Russia/Ukraine conflict

[UkNorthampton]

I hadn't seen this posted, apologies if it has been.

Youtube is broken for me at the moment & I have something I have to do. Someone should be able to find it on youtube. Hopefully you can reply with a link.

Edit: Youtube came back after I'd typed this out -

You may remember...

The bloke firing the 0.5 inch browning & AT 4 anti-armour weapons from the Humvee during a mad dash has put out a video explaining what it was all about.

Basically he spent a day drilling the loader to hand him prepared AT4s when he shouted. He got the unprepared ones when he shouted. He didn't prep his loader to give 0.5 inch ammo.

He had the worst browning as he had the best chance of clearing/fixing it in heat of battle.

His group is recon/armour destruction, not intended to occupy. They'd studied drone footage of a village that had armoured vehicles (BTR/BMP or similar) & the intention was to ride in and blow up the vehicles.

He explains that Russians have poor discipline. They park up vehicles, sleep in houses & leave vehicles unoccupied & unguarded. His unit plan an attack, go in fast, suppress with small arms/machine guns & then blow up the vehicles before going away. It's all about speed, surprise & taking advantage of Russian weaknesses.

 

[SmokyPeat]

I hadn't seen this posted, apologies if it has been.

Youtube is broken for me at the moment & I have something I have to do. Someone should be able to find it on youtube. Hopefully you can reply with a link.

Edit: Youtube came back after I'd typed this out -

You may remember...

The bloke firing the 0.5 inch browning & AT 4 anti-armour weapons from the Humvee during a mad dash has put out a video explaining what it was all about.

Basically he spent a day drilling the loader to hand him prepared AT4s when he shouted. He got the unprepared ones when he shouted. He didn't prep his loader to give 0.5 inch ammo.

He had the worst browning as he had the best chance of clearing/fixing it in heat of battle.

His group is recon/armour destruction, not intended to occupy. They'd studied drone footage of a village that had armoured vehicles (BTR/BMP or similar) & the intention was to ride in and blow up the vehicles.

He explains that Russians have poor discipline. They park up vehicles, sleep in houses & leave vehicles unoccupied & unguarded. His unit plan an attack, go in fast, suppress with small arms/machine guns & then blow up the vehicles before going away. It's all about speed, surprise & taking advantage of Russian weaknesses.

Sounds like the modus operandi of the Rat Patrol. Decent television program from the 60's about a cohort of allied soldiers in N. Africa in Jeeps mounted w/ 50 cal. guns. Not quite Combat! level quality, but entertaining.

 

[wipster]

Sounds like the modus operandi of the Rat Patrol. Decent television program from the 60's about a cohort of allied soldiers in N. Africa in Jeeps mounted w/ 50 cal. guns. Not quite Combat! level quality, but entertaining.

Loved the Rat Patrol!

 

[wdolson]

I was sent an unlocked version & several ways to access it - so thanks to all who wanted to help. I skimmed it but it wasn't interesting to me.

If I'd seen a summary, that would have been enough.

Posting pure links isn't good practice in my opinion. Lots of effort for many people, vs little effort for 1 person. Even more if people are on slow/low bandwidth connections or small screen devices.

I don't want to clog the thread up - I just wanted people to know that further workarounds aren't required.

I post links, but I can't recall ever posting a paywalled link. I also try to write up some blurb describing what in the link.

Sounds like the modus operandi of the Rat Patrol. Decent television program from the 60's about a cohort of allied soldiers in N. Africa in Jeeps mounted w/ 50 cal. guns. Not quite Combat! level quality, but entertaining.

Rat Patrol was an Americanized version of the real exploits of the original SAS in North Africa.

 

[SmokyPeat]

Rat Patrol was an Americanized version of the real exploits of the original SAS in North Africa.

Yes, I know. It was entertainment, just like Combat!, 12 O'clock High, Baa Baa Black Sheep, etc., etc. Some better than others. Combat! is my favorite by a wide margin, though I enjoy most of that genera. Hogan's Heroes is about the only one I can think of that has zero appeal to me.

 

[wdolson]

Yes, I know. It was entertainment, just like Combat!, 12 O'clock High, Baa Baa Black Sheep, etc., etc. Some better than others. Combat! is my favorite by a wide margin, though I enjoy most of that genera. Hogan's Heroes is about the only one I can think of that has zero appeal to me.

Baa Baa Black Sheep was based on real events. Most of the first season was historical stories from VMF-214. The second season was mostly stories from other squadrons in the Solomons. VF-17 had one six week combat tour in the Solomons, but they had quite the story. I read Tommy Blackburn's book several years ago. The top scoring ace in VF-17 was a high school classmate of my father.

I grew up saturated with the real stories of the war. When I was 5 my father read me a passage from "Thunderbolt" by Robert Johnson. When I asked him to read me more, he told me to read it myself, so I did when I was 6. It took me a while, but I read the book. My teachers didn't know what to do with me. When other kids were reading 1st grade readers I was reading a war memoir written for adults.

My sister was way beyond me at that age though. They skipped her a year because she could read college textbooks in Kindergarten. My parents treated me like the family moron after her (I'm 10 years younger).

My father took me to my first air museum when I was three. I ran across the slides he shot on that visit when I was going through his large archive of slides (I scanned 15,000 slides). I still remember the trip. I knew what at least half of the planes were. Interesting tie in, it was also where a lot of Twelve O'Clock High was filmed and one of the B-17s from the show is in that museum's collection.

 

[nativewolf]

Britain sending helicopters to Ukraine for first time - Ben Wallace

Three former Sea King helicopters will be provided and the first has already arrived, the BBC understands.

www.bbc.com

First western helicopters being delivered that I know of, sea kings. UK also sent along 150 anti aircraft guns.

 

[SmokyPeat]

Britain sending helicopters to Ukraine for first time - Ben Wallace

Three former Sea King helicopters will be provided and the first has already arrived, the BBC understands.

www.bbc.com

First western helicopters being delivered that I know of, sea kings. UK also sent along 150 anti aircraft guns.

That's a good start. I'm quite disappointed that the US hasn't sent over any F16s yet. Long overdue. It's impressive how well the Ukrainian's have done without air superiority.

 

[NicoV]

The annoying thing about that is most major paywall sites seemed to have found a way around it, by showing the text on first load and then hiding it after fully loading. The sites are trying to have their cake and eat it too. They want good ranking on search results (by showing the full article to the search engine) but want to still have paywall.

Sometimes however even if that case, if you press the button on your browser to stop it from loading at the right time, sometimes you can get the whole article.

Do the google search from a new inprivate window so that the website doesn’t know you already visited it.

 

[Artful Dodger]

NATO recognizes Russia as a Terrorist State; calls for War Crimes Tribunal:

'bout time, I say.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

.../ “The German view was at one stage that if it were going to happen, which would be a disaster, then it would be better for the whole thing to be over quickly, and for Ukraine to fold,” Johnson claimed, citing “all sorts of sound economic reasons” for that approach.

“I couldn’t support that, I thought that was a disastrous way of looking at it. /.../

“Be in no doubt that the French were in denial right up until the last moment,” Johnson also said. /...

Source:

Boris Johnson claims France was 'in denial' before Russia's invasion of Ukraine | CNN

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has claimed France was "in denial" about the prospect of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, and accused the German government of initially favoring a quick Ukrainian military defeat over a long conflict.

edition.cnn.com

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

This was reported by CNN as well for like 5 minutes ago:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1595403030283063299

EDIT: It has allegedly affected large parts of Moldova as well.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1595396161711804416

Credit goes to (in Swedish):

UPPDATERAS: Förlossningsklinik bombad av Ryssland, nyfödd dödad - Ukraina har markrobot från Turkiet med längre räckvidd än HIMARS, når Krym - flera explosioner på den ockuperade halvön

Terroristlandet Ryssland bombade en förlossningsklinik i Ukraina och en nyfödd bebis dödades. Ukraina har fått markrobot från Turkiet, som med 150 km i räckvidd når längre än HIMARS, inklusive till norra Krym. Flera explosioner hördes igår på den ockuperade halvön i bland annat Sevastopol, Balaklava

cornucopia.se

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

And the European Parliament has also passed a resolution declaring Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1595379429236252675

 

[glhs272]

That's a good start. I'm quite disappointed that the US hasn't sent over any F16s yet. Long overdue. It's impressive how well the Ukrainian's have done without air superiority.

Couldn't agree more. Channeling my inner Justin Bronk here....


Although near term, there are legitimate issues with using F-16s. I am confident Ukraine could overcome them, but the F-16 has a very fragile landing gear. It needs smooth runways, which even if Ukraine "polishes" those runways to make them suitable, it would become an obvious target for Russian strikes. I feel a better short term solution aircraft would be a SAAB Gripen C/D or F-18 C/D Hornet. These two aircraft have effectively demonstrated they can take-off and land from improvised runways, such as highways. F-18 has a very robust landing gear (carrier aircraft). They won't need a lot of them for it to become very effective at deterring Russian combat air patrol (CAP). There are not a lot of Gripen's available, although I think there is a country out there try to lease out a few... Most of the F-18 C/D airframes that were retired recently by the Marines are apparently very high hour airframes, according to Ward Carroll who would know better than I would. But picking out the best of the bunch and doing some critical overhauls/rebuilds on those airframes to make them suitable, seems possible in the timeframe it would take to train pilots and ground crews.

What Ukraine really needs is an aircraft that can compete with Russian Mig-35's and Su-35s in BVR (beyond visual range) combat. Their current Mig-29s are simply out-classed in this arena. They need good radars and good long range missiles. Russia currently has the best in the world with their R-37s & R-77 missiles. F-18s armed with AIM-120 missiles or Gripens armed with Meteor missiles, combined with Ukraine's brave and extremely skilled pilots, would push Russian CAP far enough back from the front lines, that Ukraine's existing fleet of Mig-29s and Su-24s could become much more effective at putting "warheads on foreheads".

Finally another solution not discussed very much would be to provide technological upgrades to Ukraine's Su-24s and Mig-29s. This would be a significant challenge and I am not familiar with those challenges. But wartime is the extreme necessity and the mother of invention. Upgrade these aircraft with suitable radars and the ability to mount and control AIM-120 missiles. Kind of like they have already done with the AGM-88A anti-radiation missiles on the Mig-29s. Although that was just a hack to allow the missiles own seeker do the work of finding the target. It would be much more complicated to replace the radars and other electronics on these old soviet aircraft. But this war has been dragging on for 9 months already, with time and effort anything is possible.

 

[petit_bateau]

Britain sending helicopters to Ukraine for first time - Ben Wallace

Three former Sea King helicopters will be provided and the first has already arrived, the BBC understands.

www.bbc.com

First western helicopters being delivered that I know of, sea kings. UK also sent along 150 anti aircraft guns.

These are/were the three ex-RN mk5 that were training German crews in the Portland/Dorset area, I used to see them a lot over the last few years. They are ASW / general purpose including (a long time ago) an anti-shipping role with Sea Skua. It is not clear whether they are being supplied with Sea Skua. They are NV compatible and so might be useful in the [redacted] roles. Given the limited numbers I suspect there is a particular role they have in mind ......

Westland Sea King - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[SmokyPeat]

Finally another solution not discussed very much would be to provide technological upgrades to Ukraine's Su-24s and Mig-29s. This would be a significant challenge and I am not familiar with those challenges. But wartime is the extreme necessity and the mother of invention. Upgrade these aircraft with suitable radars and the ability to mount and control AIM-120 missiles. Kind of like they have already done with the AGM-88A anti-radiation missiles on the Mig-29s. Although that was just a hack to allow the missiles own seeker do the work of finding the target. It would be much more complicated to replace the radars and other electronics on these old soviet aircraft. But this war has been dragging on for 9 months already, with time and effort anything is possible.

That's a good point. I know the Israeli air force has made substantial modifications to Mirage, F16, and other aircraft it has recieved from outside. Including reinforcing the landing gear of the F16.

This is how Israel modified F-16s for its unique needs

The Lockheed F-16 Fighting Falcon has become a legend. It was the star of the 1986 movie, Iron Eagle, in which Doug Mast…

www.wearethemighty.com

 

[Dangerous Fish]

Today's missile attacks came mainly from Tu-95 strategic bombers flying from deeper into Russian territory and ships in the Black Sea.
Ukraine needs more air defences and longer range missiles to strike the airbases and ships.
ATACMS are long overdue IMO.

 

[Just a Reader]

Source:

Boris Johnson claims France was 'in denial' before Russia's invasion of Ukraine | CNN

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has claimed France was "in denial" about the prospect of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, and accused the German government of initially favoring a quick Ukrainian military defeat over a long conflict.

edition.cnn.com

Johnson was fired for lying as a journalist, he lied during his Brexit campaign and he was fired as Prime Minister for lying to Parliament. His relationship to the truth is distinctly Trumpian and I would take whatever he says with a barrel of salt.

 

[MC3OZ]

I think some Powerpacks might be handy to provide Ukraine with a bit more localised energy resilience.

They are better off with with multiple smaller batteries that are easier to hide.

The pressing requirement seems to be provide a bit of heat and electricity for 3-5 hours while the Ukrainians rebuild the grid after Russian strikes.

Ukraine has diesel generators, but batteries would save some money and allow them to conserve diesel.

This phase of the war is mainly about electricity, anything that improves Ukrainian resilience helps defeat this latest Russian plan.

 

[EVCollies]

Baa Baa Black Sheep was based on real events. Most of the first season was historical stories from VMF-214. The second season was mostly stories from other squadrons in the Solomons. VF-17 had one six week combat tour in the Solomons, but they had quite the story. I read Tommy Blackburn's book several years ago. The top scoring ace in VF-17 was a high school classmate of my father.

Allo Allo is my favorite, but completely different genre.