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

reuters.com

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

#241

Post by vl »

demadog wrote: post #100
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #73

I think part of why Russia looks so inept is because everyone is comparing against the US. However, the US military has the finest logistic operations in the world. Also, there is no substitute for fighting an actual enemy. Part of the reason the US (especial Air Force and Naval Aviation) is so good is that they have actually been fighting. From Libya(Reagan), Gulf War I, Serbia, Gulf War II, Afghanistan, Libya (Obam…

I have this sad, but likely true, theory that the U.S. needs to always be involved in a war to stay in practice and iron out the kinks for bigger wars. I say this as a medium-big supporter of the US military.

The reason US army is always fighting is economic. US dollar is reserve currency of the world and thus US has almost unlimited credit.

But one important element of dollar stability is that carrier group shows up on the doorstep of those getting out of line and shows them errors of their ways. Thus there is a constant need for some pretext to deploy military somewhere.

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

#242

Post by dragonwriter »

speeder wrote: post #230
gamblor956 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "stumped" is not actually in the article. FTA: the issue is that Russia made a huge show of force at the start of the invasion but has apparently held back from actually using much of it (by air or ground). This war could have been over the day it started if Russia had used maximal force, and the conservative approach their actually using maximizes risks and casualties. And that's what has the experts confused: t…

I don't understand why people just don't believe Russia is being literal with their intentions. They said multiple times they don't want Ukraine, they just don't want NATO to be able to invade them by land. I'd you assume this is true, what they are doing make complete sense.

> I don't understand why people just don't believe Russia is being literal with their intentions

They are.

You are just listening to the wrong articulation of their intentions.

> They said multiple times they don't want Ukraine,

They have said multiple times that they do want Ukraine, view it's separation from Russia as a crime against Russia and Russians committed by those in the past with control over Russia in the form of the Soviet Union, and Russian state media even released than silently deleted a premature victory announcement for the current invasion declaring the establishment of a new union state of all the Russias (Russia [Great Russia], Ukraine [Little Russia]Now, that's not what they emphasize to the international community, but they have been saying it.

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

#243

Post by cycomanic »

butlerm wrote: post #165
999900000999 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for articulating this better than I could. You had a CBS* commentator straight up saying this is different than Middle East wars since Kyiv is a " civilized city". That said, I think much of Russia's restraint is due to their end goal. Ukraine's Russian backed president was outted in a coup back in 2014. The new pro West leadership decided to go dancing with John McCain. This entire conflict could of been a…

Haiti would not count as a warm water port for this purpose, because it would not serve the Russian mainland at all. Russia has plenty of foreign "warm water" ports it can use already. Other than the unfortunate Haitians, who have suffered enough already, it is hard to imagine why a vaguely democratic decision by Haiti to become a Russian ally would meet with more than a collective yawn unless Russia planned to stati…

You mean the Cuba to which the US has a constant trade emabargo/blockade? The one whose leader they tried for years to kill in the most bizarre ways? Yes sure the US let's them have their own foreign policy. Have a look at what happened in Panama or Nicaragua or Guatemala when people elected leaders which had policies that the US didn't like.

Edit: Just to make it clear, I actually do not believe that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is due to the expansion of Nato (and even if it was it would be completely unjustified) it is due to Putin's megalomania. That doesn't mean we should forget that the US has been extremely aggressive about protecting their interests even by force and by violating international law. There is a reason why they are the country which has been involved in the most wars since WWII

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

#244

Post by IMSAI8080 »

brightball wrote: post #91
mstipetic wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wonder how they developed things like that in the 70s. Right now I don’t know a single engineer that could even know how to begin to develop a system like that. I feel like most of them would try and throw a neural net at the problem and call it a day.

I talked to a guy a few weeks ago who worked for a company that developed a guidance system before GPS that used stars like a sextant to navigate. Pretty crazy to think about.

Spacecraft often use stars to orient themselves. The Voyager spacecraft have star trackers to keep the antenna pointing at Earth. They look for the Canopus star.

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

#245

Post by LAC-Tech »

standardUser wrote: post #206
jefftk wrote: post #168

This cites but doesn't link "The Mysterious Case of the Missing Russian Air Force", which is a much more thorough treatment: https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentar... They list three possible explanations: * Too few precision-guided munitions (PGMs) * Risk of friendly fire from surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) due to poor coordination * Lack of experienced Russian pilots

"Lack of experienced Russian pilot" This one is so hard for me to imagine, given Russia's long history of aerospace pride and massive military budget. The article attributes it to limited flying time compared to US/UK pilots and unfamiliarity with their latest and most advanced jets. Truly hard to comprehend how a military like Russia's could be suffering from lack of training despite a multi-year lead-up to a massiv…

Russias military budget is only slightly higher than that of the UK (61.7 billion vs 59.2 billion), even though Russia has a bit more than twice the UK population.

France and Germany aren't far behind - 52.8 billion and 52.7 billion respectively. I believe Germany recently pledged to raise it's military spending to 100 billion (a lot of flashy headlines but couldn't find details), so soon it will far outspend Russia.

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

#246

Post by AlexandrB »

dbs wrote: post #71

Almost everyone underestimating Putin. Probably there’s more than meets the eye. For sure a lot of wishful thinking in western views. Putin never lost a war. Not defending him, just noting that the “good guys” don’t always win.

Or we've been overestimating Putin for the past decade and his "crafty tough guy" persona was just successful marketing. My personal opinion on this changed when I saw pictures of him sitting at the end of that long table[1] when talking to his advisors/generals.

The fact that he's that scared of COVID shatters the tough guy persona. The fact that he was seemingly ok with these pictures going public shows that he has no sense of how silly and bad this looks.

[1] https://nz.news.yahoo.com/photos-putin-keeps-his-distance-du...

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

#247

Post by elliekelly »

BoxOfRain wrote: post #161
blippage wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> convivial weapon I had a quick chuckle at that. It reminds me of an old joke: a bullet has your name on it, a hand grenade is addressed "to whom it may concern", and a mortar shell is posted general delivery.

What does that make nuclear warfare, a comprehensive spam campaign?

@here

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

#248

Post by mardifoufs »

jefftk wrote: post #168

This cites but doesn't link "The Mysterious Case of the Missing Russian Air Force", which is a much more thorough treatment: https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentar... They list three possible explanations: * Too few precision-guided munitions (PGMs) * Risk of friendly fire from surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) due to poor coordination * Lack of experienced Russian pilots

I disagree, they have used their airforce extensively in Syria with precision guided bombs, and I'd be very surprised if that didn't help the pilots gain a lot of experience too. All those reasons might have explained a lower intensity air presence but not the outright absence of russian planes. I think it's mostly due to public perception because air strikes, no matter how precise, cause a lot of collateral damage, especially when used in cities.

Outside of cities, where alternatives to air strikes are viable, you can still see a lot of russian helicopter and artillery action.

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

#249

Post by csee »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #5
x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #4

I can only assume they are keeping their powder dry, or working to limit casualties. I saw a video of a lady riding in a car beside a convoy, and then she threw a molotov and the driver sped off. If that were Iraq in 2003, she car probably would have been lit up.

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

They are limiting casualities. The bombing of civilians is on purpose, but the purpose is to get negotiating leverage and break will, not to kill as many civilians as possible.

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

#250

Post by squarefoot »

3pt14159 wrote: post #18
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are always going to be civilian casualties in war, but it sure looks like they are trying to limit them. Would be worth comparing to other, similar conflicts. Surely a full scale air campaign would lead to more civilian casualties?

Don't forget the decisions of individual soldiers here. If I were forced to drive a tank in a war I did not believe in and a babushka threw a pointless cocktail at me I would not retaliate. These individual actions in war add up.

Especially if there are good chances that the ones you have been ordered to shoot at could be relatives of you or some people close to you. A lot of Ukrainians and Russians are connected, that's another important factor.
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