Russia - threadbanned users in OP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118918875#Comment_118918875

Finland are always ready to fight against Russia. They have a long history. Finns wouldn't ever sit back and let Russia invade

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118918751#Comment_118918751

Something I have speculated on for years is the mysterious great hole in US air capabilities. Why don't they have something with KC-130 like capabilities, but with SOA stealth? The capability to insert and drop things into contested areas seems like such an obvious capability you would want to have. Stealth HALO insertions and deployments of special forces behind enemy lines, or as in this instance, dropping supplies behind enemy lines and in contested airspace.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118918908#Comment_118918908

I wasn't suggesting they do that.

cnocbui

Here's an idea:

"Joint Precision Air Drop System, a GPS capable parachute which delivers supplies from thousands of feet away from a forward operating base.

...

However, the JPADS aerial delivery can be dropped from an altitude of up to 20,000 feet and 10 miles away from the point of impact. It’s also designed to land within 150 meters of the point of impact, Hughes said." https://www.dvidshub.net/news/66315/lifeliners-using-more-precise-higher-air-drop

This has me wondering if they could drop it from even higher over the Black Sea and have it steer from international airspace to Mariupol. I know the airs thinner, but lighten the load...

The Ukrainians would tinker for a weekend and add an ultralight engine, fuel tank and remote starter to the pallet and quadeuple it's horizontal range by the Monday.

farmerval

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118918205#Comment_118918205

I wonder was there a broader theory around world affairs and the likelihood of a united response. The US retreat from Afghanistan, a complete change in the top roles in the EU, Merkel retired. UK post Brexit. Lots of things that they may have believed would fracture the response internationally.

Imagine though if Trump was still in Power? Maybe at the same time Boris wasn't in dire need of a distracting narrative to save his hide. Without Biden's straight talking and constant declarations of war crimes and calling out every Russian move, then the story may be different.

One of the big things in this conflict was how Putin never got control of the narrative, once he invaded and we were past the will he, won't he stage the Russians were wiped off the floor by Zelensky's media skills.

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118918875#Comment_118918875

If they went at Finland with a nuke, it could also be the end of the Russian state. They're not going at Finland either way. It's snowy and heavily forested with a military force that is trained to fight a defensive war in those conditions. Plus, Finland would most likely receive similar support from NATO to what Ukraine is getting.

The Russians for all their talk and threats against countries outside of Ukraine, have nothing to back it up. Right now it's not looking likely that they can ever take the whole of Ukraine. They've lost in the north of the country, admitted defeat. That's no kind of force which could prosecute a wider war. All they can do is throw conscripts at it and try to wind them up with Nazi talk, but all they'll be good for is eventually being used as sandbags. The only thing I'd say to Finland is that they've been too accepting of Russian refugees.

thomil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118918943#Comment_118918943

Probably because size does matter, certainly in this instance. Modern stealth aircraft only offer passive stealth, meaning they either absorb or scatter incoming radar signals in many different directions in order to minimise the return signal received by the offending radar set. However, a certain fraction of any signal will still be returned, reduced to below the threshold at which the signal processing systems in the radar in question filter the return out as noise. The larger the aircraft, the larger this unavoidable return will be, until it reaches a point where this return is above the noise threshold and is accepted as a valid target. Even the largest stealth aircraft currently in service, the American B-2 Spirit, is not particularly large when you look at the airframe from anywhere but directly above or below and I have my doubts that a C-130 or even a C-295 size stealth transport would be feasible, as cool as it would be.

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118919023#Comment_118919023

I don't think Putin was ever going to get control of the narrative. It wasn't Gary Glitter's lack of media skills which scuppered his chances of recovering from the child porn charges. It was that some acts are just too heinous to defend, and this is also true with Putin and his quest to brutally subjugate Ukraine. It's much easier to win a P.R. war when you are so clearly on the right side of history, as Zelenskyy and Ukraine are.

blackcard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118918277#Comment_118918277

I think that it is important that Ukraine retains the moral high ground and not commit war crimes despite the anger that is felt at what is happening. Currently they are admired for their bravery, defiance, stubbornness, patriotism, important that they retain that admiration

threeball

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118919035#Comment_118919035

Right now Russia haven't a notion of attacking Finland. They're creaking under the strain as it is. And Finland would hit them on home soil where it hurt. You'd also guarantee that Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia as well as Sweden all get involved as it be all too close for comfort. When that happens Poland would break ranks too as Russia can't fight that war without Kaliningrad.

So they'd go from fighting one country to 6 in the blink of an eye. With fronts a thousand km apart. I think it would then inconceivable the Belarussians would seize the day and take their opportunity to overthrow Lukashenko. It would be a bigger disaster than operation barbarossa

jmreire

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118917354#Comment_118917354

I'm not sure, Siberia was the word used, I was thinking then it was the deal America made with Russia way back in 1867. Besides Norway is in NATO, and so far at any rate, Putin has studiously avoided stepping on any NATO toes. But my friend did mention that after Ukraine was 100% under Russian control, they would recover all of the "traitorous" states who left, and punish them. And after that was done, then they would turn their attention to the mistake that was made in Siberia. As English is not my friends first language, I would put it down to that. But with such a grandiose plan, maybe all of that part of the world is scheduled to be "absorbed" into a greater Russia??? I mean my friend religiously believes that this will happen, and is thanking God for giving them the best President in the world, ever. And this person is university educated, with a degree, and as far as I know, a masters. So where do you go from there? Only conclusion I can come to is that any contacts between Russians and foreigners are monitored, and that is what my friend is afraid of but I'm only guessing here. But definitely in the past, all contact with foreigners was actively monitored.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118919042#Comment_118919042

Er, have you seen the size of a B-2 bomber, or the new replacement, the B-21 (I don't expect you to have seen this one :-)) with a rumoured 66m wingspan? The B-2 bomber is reputed to have a frontal radar cross secton one tenth that of an insect.

By comparrison, A KC-130 has a 40.4m wingspan, which interestingly, is about the same as the RQ-180 stealth drone.

Passive stealth may be making way for active stealth. It seems likely that the AN/ASQ-239 Barracuda ECM system on F-35s may incorporate active radar jamming by suppression of return signals, in the same way noise cancelling headphones generate an inverted phase waveform of an acoustic signal to suppress it.

The airframe of the French Rafale is not particularly stealthy in form and it lacks the surface absorption coatings as well, however it has a highly classified Spectra ECM suite that is speculated to use this method to reduce the planes effective radar cross-section substantially:

"To compensate, the Rafale boasts an advanced Spectra electronic warfare system that supposedly can reduce the Rafale’s cross-section several times over—it is rumored by reflecting back signals using ‘active canceling.’" https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/just-how-stealthy-are-frances-rafales-f42s-66727

So there would very likely be no problem making an airframe large enough to have a KC-130 type role but that was also very stealthy.

Francie Barrett

https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/1514003973480587266

This is good.

brickster69

Reports of over 1000 marines in Mariopul have become POW's

https://twitter.com/BelaRakoczi/status/1513963192015368195

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118918951#Comment_118918951

No I know that. I didn't mean to imply such.

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118919204#Comment_118919204

Interesting mix of all sorts of hours and locations footage from a Hungarian twitter account.

cnocbui

Truth.

saabsaab

I was reading that due to shortages some Russian units are being equipped with WWII era weapons. A sign of desparation or that they are calling up everyone they can right now.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118919112#Comment_118919112

Just replying your last line but it's important to bear in mind the most common thread through all of Russian history... "and then it got worse.".

cnocbui

Remember in the early days of this conflict, a story that a selfie taken by a Ukrainian soldier in a school gym and posted to social media was recognised by a local traitor, communicated to the Russians which lead to the GYm being hit and the unit killed? (this bit likely fake) Well the Ukrainians claim to have done similar to a column of Orc tanks:

"In Kharkiv region, in the Izium direction, the Ukrainian Armed Forces destroyed a column of tanks of the Kantemirov division, which was shown in a video shared by Russian propagandist Alexander Kots." https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3455866-in-kharkiv-region-ukrainian-army-destroyed-column-of-tanks-on-a-tip-from-russian-propagandist-journalist.html

thomil

Er, have you seen the size of a B-2 bomber, or the new replacement, the B-21 (I don't expect you have tossen this one :-)) with a rumoured 66m wingspan? The B-2 bomber is reputed to have a frontal radar cross secton one tenth that of an insect.

It seems you missed my point, @cnocbui (too stealthy, perhaps? 😉). I've been following the B-21 Raider program for quite some time and I'm aware that it is generally following the concept set out by the B-2, i.E. a flying wing design with a small central fuselage to house engines, weapons bay, landing gear and cockpit. I also know about the weakness of the design. While it is edge-on, the radar signature is indeed spectacularly small, however that rarely happens in real life. Most radars will be either below or above a B-2 and from such a perspective, the radar cross-section is going to be considerably larger, not least due to the enormous wing span. The same goes when the bomber is turning, climbing or descending. A B-2 flying a tight wing-tip turn can still produce a radar signature the size of the Cliffs of Moher. In addition, multiple synchronised radar sites working together could very well overwhelm the B-2's stealth features and still get a target lock onto it. I know that there has been a lot of work in that field over the last twenty or so years.

Moreover, when it comes to transport aircraft, the B-2 approach simply will not work. Yes, the C-130 has a smaller wingspan, but its fuselage is a lot more massive than the small bomb bay and crew compartment on the B-2, or the B-21 for that matter. If you want to have even a remotely similar cargo capacity in a "stealthy" air frame, you're going to need to address that fuselage and the radar cross-section it produces. That's the big issue here.

As for "active" stealth, that is naturally an option, but given that many modern weapons such as the US AIM-120 AMRAAM or the Russian Vympel R-77 both have a "home on jam" mode that allows them to directly target jamming sources, this approach could very well backfire.

I'm not ruling out the possibility that such a design might be feasible, but it would have to be a complete clean-sheet design rather than just a simple redesign of the flying barn that is the C-130 Hercules. And even with a clean-sheet design, the engineering effort required is going to be significant and probably more trouble than it is worth for a design that would see in all likelihood no more than a dozen or two built.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118919226#Comment_118919226

There were images of their field medkit things with dates from the 70s on them earlier in the invasion.

seenitall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118917869#Comment_118917869

This is better translated as “Freedom to Russia”, I think (although more or less the same thing).

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118919253#Comment_118919253

I expect the sheer volume of western support will continue making a huge difference. Given how amateurish so much of this has been so far I hope the Ukrainians are working on spoofing data. Use a GPS spoofer to make a photo look like it was taken elsewhere without the metadata ever having to be changed. If they have locations of Russian snipers then Ukrainian snipers take pics of themselves but with the Russian's GPS location, hope some dope will go ahead and have a go.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118919254#Comment_118919254

Active stealth isn't the same as jamming. Jamming is overwhelming part of the elctromagnetic spectrum with a strong signal. Active stealth by reverse phase cancellation of a waveform would by the very principle with which it operates, effectively produce no signal to home in on. The reverse phase signal would be of very low power to exactly match that of the reflected radar signal, which given the inverse-square law of radiated power diminution throgh geometric dillution, is very small.

I'm sure you will find this of some interest: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/25813/the-mysterious-saga-of-americas-hunt-for-a-stealth-special-operations-transport-part-2

The US managed to have stealth black hawks magically to-hand when they had a location for Osama Bin Laden.

jmreire

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118918205#Comment_118918205

Could it have an anything to do with Putin top FSB official Sergei Beseda being sent to Lefortovo prison, and 150 other officials FSB/ Military officers transferred / dismissed. So at a guess, these were the ones who painted the rosy picture of the Ukrainian situation that Putin decided to invade on.

goldenmick

I previously posted that Putin will probably resort to chemical weapons should his pending major assault to the east of Ukraine flounder, become too prolonged or fail. Some military analysts are now of the opinion that this could indeed happen.

Some military analysts fear that if the coming Russian assault in the Donbas fails to achieve its objectives then, in desperation, President Putin could authorise the use of chemical weapons on stubborn defenders.

These could be choking agents such as phosgene which attacks the lungs and respiratory system, mustard gas which burns the skin and blinds people, and lethal nerve agents which scramble the brain's messages to the body's muscles.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60708350

BorneTobyWilde

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLAhrGxQr38

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNw3E7RAGUU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJr5gEKsPDM

threeball

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118919248#Comment_118919248

True, Putin has shown every other hallmark of Hitler. Why not that level of stupidity too.

Putin seems to be following Aleksandr Dugin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du7fOoW_euE