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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

#391

Post by selimthegrim »

InitialLastName wrote: post #254
StillBored wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing most mechanical and/or ECE programs still teach "control systems", and that might be where one begins, along with some "signals and systems" and RF classes. I suspect that the engineers you know are more computer science "engineers" than people who went through a traditional engineering core.

This exactly. The ABET mechanical and electrical engineering curricula combined would give you all the skills a team needed (perhaps with the aid of a physicist and chemist or two) to build this system. That we have dissolved the word "engineer" to mean "ad salesman at scale" doesn't mean the traditional engineers aren't out there.

I'm teaching in an ABET accredited program using MIT textbooks and I'm not impressed. If engineers want to avoid learning how to integrate by parts or use the chain rule it seems like a great idea. Arubis' comment above seems on point.

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

#392

Post by chasd00 »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #11
AlwaysRock wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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?

with Ukraine arming anyone who wants to be armed and conscripting all males between 18 and 60 the lines between civilian and soldier are becoming blurred. I saw a video of some kids in a car driving by a tank and throwing a molotov cocktail out the window. To me, they are no longer "civilians" and a legitimate target. It's surprising they lived long long enough to upload the video to social media.

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

#393

Post by barelysapient »

drran wrote: post #228
standardUser wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Ukrainians shot about 30 Russian planes, so 30 experienced Russian pilots are gone. Even if they are catapulted, they cannot return to home easily, while Ukrainians can catapult, return to base, and then use a next available plane same day. It's like battle of Britain, when British pilots did the same trick against Nazi pilots.

Ukrainians shot about 30 Russian planes, so 30 experienced Russian pilots are gone

This is exactly the metric. Unlike their other assets, planes are expensive to replace and pilots take a long time to train.

Russia needs to maintain their air assets in order to defend themselves in case they get challenged that way. And they have tons of warm bodies and old hardware to throw at the situation.

Another perspective is that Russian air assets are very vulnerable to MANPADS style air-defense systems. Ukraine has received a ton of these systems from the west and are able to engage targets up to about 3 miles out. They're also vulnerable to the S300 systems the Ukrainians inherited, although its not clear how many of those remain.

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

#394

Post by jihadjihad »

tablespoon wrote: post #354
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…

> I speculate that Russian airforce weaponry is not generally high-precision, and the order to avoid targeting civilians implies restraint on use of indiscriminate bombing. Again, we've seen counterexamples which could be explained by all of the above reasons, plus the possibility of friendly fire from failed Ukrainian air defences. That doesn't explain this, though: > Vastly outmatched by Russia's military, in terms…

I agree, and it might be the case that since they lost any element of surprise due to their moves being telegraphed by Western intelligence, it greatly undermined any speed they were hoping to make use of.

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

#395

Post by kahrl »

jiggawatts wrote: post #146
criddell wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the true strength was overinflated by trickling up When I watched HBO's excellent Chernobyl that was one of the recurring themes. Everybody is lying to their superiors and nobody wants to hear bad news and they suffer because if it. I assumed that was probably exaggerated for the sake of drama but maybe it was actually understated?

It was spot on.

The tips weren't made of graphite!

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

#396

Post by [deleted] »

mattnewton wrote: post #48
selectodude wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia is using thermobaric and cluster munitions in Kharkiv. I really just don't think that Russia has quite as many PGMs as we think and Russia is close enough to most of Ukraine that they can launch regular old rockets from safe territory on the ground.

Has the use of thermobarics been confirmed? I know they were spotted in the area and there was an explosion in Kharkiv, but it could have been gas pipelines that were hit, and I've also see that explaination for the explosion videos.

[deleted]

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

#397

Post by foepys »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #245
standardUser wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

You cannot compare those numbers. Cost of living is very different in Germany and the UK compared to Russia. Personnel costs make up for most of the German budget and a Russian soldier earns only a fraction of a German soldier.

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

#398

Post by chasd00 »

mattnewton wrote: post #48
selectodude wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia is using thermobaric and cluster munitions in Kharkiv. I really just don't think that Russia has quite as many PGMs as we think and Russia is close enough to most of Ukraine that they can launch regular old rockets from safe territory on the ground.

Has the use of thermobarics been confirmed? I know they were spotted in the area and there was an explosion in Kharkiv, but it could have been gas pipelines that were hit, and I've also see that explaination for the explosion videos.

Thermobarics are standard issue fuel/air bombs correct? I thought they were specifically designed for anti-personnel use, are they banned or somehow out of the ordinary? I don't understand why it would be notable if they were used.

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

#399

Post by mstipetic »

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…

Thank you for this documentary link, it’s amazing

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

#400

Post by micromacrofoot »

HideousKojima wrote: post #292
micromacrofoot wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Please actually read my post, since that's not my claim

Russia's claim is that they must liberate Ukraine because its government is being run by nazis that are executing Russians. That claim is entirely false. Maybe my fault for saying "Ukrainians" instead of "the Ukrainian government" but that was my point. Anything outside of that is needlessly pedantic and creates no interesting dialogue.
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