of SAMs being used at long range Saying that they have low performance at that stage is inaccurate. With all of their potential energy converted into speed and most of their mass burned off meaning that maneuvers will have to overcome less inertia, it's pretty much the hardest time to dodge them. >The REASON why I named, specifically, Russia’s weak OFFICER CORPS is because Is because it's a nebulous enough statement that any evidence against it can be ignored, but it can also be used to justify believing whatever negative stereotypes you want, it's like WW1 and WW2 intelligence reports that relied on assessments of "national character" which were just thinly veiled racism. >It’s a complex human endeavor and without a strong leadership component it will simply fall flat on it’s face. It’s the reason why peasant militaries do so poorly in modern warfare. You said something reasonable, then immediately followed it with racist hogwash. While I prefer intelligent conversations, I can't deny that seeing someone ping pong between being intelligent and being a fucking moron isn't funny.

>>15219 >Still bashing myself for not having archived every obscure piece of media from the 2014 phase of the war. I bet all that stuff is archived somewhere but not in one place. Huge amounts of that stuff is probably scattered across a bunch of video streaming sites but not archived in any way that is searchable. >there's multiple major aggregators of the footage that comes out (some of them based in telegram though), but all of them seem biased and focusing on one side of the story so a one single archival place doesn't seem to exist and probably won't for a while until after this ceases to be a hot topic. That's a shame. I am kinda tempted to start my own archive. Curating and moderating it though would be a full time job, and I wouldn't exactly be able to run ads to offset the storage and bandwidth costs even before getting into the fact that it'd probably be a legal minefield. >it's silly seeing some militaries placing more orders on tanks instead of drones Tanks and drones fill different roles. Tanks aren't obsolete, and neither are attack helicopters. >tanks can't even properly serve their purpose and are often used from distances where they'd need a drone to correct fire for them anyway. I think is interesting to think about how various systems will be adapted to integrate drones. For instance tanks with a drone operator in the crew, possibly in the place of a loader. Another thing that might happen is IFVs with drone storage and launchers for the infantry inside to use, like an actually useful version of the old firing ports on APCs that were supposed to let them fire out the side. IFVs and tanks might even provide electronic warfare support for dismounted infantry, and act as repeaters to allow them to overcome jamming. >Russia has entered the war completely unprepared in that regard Everyone was completely unprepared for how much drones had changed the battlefield. >anti-air units now a part of the airforce The PVO was absorbed into the VVS around the end of the cold war, while the ground forces air defense units remained part of the ground forces chain of command. I don't know if the air defense units of the ground forces have been integrated somehow into the VVS or VKS, but I am still catching up on the war. >if the troops from Ukraine were to suddenly be freed up, they could overrun Georgia with or without the drones Of course, if hundreds of thousands of experienced combat veterans are sent to fight a country with a military that has like 30,000 active personnel they're going to win, I'm just interested in seeing it how it looks. It'll be a lot easier to see the revolution in military affairs that has taken place when it's placed up against an opponent that hasn't updated their military. >Too much Soviet surplus has been burnt through — and while most of it is junk by modern standards it still beats driving into battle on a spraypainted convertible'd Lada. The idea that Russia is trying to use Ladas as tanks is just propaganda. The use of reconnaissance units equipped with light but mobile vehicles like motorcycles and dirtbikes to scout ahead of their armored units is because they're not so stupid that they would continue using big armored columns that did little but attract fire. > can't remember the last time I saw frontline footage featuring Tigr or Typhoon MRAP You've demonstrated in this thread that you tend not to see footage that makes Russia look good. But even if they are less common in footage, it's unlikely that those would be used for the sort of light recon that the motorcycle units are doing, and delivering troops to hot zones is likely done with BMPs or BTRs, so the MRAPs are likely just not on the front lines much right now due to the nature of the fighting having changed again. >This modern take on Western front has become so tiresome and painful to watch. On the Western front of WW1, all was not actually quiet. Both sides were constantly innovating and feverishly working to break the stalemate, and the places with the least visible movement were frequently the locations of the most fighting and losses. That is similar now, and I personally find the innovation more interesting than the territorial changes.

>>15216 >I find it really annoying that nobody has taken it upon themselves to make a big archive of all the Ukraine war footage that's come out. You'd think that'd be a big priority for OSINT types. There's just too much of it. A lot is also random explosions with no damage assesment. >>15217 >It's fascinating to think about how the Russian military is going to restructure itself in the years immediately after this war Yeah, the huge vacuum of armored equipment loss is going to leave some opening for debate on what to do. It should be pretty interesting. >curbstomp some of their neighbors like Georgia Georgia is incomparable. It has neither the population, nor the size to withstand what Ukraine did. Few countries could. Ukraine is the second largest country in Europe after all (after Russia).

>>15222 >Huge amounts of that stuff is probably scattered across a bunch of video streaming sites but not archived in any way that is searchable. Not related, but it feels like searching anything in general has become so much more difficult in the past few years too. Searching for a particular topic (could be anything, like trying to troubleshoot a malfunctioning appliance or searching for a user-made photo of a product) produces fewer useful results than ever and it's all mostly just web-optimized articles and stock footage (lately it's also AI generated). At first, opening a page to find that the article is just a wall of tautology tailored specifically to repeat the same keyword search term over and over to improve SEO rankings was amusing in a way, but now it feels like that's what the majority of the hits are. Fewer and fewer results are specialized forums. Or maybe that's just what getting old is like, and/or the useful information is now posted inside social networks that require an account. > I wouldn't exactly be able to run ads to offset the storage and bandwidth costs Yeah no way, ads won't cover video hosting at all, would probably have to rely on donations. But then Visa & Mastercard act as moral arbiters of the highest instance and get to dictate what is verboten and if they withdraw it will be down to crypto. Personally, I've just been saving anything interesting and naming files in a way that makes it possible to then look it up later. Everything's sort of scattered across different PCs and lately the footage has become so repetitive (drone flies into an object, feed cuts) that I've only been saving the more unique ones and those that come a couple of particular categories. To give an example, one of the folders, last updated in March 2022, has 1354 files and takes up 9.7GB. The entire last year's haul is probably smaller than that — not for the lack of footage, it's just too repetitive to bother saving. >it'd probably be a legal minefield. It definitely can be (if the project gets enough notoriety) if one is a first-worlder. Having it registered on a Kuwaiti and hosted in UAE or something would ward off everything but the 3-letter agencies. >Tanks and drones fill different roles. Tanks aren't obsolete, Sure but it makes little sense to invest into more tanks when you don't have drones or anti-drone measures yet. Tanks take a huge risk whenever they get within enemy drone range (which is often over 10 km now) without some plan of countering said drones (properly tuned EW modules on the tank itself, allied drone teams on the lookout for their counterparts, artillery barrage, some other action nearby drawing attention, weather conditions etc). Having listened to an interview with a Russian tanker a couple of months ago, iirc most missions he talked about involved rolling to a pre-determined position, using indirect fire to hit a faraway target then bailing before the response came. Could be survivorship bias and the tankers who do old-school tank assaults just die before they get to be interviewed, I don't know. Utilizing a tank as infantry/ifv support at closer ranges seems to be a rare occurrence nowadays. >and neither are attack helicopters. Having a human in the seat definitely has its benefits and production lines for helicopters are already set up but from a cost-effectiveness perspective Bayraktar/Orion type of drones seem to be very lucrative. They carry similar payloads but have the benefit of being smaller and more expendable. A helicopter reqiures more maintenance. Pilots are fairly expensive to train and upkeep and losing them is costly, from a morale/optics standpoint as well. Case in point, Ukrainian naval drones vs Russian helicopters west of Crimea. Losing a dozen such drones is nothing, they are mayflies. Eventually losing a helicopter to such a drone was a touche and a PR disaster. Talking from an armchair here but on paper a combo of a strike drone loitering a dozen km from the frontline + a cheap disposable recon drone much closer, painting the target for a missile, sounds like a dream team. Gone are the days of Apaches indiscriminately unloading on infantry with an autocannon. >I think is interesting to think about how various systems will be adapted to integrate drones. For instance tanks with a drone operator in the crew, possibly in the place of a loader. Looking forward to seeing such developments. Interestingly enough, Armata developers promised a drone, attached by wire, that would do just that (and, obviously, Soviet tank design did away with loader crewmen ages ago), so at least someone on the team had forward thinking in a similar key. The possibilities seem to be plentiful, but we probably don't see the entire picture. Or maybe it's the other way around those in charge don't. Or both. > I don't know if the air defense units of the ground forces have been integrated somehow into the VVS or VKS, but I am still catching up on the war. Looked up what I was recalling in the previous post: >the Air Force and Air Defence Forces ceased to be subordinated to military districts and were placed under the direct command of the Russian Aerospace Forces. In addition, the naval infantry ceased to function under the brigade system, and began according to the division system. The source is Polish quoting Estonians (https://pism.pl/publications/russias-armed-forces-two-years-after-the-full-scale-invasion-of-ukraine#_ftn6) but the news is legit and I distinctly recall VKS-affiliated guys being excited about it. Something to do with improving coordination. >It'll be a lot easier to see the revolution in military affairs that has taken place when it's placed up against an opponent that hasn't updated their military. Oh yes, humanitarian side of things aside, that would be a sight to see. The opening days of ODS would be hard to beat due to the sheer scale and complexity of the operation and the amount of coordination required, but I'd expect a similar gap. Uncontested usage of drones gives such a major advantage it's insane. I wouldn't be surprised if some operators didn't have more kills than the best snipers of old. >The idea that Russia is trying to use Ladas as tanks is just propaganda. Not as tanks, no. Tanks don't even see that much use anymore. Most of the vehicles used anywhere close to the frontline are part of the logistics chain. All is fair in love and war so if a Lada is the only vehicle available then so be it. That does however beg the question why that is the case and why troops have to buy and pimp their own cars or rely on volunteers to do that for them. Attrition takes its toll. I just can't imagine there's that much surplus left and it's obvious that whoever's producing tigrs and typhoons can't keep up with the demand (or the military doesn't place enough orders on those). Hence the conclusion that since after the war units have to be re-equipped and it stands to reason that having a surplus is also necessary, it would take a while to restock both. >you tend not to see footage that makes Russia look good. Not exactly, since the beginning I've been following the conflict mainly through the prism of pro-Russian non-government sources. Obviously, to get a less distorted picture one has to also keep track of what the other side is showing or saying, at least in broad strokes. Not that the folks that I normally follow keep mum about the issues, they often do. One of such sources, an active duty officer faced so much pressure and threats from the within the armed forces after putting such issues to light he eventually shot himself. Imo these problems shouldn't be ignored. Sure, with the war on budget is stretched thin and vehicles cost money, but at ~$140k per KIA investing into means of reducing casualties seems more prudent. > it's unlikely that those would be used for the sort of light recon that the motorcycle units are doing, Lada isn't famous for producing motorcycles. Which reminds me, turns out according to those who used both electric bikes are superior to ICE ones, kind of amusing. But yes, there's legitimate reasons to use a bike an ATV at times. >and delivering troops to hot zones is likely done with BMPs or BTRs, The thing is, everything ~10km around the line of contact is a hot zone these days and these days the "getting there" part is more dangerous is actually holding the position. Some MRAPs are quite large and more conspicuous but I somehow doubt that the troops riding Nivas do that by choice and that they wouldn't rather have a Typhoon instead. Besides, honestly, I'm really not sure a BMP is more survivable than an average MRAP. For one, the idea of putting fuel tanks into the same rear doors that troops are supposed to disembark through because it is assumed that the enemy will always be in front of the BMP and won't be able to score a hit from behind has... not aged well. During assaults, most vehicles used by Russia tend to be armored, yes. During rotation and supply runs however it's whatever they can get their hands on, and usually unarmored. Watching compilations of Ukrainian suicide drone strikes on what appear to be logistics chains paints a similar picture. However whenever I look at Russians hitting Ukrainian vehicles, a much higher percentage of targets are MRAPs. They do have their own Mad Max cars or just regular civilian ones (often with number plates from EU countries, by the way), whereas Russia has to rely on what it has in storage or can produce, it can't import (except for Chinese, which I assume, are procured through MoD and in small quantities). > Both sides were constantly innovating and feverishly working to break the stalemate, and the places with the least visible movement were frequently the locations of the most fighting and losses. That is similar now Yes, definitely. >I personally find the innovation more interesting than the territorial changes. Understandable, it's just that until the front starts moving again, one direction or another, a lasting peace is unattainable. As for the innovation, I feel like the humanity has speedrun the drone tech far enough for one round, time to call it a day and go do some homework/restocking. Attached are a screencap of some aftermarket upgrades from a recent post in one channel, a rather shortlived story of a Niva used on what I assume is Chasov Yar part of the frontline (lasted a week apparently, but they're expected to be that expendable) and a helicopter blowing up a naval drone with mg fire recently; there have been calls for replacing these helicopters with strike drones not to endanger the crews.

>>15228 >the huge vacuum of armored equipment loss I really don't think Russian equipment losses have been as substantial as are often claimed. I know they've lost a lot, but I've mentioned before that I think the Oryx figures are likely an overestimate rather than an underestimate, and I've explained some of the reasons why. >some opening for debate on what to do. It should be pretty interesting. I think the lessons learned will spur a lot of interesting development in tank and IFV design. I suspect that they'll either quietly abandon the Armata in favor of some clean sheet design based on the lesson's they've learned, or they'll try to crank out Armatas as quickly as possible to replenish their armored units. >Georgia is incomparable. It has neither the population, nor the size to withstand what Ukraine did. I'm aware that it would be a curbstomp no matter what, but even if it's only a brief demonstration, it'd be an interesting one. >>15229 >it feels like searching anything in general has become so much more difficult in the past few years too. I stopped using Google a few years ago, and that definitely improved my search experience by a lot, I haven't switched to searxng yet but I intend to. Right now I'm using duckduckgo and I have a big .txt file of sites to exclude from certain types of searches. I'm sure there is some way to just automate excluding them, but the .txt file is pretty simple. It is getting harder and harder to find anything useful though. >the article is just a wall of tautology tailored specifically to repeat the same keyword search term over and over to improve SEO rankings The first few time I saw one of those I was pretty drunk and thought it must make sense and I just needed to focus. I feel like the fact that those articles even work to increase search engine rank is a sign that companies like Google had all the actual talent leave more than a decade ago. It would not be hard to make that sort of shit not work, but nobody has fixed it. >Fewer and fewer results are specialized forums. Well there are fewer and fewer specialized forums, it's becoming a landscape of megacorporate monopolies with the backing of some government or another. >maybe that's just what getting old is like It's not because you're getting old, it's called enshittification. https://wikiless.northboot.xyz/wiki/Enshittification?lang=en >then Visa & Mastercard act as moral arbiters of the highest instance Moralfags are the greatest cancer upon the internet. >it makes little sense to invest into more tanks when you don't have drones or anti-drone measures yet. It depends on a lot of factors, like if you don't currently have any tanks then it's probably a good idea to acquire at least a few. It's not like drones cost much, for the price of a single t-72 you can get literally thousands of cheap Chinese drones. So for a small country with 0 tanks and 0 drones, it's not a question of getting tanks vs getting drones, it's a question of getting one more tank or enough drones to outfit every squad with a few. >Having a human in the seat definitely has its benefits and production lines for helicopters are already set up but from a cost-effectiveness perspective Bayraktar/Orion type of drones seem to be very lucrative. Attack helicopters are no longer considered fires elements in modern US doctrine, and that probably applies to Russian doctrine as well. Drones can do the fire support job that attack helicopters used to do, but they can't maneuver into the divisional deep area ahead of the armored brigades to prepare the way for them. https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=t1E6FXHQhDQ >Armata developers promised a drone, attached by wire, that would do just that I suspect that future developments in drones which are considered to be part of a tank will involve a variety of drones available to the rigger. I suspect that tanks and IFVs will have a specialized drone that is used to dogfight and shoot down other drones before they come in range, perhaps even a whole ecosystem of drones designed to protect armored systems will emerge, like fighters, interceptors, AEW&C drones, EWAR drones. >Oh yes, humanitarian side of things aside, that would be a sight to see. That's the spirit. Fuck pearl clutching, war's fucking beautiful. >I wouldn't be surprised if some operators didn't have more kills than the best snipers of old. I would. I think the war would be over too fast for anyone to rack up a serious kill count. >Most of the vehicles used anywhere close to the frontline are part of the logistics chain. true, and I think most of where you see ladas is going to be places which have already been cleared of mines, or at least where paths have been cleared, so the only benefit of an MRAP would be the shrapnel protection from artillery. I'd say the Ladas probably aren't optimal, but they're probably surprisingly close to an MRAP in terms of survivability, given their speed and the fact that the driver and passengers can bail extremely fast from a convertible. Welding on a little extra metal as shrapnel protection would close the gap even further. > Attrition takes its toll. I don't think that it's a sign of attrition, I don't think Russian equipment losses have been substantial enough to make a major dent in their warfighting capacity. >That does however beg the question why that is the case and why troops have to buy and pimp their own cars or rely on volunteers to do that for them. Motorized rifle units probably aren't given MRAPs, and the big Ural trucks they were probably expected to use as transport before the war are too dangerous to use near the front lines. Bureaucracy moves at a snails pace compared to the speed at which things change on the front line, so getting more MRAPs ordered and then assigned to them would take far longer than just coming up with a solution themselves. >Not exactly There have been multiple instances where you said something about a relative paucity of Russian footage and were demonstrated to be wrong, so please forgive me for being skeptical of claims you make about how much certain things appear. >Lada isn't famous for producing motorcycles. I've gotten used to ladas and motorcycles being mentioned in the same sentence. They serve different roles and I suspect that they are both adaptations to wartime circumstances rather than a symptom of desperation due to attrition. >according to those who used both electric bikes are superior to ICE ones I'm not surprised. There are a lot of advantages to the electric bikes, and the advantages of gas powered bikes aren't really going to come up much in the situations they are used in. >everything ~10km around the line of contact is a hot zone these days I think that for areas beyond 1-2km from the line of contact the modified Ladas aren't much worse than an MRAP. Especially if you're driving between islands of electronic warfare coverage. > the idea of putting fuel tanks into the same rear doors that troops are supposed to disembark through because it is assumed that the enemy will always be in front of the BMP and won't be able to score a hit from behind has... not aged well. They're supposed to drain the fuel from the door tanks and replace it with sand or dirt if they are expecting combat. It's not as good as proper armor, but it'll stop rifle rounds and shrapnel. >whenever I look at Russians hitting Ukrainian vehicles, a much higher percentage of targets are MRAPs Russia and Ukraine don't have identical things to worry about. Russia has to worry more about suicide drones, while Ukraine has to worry more about artillery. Russia likes to use artillery to just keep up pressure on supply lines and stuff, so shrapnel protection anywhere near the front is pretty much mandatory. Meanwhile Ukraine tends to use more precision stuff, so an MRAP isn't going to survive much better than a Lada, in fact in some ways it's worse, since splitting a squad between a couple Ladas makes each one a less appealing target for a precision weapon.

>>15231 >"Is of very simple, Boris." >"Tatar and Chuvash conscripts are of expendable." >"Mobile garden sheds constructed atop chassis of rusted out sixty year old tank hulls are not of expendable."

>>15236 Today I found out that NAFO isn't just a misspelling of NATO that is used to make fun of the pro-Ukraine people. Turns out it's an organization and it's totally gay. It's so retarded it's got its own Kiwifarms thread. https://kiwifarms.st/threads/north-atlantic-fellas-organization-nafo.171587/

>>15238 You know you're not going to get paid for posting this stuff, right? Glavset ran out of money.

>>15239 >reee you must be a Russian shill <just ignore all the government backing for NAFO In ten years everyone will have gone back to thinking of Ukraine as being the part of Russia where all the cheap whores in Europe come from, and there is a 41% chance you will have killed yourself.

>>15241 Big Daddy Vladdy will never give you cummies, no matter how hard you simp for him. But if it's that important to you, the Russians are accepting volunteers. Just don't take any pictures of anything, or they'll shoot you as a spy, just like they did with that Antifa faggot from Austin last year who thought he was going to be a kommissar in Donbass after the war.

>>15243 Is this you?