Ukrainian Civil War Thread: All Quiet on the Sturgeon Front

[Cobras]

7 hours ago, Beer said:

The point is that even transition even to very similar alternative chips is very time consuming and very costly. Using some Chinese chips instead of US ones is much easier said than done. First the Chinese must produce something similar. After that they must be villing to sell that. They also must have production capacities for that. And last but not least there is huge programming, testing, validation etc. work to be done before the product is ready for production with new chips. It's an endeavour for years... and in the very last Russian must have money to pay that.   

It's not about using chinese chips, but buying western ones from China itself. Russia can make trade agreements for the goods they need, you don't need hard cash when you got natural resources.

[Alzoc]

1 hour ago, Cobras said:

It's not about using chinese chips, but buying western ones from China itself. Russia can make trade agreements for the goods they need, you don't need hard cash when you got natural resources.

 

Yes but if China become the sole supplier of critical components to Russia and their main buyer for natural resources China will be the one who set the prices, not Russia.

The main risk long term is to see an increased vassalization of Russia to China. China is already the senior partner in the relationship between the two country, and regardless of the issue of the war it will only get worse at times goes on (heck if Russia is actually perceived as winning the war, the sanctions could always potentially become worse).

 

A Russia dependent on China for it's key imports and exports will have to sell it's resources for cheap and China may be actually able to get their hands on a few key technology they still have issue with (like fighters jet engines), potentially driving Russia out of the weapons export market by proposing cheaper alternatives with a similar technological level. Reduced income from sale of raw resources (potentially compensated somewhat by increased market price) and a civilian and military industry that's becoming less competitive will only see the Russian economy worsen.

 

The longer this war drags on the worse it will be for everybody but China :

• Europe will be lacking energy and raw resources (at least in the short term) and is currently spending a lot to plug the biggest gaps (abyss) in it's defence (though the later will probably help in the long run).
• For the US, in the short term they will see Russia disappear as a threat (not that Russia was much more than a regional power with access to nuclear weapons at this point anyway) and they will be able to sell gas and weapons to Europe. Long term they'll have to face China as a country with access to cheap Russian natural resources and that didn't spent anything (be it resources, money or military potential) during the war in Ukraine (same problem apply to Europe as well).
• Russia will end up in a much worse situation by the end of this war, that much is a given at this point (Worse economy, severely depleted military potential, a part of the educated population having fled the country, isolation on the international scene, etc). The only question is by how much.
• As for the rest of the world, they'll have to suffer from the long term consequences of a major economical crisis potentially coupled in the short term with a lack of wheat for some country.

 

Also keep in mind that China may not want to alienate it's western economical partners too much (at least for a time) so the support it will provide to Russia may be limited (potentially making Russia fall faster and harder and thus cheaper to buy out when they'll get really desperate).

 

Really the best scenario for the world as a whole (Ukraine and Russia will get shafted in one way or the other anyway) is for the war to end as fast as possible (which should be obvious at this point). One reason for the war to end would be one side suffering unsustainable attrition be it in men or material. Russia still have the mobilization card to play (but that may be a hard sell to the Russian people) and potentially greater reserves of soviet era material. Ukraine meanwhile, may gain the technological edge if western weapons supply goes on and they have a population that is ready for full mobilization. On the other hand, Ukrainian moral seems to be flagging lately (at least in Donbass) and it's their country which will be in ruin when the dust settle. Russia could also stop the invasion if they manage to take enough of the Donbass to sell it as a victory, but Putin and the associated system is really playing their political future on this war (from the outside it looks like more and more that they locked themselves in a do or die situation) so it will have to be somewhat significant gains.

 

The way I see the situation right now is that Ukraine is aiming for maximal attrition of Russian forces in order to make the political and economical cost of the war unbearable while refusing to fall back in Donbass (even if regrouping could help militarily) and pushing back where they can (like in Kherson which would also double as slap in the face for Russia if they actually manage to retake it). Ukrainians knows that every territory they lose now, they'll have a very hard time reclaiming it once the war is over. Russia on the other hand is trying to gain as much control of the Donbass as possible in order to achieve a victory of some kind while taking minimal risks to limit their losses (advancing slowly while destroying everything in front of them by a massive use of artillery).

 

There is also a risk that Russia may escalate the conflict in some way (Full scale mobilization for example), the rethorics of some Russian reporter or even politicians is becoming increasingly disconnected from reality and we are hearing absurdities like a presenter saying on Russian state TV that we have entered WW3 and that Russia will have to demilitarize the entirety of NATO :

 

Or a member of the Douma seriously saying that Russia should kidnap a minister of defence from a country member of NATO while they are in official visit in Kiev.

 

Words have a meaning, and it should be high time that the Russian elites remember that. Because spouting that kind of non sense all days long on public channels will end up leaving a mark in the long run.

 

 

[Kal]

honestly, i think the war in Ukraine is around the 30% mark,  it could be a either a 9 month or 12 month primary war.  with negotiations to be called next winter.

 

the real losers will be families of the fallen, both on Russian and Ukrainian side.  Very little is stated of Ukrainian military war casualties,  but the way the fighting appears to be going,  Ukraine will be missing a generation of young men.  All for what? when all is said and done.

[Miroslav]

5 hours ago, Alzoc said:

 

[...]

The main risk long term is to see an increased vassalization of Russia to China.

 

[...]

 

I agree with your entire post, but mainly this point. The Putin regime is completely sabotaging any future relationship with the west and replacing it with Russia having no option other than being China's little bitch. This whole war is unnecessary and stupid. Russia could have gone in a completely other direction. Russia will now be poor and backwards for another 50 years instead of becoming a normal grown-up country. The excuses you hear when talking to Russians are so pathetic. I'm so glad the baltic states and Poland got away from Russia when they had the opportunity.

I feel a lot of sympathy for the Russian population, but I have lost respect for all of these "neutral" Russians who think they are detached from the events in Ukraine. They choose to be serfs instead of citizens.

[Beer]

5 hours ago, Alzoc said:

 

Yes but if China become the sole supplier of critical components to Russia and their main buyer for natural resources China will be the one who set the prices, not Russia.

The main risk long term is to see an increased vassalization of Russia to China. China is already the senior partner in the relationship between the two country, and regardless of the issue of the war it will only get worse at times goes on (heck if Russia is actually perceived as winning the war, the sanctions could always potentially become worse).

 

A Russia dependent on China for it's key imports and exports will have to sell it's resources for cheap and China may be actually able to get their hands on a few key technology they still have issue with (like fighters jet engines), potentially driving Russia out of the weapons export market by proposing cheaper alternatives with a similar technological level. Reduced income from sale of raw resources (potentially compensated somewhat by increased market price) and a civilian and military industry that's becoming less competitive will only see the Russian economy worsen.

 

The longer this war drags on the worse it will be for everybody but China :

• Europe will be lacking energy and raw resources (at least in the short term) and is currently spending a lot to plug the biggest gaps (abyss) in it's defence (though the later will probably help in the long run).
• For the US, in the short term they will see Russia disappear as a threat (not that Russia was much more than a regional power with access to nuclear weapons at this point anyway) and they will be able to sell gas and weapons to Europe. Long term they'll have to face China as a country with access to cheap Russian natural resources and that didn't spent anything (be it resources, money or military potential) during the war in Ukraine (same problem apply to Europe as well).
• Russia will end up in a much worse situation by the end of this war, that much is a given at this point (Worse economy, severely depleted military potential, a part of the educated population having fled the country, isolation on the international scene, etc). The only question is by how much.
• As for the rest of the world, they'll have to suffer from the long term consequences of a major economical crisis potentially coupled in the short term with a lack of wheat for some country.

 

Also keep in mind that China may not want to alienate it's western economical partners too much (at least for a time) so the support it will provide to Russia may be limited (potentially making Russia fall faster and harder and thus cheaper to buy out when they'll get really desperate).

 

Really the best scenario for the world as a whole (Ukraine and Russia will get shafted in one way or the other anyway) is for the war to end as fast as possible (which should be obvious at this point). One reason for the war to end would be one side suffering unsustainable attrition be it in men or material. Russia still have the mobilization card to play (but that may be a hard sell to the Russian people) and potentially greater reserves of soviet era material. Ukraine meanwhile, may gain the technological edge if western weapons supply goes on and they have a population that is ready for full mobilization. On the other hand, Ukrainian moral seems to be flagging lately (at least in Donbass) and it's their country which will be in ruin when the dust settle. Russia could also stop the invasion if they manage to take enough of the Donbass to sell it as a victory, but Putin and the associated system is really playing their political future on this war (from the outside it looks like more and more that they locked themselves in a do or die situation) so it will have to be somewhat significant gains.

 

The way I see the situation right now is that Ukraine is aiming for maximal attrition of Russian forces in order to make the political and economical cost of the war unbearable while refusing to fall back in Donbass (even if regrouping could help militarily) and pushing back where they can (like in Kherson which would also double as slap in the face for Russia if they actually manage to retake it). Ukrainians knows that every territory they lose now, they'll have a very hard time reclaiming it once the war is over. Russia on the other hand is trying to gain as much control of the Donbass as possible in order to achieve a victory of some kind while taking minimal risks to limit their losses (advancing slowly while destroying everything in front of them by a massive use of artillery).

 

There is also a risk that Russia may escalate the conflict in some way (Full scale mobilization for example), the rethorics of some Russian reporter or even politicians is becoming increasingly disconnected from reality and we are hearing absurdities like a presenter saying on Russian state TV that we have entered WW3 and that Russia will have to demilitarize the entirety of NATO :

 

Or a member of the Douma seriously saying that Russia should kidnap a minister of defence from a country member of NATO while they are in official visit in Kiev.

 

Words have a meaning, and it should be high time that the Russian elites remember that. Because spouting that kind of non sense all days long on public channels will end up leaving a mark in the long run.

 

 

 

I'd add another point related to China because not everything caused by this war benefits China. It's true that the more dependent on China Russia is, the cheaper resources China can get etc. On the other hand by starting this war Russia caused a headache to China by removing the option of ground trade route China - EU. EU is by far the largest trade partner of China but its trade routes are essentially controlled by US NAVY. In case of war between China and US the US is effectively able to starve Chinese economy by blocking its overseas trade. For that reason (and for possible switch of its trade from Dollar to Juan) China needs an alternative trade route which can not be controlled by US but that option basically disappeared when Russia attacked Ukraine. 

[Beer]

15 hours ago, Cobras said:

It's not about using chinese chips, but buying western ones from China itself. Russia can make trade agreements for the goods they need, you don't need hard cash when you got natural resources.

 

Which means a total dependency on the goodwill of China plus paying a lot more for the same thing with neither guaranteed delivery volumes, nor dates. 

 

Also the volume of resources China needs is finite. China won't buy more of anything than it needs and certainly not for the same price. China is not some sort of cash machine into which you throw whatever amount of resources and get payed for that.

 

You can exchange resources for other goods only for not getting the hard cash you would otherwise get. Since the Russian state budget is from about one half financed by oil and gas revenues, trading the resources for goods means loosing another part of money running the state. Take into account that EU has been importing twice more oil from Russia than China and 12x more gas (!) and that this source of cash is going to be stopped, i.e. the largest singular contributor of the state budget of the RF is going to vanish. In the near future Russia would need to seek every possible source of hard cash and prioritize it above goods exchange. 

[barbaria]

LMAO crowdfunding UCAV's

 

 

[Beer]

22 minutes ago, barbaria said:

LMAO crowdfunding UCAV's

 

 

 

Crowdfunding campaign is runing in several countries including ours. The difference is only in that it's not being addressed for particular weapon systems but Ukrainean embasy uses the money to buy whatever weapons it needs (mostly from local producers). I don't know how much money was collected here to this day because there are several parallel channels but 6 weeks ago it was over 30 million USD for weapons and roughly twice more for humanitarian aid. 

[Alzoc]

Norwegian M109A3 spotted in Ukraine around Kiev :

 

[Beer]

Ther smaller China joinned the Rusisan and Belarussian chip ban.

Quote

Firms from these two countries are now banned from purchasing Taiwan-made microprocessors or microcircuits which have any of the following specifications: performance speeds of 5 gigaflops or above, clock frequency rates in excess of 25 MHz, an external interconnection with a data transfer rate of 2.5 MB/s or greater, more than 144 pins, or a basic propagation delay time of less than 0.4 nanoseconds.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4557937

[Kal]

7 hours ago, Beer said:

Ther smaller China joinned the Rusisan and Belarussian chip ban.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4557937
 

https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20220530PD204.html

Microprocessors or microcircuits with any of the following conditions are under the ban:

(1) Performance speeds reach 5 gigaFlops or higher and an arithmetic logic unit has access width of 32 bits or more;

(2) clock frequency rates exceed 25MHz;

(3) more than one data or instruction bus or one serial communication port that provide direct external interconnection between parallel microcircuits at a transfer rate of 2.5MB/s.

ICs with more than 144 pins or basic gate propagation delay time of less than 0.4 nanosecond are also prohibited.

 

32 bits, is not much these days, perhaps the $1 Rasp Pico might fall under these sanctions. https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-rp2040-on-sale/

but believe it or not, 8bit just keeps growing https://www.embedded.com/why-wont-the-8-bit-microcontroller-die/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=link&utm_medium=EmbeddedEurope-20220531

[Volke]

Seems Jihad Design Bureau is doing great with their brand new UkraineAkbar line of products

 

[Beer]

11 hours ago, Volke said:

Seems Jihad Design Bureau is doing great with their brand new UkraineAkbar line of products

 

 

I dare to say that it's probably more effective than the there-common loft-volleys of the same S-8 rockets fired from helicopters. From purely physical point of view this platform must be a lot more accurate albeit for the cost of signifficantly reduced range. 

[Volke]

6 hours ago, Beer said:

 

I dare to say that it's probably more effective than the there-common loft-volleys of the same S-8 rockets fired from helicopters. From purely physical point of view this platform must be a lot more accurate albeit for the cost of signifficantly reduced range. 

Quite possibly, it is obviously more effective than just dumping rockets over ballistic trajectory and hoping they hit, tho it begs the question, if they are now jerry-rigging such contraptions, are they running low on traditional MLRS systems?

[Beer]

1 hour ago, Volke said:

Quite possibly, it is obviously more effective than just dumping rockets over ballistic trajectory and hoping they hit, tho it begs the question, if they are now jerry-rigging such contraptions, are they running low on traditional MLRS systems?

 

Definitely they don't have enough of them for all the mobilised units - while the army grew rapidly thanks to the mobilisation it also lost a lot of weapons and other machinery in the same time. Another question is ammo which is probably running low due to the sheer scale of the war. AFAIK only several factories in Czechia, Slovakia and Bulgaria are still producing WP artillery ammo and rockets and their production is not enough to cover the Ukrainean war effort. 

 

By the way at least some of the helicopters and planes are equiped with on-board sighting for loft bombing / rocket fire, i.e. it's not total spray and pray but of course the effectiveness is limited (for sure Su-25 Klen-PS targeting system has a loft-mode but of course at least the laser beam needs direct visibility of the target).  

[Volke]

5 hours ago, Beer said:

 

Definitely they don't have enough of them for all the mobilised units - while the army grew rapidly thanks to the mobilisation it also lost a lot of weapons and other machinery in the same time. Another question is ammo which is probably running low due to the sheer scale of the war. AFAIK only several factories in Czechia, Slovakia and Bulgaria are still producing WP artillery ammo and rockets and their production is not enough to cover the Ukrainean war effort. 

 

By the way at least some of the helicopters and planes are equiped with on-board sighting for loft bombing / rocket fire, i.e. it's not total spray and pray but of course the effectiveness is limited (for sure Su-25 Klen-PS targeting system has a loft-mode but of course at least the laser beam needs direct visibility of the target).  

Yeah, but still, even with computer calculating impact point and lead, S-8s ain't exactly the epitomy of accuracy when launched like that. Either way, it will be interesting to see if with introduction of M142 and potentially M270 we will see some of these problems go away. I honestly bet it won't change much but im ready to be proven wrong.

 

Also on the note of lost equipment, with lists like one made by Oryx you would be lead to believe that Ukraine now has more equipment than when the war started, ex. he lists 19 lost MLRS systems for Ukraine and 32 they "captured" from Rus forces, one can argue that making a photo of something doesn't mean it got captured and recovered by UA, but who would bother with such unimportant details. 

[LoooSeR]

 

[Beer]

10 hours ago, Volke said:

Yeah, but still, even with computer calculating impact point and lead, S-8s ain't exactly the epitomy of accuracy when launched like that. Either way, it will be interesting to see if with introduction of M142 and potentially M270 we will see some of these problems go away. I honestly bet it won't change much but im ready to be proven wrong.

 

Also on the note of lost equipment, with lists like one made by Oryx you would be lead to believe that Ukraine now has more equipment than when the war started, ex. he lists 19 lost MLRS systems for Ukraine and 32 they "captured" from Rus forces, one can argue that making a photo of something doesn't mean it got captured and recovered by UA, but who would bother with such unimportant details. 

 

I think that we don't see majority of artillery/MLRS losses from either side because they are not placed on the frontline and hence why the only ones who could document their destruction would be their own crews. We see from time to time some UAV footage of counter batttery fire but that's IMHO just a tiny part of the artillery duels ongoing. 

[LoooSeR]

On 6/4/2022 at 12:17 PM, Beer said:

 

I dare to say that it's probably more effective than the there-common loft-volleys of the same S-8 rockets fired from helicopters. From purely physical point of view this platform must be a lot more accurate albeit for the cost of signifficantly reduced range. 

   I don't see a picture, but if it is firing rockets for helicopters, than it is not going to have better accuracy. Last time they did that (jihaded rocket pods to Strela-10s) they discovered that rockets fired from stationary vehicle were not stabilised enough and showed much higher spread compared to firing from helicopter or a plane. My guess is that those rockets were designed for certain speed of launch platform. 

 

 

 

[Beer]

1 minute ago, LoooSeR said:

   I don't see a picture, but if it is firing rockets for helicopters, than it is not going to have better accuracy. Last time they did that (jihaded rocket pods to Strela-10s) they discovered that rockets fired from stationary vehicle were not stabilised enough and showed much higher spread compared to firing from helicopter or a plane. My guess is that those rockets were designed for certain speed of launch platform. 

 

http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/kloch4/71168306/277030/277030_original.jpg

 

 

 

You are right that now I recall seeing a table which showed how much more accurate S-8 were when fired from planes than from helicopters purely because of higher initial speed. But that applies more for direct fire not that much for the loft fire which is definitely terrible in terms of accuracy (not because of lack of stabilization but because of lack of aim). 

 

 

[LoooSeR]

5 minutes ago, Beer said:

 

You are right that now I recall seeing a table which showed how much more accurate S-8 were when fired from planes than from helicopters purely because of higher initial speed. But that applies more for direct fire not that much for the loft fire which is definitely terrible in terms of accuracy (not because of lack of stabilization but because of lack of aim). 

 

 

   Unguided rockets in such firing mode usually are used against area targets. But i would say that drone datalink and LMUR launchers that were intergrated into modernised Mi-28 would have been much more capable.

[LoooSeR]

From Discord. Imagine being killed by a VOG grenade from Pepe-25.

[LoooSeR]

From Alexandr Kots interview (reporter of KP)

Quote

 

And they have a lot of reconnaissance drones.

- How are we?

- We don't have many of them. But I'm looking at a narrow section of the front. And I see - two Orlan-10s and one Orlan-30, which aims the Krasnopol high-precision ammunition with a laser, ifor two armies.

- Not that "fat".

Well, as long as they haven't been shot down, it's fine. Our SSOs (special operations forces. - Ed.) operate nearby, they have their own komikaze drones "Kub". A little one. As they say, "for our tasks." They are wooling these "Sherwood forests", knocking out Ukrainian sabotage groups.

 

 

[Alzoc]

A battery (3) of M109A3 shelled by cluster ammunition. At least one looks like it is burning at the end of the video :

 

 

[Beer]

Roughly one month ago the Ukrainean deputy navy commander Col. Igor Bedzai was killed when his Mi-14 was shot down. Now this video surfaced on the internet allegedly showing the incident. The video is cut short but it looks like the heli was shot down by Su-35S (or Su-27SM) cannon fire. 

https://t.me/milinfolive/84714