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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

#311

Post by tguvot »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #236

Could Putin's end game be that he expects Ukraine to strike back inside of Russia, perhaps a missle on the Kremlin? Then that would give him justification to just carpet bomb Kyiv?

ukraine already stroke stroke back at russia. - one missile blew up few military planes at airport somewhere near belgorod i think - another one was targeted at airport at taganrog 2 days ago. outcome unknown - bombed fuel supply train in russia

but kremlin is outside of rage of ukraine weapons and it has very heavy air defense systems

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

#312

Post by Steltek »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #296
gamblor956 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that the Russian soldiers are making efforts to avoid attacking civilians directly. We must define "efforts" or "avoid" very differently. At the very start of the invasion, there was a video of Russian tanks deliberately trying to run over civilian cars.

The video I think you are referring to shows the tank swerving to avoid incoming fire and (presumably accidentally) running over a civilian car.

So much is hard to verify but I think there's reason to believe that the vehicle was Ukranian. It lacked the V Z etc white letters and it was a lone anti-aircraft vehicle wandering through the city, not something that's put right on the battle line. Again, hard to know what's truth and propaganda. Either way, that vehicle was fairly out of control so regardless of who was driving it, I don't think it was intentional.

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

#313

Post by WalterBright »

mhh__ wrote: post #237
WalterBright wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heat seeking missiles started development in 1940s. In the US, they began as an unfunded rogue project. The infrared guidance system was simple and very successful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder

One thing a lot of people forget because war movies don't show them, is that by the end of the war allied and German aircraft were absolutely loaded with electronics. The story of Radar on the ground is well known, but the story of systems like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H2S_(radar) (so named apparently because it was a smell that no one had discovered before) is not so well known. Similarly a lot of these Briti…

The proximity fuses were a marvel - tiny radars put into an antiaircraft shell. Such would never ever have occurred to me, as how could a radar system survive being fired out of a cannon? It doubled the effectiveness of flak.

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

#314

Post by PaulHoule »

def_true_false wrote: post #102
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…

Considering the lack of coordination of their ground forces and their absurd OPSEC, it might simply be communication issues. Fuel and maintenance issues are also a safe bet with Russia. The Russian Buks also seem to be having a bad time against the Bayraktars.

That UAV is a stealthy platform

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baykar_Bayraktar_TB2#/media/Fi...

look at the shape of the tail, that thing doesn't have a single right angle to send radio waves straight back at the radar.

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

#315

Post by maratc »

I think that Russia may have a two-prong strategy: either make sure Ukraine is not joining NATO, or make sure that Ukraine that joins NATO is completely wrecked.

In the alternative reality, where Ukraine promises tomorrow not to join NATO (ever), the Russian targets for this war may be considered achieved, and everyone could simply go home, probably throwing in a couple billions deal for Ukraine recovery. This would be the best outcome for everyone. But this will not happen tomorrow.

If this won't happen at all, the Russians can always wreck Ukraine later, and this is where their air force may play part.

In short, I think the Russians are showing some restraint, for now, to make sure the quick outcome still can happen.

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

#316

Post by ed_balls »

alexanderchr wrote: post #284
ed_balls wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what you mean by experts. The strategist I know said this is a political decision. They don't want to inflict too much damage to avoid bloody insurrections in the future. Russian aircrafts are not that precise. What is more, UA army received manpads. It's not worth it.

> They don't want to inflict too much damage Have you seen what they have done to Mariupol and Kharkiv the last few days? Maybe this was the original plan, but with that botched there seems to be no consideration for damage to civilians.

yes, it seems they changed the strategy to Aleppo/Grozny

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

#317

Post by cycomanic »

guyromm wrote: post #42

I believe they were working under the assumption it would be a walk in the park, once the central government was captured or killed. To strengthen this assumption here's a canned article which was likely meant to be published had things gone according to plan, but pulled, since they hadn't. https://web.archive.org/web/20220226224717/https://ria.ru/20... RIA is a state owned news agency. Why precisely they thought the…

I just wrote the exact same thing before seeing your comment, just not so eloquently. I think you are spot on, that really is the only "rational" explanation.

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

#318

Post by BaseballPhysics »

jl6 wrote: post #261

I guess everyone's weighing in with their view, so why not? Firstly, we should be mindful that the fog of war is now in play, and a good amount of what we think we know is unverifiable. With that caveat out of the way... It seems that the Russian soldiers are making efforts to avoid attacking civilians directly. Counterexamples exist and could be explained by rogue units, incompetence, or hot-blooded revenge on local…

> It seems that the Russian soldiers are making efforts to avoid attacking civilians directly

This is my take as well.

The obvious contrast is their handling of Kiev versus how they utterly flattened Grozny.

It's clear to me that in the early days Russia was hoping for a quick and decisive win. They'd decapitate the government, install a puppet regime, and then hope the public would roll over.

That hasn't happened and we're now entering a much more bloody phase of indiscriminate bombing/shelling of the civilian population.

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

#319

Post by astrange »

tedivm wrote: post #62
slavoingilizov wrote: post #13

Many conflicting viewpoints here. Sure, there's been less of a push from Russia than everyone expected, but it's not like Ukraine controls the sky either. Are Ukranians really still flying? If that was the case, the mentioned 40-mile convoy heading to Kiev would have been hit by now, no? Russians driving vehicles bumper to bumper shows VERY strong confidence that they own the sky, so things might not be as rosy for U…

They hit the fuel train that was supplying the convoy with a drone strike and released the footage. The convoy has been stalled for days now, both due to fighting and due to supply chain issues (such as having their supply train blow up).

Claiming there's a "the" convoy and Ukraine has either not ever struck it, or has only struck it once, seems to assume a satellite picture you saw from 2 days ago is the only thing that's happening in the country. A lot has gone down since then they're not going to tell you about.

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

#320

Post by tguvot »

csee wrote: post #279
AlexandrB wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine already struck back inside Russian with a missile attack on an airfield[1]. But I don't think Ukraine has the manpower or the equipment to get munitions anywhere near Moscow. [1] https://news.yahoo.com/ukrainian-forces-target-russian-airfi...

But it might be an end game in terms of a false flag to justify such a bombing in Russian propaganda. They can't just outright go for the bombing without such a justification.

it's not reported in russian media as it will contradict narrative - successful campaign to support armies of LNR/DNS to liberate their republics. Nothing else is reported in media
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