Russian Ukraine shenanigans

[uhhello]

47 minutes ago, tac airlifter said:

100% valid.  And often overlooked are low dollar (comparatively) individual systems: white phosphorus NVGs, precision machined sniper rifles, optics, composite IBA materials, IR illuminators, etc.  All of which RUS gathers from dead Ukrainians (or buys from shady Ukrainians, we have little oversight) then shares with the Chinese who reverse engineer it.  These are big issues, as the myriad infantry kit improvements we painfully learned during hard years of GWOT are given to our global adversaries.  The rest of my family is Army and this issue is a huge area of risk from their perspective.

You don't think China already has that stuff? They do.  

[Boomer6]

Pardon the interruption of your regularly scheduled political circle jerk for the following news from Russia/Ukraine:

https://news.yahoo.com/five-russian-jets-blown-drones-201253205.html

 

[Lawman]

100% valid.  And often overlooked are low dollar (comparatively) individual systems: white phosphorus NVGs, precision machined sniper rifles, optics, composite IBA materials, IR illuminators, etc.  All of which RUS gathers from dead Ukrainians (or buys from shady Ukrainians, we have little oversight) then shares with the Chinese who reverse engineer it.  These are big issues, as the myriad infantry kit improvements we painfully learned during hard years of GWOT are given to our global adversaries.  The rest of my family is Army and this issue is a huge area of risk from their perspective.

I’ve got a lot of bad news for you about those low dollar items and the frequency of their loss during that hard fought years of GWOT. Not even just maliciously stealing our stuff. It was disturbingly common to listen to the team lead in the back and one of his other guys discussing why a KSK walked up the ramp sans NVGs. Dude didn’t sell them, he had just taken them off while he sat in an OP (pulling security in the dark IE napping) because they were uncomfortable and never bothered to pick them back up. And now that kit is in some goat herder that makes 40 dollars a month’s back yard.


I’m not saying the risk isn’t there, but the one sided nature of this conflict in what we are getting and validating is pretty legit. And a nice change of pace given us showing off our playbook for all to see. There is stuff we regarded as world ending equipment that we have learned more about in the last 6 months than the proceeding decade simply because it also got left in a field with some farmers after the lines collapsed or it broke down.


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[tac airlifter]

1 hour ago, Lawman said:

I’ve got a lot of bad news for you about those low dollar items and the frequency of their loss during that hard fought years of GWOT. Not even just maliciously stealing our stuff. It was disturbingly common to listen to the team lead in the back and one of his other guys discussing why a KSK walked up the ramp sans NVGs. Dude didn’t sell them, he had just taken them off while he sat in an OP (pulling security in the dark IE napping) because they were uncomfortable and never bothered to pick them back up. And now that kit is in some goat herder that makes 40 dollars a month’s back yard.


I’m not saying the risk isn’t there, but the one sided nature of this conflict in what we are getting and validating is pretty legit. And a nice change of pace given us showing off our playbook for all to see. There is stuff we regarded as world ending equipment that we have learned more about in the last 6 months than the proceeding decade simply because it also got left in a field with some farmers after the lines collapsed or it broke down.


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Yea I get that you're 100% pro-Ukraine war and every downside is worth it to you.  

I'd submit the shit we gave Afghans is not as good as what we've given UKR, and the volume of their loss is significant according to Army O6/O7s I speak to.  You don't agree and that's fine, but the concern is out there.  I realize what we left in AFG.

[Lawman]

Yea I get that you're 100% pro-Ukraine war and every downside is worth it to you.  
I'd submit the shit we gave Afghans is not as good as what we've given UKR, and the volume of their loss is significant according to Army O6/O7s I speak to.  You don't agree and that's fine, but the concern is out there.  I realize what we left in AFG.

No it’s restating that the level of exploitation far exceeds what most O5/6s who probably don’t operate in an intelligence domain is tracking. And if they’ve been training against a REDFOR model that wasn’t body armor/cyber domain/night vision capable/etc than they’ve been ignoring directives for training that have been in place since ~2016.

Talk to the guys in NGIC or MSIC for actual details on that world. Even in the mundane sections of the mundane areas like logistics and sustainment we are getting to see some really good and likewise really bad ways to conduct a ground war. I would equate this to watching the Israelis take some of our top end stuff into fights with the Arabs using the other sides stuff and getting to watch and record results. How much do you think that kind of information paid off later when we had to go fight the same equipment? We’ve got injects in our division warfighter that are being driven off stuff that surprised us over there, so we get to rehearse instead of see it live for the first time.

There is as of a day ago what would potentially be a strategic weapons delivery platform in a war against NATO that is a pile of ash, along with several of its friends. If Russia is intent on having this war with Ukraine (because they aren’t doing it for any other reason), even if they were to eventually win it, we would be far better suited to bleed them white than let them roll over the Ukrainians. They (Ukraine) can still very much lose this war.


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[brabus]

16 hours ago, uhhello said:

You don't think China already has that stuff? They do.  

 ISIS had their hands on all that many years ago, I’m sure the Chinese and Russians bought some from them. The concern is still valid, but it’s not the first round of our adversaries having access to our ground-based tech. 

[uhhello]

1 hour ago, brabus said:

 ISIS had their hands on all that many years ago, I’m sure the Chinese and Russians bought some from them. The concern is still valid, but it’s not the first round of our adversaries having access to our ground-based tech. 

Yup.  

[Pooter]

Philosophical FME question: who stands to gain more? Us or Russia? Or to put it another way, the more technologically advanced military or the less advanced military?

First off, I'm pretty unconcerned with low dollar high volume items like NVGs or body armor. Nights 1-10 aren't going to be decided by those things.  I'm concerned about high end strategic weapons we are giving to Ukraine with little or no control over what happens to them. The second a patriot launcher gets abandoned in a field, we have a big f-ing problem.

So with that in mind, I'd posit Russia stands to gain more. Because it gives them an opportunity to counter, but most importantly: COPY our best stuff. This is how China leapfrogged Russia in 5th gen fighter development. They just copied the F-22/35 after hacking defense contractors. 
 

Finding out that Russia's new stuff is hot garbage gives everyone a nice warm fuzzy, but it doesn't provide nearly the same exploitation opportunity that Russia will get if they capture some tech a generation or two more advanced than their own. 

[uhhello]

10 minutes ago, Pooter said:

Philosophical FME question: who stands to gain more? Us or Russia? Or to put it another way, the more technologically advanced military or the less advanced military?

First off, I'm pretty unconcerned with low dollar high volume items like NVGs or body armor. Nights 1-10 aren't going to be decided by those things.  I'm concerned about high end strategic weapons we are giving to Ukraine with little or no control over what happens to them. The second a patriot launcher gets abandoned in a field, we have a big f-ing problem.

So with that in mind, I'd posit Russia stands to gain more. Because it gives them an opportunity to counter, but most importantly: COPY our best stuff. This is how China leapfrogged Russia in 5th gen fighter development. They just copied the F-22/35 after hacking defense contractors. 
 

Finding out that Russia's new stuff is hot garbage gives everyone a nice warm fuzzy, but it doesn't provide nearly the same exploitation opportunity that Russia will get if they capture some tech a generation or two more advanced than their own. 

Shot in the dark here but I don't think the Russians were 'behind' throughout most of the cold war and now due to them not having the knowledge/schematics of our advanced systems, its because they lacked the manufacturing precision and capes that the western nations had.  I don't think anything has changed in that aspect.  You can see the deficiencies in manufacturing process throughout all of their advances through the cold war. 

[ecugringo]

Plane crash north of Moscow.  Prigozhin was on the passenger list.

[tac airlifter]

[pawnman]

15 minutes ago, ecugringo said:

Plane crash north of Moscow.  Prigozhin was on the passenger list.

Guess I lost money in the pool. My bet was "polonium tea".

[ecugringo]

2 minutes ago, pawnman said:

Guess I lost money in the pool. My bet was "polonium tea".

I mean did he really think he'd stick around after his coup?  Surprised it took this long.

[Day Man]

[Pooter]

3 hours ago, uhhello said:

Shot in the dark here but I don't think the Russians were 'behind' throughout most of the cold war and now due to them not having the knowledge/schematics of our advanced systems, its because they lacked the manufacturing precision and capes that the western nations had.  I don't think anything has changed in that aspect.  You can see the deficiencies in manufacturing process throughout all of their advances through the cold war. 

Well that's weird, because China's manufacturing quality is also known to be shit, but the moment they got their hands on sensitive F-35 tech data they made the most credible adversary threat aircraft basically out of nowhere.. up to that point only having borrowed Russian designs for decades.  
 

Russia also still makes superior jet engines to China so I don't buy that Russia just doesn't have the machining tolerances to do stealth. 

[Sua Sponte]

Putin finally killed a Nazi.

[raimius]

I'd say that it's less the tech baseline and more production/distribution issues.  Russia has good tech, but they usually don't make a ton of it, and corruption takes a huge cut.

[Sua Sponte]

https://x.com/krassenstein/status/1694399155546865967?s=46&t=ctjFB6W6EEwuK5d_y4et5g

[FourFans]

On 8/23/2023 at 3:11 PM, Pooter said:

I don't buy that Russia just doesn't have the machining tolerances to do stealth. 

They might, but then they actually assemble the jets with superglue and the aerospace equivalent of drywall screws that are left exposed.  Lo-vis?  Sure.  Stealth?  No.

Edited August 25, 2023 by FourFans

[pawnman]

17 hours ago, Pooter said:

Well that's weird, because China's manufacturing quality is also known to be shit, but the moment they got their hands on sensitive F-35 tech data they made the most credible adversary threat aircraft basically out of nowhere.. up to that point only having borrowed Russian designs for decades.  
 

Russia also still makes superior jet engines to China so I don't buy that Russia just doesn't have the machining tolerances to do stealth. 

Yeah, look at that precision machining...

 

 

[brabus]

Russian advanced tech, sponsored by the Russian Home Depot. 

[uhhello]

2 hours ago, FourFans said:

They might, but then they actually assemble the jets with superglue and the aerospace equivalent of drywalls screws that are left exposed.  Lo-vis?  Sure.  Stealth?  No.

And produced a whopping 21 aircraft

Edited August 24, 2023 by uhhello

[Biff_T]

2 hours ago, pawnman said:

Yeah, look at that precision machining...

 

 

They need to countersink those screws a little more.  Lol

[VigilanteNav]

On 8/23/2023 at 7:56 PM, ecugringo said:

Plane crash north of Moscow.  Prigozhin was on the passenger list.

Going to be interesting to see how the Wagner Group moves forward (assuming it was actually him on that plane). Reportedly with his #2 on board as well, hopefully it ceases to exist as a functional organization. I imagine there are a few questions in Africa right now seeing as he seemingly was just there. On the surface an easy call for Putin, but he must have some real heartburn in terms of how effective Wagner was in many a Russian foreign adventure.  The ISW's analysis is interesting...     

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 24, 2023 | Institute for the Study of War (understandingwar.org)

Edited August 25, 2023 by VigilanteNav
Added the ISW's analysis of the demise of Prigozhin.

[Danger41]

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/us-train-ukrainian-pilots-f-16-air-national-guard-base/
 

Arizona ANG to train Ukrainian Viper pilots and maintainers.