War in Ukraine

[ASCPFC]

You'll have to forgive me, on the amount of time he spent in Russia, I just became a dad for the 2nd time two weeks ago & I'm surviving at best on a couple of hours sleep a night.

Poland has done a lot to improve it's military, I'm actually a big fan of it's civil defence force & wish Britain could emulate that but it's nigh on impossible in a low trust society like Britain.
Poland does lack combat experience & it's armor is a bit of a Hodge Podge of equipment they've snapped up all over the place, this puts a considerable strain on logistics.

The point im making about how this mirrors what happened before the war is the US warned Russia there would be consequences & Russia ignored this & carried on anyways.

You can call Russian ships whatever you like, we have nothing.

There is no defence against hypersonics, they take 15 minutes to reach London if launched from Kalinograd, by the time our early warning system has calculated it's heading for London it's likely nearer 10 minutes.
Let's ignore London for a minute we would have roughly 10 minutes for useless idiot Andy Burnham to green light retaliatory strikes before Flyingdales is wiped off the map & the majority of our conventional ballistic sites are hammered hard, I'm not even talking about nukes.

I don't think any of our allies would come to save us, but like I say my gut says Russia will target Poland with something.

Im my opinion, Poland would beat Russia currently. They're having trouble in Ukraine but Poland has a far better military and economy.

 

[Ouzo Dan]

Im my opinion, Poland would beat Russia currently. They're having trouble in Ukraine but Poland has a far better military and economy.

I've mentioned this before, Russia builds & manufactures more small arms, cruise missiles etc than the entirety of NATO, Russia would not go windmilling into Poland like they did in Ukraine so say there's an energy grid down cyber attack in Poland, what does Poland do? Reinforce the Suwalki gap? By going after Belarus/Kaliningrad? Poland would be double ended like Bonnie Blue that Polish expeditionary force would be wiped out, now Poland is forced to fight on multiple fronts, at this point it's an absolute guarantee Russia would go after Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania, Lithuania doesn't have a hope in hell of protecting all that border with enemies east & west of it.
Roll armor into Ukraine? that equipment would be subject to same drone/artillery strikes over open flat terrain that have ground this war into the slow slog it is.
Russia wouldn't have a problem bombing the piss out of Polish cities, something the Russians are loathe to do to Ukraine as they consider Ukrainians the same as them, poles are fair game.

 

[Mark B]

You'll have to forgive me, on the amount of time he spent in Russia, I just became a dad for the 2nd time two weeks ago & I'm surviving at best on a couple of hours sleep a night.

Poland has done a lot to improve it's military, I'm actually a big fan of it's civil defence force & wish Britain could emulate that but it's nigh on impossible in a low trust society like Britain.
Poland does lack combat experience & it's armor is a bit of a Hodge Podge of equipment they've snapped up all over the place, this puts a considerable strain on logistics.

The point im making about how this mirrors what happened before the war is the US warned Russia there would be consequences & Russia ignored this & carried on anyways.

You can call Russian ships whatever you like, we have nothing.

There is no defence against hypersonics, they take 15 minutes to reach London if launched from Kalinograd, by the time our early warning system has calculated it's heading for London it's likely nearer 10 minutes.
Let's ignore London for a minute we would have roughly 10 minutes for useless idiot Andy Burnham to green light retaliatory strikes before Flyingdales is wiped off the map & the majority of our conventional ballistic sites are hammered hard, I'm not even talking about nukes.

I don't think any of our allies would come to save us, but like I say my gut says Russia will target Poland with something.

That is awesome! Congratulations on the little one.

I agree, the mixing and matching of logistical requirements is a nightmare. India is the worst offender of the buy one of everything method and it become impossible to sustain. While I’m a fan of the Korean K2s, I’m not a fan of the limited logistical support that can assist if required. It becomes drastically easier to maintain their M1s with access to US parts through NATO.

Where I’m very comfortable with the idea that Russia isn’t going to invade into Poland is that there is an American armored brigade sitting in Poland along with an American Corps HQs. I think Russia would consider going into the Baltics if the American rotational forces were pulled out of those countries but right now there are just enough Americans there to get the US interested. Of all of the spots in northern Europe, the most likely point for Russian involvement is into Latvia because of the high percentage of ethnic Russians combined with the Canadian led Battlegroup being the weakest of those in the region.

Drastic difference between Ukraine and Poland. Ukraine is a nation of interest for the US, Poland is a NATO partner that Trump actually likes. Legally, the US could not send forces to Ukraine (and actually had to pull some out who were there training) while the US is in deep with Poland.

I have faith that the Royal Navy with help could take out a Russian destroyer or Frigate near England. Maybe even a second one. After that, not so sure.

There is absolutely defense against hypersonics as the Kinzhal and Zircon systems have both been blown out of the sky using Patriots. In order to get to England from Kaliningrad it would need to fly over German, Dutch and American Patriot batteries. So while England doesn’t have what it needs, it does have friends who can lend a hand.

I would agree with your assessment that Andy would still be trying to figure out what is going on before an attack went on. I do have absolute faith that the US forces in the UK would be attacking back before Andy could get consensus on what to do. You are correct in that the rounds are going to land before the response gets off, unless there is an automated system that responds, humans just are not fast enough to make that decision before missiles land.

As much as Trump is a p****, if the UK is attacked he responds as he doesn’t have a choice, he backs them up and it’s a throw down. Having American military personnel in England may be annoying to some locals, but it is a great deterrent from Russia wanting to play stupid games. Keir had his own issues, but giving Don the thumbs up to put B1s at RAF Fairford was a smart move.

 

[Spindle]

You'll have to forgive me, on the amount of time he spent in Russia, I just became a dad for the 2nd time two weeks ago & I'm surviving at best on a couple of hours sleep a night.

Poland has done a lot to improve it's military, I'm actually a big fan of it's civil defence force & wish Britain could emulate that but it's nigh on impossible in a low trust society like Britain.
Poland does lack combat experience & it's armor is a bit of a Hodge Podge of equipment they've snapped up all over the place, this puts a considerable strain on logistics.

The point im making about how this mirrors what happened before the war is the US warned Russia there would be consequences & Russia ignored this & carried on anyways.

You can call Russian ships whatever you like, we have nothing.

There is no defence against hypersonics, they take 15 minutes to reach London if launched from Kalinograd, by the time our early warning system has calculated it's heading for London it's likely nearer 10 minutes.
Let's ignore London for a minute we would have roughly 10 minutes for useless idiot Andy Burnham to green light retaliatory strikes before Flyingdales is wiped off the map & the majority of our conventional ballistic sites are hammered hard, I'm not even talking about nukes.

I don't think any of our allies would come to save us, but like I say my gut says Russia will target Poland with something.

All good but nobody has defence against hypersonics and nobody has real hypersonics either. They do have ballistic though, which reach hypersonic speeds and an Aster 30 can hit these, as can similar long range systems, but iirc not reliably which is being worked on.

 

[Ouzo Dan]

Aster has never been tested against for example oreshnik which travels in excess of Mach 10, or Iran's Fattah which hits Mach 13,

Oreshnik with it's deep penetrating multiple tungsten warhead

Fattah

In respect to these kind of missiles were playing catch up with 10 year old missile tech.

 

[Ouzo Dan]

Poland has apparently moved a load of Korean K2 Tanks to the Kaliningrad border, sounds like it was just a rotation but I don't believe entirely in coincidences so I'll say it's convenient given the last 48 hours.

Poland Deploys 28 K2 Black Panther Tanks Near Russia as It Hardens Eastern Defenses

Poland deploys 28 South Korean K2 Black Panther tanks to its 16th Mechanized Division near the Kaliningrad border, officials announced on August 25.

united24media.com

 

[Spindle]

Aster has never been tested against for example oreshnik which travels in excess of Mach 10, or Iran's Fattah which hits Mach 13,

Oreshnik with it's deep penetrating multiple tungsten warhead

Fattah

In respect to these kind of missiles were playing catch up with 10 year old missile tech.

They are ballistic missiles, not hypersonic. Reaching hypersonic speeds isn't the true classification of what hypersonic actually is, which nobody has cracked yet. And these types of ballistics are only just being used in anger so that counter is what the "catch up" is, but Aster and others can hit them, they weren't designed to, but that work is ongoing. Check out "Aquila" from MBDA, it's specifically to intercept them, although it's all rather expensive.

 

[Ouzo Dan]

They are ballistic missiles, not hypersonic. Reaching hypersonic speeds isn't the true classification of what hypersonic actually is, which nobody has cracked yet. And these types of ballistics are only just being used in anger so that counter is what the "catch up" is, but Aster and others can hit them, they weren't designed to, but that work is ongoing. Check out "Aquila" from MBDA, it's specifically to intercept them, although it's all rather expensive.

I think there's a distinction to be made between the anti ship ballistic missile stuff the houthis use & Aster is successful in intercepting & the missiles I am specifically referring to so I'll keep using hypersonic for the sake of making life easy.
I'd be interested in anything you have re Aster hitting these missiles.

THAAD is in a similar situation horrifically expensive (single battery - 48 missiles & radar costs about $1.5 billion) the US can only churn out 400 missiles a year costing roughly $18m each.
It's been a disappointment in the middle east with something like a 30% intercept rate, it's actually cheaper to just let the Iranians bomb you & you rebuild something new in it's place.

 

[Spindle]

Aquila is a programme. Hypersonic is manoeuvre ability at those speeds, else it's ballistic which has been around since the V2, and reach those speeds at altitude on a predictable path. Thing is, these types have only been threats up to now excluding Saddam's Scuds. Hitting the factories, economy and launchers is a better way to combat them. It's a bit like SEAD on air defence, take out the tracking and search radars, and the whole battery becomes useless.

THAAD is anti ballistic from design, Aquila is a specific programme for future hypersonic threats (non ballistic hypersonic). There's no data on that.

Aster 30 is limited in ability to intercept ballistics though, don't think you could use Samp-T Vs the ones you mentioned

 

[Stirlingsays]

Poland has apparently moved a load of Korean K2 Tanks to the Kaliningrad border, sounds like it was just a rotation but I don't believe entirely in coincidences so I'll say it's convenient given the last 48 hours.

Poland Deploys 28 K2 Black Panther Tanks Near Russia as It Hardens Eastern Defenses

Poland deploys 28 South Korean K2 Black Panther tanks to its 16th Mechanized Division near the Kaliningrad border, officials announced on August 25.

united24media.com

Personally I'm not seeing why tanks are being bothered with.

Without anti drone technology that works they are just sitting ducks.

These techs are obviously being worked on by all sides but at the moment drones make fast movement high cost and near suicidal for a vanguard.

 

[Stirlingsays]

Im my opinion, Poland would beat Russia currently. They're having trouble in Ukraine but Poland has a far better military and economy.

What does beating Russia look like?

What does it gain versus loss for any particular country?

 

[Eaglehamster]

What does beating Russia look like?

What does it gain versus loss for any particular country?

I think the more important question is: What does Russia winning look like?

 

[Ouzo Dan]

Personally I'm not seeing why tanks are being bothered with.

Without anti drone technology that works they are just sitting ducks.

These techs are obviously being worked on by all sides but at the moment drones make fast movement high cost and near suicidal for a vanguard.

NATO doctrine, we have watched Ukraine & Russia change & refine tactics for the last 5 years whilst NATO leaders look at each other wondering what to do, we're behind & until there's any real shift from the top we all follow the plan so yeah Tanks without little to no anti drone equipment.

It's crazy to see how much drones have changed the battlefield, legacy anti armor stuff like Javelins which were unbelievably successful at the start of the war have been made redundant by glorified DJI's.

The Russians may have cracked countering fibre optic drones, we're seeing something new appearing on tanks & the like which is being linked to the above so we're likely moving into the next phase of this conflict.

Artillery remains the biggest threat & killer in this war.

 

[Eagle One]

John Ratcliffe flying into Moscow & being turfed out after just 30 minutes mirrors the pre cursor to the Russian/Ukraine war starting, I think we're about to see Russia react to the constant bear poking by UK/NATO

I'd guess something is going to happen with Poland, but I'd recommend you guys staying well away from energy/military infrastructure for a while just in case, Russia has been sailing some it's warships just off the coast of Britain unimpeded since we boarded the Smyrtos off the coast of the Isle of Wight.

Putin is the moderate & is surrounded by people insanely hard line than he is & politically he needs to offer up a bit of red meat.
Britain has zero defence against Russia's hypersonic missiles.

I don't disagree with what you say about being surrounded by hardliners but what makes you think Putin is a moderate? It was his decision ultimately to invade Ukraine and cause the loss of thousands of lives.

 

[Stirlingsays]

I think the more important question is: What does Russia winning look like?

Their stated aims, which is essentially the three eastern oblasts.

Though it looks like there is now a northern border extension due to Ukrainian invasions in the north.

The war likely ends with a North/South Korea like 'no man's land' between borders. A border that Ukraine won't recognise of course but will exist anyway.

 

[Stirlingsays]

I don't disagree with what you say about being surrounded by hardliners but what makes you think Putin is a moderate? It was his decision ultimately to invade Ukraine and cause the loss of thousands of lives.

I agree that Russia ultimately are responsible for this war.

However.....there are a lot of reasons why Russia did this.....they were known, and there was significant argumentation given back in the Bush and Obama eras against US state department policy towards Ukraine.....but they did it anyway.

It's not as though warnings weren't continually given that this was the likely response to turning the Ukrainian government into an anti Russian one.....which the US and to a lesser extent Europe pursued as policy.

There are direct security implications for Russia if Ukraine, with its existing borders at the time, became an opposing state. At the nearest point Ukraine was only five hours drive to Moscow......Essentially zero reaction time for missile launch.

 

[Stirlingsays]

It's being reported that the Russian foreign ministry have just announced that Russia may strike at any military targets in the UK, both in Ukraine and beyond, in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory using British weapons.

I hope people know what they are doing.

 

[silvertop]

John Ratcliffe flying into Moscow & being turfed out after just 30 minutes mirrors the pre cursor to the Russian/Ukraine war starting, I think we're about to see Russia react to the constant bear poking by UK/NATO

I'd guess something is going to happen with Poland, but I'd recommend you guys staying well away from energy/military infrastructure for a while just in case, Russia has been sailing some it's warships just off the coast of Britain unimpeded since we boarded the Smyrtos off the coast of the Isle of Wight.

Putin is the moderate & is surrounded by people insanely hard line than he is & politically he needs to offer up a bit of red meat.
Britain has zero defence against Russia's hypersonic missiles.

Nor they ours.

Russia will have a bit of fun with us while all our subs are in the garage.

However they don't have long.

And this country no longer fights alone. We fight by alliance. Whether that is Norwegian frigates escorting our carriers, or the US having more planes on UK air bases than our own military.

We were brought up on a diet that the Russians would easily steam roll through Europe at will. It was always rubbish. They neither had the desire nor the ability. They couldn't beat third world Afghanistan and can't even beat their adjacent neighbour. How would they hope to beat us?

 

[bright&wright]

I agree that Russia ultimately are responsible for this war.

However.....there are a lot of reasons why Russia did this.....they were known, and there was significant argumentation given back in the Bush and Obama eras against US state department policy towards Ukraine.....but they did it anyway.

It's not as though warnings weren't continually given that this was the likely response to turning the Ukrainian government into an anti Russian one.....which the US and to a lesser extent Europe pursued as policy.

There are direct security implications for Russia if Ukraine, with its existing borders at the time, became an opposing state. At the nearest point Ukraine was only five hours drive to Moscow......Essentially zero reaction time for missile launch.

Utter garbage.

1) Russia doesn't get to decide what another country does. Just like Israel or Iran.

2) Why does Russia have nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad? That's not 5 hours from Poland, it's right on Poland's border! Does that mean Poland are within their rights to invade Kaliningrad out of national security?

 

[silvertop]

It's being reported that the Russian foreign ministry have just announced that Russia may strike at any military targets in the UK, both in Ukraine and beyond, in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory using British weapons.

I hope people know what they are doing.

Sabre rattling.

They are already targeting by cyber, interference with elections etc. There were also the assassinations. However, inconvenient but not fatal for your average Brit; and no Tommies or Tars in the ground.

It's all posture.