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

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Soldato
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There is a vast amount out there on OSINT channels now - this thread is just skimming the top. There are some people who do really great deep dives as well and those who do a more general situation report such as https://odysee.com/@S2Underground
His slides are quite well done with some nice collation of information. The "just the facts" statements with these things annoy me though. They're not facts.
 
Man of Honour
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I haven't looked but is it actually a US Globalhawk or in fact the NATO AGS RQ-4D? It matters because the sensor fits are completely different of course.

No idea - other than from the general flight pattern it appears to be an unmanned aircraft. The Squawk codes are typically American ones for uncontrolled flight.
 
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Why do some military craft have their transponders switched on? Is it to send a message to say, for example, that they're submarine hunting in a certain area because their intelligence is on point and knows there's something there?

I guess for the recon above Ukraine, they know Russia knows they'll be there so it's not so much a matter of secrecy.
 
Man of Honour
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Why do some military craft have their transponders switched on? Is it to send a message to say, for example, that they're submarine hunting in a certain area because their intelligence is on point and knows there's something there?

I guess for the recon above Ukraine, they know Russia knows they'll be there so it's not so much a matter of secrecy.

Mostly it is because they are operating in controlled/civil airspace with other users, etc. those maritime patrol aircraft will often disappear once away from normal traffic only reappearing on ADSB when returning home. I'm only guessing but with the drones they probably leave them on during non-combat operations as they are autonomous/remote controlled in case something goes wrong so other air traffic can avoid collisions.

EDIT: Also a lot of Russian military aircraft don't appear on flight radar unlike Western militaries, only their government planes tend to and some military police groups, etc. when they send probing bombers towards the UK you rarely see the Russian aircraft on flight radar but can see the responding aircraft often and/or other aircraft re-routing.
 
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Soldato
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I suspect that the Ukraine military will feed the initial brunt, then once the US and allies have taken stock of the situation they will respond. The US is never first to a fight, it prefers to be sitting in the wings observing and planning the use of their toys.

The Russians are doing precisely what they did in WW2, the US too - China will be the interesting variable.


Obviously not counting the gulf wars, Vietnam, Korea, Kosovo etc etc etc.

Nice theory though, did you go with ww1&2 and stop?
 
Man of Honour
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Obviously not counting the gulf wars, Vietnam, Korea, Kosovo etc etc etc.

Nice theory though, did you go with ww1&2 and stop?

Not sure if I'm misunderstanding you or NickK but most of those the US got involved in after they'd been ongoing for some time and/or initially only sent advisors and supplies. Vietnam for instance things kicked off around 54/55 but the US didn't go in hard until 64 - before that their contributions were mostly advisors and supplies.
 
Soldato
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Without Russia Germany would’ve conquered Europe. I’m not cheerleading for anyone but these parts of the war were and are conveniently left out. The Russians had more casualties than all other allied nations combined, including the Jews.

You also forgot that they helped build the Nazi war machine up in the first place and helped kick it all off by holding hands with the Nazis in thier invasion of Poland.
Then let's not forget the atrocities they committed as well, we may have won ww2 in the west but the eastern nations just replaced one dictator with another and got zero Freedom.

History huh
 
Soldato
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Not sure if I'm misunderstanding you or NickK but most of those the US got involved in after they'd been ongoing for some time and/or initially only sent advisors and supplies. Vietnam for instance things kicked off around 54/55 but the US didn't go in hard until 64 - before that their contributions were mostly advisors and supplies.

The US start at the top with financing, then work their way down the engagement list. Softening the target with sanctions, before committing overpowering forces at great cost.
 
Man of Honour
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SAM422 - Gulfstream - on the way over the UK I'm guessing someone else from the US on the way to Munich. (ADSB puts it as out of Washington).
 
Soldato
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Why do some military craft have their transponders switched on? Is it to send a message to say, for example, that they're submarine hunting in a certain area because their intelligence is on point and knows there's something there?

I guess for the recon above Ukraine, they know Russia knows they'll be there so it's not so much a matter of secrecy.

For submarine warfare where your standard number one priority is stealth, it's like both (a) saying hello we can track you and (b) a track location also acts to block or mark out an area of avoidance. Submarines have a maximum speed, that aircraft can use to simply nullify the stealth of the threat.
The bases in the north are particularly good at this.. which annoys the Russians. They probably know the mantainance state of the submarine by the sonic signature better than the Russian military know from their reports and paperwork.
 
Soldato
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FZ1716 says hold my beer, interesting the Russian/Ukraine border is devoid of any aircraft though

They've probably marked out a no-fly zone to (a) prevent any oops daddy I started the war early, (b) allow immediate military response with drones etc, and (c) not provide any easy targets from ground-to-air at the start of any action.
 
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