Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

That_Bloke said:
This is one of the most informed and one of the best posts I've seen here. I mean it.

By reading it, I can safely conclude that the Russians are shit, their army is shit, their military doctrine is shit and their equipment is shit.

So why is that we're currently hammered by the media about the danger of Russia gobbling up Ukraine (which they couldn't in the first place and won't), then turning on the Baltic States, engaging (and defeating) NATO to finally swallow the whole of Western Europe?

Genuine question.
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NATO have always been guilty of this since it's inception.

"The enemy are too powerful, we need action and we need it NOW or we will be overrun!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_1975_ship_reclassification

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/collection/what-was-missile-gap#:~:text=The Missile Gap was in,that of the United States.

https://www.historynet.com/mig-25/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538895

The missile gap is the funniest, NATO basically went into a frenzy that the ICBM count and quality by the Soviets were much higher and better. The reports that came out of press releases were that by 1962 the Soviets would have 500+ ICBM's to USA's 100.
The reality? Soviets, at the time, had four (4) ICBMs. The prediction was off by 125x! As a result, the US threw $$$$ into ICBM production and research anyway.

The Cruiser Gap was also funny:

The differing U.S. and Soviet definitions of "cruiser" caused political problems when comparisons were made between U.S. and Soviet naval forces. A table comparing U.S. and Soviet cruiser forces showed six U.S. ships vs. 19 Soviet ships, despite the existence of 21 U.S. "frigates" equal or superior in size to the Soviet "cruisers". This led to the perception of a non-existent "cruiser gap".
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If you have time look at the development lifecycle for the F-15. When the Mig-25 first released, it sent Western Air force planners into a frenzy, believing they had no counter to this amazing new air superiority fighter. They beefed up the requirements for the F-15 to a unfathomable level and threw infinite dollars at it. Then a Mig-25 pilot defected and the western analysts looked at it -> The mig25 was a hulking mess of an airframe that couldn't do half of what the intelligence analysts thought. What ended up happening was the West now had a plane (F-15) that was designed to counter a Soviet Plane that only existed in fiction. Which was why in the consequent decade F-15 absolutely ruled the sky in every engagement it fought in, with the best performance record of a fighter plane in history, with a Kill-Loss ratio of 104 : 0

Look at the way the Gulf War was predicted.

Just before Desert Shield/Desert Storm kicked off, US CENTCOM estimated around 10k dead Americans and 20-30k wounded Americans. 10,000 Body Bags had been flown into Saudi Arabia in anticipation for this and all this was released to the public for expectations management.
The reality? 292 KIA, of which half was friendly fire. 776 were WIA, of which half were friendlyfire. The estimates were off by around 50x for KIA and 40x for WIA.

https://www.dupuyinstitute.org/blog/2016/05/17/assessing-the-1990-1991-gulf-war-forecasts/

tl;dr: NATO loves a good exaggeration to manage the public expectations and to also obtain more funding.
 
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Also, even if the Russian army is shit, it can still kill tons of people, destroy cities, and rob other lands, and Putin is not willing to stop it despite the losses they have.

Want poof?

It is a bit of weird question to ask if Putin is dangerous for the countries around him. There are also other ways that he can act that may threaten those countries as well.
 
RedDevilQuebecois said:
Wars are never won by the side that plays totally nice. If you start believing that it is possible, then it is pure naivety. Every single winning side to any conflict throughout history had to cross the line and resort to quite some really dirty stuff enough times in order to move the needle forward.

@4bars Don't sell me that crap about Ukrainians waiting to be liberated anymore in Sevastopol. That horse has left the barn over the last 10 years and particularly in the last 2.
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Listen to yourself mate, you're asking for ukraine to kill civilians without achieving any kind of military goal.
 
but what if Trump
AfonsoAlves said:
NATO have always been guilty of this since it's inception.

"The enemy are too powerful, we need action and we need it NOW or we will be overrun!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_1975_ship_reclassification

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/collection/what-was-missile-gap#:~:text=The Missile Gap was in,that of the United States.

https://www.historynet.com/mig-25/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538895

The missile gap is the funniest, NATO basically went into a frenzy that the ICBM count and quality by the Soviets were much higher and better. The reports that came out of press releases were that by 1962 the Soviets would have 500+ ICBM's to USA's 100.
The reality? Soviets, at the time, had four (4) ICBMs. The prediction was off by 125x! As a result, the US threw $$$$ into ICBM production and research anyway.

The Cruiser Gap was also funny:



If you have time look at the development lifecycle for the F-15. When the Mig-25 first released, it sent Western Air force planners into a frenzy, believing they had no counter to this amazing new air superiority fighter. They beefed up the requirements for the F-15 to a unfathomable level and threw infinite dollars at it. Then a Mig-25 pilot defected and the western analysts looked at it -> The mig25 was a hulking mess of an airframe that couldn't do half of what the intelligence analysts thought. What ended up happening was the West now had a plane (F-15) that was designed to counter a Soviet Plane that only existed in fiction. Which was why in the consequent decade F-15 absolutely ruled the sky in every engagement it fought in, with the best performance record of a fighter plane in history, with a Kill-Loss ratio of 104 : 0

Look at the way the Gulf War was predicted.

Just before Desert Shield/Desert Storm kicked off, US CENTCOM estimated around 10k dead Americans and 20-30k wounded Americans. 10,000 Body Bags had been flown into Saudi Arabia in anticipation for this and all this was released to the public for expectations management.
The reality? 292 KIA, of which half was friendly fire. 776 were WIA, of which half were friendlyfire. The estimates were off by around 50x for KIA and 40x for WIA.

https://www.dupuyinstitute.org/blog/2016/05/17/assessing-the-1990-1991-gulf-war-forecasts/

tl;dr: NATO loves a good exaggeration to manage the public expectations and to also obtain more funding.
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So what happens if Trump wins and leaves NATO?
Just asking since most numbers are Russia and USA

What does rest of Nato have?
 
Rauður Djöfull said:
but what if Trump


So what happens if Trump wins and leaves NATO?
Just asking since most numbers are Russia and USA

What does rest of Nato have?
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Turkey, Britain, Poland, France, Italy, Spain, Romania, Finland, Sweden etc. It wouldn't be a weak alliance but obviously the US is the top dog.
 
Semper Fudge said:
This is very interesting, cheers! Need a breakdown of the acronyms though. :lol:
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Rauður Djöfull said:
but what if Trump


So what happens if Trump wins and leaves NATO?
Just asking since most numbers are Russia and USA

What does rest of Nato have?
Click to expand...

Trump cannot.
A bipartisan bill was signed into law last month, sponsored by both the GOP and Dems, that a US president cannot unilaterally leave NATO

https://www.kaine.senate.gov/press-...to-prevent-any-us-president-from-leaving-nato

In fact, it was the Republicans who put this safe-guard in to protect the country from Trump.

The legislation was included in the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which passed by a bipartisan vote of 87-13.
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Guess which numpty's voted against this.
 
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Su-34.jpg


This image sums up perfectly the state of the VKS, as an example.

This is an SU-34, a jet that was designed, streamlined and procured well after a large number of the current Western airframe development lifecycles.

They boast radars, excellent sensor data, targeting pods, flight characteristic performance, etc etc...on paper.

In reality? Their electronics systems were so bad that for communicating they were using openWave Radio Channels and to work out their location...

They strapped cycling GPS (Garmin) and Driving GPS (TomToms) to their main pilot HUD (see image below).

This is the footballing equivalent of buying shinpads from SportsDirect to play in the FA Cup Final.
 
AfonsoAlves said:
Su-34.jpg


This image sums up perfectly the state of the VKS, as an example.

This is an SU-34, a jet that was designed, streamlined and procured well after a large number of the current Western airframe development lifecycles.

They boast radars, excellent sensor data, targeting pods, flight characteristic performance, etc etc...on paper.

In reality? Their electronics systems were so bad that for communicating they were using openWave Radio Channels and to work out their location...

They strapped cycling GPS (Garmin) and Driving GPS (TomToms) to their main pilot HUD (see image below).

This is the footballing equivalent of buying shinpads from SportsDirect to play in the FA Cup Final.
Click to expand...

Tomtoms? Yaisus
 
AfonsoAlves said:
Cool:

I served in the Army Intelligence Corps for 8 years, did two tours to Afghanistan, three times advisory attache for the diplomatic mission to Poroshenko's Government in Ukraine, spent cumulatively two years at Lask AB, and two consecutive stints serving on Scaparotti's SACEUR staff operations in Belgium before moving to the private sector to advise on weapons procurement and performance for the AFU. I am also married to a Ukrainian woman :)

What you see is typical Nato public speech. At SACEUR they called it "UPOD". Under promise, over deliver. NATO is a political organization as much as it is military one and one of our playbooks was to always tell how poorly we would perform in a shooting war to try and convince the politicians in respective NATO nations to provide more money and funding.

Part of my job was to provide accurate assessments of Western military capability in contrast to Russia, mine specifically was on the tactical fires level. You are right in that we were all wrong in 2022.

All of us, collectively, were horrified at how poorly the Russians performed. Every bit of intelligence gathered on Russian doctrine, equipment performance, usage was just horribly miscalculated. We assumed that the Russian capability was about 3-3.5x what is was (we have a complex numerical system for calculating weapon platform effectiveness).

Without breaking any OPSEC and NDA's on how bad the Russian Army actually is, I can highlight to you a few broad points regarding the sheer level of incompetency that the Russian Armed Forces is in:

- Russian pilots calculate airtime on their frames differently to the west, whilst the hours remain high, the way their resource allocation and scheduling works means that pilots in the same squadron do not get a lot of air-time together. Which is why air support by Russia is very piecemeal and usually comes in pairs, they simply do not have the training intimacy to go beyond that.

-complete lack of aerial ELINT and AWACS support. Complete lack of network centric warfare. AFU were sharing radar tracking data to LASK and the boys at LASK were pointing out that Frogfoots were running tactical bombing missions without any AWACS support, C&C assets for hundreds of miles, if at all. Guidance and mission planning was all done beforehand. NATO stopped doing this in the mid 1980's. We were all incredibly confused by this - how can a modern airforce operate without real time operational command and control? Well, turns out the estimations of VKS assets was completely off, because the satelitte images of those planes on runways were just old cannibalized parts that weren't able to fly. As of 2024, Russia in total has less than 10 flyable frames that can do C&C/AWACS.

-The simple inability in 2022 (and still to this day) to handle 1970's 'Shoot and Scoot' Tactics employed with MLRS systems. This is all linked to the above; without eyes in the sky to pinpoint MLRS fires, it's very hard to launch counter batteries. This problem still exists today.

-Their air defense systems, on paper, are excellent. The problem is any singular weapons platform needs to be integrated with the broader doctrine of its utility. S300/400 is a strategic level asset that requires layered defenses against tactical level threats. On paper, Russia had this. S3/400's supported by Pantsir's, Tor's and Buk's. Then we started getting reports of jerry-rigged Mig29's with old variants of HARMS somehow taking out S-400 control stations. Why? Because the complete lack of co-ordination between the control stations and the tactical level assets. Complete misuse of very good weapons platforms due to obsolete doctrines and a terrible standard of training on the air defense crews.

-Tooth to tail ratio's are completely screwed. Russian BTG's operated with a 1:2.5 tooth to tail ratio which is absurd. NATO brigades operate on a 1:5 -> 1:9 tooth to tail ratio. This means that you sometimes have 10 soldiers responsible for somehow repairing and refuelling 20 armoured vehicles in a 24 hour period.

-Russian Army prior to 2022 had a very nice, on paper, strategic doctrine. Gerasimov was the theorist who came up with the doctrine and it is called the "Gerasimov Way of War" in Russian. Yet, when the war broke out, the Russians did not follow their own, documented, doctrines. BTG's were not co-ordinating with one another, nor were they reacting in real time to the battlefield around them. This is a result of a combination of lack of training, lack of material, lack of non coms and a lack of ability of the Chief of Staffs to actually implement the doctrines they wish to employ.

I could go on and on, but I get the feeling you're not going to listen and I'm also not going to risk going any deeper due to OPSEC.
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Absolutely fascinating.
Thanks for posting
 
AfonsoAlves said:
Trump cannot.
A bipartisan bill was signed into law last month, sponsored by both the GOP and Dems, that a US president cannot unilaterally leave NATO

https://www.kaine.senate.gov/press-...to-prevent-any-us-president-from-leaving-nato

In fact, it was the Republicans who put this safe-guard in to protect the country from Trump.



Guess which numpty's voted against this.
Click to expand...

Wtf, pretty surprised I missed that. Seems like a very important bit of legislation in light of current events.
 
AfonsoAlves said:
NATO have always been guilty of this since it's inception.

"The enemy are too powerful, we need action and we need it NOW or we will be overrun!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_1975_ship_reclassification

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/collection/what-was-missile-gap#:~:text=The Missile Gap was in,that of the United States.

https://www.historynet.com/mig-25/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538895

The missile gap is the funniest, NATO basically went into a frenzy that the ICBM count and quality by the Soviets were much higher and better. The reports that came out of press releases were that by 1962 the Soviets would have 500+ ICBM's to USA's 100.
The reality? Soviets, at the time, had four (4) ICBMs. The prediction was off by 125x! As a result, the US threw $$$$ into ICBM production and research anyway.

The Cruiser Gap was also funny:



If you have time look at the development lifecycle for the F-15. When the Mig-25 first released, it sent Western Air force planners into a frenzy, believing they had no counter to this amazing new air superiority fighter. They beefed up the requirements for the F-15 to a unfathomable level and threw infinite dollars at it. Then a Mig-25 pilot defected and the western analysts looked at it -> The mig25 was a hulking mess of an airframe that couldn't do half of what the intelligence analysts thought. What ended up happening was the West now had a plane (F-15) that was designed to counter a Soviet Plane that only existed in fiction. Which was why in the consequent decade F-15 absolutely ruled the sky in every engagement it fought in, with the best performance record of a fighter plane in history, with a Kill-Loss ratio of 104 : 0

Look at the way the Gulf War was predicted.

Just before Desert Shield/Desert Storm kicked off, US CENTCOM estimated around 10k dead Americans and 20-30k wounded Americans. 10,000 Body Bags had been flown into Saudi Arabia in anticipation for this and all this was released to the public for expectations management.
The reality? 292 KIA, of which half was friendly fire. 776 were WIA, of which half were friendlyfire. The estimates were off by around 50x for KIA and 40x for WIA.

https://www.dupuyinstitute.org/blog/2016/05/17/assessing-the-1990-1991-gulf-war-forecasts/

tl;dr: NATO loves a good exaggeration to manage the public expectations and to also obtain more funding.
Click to expand...
Thanks a lot, mate.

The MiG-25 was designed as an interceptor, not an air superiority fighter though. It never was intended for what the F-15 does, and did its job very well.

Without taking anything away from the F-15, it has only been in overwhelmingly favourable combat situations, against poorly trained pilots flying in obsolete airplanes, and no enemy air-defense to speak off. The US and the West have yet to fight a real war since WWII, against a capable adversary. So I'd truly refrain from shitting too much the Russians despite their numerous and massive blunders.

The myth of Iraq having the "world's fourth best army" was a masterpiece of propaganda, when in fact Iraq was on its knees after the Iran-Iraq war. There was no fight, as a poorly lead, equipped and demotivated Iraqi army disintegrated and in most cases refused to fight/surrendered. Only the Republican Guard offered some resistance.

The US massive bombing campaigns preding the ground offensive, and the ridiculous Iraqi doctrine of a static defense on a flat terrain against an enemy that had complete the technological and air superiority did the rest.
 
That_Bloke said:
Thanks a lot, mate.

The MiG-25 was designed as an interceptor, not an air superiority fighter though. It never was intended for what the F-15 does, and did its job very well.

Without taking anything away from the F-15, it has only been in overwhelmingly favourable combat situations, against poorly trained pilots flying in obsolete airplanes, and no enemy air-defense to speak off. The US and the West have yet to fight a real war since WWII, against a capable adversary. So I'd truly refrain from shitting too much the Russians despite their numerous and massive blunders.

The myth of Iraq having the "world's fourth best army" was a masterpiece of propaganda, when in fact Iraq was on its knees after the Iran-Iraq war. There was no fight, as a poorly lead, equipped and demotivated Iraqi army disintegrated and in most cases refused to fight/surrendered. Only the Republican Guard offered some resistance.

The US massive bombing campaigns preding the ground offensive, and the ridiculous Iraqi doctrine of a static defense on a flat terrain against an enemy that had complete the technological and air superiority did the rest.
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Regarding Mig-25's, you're speaking with hindsight. Western analysts at the time were basing what they thought the Mig-25 was based on satellite imagery. The design characteristics (mostly around wing span and twin engines) led to the panic.

The Mig-25 did not do its job well. The MIG-25 existed to solve a problem that no longer existed - US overflight over Soviet Union with high altitude and ranged spy planes/strategic bombers. The engine quality was appalling, the frame was mostly built with lightened steel and the engines would burn out very quickly if it flew at its intended intercept speeds. The electronics onboard the plane were already obsolete by the 1970's. The MIG-25 is a perfect example of the problems plaguing the Soviet military-industrial complex. Lack of proper tertiary civilian industry (domestic electronics market, materials science engineering research, commercial engine research) led the military having to make-do with some poor trade offs and compromises.

You can point out the West's lack of experience in near-peer conflict, but your assessment of Iraq is completely off. Iraq's military in 1991 was a magnitude stronger than AFU in 2022. That's right by the way, for the first six months of the war, Ukraine's military was also absolutely horrific. Thankfully, they had the west to correct them on the basics. To this day, Ukraine's main armoured backbone is its T-64 supported by a small battalions of T-80's. Iraq was fielding export versions of T-72's by that point. Iraq's weakness in '91 is exactly the kind of weakness that Russia showed. Decent equipment on paper, lack of training, lack of cohesion, lack of a proper Non-Comm officer corps and complete lack of inter-unit co-operation.

Again, you assume Saddam's "doctrine" was static ground defense, but the truth could not be further away. In fact, the Iraqi Army followed the classic "defense - in - depth" doctrines that the Soviets employed and distributed at around a similar timeframe. Undermanned static defenses were purposefully deployed to be delaying troops, anchored by defensive hardpoints, creating funnels through which the enemy can breach. These funnels would allow the enemy to push deeper into the lines, before they were counter-attacked by well trained, mobile, armoured units and defeated through detail. The Republican Guard divisions were those mobile armored units, the problem was the gap between Iraq and the Coalition was so strong that it didn't matter what the Medina or Tawalkana Divisions did, they would get minced.

The problem was that the West was so much more technologically advanced that this Soviet doctrine was pretty obsolescent - so much so that shortly after, Russia and China both abandoned their concepts of defense in depth. Both countries (Soviet Union) too, had their defensive strategies exactly the same, just with more material and in Russia's case, somewhat better material. Fat lot of good defensive hardpoints do when enemy Air Cavalry divisions can just helidrop 10k troops in 4 hours 100km behind your lines, or when 2000 MBT's can roll through a desert through satellite navigation.
 
That_Bloke said:
Thanks a lot, mate.

The MiG-25 was designed as an interceptor, not an air superiority fighter though. It never was intended for what the F-15 does, and did its job very well.

Without taking anything away from the F-15, it has only been in overwhelmingly favourable combat situations, against poorly trained pilots flying in obsolete airplanes, and no enemy air-defense to speak off. The US and the West have yet to fight a real war since WWII, against a capable adversary. So I'd truly refrain from shitting too much the Russians despite their numerous and massive blunders.

The myth of Iraq having the "world's fourth best army" was a masterpiece of propaganda, when in fact Iraq was on its knees after the Iran-Iraq war. There was no fight, as a poorly lead, equipped and demotivated Iraqi army disintegrated and in most cases refused to fight/surrendered. Only the Republican Guard offered some resistance.

The US massive bombing campaigns preding the ground offensive, and the ridiculous Iraqi doctrine of a static defense on a flat terrain against an enemy that had complete the technological and air superiority did the rest.
Click to expand...

https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm100-2-1.pdf

Read Chapter Six of translated and annotated Soviet Field Manuals, it specifically discusses Defense in Depth, the concept of platoon level hardpoints, regional breach counter attacks and destruction-in-detail. Saddam followed this very well - it wasn't this that was the problem.
 
AfonsoAlves said:
https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm100-2-1.pdf

Read Chapter Six of translated and annotated Soviet Field Manuals, it specifically discusses Defense in Depth, the concept of platoon level hardpoints, regional breach counter attacks and destruction-in-detail. Saddam followed this very well - it wasn't this that was the problem.
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Awesome, thanks. I'll have a look at it.
 
That_Bloke said:
Awesome, thanks. I'll have a look at it.
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These are the main bit of text to focus upon:

Reverse Slope Defense Establishing the defense when in contact with the enemy poses particular problems, since forces may have to dig in while under fire and observation of the 6-3 FM 100-2-1 enemy. For this reason, a reverse slope defense is often chosen. Part of the force is left in contact with the enemy on the forward slope( s), while the remainder of the force prepares the position on the reverse slope( s). The Soviets recognize the following advantages of a reverse slope defense: • It hinders or prevents enemy observation of the defensive pOSition. • Attacking forces will not be able to receive direct fire support from following forces. • Enemy long-range antitank fires will be degraded. • Attacking enemy forces will be silhouetted on the crest of the hill. • Engineer work can be conducted out of direct fire and observation from the enemy. A disadvantage is that the maximum range of all weapon systems cannot be exploited. When possible, both forward and reverse slope defense are used to take maximum advantage of the terrain. When the force going over to the defensive is in contact with the enemy, it is extremely difficult to establish a security echelon. If established, its depth is not nearly as great as in the prepared defense. Additionally, long-range fires do not play the part they do in the prepared defense because the opposing forces are, for the most part, within direct fire range. Deception is difficult to achieve, since friendly forces may be under direct observation of the enemy. Obstacles are emplaced but are not as extensive as in the prepared defense.
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Sound familiar to you? This is exactly what the Iraqi's did at battle of Medina Ridge, use the false slope to lure the American Armoured division into an ambush. It worked perfectly to plan...only they got crushed anyway.

The main defensive area may appear as bands, belts, or layers, but it is simply a defense in depth. The basic element of the main defensive area is the company or platoon strongpoint. This is established on terrain that is key to the defense and must be retained at all costs. The subunit occupying the strongpoint prepares an allround defense with alternate and supplementary firing positions for all weapons. Fires are planned to be mutually supporting as well as provide for fire sacks. Vehicles are dug in, and a network of communication trenches is constructed linking weapon positions with supply, command and control, and fighting positions. Everything that can be is dug in and given overhead protection. Wire provides the primary means of communication. Minefields, obstacles, and barriers are emplaced and covered by fire. In addition, the Soviets rely heavily on the use of maneuver by fire and fire sacks to damage or destroy the enemy force.
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Each level of command is prepared to conduct a counterattack. If the enemy's forces and fires overwhelm the Soviets' first echelon defenses and prevent them from conducting a counterattack, subunits hold their position, strike the enemy with all available fires, and create sufficient resistance for a counterattack by forces of the next higher command. As the enemy advances into the depths of the Soviet defense, he advances on positions that have been better prepared; and he encounters progressively larger, more powerful FM 100-2-1 (primarily tank-heavy) second echelon formations, which act as counterattack forces. As previously discussed, the Soviets emphasize dispersion into company-sized strongpoints, while maintaining mutual fire support as a defense against tactical nuclear weapons. By forming company strongpoints, adequate maneuver space is created to shift forces and to counterattack once the enemy's main attack is determined. The strongpoint is usually centered on the platoon in the second main trench.

The next higher commander authorizes a counterattack to be launched. In most cases, counterattacks are initiated from the flanks. Counterattacks are preceded by intense air and artillery fires and the fires of adjacent units. The counterattack force attacks from the march. Counterattacks at army or division levels may be the opening phase of a Soviet counteroffensive
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I think after reading this, you can conclude Saddam actually followed established Soviet Defensive doctrine to a tee. :)
 
RedDevilQuebecois said:
Wars are never won by the side that plays totally nice. If you start believing that it is possible, then it is pure naivety. Every single winning side to any conflict throughout history had to cross the line and resort to quite some really dirty stuff enough times in order to move the needle forward.

@4bars Don't sell me that crap about Ukrainians waiting to be liberated anymore in Sevastopol. That horse has left the barn over the last 10 years and particularly in the last 2.
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To be fair Ukraine had crossed that line some time ago (it took them a long time) — Belgorod (I'm not talking about military/industrial targets) gets shelled daily now, for example, even though not at the scale of, say, Kharkiv. I'm not saying that judgmentally — I'm in no position to judge Ukrainian military policy for obvious reasons. I'm actually positively surprised at the restrain that they've shown in regards to civilian targets up until the last couple of months, even though there's a rational explanation to that as well — it doesn't make a lot of sense to waste limited ammunition on non-military targets.
 
7 patriot systems is a fecking bizarre request.

That's around 15% of all active US Batteries
 
AfonsoAlves said:
7 patriot systems is a fecking bizarre request.

That's around 15% of all active US Batteries
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How long does it take to build / restore one roughly? Seems like they might need more of them the way China and Russia are shaping up.
 
AfonsoAlves said:
7 patriot systems is a fecking bizarre request.

That's around 15% of all active US Batteries
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I belive there are around 30 Patriot Batteries in use with various EU members so it's about 25% of the EU batteries. Italy and France also have 10 SAMP/T batteries which have similar capabilties as the Patriot so around 17% of the total long range air defense batteries in Europe.
 
I don't get this concern about numbers of certain defense systems or amount of weapons/munitions "if we send a lot to ukraine we may not have enough for ourselves". If the enemy is russia, even from a purely national selfish point of view, is it not better to use all that equipment now, when the war is being fought in another nation's land and with another nation's soldiers dying?

If one truly believes russia won't stop there and there will eventually be a confrontation between nato and russia, why wait for that to happen instead of going all in now, where you won't lose infrastructure, soldiers and population?
 
maniak said:
I don't get this concern about numbers of certain defense systems or amount of weapons/munitions "if we send a lot to ukraine we may not have enough for ourselves". If the enemy is russia, even from a purely national selfish point of view, is it not better to use all that equipment now, when the war is being fought in another nation's land and with another nation's soldiers dying?

If one truly believes russia won't stop there and there will eventually be a confrontation between nato and russia, why wait for that to happen instead of going all in now, where you won't lose infrastructure, soldiers and population?
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Because the long term opposition is not Russia. Russia is a dying state that is giving it one last attempted hurrah before it crumbles into the abyss of mid tier resource state irrelevancy. Nukes are all that keeps it in geopolitical relevance.

One more active Patriot/THAAD wasted on Russia is one less patriot in the Pacific Theatre when China inevitably falls into thucydides trap.
 
It is funny that with all manufacturing might, it cant be possible to boost the production in to hundreds with a not crazy investment. It might be a state of the art product. Just read 1.1 bn USD
 
the hea said:
I think Raytheon last year said that they where looking to boost up their production to 12 systems annually.
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TwoSheds said:
How long does it take to build / restore one roughly? Seems like they might need more of them the way China and Russia are shaping up.
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The problem is not with Patriot Batteries or Patriot Launchers, the supply block is with PAC-2's and PAC-3's.

There are 51 active Patriot Battalions in the US Military, up from 48 last year. The problem is, just to keep these active service batteries live, requires 1700 missiles. If Raytheon can build 12 Systems per year, can the MIC really build 408 Pac2's/Pac-3's just for initial volley?

Looking at FY24 and FY23 numbers, potentially could be enough:

3850 PAC-3's for a 4 year Multi-buy contract. Not bad - time will tell if this is enough.

image.png


However, this looks like a tail heavy production-purchase after serial production ramp ups because FY23 and FY24 buys haven't been that high - as shown by the huge R&D for manufacturing surge in spend which will yield dividends for production in FY25/FY26



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4bars said:
It is funny that with all manufacturing might, it cant be possible to boost the production in to hundreds with a not crazy investment. It might be a state of the art product. Just read 1.1 bn USD
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Read above - the problem isn't buying batteries. That's the easy part. The hard part is procuring the thousands and thousands of missiles needed to keep them sustained.

The FY2024 PAC-3 missile R&D costs are the most surprising. Almost 1 billion in R&D, double that of 2023 - I am fairly certain most of that is going into appropriations for serialized production rate increases.
 
AfonsoAlves said:
Because the long term opposition is not Russia. Russia is a dying state that is giving it one last attempted hurrah before it crumbles into the abyss of mid tier resource state irrelevancy. Nukes are all that keeps it in geopolitical relevance.

One more active Patriot/THAAD wasted on Russia is one less patriot in the Pacific Theatre when China inevitably falls into thucydides trap.
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Sounds like a great strategy, saving for a hypothetical war instead of dealing with the active one.

How long will it take for russia to just crumble into the abyss after winning the war in ukraine and getting tons of help from china?
 
maniak said:
Sounds like a great strategy, saving for a hypothetical war instead of dealing with the active one.

How long will it take for russia to just crumble into the abyss after winning the war in ukraine and getting tons of help from china?
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This is fearmongering of the highest order, and there isn't even a political agenda behind it. This is just doomposting.

This is like using all of your rounds of your bear-rifle to shoot at the feral cat picking at your tent scraps and then running out of bullets when the actual bear shows up.

What's Russia going to do? Say, somehow, after 1 million casualties and 5 years of war economy, they somehow annex Eastern Ukraine. How do you think they will have anything left anymore?
 
AfonsoAlves said:
This is fearmongering of the highest order, and there isn't even a political agenda behind it. This is just doomposting.

This is like using all of your rounds of your bear-rifle to shoot at the feral cat picking at your tent scraps and then running out of bullets when the actual bear shows up.

What's Russia going to do? Say, somehow, after 1 million casualties and 5 years of war economy, they somehow annex Eastern Ukraine. How do you think they will have anything left anymore?
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How is it fearmongering when we can turn on the tv and see folks being killed every day? It's literally happening. It seems to be your china prediction that's the present fearmongering.

You can't have schrodinger's russia that is at the same time about to crumble under the pressures of a war economy and is also so powerful that would require nato to use all their bullets on them and be left with nothing against china. Which is it? Are they about to go down they just need a little push or are they so powerful nato would need to go all in?
 
maniak said:
Sounds like a great strategy, saving for a hypothetical war instead of dealing with the active one.

How long will it take for russia to just crumble into the abyss after winning the war in ukraine and getting tons of help from china?
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That crumbling is already ongoing. While Russia isn't as isolated as many in the West hoped it still is a fact that Russia stopped existing as a producer of cheap high tech goods in the eyes of the world. While they delivered military equipment to many states who didn't want to pay the premium for Western weaponry those orders and exports now effectively dropped to zero. Russian relations to several states completely turned around. While being supporters of Iran, North Korea and still also China they now rely on weapon imports from those countries. All Russia has to pay for is their resources. That is probably also a sustainable model to exist, but on a lower level than before and already that wasn't great.
 
maniak said:
How is it fearmongering when we can turn on the tv and see folks being killed every day? It's literally happening. It seems to be your china prediction that's the present fearmongering.

You can't have schrodinger's russia that is at the same time about to crumble under the pressures of a war economy and is also so powerful that would require nato to use all their bullets on them and be left with nothing against china. Which is it? Are they about to go down they just need a little push or are they so powerful nato would need to go all in?
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nobody has suggested using all their bullets on Russia? It was just an analogy. My ideal solution is to give them NATO Graveyard equipment and let them do what they want with that.

China prediction that's fear mongering? Do you want me to do a full breakdown on why China is exponentially a bigger threat than Russia ever will be?
 
"It's time to start talking and living the reality — the unpleasant, sad reality –– that we're not winning this war."
"But we haven't lost it yet... It's not too late. This year will be decisive. And how all of us, the whole of society, will face reality –– this will determine everything that follows."
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@AfonsoAlves

Thanks a lot for your posts, you're obviously more knowledgeable than me in military matters, but I still have a few objections and questions. Your posts need a careful read and a bit of time to formulate a proper reply. I'll get back to you once a find the time.
 
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AfonsoAlves said:
This is fearmongering of the highest order, and there isn't even a political agenda behind it. This is just doomposting.

This is like using all of your rounds of your bear-rifle to shoot at the feral cat picking at your tent scraps and then running out of bullets when the actual bear shows up.

What's Russia going to do? Say, somehow, after 1 million casualties and 5 years of war economy, they somehow annex Eastern Ukraine. How do you think they will have anything left anymore?
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Besides 150M people, control of a huge proportion of the world's most demanded resources, a military victory and the certainty of total external and internal impunity?

I mostly agree with your points though, and think that that's the way some political and military analists are seeing it. I just think that historic powers usually don't die easily and Russia itself has managed to revive time and time again after several crisis and beatdowns during the last 250 years. I wouldn't count them out.
 
AfonsoAlves said:
NATO have always been guilty of this since it's inception.

"The enemy are too powerful, we need action and we need it NOW or we will be overrun!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_1975_ship_reclassification

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/collection/what-was-missile-gap#:~:text=The Missile Gap was in,that of the United States.

https://www.historynet.com/mig-25/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538895

The missile gap is the funniest, NATO basically went into a frenzy that the ICBM count and quality by the Soviets were much higher and better. The reports that came out of press releases were that by 1962 the Soviets would have 500+ ICBM's to USA's 100.
The reality? Soviets, at the time, had four (4) ICBMs. The prediction was off by 125x! As a result, the US threw $$$$ into ICBM production and research anyway.

The Cruiser Gap was also funny:



If you have time look at the development lifecycle for the F-15. When the Mig-25 first released, it sent Western Air force planners into a frenzy, believing they had no counter to this amazing new air superiority fighter. They beefed up the requirements for the F-15 to a unfathomable level and threw infinite dollars at it. Then a Mig-25 pilot defected and the western analysts looked at it -> The mig25 was a hulking mess of an airframe that couldn't do half of what the intelligence analysts thought. What ended up happening was the West now had a plane (F-15) that was designed to counter a Soviet Plane that only existed in fiction. Which was why in the consequent decade F-15 absolutely ruled the sky in every engagement it fought in, with the best performance record of a fighter plane in history, with a Kill-Loss ratio of 104 : 0

Look at the way the Gulf War was predicted.

Just before Desert Shield/Desert Storm kicked off, US CENTCOM estimated around 10k dead Americans and 20-30k wounded Americans. 10,000 Body Bags had been flown into Saudi Arabia in anticipation for this and all this was released to the public for expectations management.
The reality? 292 KIA, of which half was friendly fire. 776 were WIA, of which half were friendlyfire. The estimates were off by around 50x for KIA and 40x for WIA.

https://www.dupuyinstitute.org/blog/2016/05/17/assessing-the-1990-1991-gulf-war-forecasts/

tl;dr: NATO loves a good exaggeration to manage the public expectations and to also obtain more funding.
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Interesting to have someone with a military intelligence background essentially say the quiet part out loud about cold war military-industrial complex bullshit and incompetence. Old news of course, but bleakly depressing that we're getting a second go around with China while the climate dies around us. Neither country has a way of viewing geopolitics that seems capable of avoiding future conflict in this context of environmental degradation.
 
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