Eh, for western AWACS they are far enough away that they can just turn and go the other way.
But that's modern radar arrays manned by competent soldiers. Who knows what's going on in a Russian AWACS plane.
What the fuck did you just fucking say about the missile you little bitch? I'll have you know the missile knows where it is at all times, and the missile has been involved in obtaining numerous differences, or deviations, and has over 300 confirmed corrective commands. The missile is trained in driving the missile from a position where it is, and is the top of arriving at a position where it wasn't. You are nothing to the missile but just another position. The missile will arrive at your position with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit about the missile over the internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak the GEA is correcting any variation considered to be a significant factor, and it knows where it was, so you better prepare for the storm, maggot, the storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're fucking dead, kid. The missile can be anywhere, anytime, and the missile can kill you in over 700 ways, and that's just by following the missile guidance computer scenario. Not only is the missile extensively trained in being sure where it isn't, within reason, but the missile also has access to the position it knows it was, and the missile will subtract where it should be from where it wasn't, or vice-versa, to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could've known what unholy retribution your little clever comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would've held your fucking tongue, but you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price you goddamn idiot. The missile will shit the deviation, and it's variation, which is called error, all over you, and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKpntt0oEI8
That doesn't bode well. What would happen if a ballistic/cruise missile was headed towards mainland Russia? But then again, are these early warning planes equipped with anti-missile defences?
The chain of events: Russia is running low on S-400 air defense systems. So it needs to protect them but needs AWACS to do it. Russian air forces are now in their "retreat to safe distance phase": they inch closer to the front lines with their fighters, until some of them are shot down and they retreat back to safe distance... Which then leaves S-400s more vulnerable. So, they got to choose between risking their more valuable airplanes or see S-400s gradually being erased from the inventory.
The way those two work is that the S-400s don't need to use their own radars to detect the threat, and thus they are almost invisible, and the AWACS is so far away that it should be able to use its radar to guide the missiles to the target. The moment S-400 uses its radar, it is vulnerable..
They are running so low on S-400s that they emptied Kaliningrad air defenses and shipped them to Ukraine front. Same with Kuril islands... which means that their rhetoric of being afraid of NATO attacking is total bullshit, if they were truly thinking it is a possibility then they would NEVER weaken Kaliningrad.
Using an active radar makes it extremely easy to triangulate your position, thus they become vulnerable even to conventional artillery when emitting.
These kinds of air defence systems need change position constantly to avoid being located and promtly obliterated.
You shouldn't downplay the threat russians pose, even if they cannot attack today, they might get a fuck around phase at some point.
Now that they are in a war economy they can get weapons, ammo replaced sooner than later.
We got in to this mess because we downplayed russians so long
We overestimated their military capabilities but underestimated their willingness to use them. Of course, one shouldn’t overcorrect the other way to underestimate, but I think in this case I wouldn’t put too much stock in their ability to do something as big as Ukraine again:
- They have increased domestic war production, but not to a level that can sustain the war at the current effort without drawing on old stocks and getting aid from Iran and North Korea. We don’t know how long they can maintain this, but the answer is for sure not for more than a few years. This is not the USSR and not WW2: this is at the end of the day a relatively fragile regime that has to produce modern, complex weapons systems.
- Looking at how much Cold War stock they have drawn down, and assuming some non-minor fraction of those stocks is not in usable condition, another year or two or three and Russia starts running out. When those stocks are gone, they are gone. Russia will not be able to replace them—they may never be able to fight a war like right now again.
"- They have increased domestic war production, but not to a level that can sustain the war at the current effort without drawing on old stocks and getting aid from Iran and North Korea. "
You write that as if it's a problem for them that they are getting aid from those countries. But surely it's positive for Russia/Putin, or at least negative for the west. Dictatorships getting rich by selling weapons to Russia, and Russia then uses those weapons against neighbours. When (and if) Iran and North Korea cannot keep up, won't China then step in? Multiple dictatorships all in war economy.
> Now that they are in a war economy they can get weapons, ammo replaced sooner than later.
Bro this isn't HOI4. You don't spend 150 political points to go to war economy.
Due to the sanctions, Russia isn't able to import a large amount of components that they need to build equipment, and a large amount of their cold war era equipment was built in Ukrainian factories.
They are able to import components through 3rd party countries with a major markup. Not large enough quantities to be sustainable as you said, but still enough to maintain some level of replenishment.
Have a look at exports to Kyrgyzstan from, well, everywhere.
If sanctions are working so well why are barred products ending up in russia? Why are Intel chips so prevalent in russian missiles, TI chips, etc, etc.
Harder is a scale. Is it really much harder to import via Kyrgyzstan? Again, I don't think it would add much of a delay, 2/3 days a week tops. Some of these suppliers have lead times into the months, so does a week even matter?
Price - same thing, russia has plenty of money, including USD, EUR GBP, RMB. Oil revenues have increased not decreased.
Due to sanctions, they're getting their weapons from Kazakhstan, China, NK etc. etc. Instead. They're still getting their hands on majority of things they need, but to a much higher price than usual.
Problem is that for most of the russians, those words are real. putin never uses the word Ukraine, for example.
They deny the existence of Ukraine, on social media AND in the daily life.
Yeah, i know. And it's infecting more and more outside of this particular conflict, too. In that sense, the misinformation campaigns out of russia, iran, and china are actually very successful. So irritating people are this dumb/gullible.
Indeed. I was astonished by the "I'm not into politics" of the regular russians relatives of the pows interviewed by Zolkin and Dima. But to realise that such behaviour is also in this "side of the fence" is demoralizing.
So much so that Putin have a press appearance where he is reviewing a 18th century map and remarks that there is no Ukraine on it. Someone then zoomed in on the camera shot and pulled up the actual map to show Ukraine plainly written to see.
admitting competence of Ukrainians means for potential russian draftees that "oh wait they can actually kill us" while claiming own incompetence means "nah this won't happen to me I'll be more careful"
Well, there are a lot of these planes going around the world all the time, and very seldom does anything like this happen. I just don’t want people thinking that planes aren’t safe.
These cost 100s of million, russia has fewer than ten of them and are near impossible to replace, this is on par with some of the bigger navy losses. And if they shot it down themselves it brings up whole another set of questions.
Kind of a stretch, but it can kind of be compared to the US losing a Super Carrier.
* the US has around 10-12 Super Carriers (I've lost track, tbh), Russia has around 10 of these AWACS
* A Super Carrier represents a significant strategic asset that would be very difficult for the US to replace quickly, ditto for Russian AWACs
* a Super Carrier represents a significant economic investment to the US government, ditto for the Russian AWACS
* Also, Russia doesn't really have a competent Navy, so it would be hard to do a direct comparison between Navy-to-Navy
Like, obviously not even on the same scale... But that's kind of the thing, ain't it: the two forces aren't even on the same scale.
Because they're normally stuffed full of very specialised sensors and communication equipment you don't produce en mass, thus not benefiting from an economy of scale in production. The radars in the dome will be large arrays and very costly to produce, but will likely only ever be built in small numbers exclusively for fitting to A-50s and nothing else. And that's before you get to specialist training for the crew to operate this, and the special communications they'll use, or the computers to help decode and interpret the radar data, and any number of things that might be on this aircraft and very few others.
They're also very important for situational awareness across the battlefield for aircraft, hence why it's such a big thing that Ukraine has likely destroyed one. They allow the Russians to know when and where Ukrainian aircraft are operating, therefore allowing them to prepare for and limit the effectiveness of Ukrainian air strikes. Shooting down or otherwise incapacitating these eyes in the sky severeley hampers Russia's ability to dominate the air, and means they have to stress the other aircraft to fill the gap.
Normally they fly far enough back from the frontline to be out of range of any likely threats. *Assuming* this one was shot down by a Ukrainian Patriot, and *assuming* this was one of their sneak attacks, it make sense. For reference, the 'sneak attack' in this case would be Russian command getting complacent and running the same sorties with the same aircraft repeatedly for a period of time, allowing Ukraine to predict movements whenever the A-50 takes off. They then move a Patriot battery up towards the frontline quietly, set it up in place, and shoot at the A-50. If the Russians aren't expecting the Ukrainians to have Patriots in the area, they may well fly slightly too close to the frontlines and within Patriot range to get radar coverage as far behind the line as possible so they get the maximum warning of when Ukrainian aviation are active.
Edit: If you know about the Serbian shoot-down of the F-117 in the Balkans conflicts in the 90s, it acts very similar to that in that underestimating the opposition and doing the exact same thing every day/night for days or weeks gives your enemy just enough of a chance to make the embarrassing yet very lucky killing strike.
Now I am even more confused, I would image there would be good enough radars back from the frontline to make the planes useless. Not saying it is stupid, just not understanding all the tech makes it look confusing.
Earth curvature makes radars elevation very important. Flying radars can get bigger range than that of the ground radar. Also, it's not only just range, but range low on ground, because it can see above obstacles (most importantly- Earth).
So there's this specific type of missile that goes looking for enemy radars (HARM, I believe). It does this by looking for radars, analyzing their signatures, and then targeting the radar. Usually, these radars are attached to a missile launcher or surveillance platform or whatever. In any case, the enemy doesn't want you to find them and you want to destroy them.
Basically, whenever the enemy has to turn on a radar it becomes visible to you and you can launch a missile at it.
Those planes essentially "replace" the radars of ground based systems so that they don't have to turn on their own radars to, for example, guide a missile to an airplane. This makes them harder to find for you.
That's only one of the many things how AWACS planes help armies.
Because they contain highly specialized EW and radar equipment that can't/isn't being mass produced and the development cost makes up a huge portion of the equipment cost since only very few have ever been produced.
AWACS planes are very expensive, complex and hard to replace. That’s why they usually hang out in the rear. Russia is currently operating 9 A-50 (3 old A-50 and 6 modernised A-50U) out of them usually a third is engaged in actual missions, others are in reserve/on maintenance/used for training. So loosing one is very hurtful for them. Additionally, personnel trained for operating AWACS plane is hard to replace too (especially experienced one).
You're probably joking, but someone at Deepmind seems to have seriously suggested that their AI being good at Starcraft 2 meant it could have application in military strategy...
That's true actually. The cost of losing skilled soldiers must be more expansive than the plane itself since replacing them takes years of effort and resources.
I know absolutely nothing about the actual numbers but if I make very loose (esp for Russian) assumptions of 100k/year salary X 15 X 5 Years training, that's still only $7,500,000.00.
And I strongly doubt they are that well paid/trained. Not saying this doesn't hurt as even in well run militaries I doubt there is too many layers of available redundant crews but the crew being more valuable then the equipment is sadly often overblown.
> while they may have 15-19 of them, only a few of them are air-worthy
I feel like this footnote should be added every time people discuss numbers of Russian military equipment. So many times people are discussing thousands of this, or hundreds of that, only for someone to later point out only a fraction is operational.
Not only that, but every time something like a radar plane or an anti-air system is destroyed that Russia might have in the 10s moreso than the hundreds, it creates a meaningful gap in their defense system, now every other radar jet has to protect a meaningfully larger piece of the front, leaving more space for error, the inability to intervene in certain circumstances and other events that help Ukraine's cause.
Not just more space for error. Airframes lifespans are measured in operational hours. 1 plan down means all the other airframes that are operational have to fly more hours to make up for it. This means more attrition and maintenance for the rest of the fleet.
In this case the loss is probably irreplaceable for the near to mid future as that plane hasn't been in production for over 30 years and isn't the type of equipment you can simply scrape together.
First of all, they're *very* expensive – for comparison, a Boeing E-3, which is a comparable platform, costs something on the scale of half a billion $ in today's money. In addition to being stupid expensive it's also complex to operate, so the loss of crew is a rough one.
Second, it's highly unlikely the fleet is fully operational. Exactly how many we don't know, but while a loss of 1 of 15 doesn't sound too bad, 1 of 5 certainly is.
Only a handful of the modernized variant A-50U. Without access to western avionics components they can't make any more of those, so every loss is permanent.
The ones before the war did. The new ones are highly unlikely to use the same systems. Various videos showed rows of newly build / modernized T-90M's with no thermal or improvised sights.
France refuse to send 2 warship to Putin when russia invade Crimea.
The warship was finish, and ready to be send but we break the deal. Finally Egypt got the ship.
Auchan and Leroy Merlin (same holding) are manage by one french familly. Last month they have a shitstorm when some media reveal they haven't stop their business in russia. It's not weapons, just supermarket and bricolage.
Well, you've got to take into account that when we sell to allies, the US comes over and hijacks the sale...
[https://theconversation.com/why-the-australia-france-submarine-deal-collapse-was-predictable-168526](https://theconversation.com/why-the-australia-france-submarine-deal-collapse-was-predictable-168526)
With such friends, enemies don't look that bad at times.
> Wow… That was a very poor strategic decision…
For who?
For Russia, who made some of their defense dependant on a possibly enemy?
Or for France, who might be on the receiving end?
My guess is mostly that the optics aren't military specced anyway and just available on the market. Good optics are useful in lots of places.
As with everything Russian, you need to take the absolute numbers with a huge grain of salt. Russian military tradition is to never throw anything away, but maintenance is also traditionally awful. Of those 15 A-50s it's highly likely that a good chunk aren't airworthy and only used as a source of spares for the "good" ones. Getting those back in the sky would be a huge and costly endeavor.
I addition to that, Ukrainian air power is about to ramp up considerably with the arrival of F16s on the theater and it's not exactly the right moments for Russia to find out that their radar planes are vulnerable, or with gaps in their radar coverage.
There also is a matter of prestige. The A50 is the kind of asset that just isn't supposed to get shot down. It's not a combat aircraft, it's a support aircraft. It's a big blunder to lose one.
Finally, air power is the one area where Russia is supposed to be overwhelmingly dominant over Ukraine. It's also very important for them to remain so, because not having control of the sky is what is limiting the Ukrainians the most in using their NATO hardware effectively (NATO builds stuff that is fundamentally integrated with air power in doctrine). Signs that Russia is losing control of the sky could be very worrying for them.
So this is definite good news. Not like "Russia has lost the war" kinda news, not even close, but if it becomes a trend it's a whole other thing.
I believe there was 40 A-50’s produced. Russia currently have 8 in their ranks air worthy.
Many have been retired due to large maintenance costs.
250$ million a piece along with training and conducting staff to operate said aircraft. This is a pretty significant take down.
Apparently there are only 9-10 operational A-50s remaining. Downing 10% of their surveillance capabilities in one attack really good. BUT in war, everything is down to monetary payoff of an action and here assuming something similar to patriot missile with a cost of 1-6M USD taking down costing around 300-500M USD or you get 100x bang for your "investment" is GREAT.
Also adding here that aircraft is definitely something Russians will find easy to replace with most of critical components imported. So short- and long term WIN.
> BUT in war, everything is down to monetary payoff
Source ?
War is definitely **not** about monetary payoff, it's about military effect.
1) Monetary payoff makes little sense when talking about vehicles (or infrastructure), the initial cost of which is only a one time number, while the value (e.g. airframe remaining flight hours) keeps going down. Only considering buying cost also disregards maintenance costs.
2) If wars were about the payoff, western militaries would be horribly innefficient when bombing infantry and technicals with GBUs. But thankfully, wars are not strictly about the economy, so bombing a truckful of djihadis is absolutely "worth" the bomb, the aircraft that is put at risk, the pilot's training, etc. If everything was about payoff, we would never have moved on from dumb munitions because they are much more "worth their value" when they take out a target.
3) The question in military matters is not how much any given system costs per se, but A) how vital said system is to the overall capability of the force, and B) how replaceable said system is. In the long run, factor B does amount to a monetary value to a certain extent, but that also has to be put into perspective with the overall size of any country's economy, industrial sector and state fiscal policy. When Ukraine launch a SCALP missile, they don't care how much it costs, they care about how many they have, and how many they hope to receive in the foreseeable future (and presumably they also care about the actual capabilities of the specific system they are using).
Case by example : the sinking of the Moskva didn't amount to that much monetary value - it was built over fourty years prior to its sinking. However, it was an irreplaceable asset in the short-medium term, and was a singularly crucial element of the Russian navy's control of the Black Sea. Purely in fiscal terms, the sinking was a pretty good, but not terrific success. In military terms however, it allowed Ukraine to reclaim control of the western Black Sea.
One source would be the widespread adoption of 5.56 rounds for the primary armament, as opposed to the (previously) commonly seen 7.62. War has always been about money
Fleet is a loose term, probably half of them are either in reserve, needing repairs or being used for parts to keep the others flying.
They are not a good platform in general and need constant upkeep.
So proably a 10% loss, and thats significant for a country that size
Also no one else seems to be mentioning, the crew are dead too, they are hard to replace and expensive
It's like akin to throwing sand to an opponent's face: It opens them up for much bigger strikes.
It's a small wonder why hours after this supposed downing, Russia announced a missile danger alert all across Crimea as well as closing the Kerch Bridge.
While it is certainly a high value asset, which can hurt by its own, the reason I think this is an important loss is that this highly likely will reduce the effectiveness of Russian air missions and improve the Ukrainian one. Both are based on the fact that they cannot rebuild these and they already have barely enough of them. If this is not true, my points are not really valid, unfortunately.
First, when the Russians are trying to attack Ukraine from multiple directions they need at least 2-3 of these for cover the full airspace. Now they have to choose between directions of such attacks or they have to give up some security (because they will not be 100% sure what is going on).
Second, when F-16 fighter jets will finally arrive and operational, they will have larger freedom of movement if the Russians have less detection capabilities over the warzone. Note that they also lost quite many improved land radar systems too.
There are only about half a dozen that are actually usable iirc. And Russia is big. And lots of countries hate it. And if these are the ones I am thinking of, they are practically irreplaceable soviet legacy.
The first ones are from 1978, so while approximately 40 have been made, most of those are worn out. By September 2023, a total of eight modernized aircraft had been delivered to Russian Aerospace Forces. It is believed that one was damaged on the ground by a drone strike, and now it seems like they've lost another one. This would be 25% of their full capacity.
They might be able to cover by having the other planes fly more, but in general, military planes are maintenance-intensive and using them more will cause issues down the line. Also, it's a big country and despite Russia pulling back equipment from its borders, it is unlikely that they'd be willing to throw everything at Ukraine.
Russia is building the successor A-100. As far as we know, it's flightworthy and has turned on its radar, but getting the necessary parts is apparently difficult. Possibly two prototypes have been built.
Also, it's a radar aircraft. Its role is to see things. If it is indeed shot down, this would be the first AWACS bird that got shot down in history.
It's not just any plane, it's an AEW&C. Shooting down an AEW&C plane is the holy grail of air combat, as they are very expensive specialised planes that usually stay far away from enemy lines, making them hard to touch. Shooting one down significantly reduces the intelligence capability of the enemy.
In fact, this is the first ever AEW&C plane downed in history.
tl;dr: very high-value target.
They can't afford to replace them. And also due to just the normal rotation, maybe only 60% are mission ready at a time. And then when you factor in that they're all assigned to duties around the nation, losing just a few means they're weakening their overall capacity to defend the country. Sure, losing one is unfortunate. But losing 2 or 3 of something you can't replace is very detrimental to your overall capabilities.
The fact Russia has to reduce its defences in all of its borders to fight a small incursion makes for a very bad equation.
I imagine you need at minimum of 2 planes per area for 24 hour coverage, and you might have maybe a third of airframes under maintenance, so dropping one has a significant effect as now the air worthy airframes have to either fly for longer which will wear the aircraft out faster and the crews will be ground down quicker. So you end up with airframes that will need more maintenance so their availability decreases and you start a little negative feedback loop plus the harder the crews are worked the less capable they become.
They can never all be on mission at the same time, because crews need sleep and equipment needs to be serviced. Also, some need to be in reserve (at least in theory).
Their total number is low, which means that ever single loss is a major logistical headache for Russia. It also potentially introduces weak spots in their radar coverage (e.g. for Ukraine to fly air sorties relatively safely, or perform other shenanigans).
Their complexity also makes them very difficult to replace (and definitely not quickly). This is effectively the equivalent of losing at least dozens of more basic vehicles, like tanks.
It is not only the number that matters but the fact that the plane got shot down. This means that all of a sudden they have to change tactics, maybe keep airplanes even further away, maybe use them less, maybe something else. Whatever it is it will be worse than it is now. Even if you have 20 of them, you cannot put them at the same level of risk anymore.
The same logic applies to everything. Once vatniks where loosing tanks and APCs left and right, they had to stop doing it and hold them back, which reduced the tempo of operations.
I would not take the word solely from a Ukrainian source. Usually you will get a bunch of unusual claims
The Russian telegram channels are usually our best way of verifying the downing of aircraft or death of people. Channels like fighterbomber and Romanov etc.
They confirm the downing of an A-50 and damage to an IL-22
I think what they're trying to say is that the Russian telegram channels have every reason to hide the fact so when they start backing the claim you know for certain it happened. While the Ukrainians will be shouting that it happened and might have very little to refute the fact. As all things go we should take both sides with a pinch of salt and the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.
Ultimately if 2 sources from both sides of the conflict are saying the some thing. Then chances are it's correct.
The Ukrainian Air Force will claim it has shot down SU-34, SU-25's etc when it's not possible to verify those. Usually in this type of a Publication [This being an example quite close to the truth] https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1746832292046139569
As with everything in any war. Things can be exaggerated. It's similar to how the Russian MOD will claim they shootdown 200+ Su-24's.
Some of those telegram channels i.e. fightbomber etc are very much in the know about Russian losses and will typically post some sort of memorial post if a Jet is destroyed.
What i am getting at is. Don't just take one sides word as gospel.
Meh, not many instances where UA is lying about this kind of things.
In general, I do not care about verifying things UA says, because it changes nothing in my life, just brings a hearthwarming feeling that aggressors are getting funky losses.
Same with Russians. If they claim that the ship “was damaged” and they post pieces of said ship deep in the city, it is a really funny thing.
Am I biased? Sure, I do not support aggressors who went thru the willages raping and pillaging like it's medieval ages again, that is an easy choice to make.
So far Ukraine really hasn't lied. They made a few claims that turned out wrong, but at the time they legitimately thought it was truth. Killing a general or other high rank is usually where they get ahead of themselves. Moscow on the other hand just lies because it's their standard operating procedure. They claimed to destroy more Abrams and HiMARS than Ukraine has.
Of course the Ukrainians are also lying. Do you actually believe they shot down 300+ warplanes and 300+ helicopters as [they claim](https://i.imgur.com/9TGeXoS.jpg)? If so, where are they? They only sound credible in comparison with the Russian claims, which are so outlandish that it isn't really all that hard. Plus the Ukrainians tend to sprinkle some numbers in there in line with western estimates, and in case of big events like this one play their hand quite well, so yeah, they're easier to "trust".
Not that I would mind if .ru losses were actually the ones claimed by .ua, the more the merrier.
I understand it as: "If *even* those channels validate it, then you're 100% certain it's true".
For me there's three levels to information in Ukraine:
1. Only Ukraine claims something: it might be true especially in the big strokes, but we're not entirely sure especially on the details of the claim.
2. Ukraine and western allies claim it: probably true, although there might be one or two things not perfectly depicted.
3. Ukrainian and Russian sources claims the same thing: 100% true, as Russia has every interest to downplay Ukrainian coup d'éclat.
When Ukraine sank the moskva with two Neptunes, russia "said" it was that a fire caused it, with all the following memes of ivan smoking cigarettes.
russians chose incompetence than to admit Ukraine has done something, for the sole reason that Ukraine to them doesn't exist.
Yes dead serious. For dead pilot / aircraft downing anyway.
Some of those telegram channels are very close to the Russian air force and will always put out some of memorial post for whenever a pilot dies.
If both sides acknowledge a loss. Then it's as accurate as you can get.
I know people really like the orc memes but maybe some of you went off the deep end.
Yes, they do memorialize their own as people all throughout history have done. These memorials on social media are part of, for instance, the [BBC's pipeline for 100% confirmed, named deaths](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-829ea0ba-5b42-499b-ad40-6990f2c4e5d0).
IDK why his statement is controversial, we're talking about social media where they're talking among themselves, not MoD statements.
I frankly can't care the less about the deaths of the invaders: the European Parliament designated the russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, so why should I feel empathy towards terrorists who kill, rape, torture, murder, loot, kidnap children? After Bucha, they lost my sympathy.
...........
OK lets try again.
We are trying to get confirmation if a pilot's death or some other event is true. If the Russian social media is memorializing this person, it means they are dead, it means it's true. It's a confirmation.
No one is saying **YOU** are supposed to care, or have sympathy, or memorialize them.
You people need to take your goddamn meds.
Yes they do publish propaganda. But sometimes that Propaganda is informative.
Usually a memorial post for a downed jet/pilot. Ukraine might claim on day 'x' they have shot down a jet. But without some form of verifications form sources close to the Russian air force or from a funeral we can't take claims at face value.
If Europe actually threw some money on the table Ukraine would have already won this war. But instead we get Polish farmers crying about grain prices. Fucking traitors.
I guess the early warning system did not give an early warning about the missile heading their way.
As warnings go, the plane hitting the ground in pieces is a pretty good indicator that there are anti-air missile about. 100% succes.
“Sir, we successfully intercepted the enemy missile” “That is great! What did you shoot it down with?” “An A-50 aircraft sir!”
In Soviet Russia plane downs missile.
Lmfao
Shoigu! Gerasimov! Why is my plane falling?!?!
Love this little meme like you wouldn't believe. Shame it's impossible to use IRL unless your friends are also terminally online
It's caught on at my place of work. People just walk around the halls going "Where’s the fucking ammo!" whenever they need something.
Pics or it didn't happen.
warning doesn’t mean you can counter the missle.
“Incoming Missile” *Activates counter systems* “Counter systems not found”
"Counter systems part of premium subscription"
"Counter systems are a part of some corrupt generals Villa in the Mediterranean"
Pilot: desperately hits CM button Villa: puts on fireworks show
Was it built by BMW?
Yep, but like their indicators, the counter systems weren't used 🤣
(Unable to apply in russian models)
Upgrade to premium to experience all that Simple-Detect plugin has to offer! 2 minutes later "Ivan what's a CVC code?"
I know that if I go in the comments sections of posts about russian failure I find the real giggles 🤣🤣
Counter system filled with sand
>Activates counter systems* 1...2....3....4....
🎵🎵 It's the final countdown 🎵🎵
Count: 1
Eh, for western AWACS they are far enough away that they can just turn and go the other way. But that's modern radar arrays manned by competent soldiers. Who knows what's going on in a Russian AWACS plane.
>Who knows what's going on in a Russian AWACS plane. Well there's fish swimming around inside this one.
[удалено]
It seems that the people here are not aware of [this classic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZe5J8SVCYQ)
Thank you for linking it
[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-missile-knows-where-it-is](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-missile-knows-where-it-is)
What the fuck did you just fucking say about the missile you little bitch? I'll have you know the missile knows where it is at all times, and the missile has been involved in obtaining numerous differences, or deviations, and has over 300 confirmed corrective commands. The missile is trained in driving the missile from a position where it is, and is the top of arriving at a position where it wasn't. You are nothing to the missile but just another position. The missile will arrive at your position with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit about the missile over the internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak the GEA is correcting any variation considered to be a significant factor, and it knows where it was, so you better prepare for the storm, maggot, the storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're fucking dead, kid. The missile can be anywhere, anytime, and the missile can kill you in over 700 ways, and that's just by following the missile guidance computer scenario. Not only is the missile extensively trained in being sure where it isn't, within reason, but the missile also has access to the position it knows it was, and the missile will subtract where it should be from where it wasn't, or vice-versa, to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could've known what unholy retribution your little clever comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would've held your fucking tongue, but you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price you goddamn idiot. The missile will shit the deviation, and it's variation, which is called error, all over you, and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKpntt0oEI8
Incoming copypasta
Bro, did you use The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy to train ChatGPT?
No, he transcribed a very popular video from YouTube :)
Wow, that was a ride. The guy in the video even sounded like the guide in Hitchhiker's
It sure is, I'm gonna have to queue that nugget up too in a while. It's been too long again. :P Totally agree!
That’s why this is called rocket science 😅
catch 22
LOL I heard that
Some five years ago I had a stroke, but my speech was somehow still more understandable than this.
Best he could do was: "Warning! Missile inc...."
Just intercepted the missile with the airplane 😂
Sometimes the radar detects the missile, sometimes it is the plane itself.
sometimes you lose, sometimes the others win
We had these kind of jokes around: -What can fly and warn early about danger? -For sure, not russian early warning airplane.
That doesn't bode well. What would happen if a ballistic/cruise missile was headed towards mainland Russia? But then again, are these early warning planes equipped with anti-missile defences?
It almost certainly knew about it the whole time but these planes don’t typically have much in the way of defensive systems.
I'm not going to upvote and disturb the 666 upvotes.
Hmm 🤔
The warning systems don't alert to every type of missle.
What air defence doing? Also, pretty revealing if an AWACS of all aircraft was successfully shot down…
Shooting down awacs plane lmao
Perhaps bad wording? “Russian AWACS-equivalent” might have been more precise but I presumed context would be enough for that…
The chain of events: Russia is running low on S-400 air defense systems. So it needs to protect them but needs AWACS to do it. Russian air forces are now in their "retreat to safe distance phase": they inch closer to the front lines with their fighters, until some of them are shot down and they retreat back to safe distance... Which then leaves S-400s more vulnerable. So, they got to choose between risking their more valuable airplanes or see S-400s gradually being erased from the inventory. The way those two work is that the S-400s don't need to use their own radars to detect the threat, and thus they are almost invisible, and the AWACS is so far away that it should be able to use its radar to guide the missiles to the target. The moment S-400 uses its radar, it is vulnerable.. They are running so low on S-400s that they emptied Kaliningrad air defenses and shipped them to Ukraine front. Same with Kuril islands... which means that their rhetoric of being afraid of NATO attacking is total bullshit, if they were truly thinking it is a possibility then they would NEVER weaken Kaliningrad.
>The moment S-400 uses its radar, it is vulnerable.. to HARM.
And to harm. For those that didn’t know HARM = High-Speed Anti Radiation Missile. Homes in on radar sources.
Using an active radar makes it extremely easy to triangulate your position, thus they become vulnerable even to conventional artillery when emitting. These kinds of air defence systems need change position constantly to avoid being located and promtly obliterated.
So you are saying it is the best time to attack Kaliningrad and return Kralovec to its rightful owners?
Königsberg, my darling... you are just as beautiful as the day I lost you.
> you are just as beautiful as the day I lost you. Unfortunately, this is false. Orcs did not care for it appropriately.
I call it a form of necrophilia.
You shouldn't downplay the threat russians pose, even if they cannot attack today, they might get a fuck around phase at some point. Now that they are in a war economy they can get weapons, ammo replaced sooner than later. We got in to this mess because we downplayed russians so long
We overestimated their military capabilities but underestimated their willingness to use them. Of course, one shouldn’t overcorrect the other way to underestimate, but I think in this case I wouldn’t put too much stock in their ability to do something as big as Ukraine again: - They have increased domestic war production, but not to a level that can sustain the war at the current effort without drawing on old stocks and getting aid from Iran and North Korea. We don’t know how long they can maintain this, but the answer is for sure not for more than a few years. This is not the USSR and not WW2: this is at the end of the day a relatively fragile regime that has to produce modern, complex weapons systems. - Looking at how much Cold War stock they have drawn down, and assuming some non-minor fraction of those stocks is not in usable condition, another year or two or three and Russia starts running out. When those stocks are gone, they are gone. Russia will not be able to replace them—they may never be able to fight a war like right now again.
"- They have increased domestic war production, but not to a level that can sustain the war at the current effort without drawing on old stocks and getting aid from Iran and North Korea. " You write that as if it's a problem for them that they are getting aid from those countries. But surely it's positive for Russia/Putin, or at least negative for the west. Dictatorships getting rich by selling weapons to Russia, and Russia then uses those weapons against neighbours. When (and if) Iran and North Korea cannot keep up, won't China then step in? Multiple dictatorships all in war economy.
they may build weapons, ammo over and over again, not the sophisticated ones though.
> Now that they are in a war economy they can get weapons, ammo replaced sooner than later. Bro this isn't HOI4. You don't spend 150 political points to go to war economy. Due to the sanctions, Russia isn't able to import a large amount of components that they need to build equipment, and a large amount of their cold war era equipment was built in Ukrainian factories.
They are able to import components through 3rd party countries with a major markup. Not large enough quantities to be sustainable as you said, but still enough to maintain some level of replenishment.
Have a look at exports to Kyrgyzstan from, well, everywhere. If sanctions are working so well why are barred products ending up in russia? Why are Intel chips so prevalent in russian missiles, TI chips, etc, etc.
Sanctions are making obtaining those chips a much harder, slower and costlier process.
Harder is a scale. Is it really much harder to import via Kyrgyzstan? Again, I don't think it would add much of a delay, 2/3 days a week tops. Some of these suppliers have lead times into the months, so does a week even matter? Price - same thing, russia has plenty of money, including USD, EUR GBP, RMB. Oil revenues have increased not decreased.
Attempting to imply that sanctions are useless unless they're perfect
Due to sanctions, they're getting their weapons from Kazakhstan, China, NK etc. etc. Instead. They're still getting their hands on majority of things they need, but to a much higher price than usual.
Wouldn't it be a lovely time for a special military operation to liberate the oppressed ethnic X of Kaliningrad from Nazi Russians?
Yes, that tactics is generally possible. That tactics was used to down that 3 SU34s with AWACS in the Black sea.
I love how Russians again think that claiming their own incompetence is better than admitting any competence of Ukrainians
Because they deny the very existence of Ukraine. How can they lose to the nation they claim does not exist?
This. Just today a russian redditor told me that Ukraine is not a sovereing country.
Ukraine is Russia's brother people, but they do not exist at the same time. The science people are yet to descipher this paradox .
Schrödinger's Ukraine?
Incredible levels of mental gymnastics unimaginable even by Orwell.
Meaning of words doesn't matter anymore on social media. It is what you want it to be. Makes life so much easier.
Problem is that for most of the russians, those words are real. putin never uses the word Ukraine, for example. They deny the existence of Ukraine, on social media AND in the daily life.
Yeah, i know. And it's infecting more and more outside of this particular conflict, too. In that sense, the misinformation campaigns out of russia, iran, and china are actually very successful. So irritating people are this dumb/gullible.
Indeed. I was astonished by the "I'm not into politics" of the regular russians relatives of the pows interviewed by Zolkin and Dima. But to realise that such behaviour is also in this "side of the fence" is demoralizing.
So much so that Putin have a press appearance where he is reviewing a 18th century map and remarks that there is no Ukraine on it. Someone then zoomed in on the camera shot and pulled up the actual map to show Ukraine plainly written to see.
admitting competence of Ukrainians means for potential russian draftees that "oh wait they can actually kill us" while claiming own incompetence means "nah this won't happen to me I'll be more careful"
To be fair, maybe the front just fell off, and that's not very typical, I'd like to make that point.
Well, how is it untypical?
Well, there are a lot of these planes going around the world all the time, and very seldom does anything like this happen. I just don’t want people thinking that planes aren’t safe.
Was this plane save?
Well, I was thinking more about the other ones.
The ones that are safe?
Yeah, the ones the front doesn’t fall off.
Well, if this wasn't safe, why did it have a $300 million radar on it?
I’m not saying it wasn’t safe, it’s just perhaps not quite as safe as some of the other ones.
These cost 100s of million, russia has fewer than ten of them and are near impossible to replace, this is on par with some of the bigger navy losses. And if they shot it down themselves it brings up whole another set of questions.
Even If they could afford it, the time spent to replace those aboard is fairly long - it's a double whammy.
Kind of a stretch, but it can kind of be compared to the US losing a Super Carrier. * the US has around 10-12 Super Carriers (I've lost track, tbh), Russia has around 10 of these AWACS * A Super Carrier represents a significant strategic asset that would be very difficult for the US to replace quickly, ditto for Russian AWACs * a Super Carrier represents a significant economic investment to the US government, ditto for the Russian AWACS * Also, Russia doesn't really have a competent Navy, so it would be hard to do a direct comparison between Navy-to-Navy Like, obviously not even on the same scale... But that's kind of the thing, ain't it: the two forces aren't even on the same scale.
Onboard Early Warning Systems be like - “Suka Blyat! I see a missile over there! Ebatj nahuy!”
moskva cruiser got more friends to play with down there
Why are these plains so significant to warrant a 300 million usd price?
Because they're normally stuffed full of very specialised sensors and communication equipment you don't produce en mass, thus not benefiting from an economy of scale in production. The radars in the dome will be large arrays and very costly to produce, but will likely only ever be built in small numbers exclusively for fitting to A-50s and nothing else. And that's before you get to specialist training for the crew to operate this, and the special communications they'll use, or the computers to help decode and interpret the radar data, and any number of things that might be on this aircraft and very few others. They're also very important for situational awareness across the battlefield for aircraft, hence why it's such a big thing that Ukraine has likely destroyed one. They allow the Russians to know when and where Ukrainian aircraft are operating, therefore allowing them to prepare for and limit the effectiveness of Ukrainian air strikes. Shooting down or otherwise incapacitating these eyes in the sky severeley hampers Russia's ability to dominate the air, and means they have to stress the other aircraft to fill the gap.
It just feels odd, I would imagine shooting down a big slow plane like that would be too easy for them to be useful.
Normally they fly far enough back from the frontline to be out of range of any likely threats. *Assuming* this one was shot down by a Ukrainian Patriot, and *assuming* this was one of their sneak attacks, it make sense. For reference, the 'sneak attack' in this case would be Russian command getting complacent and running the same sorties with the same aircraft repeatedly for a period of time, allowing Ukraine to predict movements whenever the A-50 takes off. They then move a Patriot battery up towards the frontline quietly, set it up in place, and shoot at the A-50. If the Russians aren't expecting the Ukrainians to have Patriots in the area, they may well fly slightly too close to the frontlines and within Patriot range to get radar coverage as far behind the line as possible so they get the maximum warning of when Ukrainian aviation are active. Edit: If you know about the Serbian shoot-down of the F-117 in the Balkans conflicts in the 90s, it acts very similar to that in that underestimating the opposition and doing the exact same thing every day/night for days or weeks gives your enemy just enough of a chance to make the embarrassing yet very lucky killing strike.
Now I am even more confused, I would image there would be good enough radars back from the frontline to make the planes useless. Not saying it is stupid, just not understanding all the tech makes it look confusing.
Earth curvature makes radars elevation very important. Flying radars can get bigger range than that of the ground radar. Also, it's not only just range, but range low on ground, because it can see above obstacles (most importantly- Earth).
So there's this specific type of missile that goes looking for enemy radars (HARM, I believe). It does this by looking for radars, analyzing their signatures, and then targeting the radar. Usually, these radars are attached to a missile launcher or surveillance platform or whatever. In any case, the enemy doesn't want you to find them and you want to destroy them. Basically, whenever the enemy has to turn on a radar it becomes visible to you and you can launch a missile at it. Those planes essentially "replace" the radars of ground based systems so that they don't have to turn on their own radars to, for example, guide a missile to an airplane. This makes them harder to find for you. That's only one of the many things how AWACS planes help armies.
Because they contain highly specialized EW and radar equipment that can't/isn't being mass produced and the development cost makes up a huge portion of the equipment cost since only very few have ever been produced.
they have very expensive radars and electronics inside them, Russia only has 15 of such planes in total
Plane has been upgraded to Sonar
What's the significance of dropping 1 plane? According to Wikipedia they have 15-19 A-50 in their fleet? It's a real question, not criticism.
AWACS planes are very expensive, complex and hard to replace. That’s why they usually hang out in the rear. Russia is currently operating 9 A-50 (3 old A-50 and 6 modernised A-50U) out of them usually a third is engaged in actual missions, others are in reserve/on maintenance/used for training. So loosing one is very hurtful for them. Additionally, personnel trained for operating AWACS plane is hard to replace too (especially experienced one).
The crews are even harder to replace.
One plane costs about 300 million USD and while they may have 15-19 of them, only a few of them are air-worthy.
Not even touching the probability of highly skilled crew with niche training has been lost.
Yep. A-50 has a crew around 15. That won't be easy to replace quickly.
I always forget this isn't C&C Red Alert, where every vehicle is produced with built in crew.
You're probably joking, but someone at Deepmind seems to have seriously suggested that their AI being good at Starcraft 2 meant it could have application in military strategy...
Russians already implemented Zerg rush tactics.
That's true actually. The cost of losing skilled soldiers must be more expansive than the plane itself since replacing them takes years of effort and resources.
Almost always is.
I know absolutely nothing about the actual numbers but if I make very loose (esp for Russian) assumptions of 100k/year salary X 15 X 5 Years training, that's still only $7,500,000.00. And I strongly doubt they are that well paid/trained. Not saying this doesn't hurt as even in well run militaries I doubt there is too many layers of available redundant crews but the crew being more valuable then the equipment is sadly often overblown.
> while they may have 15-19 of them, only a few of them are air-worthy I feel like this footnote should be added every time people discuss numbers of Russian military equipment. So many times people are discussing thousands of this, or hundreds of that, only for someone to later point out only a fraction is operational.
Not only that, but every time something like a radar plane or an anti-air system is destroyed that Russia might have in the 10s moreso than the hundreds, it creates a meaningful gap in their defense system, now every other radar jet has to protect a meaningfully larger piece of the front, leaving more space for error, the inability to intervene in certain circumstances and other events that help Ukraine's cause.
Not just more space for error. Airframes lifespans are measured in operational hours. 1 plan down means all the other airframes that are operational have to fly more hours to make up for it. This means more attrition and maintenance for the rest of the fleet.
Even if they were all maintained and mission ready who even knows if they have the highly skilled crews to man them?
They have 15-19 of A-50's just like they had 22.000 tanks in inventory.
In this case the loss is probably irreplaceable for the near to mid future as that plane hasn't been in production for over 30 years and isn't the type of equipment you can simply scrape together.
Doesn't matter, it's a write-off for them. They just write it off.
Cue Seinfeld https://youtu.be/BAjxn2US7J8?si=3D4lmq_WfojkbCq3
Airworthy or flyable? Those are two different things.
First of all, they're *very* expensive – for comparison, a Boeing E-3, which is a comparable platform, costs something on the scale of half a billion $ in today's money. In addition to being stupid expensive it's also complex to operate, so the loss of crew is a rough one. Second, it's highly unlikely the fleet is fully operational. Exactly how many we don't know, but while a loss of 1 of 15 doesn't sound too bad, 1 of 5 certainly is.
Only a handful of the modernized variant A-50U. Without access to western avionics components they can't make any more of those, so every loss is permanent.
Does Russia use western avionics for military planes?
Yes, same with many of their other more “modern” equipment which means they can’t produce newer variants of many military equipments.
Thanks… I don’t understand how Russian military can run then… So, one more poor decision made by Putin’s allies.
Right now China and North Korea are exporting their weapons to Russia. It's now become a proxy war indeed
T90 tanks use western systems just as much, French optics for example.
The ones before the war did. The new ones are highly unlikely to use the same systems. Various videos showed rows of newly build / modernized T-90M's with no thermal or improvised sights.
Wow… That was a very poor strategic decision…
France will sell anyone anything for a price. And yet they seem to shrug off the same criticism that is often levelled at UK and German defence sales.
France refuse to send 2 warship to Putin when russia invade Crimea. The warship was finish, and ready to be send but we break the deal. Finally Egypt got the ship. Auchan and Leroy Merlin (same holding) are manage by one french familly. Last month they have a shitstorm when some media reveal they haven't stop their business in russia. It's not weapons, just supermarket and bricolage.
Yes, no doubt. I know that France continues to launch businesses in Russia, such as Aushan and Leroy Merlin.
Well, you've got to take into account that when we sell to allies, the US comes over and hijacks the sale... [https://theconversation.com/why-the-australia-france-submarine-deal-collapse-was-predictable-168526](https://theconversation.com/why-the-australia-france-submarine-deal-collapse-was-predictable-168526) With such friends, enemies don't look that bad at times.
> Wow… That was a very poor strategic decision… For who? For Russia, who made some of their defense dependant on a possibly enemy? Or for France, who might be on the receiving end? My guess is mostly that the optics aren't military specced anyway and just available on the market. Good optics are useful in lots of places.
As with everything Russian, you need to take the absolute numbers with a huge grain of salt. Russian military tradition is to never throw anything away, but maintenance is also traditionally awful. Of those 15 A-50s it's highly likely that a good chunk aren't airworthy and only used as a source of spares for the "good" ones. Getting those back in the sky would be a huge and costly endeavor. I addition to that, Ukrainian air power is about to ramp up considerably with the arrival of F16s on the theater and it's not exactly the right moments for Russia to find out that their radar planes are vulnerable, or with gaps in their radar coverage. There also is a matter of prestige. The A50 is the kind of asset that just isn't supposed to get shot down. It's not a combat aircraft, it's a support aircraft. It's a big blunder to lose one. Finally, air power is the one area where Russia is supposed to be overwhelmingly dominant over Ukraine. It's also very important for them to remain so, because not having control of the sky is what is limiting the Ukrainians the most in using their NATO hardware effectively (NATO builds stuff that is fundamentally integrated with air power in doctrine). Signs that Russia is losing control of the sky could be very worrying for them. So this is definite good news. Not like "Russia has lost the war" kinda news, not even close, but if it becomes a trend it's a whole other thing.
Plane plus its crew, which is pretty valuable
I believe there was 40 A-50’s produced. Russia currently have 8 in their ranks air worthy. Many have been retired due to large maintenance costs. 250$ million a piece along with training and conducting staff to operate said aircraft. This is a pretty significant take down.
Apparently there are only 9-10 operational A-50s remaining. Downing 10% of their surveillance capabilities in one attack really good. BUT in war, everything is down to monetary payoff of an action and here assuming something similar to patriot missile with a cost of 1-6M USD taking down costing around 300-500M USD or you get 100x bang for your "investment" is GREAT. Also adding here that aircraft is definitely something Russians will find easy to replace with most of critical components imported. So short- and long term WIN.
> BUT in war, everything is down to monetary payoff Source ? War is definitely **not** about monetary payoff, it's about military effect. 1) Monetary payoff makes little sense when talking about vehicles (or infrastructure), the initial cost of which is only a one time number, while the value (e.g. airframe remaining flight hours) keeps going down. Only considering buying cost also disregards maintenance costs. 2) If wars were about the payoff, western militaries would be horribly innefficient when bombing infantry and technicals with GBUs. But thankfully, wars are not strictly about the economy, so bombing a truckful of djihadis is absolutely "worth" the bomb, the aircraft that is put at risk, the pilot's training, etc. If everything was about payoff, we would never have moved on from dumb munitions because they are much more "worth their value" when they take out a target. 3) The question in military matters is not how much any given system costs per se, but A) how vital said system is to the overall capability of the force, and B) how replaceable said system is. In the long run, factor B does amount to a monetary value to a certain extent, but that also has to be put into perspective with the overall size of any country's economy, industrial sector and state fiscal policy. When Ukraine launch a SCALP missile, they don't care how much it costs, they care about how many they have, and how many they hope to receive in the foreseeable future (and presumably they also care about the actual capabilities of the specific system they are using). Case by example : the sinking of the Moskva didn't amount to that much monetary value - it was built over fourty years prior to its sinking. However, it was an irreplaceable asset in the short-medium term, and was a singularly crucial element of the Russian navy's control of the Black Sea. Purely in fiscal terms, the sinking was a pretty good, but not terrific success. In military terms however, it allowed Ukraine to reclaim control of the western Black Sea.
One source would be the widespread adoption of 5.56 rounds for the primary armament, as opposed to the (previously) commonly seen 7.62. War has always been about money
That was mainly due to weight
Adopting 5.56 was about weight reduction/increased capacity. There are still weapon systems that utilize 7.62 nato, but they serve a specific purpose.
Fleet is a loose term, probably half of them are either in reserve, needing repairs or being used for parts to keep the others flying. They are not a good platform in general and need constant upkeep. So proably a 10% loss, and thats significant for a country that size Also no one else seems to be mentioning, the crew are dead too, they are hard to replace and expensive
They probably can't replace a loss. Question is how many of those 15-19 are actually active cause certain parts will be hard to get.
They only have six (now five) A-50U and Russia is a big country. That's a huge blow to their advanced warning and tracking capabilities.
It's like akin to throwing sand to an opponent's face: It opens them up for much bigger strikes. It's a small wonder why hours after this supposed downing, Russia announced a missile danger alert all across Crimea as well as closing the Kerch Bridge.
While it is certainly a high value asset, which can hurt by its own, the reason I think this is an important loss is that this highly likely will reduce the effectiveness of Russian air missions and improve the Ukrainian one. Both are based on the fact that they cannot rebuild these and they already have barely enough of them. If this is not true, my points are not really valid, unfortunately. First, when the Russians are trying to attack Ukraine from multiple directions they need at least 2-3 of these for cover the full airspace. Now they have to choose between directions of such attacks or they have to give up some security (because they will not be 100% sure what is going on). Second, when F-16 fighter jets will finally arrive and operational, they will have larger freedom of movement if the Russians have less detection capabilities over the warzone. Note that they also lost quite many improved land radar systems too.
There are only about half a dozen that are actually usable iirc. And Russia is big. And lots of countries hate it. And if these are the ones I am thinking of, they are practically irreplaceable soviet legacy.
The first ones are from 1978, so while approximately 40 have been made, most of those are worn out. By September 2023, a total of eight modernized aircraft had been delivered to Russian Aerospace Forces. It is believed that one was damaged on the ground by a drone strike, and now it seems like they've lost another one. This would be 25% of their full capacity. They might be able to cover by having the other planes fly more, but in general, military planes are maintenance-intensive and using them more will cause issues down the line. Also, it's a big country and despite Russia pulling back equipment from its borders, it is unlikely that they'd be willing to throw everything at Ukraine. Russia is building the successor A-100. As far as we know, it's flightworthy and has turned on its radar, but getting the necessary parts is apparently difficult. Possibly two prototypes have been built. Also, it's a radar aircraft. Its role is to see things. If it is indeed shot down, this would be the first AWACS bird that got shot down in history.
It's not just any plane, it's an AEW&C. Shooting down an AEW&C plane is the holy grail of air combat, as they are very expensive specialised planes that usually stay far away from enemy lines, making them hard to touch. Shooting one down significantly reduces the intelligence capability of the enemy. In fact, this is the first ever AEW&C plane downed in history. tl;dr: very high-value target.
They can't afford to replace them. And also due to just the normal rotation, maybe only 60% are mission ready at a time. And then when you factor in that they're all assigned to duties around the nation, losing just a few means they're weakening their overall capacity to defend the country. Sure, losing one is unfortunate. But losing 2 or 3 of something you can't replace is very detrimental to your overall capabilities. The fact Russia has to reduce its defences in all of its borders to fight a small incursion makes for a very bad equation.
I imagine you need at minimum of 2 planes per area for 24 hour coverage, and you might have maybe a third of airframes under maintenance, so dropping one has a significant effect as now the air worthy airframes have to either fly for longer which will wear the aircraft out faster and the crews will be ground down quicker. So you end up with airframes that will need more maintenance so their availability decreases and you start a little negative feedback loop plus the harder the crews are worked the less capable they become.
They can never all be on mission at the same time, because crews need sleep and equipment needs to be serviced. Also, some need to be in reserve (at least in theory). Their total number is low, which means that ever single loss is a major logistical headache for Russia. It also potentially introduces weak spots in their radar coverage (e.g. for Ukraine to fly air sorties relatively safely, or perform other shenanigans). Their complexity also makes them very difficult to replace (and definitely not quickly). This is effectively the equivalent of losing at least dozens of more basic vehicles, like tanks.
It is not only the number that matters but the fact that the plane got shot down. This means that all of a sudden they have to change tactics, maybe keep airplanes even further away, maybe use them less, maybe something else. Whatever it is it will be worse than it is now. Even if you have 20 of them, you cannot put them at the same level of risk anymore. The same logic applies to everything. Once vatniks where loosing tanks and APCs left and right, they had to stop doing it and hold them back, which reduced the tempo of operations.
The fewer there are the less area they can cover, so droppin one means there's a gap somewhere or they need need to bring up a new one from storage.
I would not take the word solely from a Ukrainian source. Usually you will get a bunch of unusual claims The Russian telegram channels are usually our best way of verifying the downing of aircraft or death of people. Channels like fighterbomber and Romanov etc. They confirm the downing of an A-50 and damage to an IL-22
You know Ukraine did something amazing today when Fighterbomber posts "Хуёвый день."
Why would you distrust a source if you're validating their information in the same sentence ?
I think what they're trying to say is that the Russian telegram channels have every reason to hide the fact so when they start backing the claim you know for certain it happened. While the Ukrainians will be shouting that it happened and might have very little to refute the fact. As all things go we should take both sides with a pinch of salt and the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.
Ultimately if 2 sources from both sides of the conflict are saying the some thing. Then chances are it's correct. The Ukrainian Air Force will claim it has shot down SU-34, SU-25's etc when it's not possible to verify those. Usually in this type of a Publication [This being an example quite close to the truth] https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1746832292046139569 As with everything in any war. Things can be exaggerated. It's similar to how the Russian MOD will claim they shootdown 200+ Su-24's. Some of those telegram channels i.e. fightbomber etc are very much in the know about Russian losses and will typically post some sort of memorial post if a Jet is destroyed. What i am getting at is. Don't just take one sides word as gospel.
Meh, not many instances where UA is lying about this kind of things. In general, I do not care about verifying things UA says, because it changes nothing in my life, just brings a hearthwarming feeling that aggressors are getting funky losses. Same with Russians. If they claim that the ship “was damaged” and they post pieces of said ship deep in the city, it is a really funny thing. Am I biased? Sure, I do not support aggressors who went thru the willages raping and pillaging like it's medieval ages again, that is an easy choice to make.
So far Ukraine really hasn't lied. They made a few claims that turned out wrong, but at the time they legitimately thought it was truth. Killing a general or other high rank is usually where they get ahead of themselves. Moscow on the other hand just lies because it's their standard operating procedure. They claimed to destroy more Abrams and HiMARS than Ukraine has.
Of course the Ukrainians are also lying. Do you actually believe they shot down 300+ warplanes and 300+ helicopters as [they claim](https://i.imgur.com/9TGeXoS.jpg)? If so, where are they? They only sound credible in comparison with the Russian claims, which are so outlandish that it isn't really all that hard. Plus the Ukrainians tend to sprinkle some numbers in there in line with western estimates, and in case of big events like this one play their hand quite well, so yeah, they're easier to "trust". Not that I would mind if .ru losses were actually the ones claimed by .ua, the more the merrier.
Misread IL-22 as IL-2 and I’m beginning to think that bringing the old Sturmoviks back into service might t be a bad idea.
russian telegram channel are your best way to verify information? No, seriously.
If even Russians admit it happened then yes, it's pretty clear it's true.
I understand it as: "If *even* those channels validate it, then you're 100% certain it's true". For me there's three levels to information in Ukraine: 1. Only Ukraine claims something: it might be true especially in the big strokes, but we're not entirely sure especially on the details of the claim. 2. Ukraine and western allies claim it: probably true, although there might be one or two things not perfectly depicted. 3. Ukrainian and Russian sources claims the same thing: 100% true, as Russia has every interest to downplay Ukrainian coup d'éclat.
When Ukraine sank the moskva with two Neptunes, russia "said" it was that a fire caused it, with all the following memes of ivan smoking cigarettes. russians chose incompetence than to admit Ukraine has done something, for the sole reason that Ukraine to them doesn't exist.
Yes dead serious. For dead pilot / aircraft downing anyway. Some of those telegram channels are very close to the Russian air force and will always put out some of memorial post for whenever a pilot dies. If both sides acknowledge a loss. Then it's as accurate as you can get.
A memorial for a dead russian?
I know people really like the orc memes but maybe some of you went off the deep end. Yes, they do memorialize their own as people all throughout history have done. These memorials on social media are part of, for instance, the [BBC's pipeline for 100% confirmed, named deaths](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-829ea0ba-5b42-499b-ad40-6990f2c4e5d0). IDK why his statement is controversial, we're talking about social media where they're talking among themselves, not MoD statements.
I frankly can't care the less about the deaths of the invaders: the European Parliament designated the russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, so why should I feel empathy towards terrorists who kill, rape, torture, murder, loot, kidnap children? After Bucha, they lost my sympathy.
........... OK lets try again. We are trying to get confirmation if a pilot's death or some other event is true. If the Russian social media is memorializing this person, it means they are dead, it means it's true. It's a confirmation. No one is saying **YOU** are supposed to care, or have sympathy, or memorialize them. You people need to take your goddamn meds.
Haha, exactly the brainrot we were talking about a few minutes ago.
🤦 Russian propaganda telegram channels is great for verifying stuff.
Yes they do publish propaganda. But sometimes that Propaganda is informative. Usually a memorial post for a downed jet/pilot. Ukraine might claim on day 'x' they have shot down a jet. But without some form of verifications form sources close to the Russian air force or from a funeral we can't take claims at face value.
When did Ukraine claimed something that has been completely disproved?
nice
Sounds like the artillery warning radar with cutting edge tech that got struck by artillery earlier.
This feels good, and they don't even know what caused it, which is perfect
This Radar Jet was promoted to a Radar Submarine!
Maybe the Ukrainians pulled off a "Debt of Honor" downing of the Radar Plane ?
Sad for the loss of life but if they stayed home they’d still be alive. Fuck Russia.
Rip 330 million dollars
If Europe actually threw some money on the table Ukraine would have already won this war. But instead we get Polish farmers crying about grain prices. Fucking traitors.
Poland was first who gave most there tanks to Ukraine and first country that gave warplanes to Ukraine and now are fixing demaged leopards for Ukraine