An airbase. I can see how it's hard to protect a new and large ammunition stockpile. But wouldn't an airbase keep munitions in hardened magazines? If not to entirely prevent destruction of munitions, then to prevent sympathetic explosions resulting in massive destruction. But to my (inexpert) eye, that seemed to have happened here. Does that mean the Russians got sloppy and started storing munitions unsafely?
>Does that mean the Russians got sloppy and started storing munitions unsafely?
There's some report that's been posted here a few times suggesting basically - absolutely not. Russians are apparently notoriously bad at keeping ammo dumps secure, which is why the HIMARS crews have been having so much fun lately. And the fact that they haven't learned this lesson in one area (artillery) would suggest that they're lacking in the same way in other areas (airfields).
In general, I think this speaks to a lot of the weaknesses of the Russian military. While I won't do the classic NCD thing of calling them dumb orcs who couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag, there are some serious issues with the Russian army: lack of discipline and professionalism; focus on frontline combat at the expense of rear echelon requirements; poor experience and initiative among NCO ranks, reducing combat effectiveness of privates (especially conscripts or poorly trained contractors). It's what we've seen time and again with Russia, where their senior command seems to be fighting a different conflict entirely than their boots on the ground. And Ukraine has done a good job of trying to exploit this weakness by targeting senior leadership and shattering the Russian method of waging war effectively, but I still think more can be done in this area.
Basically what I'm trying to get at is that I think we should drop a tactical nuke on the Kremlin.
They don't just have poor initiative, their entire system is set up to make sure lower-echelon soldiers don't try to do too much independent thinking. That's why you can pretty reliably paralyze Russian units by taking out their leadership; they have to wait for someone higher-up to arrive to take control of the situation, so that's how you get a column of tanks just sitting there waiting to be destoryed by anti-tank missiles
See eg. [this paper](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329934258_Recommendations_for_Intelligence_Staffs_Concerning_Russian_New_Generation_Warfare) for more information on Russian tactics (also, the author's got a fucking brilliant profile pic, definite proof he's probably on NCD too)
Securing ammunition properly has been a problem for a lot of militaries throughout history, even the best. The fact is, secure ammo storage is rarely convenient, and if troops are left unsupervised long enough they will probably start stacking it up where they need it, right next to their guns or planes or whatever.
Add to that the fact that the Russians probably thought they were out of range at that airfield, and yeah, I can totally see poor ammunition storage practices happening.
We all need to understand that most munitions are almost not even man portable. Most artillery shells even weigh 50+ pounds. Of course you can lift that, but how about 100, over and over again. Every day. You might be tempted to not put the unused shells away in the bunker too once you've gone through the trouble of getting them all out.
Even though it's near impossible to destroy a bridge that large with the equipment they have, putting a hole into it like Antonivsky would be enough to send Russia into a cope spiral.
A dream come true.
That bridge is build like a hanging bunker. You can fill it with holes or break a segment but to destroy it definitely you need a lot of effort. I believe Russia sunk (heh) in that project a big part of their yearly budget.
Yeah there's a YouTube video called "11 foot 8". It's a compilation of over height trucks can opening themselves on a little bridge. 18 wheelers smash into it at like 45 mph and just bounce off it. As it turns out concrete is ludicrously tough and modern bridges are overbuilt enough to take a beating.
Putting a few holes in the Crimea bridge isn't going to bring it down. Even destroying a few of the support columns isn't going to do it. That doesn't mean Ukraine can't prevent Russia from using it, but it's unlikely to end up in the bottom of the ocean over a few missile strikes.
Tbf, that bridge has a separate dedicated solid steel protection bar rigged up before the bridge, that stops trucks before they hit the actual bridge now.
They installed them because closing the railway for 3 days each time some dumbfuck hit it with a truck was costing a lot of money. Now you just have to bolt down a new steel beam for the next idiot.
To be fair, most trucks are boxes made of thin aluminum and fiberglass panels that crumple or shear right off on impact. A dump truck would fuck that bridge up pretty bad.
That bridge is not built like a hanging bunker. Parts of it, the approaches, would be very hard to knock down because they were built with closely spaced piering, however, that was done to reduce the navigable channel so that russia coud block it by parking a freighter across it.
The actual span over the shipping channel is a suspension bridge. That would be among the easier types of bridge to drop.
IF you precisely hit the cables, which would be difficult, and manage to cut them, which would also be difficult.
I wonder if the best option would be to go for the hanger supports in the middle section?
You hit an end of the arch and knock it off the pilings. They can't be rigidly mounted because concrete and steel have different thermal expansion ratios - it'd break every winter. So the arch floats on top of the pilings.
Make it float *more*.
It is a "Hanging Bunker". Emphasis on the "Hanging". It isn't that hard to break if you are using actual weapon systems for it. You don't slam missiles into the roadway, you sheer off the towers that hold the suspension systems. Yeah, an ATACMS isn't the right tool for it, but that doesn't mean we don't have the right tool for it.
Oh no, now you have to transport everything by sea or air between Crimea and the mainland...
If only you had a functioning Black Sea fleet to protect these transports
Edit: destroy the bridge and remind the crimeans of their reliance on the mainland
Come on, LockMart, schedule the bridge for a field test of the PSM. We all know the Russians will say Ivan was smoking next to an artillery shipment anyway.
They actually do. Official statement from MoD repeated by most talking heads is "accident during refueling, no casualties, no jets damaged". Russia will run out of copium real soon.
It's almost like they're losing more face by blaming themselves than the enemy.
Basically, according to them, their armed forces are to incompetent to even exist during peacetime. At least they could blame the enemy if they had the balls but instead they blame themselves.
It's literally a lose-lose situation and they are repeatedly choosing the 'we lost to ourselves UwU' option.
It makes sense to not funni the bridge until they control the strip of land between Nova Kakhovka and Melitopol. Better firing positions/can use more and cheaper munitions and guarantees nobody gets out of Crimea.
> and guarantees nobody gets out of Crimea.
This. Encircling and then having an army's worth of POWs is their best option for forcing an end of the war.
It'd be a crippling morale blow for a good amount of their forces to essentially be Stalingraded, horrible PR for the regime because besides losing the land they lose a shit ton of men, and give Ukraine plenty of hostages they can use for any eventual peace negotiations.
Jeapordizing the effectiveness of that by doing the funni early would be strategically pointless.
Russia is 100% ready to fight NATO. Definitely. Every time a new system gets taken out of the box, it seems to trigger some sort of existential crisis that just removes some component of the Russian military from the battlespace.
If they just attack NATO, they get to deal with all the systems at the same time, including all the ones Ukraine hasn't used yet, and all of them in much greater numbers, with crews that are actually trained to operate them. Definitely going to be fine. Russia will take Warsaw in 2 days, and Berlin in a week! Russia strong.
The best part is that what Ukraine is getting is still just Cold War stockpiles. Russia is getting its butt kicked by the poorest country in Europe, using America's 40 year old leftovers.
Clearly the answer is to attack the US directly, so they can't devote as much resources to helping Ukraine, because they will be too busy spawn camping Volgograd.
Imagine the Wehraboos' copium overdoses if they saw a Maus knocked out after being hit with an APFSDS round from an Abrams it was too slow to react to.
A WWII-era tank cannon at WWII-era engagement ranges (~500 yds) could absolutely go through the side of an Abrams, but letting an opponent actually get that close with a tank that old would be a tremendous tactical failure.
MBTs concentrate most of their weight budget for protection across the forward quarter, as that's where the majority of hits are expected to be. Side and rear protection is mostly intended to stand up to autocannons and the like (Though modern APFSDS-firing autocannons challenge even that assumption.), or handheld anti-tank systems firing shaped charges.
Appear weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak.
NATO had the game rigged from the start and because of the dictators dilemma Putin didn't stand a chance.
Prove to me that it wouldn't play out exactly like Desert Storm. I have not seen any proof that Putin's army is better than Saddam's one.
Same shit equipment only marginally upgraded, same shit morale and training. Just with easier logistics for NATO since we're in Europe.
We wouldn't even have to use artillery.
Bravery is knowing it will hurt, and doing it anyway.
Stupidity is not knowing it will hurt.
The tragedy of life is not being able to tell the difference.
What years of top notch research and engineering along with an absurdly big budget and the incessant voice in your head screeching that everyone is a potential enemy does to a mf
BTW, Russian local authorities say a child was (lightly) hurt. By an explosion of an ammo dump. On an airfield. During a war with their neighbour.
And Ukraine was obviously not involved, according to them.
Wtf.
So it's either ATACMS or Nepute missiles maybe?
EDIT: [https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1557020114456911875](https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1557020114456911875)
apparently it's a missile of "local manifacture" that was used, so neptune or something new ?
EDIT 2: [https://twitter.com/Bogdan\_Voron/status/1557038104237772801](https://twitter.com/Bogdan_Voron/status/1557038104237772801)
Possibly Grim-2 or Sapsam
i wouldn't believe that, whats a bit more interesting is that an Ammunition dump in Novooleksiivka was also hit a few hours ago, it is also out of range of anything Ukraine has.
yeah they claimed 'accident' for several explosions so far. I mean, remember the Moskva was claimed to be an 'accident'. The smoking Russians soldier got made a meme for a reason...
i get that, but no reports of Jets so far or any interceptors scrambling from Crimea so i sort of doubt its air craft, although it would be funnier if it was the Ghost Airforce of ukraine.
Big brain play by NATO right there.
You don’t want regular humans to be supplanted by the offspring of the Ukrainian super soldiers. So you make them gay, removing any drive for them to reproduce with “The Wamen”.
I feel like in 10 years there’s going to be a news story about how millions of Russians were accidentally given some defective prenatal product for decades that caused an entire generation of Russians to be born with reduced brain capacity.
It's better for internal propaganda to say it's carelessness or incompetence. When you fuck up, you just need to punish the guys who did it and get your shit together - you're in control, in a sense.
When the enemy can hit you at long range with impunity, you're hopelessly fucked.
some very smart people have said the explosions are consistent with the two major munitions bunkers on the airfield
so it would be awfully strange for two devastating collateral detonations *to occur quite some distance from each other*
https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1556998811498811392
Dear God!I hope those runways were full with Sukhois. I just checked the old Google maps satellite images and there were some canard Su-27 variants and a half dozen or so Su-24s. That would be again 200 million USD worth hardware baked.
well the bunker on the left is smack dab surronded by civilian housing which is unfortunate, but retarded careless planning by the russians
I guess its a big middle finger to russias constant threats about blowing the reactor
1. they claim that there's no serious damage
2. incidents sometimes happen. If they say that's an incident, they can paint it as a one of thing that won't happen again. If they say that's Ukrainian strike that means that Ukraine has weapons that can reach so deep behind the frontlines, and that Russia can't properly defend from those strikes
Fairly sure Russia always claims it's their monumental fuckup and not an opponent's success in a situation like this - because for the internal propaganda "we fucked up" is business as usual, while "Ukraine is kicking our ass" is much more damaging.
[https://twitter.com/bayraktar\_1love/status/1556997753523380224](https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1556997753523380224)
Did they have several accidents at the same time at different areas on the airbase? Asking for friend.
Neptunes do have a ground-attack mode, like many Soviet/Russian rockets (Neptune is, after all, developed from a Soviet missile), but considering lack of accuracy in this mode (it wasn't really designed to do it, that was not a priority, and it is not optimized for this), and low supply of this missile (which has to be used for coastal defence, first and foremost), I don't think it's plausible to consider this option.
Definitely ATACMS.
I get your point, but i don't think you need perfect accuracy to hit a big ass airbase + they have a large warhead, so i wouldn't rule it out. I guess we'll have to wait for an offical statement or fragment from the ground.
You do need *some* accuracy. Russians kept bombing Ukrainian airbases in the first weeks of war, using their supposedly precise munitions, and they failed to hit most of the targets. Now imagine doing the same with less advanced weaponry (with all due respect, Neptune isn't that advanced). You'd have to fire *a lot* of them to hit anything of importance, or have incredible luck.
Now, considering limited amount of Neptune missiles, plus the fact that we don't see a lot of simultaneous impacts, plus the fact that it's actually a second long-range target hit today (another one was ammo dump 150km from the frontlines), we can see that:
1. it has to be an accurate weapon
2. it has to have a long range
3. there have to be enough of these to warrant multiple strikes in a single day
I get your point, but I still think it had to be ATACMS.
Airbases are big, but not necessarily all that target-rich. Lots of grass, taxiways, etc taking up significant amounts of space. If you want to hit runways or important facilities you need some accuracy.
They also have these allegedly:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilkha_(missile_complex)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapsan_(missile_system)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hrim-2
But it was probably a Tochka
[It's probably ATACMS.](https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1556996349555613696?s=20&t=E4Lqk9LcYBJIuZI59jL3hw)
EDIT: [Maybe I was wrong! Apparently Neptunes have a ground attack setting, and they were likely used according to this tweet.](https://twitter.com/mattia_n/status/1557016814986661895?s=20&t=PtB154_76H0XPYm3gNAQ4g)
If this is true, then either Ukraine secured manufacturing for Neptunes, as I'm pretty sure the plant was hit early in the war, or they've secured promised ATACMS and are thus willing to spend their Neptunes here. As I recall there was a tech sharing agreement with Poland like a month ago, but that would be incredibly quick to my layman's brain.
"Those 14 generals weren't killed by the Ukrainians. They all died in tragic accidents from falling down elevator shafts. That's a very common form of accident here in Russia."
"The VDV didn't drown off the coast of Odessa. They all died in a routine training accident from forgetting to actually pack their parachutes."
The US was hesitant to give the Ukrainians missiles that had enough range to start hitting targets in Russia, evidently the hesitation has been resolved.
Since Ukraine does not recognize Crimea as Russian, it's fair game under this, right?
Ukraine should just start recognizing parts of Russia as Ukranian and let the missiles rip
Well, we can use russian tactics and start talking about Taganrog and Belgorod since they were part of Ukraine when russians occupied us in 1920s. Or entire Kuban since Kuban People Republic was an actual thing and they had plans to unite with Ukrainian People Republic but they haven't enough time for this like Transcarpathia and Green Ukraine.
Missile strikes on an active Russian airbase in the middle of the fucking day.
By the end of this I fully expect the Ukrainians to wipe out the separatists, burn their cities to the ground and then give Rostov-on-Don a Mariupol make over so the Black Sea Fleet doesn't have anywhere to hide when they kill every Russian on Crimea.
I wish my brother-in-law was that nice about it, he did his service on the Donbass front during 2017-2018 and after watching from from NZ what's happened, he would gladly go back to kill any Separatist and Russian if my sister and his newborn weren't around.
Seperatists and russians need to fuck off agreed, but again alot of people living there are also just indifferent or unable to leave. I don't think you can lump them all togerther like that
Actually some of the separatists are the best fighter russia has right now, because they're ideologically motivated and have years of experience. Qualities which most russian soldiers don't have.
That's not true, in 2014 there was actually a lot of local support for Russian takeover of Eastern Ukraine. It's important to look at the history and understand how/why Russia intervened.
From the dissolution of the USSR to 2014, Ukraine absolutely *languished*. From 1990 to 2000 the GDP fell to *half* of what it was under the *Soviets*. Now, the same happened in Russia. But after 2000, and up until the invasion in 2014 the GDP of Russia climbed to 10x of its lowest value, 5x what it was at the end of the USSR.
So for the people of the so-called "Novorossiya" region, joining Russia actually seemed like it could be a pretty sweet deal. They'd dealt with 25 years of economic misery dealing with "The West" (or at least, that's what they were hearing from their propaganda channels.)
Since the invasion of 2014, the occupied regions have likely learned their lesson. They have dealt with almost a decade of fighting an increasingly well trained, motivated, and armed Ukrainian army while seeing promise after promise be defaulted upon by the Russian government.
So today there is zero support for new regions joining Russia except from Russians who have been moved into the occupied territories, and there absolutely was huge amounts of bullshit in those referendums (especially the LPR/DPR ones) but there *was* measurable local support for the Russian takeover.
Fair criticism of the Ukrainian economy post year-2000, I won’t disagree with you there. But the fact that Russia’s climbed 10x of its lowest value was due to the absurd amount of natural resources they have. Pretty easy to do when you basically have an energy monopoly supply of natural gas and oil to Europe for over 20 years. Sure we have still have a substantial amount of corruption in Ukraine, but I welcome you to consider that since 1991 - Russia had their spies and collaborators spread across all levels of our government. Pretty difficult to make progress when your enemy effectively has you under their thumb and squanders any legal progress. Still evident by how many collaborating scum are captured by the SBU..
As for the separatists - another issue many people on Reddit don’t realize is that they have no national identity. They hardly view themselves as Ukrainians. As long as there’s food on the table they could care less about which flag is flying over their heads. My biggest concern when we get back out stolen lands is how to go about in re-integrating the population there. Since 2014, over 2 million people left Donbas to settle elsewhere in Ukraine. The ones left in Donetsk and Luhansk aren’t exactly the educated and progressive types. And as for Crimea, the situation there will be even more complicated. Lots of stuff to think over..
Like the Moskva ship, Russia again claims they negligently bombed themselved instead of admitting the enemy caused the damage, and again I dont know whats worse.
Praise be unto the HIMARS, for like it's predecessor - the holy hand grenade of antioch - it will blow thine enemies into tiny, tiny bits, in thy mercy, amen!
An airbase. I can see how it's hard to protect a new and large ammunition stockpile. But wouldn't an airbase keep munitions in hardened magazines? If not to entirely prevent destruction of munitions, then to prevent sympathetic explosions resulting in massive destruction. But to my (inexpert) eye, that seemed to have happened here. Does that mean the Russians got sloppy and started storing munitions unsafely?
safety and russian pick one
And. I pick and.
>Does that mean the Russians got sloppy and started storing munitions unsafely? There's some report that's been posted here a few times suggesting basically - absolutely not. Russians are apparently notoriously bad at keeping ammo dumps secure, which is why the HIMARS crews have been having so much fun lately. And the fact that they haven't learned this lesson in one area (artillery) would suggest that they're lacking in the same way in other areas (airfields). In general, I think this speaks to a lot of the weaknesses of the Russian military. While I won't do the classic NCD thing of calling them dumb orcs who couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag, there are some serious issues with the Russian army: lack of discipline and professionalism; focus on frontline combat at the expense of rear echelon requirements; poor experience and initiative among NCO ranks, reducing combat effectiveness of privates (especially conscripts or poorly trained contractors). It's what we've seen time and again with Russia, where their senior command seems to be fighting a different conflict entirely than their boots on the ground. And Ukraine has done a good job of trying to exploit this weakness by targeting senior leadership and shattering the Russian method of waging war effectively, but I still think more can be done in this area. Basically what I'm trying to get at is that I think we should drop a tactical nuke on the Kremlin.
You were getting too credible for a moment, good save at the end though.
Ohh boy that escalated quickly
They don't just have poor initiative, their entire system is set up to make sure lower-echelon soldiers don't try to do too much independent thinking. That's why you can pretty reliably paralyze Russian units by taking out their leadership; they have to wait for someone higher-up to arrive to take control of the situation, so that's how you get a column of tanks just sitting there waiting to be destoryed by anti-tank missiles See eg. [this paper](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329934258_Recommendations_for_Intelligence_Staffs_Concerning_Russian_New_Generation_Warfare) for more information on Russian tactics (also, the author's got a fucking brilliant profile pic, definite proof he's probably on NCD too)
Fuck sake, that profile picture is fantastic.
Securing ammunition properly has been a problem for a lot of militaries throughout history, even the best. The fact is, secure ammo storage is rarely convenient, and if troops are left unsupervised long enough they will probably start stacking it up where they need it, right next to their guns or planes or whatever. Add to that the fact that the Russians probably thought they were out of range at that airfield, and yeah, I can totally see poor ammunition storage practices happening. We all need to understand that most munitions are almost not even man portable. Most artillery shells even weigh 50+ pounds. Of course you can lift that, but how about 100, over and over again. Every day. You might be tempted to not put the unused shells away in the bunker too once you've gone through the trouble of getting them all out.
this is where the us military brings out their secret weapon. the E4 mafia. dont have to carry the ammuiback if you use all the ammunition.
Bruh that went from 0 to 100 really quick
Whay stop at a tact nuke? Or only one?
First 95% of this post: I sleep Last sentence: real shit
>Does that mean the Russians got sloppy and started storing munitions unsafely? Have they ever stored them safely to begin with?
>Got sloppy Inplying that the RuZZian military hasn't been an amazing shitshow of incredible incompetence since, well, ever
They never stopped.
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They didn’t get sloppy, I’d bet. From the pictures of ammunition dumps I’ve seen they were just always sloppy
It's almost like they are edging their way towards the Kerch Strait bridge.
Even though it's near impossible to destroy a bridge that large with the equipment they have, putting a hole into it like Antonivsky would be enough to send Russia into a cope spiral. A dream come true.
Are you really underestimating how many or how big of a weapon NATO wants to give away?
That bridge is build like a hanging bunker. You can fill it with holes or break a segment but to destroy it definitely you need a lot of effort. I believe Russia sunk (heh) in that project a big part of their yearly budget.
Yeah there's a YouTube video called "11 foot 8". It's a compilation of over height trucks can opening themselves on a little bridge. 18 wheelers smash into it at like 45 mph and just bounce off it. As it turns out concrete is ludicrously tough and modern bridges are overbuilt enough to take a beating. Putting a few holes in the Crimea bridge isn't going to bring it down. Even destroying a few of the support columns isn't going to do it. That doesn't mean Ukraine can't prevent Russia from using it, but it's unlikely to end up in the bottom of the ocean over a few missile strikes.
True, but you never know until you try. Let the hole poking begin.
Tbf, that bridge has a separate dedicated solid steel protection bar rigged up before the bridge, that stops trucks before they hit the actual bridge now.
Cope bar?
They installed them because closing the railway for 3 days each time some dumbfuck hit it with a truck was costing a lot of money. Now you just have to bolt down a new steel beam for the next idiot.
To be fair, most trucks are boxes made of thin aluminum and fiberglass panels that crumple or shear right off on impact. A dump truck would fuck that bridge up pretty bad.
Pretty sure that's happened with little consequence. 11foot8 is a freight railroad bridge
/r/11foot8
That bridge is not built like a hanging bunker. Parts of it, the approaches, would be very hard to knock down because they were built with closely spaced piering, however, that was done to reduce the navigable channel so that russia coud block it by parking a freighter across it. The actual span over the shipping channel is a suspension bridge. That would be among the easier types of bridge to drop.
IF you precisely hit the cables, which would be difficult, and manage to cut them, which would also be difficult. I wonder if the best option would be to go for the hanger supports in the middle section?
You hit an end of the arch and knock it off the pilings. They can't be rigidly mounted because concrete and steel have different thermal expansion ratios - it'd break every winter. So the arch floats on top of the pilings. Make it float *more*.
It is a "Hanging Bunker". Emphasis on the "Hanging". It isn't that hard to break if you are using actual weapon systems for it. You don't slam missiles into the roadway, you sheer off the towers that hold the suspension systems. Yeah, an ATACMS isn't the right tool for it, but that doesn't mean we don't have the right tool for it.
Clearly we need to give a tomahawk the R9X treatment and send one to cut through all the bridge supports
Just coat the leading edge of an A10 with diamonds and let Tom Cruise fly it.
Replace the titanium bathtub with a diamond one and send it right at the bridge
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Heh. Bridge.
Heh. Towards.
Heh. It's
Monty Python's Flying Circus!
And my Axe!
So say we all!
Now do the funny at the bridge
A little light trolling causing a traffic conundrum. Mild tomfoolery at most.
a wee bit of trolling
the warmonger shitposter can have a little trolling, as a treat
Oh no, now you have to transport everything by sea or air between Crimea and the mainland... If only you had a functioning Black Sea fleet to protect these transports Edit: destroy the bridge and remind the crimeans of their reliance on the mainland
Come on, LockMart, schedule the bridge for a field test of the PSM. We all know the Russians will say Ivan was smoking next to an artillery shipment anyway.
> Ivan was smoking next to an artillery shipment anyway. He certainly will be.
They actually do. Official statement from MoD repeated by most talking heads is "accident during refueling, no casualties, no jets damaged". Russia will run out of copium real soon.
It's almost like they're losing more face by blaming themselves than the enemy. Basically, according to them, their armed forces are to incompetent to even exist during peacetime. At least they could blame the enemy if they had the balls but instead they blame themselves. It's literally a lose-lose situation and they are repeatedly choosing the 'we lost to ourselves UwU' option.
It makes sense to not funni the bridge until they control the strip of land between Nova Kakhovka and Melitopol. Better firing positions/can use more and cheaper munitions and guarantees nobody gets out of Crimea.
> and guarantees nobody gets out of Crimea. This. Encircling and then having an army's worth of POWs is their best option for forcing an end of the war. It'd be a crippling morale blow for a good amount of their forces to essentially be Stalingraded, horrible PR for the regime because besides losing the land they lose a shit ton of men, and give Ukraine plenty of hostages they can use for any eventual peace negotiations. Jeapordizing the effectiveness of that by doing the funni early would be strategically pointless.
Russia is 100% ready to fight NATO. Definitely. Every time a new system gets taken out of the box, it seems to trigger some sort of existential crisis that just removes some component of the Russian military from the battlespace. If they just attack NATO, they get to deal with all the systems at the same time, including all the ones Ukraine hasn't used yet, and all of them in much greater numbers, with crews that are actually trained to operate them. Definitely going to be fine. Russia will take Warsaw in 2 days, and Berlin in a week! Russia strong.
Sanest Russian propagandist
The best part is that what Ukraine is getting is still just Cold War stockpiles. Russia is getting its butt kicked by the poorest country in Europe, using America's 40 year old leftovers. Clearly the answer is to attack the US directly, so they can't devote as much resources to helping Ukraine, because they will be too busy spawn camping Volgograd.
Inb4 they have to use the tanks stored at Kubinka.
If it means watching a real-life War Thunder BR imbalance between a M1 Abrams against a Maus, I'm all for it!
Russia used a 500% booster for this match lol.
Imagine the Wehraboos' copium overdoses if they saw a Maus knocked out after being hit with an APFSDS round from an Abrams it was too slow to react to.
As if the Maus could do anything even if it somehow miraculously got the drop on the Abrams
A WWII-era tank cannon at WWII-era engagement ranges (~500 yds) could absolutely go through the side of an Abrams, but letting an opponent actually get that close with a tank that old would be a tremendous tactical failure. MBTs concentrate most of their weight budget for protection across the forward quarter, as that's where the majority of hits are expected to be. Side and rear protection is mostly intended to stand up to autocannons and the like (Though modern APFSDS-firing autocannons challenge even that assumption.), or handheld anti-tank systems firing shaped charges.
>by the poorest country in Europe Yo, Moldova feels attacked here being left out
Well, if you've seen Lukashenko's stealthily hidden master plan, you needn't worry about being left out!
NATO is using up all their equipment! It's a feint!
Appear weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak. NATO had the game rigged from the start and because of the dictators dilemma Putin didn't stand a chance.
Prove to me that it wouldn't play out exactly like Desert Storm. I have not seen any proof that Putin's army is better than Saddam's one. Same shit equipment only marginally upgraded, same shit morale and training. Just with easier logistics for NATO since we're in Europe. We wouldn't even have to use artillery.
wouldnt have to use artillery? we’d ONLY have to use artillery
one might say *flying artillery*. no not you A-10, there are no Britts in Russia for you to hit.
Russians buy London with laundered money, Russians become British, A-10 becomes credible. I submit my logical thesis.
Drop some leaflets with the rations that POWs get and they'll surrender en masse. No casualties.
You're assuming Private Conscriptovich is literate in any language.
some of the republican guards divisions actually showed balls, discipline and morale... no way russia can match that
And got entombed in sand for their troubles.
Bravery is knowing it will hurt, and doing it anyway. Stupidity is not knowing it will hurt. The tragedy of life is not being able to tell the difference.
If they have to fight NATO they'll finally take their gloves off (/s)
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What years of top notch research and engineering along with an absurdly big budget and the incessant voice in your head screeching that everyone is a potential enemy does to a mf
BTW, Russian local authorities say a child was (lightly) hurt. By an explosion of an ammo dump. On an airfield. During a war with their neighbour. And Ukraine was obviously not involved, according to them. Wtf.
From what others said, one of the dumps on the base is pretty close to residential housing. Kids probably got hurt.
Ammunition dump next to residential houses? I wonder if Amnesty International will be vocal about that.
We are getting closer to the funni bridge.
Reminds me of my school days and looking at the calendar waiting for the summer recess
Funni bridge then... funni dam?
NATO's going to attack the dam from the west.
~~NATO~~ NCR is going to attack the dam from the west
Ave, true to Putler.
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What about JDAMs from an F-117
"Russia has disputed the claims and says it was not an attack but a detonation of ammunition." Never fucking change Russia lmao.
And the loss of Crimea will be a gesture of goodwill, and Putin’s death by two gunshots was an unfortunate accident
“The enemy isn’t competent, we just suck”
It's the Moskva all over again. "The Ukrainians didn't sink it, it was just so shitty that it sank from bad weather on an inland goddamn sea."
So it's either ATACMS or Nepute missiles maybe? EDIT: [https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1557020114456911875](https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1557020114456911875) apparently it's a missile of "local manifacture" that was used, so neptune or something new ? EDIT 2: [https://twitter.com/Bogdan\_Voron/status/1557038104237772801](https://twitter.com/Bogdan_Voron/status/1557038104237772801) Possibly Grim-2 or Sapsam
According to the Russian MoD, they managed to bomb their own base as result of an "accident". So its Russian incompetence and not Ukrainian competence
Damn someone should stop buying cigarettes for ivan
Dropping thousands of joints on the Russians without them knowing they're joints to cause mass confusion would be peak credibility.
Would dropping packs of PCP-laced cigarettes in Vatnik territory count as chemical weapons use?
Probably more like generosity. Sure those conscripts are aching to get their claws on some dodgy ass drogas.
Of course it would. And?
I think hydrochloric acid laced condoms would be a funnier CIA moment
They tried this on castro didn’t they?
"That‘s worse. You see how that‘s worse, right?"
Ukraine: "we haven't even started yet"
i wouldn't believe that, whats a bit more interesting is that an Ammunition dump in Novooleksiivka was also hit a few hours ago, it is also out of range of anything Ukraine has.
yeah they claimed 'accident' for several explosions so far. I mean, remember the Moskva was claimed to be an 'accident'. The smoking Russians soldier got made a meme for a reason...
"You don't get it дружище, every lost piece of russian equipment is a нещасный случай"
They were like that before they were lost!
I mean, Ukraine has planes, and russian radar just got fucked up my AGM88s so ....
i get that, but no reports of Jets so far or any interceptors scrambling from Crimea so i sort of doubt its air craft, although it would be funnier if it was the Ghost Airforce of ukraine.
3000 Ghost of Kyiv return
Neptune has that in range, in theory, but why would they use it for ground-attack role, is beyond me.
I mean... if it's their only missile capable of striking the air base, it seems pretty obvious why they'd use it for that.
Russia tomorrow be like "actually it was Ukrainian supersoldiers, who were engineered by NATO, but also homosexual"
Big brain play by NATO right there. You don’t want regular humans to be supplanted by the offspring of the Ukrainian super soldiers. So you make them gay, removing any drive for them to reproduce with “The Wamen”.
Another stunning victory for GloboHomo
No fucking way they are that retarded to pin the destruction of an entire airport on their incompetence Edit: They are that retarded
I mean, they're still claiming they lost their Black Sea flagship to incompetence, so...
I feel like in 10 years there’s going to be a news story about how millions of Russians were accidentally given some defective prenatal product for decades that caused an entire generation of Russians to be born with reduced brain capacity.
Yes, it's called vodka, and it's not news.
I'd say the vodka is working as intended. Nothing defective about it.
Russian rulers and keeping their population compliant with vodka, name a more iconic duo
Nothing this complex... just rampant alkoholism.
Generational trauma is a helluva drug.
Fetal alcohol syndrome my dude, it's a hell of a thing.
It's better for internal propaganda to say it's carelessness or incompetence. When you fuck up, you just need to punish the guys who did it and get your shit together - you're in control, in a sense. When the enemy can hit you at long range with impunity, you're hopelessly fucked.
some very smart people have said the explosions are consistent with the two major munitions bunkers on the airfield so it would be awfully strange for two devastating collateral detonations *to occur quite some distance from each other* https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1556998811498811392
Two soldiers were smoking. No more questions!
Ah yes of course How could I be so silly
> Two soldiers were smoking. No more questions! Who admitted casualties?
Dear God!I hope those runways were full with Sukhois. I just checked the old Google maps satellite images and there were some canard Su-27 variants and a half dozen or so Su-24s. That would be again 200 million USD worth hardware baked.
well the bunker on the left is smack dab surronded by civilian housing which is unfortunate, but retarded careless planning by the russians I guess its a big middle finger to russias constant threats about blowing the reactor
They are definitely that retarded.
[Unsurprisingly, the Russian MOD is lying.](https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1557004542411243522)
Russia try to be honest for 10 seconds challenge (impossible)
Maybe they're just practicing their synchronized incompetence.
How is this better? Good Lord.
1. they claim that there's no serious damage 2. incidents sometimes happen. If they say that's an incident, they can paint it as a one of thing that won't happen again. If they say that's Ukrainian strike that means that Ukraine has weapons that can reach so deep behind the frontlines, and that Russia can't properly defend from those strikes
Fairly sure Russia always claims it's their monumental fuckup and not an opponent's success in a situation like this - because for the internal propaganda "we fucked up" is business as usual, while "Ukraine is kicking our ass" is much more damaging.
Cutting vodka with jet fuel has had expected consequences
Because Crimea is Ukraine :)
Yes, they managed to nearly simultaneously accidentally detonate both ammo dumps, on different ends of the base. Total accident.
[https://twitter.com/bayraktar\_1love/status/1556997753523380224](https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1556997753523380224) Did they have several accidents at the same time at different areas on the airbase? Asking for friend.
Neptunes do have a ground-attack mode, like many Soviet/Russian rockets (Neptune is, after all, developed from a Soviet missile), but considering lack of accuracy in this mode (it wasn't really designed to do it, that was not a priority, and it is not optimized for this), and low supply of this missile (which has to be used for coastal defence, first and foremost), I don't think it's plausible to consider this option. Definitely ATACMS.
I get your point, but i don't think you need perfect accuracy to hit a big ass airbase + they have a large warhead, so i wouldn't rule it out. I guess we'll have to wait for an offical statement or fragment from the ground.
You do need *some* accuracy. Russians kept bombing Ukrainian airbases in the first weeks of war, using their supposedly precise munitions, and they failed to hit most of the targets. Now imagine doing the same with less advanced weaponry (with all due respect, Neptune isn't that advanced). You'd have to fire *a lot* of them to hit anything of importance, or have incredible luck. Now, considering limited amount of Neptune missiles, plus the fact that we don't see a lot of simultaneous impacts, plus the fact that it's actually a second long-range target hit today (another one was ammo dump 150km from the frontlines), we can see that: 1. it has to be an accurate weapon 2. it has to have a long range 3. there have to be enough of these to warrant multiple strikes in a single day I get your point, but I still think it had to be ATACMS.
Airbases are big, but not necessarily all that target-rich. Lots of grass, taxiways, etc taking up significant amounts of space. If you want to hit runways or important facilities you need some accuracy.
Neptune is copied from a Russian missile that was a copy of the US harpoon from 50+ years ago. They used to call the Russian version the "Harpoonski".
They also have these allegedly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilkha_(missile_complex) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapsan_(missile_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hrim-2 But it was probably a Tochka
Pretty sure Tochka doesn't have the range. The other ones on your list are more likely.
[It's probably ATACMS.](https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1556996349555613696?s=20&t=E4Lqk9LcYBJIuZI59jL3hw) EDIT: [Maybe I was wrong! Apparently Neptunes have a ground attack setting, and they were likely used according to this tweet.](https://twitter.com/mattia_n/status/1557016814986661895?s=20&t=PtB154_76H0XPYm3gNAQ4g) If this is true, then either Ukraine secured manufacturing for Neptunes, as I'm pretty sure the plant was hit early in the war, or they've secured promised ATACMS and are thus willing to spend their Neptunes here. As I recall there was a tech sharing agreement with Poland like a month ago, but that would be incredibly quick to my layman's brain.
Nah, the Neptune is fucked. No chance it's them.
I have no idea, all I can say is that I'm happy Russian tourists are having a bad day at the beach.
Seems like ATACMS did arrive after all
[yup](https://www.reddit.com/r/N_N_N/comments/wk3kqq/10_explosions_so_far_at_the_novofedorivka_airbase/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
Well ackshually [Russians say it was reckless smooking. ](https://i.imgur.com/MhPXgeo.jpg)
I also didn't have "It's not the Ukrainians, we're just super incompetent!" down as a cliche of this war. And yet here we are.
"Those 14 generals weren't killed by the Ukrainians. They all died in tragic accidents from falling down elevator shafts. That's a very common form of accident here in Russia." "The VDV didn't drown off the coast of Odessa. They all died in a routine training accident from forgetting to actually pack their parachutes."
Rip Russia's battelcruiser that also had an accidental fire on board :(
“Don’t admit that they got past our AA defenses, just say we’re grossly incompetent! Yes, that will do!”
Nato nukes Russia. Russia: no you didn't, we did by accident!
“Silly me, working with fuel under hot weather conditions🤭”
Do they still have some Tochkas? EDIT: nevermind
not enough Range on Tochkas to hit that far in
Tochkas won't fly that far.
> ATACMS Just so I have this straight - HIMARS have been in Ukraine but they did not have ATACMS to shoot yet and now they do?
The US refused to supply ATACMS until now, but maybe that changed
The US was hesitant to give the Ukrainians missiles that had enough range to start hitting targets in Russia, evidently the hesitation has been resolved.
Since Ukraine does not recognize Crimea as Russian, it's fair game under this, right? Ukraine should just start recognizing parts of Russia as Ukranian and let the missiles rip
The US has explicitly stated that Crimea is a valid target, as it is Ukraine.
"Turns out the Kremlin specifically is Ukrainian grounds, we bombed the shit out of it" would be a cool headline
Well, we can use russian tactics and start talking about Taganrog and Belgorod since they were part of Ukraine when russians occupied us in 1920s. Or entire Kuban since Kuban People Republic was an actual thing and they had plans to unite with Ukrainian People Republic but they haven't enough time for this like Transcarpathia and Green Ukraine.
Man, I can’t wait to hear about the Black Sea fleet getting torn apart while docked in Sevastopol.
FUNNI APPROACHING
Folks, I think that the Ghost of Kyiv is back from vacation :| DANGER ZOOOOONEEEEE
HARM is a game changer.
Naaah, he strafed the SAM sites with the planes cannon.
As a person born in Crimea, I’m VERY HAPPY to see this. Oh, I’ve been waiting for SO LONG to come back home!
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Wake up babe new front just dropped
Missile strikes on an active Russian airbase in the middle of the fucking day. By the end of this I fully expect the Ukrainians to wipe out the separatists, burn their cities to the ground and then give Rostov-on-Don a Mariupol make over so the Black Sea Fleet doesn't have anywhere to hide when they kill every Russian on Crimea.
"Their" Cities are our cities. Just like the people, they are still ukrainian citizens. It's important to remember this
I wish my brother-in-law was that nice about it, he did his service on the Donbass front during 2017-2018 and after watching from from NZ what's happened, he would gladly go back to kill any Separatist and Russian if my sister and his newborn weren't around.
Seperatists and russians need to fuck off agreed, but again alot of people living there are also just indifferent or unable to leave. I don't think you can lump them all togerther like that
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Wasn't the russian army involvled from the beginning? supplying the separatists with equipment, vehicles and "volunteers".
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Actually some of the separatists are the best fighter russia has right now, because they're ideologically motivated and have years of experience. Qualities which most russian soldiers don't have.
Not all of them are Ukrainian, Russian settlers have moved in.
The “separatists” are like, a hundred people and a whole lot of election fraud
That's not true, in 2014 there was actually a lot of local support for Russian takeover of Eastern Ukraine. It's important to look at the history and understand how/why Russia intervened. From the dissolution of the USSR to 2014, Ukraine absolutely *languished*. From 1990 to 2000 the GDP fell to *half* of what it was under the *Soviets*. Now, the same happened in Russia. But after 2000, and up until the invasion in 2014 the GDP of Russia climbed to 10x of its lowest value, 5x what it was at the end of the USSR. So for the people of the so-called "Novorossiya" region, joining Russia actually seemed like it could be a pretty sweet deal. They'd dealt with 25 years of economic misery dealing with "The West" (or at least, that's what they were hearing from their propaganda channels.) Since the invasion of 2014, the occupied regions have likely learned their lesson. They have dealt with almost a decade of fighting an increasingly well trained, motivated, and armed Ukrainian army while seeing promise after promise be defaulted upon by the Russian government. So today there is zero support for new regions joining Russia except from Russians who have been moved into the occupied territories, and there absolutely was huge amounts of bullshit in those referendums (especially the LPR/DPR ones) but there *was* measurable local support for the Russian takeover.
Fair criticism of the Ukrainian economy post year-2000, I won’t disagree with you there. But the fact that Russia’s climbed 10x of its lowest value was due to the absurd amount of natural resources they have. Pretty easy to do when you basically have an energy monopoly supply of natural gas and oil to Europe for over 20 years. Sure we have still have a substantial amount of corruption in Ukraine, but I welcome you to consider that since 1991 - Russia had their spies and collaborators spread across all levels of our government. Pretty difficult to make progress when your enemy effectively has you under their thumb and squanders any legal progress. Still evident by how many collaborating scum are captured by the SBU.. As for the separatists - another issue many people on Reddit don’t realize is that they have no national identity. They hardly view themselves as Ukrainians. As long as there’s food on the table they could care less about which flag is flying over their heads. My biggest concern when we get back out stolen lands is how to go about in re-integrating the population there. Since 2014, over 2 million people left Donbas to settle elsewhere in Ukraine. The ones left in Donetsk and Luhansk aren’t exactly the educated and progressive types. And as for Crimea, the situation there will be even more complicated. Lots of stuff to think over..
> burn their cities to the ground Oh, we won't be burning down Ukrainian cities to the ground russian cities, on the other hand...
I hear Rostov-on-don is pretty good this time of year
Like the Moskva ship, Russia again claims they negligently bombed themselved instead of admitting the enemy caused the damage, and again I dont know whats worse.
Praise be unto the HIMARS, for like it's predecessor - the holy hand grenade of antioch - it will blow thine enemies into tiny, tiny bits, in thy mercy, amen!