Russian Ukraine shenanigans

[filthy_liar]

11 hours ago, nsplayr said:

A cost-benefit analysis & moral argument has been made that supporting Ukraine with lethal aid has been the right thing to do

For the cost benefit analysis part...I take it you haven't spent much time with congressional liaisons and the pissant officers who are selected for those positions.  I used to think that a truckload of thought went into decisions before a programming decision was submitted.  I was wrong.  Very wrong.  There is not a lot of thought going into "analysis" in the building. Or the other building for that matter.

For the moral argument part - sorry, who made that decision for you?

[M2]

Ukrainian shenanigans are cheeky and fun!

Russian shenanigans are cruel and tragic, which makes them not really shenanigans at all!

Evil shenanigans!  😮

[DirkDiggler]

Lessons From Ukraine Many Don’t Want to Hear | RealClearDefense

 

  Army centric and doesn't emphasize enough the major impact of UAS and revival of long range massed fires but worth a read/has some good points.

[FourFans]

3 hours ago, DirkDiggler said:

Lessons From Ukraine Many Don’t Want to Hear | RealClearDefense

 

  Army centric and doesn't emphasize enough the major impact of UAS and revival of long range massed fires but worth a read/has some good points.

Some good points.  Definitely correct about holding onto legacy capabilities rather than developing new ones.  Modern JFE is a great example...and I'm a proponent of JFE.  Also spot on concerning UAS. I'm surprised he didn't talk more about long range fires and counter-fires, which have been a significant emotional event in Ukraine that we need to learn from. 

However this article stinks of Army centric vision.  He decries that deep strike is a waste...when with modern full spectrum US capabilities, deep strike can almost completely prevent a force from moving TO the jump-off point, not to mention killing them AT the jump-off point.  Standard article about "our" joint capabilities...spelled ARMY.   Their concept of broad vision means looking at another ground force and saying "they're doing it better" instead of looking at the international arena, and then our JOINT force, and then saying "here's how we can do it better". 

I've never been impressed with our ground force's ability to actually think outside the box.

Edited March 12, 2023 by FourFans

[DirkDiggler]

1 hour ago, FourFans said:

Some good points.  Definitely correct about holding onto legacy capabilities rather than developing new ones.  Modern JFE is a great example...and I'm a proponent of JFE.  Also spot on concerning UAS. I'm surprised he didn't talk more about long range fires and counter-fires, which have been a significant emotional event in Ukraine that we need to learn from. 

However this article stinks of Army centric vision.  He decries that deep strike is a waste...when with modern full spectrum US capabilities, deep strike can almost completely prevent a force from moving TO the jump-off point, not to mention killing them AT the jump-off point.  Standard article about "our" joint capabilities...spelled ARMY.   Their concept of broad vision means looking at another ground force and saying "they're doing it better" instead of looking at the international arena, and then our JOINT force, and then saying "here's how we can do it better". 

I've never been impressed with our ground force's ability to actually think outside the box.

For the most part agree with all above.  I passed off the deep strike part as being more about unsupported Army helo aviation than anything joint or AF centric.  In that the authors may have a point worth discussing.

  The portion on JFE is certainly interesting and something worth discussing.  Vertical envelopment and amphibious assaults are going to be increasingly difficult to accomplish with widely proliferated, cheap and mobile ADA, anti-ship missiles, and loitering, kamikaze UAS.  Not to mention any adversary with heavy artillery.

I’ve worked with a pretty wide cross section of Army guys over the years, some fall into the above category you describe, others realize that we (The US military) isn’t getting anything done without the other services.  The two authors of the above article probably fall into the former category if I was to guess, but they still make some valid points.

[jice]

3 hours ago, DirkDiggler said:

For the most part agree with all above.  I passed off the deep strike part as being more about unsupported Army helo aviation than anything joint or AF centric.  In that the authors may have a point worth discussing.

  The portion on JFE is certainly interesting and something worth discussing.  Vertical envelopment and amphibious assaults are going to be increasingly difficult to accomplish with widely proliferated, cheap and mobile ADA, anti-ship missiles, and loitering, kamikaze UAS.  Not to mention any adversary with heavy artillery.

I’ve worked with a pretty wide cross section of Army guys over the years, some fall into the above category you describe, others realize that we (The US military) isn’t getting anything done without the other services.  The two authors of the above article probably fall into the former category if I was to guess, but they still make some valid points.

Nailed it. The unappreciated factor here is that both sides have employed relatively effective air denial. With effective defenses against the air and surface domains from the surface and on both sides, maneuver warfare rapidly becomes attrition warfare. That doesn’t mean we should resign ourselves to that form of war (though we should probably invest more in air denial… https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/airpower-after-ukraine/air-denial-the-dangerous-illusion-of-decisive-air-superiority/). The human expense and geopolitics of surface mass alone are untenable if we intend to maintain the ability to win wars in all the places we intend to win wars.  We should build our forces to achieve conventional overmatch through asymmetric means.  That means enabling maneuver warfare on the ground by doing more than denial in the other domains.
 

To massively oversimplify it: there are two options to prepare for when the balloon goes up: pay in cash and risk now or pay by consuming a generation of humans later. Against a peer, to win we’ll unfortunately likely have to do both.

[Clark Griswold]

How not to fight a war:

 

[FourFans]

18 hours ago, jice said:

there are two three options to prepare for when the balloon goes up: pay in cash and risk now or pay by consuming a generation of humans later, or shoot the balloon down.

FIFY

[B52gator]

Whoopsie. Flanker and Reaper trading paint.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/russian-jet-collides-with-american-drone-international-airspace-black-sea

[DirkDiggler]

32 minutes ago, b52gator said:

Whoopsie. Flanker and Reaper trading paint.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/russian-jet-collides-with-american-drone-international-airspace-black-sea





 

With any luck the Flanker crashed and burned on landing.  Hopefully one less that the Ukrainians need to worry about.

[LiquidSky]

Statement from EUCOM on the incident.

"At approximately 7:03 AM (CET), one of the Russian Su-27 aircraft struck the propeller of the MQ-9, causing U.S. forces to have to bring the MQ-9 down in international waters. Several times before the collision, the Su-27s dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner. This incident demonstrates a lack of competence in addition to being unsafe and unprofessional. "

[FLEA]

14 minutes ago, LiquidSky said:

Statement from EUCOM on the incident.

"At approximately 7:03 AM (CET), one of the Russian Su-27 aircraft struck the propeller of the MQ-9, causing U.S. forces to have to bring the MQ-9 down in international waters. Several times before the collision, the Su-27s dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner. This incident demonstrates a lack of competence in addition to being unsafe and unprofessional. "

Almost sounds like they were intentionally trying to bring it down without the public noise created by firing a missile. 

Edited March 14, 2023 by FLEA

[Clark Griswold]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[NUKE]

The SIPR WSV of the intercepts and the collision are pretty amazing. Hopefully we declassify them ASAP to show that the Russians were lying when they said they didn’t hit the robot. Then again, it probably won’t matter…

[jice]

1 hour ago, NUKE said:

The SIPR WSV of the intercepts and the collision are pretty amazing. Hopefully we declassify them ASAP to show that the Russians were lying when they said they didn’t hit the robot. Then again, it probably won’t matter…

“Environmentally unsound” is definitely built for the European audience. Think they’re talking about the fuel dumping or the resultant littering and… littering and… smoking the Reaper?

[GKinnear]

12 hours ago, jice said:

“Environmentally unsound” is definitely built for the European audience. Think they’re talking about the fuel dumping or the resultant littering and… littering and… smoking the Reaper?

Goddammit...take my upvote, you earned it with that one

[uhhello]

Ol' Lindsey Graham just always itching to send others into harms way.  Don't think he's ever encountered a foreign policy choice where he doesn't choose force on force.  

https://www.newsweek.com/lindsey-graham-recommends-shooting-russian-jets-response-us-drone-1787812

Does Russia have a leg to stand on(LOAC)  if they can somehow prove that the reapers are providing intelligence to UKR and therefore is a lawful threat to be taken out?  

Edited March 15, 2023 by uhhello

[Biff_T]

18 hours ago, jice said:

“Environmentally unsound” is definitely built for the European audience. Think they’re talking about the fuel dumping or the resultant littering and… littering and… smoking the Reaper?

 

[VMFA187]

1 hour ago, uhhello said:

Does Russia have a leg to stand on(LOAC)  if they can somehow prove that the reapers are providing intelligence to UKR and therefore is a lawful threat to be taken out?  

Valid consideration. 

[LiquidSky]

Bent prop visable in the last 2 seconds of the clip. 

Edited March 16, 2023 by LiquidSky
Image added.

[Danger41]

Must’ve been one of those UPTski 2.5 VR comrades that got Flankers instead of May’s to Siberia because of diversity, am I right? *high five*

[fire4effect]

19 hours ago, VMFA187 said:

Valid consideration. 

 

21 hours ago, uhhello said:

Does Russia have a leg to stand on(LOAC)  if they can somehow prove that the reapers are providing intelligence to UKR and therefore is a lawful threat to be taken out?  

 

19 hours ago, VMFA187 said:

Valid consideration. 

As long as they don't decide the same thing with our crewed assets like say a P-8. Talk about something with tech they would certainly like to look at.  I really hope Putin isn't that crazy.

[VigilanteNav]

4 hours ago, LiquidSky said:

Bent prop visable in the last 2 seconds of the clip. 

Any confirmation the Russian pilot said "too close for missiles, switching to fuel" and if in the debrief the other pilot whispered to him "gutsiest move I ever saw Sergey"?   

[BFM this]

23 hours ago, uhhello said:

Ol' Lindsey Graham just always itching to send others into harms way.  Don't think he's ever encountered a foreign policy choice where he doesn't choose force on force.  

https://www.newsweek.com/lindsey-graham-recommends-shooting-russian-jets-response-us-drone-1787812

Does Russia have a leg to stand on(LOAC)  if they can somehow prove that the reapers are providing intelligence to UKR and therefore is a lawful threat to be taken out?  

If they do, then that could be a very slippery slope indeed.

Thinking of the legal review about a decade ago that looked upon service members in CONUS driving to work if that work included over the horizon ops in theater.

The droid was in international airspace.  Is it a lawful threat (target) if it is a sniffer platform (RC-135) orbiting over Poland?

[uhhello]

1 hour ago, BFM this said:

If they do, then that could be a very slippery slope indeed.

Thinking of the legal review about a decade ago that looked upon service members in CONUS driving to work if that work included over the horizon ops in theater.

The droid was in international airspace.  Is it a lawful threat (target) if it is a sniffer platform (RC-135) orbiting over Poland?

All valid points.  Was just thinking out loud.