Outside Topic Way OT: Ukraine - Printable Version

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - fullmetal - 09-21-2024

Yeah, this will "immunize" Russia against heavy centralization and disincentivize them from presenting juicy targets to Ukrainian strikes.  One can only hope that all the reshuffling results in inefficiency and loss (Russian logistics is fairly manual and can result in dropped munitions and accidental/negligent discharges).

I see the point about missiles being for more ephemeral targets.  Once detected, it's probably pretty easy to guess a drone swarm's intended target, and ephemeral/mobile targets can use that longer lead time (drones are slow) to skedaddle.

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - Goose - 09-21-2024

(09-21-2024, 10:00 AM)dabigv13 Wrote:  Well, they can do more than one a month since they just hit three depots in two days, and there is an ongoing strike in Crimea now.

All good, but again possibly they can't do it again for four months :-). Seriously, while that is great news, I am pretty sure Ukraine wouldn't be pushing for permission to use Storm Shadows etc inside Russia if they felt their own indigenous capabilities were fully adequate.

Quote:Also it seems the depot at Tikhoretsk, which is more for short term storage as compared to the two GRAU arsenals hit in Tver region, had adjacent railway and airport infrastructure that was also destroyed. This was a depot that a lot of North Korean ammo was coming through.

Indeed good news and something that will contribute meaningfully to the Ukraine's success in both the short term and probably in the long term.

Quote:Russia will certainly respond by decentralizing, but that will take time and will be much less efficient, and it will take a long time to replenish what was lost in these strikes.

IMO you are correct about your first and last points. It will take time to re-design the logistics system and replenishing what was destroyed will also take time, perhaps significant time. However, it is emphatically not true that the redesigned decentralized logistics systems will inevitably be less efficient. There is ever potential for them to be significantly more efficient and more responsive to front line needs. The very hierarchical top-heavy system Russia uses at present isn't at all efficient. There is massive waste and undoubtedly fraud going on. Rethinking it could result in vast improvement. Of course, it could be argued that Russia is incapable of doing better. That may be true, but I wouldn't count on it.

Quote:Making Russia transport and distribute smaller batches of ammunition will require even more distributed air defenses to (try to) protect it, will require them to devote more manpower and transport equipment to logistics. That's not Russia becoming a better fighting force IMHO.

Devoting more manpower and transport equipment to logistics will indeed make them a better fighting force. Right now, logistics is one of Russia's key weaknesses. One reason they cannot exploit success is that they can't supply the troops that made the breakthrough. Forcing them to remedy this deficiency would unquestionably make them a better fighting force. It can be argued they can't do this, but given that casualties in the logistics "tail" aren't high it might be possible to staff this effort with "new" ethnic Russian recruits much easier than other demands Russia make of its people.

If Russia does indeed attempt to "defend" all its "important" points using point defense systems surrounding these targets, you will be correct. Russia will 1) undoubtedly fail, and 2) weaken their ability to defend against a resurgent Ukrainian Air Force (UAF) if indeed one comes forward. However, if Russia finally demands the VKS get its act together and establish an adequate 24/7 barrier air patrol around Ukraine then none of these ill effects will ensue. It will also put the hurt to Ukraine using air-breathing weapons very deep into Russia. Russia has the aircraft and pilots to do this, at least on paper. It is a mystery to me why it has taken this long for this to at least be attempted. There may be issues with Russian aircraft maintenance that might preclude it. There could be other reasons I am not aware of. However, I am sure that at least some Russians realize that is the "right answer" and it should be attempted. We have seen what can be done by such a system against Iranian drone strikes. Russia can do the same. Increased drone attacks from Ukraine should force them to at least try.

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - BostonCard - 09-22-2024

Crazy story in The NY Times magazine about one Russian officer’s desertion and escape…

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/09/20/magazine/ukraine-russia-war-deserter.html

BC

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - dabigv13 - 09-22-2024

President Zelensky visited the Scranton 155mm artillery ammunition factory today. Pretty cool thing for the factory workers there I'd imagine.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/ukrainian-president-zelenskyy-visits-pennsylvania-ammunition-factory-workers-113913855

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - Goose - 09-23-2024

(09-22-2024, 06:39 PM)BostonCard Wrote:  Crazy story in The NY Times magazine about one Russian officer’s desertion and escape…

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/09/20/magazine/ukraine-russia-war-deserter.html

BC

The NYT piece is IMO a "must read" especially because it illuminates the sense of fatalism and lack of "public morality" in Russian society. We in "the West" simply can't imagine it because it is almost totally outside of our experience. We can't "grok" it, no matter how hard we try.

The other thing that really strikes me is how little things have changed in 40 years. While the reasons for their "defections" were different (Russia was not at war) there are striking similarities in the descriptions of the Russian military and Russian society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiG_Pilot:_The_Final_Escape_of_Lieutenant_Belenko (happened in 1976)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Zuyev_(pilot) (happened 1989)
Neither book is in any way "great literature" but IMO it is just amazing how constant the issues regarding lack of personal responsibility and the desire to avoid any awareness or responsibility for "what is going on" are. Russian society personifies the idea that "The nail that sticks up will be hammered down". They take it so far that they hammer themselves down. OTOH they will sometimes take absolutely crazy risky steps once they decide they themselves are/may be the target of "bad things". Nothing has changed, despite instant communication via cell phones and the flood of information on the internet.

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - TrumpCard - 09-23-2024

As much as my ancestors who lived in Russia probably would agree that Russia of the late 19th Century fit the mold that you're describing for more modern times, I still am not really a fan of the broad generalizations.  Every country has people of all stripes.  Even though democracy didn't work out in the 1990s, I don't think it was insane to hope for a good outcome when the Soviet Union fell, and I would have cautious optimism for something better if Putin were to fall today.

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - dabigv13 - 09-23-2024

Satellite imagery from recently attacked Russian ammunition depots. Seems like Ukraine hit depots when trains were there.

With good intelligence/pattern analysis, they seemingly are able to hit "time sensitive" targets with slow moving drones.

https://x.com/georgewbarros/status/1838280133423305010

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - M T - 09-23-2024

(09-23-2024, 12:38 PM)dabigv13 Wrote:  Satellite imagery from recently attacked Russian ammunition depots. Seems like Ukraine hit depots when trains were there.

With good intelligence/pattern analysis, they seemingly are able to hit "time sensitive" targets with slow moving drones.

Not subscribing to X, I only get to see the single tweet, with 4 images from the first depot.
For anyone else in the same boat, here's the 10 tweets with images
  https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1838280133423305010.html

It looks like Ukraine played a serious game of Battleship.  Look at the (black) holes in the unexploded bunkers at the southeast end of the Toropets depot versus the before image (for better resolution, see Google maps).
Miss ....
  Miss .....
     Miss ......
       Ka-boom!  Ka-boom!  Ka-boom!
One wonders if any attacks struck their intended target after the big boom.  I would guess they used time-delay fuses.

Rather than strikes, those dark areas could be collapsed roof segments of the bunkers.

The first set of pictures (image 4) appears to show a secondary explosion centered on the rail track.  No sign of a train car.
The Toropets pictures show a train apparently damaged from a bunker explosion.

Trains are going to take time to be loaded or unloaded and are pretty stationary during that process.  I presume these attacks also were intended to take out the equipment for loading/unloading the ammo.  Drones can alter their course or stay on location to time an attack when a train arrives.  I'm not sure how good a drone would do to take out a moving train with ammo on board.  But, an attack on an ammo train would be best to stage on a bridge.

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - fullmetal - 09-23-2024

(09-23-2024, 03:17 PM)M T Wrote:  But, an attack on an ammo train would be best to stage on a bridge.

*chef's kiss*

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - Goose - 09-23-2024

(09-23-2024, 03:17 PM)M T Wrote:  

(09-23-2024, 12:38 PM)dabigv13 Wrote:  Satellite imagery from recently attacked Russian ammunition depots. Seems like Ukraine hit depots when trains were there.

With good intelligence/pattern analysis, they seemingly are able to hit "time sensitive" targets with slow moving drones.

Not subscribing to X, I only get to see the single tweet, with 4 images from the first depot.
For anyone else in the same boat, here's the 10 tweets with images
  https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1838280133423305010.html

It looks like Ukraine played a serious game of Battleship.  Look at the (black) holes in the unexploded bunkers at the southeast end of the Toropets depot versus the before image (for better resolution, see Google maps).
Miss ....
  Miss .....
     Miss ......
       Ka-boom!  Ka-boom!  Ka-boom!
One wonders if any attacks struck their intended target after the big boom.  I would guess they used time-delay fuses.

Rather than strikes, those dark areas could be collapsed roof segments of the bunkers.

The first set of pictures (image 4) appears to show a secondary explosion centered on the rail track.  No sign of a train car.
The Toropets pictures show a train apparently damaged from a bunker explosion.

Trains are going to take time to be loaded or unloaded and are pretty stationary during that process.  I presume these attacks also were intended to take out the equipment for loading/unloading the ammo.  Drones can alter their course or stay on location to time an attack when a train arrives.  I'm not sure how good a drone would do to take out a moving train with ammo on board.  But, an attack on an ammo train would be best to stage on a bridge.

Agree. Ukraine does undoubtedly have pretty good HUMINT surrounding lots of Russian activities. They also get access to a lot of US intelligence gathered by many means. All that said, unloading a train full of explosives takes a while. I am going to guess that 24 hours would be considered rapid. That hardly makes the train an "ephemeral" target. The distance from Kiev to Toropets is well less than 600 miles. A very slow drone would get there in under 6 hours. A fighter aircraft could do it in well under 2 hours. It is also pretty likely that a facility of that size receives and dispatches several trains a week filled with things that explode. Pretty likely at any give time one or more would be there.

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - Goose - 09-24-2024

https://www.gpsworld.com/anti-jam-technology-demystifying-the-crpa/

I had refrained from talking about most of this for a couple of reasons. First, I wasn't sure what I could and couldn't say. Citing the article means I don't have to say anything :-). From the article one can conclude that the US military possess effective anti-jam capabilities. Some of the equipment we have/had is referenced. Exactly what we have now is not. What we see in Ukraine is not necessarily typical of what our standard of practice may be. The article is "old". There are probably no secrets there. Second, I figured the "details" weren't of interest to most people :-).

The adaptive LMS algorithm and its use in antennas has deep Stanford roots. https://isl.stanford.edu/~widrow/papers/j1967adaptiveantenna.pdf https://isl.stanford.edu/~widrow/papers/c1979areview.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADB019329.pdf

An "overview" that touches on the entire field is contained here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_smart_antennas. It contains some "gems" of information whose presence I must say surprises me.

Ukraine is quite aware of the technology and mathematics involved. They should be quite capable of building "simple" drones that will destroy jammers. Again, why they are not is a total mystery to me.

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - fullmetal - 09-24-2024

Or at least, detecting jamming signals and feeding coordinates to an artillery battery somewhere in range...

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - Goose - 09-24-2024

(09-24-2024, 12:00 PM)fullmetal Wrote:  Or at least, detecting jamming signals and feeding coordinates to an artillery battery somewhere in range...

I am pretty sure Ukraine can do that. Even if they can't NATO can and I am sure that data would be shared. I expect the issue is that the jammers are placed beyond effective artillery range. Getting a bit more power is easy enough and the jammer needs to protect a relatively wide area anyway. Artillery suffers from not being all that accurate. You can hit the jamming antenna that way, but it is a relatively small target. It may take a lot of shells. Homing in on the actual antenna is much more reliable. HARMS regularly physically hit the antenna (when they work :-). Shrike did as well with "lower technology".

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - threepointer - 09-24-2024

(09-22-2024, 06:39 PM)BostonCard Wrote:  Crazy story in The NY Times magazine about one Russian officer’s desertion and escape…

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/09/20/magazine/ukraine-russia-war-deserter.html

BC

This is an interesting article that vividly illustrates how absolutely screwed up Russia was and remains today.  After reading this, I think the Russians just might be incompetent enough to suffer an eventual embarrassing retreat.

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - Mick - 09-24-2024

(09-24-2024, 02:18 PM)threepointer Wrote:  

(09-22-2024, 06:39 PM)BostonCard Wrote:  Crazy story in The NY Times magazine about one Russian officer’s desertion and escape…

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/09/20/magazine/ukraine-russia-war-deserter.html

BC

This is an interesting article that vividly illustrates how absolutely screwed up Russia was and remains today.  After reading this, I think the Russians just might be incompetent enough to suffer an eventual embarrassing retreat.

Genuinely makes me wonder about the quality of their nuclear weapons, particularly given the graft that seems endemic in the Soviet Russian military.

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - BostonCard - 09-24-2024

Speaking of Russian nukes:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/09/23/russia-sarmat-icbm-disaster/

The TL;DR… Russia was Sabre rattling by testing one of its ICBMs, but the missile failed catastrophically and blew up in its silo, leaving a 60 meter crater.

BC

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - Goose - 09-24-2024

(09-24-2024, 03:07 PM)Mick Wrote:  Genuinely makes me wonder about the quality of their nuclear weapons, particularly given the graft that seems endemic in the Soviet Russian military.

Unfortunately the quality of their weapons is reasonably good, most probably. The "new" weapons they have developed since the founding of the Russian Federation are somewhat unknown. The "old" stuff was well designed and unquestionably "worked". Russian nuclear weapons don't have the "shelf life" US ones do. They re manufacture them every 10 years or so. The SRF gets priority for the resources necessary to maintain their missiles. They are also considered an "elite" service and at least mostly do not suffer from the lack of expertise the rest of the Russian military does. Like many things Russian the system may not be efficient or streamlined, but it has a history of "working". They aren't re-engineering it. The US got some insight into the Russian's capability in the 90s. It was more than adequate then. Their weapons will explode. It is probable that there has been some "degradation" in the missiles themselves. However, more than enough of them will "work" just fine unfortunately. The solid-fuel boosters don't take much care and feeding. There are a few things that have to be replaced periodically but nothing that costs a lot or is hard to get.

The naval component of their "triad" is more of an unknown. Putin hates the Navy. The Russian "Boomers" are considered an elite force etc. etc. However, running a submarine is lots harder than "running" a missile silo. They may not be very "good" at it. However, if they launch, some of it will "work" most probably. The Russian navy "ran down" a lot, but unlike the rest of the navy the nuclear force received new submarines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borei-class_submarine  These boats are much better and quieter than the boats they replace. However, they were built under the current regime, which makes one wonder what is really true. How much we "know" about their actual capabilities is well above my pay grade.

The VKS has the ability to deliver both nuclear ALCMs and free-fall gravity bombs. These units are a major threat to Europe. The number of platforms is limited, and nearly all of them are old. So is the B-52. The European nations don't maintain a high level of air defense. In the recent past, they felt they didn't need to. The assumption always has been that there will be plenty of warning and that something can be cobbled together. Most of the "cobbled together" air defense will say "USAF" on the fuselage.  Fun facts. https://www.wdmma.org/ranking.php#google_vignette is "interesting". It does include helicopters though.

Of course, Russia has so many nuclear capable MRBMs that the VKS contribution to the triad really doesn't much matter. The conventionally armed MRBMs are working just fine in Ukraine, as are the conventional cruise missiles. Not all the time, but with a nuclear payload not that many need to work.

EDIT: Regarding the "newer" missiles https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-satan-ii-missile-blows-104325250.html. It isn't all that unusual that a newly developed rocket doesn't work as desired. What surprises me greatly is that the rocket is liquid fueled. Yes, you can get more thrust per unit volume that way, but you have to manage the liquid fueled missiles. It can be done. The Titian II missile system did work. There were a few accidents but nothing "serious", fortunately. The Titian missiles sat in the silo fully loaded with fuel and oxidizer for "a long time". That allowed firing the missile within 60 seconds from the "go" order. Solid fuel missiles like the Trident D5 do this all the time with no associated drama. If the Russians are still building liquid fueled missiles, one might wonder why.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSM-56_Bulava Gives some insight into missile development for the Russian navy.

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - BigJohn043 - 09-24-2024

(09-22-2024, 08:19 PM)dabigv13 Wrote:  President Zelensky visited the Scranton 155mm artillery ammunition factory today. Pretty cool thing for the factory workers there I'd imagine.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/ukrainian-president-zelenskyy-visits-pennsylvania-ammunition-factory-workers-113913855

Wow that is an amazing story....

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - fullmetal - 09-24-2024

(09-24-2024, 03:48 PM)BostonCard Wrote:  The TL;DR… Russia was Sabre rattling by testing one of its ICBMs, but the missile failed catastrophically and blew up in its silo, leaving a 60 meter crater.

Some officers' sabers got rattled, that's for sure.  Putin may be ordering a reshuffle soon...

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RE: Way OT: Ukraine - GK3 - 09-25-2024

This article describes to some extent a new Ukrainian drone that is faster and carries a much bigger payload with a range of several hundred miles.  Basically a cruise missile, using a small, cheap turbofan jet engine.  I have seen other articles that say it has a payload of nearly 1 ton of explosives.
Will be interesting to see if they really did put something like this together.

https://simpleflying.com/ukraine-building-jet-powered-drones-strike-russian-targets/#:~:text=Ukraine%20uses%20new%20%22Palyanytsia%22%20jet%20drone%20against%20Russia&text=Footage%20has%20recently%20emerged%20on,variety%20of%20jet%2Dpropelled%20drones.

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