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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

#591

Post by MisterBastahrd »

computershit wrote: post #521
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they have around 2500 members, but that's totally a reason to lose 2000 people a day in an unprovoked invasion and tank your entire country's economy while doing it. Would be nice if Europe and the US would seize Putin and associates' accounts and donate them to Ukraine.

It's basically akin to Canada deciding to invade the US because of the existence of the Proud Boys.

Well, it's a little different. For one, Ukraine took all of these militia groups and made them a standard part of their military's operations. Apparently they've been working to defang the rhetoric of this particular group, but for Putin to pretend like he gives a shit about fascism given that he's currently the highest profile fascist world leader is a bit ridiculous.

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

#592

Post by sofixa »

ed_balls wrote: post #157
blast wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

I don't see how that excuses their failure to achieve air superiority. The Ukrainian Air Force still manages to fly manned and unmanned missions and harass Russian equipment and logistics.

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

#593

Post by 0000011111 »

geoka9 wrote: post #342
adventured wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia's only possible 'winning' outcome at this point is to subjugate and murder huge numbers of Ukrainians under a brutal police state, if Putin wants to hold most of the population centers. It'll take a very long time before they'll stop fighting back, Russia will have to debase the culture (they might try it China style, bring in a lot Russian citizens to live in those cities and begin a full, forced transformati…

I agree, that's the only thing they know how to do efficiently: > If Russia doesn't go for the full brutal police state approach Ukrainians are used to living in a democracy though, so it may not be easy/possible. > bring in a lot Russian citizens to live in those cities and begin a full, forced transformation, while you violently try to strip away Ukrainian culture That's what they did back in the 1930s in East Ukra…

Yes, and looking forward he has the spotlight of the world agents him.

I do not think the question is wether or not Ukraine will fall to the Russian state. But if the Russian economy and current government will stay viable through the duration of the war.

Global sanctions applied correctly could cause a refugee crises in Russia population ~144 million. In short, Russian people need their basic needs met. Just like any human. They will go where that can happen more easily if their own country can not provide. 57,792 kilometres of Russian boarder length is ripe for exit.

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

#594

Post by azalemeth »

Arubis wrote: post #370
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.

And there's a fair cohort of us (note, US-based perspective here) that _did_ go through the traditional electrical engineering education, learned the hard math and analog/mixed-signal engineering needed to put together something like this, dipped our toes in the industry, and then realized all our CS buddies had double our base salaries for objectively easier work. We've strongly disincentivized gaining mid-level exp…

> and then realized all our CS buddies had double our base salaries for objectively easier work.

One thing I realised as a graduate student designing RF PCBs and digital circuits was that the debugger for reality sucks. It's really frustrating to be faced with a problem where you just can't get "more information by recompiling with debug flags" and can't easily (or reversibly!) change the system to make it easier to understand. Totally different skillset, and requires a different method of thinking (frankly, at times, with a lot more thought).

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

#595

Post by pixl97 »

thriftwy wrote: post #239
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…

There's a consideration that Russia wants to actually minimize civilian deaths, because unlike Syria, territories of Ukraine will never stop neighbouring Russia. Different pieces of doctrine may apply. But I'm not sure how it maps to observable absense of air force. Prolonging the conflict will obviously cause more civilian deaths and suffering.

It will be interesting to discover in the future if we find out a large number of things like planes were not available for the operation because their commanders ensured they were broken when the invasion occurred. Attacking the nation next door that speaks roughly your same language makes things like mutiny a larger risk.

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

#596

Post by jopsen »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #498
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…

Russia fought a lot too, Georgia, Chechnya, Syria, Crimea

Murdered a lot of defenseless people is more like it..

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

#597

Post by sofixa »

gamblor956 wrote: post #554
kaesar14 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's clearly the Trump Presidency that led to Operation Barbarossa.

The difference is that Putin has previously accomplished himself as a competent military leader, and Hitler had not. Though you are right in that there are huge similarities between the two campaigns: in both cases, it appears that the executive leader ignored the advice of his military advisors to launch disastrous military campaigns that actually ended up hindering the non-military objectives behind those campaigns…

> The difference is that Putin has previously accomplished himself as a competent military leader, and Hitler had not

What? Putin managed to force his vastly overwhelming forces on small countries with small and badly equipped armies like Chechnya, Syria, Georgia. And we don't know how much does he really do.

Hitler presided over, and even helped with the planning of, one of the most brilliant campaigns against overwhelming forces ( the invasion of Benelux and France). His army had tremendous luck, the French were thoroughly incompetent and prepared for all the wrong things, but still, it was a massive military success which was at least partly due to Hitler. That's how he got it in his head he's a brilliant strategist, which really went to his head after the initial Soviet counterattack ( when his orders were successful), and the rest is history.

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

#598

Post by koonsolo »

rodgerd wrote: post #537
tus666 wrote: post #131

I think this misses the point entirely. It's their entire strategy, or lack of strategy that is in question. Small numbers of light vehicles entering towns they have not overcome...are then promptly destroyed by irregular Ukrainian forces often with improvised weapons. Seemingly trying to take large cities without first gaining and controlling ground and surrounding areas. Lack of attempts to destroy strategic infras…

> It's their entire strategy, or lack of strategy that is in question. So, bearing mind that I'm just shitposting on the Internet and have no military expertise, I do think that they had a strategy; based on the automated release of articles 4 days after the start of the invasion which declared that Putin had provided the "final solution to the Ukrainian problem", they really expected it to be over in four days. Bear…

As another shitposter, I agree.

I think they started to believe their own lies. Like a feedback loop from Putin to below, and then the same things going up again. Putin gets advised in a world created by his own lies.

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

#599

Post by dragonwriter »

0000011111 wrote: post #593
geoka9 wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, that's the only thing they know how to do efficiently: > If Russia doesn't go for the full brutal police state approach Ukrainians are used to living in a democracy though, so it may not be easy/possible. > bring in a lot Russian citizens to live in those cities and begin a full, forced transformation, while you violently try to strip away Ukrainian culture That's what they did back in the 1930s in East Ukra…

Yes, and looking forward he has the spotlight of the world agents him. I do not think the question is wether or not Ukraine will fall to the Russian state. But if the Russian economy and current government will stay viable through the duration of the war. Global sanctions applied correctly could cause a refugee crises in Russia population ~144 million. In short, Russian people need their basic needs met. Just like an…

> 57,792 kilometres of Russian boarder length is ripe for exit.

“border”, and the vast majority of that is coastline, and the vast majority of the coastline is Arctic coastline, which is very much not ripe for exit.

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

#600

Post by AtlasBarfed »

gamblor956 wrote: post #151
blast wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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…

If Russia did mass killings / carpet bombing / total war, it hands justification of the west for full counterattack and occupation of Ukraine.

Putin assumed all of Ukraine would roll over like Crimea. He has underestimated the people of Ukraine.

He attacked in winter assuming it would be over in two days. Now his already-low-morale forces face winter. I don't care if they are equipped and Russian and "used to war". This won't be WWI where you can build bunkers and hide in there. If you occupy a house, the local populace will email someone and you'll be a target of portable missile infantry.

He doesn't seem to have a plan B.

In theory, with good arms supply from the West (which is RIGHT OVER THE BORDER, this isn't Afghanistan that is 5000 miles away), the Ukrainian populace will get progressively better armed, more experienced (this is probably resulting in the training of a million or more Ukrainians to be effective soldiers), and more motivated.

If I were the US/NATO, I would be training and equipping as many Ukrainians as want it, and there should be millions of willing soldiers. This is the opportunity to produce a very dangerous military power right across the border from Russia. You get to breathe down the neck of the Belarus puppet strongman. And it might destroy Putin's regime by weakening him.

Putin also seems to have underestimated how much Ukraine hates him personally. I know no Ukrainians, but I suspect they are sick and tired of him threatening him and are spoiling for a fight.

The danger to Putin is that the US could equip and train and season a millions-strong Ukrainian army that sees a very unmotivated Russian army, repulses them, and then counter invades Russia. Now that is unlikely given nuclear deterrent and the like, but it is within the realm of possibility, especially if elements of Russia's army hint they are amenable to regime change and will refuse to nuke.

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