What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped • Hacker News Board

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#211

Post by foverzar » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 7:04 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #69

whimsicalism wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, the indiscriminate killing we have seen so far - while awful - does not even remotely hold a candle to what happened in Syria. They are clearly pulling their punches, likely because of the ethnic/racial dynamics of this conflict.

They expected to win quickly and easily - and are shocked it did not happened. Whether they pull the punches will be seen later. Historically, there was not much holding back punches between Russia and Ukraine. You may start reading about Holodomor, which is still debated whether it counts as genocide or not. For that matter, historically, Russia holding punches was not exactly the thing. Not even toward Russians. Th…

> Historically, there was not much holding back punches between Russia and Ukraine. You may start reading about Holodomor, which is still debated whether it counts as genocide or not.

This is such a demagogy and a narrow-sighted view of history. It is always brought up only for the purpose of pouring more oil on the flames and turning up nationalistic tensions.

Holodomor has nothing to do with Ukrainians or Russians. It had happened all over the Soviet Union.

Much more Kazakhs had died relatively to their total population, and almost the same amount of Russians in an absolute value.

Hungers of 1930s were a global event, not something conjured by one particularly nasty Georgian.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#212

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 7:05 PM UTC

darkarmani wrote: post #202

dragonwriter wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You had a CNN commentator straight up saying this is different than Middle East wars since Kyiv is a " civilized city". CBS News foreign correspondent Charlie D'Agata, actually. > It's not hard to imagine if Haiti had a US backed leader, who was removed in a coup and then replaced with a pro Russia / pro China president. Now imagine China and Russia announcing plans for various military bases on Haiti. The Russians…

> Uh, you know this actually happened in a different Caribbean island state and, while there was a bit of a dispute about nuclear weapons that resulted in both alliances pulling them back from each others borders in a quid pro quo What nuclear weapons were being placed in Ukraine? Russia's only argument is that "someday maybe, perhaps, it could possibly happen".

> What nuclear weapons were being placed in Ukraine?

Ukraine is not the formerly-Soviet-backed and still Russia-friendly Caribbean island state being referenced in the piece you quote.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#213

Post by mhh__ » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 7:05 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #170

lumost wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A combination of 1 & 3 seems highly likely in my uninformed opinion. Economically, losing aircraft will make a war very expensive very quickly. Losing large numbers of top of the line aircraft will severely harm Russian military aircraft exports. With Europe closing its airspace there aren't many valid approach paths into Ukraine, or ways to get out of Ukraine should things go south. Russia has few stealth aircraft.…

I've often suspected that the F-35 was so expensive only a handful could be built, and would not be risked in combat because it was too expensive to replace.

The F-35 isn't that expensive these days. It's still a huge amount of money to spend on something good for nothing but war, insert your view here, but the price isn't much different than the new F-16s being bought by the Israelis.

That being said however stealth aircraft are not cheap to maintain at all.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#214

Post by UncleOxidant » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 7:05 PM UTC

boc wrote: post #50

I think we need to consider the possibility that much of the Russian army only existed on paper, and that the true strength was overinflated by trickling up good news only throughout all ranks of the military.[1] Readiness was overstated. Equipment was overstated. Training was for parades, not combat. Everyone in the Russian military had assumed they'd never actually fight a real war, so they could grift and sell rat…

Good (and long) analysis thread on this on twitter: https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1497993363076915204?s...

"Why Russia will lose this war?

Much of the "realist" discourse is about accepting Putin's victory, cuz it's guaranteed. But how do we know it is?

I'll argue that analysts 1) overrate Russian army 2) underrate Ukrainian one 3) misunderstand Russian strategy & political goals" Kamil Galeev

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#215

Post by SyzygistSix » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 7:06 PM UTC

sAbakumoff wrote: post #95

It's an internal resistance conducted by the military. In the coming days I would expect a coup, Putin's arrest(or worse), the new administration, end of war.

I also wondered if coming up with enough pilots who were willing, or they could trust not to defect, was an issue. Offering $5 million per plane is a great idea.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#216

Post by excalibur » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 7:06 PM UTC

boc wrote: post #50

I think we need to consider the possibility that much of the Russian army only existed on paper, and that the true strength was overinflated by trickling up good news only throughout all ranks of the military.[1] Readiness was overstated. Equipment was overstated. Training was for parades, not combat. Everyone in the Russian military had assumed they'd never actually fight a real war, so they could grift and sell rat…

> It stands to reason that if we're asking "Where's the Russian Air Force?", the answer is that it may never have existed in the size we thought. IMO this is a more logical answer than trying to figure out some 3D chess strategy of why Russia wouldn't their planes during the largest invasion since WWII.

It's not that hard to figure out. Putin is saving his planes for something big. Direct conflict with NATO being the most likely (and of course scariest) answer.

This does not necessarily mean that he wants or intends to fight NATO, just that he sees it as a strong enough possibility that he's willing to incur heavy losses in the short term in order to conserve his strength.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#217

Post by darkarmani » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 7:06 PM UTC

platinumrad wrote: post #77

AlwaysRock wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have been bombing cities. I don't think they are trying to limit casualties.

Without minimizing the awfulness of this invasion and the fact that it must be condemned, it is not nearly as brutal as Russian operations in Chechnya and Syria or the US-led coalition invasion of Iraq, likely because Ukranians are not nearly as much of a racial or cultural other to Russians as Chechens or Syrians. The greater ability of Ukrainians to gain coverage in both traditional and social media may also be a f…

I agree. Condemn them for the invasion. The "collateral" damage of civilians is part of an invasion. I haven't seen any evidence of targeting civilians as a goal. The US has unfortunate civilian casualties as well during missile strikes.

This is probably the absolute only thing where I think Russia is being unfairly characterized. We'll see though as more intel comes in and if they start unloading on the cities. Possibly holding them to a high standard now, will keep them in check as they get more frustrated.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#218

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 7:06 PM UTC

blast wrote: post #70

PaulHoule wrote: post #3

They are afraid of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buk_missile_system a very good technology that the Soviet Union developed which punches above its weight in situations like the Ukraine war because the mobile radars are hard to suppress with these methods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppression_of_Enemy_Air_Defen... I have seen a huge number of Buks in various conditions in video footage from the war, one of them wa…

If that is the case, why would officials and experts be "stumped"? This seems like the obvious explanation.

[deleted]

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#219

Post by micromacrofoot » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 7:07 PM UTC

HideousKojima wrote: post #67

micromacrofoot wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine really doesn't want war, the odds are stacked against them and without significant outside ground troops they'll be devastated even if Russia is as incompetent as they currently appear. Killing aggressors is often used as an excuse for the aggressors to be more aggressive and Russia's army is large enough to replace that convoy a few times over without much of a sweat. Violence also helps back the idea that R…

>Violence also helps back the idea that Russia needs to be there to stop the violent nazis that state media has painted Ukrainians to be (goes without saying, this is completely fabricated). It definitely isn't "completely fabricated": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion The real problem is, who gives a shit if a small unit in the Ukrainian National Guard is made up of far right extremists? It's a purely i…

the claim that russia needs to invade ukraine to stop nazis is completely fabricated, the claim isn’t “nazis exist”

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#220

Post by IncRnd » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 7:07 PM UTC

blast wrote: post #70

PaulHoule wrote: post #3

They are afraid of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buk_missile_system a very good technology that the Soviet Union developed which punches above its weight in situations like the Ukraine war because the mobile radars are hard to suppress with these methods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppression_of_Enemy_Air_Defen... I have seen a huge number of Buks in various conditions in video footage from the war, one of them wa…

If that is the case, why would officials and experts be "stumped"? This seems like the obvious explanation.

There are many possible explanations, so latching onto the first one that sounds plausible is not necessarily the correct one. Otherwise, we would all be like those pundits on TV.

Several reasons might also be simultaneously true. Some simple examples: Russia might be testing NATO. Russia might not want to escalate in certain ways. There have been many countries whose leaders want to minimize the numbers they kill, while still killing many people. Russia might not want to reveal otherwise unknown capabilities. They might be preparing their air to strike elsewhere, possibly unrelated to Ukraine. There might be a revolt inside Russia's military. And so forth. But, what's likely? Maybe they just don't want to kill everyone or create dissent.