Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar

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Colonel_Klinck said:
I think pretty much everyone thought Ukraine would fall within 2 weeks.
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While I still don't think Ukraine would have surrendered simply because Russia took Kiev, In fairness to Russia that possibility was closer than many may remember.

Their initial plan was fairly simple, get across the border undetected (FAIL), fly in special forces guys from Belarus and take key airfields (SUCCESS), fly in transports from Belarus with hundreds of elite Spetsnaz on board to those airfields to secure the surrounding area (FAIL), then spam in transports with heavy equipment to help establish air superiority in those areas and then bring in tonnes of equipment and take Kiev (ABORTED).

Russia basically lost in the first 48 hours, they've just spent the last year feeding men and equipment into a grinder rather than admit it.

Obviously they didn't expect their stealth invasion force to get captured on CCTV, their transports from Belarus with hundreds of elite Spetsnaz on board to get blown out of the sky and their forces holding the airfields to get overrun and slaughtered. But at least they were prepared for it and had a solid "Plan B" ready to go, no wait, they had no "Plan B" so instead decided "What would Saddam do?" and sent a massive column down a narrow road with no air cover.

For anyone too young to remember how that went for Saddam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death I think the name of the page gives it away :P

I suspect many people will become rich form writing books on the subject of just how hard Russia screwed this invasion up lol.
 
Harlequin said:
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If you find it interesting a made a much more in depth post on it many pages back.

Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar

Yeah I'd say this is the truth... no one uses a fighter jet as a battering ram, shirley? Especially not when your target has half the value of your fighter jet and your country is struggling to build fighter jets due to sanctions. I'm in the pilot messed up camp rather than the pilot...
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk
 
Roar87 said:
I think Russia has legitimate security concerns with regards to Ukraine joining NATO, it's similar to how the US was willing to go to war to stop the USSR putting missiles in Cuba, right off the coast of Florida.
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I think Russis's real concern was the transfer of western democratic ideas and ideals moving ever closer to their own borders would lead to an eventual collapse of the Russian government and the people holding power did not want that to happen.

Russia wanted to be bordered by countries like Belaruss and if those countries did start to move west, well then, the Russian army would be there to 'help' the threatened dictator. Additionally the show of force against Ukraine would show any country that was thinking about looking west to think again.

Russia has of course seen its cultural influence reduce - but it's reach into Germany, Poland, the Baltics and may other european countries hasn't been universally welcome and they can hardly be surprised that some of these countries were more than happy to see Russia's influence leave.

I don't think this has gone to plan, if anything it might hasten some border countries into moving away from Moscow.
 
ubersonic said:
Russia's biggest aerial advantage thus far has been that their newer Su and MiG fighters can carry modern long range missiles whereas Ukraine's Soviet era Su and Mig fighters are limited to pre-90s missiles with lower range. The crux of the issue is that Ukraine's fighters can be shot down before ever getting into range to shoot back.

The F-16 is essentially the cheapest western plane that will give them access to western missiles with comparable range to Russia's.
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In one video the pilot was saying the radar range on the older Mig's is a fraction of what's available to the Russian pilots. Kind of amazing the UAF is somehow still in the fight at this point given Russia's overwhelming advantage in terms of numbers and tech.
 
Scougar said:
What concerns does Russia actually have? NATO doesn't invade anyone. It's a defensive pact.
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So I'm not the only one wondering what these "legitimate security concerns" are...
I'd like to see this phrase quantified into genuine valid concerns rather than just a phrase thrown around!
 
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Freddie1980 said:
In one video the pilot was saying the radar range on the older Mig's is a fraction of what's available to the Russian pilots. Kind of amazing the UAF is somehow still in the fight at this point given Russia's overwhelming advantage in terms of numbers and tech.
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I suspect training, and actual willingness to fight are making a difference, as well as quite likely some assistance from other countries passing on intel of all sorts and probably a lot of "commercial" surveillance being used, IIRC there are several companies that do things like offer photo footage of farmland as a commercial service up to several times a day to allow farmers to track live stock/see how their fields are doing multiple times a day, as well as the likes of "forest fire tracking" satellites, both systems are probably extremely useful for tracking vehicle and troop movements etc, as if you can track a single cow or a small fire from orbit you can probably track a tank or a truck much more easily (or at least that's the sort of thing that might be used to explain it, whilst the US, UK and various other countries send images from their defence satellites;))
 
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Werewolf said:
I suspect training, and actual willingness to fight are making a difference, as well as quite likely some assistance from other countries passing on intel of all sorts and probably a lot of "commercial" surveillance being used, IIRC there are several companies that do things like offer photo footage of farmland as a commercial service up to several times a day to allow farmers to track live stock/see how their fields are doing multiple times a day, as well as the likes of "forest fire tracking" satellites, both systems are probably extremely useful for tracking vehicle and troop movements etc, as if you can track a single cow or a small fire from orbit you can probably track a tank or a truck much more easily (or at least that's the sort of thing that might be used to explain it, whilst the US, UK and various other countries send images from their defence satellites;))
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what? :)
 
sorry I probably was/am waffling a bit:) I'm barely awake.


Effectively they're motivated and probably have better intel and communications between units than the Russians, which will go some way to negating the Russians advantage in numbers and supposed advantage in tech, as the Russians may have theoretically better tech but their comms are known to be pretty terrible and information sharing slow. Add in that the Ukrainians are not just using their own tech but anything and everything that they can find that is useful/available regardless of it's intended use, and the Russians seem scared/unable to use their equipment how it was designed/doctrine calls for it which means the Ukrainians are in a better place than it would have appeared on paper.

I've not heard if they've done it, but as an example of "commercial" tech that could offset some Russian advantage (and hide the sharing of actual intelligence from say the USA), there are commercial satellite services with an imaging resolution of around 50cm*, that's potentially extremely useful in locating possible anti air assets (or troop movements) and probably wouldn't have been taken into account as an ability for the Ukrainians if you looked just at their military equipment.


*One of them was aimed specifically at providing low cost regular imaging (as in at least daily) to farmers to help monitor crop growth and the movement of animals on large farms (including finding individual animals) and farm security, IIRC it was covering the US and Europe, and Ukraine has exactly the sort of farmland it was designed to cover.
 
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steve45 said:
So I'm not the only one wondering what these "legitimate security concerns" are...
I'd like to see this phrase quantified into genuine valid concerns rather than just a phrase thrown around!
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Russian paranoia about the West? Ironically its europe that used to feel threatened by the USSR. What this is really about is perceived waning of russian influence and power and Putin in particular can't stand it he's a nationalist as well as a tyrant.
 
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