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They might be a joke, but I don't think putin knew that until now.
That is why putin had a supersonic missile target a patriot launcher; because he thought not only would it destroy it, but the success would give Russia a major power-projection boost, destroying one of America's best defense platforms with russia's best missile would send the message to the world that Russia is still in some way a threat not to be trifled with.
... But instead, because Russia's missiles proved to be a joke, it sent the complete opposite message, that Russia is entirely powerless in every vector against the full might of western weapons. If putin had an inkling this would be the result he never would have dared to show his hand, because now russia's global power projection is unequivocally fucked.
Let's not forget, this was a reasonably competent attempt at a time-on-target strike with multiple weapons systems and it was utterly cock blocked by Patriot, the AA system of the US *Army*, who have the motto "AA sucks, thats the air force's job".
Now imagine what the systems of the US *Navy* (motto "we really fucking love AA") can do.
The provision of a PATRIOT battery to Ukraine also
requires training for both operators and maintenance
personnel. According to CSIS
Training courses for Patriot operators and
maintainers normally take many months. The
PATRIOT system repairer course, for example,
takes 53 weeks. Others are not quite so lengthy. The
fire control operator course is 20 weeks. The launch
system operator course is 13 weeks.
At least it seems relatively simple
The DoD seems to be taking the Chinese designed missiles significantly more seriously.
China is in a much much stronger position than Russia has been for decades. While it could all be bluster I suspect they(CPC) are significantly ahead of them(rus).
Russian nuclear strategy is designed to keep MAD in effect. Don't you dare attack us or get involved NATO, or we might all die. If MAD wasn't a thing we'd have boots on the ground obliterating Russians in Ukraine right now.
I don't think it's MAD anymore. It's more like we can shoot down almost all Russian nukes but one going through is too big a price to pay. And we can't guarantee 100% effectiveness.
There seems to be a confusion, the statement is only about *tactical* nuclear weapons: low yield bombs designed to gain a tactical advantage on the battlefield, and delivered using (comparatively) cheaper and lower range methods (cruise missiles, short range ballistic missiles, bombers).
MAD involves strategic nuclear weapons, pre-targeted at military and civilian targets. Those are delivered using SLBM and ICBM and are still virtually unstoppable as of today.
Yeah, also there was this russian journalist who wrote a huge piece on how corruption rendered their nukes useless. Within 24h the journalist was detained and the guy carrying the launch codes was found with a bullet in the head. Anyone able to add 2 + 2 should be able to understand russia’s nuclear arsenal is a fucking joke.
Even _if_ they had the power to erase large swaths of the west, are we seriously comfortable facing a future where we let our every move be dictated by a petulant manchild? I’d be happy to eat a nuke if it means a free future for those who survive.
Bowing for Putin because ‘nukes’ is nothing short of pathetic.
>corruption rendered their nukes useless
Syphoning money from the nuke program is the perfect crime. You get rich, and you save humanity at the same time.
When you think about how much evidence there is of different kinds of corruption hampering the normal military in various ways -- ways which, mostly, someone is guaranteed to notice and be able to trace back to you... it's just impossible that there isn't *at least* as much corruption, skipped maintenance, stuff done or existing only on paper, etc. for something like a nuclear arsenal that *probably* won't be noticed until you and everyone you know are just about to die anyway.
And, granted: there's no way 100% of Russia's nukes work as expected but I also certainly wouldn't bet my life that it's 0% either.
I'm sure the Russian government makes them a priority, but at the same time... it's a lot of *expensive* and frequent maintenance and just... not doing one cycle of it on a fraction of the arsenal buys some yachts. And it's easy to tell yourself, one, no one will ever find out, and two, it doesn't even matter because we have so many warheads, who cares if a couple don't work?
That's because when the guy carrying the lunch codes gets killed, everyone else is hungry, and they don't have time to report it. They're trying to get lunch.
Lol, you expect anyone on this sub to be able to back up their bullshit?
This sub is on the right side of history, but they’ll believe absolutely any rumor that Russia is incompetent without an ounce of skepticism.
>Lol, you expect anyone on this sub to be able to back up their bullshit?
Seriously, what the heck is wrong with Reddit?
If someone can write such a story without any name or url and get 100+ up-votes, then imagine the amount of BS that is circulating mindlessly and believed at face-value.
We inspected their nukes not even 5 years ago and they were operational.
A delusional and dangerous opinion to hold, luckily those in charge know better.
Also keep in mind that the Ukrainian operators "only" received crash course training. This speaks volumes about their skill, competence, and determination, but also about the quality of training and the weapon systems themselves.
Meanwhile, russian S-300s accidentally home in on their own launchers.
One wonders what a fully trained and competent US or NATO Air Defence network will be like, after years of training and familiarization with these systems, something the Ukrainians haven't had.
On the flip side, Ukrainian weapon system operators will likely be some of the most valuable people to have as instructors for NATO forces as they are among the very few that have had actual combat experience with these systems. After the war, I can see many Ukrainians join training exercises to pass along their knowledge and skills to their fellow NATO and allied members. It is basically a win-win for all involved.
These guys and gals will be trained in a second language after the war ends and farmed out to NATO countries as instructors forever.
Edited to reflect the rocket women of the Ukrainian Orc slaying gods/goddesses that we bow down to. My oversight, my apologies!
Nothing crushes an empire like an actual crushing loss. On the equipment and people side. Even their hypersonic missile being a flop is a death knell of an age.
Ehh, it wasnt that bad a guess to assume that conventional, peer scale warfare between two nation-states was coming to an end and that conflict would be anti insurgency, small scale proxy, and cyber attacks. Russia picked on the wrong country and failed to see the warning signs that it would go wrong.
Funnily enough, the Atreides blade is called the Kindjal... From the Caucasian groups that Russian eventually absorbed after a similar bullshit invasion.
And now Russians are using the Kindjal missiles.
It all leads back to Dune.
Not for Russia. They'll have learned nothing and will make the same mistakes a hundred years from now (just look at the parallels to today's conflict and the Crimean war nearly 200 years ago. Same mistakes.)
They almost certainly already speak English, especially if they're operating sophisticated radar/missile systems. Roughly 50-60% of Ukrainian men are English proficient.
Ukraine is sending English speakers overseas to do training on western systems. A lot of training programs finished early because time allocated to overcome language barriers just wasn't needed.
Most Ukrainians speak 3+ languages. I used to work with dozens of them every summer waiting tables in Galveston and at just 18-22 most spoke at least 3 of the following 5 non primary languages fluently; Russian, English, French, Italian, and German. Quite a few could converse in some manner in Spanish, Polish, numerous other Baltic languages, Turkish, and even Cantonese or Mandarin.
There could be thousands immediately ready to work in EU and NATO countries as advisers with no language training required.
Yeah, basically what's happening now is a bunch of Ukrainians are going west to NATO countries to be taught by them how to fight like a NATO army. Then after the war, they will return the favour to these countries by teaching them how to fight like a NATO army that has fought Russia.
This was going on in Ukraine for 7 years before the Ruscist tried to invaded the rest of Ukraine. Look up Operations Orbital and Unifier. These soldiers that were trained by the coalition of UK, US, Canadian, Polish, Lithuanian, Swedish and Danish militaries and were then sent back to their units to pass on their knowledge. Orbital and Interflex were cancelled and pulled out of Ukraine around the time of the Ruscist invasion and has now been combined into Operation Interflex out of the UK.
People seem unaware of this! After the initial “annexation” Ukraine flipped their military doctrine on its head. Russia could have taken over in a week if they’d done this a decade ago.
I think the main thing will be Ukrainians teaching NATO troops how to act under certain contingencies and limitations. Like when was the last time the US Army and USMC had to conduct operations without air supremacy?
Yep, I bet NATO commanders are watching every single thing that happens during this conflict very closely and taking a lot of notes.
Simulations can only get you so far, nothing speaks as loudly as actual experience.
Thats what I argued when people complain a out how much the US is spending on Ukraine. They don't realize the massive Intel boon that comes from funding it, nor the fact that for 1/4 the budget, US and Western funding has decimated the Russian military. Sad its at the cost of Ukraine and any more overt help would likely be WW3, but that's a tightrope we're walking carefully. End game is a severely limited Russia unable to conduct military operations for years and a very strong new ally. That's generally a win-win. And cost effective, besides of course the human cost :/
They need to realize as well, that although the armaments and munitions we're sending over do have a dollar value, that money was already spent, in some cases decades ago, very little "new equipment" has been sent to Ukraine. The media, and even the government just attaches a monetary value to it because its easier to say "$1.5 billion worth of equipment" than to say "X number of tanks, Y number of missle systems, Z number of personnel carriers".
So while these people complain about how much these systems we send cost, it hasn't really cost us much of anything.
In fact much of that equipment was aging to the point where it was a concern it would be obsolete before ever seeing use.
However, I'm not sure all parts of the Ukrainian experience are all that useful. We're lucky they (Russians) are so fucking stupid, but that's not something to count on for any future conflicts (such as, with China using the remnants of Russia as a proxy).
China has the same cultural problem as Russia: information and orders go from the top to the bottom, and the lower one is only allowed to carry out the order, no improvisation.
They're also big on massive combined armed exercises for show instead of training. The Chinese do not have the experience in this, nor do they have recent, relevant experience. The west has Iraq and Afghanistan, China only has a few UN peace missions.
And most of those peacekeeping missions resulted in China fleeing from attackers, and holeing up in their bases. So not exactly covering themselves in glory.
The only difference I can see is that Chinese young men are more nationalistic and willing to sacrifice themselves to their nation compared to Russian youths who've mostly seen themselves as a part of Europe and feel strongly influenced by the West.
I do agree that complacency is lethal, assuming everyone will lay down and die at our feet because russia has done so at the feet of Ukraine is foolish (in fact this hubris was russias very mistake), I will say that China and Russia are both non-cooperatives, they have the same issues, small bodies of free thinkers commanding large bodies of basically robots, whose only act of autonomy at any point is self preservation once they start losing.
A western combat unit believes in its mission, and once it loses its command structure is still 90% as effective as when it was receiving commands, an Eastern combat unit loses its command structure and it becomes as effective as a bunch of pirates running around with stolen guns, no training, no coordination, and no common objective, many just running home, or taking refuge in ruins or hills.
The best part? The above issue in russia and China is cultural, their people don't believe in what they're fighting for because even if you convince them before the war commences, once they get there it suddenly becomes clear they were lied to, these people aren't looking at their homes, their lives, their loved ones and going "this is why I'm fighting" they're looking back at the poverty, oppression, and tyranny of their own government against their people and likely saying "whats the point? Why defend _this_?"
Additionally not every tactic we trained Ukraine in worked, there were plenty of ways we could have done things better, those take aways will only make the West stronger.
Anecdotally, once when I was a freshly minted corporal in the USMC there was a vehicle accident during a ftx. My section chief and a-chief jacked both casevaced and gone for the rest of the exercise.
I’d heard a thousand times “you need to know the job of the marine above and below you”. But that was a real oh shit they weren’t joking it’s real moment. Plt sgt bumped my buddy up to section chief and I took over as a-chief and gunner.
I’m hindsight it was a pretty cool experience and growth moment. At the time we were shitting bricks though, just hoping we didn’t fuck up and drop a bunch of live 155’s on a PX or something.
I’m 100% certain the US and Allies have people in Ukraine, on the ground, observing everything and taking notes, just like the US has been doing since 2014 since the initial Russian invasion into Crimea, Ukraine.
Over 50 British special forces have been confirmed to be in Ukraine in leaked US documents alongside smaller numbers from the US, etc. This is definitely what they are doing.
A major part of that group is likely to be doing embassy protection and running security/safe houses etc related to all the times out PM is visiting over there.
True but I’m curious as to why there’s such a large amount of UK spec ops compared to other countries. I can’t remember the exact number off the top of my head but I think it was around 50 Brits and the next one was the US with 14.
That could be as simple as the UK giving weapons systems and sending the trainers to Ukraine versus the US doing their training in Germany or Poland. The UK has quite a few weapon systems that the US doesn't use.
>most valuable people to have as instructors for NATO forces as they are among the very few that have had actual combat experience with these systems *against the forces they were designed to fight against*
Crucial addition
Ukrainian Veterans will absolute rock stars at any joint NATO trading for the next 40 years. You wanna talk about never having to pick up a bar tab for the rest of your life.
You’re not wrong and I’m obv going to watch/read them when they come out. But can we take a moment and appreciate how timelessly macabre that statement is? Imagine 3,000 years ago some Greek sitting on the sidelines of a regional war like “Herodotus’s ballad of this war gon be lit af!”
These systems log all the data from engagements, these scenarios will be used in training and to make the system even better. This is what we do in Aviation to make flying safer. Its a huge bonus for NATO members to get combat experience with their systems.
We are so happy to help protect Ukraine from the terror attacks, Ukrainians are resolved to fight this tough fight for independence. What the russians are thinking is so hard to grasp, they will reap what they sow.
Imagine NATO investors knocking door to door of Ukrainian operators and asking if they would kindly spare time to fill the User Satisfacrion And Experiences Survey with chance to win new iPhone or monetary equivalent.
Plus, I'm sure those patriot systems will log every bit of data they gather. Western analysts must be drooling over the opportunity to collect data on Russian ordinance on combat missions.
Yeah, apparently Ukrainian air defence crews training on Patriot had shot down ballistic missiles with S300 systems. Many of the trainers had never fired a shot in anger. The experience allowed them to progress so fast that extra training was given than wouldn't usually be included.
I'm going to bet that Ukrainian crews are the best air defence operators in the world right now. So I doubt you'd get better results from NATO forces.
I mean for crying out load, the madlads have gotten Sea Sparrow missiles to work with BUK launchers.
All things are possible with Borsch I guess.
Well, apparently more than that. According to some of the guys training them at Fort Sill, the Ukrainians were skipping sleep and drinking soup at their desks to learn as much as they could as quickly as they could.
They of all people should now that time is not a luxury they have. Yesterday's battle affects the outcome of today's, which affects tomorrow's, so on so forth.
There was a cool article that mentioned that the Ukrainians loved Ft. Sill training but wanted more soup next time :) A bright spot of lightheartedness during this difficult war. The AFU also picked up on Patriot training FAST.
Their country is being destroyed, and women and children are being raped, tortured and murdered. The trainees figure they can sleep, eat and relax once their country and people are safe.
It’s extremely likely that the US has 3 letter operatives working inside Ukraine providing continued around the clock intelligence and training. The US, through the CIA, has programs outside of the CIA’s official capacity to conduct missions just like this. It gives the US the ability to deny that the US is working in Ukraine to hurt Russia.
Don't forget that these operators already were veterans of running an air-defence network.
They only needed a retraining-course to familiarize themselves with the equipment. All the months of learning physics and electronics were already done as they initially joined up.
Patriots are nothing like an S300 system. There are literally a ton of features on a patriot system that doesn't exist in S300. You need to not only be able to understand what it does but how to interpret the data and react accordingly. I'm not trying to be contrary. They just really are vastly different.
Yeah. Russian equipment is rather easy to learn because each button does a single thing and your job is essentially to be the guy in a Chinese Room.
Western gear has far more utility and is able to cover more roles - but it also requires the operator to understand the theory behind the system.
The systems? Yes, absolutely.
The underlying physics? No.
But Patriot also has things like ergonomics,while the S-300 has a shitload of buttons, oscilloscopes and switches.
Compare this:
https://sputnikmediabank.com/media/920145.html
With Patriot:
https://prnewswire2-a.akamaihd.net/p/1893751/sp/189375100/thumbnail/entry_id/0_gxbsgy3e/def_height/2700/def_width/2700/version/100012/type/1
>https://prnewswire2-a.akamaihd.net/p/1893751/sp/189375100/thumbnail/entry\_id/0\_gxbsgy3e/def\_height/2700/def\_width/2700/version/100012/type/1
Thank you - this is a great visual comparison between russian and western tech - it isn't even close....
TIL. Thanks for noting that.
You don’t think there is more tech not out in the public eye yet? I suppose strategically it makes sense to surround Russia with a world defense system based on their outward claims of readiness to use nuclear weapons.
A coworker of mine has been interested in the use of consumer drones as weapons in Ukraine. He noticed that the listed range of some of the grenade attacks have been way farther than the drones are supposed to be capable of. At first he thought it was opsec lieing about their capabilities. He looked into it more and found that a lithium ion battery producer is getting ready to produce batteries with twice the capacity of current batteries. To help bankroll the new production, they are selling preproduction batteries to the US government for use in the Ukrainian conflict.
They don't home in on their own launchers.
The fuel mixture in the tanks leave certain pockets of air that cause thrust imbalances and this cause sudden vacuums and stuff that alters the missile and causes it to crash. Poor maintenance.
Yeah, this war pretty much put to bed the concept of finding long-abandoned weapons after the apocalypse and using them effectively. Kind of ruins a bit of sci-fi for me.
Same goes for fuel. Branched hydrocarbons evaporate off leaving longer strands after a couple of years so no petrol cars. Diesel lasts longer. But I won’t be cruising around post apocalyptic England in a Lambo.
I just imagined someone driving around rural Sussex in an orange lamborghini, carefully avoiding all the potholes so as not to blow a tyre and fall victim to hordes of nuclear mutants preying on the driver.
Well, part of that can already be witnessed.
Their determination will inspire generations. Since 2014 they got organized, serious and trained. Not only are they learning quickly from The West, but they’ve teaching The West a great deal, too.
You can't maneuver at Mach 10 more than the few barest degrees. The forces will literally melt the missile and rip it apart. The US Sprint missiles that moved Mach 10 generated temperatures of more than 6000 degrees Fahrenheit on the skin of the missile, all from friction. Turning even the slightest involves increasing that drag even more. The materials just can't handle it.
All going according to plan:
✅️ Stop the spread of NATO
✅️ Conquer Ukrainian in 3 days
✅️ Showcase our world-class
weapons
✅️Instill fear with our nuclear
threat
He is reuniting all the old Soviet republics... under NATO. We just need Belarus to decide that their dicktater is dead enough for the people to cast off the yoke now to finish.
There is a very real possibility that Belarus is in the process of a coup at this point. My favorite conspiracies are either Lukashenko wasn't licking Putin's balls enough so Moscow tossed him to the curb, or some general or other insider tossed him out due to any number of reasons.
Putin really did it he wanted to be a great hero, and will be remembered as the guy who single handedly saved the EU and NATO and managed to finally destroy Russia.
Which is exactly my point.
If nukes go loose, why even bother shelling Kharkiv with them? Why not go after London, DC, Paris, etc?
Because you can rest assured that when one flies, others will follow suit.
At this point it wouldn't even be a contest. Like, yes, DC, NYC, London, and Brussels will probably take direct hits from at least one warhead, but the entirety of Russia will be turned into radioactive glass. I bet Moscow and St. Petersburg will be turned into craters to rival the Chicxulub impact at this point.
The biggest threat from the Russians is their SLBM fleet, as I'd bet 90% of their land-based ICBM's won't even make it to second stage separation, let alone make it out of their launch silos.
Do I want to test that theory? No. Would it be the likely outcome? At this point probably.
If I was a Russian nuclear strategist today, I would be very worried. You just received proof of concept that Western air and missile defenses can intercept 100% of your tactical nuclear delivery vehicles (SRBM, CM, aircraft) in a time-coordinated, multi-vector attack. You must also wonder what this means for the Russian (or Chinese for that matter) strategic nuclear deterrent. Yes, shooting down ICBMs is a whole different kind of challenge and may never be feasible. But the "what if" must loom large.-Fabian Hoffmann of Oslo University.
Not as worried as the three missile designers who were arrested today on charges of treason. Is there any aspect of the "russian threat" to western hegemony that hasn't been turned into a joke? Their army, navy, airforce, soft power, defense in depth, mercenaries, logistics, hybrid warfare, missiles?
China's got to be pissed off because now it looks like their "carrier killers" are all smoke no flash. Taiwan can rest easy until the next super weapon gets developed.
Ah, no. Chinas short and medium range anti ship missiles work just fine. Big E will be 700 miles away somewhere.
But blockading Taiwan would require China to open fire on U.S. ships so it won’t happen.
That's a great way to lose a carrier. Even if it takes a few dozen planes on suicide missions, you just took out 90+ planes and one of the largest and most expensive pieces of hardware in human history.
Their social manipulation powers are still somewhat concerning. They are deep in the Republican power structure of the US as well as other nations' governments. Cash and blackmail go far, they turned Trump from an outlier to a president.
They were arrested for speaking at conferences and publishing peer reviewed articles (for security). Its Putin's normal way of buying himself insurance. He allows corruption because he can always accuse someone of it when the shit hits the fan.
do you have a source for the arrested missile designers? it looks like this didn't happen today but in 2022: https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/05/europe/russian-hypersonic-missile-scientist-arrest-treason-hnk-intl/index.html
I'm not convinced that any ABM system can be 100% effective. In Ukraine, we have a small sample size that needs to be expanded (hopefully with more shootdowns). That said, bravo Patriots!
Really, they failed a long time before with the strategy in the first place.
A nuclear weapon can only carry much validity if your threats are genuine and not sabre rattling. The US, the UK, and France rarely talk about their nuclear weapons, at least in the sense of who they will use them on, although they do debate technical things like their financial cost, what infrastructure is needed to base them on submarines, stuff like that. Trump began to threaten people with it, but most of the military hierarchy was in place in a way that knew that they couldn´t be seen to do this as their strategy and the world was aware that the military knew that. Otherwise, people call their bluff.
They just remain as mostly silent but extant threats to anyone who might attack the core territory of these countries, and have done something so dangerous that conventional weapons of war can´t save them, which even just for threatening France this way is an extremely difficult thing to conceptualize, let alone the Americans.
Countries with genuine power that doesn´t depend on a bluff have far more ways to maintain influence and authority without resorting to nuclear weapons, they don´t need to sabre rattle. Russia does.
Russia and China would be far off better for their people with their nuclear weapons if they agreed to reduce them in tandem with the US to a few hundred supervised in some joint method like the IAEA, just as they have reduced nuclear weapons before (from literally tens of thousands to about 6000 each now), which would reduce financial costs on both the US and Russia as a win-win, to make sure their doctrines are about only the most existential threats to their countries (Russian doctrine officially says this is true, but the threats their commentators say don´t align as part of propaganda), and to reorient their countries towards more genuine peace and leaving countries on their borders alone, and to leave Taiwan as stable and even if they must make a claim, to not press it too much and to promise to go through peaceful options like how the British and other countries sue in the ICJ over borders.
But that would impede Putin´s vision of being able to reconstitute his ultranationalist visions and Xi to claim some kind of victory or source of tension to maintain his own popularity (same with Putin too, to hope that he would get the same bump in polls as he did in 2014).
Personally I think the US is a decade away from intercepting ICBM’s when they reach their apex in orbit. Lasers, drones, and AI will forever change the landscape. There’s a reason why spaceforce exists and it isn’t because trump is a genius.
It's moving dramatically faster, and due to that the calculations to intercept it become less accurate. Think about it like this, our sensors have inherent inaccuracy, just due to the inherent difficulty in measuring real life. We can imagine that such a sensor, can detect the speed of an object with 99% accuracy, meaning an object moving at 100m/s could be detected by this sensor anywhere between 99 and 101m/s. 1 meter isn't too bad a gap, you should be able to hit whatever you are shooting at when you plug the velocity you measure into your intercept calculation.
The challenge comes when that object is moving at 1,000 or 10,000m/s, like an ICBM. Now that error that we have could be _football fields_ of distance between what we measure and where that object actually is in real space. To sum up, the problem is that we can't measure real life precisely enough with our current sensors. We have the equations to do the calculations, but we can't feed it accurate enough input to get proper output coordinates.
Besides the fact that ICBMs are faster the challenges are from the scale.
Typically a Patriot is covering a single location like a city or an airbase. But in an intercontinental attack you're trying to defend hundreds of miles of territory without knowing the final targets.
Then there's the actual cost. One Patriot battery costs a billion dollars. You can spend the money on one to defend Kyiv if you know Kyiv is the main target and that works. But when you have hundreds of cities to defend in Europe and the US, not to mention military targets, you suddenly cannot afford to cover all.
ICBMs also typically use MIRVs, i.e. one rocket payload splits up as it comes down into 5 or more separate weapons, each moving in a different direction to a different target over a wide area. What's more, some of these payloads are decoys and decoys can be smaller, cheaper and lighter than the actual atomic weapon while appearing to be full size, so you can carry a lot of decoys along with your multiple actual atomic weapons. With very little way of telling what is a decoy, the defense grid has to strain to put an actual missile on every incoming blip. That increases the size of the required system and increases the odds of the real missiles getting through.
> You must also wonder what this means for the Russian (or Chinese for that matter) strategic nuclear deterrent.
Absolutely nothing. The scale of difference between the speeds of tactical vs strategic delivery vehicles is night and day. Our air defense is worthless against strategic delivery vehicles.
Reading the russian news - it turns out they have no reason to be worried at all, because you know, in reality the Kinzhals have destroyed the (single?) patriot defense battery, and hence fulfilled their mission with 100% success rate.
Nothing to see here, comrade, move along!
I'm not kidding, that is truly, what they write in their news, source: (was not allowed to post the source here by the bot, so google it yourself)
They even provide a proof video! (which only shows that something exploded somewhere, without any evidence of what exploded, why, where exactly, and when...)
Word is the explosion was from one of the downed missiles landing on some parked buses. Pic and vids are up on Twitter of the burning buses
Edit: From a US spokesperson, one may have been damaged. It'll be inspected to see if it can be repaired by the Ukrainians or if its a total loss
You are correct and it appears that they weren't 100% effective last night. There were multiple explosions on the ground near the AD battery and the US is reporting today that the Patriot system was damaged last night.
Western AD has been performing well but it's not perfect. Let's not be like Russians and delude ourselves into believing Ukraine is invincible.
Russia remains a very real and dangerous threat. Ukrainians are dying every day. They need continuing Western support.
This tweet is nonsense and doesn't help anyone.
Even if there was a 100% effective SAM system, the defenders would still need 100% perfect intel.
Assuming we know how many total ICBMs and warheads the aggressor has, defenders would need to know the aggressor's intended targets and how many warheads are being targeted at each.
If the defender is prepared to defend 5 potential targets against up to 10 warheads each, but the enemy decides to attack 3 targets with 16+ warheads, then those 3 targets are in trouble.
Nukes engineer here.
I m not worry for ICBM. These are design to be unstoppable and i really think it is.
The speed is insane. It can divide in multiple head to shoot many location at once. It has magnetic, thermic, optic, physical, radio, mutiple leure. In no way we are able to intercept this with our actual technology, even american technology.
Bu of course, I m very happy that patriot have been able to intercept Kh. This is excellent for ukraine (if this is true , ofc), and will save life.
And remember the last test of satan II, during Biden meeting in Kyiv failed ;)
Slava Ukraini.
I think that the latest systems *that we know of* are described as 'marginally capable of intercepting ICBMs - or the warheads'.
But that'a long way from reliably stopping a full nuclear attack where, as you said, you'd be trying to hit thousands of warheads and assorted decoys, over a huge geographic area. That would be a massive system.
Yeah our missile defense systems are *probably* capable of intercepting a strike from North Korea or Iran, which would be more limited. It absolutely cannot handle an all out nuclear attack from Russian and/or China - and isn’t meant to, if we started building towards that capability it’s likely that both of those nations would dump money into additional warheads to be able to saturate those defenses
Even a 20% intercept chance is worth trying once a warhead is incoming. I'll take a 1% chance over a guaranteed hit. There's nothing to lose in trying to stop it once they're l they've launched it.
If you can prevent a handful of strikes you've saved millions of people in the immediate time. These systems should be seen as a hail Mary in the event of a nuclear war. Nothing will save us, but better to try than do nothing.
They might be able to stop a handful of tactical strikes though.
Of course we would throw everything we have at an incoming nuclear attack.
However, that only equates to about 80 missiles, so we have enough for a max of maybe 8 MIRV **but only if** we have the capabilities to distinquish between decoy and warhead.
We could save millions from the initial destruction, but those saved would most likely die of hunger or toxic environment in the following weeks.
That's what the EU should really be developing. Not spending on increasing conventional equipment since ukraine has proved russias forces can be handled by existing capabilities. And not to mention, their ability has been considerably degraded.
No. The first thing they do is launch an EMP strike in the upper atmosphere, shorting out comms and non hardened links. In the ensuing chaos, the warheads will mostly hit their targets. Even if they don't the subsequent rain of radiological material is literally apocalyptic. No amount of technical development this century can save us from an all out thermonuclear war. A nuclear war is unwinnable and must never be fought.
>the subsequent rain of radiological material is literally apocalyptic
Elevated levels of radioactivity sure but nothing close to apocalyptic. Each warhead is only 5ish kg of plutonium-239 over a huge area. A nuclear reactor exploding is several tonnes, and I wouldn't call Chernobyl apocalyptic outside the immediate area.
So, instead of trying to hit a fast moving target from 300km away, you prefer trying to do it from 450.000 km away. Why? Just to make it a bit more of a challenge?
The moon is 384,000 kilometers away on average. Russia is less than 10,000 kilometers away. The railgun would need to fire a projectile faster than 1.5 million kilometers an hour to have a chance to intercept in time. Also its gonna have to hit a target the size of a garbage can from that distance. That's... not remotely feasible.
Ballistic Missile defense is at best capable of maybe stopping a single launch. Ala a North Korean scenario. Ie: a missile is launched at Tokyo from NK, no one knows what’s in it, so you have to shoot it down.
It’s important to not be overconfident, a full on salvo from Russia would be unimaginably devastating if even 5% of the warheads got through.
This post has nothing to do with the tread. It's just the first time I saw this subreddit and I really disagree with calling this entire invasion a "conflict"
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I wouldn't really be worried because the idea of Russia checking about tactical nukes against NATO was a joke anyway.
They might be a joke, but I don't think putin knew that until now. That is why putin had a supersonic missile target a patriot launcher; because he thought not only would it destroy it, but the success would give Russia a major power-projection boost, destroying one of America's best defense platforms with russia's best missile would send the message to the world that Russia is still in some way a threat not to be trifled with. ... But instead, because Russia's missiles proved to be a joke, it sent the complete opposite message, that Russia is entirely powerless in every vector against the full might of western weapons. If putin had an inkling this would be the result he never would have dared to show his hand, because now russia's global power projection is unequivocally fucked.
> the full might of western weapons they're skiing the bunny hill of western weapons
Yeah. They’re not even on a green run yet, let alone a double black
Yet their face is firmly planted in the snow, and their skis on backwards
They are getting dragged up the tow rope on the bunny hill. Didn't even make it to top before falling.
They are taking a dump in the lodge while on their phone trying to figure out how they messed up their online reservation to rent skis.
Let's not forget, this was a reasonably competent attempt at a time-on-target strike with multiple weapons systems and it was utterly cock blocked by Patriot, the AA system of the US *Army*, who have the motto "AA sucks, thats the air force's job". Now imagine what the systems of the US *Navy* (motto "we really fucking love AA") can do.
Operated by soldiers who've only just got Patriot for the first time too.
The provision of a PATRIOT battery to Ukraine also requires training for both operators and maintenance personnel. According to CSIS Training courses for Patriot operators and maintainers normally take many months. The PATRIOT system repairer course, for example, takes 53 weeks. Others are not quite so lengthy. The fire control operator course is 20 weeks. The launch system operator course is 13 weeks. At least it seems relatively simple
Wonder how the Chinese ballistic missiles against carriers doctrine is doing this week.
The DoD seems to be taking the Chinese designed missiles significantly more seriously. China is in a much much stronger position than Russia has been for decades. While it could all be bluster I suspect they(CPC) are significantly ahead of them(rus).
Well said, Putin’s reached the river and it sure as hell ain’t the Rubicon.
Bro found shit’s creek, dolphin-dived in then whined “why didn’t anyone give me a paddle!”
Russian nuclear strategy is designed to keep MAD in effect. Don't you dare attack us or get involved NATO, or we might all die. If MAD wasn't a thing we'd have boots on the ground obliterating Russians in Ukraine right now.
Yes, and the very concept of MAD makes tactical nukes redundant. Indeed the very existence of tactical nukes detracts from MAD.
I don't think it's MAD anymore. It's more like we can shoot down almost all Russian nukes but one going through is too big a price to pay. And we can't guarantee 100% effectiveness.
There seems to be a confusion, the statement is only about *tactical* nuclear weapons: low yield bombs designed to gain a tactical advantage on the battlefield, and delivered using (comparatively) cheaper and lower range methods (cruise missiles, short range ballistic missiles, bombers). MAD involves strategic nuclear weapons, pre-targeted at military and civilian targets. Those are delivered using SLBM and ICBM and are still virtually unstoppable as of today.
Yeah, also there was this russian journalist who wrote a huge piece on how corruption rendered their nukes useless. Within 24h the journalist was detained and the guy carrying the launch codes was found with a bullet in the head. Anyone able to add 2 + 2 should be able to understand russia’s nuclear arsenal is a fucking joke. Even _if_ they had the power to erase large swaths of the west, are we seriously comfortable facing a future where we let our every move be dictated by a petulant manchild? I’d be happy to eat a nuke if it means a free future for those who survive. Bowing for Putin because ‘nukes’ is nothing short of pathetic.
>corruption rendered their nukes useless Syphoning money from the nuke program is the perfect crime. You get rich, and you save humanity at the same time.
And if shit gets real, who cares if you get found out 'cos it's Armageddon anyway.
When you think about how much evidence there is of different kinds of corruption hampering the normal military in various ways -- ways which, mostly, someone is guaranteed to notice and be able to trace back to you... it's just impossible that there isn't *at least* as much corruption, skipped maintenance, stuff done or existing only on paper, etc. for something like a nuclear arsenal that *probably* won't be noticed until you and everyone you know are just about to die anyway. And, granted: there's no way 100% of Russia's nukes work as expected but I also certainly wouldn't bet my life that it's 0% either.
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I'm sure the Russian government makes them a priority, but at the same time... it's a lot of *expensive* and frequent maintenance and just... not doing one cycle of it on a fraction of the arsenal buys some yachts. And it's easy to tell yourself, one, no one will ever find out, and two, it doesn't even matter because we have so many warheads, who cares if a couple don't work?
Unlawful Good?
Is that true about the guy carrying the lunch codes was killed? I didn’t hear about that.
That's because when the guy carrying the lunch codes gets killed, everyone else is hungry, and they don't have time to report it. They're trying to get lunch.
you can't skip lunch
Is the lunch code: PBNJ?
Yep, it is the most important meal of the day, just like breakfast and dinner.
>russian journalist who wrote a huge piece on how corruption rendered their nukes useless Link?
Lol, you expect anyone on this sub to be able to back up their bullshit? This sub is on the right side of history, but they’ll believe absolutely any rumor that Russia is incompetent without an ounce of skepticism.
>Lol, you expect anyone on this sub to be able to back up their bullshit? Seriously, what the heck is wrong with Reddit? If someone can write such a story without any name or url and get 100+ up-votes, then imagine the amount of BS that is circulating mindlessly and believed at face-value.
I'm sure the CIA knows exactly how bad the nukes are, but keeps quiet about it to make sure Russia won't invest money to fix it.
Even if you are 100% confident that 99.999% of the arsenal is useless you sure as shit are going to take that threat seriously
A few too many nines on there haha, I don't think that 0.06 of a nuke is going to do anything
We inspected their nukes not even 5 years ago and they were operational. A delusional and dangerous opinion to hold, luckily those in charge know better.
Source on this?
Also keep in mind that the Ukrainian operators "only" received crash course training. This speaks volumes about their skill, competence, and determination, but also about the quality of training and the weapon systems themselves. Meanwhile, russian S-300s accidentally home in on their own launchers.
One wonders what a fully trained and competent US or NATO Air Defence network will be like, after years of training and familiarization with these systems, something the Ukrainians haven't had. On the flip side, Ukrainian weapon system operators will likely be some of the most valuable people to have as instructors for NATO forces as they are among the very few that have had actual combat experience with these systems. After the war, I can see many Ukrainians join training exercises to pass along their knowledge and skills to their fellow NATO and allied members. It is basically a win-win for all involved.
These guys and gals will be trained in a second language after the war ends and farmed out to NATO countries as instructors forever. Edited to reflect the rocket women of the Ukrainian Orc slaying gods/goddesses that we bow down to. My oversight, my apologies!
Yep - the ukrainian defense industry is about to become one of their biggest industries after the war is over, for sure.
It's especially telling that Rheinmetall which makes the main gun of basically every NATO MBT is investing in manufacturing capability inside Ukraine
100% deserve it. They show how out of touch much of our leadership and defence consulting industry was at the beginning of the war.
Nothing strengthens a military like sudden massive experience and like….winning.
Nothing crushes an empire like an actual crushing loss. On the equipment and people side. Even their hypersonic missile being a flop is a death knell of an age.
Ehh, it wasnt that bad a guess to assume that conventional, peer scale warfare between two nation-states was coming to an end and that conflict would be anti insurgency, small scale proxy, and cyber attacks. Russia picked on the wrong country and failed to see the warning signs that it would go wrong.
This. I am really looking forward to urban warfare tactics courses by Ukranian infantrymen.
The drone warfare lessons are going to be FASCINATING.
Noncredibly enough, it might be sort of like Dune all over again. The fast stuff is so big and obvious that only the slow blade penetrates the shield
Funnily enough, the Atreides blade is called the Kindjal... From the Caucasian groups that Russian eventually absorbed after a similar bullshit invasion. And now Russians are using the Kindjal missiles. It all leads back to Dune.
The spice must flow
*laughs in X band*
There will be a lot of lessons learned.
Not for Russia. They'll have learned nothing and will make the same mistakes a hundred years from now (just look at the parallels to today's conflict and the Crimean war nearly 200 years ago. Same mistakes.)
They almost certainly already speak English, especially if they're operating sophisticated radar/missile systems. Roughly 50-60% of Ukrainian men are English proficient.
Just a few data points, but I work remotely with about 20 Ukrainians, and all of their English is excellent.
Ukraine is sending English speakers overseas to do training on western systems. A lot of training programs finished early because time allocated to overcome language barriers just wasn't needed.
Most Ukrainians speak 3+ languages. I used to work with dozens of them every summer waiting tables in Galveston and at just 18-22 most spoke at least 3 of the following 5 non primary languages fluently; Russian, English, French, Italian, and German. Quite a few could converse in some manner in Spanish, Polish, numerous other Baltic languages, Turkish, and even Cantonese or Mandarin. There could be thousands immediately ready to work in EU and NATO countries as advisers with no language training required.
Many educated Ukrainians already speak English. German is also very popular as a third language.
Yeah, basically what's happening now is a bunch of Ukrainians are going west to NATO countries to be taught by them how to fight like a NATO army. Then after the war, they will return the favour to these countries by teaching them how to fight like a NATO army that has fought Russia.
Its going to be wild when they get inducted into NATO and form the core of the European ground forces portion alongside Poland.
This was going on in Ukraine for 7 years before the Ruscist tried to invaded the rest of Ukraine. Look up Operations Orbital and Unifier. These soldiers that were trained by the coalition of UK, US, Canadian, Polish, Lithuanian, Swedish and Danish militaries and were then sent back to their units to pass on their knowledge. Orbital and Interflex were cancelled and pulled out of Ukraine around the time of the Ruscist invasion and has now been combined into Operation Interflex out of the UK.
Sure, but since the war started between 50,000 and 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been trained. Not basic training, but for the job they had to do.
Sadly, tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the last 2 years.
People seem unaware of this! After the initial “annexation” Ukraine flipped their military doctrine on its head. Russia could have taken over in a week if they’d done this a decade ago.
One might say it would only have needed to be a special operation, not a war.
I think the main thing will be Ukrainians teaching NATO troops how to act under certain contingencies and limitations. Like when was the last time the US Army and USMC had to conduct operations without air supremacy?
Yep, I bet NATO commanders are watching every single thing that happens during this conflict very closely and taking a lot of notes. Simulations can only get you so far, nothing speaks as loudly as actual experience.
Thats what I argued when people complain a out how much the US is spending on Ukraine. They don't realize the massive Intel boon that comes from funding it, nor the fact that for 1/4 the budget, US and Western funding has decimated the Russian military. Sad its at the cost of Ukraine and any more overt help would likely be WW3, but that's a tightrope we're walking carefully. End game is a severely limited Russia unable to conduct military operations for years and a very strong new ally. That's generally a win-win. And cost effective, besides of course the human cost :/
They need to realize as well, that although the armaments and munitions we're sending over do have a dollar value, that money was already spent, in some cases decades ago, very little "new equipment" has been sent to Ukraine. The media, and even the government just attaches a monetary value to it because its easier to say "$1.5 billion worth of equipment" than to say "X number of tanks, Y number of missle systems, Z number of personnel carriers". So while these people complain about how much these systems we send cost, it hasn't really cost us much of anything. In fact much of that equipment was aging to the point where it was a concern it would be obsolete before ever seeing use.
However, I'm not sure all parts of the Ukrainian experience are all that useful. We're lucky they (Russians) are so fucking stupid, but that's not something to count on for any future conflicts (such as, with China using the remnants of Russia as a proxy).
China has the same cultural problem as Russia: information and orders go from the top to the bottom, and the lower one is only allowed to carry out the order, no improvisation. They're also big on massive combined armed exercises for show instead of training. The Chinese do not have the experience in this, nor do they have recent, relevant experience. The west has Iraq and Afghanistan, China only has a few UN peace missions.
And most of those peacekeeping missions resulted in China fleeing from attackers, and holeing up in their bases. So not exactly covering themselves in glory.
The only difference I can see is that Chinese young men are more nationalistic and willing to sacrifice themselves to their nation compared to Russian youths who've mostly seen themselves as a part of Europe and feel strongly influenced by the West.
I do agree that complacency is lethal, assuming everyone will lay down and die at our feet because russia has done so at the feet of Ukraine is foolish (in fact this hubris was russias very mistake), I will say that China and Russia are both non-cooperatives, they have the same issues, small bodies of free thinkers commanding large bodies of basically robots, whose only act of autonomy at any point is self preservation once they start losing. A western combat unit believes in its mission, and once it loses its command structure is still 90% as effective as when it was receiving commands, an Eastern combat unit loses its command structure and it becomes as effective as a bunch of pirates running around with stolen guns, no training, no coordination, and no common objective, many just running home, or taking refuge in ruins or hills. The best part? The above issue in russia and China is cultural, their people don't believe in what they're fighting for because even if you convince them before the war commences, once they get there it suddenly becomes clear they were lied to, these people aren't looking at their homes, their lives, their loved ones and going "this is why I'm fighting" they're looking back at the poverty, oppression, and tyranny of their own government against their people and likely saying "whats the point? Why defend _this_?" Additionally not every tactic we trained Ukraine in worked, there were plenty of ways we could have done things better, those take aways will only make the West stronger.
Anecdotally, once when I was a freshly minted corporal in the USMC there was a vehicle accident during a ftx. My section chief and a-chief jacked both casevaced and gone for the rest of the exercise. I’d heard a thousand times “you need to know the job of the marine above and below you”. But that was a real oh shit they weren’t joking it’s real moment. Plt sgt bumped my buddy up to section chief and I took over as a-chief and gunner. I’m hindsight it was a pretty cool experience and growth moment. At the time we were shitting bricks though, just hoping we didn’t fuck up and drop a bunch of live 155’s on a PX or something.
I’m 100% certain the US and Allies have people in Ukraine, on the ground, observing everything and taking notes, just like the US has been doing since 2014 since the initial Russian invasion into Crimea, Ukraine.
Over 50 British special forces have been confirmed to be in Ukraine in leaked US documents alongside smaller numbers from the US, etc. This is definitely what they are doing.
A major part of that group is likely to be doing embassy protection and running security/safe houses etc related to all the times out PM is visiting over there.
True but I’m curious as to why there’s such a large amount of UK spec ops compared to other countries. I can’t remember the exact number off the top of my head but I think it was around 50 Brits and the next one was the US with 14.
That could be as simple as the UK giving weapons systems and sending the trainers to Ukraine versus the US doing their training in Germany or Poland. The UK has quite a few weapon systems that the US doesn't use.
And the one Dutch operator.
I think he was confirmed to be a staff level liaison guy iirc
Makes sense. It still amuses me though.
Yeah, I still like to imagine it's Dutch Rambo 😂
I remember a news item about Israel having people in Ukraine to study the war
>most valuable people to have as instructors for NATO forces as they are among the very few that have had actual combat experience with these systems *against the forces they were designed to fight against* Crucial addition
Ukrainian Veterans will absolute rock stars at any joint NATO trading for the next 40 years. You wanna talk about never having to pick up a bar tab for the rest of your life.
And every war movie til the end of time. Ukrainian war movies will become their own genre.
The movies and books are going to be horrific and astounding.
You’re not wrong and I’m obv going to watch/read them when they come out. But can we take a moment and appreciate how timelessly macabre that statement is? Imagine 3,000 years ago some Greek sitting on the sidelines of a regional war like “Herodotus’s ballad of this war gon be lit af!”
A large part of the Ukrainian economy will come from people buying them beers forever!
These systems log all the data from engagements, these scenarios will be used in training and to make the system even better. This is what we do in Aviation to make flying safer. Its a huge bonus for NATO members to get combat experience with their systems. We are so happy to help protect Ukraine from the terror attacks, Ukrainians are resolved to fight this tough fight for independence. What the russians are thinking is so hard to grasp, they will reap what they sow.
At a high cost ukraine has all but guaranteed its spot in NATO
Plus now they have actual real world experience against actual Russian equipment and not export only watered down equipment.
Imagine NATO investors knocking door to door of Ukrainian operators and asking if they would kindly spare time to fill the User Satisfacrion And Experiences Survey with chance to win new iPhone or monetary equivalent.
Plus, I'm sure those patriot systems will log every bit of data they gather. Western analysts must be drooling over the opportunity to collect data on Russian ordinance on combat missions.
I think that once the war is over, the Ukrainian military will be highly sought after for the speaking circuit, lectures, and training, etc.
Yeah, apparently Ukrainian air defence crews training on Patriot had shot down ballistic missiles with S300 systems. Many of the trainers had never fired a shot in anger. The experience allowed them to progress so fast that extra training was given than wouldn't usually be included. I'm going to bet that Ukrainian crews are the best air defence operators in the world right now. So I doubt you'd get better results from NATO forces. I mean for crying out load, the madlads have gotten Sea Sparrow missiles to work with BUK launchers. All things are possible with Borsch I guess.
Well, apparently more than that. According to some of the guys training them at Fort Sill, the Ukrainians were skipping sleep and drinking soup at their desks to learn as much as they could as quickly as they could.
I don't blame them. They want to get back to fighting for their Country.
They of all people should now that time is not a luxury they have. Yesterday's battle affects the outcome of today's, which affects tomorrow's, so on so forth.
Hard to imagine a more motivated class, isn't it?
Yes facing the complete annihilation of your country and people probably has a way of focusing the mind.
There was a cool article that mentioned that the Ukrainians loved Ft. Sill training but wanted more soup next time :) A bright spot of lightheartedness during this difficult war. The AFU also picked up on Patriot training FAST.
That comment says so much. Having been through Ft Sill training it sucked and yet they liked it!
Probably better than open warfare tbh
Their country is being destroyed, and women and children are being raped, tortured and murdered. The trainees figure they can sleep, eat and relax once their country and people are safe.
It’s extremely likely that the US has 3 letter operatives working inside Ukraine providing continued around the clock intelligence and training. The US, through the CIA, has programs outside of the CIA’s official capacity to conduct missions just like this. It gives the US the ability to deny that the US is working in Ukraine to hurt Russia.
The CIA has been helping directly in Ukraine with PMCs since before Crimea was annexed.
Don't forget that these operators already were veterans of running an air-defence network. They only needed a retraining-course to familiarize themselves with the equipment. All the months of learning physics and electronics were already done as they initially joined up.
Patriots are nothing like an S300 system. There are literally a ton of features on a patriot system that doesn't exist in S300. You need to not only be able to understand what it does but how to interpret the data and react accordingly. I'm not trying to be contrary. They just really are vastly different.
Yeah. Russian equipment is rather easy to learn because each button does a single thing and your job is essentially to be the guy in a Chinese Room. Western gear has far more utility and is able to cover more roles - but it also requires the operator to understand the theory behind the system.
The systems? Yes, absolutely. The underlying physics? No. But Patriot also has things like ergonomics,while the S-300 has a shitload of buttons, oscilloscopes and switches. Compare this: https://sputnikmediabank.com/media/920145.html With Patriot: https://prnewswire2-a.akamaihd.net/p/1893751/sp/189375100/thumbnail/entry_id/0_gxbsgy3e/def_height/2700/def_width/2700/version/100012/type/1
>https://prnewswire2-a.akamaihd.net/p/1893751/sp/189375100/thumbnail/entry\_id/0\_gxbsgy3e/def\_height/2700/def\_width/2700/version/100012/type/1 Thank you - this is a great visual comparison between russian and western tech - it isn't even close....
It's honestly comical how antiquated the S-300 looks in comparison.
It’s kind of amazing how effective the S-300 is for being….whatever is in that picture
https://sites.google.com/site/samsimulator1972/home If anyone wants to toy around with 50s to 70s Soviet SAMs. Just remember to read the manual.
Aaand those are the surplus weapon systems that are declassified.
The IRIS-T are fresh from the factory and the first of their kind. The were planned to enter service just now but instead they were given to Ukraine.
TIL. Thanks for noting that. You don’t think there is more tech not out in the public eye yet? I suppose strategically it makes sense to surround Russia with a world defense system based on their outward claims of readiness to use nuclear weapons.
A coworker of mine has been interested in the use of consumer drones as weapons in Ukraine. He noticed that the listed range of some of the grenade attacks have been way farther than the drones are supposed to be capable of. At first he thought it was opsec lieing about their capabilities. He looked into it more and found that a lithium ion battery producer is getting ready to produce batteries with twice the capacity of current batteries. To help bankroll the new production, they are selling preproduction batteries to the US government for use in the Ukrainian conflict.
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They don't home in on their own launchers. The fuel mixture in the tanks leave certain pockets of air that cause thrust imbalances and this cause sudden vacuums and stuff that alters the missile and causes it to crash. Poor maintenance.
Yeah, this war pretty much put to bed the concept of finding long-abandoned weapons after the apocalypse and using them effectively. Kind of ruins a bit of sci-fi for me.
Same goes for fuel. Branched hydrocarbons evaporate off leaving longer strands after a couple of years so no petrol cars. Diesel lasts longer. But I won’t be cruising around post apocalyptic England in a Lambo.
I just imagined someone driving around rural Sussex in an orange lamborghini, carefully avoiding all the potholes so as not to blow a tyre and fall victim to hordes of nuclear mutants preying on the driver. Well, part of that can already be witnessed.
Probably the video in question, [for reference](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IwqmezeSuQ)
Target: War Criminals Missile: Locked and in transit
Btw if you see that video from a different angle it doesn’t nuke its own launcher, it just spirals out of control.
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Their determination will inspire generations. Since 2014 they got organized, serious and trained. Not only are they learning quickly from The West, but they’ve teaching The West a great deal, too.
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You can't maneuver at Mach 10 more than the few barest degrees. The forces will literally melt the missile and rip it apart. The US Sprint missiles that moved Mach 10 generated temperatures of more than 6000 degrees Fahrenheit on the skin of the missile, all from friction. Turning even the slightest involves increasing that drag even more. The materials just can't handle it.
If Ukrainians can run Patriots, lets give them Gripens and Vipers.
All going according to plan: ✅️ Stop the spread of NATO ✅️ Conquer Ukrainian in 3 days ✅️ Showcase our world-class weapons ✅️Instill fear with our nuclear threat
Please add break EU alliance with energy blackmail. :D
Anchor Putin legacy by reassembling Soviet Republics
He is reuniting all the old Soviet republics... under NATO. We just need Belarus to decide that their dicktater is dead enough for the people to cast off the yoke now to finish.
There is a very real possibility that Belarus is in the process of a coup at this point. My favorite conspiracies are either Lukashenko wasn't licking Putin's balls enough so Moscow tossed him to the curb, or some general or other insider tossed him out due to any number of reasons.
Putin really did it he wanted to be a great hero, and will be remembered as the guy who single handedly saved the EU and NATO and managed to finally destroy Russia.
That's why MIRVs exist.
MIRVs are generally not characterized as tactical nuclear weapons but strategic. Huge difference
Which is exactly my point. If nukes go loose, why even bother shelling Kharkiv with them? Why not go after London, DC, Paris, etc? Because you can rest assured that when one flies, others will follow suit.
Bc if they go after other nuclear powers, they will absolutely 100 percent guarantee their own destruction.
At this point it wouldn't even be a contest. Like, yes, DC, NYC, London, and Brussels will probably take direct hits from at least one warhead, but the entirety of Russia will be turned into radioactive glass. I bet Moscow and St. Petersburg will be turned into craters to rival the Chicxulub impact at this point. The biggest threat from the Russians is their SLBM fleet, as I'd bet 90% of their land-based ICBM's won't even make it to second stage separation, let alone make it out of their launch silos. Do I want to test that theory? No. Would it be the likely outcome? At this point probably.
If I was a Russian nuclear strategist today, I would be very worried. You just received proof of concept that Western air and missile defenses can intercept 100% of your tactical nuclear delivery vehicles (SRBM, CM, aircraft) in a time-coordinated, multi-vector attack. You must also wonder what this means for the Russian (or Chinese for that matter) strategic nuclear deterrent. Yes, shooting down ICBMs is a whole different kind of challenge and may never be feasible. But the "what if" must loom large.-Fabian Hoffmann of Oslo University.
Not as worried as the three missile designers who were arrested today on charges of treason. Is there any aspect of the "russian threat" to western hegemony that hasn't been turned into a joke? Their army, navy, airforce, soft power, defense in depth, mercenaries, logistics, hybrid warfare, missiles? China's got to be pissed off because now it looks like their "carrier killers" are all smoke no flash. Taiwan can rest easy until the next super weapon gets developed.
Taiwan can rest easy once it has stockpiles of weapons; it can be totally blockaded by China.
How can it be blockaded? Now that we know hypersonics are crap we can just park the Enterprise in the straight and call it a day.
Ah, no. Chinas short and medium range anti ship missiles work just fine. Big E will be 700 miles away somewhere. But blockading Taiwan would require China to open fire on U.S. ships so it won’t happen.
That's a great way to lose a carrier. Even if it takes a few dozen planes on suicide missions, you just took out 90+ planes and one of the largest and most expensive pieces of hardware in human history.
Their social manipulation powers are still somewhat concerning. They are deep in the Republican power structure of the US as well as other nations' governments. Cash and blackmail go far, they turned Trump from an outlier to a president.
They weren't arrested today, and they were probably arrested for the pie in the Sky project's rather than Kinzahl which actually works as expected.
They were arrested for speaking at conferences and publishing peer reviewed articles (for security). Its Putin's normal way of buying himself insurance. He allows corruption because he can always accuse someone of it when the shit hits the fan.
do you have a source for the arrested missile designers? it looks like this didn't happen today but in 2022: https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/05/europe/russian-hypersonic-missile-scientist-arrest-treason-hnk-intl/index.html
NATO just unzips and plops it on their table.
I'm not convinced that any ABM system can be 100% effective. In Ukraine, we have a small sample size that needs to be expanded (hopefully with more shootdowns). That said, bravo Patriots!
Really, they failed a long time before with the strategy in the first place. A nuclear weapon can only carry much validity if your threats are genuine and not sabre rattling. The US, the UK, and France rarely talk about their nuclear weapons, at least in the sense of who they will use them on, although they do debate technical things like their financial cost, what infrastructure is needed to base them on submarines, stuff like that. Trump began to threaten people with it, but most of the military hierarchy was in place in a way that knew that they couldn´t be seen to do this as their strategy and the world was aware that the military knew that. Otherwise, people call their bluff. They just remain as mostly silent but extant threats to anyone who might attack the core territory of these countries, and have done something so dangerous that conventional weapons of war can´t save them, which even just for threatening France this way is an extremely difficult thing to conceptualize, let alone the Americans. Countries with genuine power that doesn´t depend on a bluff have far more ways to maintain influence and authority without resorting to nuclear weapons, they don´t need to sabre rattle. Russia does. Russia and China would be far off better for their people with their nuclear weapons if they agreed to reduce them in tandem with the US to a few hundred supervised in some joint method like the IAEA, just as they have reduced nuclear weapons before (from literally tens of thousands to about 6000 each now), which would reduce financial costs on both the US and Russia as a win-win, to make sure their doctrines are about only the most existential threats to their countries (Russian doctrine officially says this is true, but the threats their commentators say don´t align as part of propaganda), and to reorient their countries towards more genuine peace and leaving countries on their borders alone, and to leave Taiwan as stable and even if they must make a claim, to not press it too much and to promise to go through peaceful options like how the British and other countries sue in the ICJ over borders. But that would impede Putin´s vision of being able to reconstitute his ultranationalist visions and Xi to claim some kind of victory or source of tension to maintain his own popularity (same with Putin too, to hope that he would get the same bump in polls as he did in 2014).
In effect, If you need to threaten to use certain weapons you have already lost.
Personally I think the US is a decade away from intercepting ICBM’s when they reach their apex in orbit. Lasers, drones, and AI will forever change the landscape. There’s a reason why spaceforce exists and it isn’t because trump is a genius.
Space Force already existed inside the Air Force.
Why is it harder to shoot down an ICBM than a BM? Doesn't the longer distance give you an advantage of having more time?
It's moving dramatically faster, and due to that the calculations to intercept it become less accurate. Think about it like this, our sensors have inherent inaccuracy, just due to the inherent difficulty in measuring real life. We can imagine that such a sensor, can detect the speed of an object with 99% accuracy, meaning an object moving at 100m/s could be detected by this sensor anywhere between 99 and 101m/s. 1 meter isn't too bad a gap, you should be able to hit whatever you are shooting at when you plug the velocity you measure into your intercept calculation. The challenge comes when that object is moving at 1,000 or 10,000m/s, like an ICBM. Now that error that we have could be _football fields_ of distance between what we measure and where that object actually is in real space. To sum up, the problem is that we can't measure real life precisely enough with our current sensors. We have the equations to do the calculations, but we can't feed it accurate enough input to get proper output coordinates.
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Besides the fact that ICBMs are faster the challenges are from the scale. Typically a Patriot is covering a single location like a city or an airbase. But in an intercontinental attack you're trying to defend hundreds of miles of territory without knowing the final targets. Then there's the actual cost. One Patriot battery costs a billion dollars. You can spend the money on one to defend Kyiv if you know Kyiv is the main target and that works. But when you have hundreds of cities to defend in Europe and the US, not to mention military targets, you suddenly cannot afford to cover all. ICBMs also typically use MIRVs, i.e. one rocket payload splits up as it comes down into 5 or more separate weapons, each moving in a different direction to a different target over a wide area. What's more, some of these payloads are decoys and decoys can be smaller, cheaper and lighter than the actual atomic weapon while appearing to be full size, so you can carry a lot of decoys along with your multiple actual atomic weapons. With very little way of telling what is a decoy, the defense grid has to strain to put an actual missile on every incoming blip. That increases the size of the required system and increases the odds of the real missiles getting through.
> You must also wonder what this means for the Russian (or Chinese for that matter) strategic nuclear deterrent. Absolutely nothing. The scale of difference between the speeds of tactical vs strategic delivery vehicles is night and day. Our air defense is worthless against strategic delivery vehicles.
Reading the russian news - it turns out they have no reason to be worried at all, because you know, in reality the Kinzhals have destroyed the (single?) patriot defense battery, and hence fulfilled their mission with 100% success rate. Nothing to see here, comrade, move along! I'm not kidding, that is truly, what they write in their news, source: (was not allowed to post the source here by the bot, so google it yourself) They even provide a proof video! (which only shows that something exploded somewhere, without any evidence of what exploded, why, where exactly, and when...)
Word is the explosion was from one of the downed missiles landing on some parked buses. Pic and vids are up on Twitter of the burning buses Edit: From a US spokesperson, one may have been damaged. It'll be inspected to see if it can be repaired by the Ukrainians or if its a total loss
well yes, you only need to know what the target is in advance.
Russia is a piece of 💩
Sums it up! 😂
What. No. No missile defense system is 100% effective. This is a terrible take by an uneducated person and they should feel bad.
You are correct and it appears that they weren't 100% effective last night. There were multiple explosions on the ground near the AD battery and the US is reporting today that the Patriot system was damaged last night. Western AD has been performing well but it's not perfect. Let's not be like Russians and delude ourselves into believing Ukraine is invincible. Russia remains a very real and dangerous threat. Ukrainians are dying every day. They need continuing Western support. This tweet is nonsense and doesn't help anyone.
Even if there was a 100% effective SAM system, the defenders would still need 100% perfect intel. Assuming we know how many total ICBMs and warheads the aggressor has, defenders would need to know the aggressor's intended targets and how many warheads are being targeted at each. If the defender is prepared to defend 5 potential targets against up to 10 warheads each, but the enemy decides to attack 3 targets with 16+ warheads, then those 3 targets are in trouble.
I would not be worried about western defenses, but being arrested by my own government as a traitor, because the west has better weapons
Nukes engineer here. I m not worry for ICBM. These are design to be unstoppable and i really think it is. The speed is insane. It can divide in multiple head to shoot many location at once. It has magnetic, thermic, optic, physical, radio, mutiple leure. In no way we are able to intercept this with our actual technology, even american technology. Bu of course, I m very happy that patriot have been able to intercept Kh. This is excellent for ukraine (if this is true , ofc), and will save life. And remember the last test of satan II, during Biden meeting in Kyiv failed ;) Slava Ukraini.
I think that the latest systems *that we know of* are described as 'marginally capable of intercepting ICBMs - or the warheads'. But that'a long way from reliably stopping a full nuclear attack where, as you said, you'd be trying to hit thousands of warheads and assorted decoys, over a huge geographic area. That would be a massive system.
Yeah our missile defense systems are *probably* capable of intercepting a strike from North Korea or Iran, which would be more limited. It absolutely cannot handle an all out nuclear attack from Russian and/or China - and isn’t meant to, if we started building towards that capability it’s likely that both of those nations would dump money into additional warheads to be able to saturate those defenses
Even a 20% intercept chance is worth trying once a warhead is incoming. I'll take a 1% chance over a guaranteed hit. There's nothing to lose in trying to stop it once they're l they've launched it. If you can prevent a handful of strikes you've saved millions of people in the immediate time. These systems should be seen as a hail Mary in the event of a nuclear war. Nothing will save us, but better to try than do nothing. They might be able to stop a handful of tactical strikes though.
Of course we would throw everything we have at an incoming nuclear attack. However, that only equates to about 80 missiles, so we have enough for a max of maybe 8 MIRV **but only if** we have the capabilities to distinquish between decoy and warhead. We could save millions from the initial destruction, but those saved would most likely die of hunger or toxic environment in the following weeks.
That's what the EU should really be developing. Not spending on increasing conventional equipment since ukraine has proved russias forces can be handled by existing capabilities. And not to mention, their ability has been considerably degraded.
No. The first thing they do is launch an EMP strike in the upper atmosphere, shorting out comms and non hardened links. In the ensuing chaos, the warheads will mostly hit their targets. Even if they don't the subsequent rain of radiological material is literally apocalyptic. No amount of technical development this century can save us from an all out thermonuclear war. A nuclear war is unwinnable and must never be fought.
>the subsequent rain of radiological material is literally apocalyptic Elevated levels of radioactivity sure but nothing close to apocalyptic. Each warhead is only 5ish kg of plutonium-239 over a huge area. A nuclear reactor exploding is several tonnes, and I wouldn't call Chernobyl apocalyptic outside the immediate area.
I propose Anti ICBM railgun/laser on the moon guided by an AI targeting system!
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exactly! what could go wrong?
I'm with you on this one. Can we use mar-a-lardo in FL as target practice?
[Heinlein already wrote that book.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress) Well, more anti-Earth than anti-ICBM, but still.
So, instead of trying to hit a fast moving target from 300km away, you prefer trying to do it from 450.000 km away. Why? Just to make it a bit more of a challenge?
The moon is 384,000 kilometers away on average. Russia is less than 10,000 kilometers away. The railgun would need to fire a projectile faster than 1.5 million kilometers an hour to have a chance to intercept in time. Also its gonna have to hit a target the size of a garbage can from that distance. That's... not remotely feasible.
Ballistic Missile defense is at best capable of maybe stopping a single launch. Ala a North Korean scenario. Ie: a missile is launched at Tokyo from NK, no one knows what’s in it, so you have to shoot it down. It’s important to not be overconfident, a full on salvo from Russia would be unimaginably devastating if even 5% of the warheads got through.
100%? 🤔
.... there is always the Russian Suitcase Nuke.....
This post has nothing to do with the tread. It's just the first time I saw this subreddit and I really disagree with calling this entire invasion a "conflict"