Blyatskrieg

[EACLucifer]

Further Storm Shadow thought - current strikes are likely drawing on a list of targets they've known for a while but couldn't reach, just as the first round of HIMARS strikes did. We can probably expect logistics strikes, but maybe not quite yet; the best time for them would be just before those targets were most critically needed by the Russians, for example hitting a bridge just before or as it starts to become key for moving reinforcements to counter an offensive.

Also having thought about the matter more, I think the most likely scenario for the mass shootdown was Polish MiG-29s getting some upgrades before transfer including AIM-120D variant AMRAAMs or - perhaps more likely given the respective governments' willingness to transfer high end tech - Meteors. That said, there are several other plausible scenarios. I think ground based Russian friendly fire is very unlikely though, and I think we can rule out MANPADS teams due to warhead size, missile approach angle, apparent missile size etc. One further data point someone mentioned elsewhere - the helicopters deployed in the immediate aftermarth stayed low. I also note they didn't seem interested in firing flares. That's how to react to fear of radar guided weapons - surface or air launched - not against MANPADS, such behaviour would increase vulnerability against those.

[Woodchopper]

Between that, the warhead size and the missile length there's no way it was MANPADS, and the Russian response suggests that they think it was something radar guided, be it ground or air launched.

I agree, though in addition to a Ukrainian strike I'm still open to it being friendly fire. One Russian mistake might be possible (rather than four which would be much less likely).

[EACLucifer]

Leaks suggest Prigozhin talking to Ukrainian GUR and even offering to disclose Russian MOD positions. Either he's playing both sides, or this is a brilliant GUR attempt at spreading paranoia and mutual distrust amongst the Russians.

[jimbob]

Leaks suggest Prigozhin talking to Ukrainian GUR and even offering to disclose Russian MOD positions. Either he's playing both sides, or this is a brilliant GUR attempt at spreading paranoia and mutual distrust amongst the Russians.

And remember it doesn't need to be those at the top who get the doubts. If you get local commanders on the ground getting worried and at worst diverting their attention to Wagner as well as the Ukrainians, and at best, (mis)interpreting some local Wagner activities and attacking them, it's still useful.

Also even if the senior MOD people don't believe it, they might still find it useful for their own personal ambitions (which are not the same as the Russian war aims, except incidentally) or Prigozhin and Shoigu will have to consider whether the other side will act in self defence based on assuming that the other might act on it.

Earlier I had mentioned the relationship between the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy, which did involve assassination. Or even the inability of various Nazi organisations to cooperate, even in 1945.

[EACLucifer]

UK just pledged hundreds of attack drones with a range of over 200km...I wonder if this is the weaponised Banshee target drone that people were discussing a while back?

[Grumble]

UK just pledged hundreds of attack drones with a range of over 200km...I wonder if this is the weaponised Banshee target drone that people were discussing a while back?

Are these kamikaze drones or more like Reapers?

[jimbob]

From a discord chat.

I'm really having trouble understanding the Ukrainian strategy. They have hundreds of cruise missiles.

Why are they not shooting them at random power stations.

That would get repaired in a couple of days?

[lpm]

Ukraine has failed to deal with the threat from apartment blocks and children's playgrounds.

[EACLucifer]

UK just pledged hundreds of attack drones with a range of over 200km...I wonder if this is the weaponised Banshee target drone that people were discussing a while back?

Are these kamikaze drones or more like Reapers?

Banshees are target drones designed to allow air defence testing and training. IF it's Banshees, then it'll be kamikaze drones, quite similar in some ways to the ones the Iranian regime provided to Russia. However, it's just an educated guess on my part that it might be Banshees. If hundreds are being sent, though, I'd expect them to be kamikaze drones - really more of a bargain-bin cruise missile than something like a Reaper.

[jimbob]

UK just pledged hundreds of attack drones with a range of over 200km...I wonder if this is the weaponised Banshee target drone that people were discussing a while back?

Are these kamikaze drones or more like Reapers?

Banshees are target drones designed to allow air defence testing and training. IF it's Banshees, then it'll be kamikaze drones, quite similar in some ways to the ones the Iranian regime provided to Russia. However, it's just an educated guess on my part that it might be Banshees. If hundreds are being sent, though, I'd expect them to be kamikaze drones - really more of a bargain-bin cruise missile than something like a Reaper.

A quick search says that Banshee isn't even a family name, as there are pusher propeller ones at about 60m/s to jet ones at 200m/s or 250m/s of the Banshee NG which is quite different

https://www.wearefinn.com/topics/posts/ ... get-drone/#

[jimbob]

I recall someone claiming to have performed analysis detecting explosions/(missile launches) bh looking at the ionosphere bue I hadn't seen the mechanism explained.

Now an article that's relevant in this week's Science.

https://www.science.org/content/article ... n-detector

[TopBadger]

Banshees are target drones designed to allow air defence testing and training. IF it's Banshees, then it'll be kamikaze drones, quite similar in some ways to the ones the Iranian regime provided to Russia. However, it's just an educated guess on my part that it might be Banshees. If hundreds are being sent, though, I'd expect them to be kamikaze drones - really more of a bargain-bin cruise missile than something like a Reaper.

Even if they're not particularly weaponized they sound like a potential nightmare for AA defenses... could they be used as a cheap "sponge" to soak up MANPAD's prior to other air assets going in?

[jimbob]

UK just pledged hundreds of attack drones with a range of over 200km...I wonder if this is the weaponised Banshee target drone that people were discussing a while back?

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/c ... or-ukraine

interesting article

[EACLucifer]

Are these kamikaze drones or more like Reapers?

Banshees are target drones designed to allow air defence testing and training. IF it's Banshees, then it'll be kamikaze drones, quite similar in some ways to the ones the Iranian regime provided to Russia. However, it's just an educated guess on my part that it might be Banshees. If hundreds are being sent, though, I'd expect them to be kamikaze drones - really more of a bargain-bin cruise missile than something like a Reaper.

A quick search says that Banshee isn't even a family name, as there are pusher propeller ones at about 60m/s to jet ones at 200m/s or 250m/s of the Banshee NG which is quite different

https://www.wearefinn.com/topics/posts/ ... get-drone/#

Yeah. I remember there was discussion of arming Banshee variants, but it wasn't even clear whether it was some of the propellor variants - which would basically give the Ukrainians a Shaitainmoped equivalent - or the jet variants, which would be much more capable.

[EACLucifer]

UK just pledged hundreds of attack drones with a range of over 200km...I wonder if this is the weaponised Banshee target drone that people were discussing a while back?

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/c ... or-ukraine

interesting article

Pretty sure that's one of the articles I picked up the idea of arming Banshee variants from. It's clear the UK's been experimenting with various options for arming Ukraine, with some of them quite clever - Brimstone trucks, however they've made Storm Shadow work, and so on. I'd expect the program discussed in the article is probably the origin of the drones now pledged, but it's hard to say as the UK's also been quite proactive on buying third party stuff - the M109 SPGs and L119 howitzers were both from the surplus market.

[EACLucifer]

Banshees are target drones designed to allow air defence testing and training. IF it's Banshees, then it'll be kamikaze drones, quite similar in some ways to the ones the Iranian regime provided to Russia. However, it's just an educated guess on my part that it might be Banshees. If hundreds are being sent, though, I'd expect them to be kamikaze drones - really more of a bargain-bin cruise missile than something like a Reaper.

Even if they're not particularly weaponized they sound like a potential nightmare for AA defenses... could they be used as a cheap "sponge" to soak up MANPAD's prior to other air assets going in?

Yep, and if the Russians get into the habit of ignoring them, they don't need a large warhead to damage oil infrastructure, ammo depots or aircraft on the ground. Another possibility would be rig them up as a primitive anti-radiation missile to really f.ck up the Russian air defences, especially if backed up by HARMs when the Russians do start trying to take them down.

I'm wondering also what the datalink possibilities are. A relatively simple nose mounted camera plus a datalink to allow someone to manually control it would be brilliant for things like hunting down trains - the Russians are after all still very dependant on rail.

[Woodchopper]

Thread compiling information on Ukrainian long range missiles and drones: https://twitter.com/FRHoffmann1/status/ ... 77152?s=20

[jimbob]

Beau of the Fifth Column on Prighoznin's offer

https://youtu.be/1p-YZDerIUI

[jimbob]

Leaks suggest Prigozhin talking to Ukrainian GUR and even offering to disclose Russian MOD positions. Either he's playing both sides, or this is a brilliant GUR attempt at spreading paranoia and mutual distrust amongst the Russians.

And remember it doesn't need to be those at the top who get the doubts. If you get local commanders on the ground getting worried and at worst diverting their attention to Wagner as well as the Ukrainians, and at best, (mis)interpreting some local Wagner activities and attacking them, it's still useful.

Also even if the senior MOD people don't believe it, they might still find it useful for their own personal ambitions (which are not the same as the Russian war aims, except incidentally) or Prigozhin and Shoigu will have to consider whether the other side will act in self defence based on assuming that the other might act on it.

Earlier I had mentioned the relationship between the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy, which did involve assassination. Or even the inability of various Nazi organisations to cooperate, even in 1945.

Beau of the Fifth Column making a similar point

https://youtu.be/1p-YZDerIUI

And saying that there is a long precedent for military contractors going for power back to the time of Rome

[Woodchopper]

Leaks suggest Prigozhin talking to Ukrainian GUR and even offering to disclose Russian MOD positions. Either he's playing both sides, or this is a brilliant GUR attempt at spreading paranoia and mutual distrust amongst the Russians.

And remember it doesn't need to be those at the top who get the doubts. If you get local commanders on the ground getting worried and at worst diverting their attention to Wagner as well as the Ukrainians, and at best, (mis)interpreting some local Wagner activities and attacking them, it's still useful.

Also even if the senior MOD people don't believe it, they might still find it useful for their own personal ambitions (which are not the same as the Russian war aims, except incidentally) or Prigozhin and Shoigu will have to consider whether the other side will act in self defence based on assuming that the other might act on it.

Earlier I had mentioned the relationship between the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy, which did involve assassination. Or even the inability of various Nazi organisations to cooperate, even in 1945.

I seem to remember examples from the wars in former-Yugoslavia of generals being bribed to supply the other side with ammunition.

[EACLucifer]

France and Britain now both talking about training Ukrainian pilots. In the UK's case, looks like training new pilots from scratch, something that could and should have been started a year ago, but then the only aircraft we could potentially send are some tranche 1 Typhoons. Not sure about France. Also rumours about France sending SCALP EG - exactly the same missile as Storm Shadow but with a different name in French service - but I've not got a solid source yet. France would be in a better place to send aircraft than us as they are planning to soon retire some Mirages that would be ideal for ground attack work, assuming we don't have any airworthy Tornados left in storage.

[bjn]

Confirming, France are sending SCALP-EG missiles to UKR. It will be the 560km* long range version. A Storm Shadow that sings the Marseilles.

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1658368346612547584

*Or whatever it actually is, as no one ever give accurate details on that stuff.

[EACLucifer]

Confirming, France are sending SCALP-EG missiles to UKR. It will be the 560km* long range version. A Storm Shadow that sings the Marseilles.

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1658368346612547584

*Or whatever it actually is, as no one ever give accurate details on that stuff.

The key point for now about range is that all of the occupied territories are within range.

Meanwhile the Russians launched a major attack on Kyiv overnight. Cruise missiles, ballistics and Kinzhal "hypersonics". It failed. So far there is no evidence of any missile reaching its target, though there is some damage from falling debris. The Patriot battery did its job well. Vatnik claims to have destroyed or damaged a Patriot battery seem to be based on nothing more than seeing a lot of missiles launch in quick succession - it appears to be a misinterpretion of the system's rate of fire and ability to track multiple targets at once as missiles cooking off after a hit which footage did not resemble in the slightest.

[bjn]

The tools used by western air power are finally appearing on the battlefield, just not delivered by western airframes. How many more types of NATO ordnance can be effectively bodged onto existing UKR jets? If you can, you get a big capability upgrade very quickly, much faster than training pilots up on and waiting for delivery of NATO jets of whatever form*.

The Storm Shadow and SCALP seem relatively easy** as they don't need much integration with avionics as they are preprogrammed on the ground. Gaffer tapping on AMRAAMs will be harder, but they are fire and forget jobbies.


*yes, obviously "porque no la dos?"

** I have no idea really, I'm not a military aeronautical engineer type person

[EACLucifer]

The tools used by western air power are finally appearing on the battlefield, just not delivered by western airframes. How many more types of NATO ordnance can be effectively bodged onto existing UKR jets? If you can, you get a big capability upgrade very quickly, much faster than training pilots up on and waiting for delivery of NATO jets of whatever form*.

The Storm Shadow and SCALP seem relatively easy** as they don't need much integration with avionics as they are preprogrammed on the ground. Gaffer tapping on AMRAAMs will be harder, but they are fire and forget jobbies.


*yes, obviously "porque no la dos?"

** I have no idea really, I'm not a military aeronautical engineer type person

IANAMAETP either, but I did see this article on the subject.

The easiest weapons will be the ones like Storm Shadow, which is programmed on the ground and aimed only at static targets. That just needs carrying to the release point.

Weapons like HARM - and potentially Brimstone - do basically all their own guidance. The solution with harm allegedly involved putting an additional small computer which I'm guessing must have had GPS in order to keep the missile informed as to where it was etc before launch. That kind of thing is eminently doable, especially for Su-24s as the weapons officer can be working with the bodged interface while the pilot flies the plane.

Weapons like AMRAAM need more complicated targetting data, and the problem here is that what they need is information from the radar. MiG-29s have a radar, of course, but it is a Soviet one, and what's needed is a way to translate the information from that radar into something the AMRAAM can understand. On top of that, while AMRAAMs can be fire and forget, and might need to be in Ukrainian usage - fire off the missiles and immediately retreat to safety - they are more effective especially at longer range if they receive guidance updates from the launching aircraft, meaning a suitable datalink is available. I do not know how feasible those issues are for western AAMs like AMRAAMs and Meteors, and similar issues are also relevant when trying to get the best performance out of western short range AAMs, Sidewinders and ASRAAMs etc.

However, most of the evidence I've seen points towards AAMs as the weapon that downed that strike package over Bryansk oblast. I've thought more about the foreshortening issue, and I think we can rule out anything longer than about five metres. My reasoning is as follows; I estimated the length at just over three and a half metres from the rotor blade of the helicopter. The footage was filmed mostly from below the helicopter, looking up. The missile appears to come in from the side, roughly horizontal. That would suggest very little foreshortening. An AMRAAM or Meteor is damn close to that measurement - the exact number I came up with the missile visible was 3.55m, those missiles are within the margin of error at 3.65m. IF my 3.55 was spot on, an AMRAAM would need to be angled about thirteen and a half degrees to be the length of the missile in the footage. Looking at other candidates, an R-27, the main weapon of Ukraine's MiG-29s and Su-27s at longer rangers, is 4.08m, which would need to be almost thirty degrees off axis. A five metre missile would need to be very close to 45 degrees off axis. Nothing about the scenario or footage suggests a missile angled that far in relation to the camera, which appears to be looking more or less upwards at a horizontal interception. To get that degree of foreshortening, the missile would have to be angled significantly upwards or downwards. I'm not aware of any SAM designed to attack downwards. While it isn't clear exactly how high the helicopter is flying, it's close enough to get a good view of it from what is almost certainly a phone camera. Missile launches tend to leave a trail of smoke. Buk launches specifically leave quite a long smoke trail, no such trail is visible anywhere in any of the footage. Buks launch missiles 5.55M long, which would need to be at an angle of about fifty degrees to appear at the length of the missile in the footage, which we've just established was shot from below and the missile isn't climbing as there's no smoke trail. As for the kind of missiles used by Russia and Ukraine's heavy air defences, we're getting into angles >60 to appear as the missile in the footage.

So I think someone has fitted AMRAAMs or Meteors to Ukraine's existing jets.

As for other munitions, fitting ones designed to work with preprogrammed targets, or targets they can identify on their own, ought to be a no-brainer. Someone needs to come up with a way to mount triple-Brimstone rails to Su-25s to utterly shut down the chance of Russians using armoured columns without particularly risking the Su-25s. The same goes for weapons that are laser guided - so long as they can lock on after launch, the launching aircraft can fire them over the frontline without exposing itself to fire, while the designation is done by a drone or concealed infantry.

I support getting Ukraine western airframes, and they'll need them, as spares and engine overhauls aren't really an option any more and just flying them this long is going to be wearing them out, let alone damage, shortage of suitable munitions and so on. However, that takes time, and too much time has been wasted before training starts. In the meantime, scrounging up every MiG-29 and Su-25 that can be found and equipping them with the best we can give them is a good stopgap. Hell, the MiG-29 is arguably a more capable airframe than the F-16, it's the top-notch missiles and communications that give the Falcon its edge over the Fulcrum.