My main concern right now is what will happen when Russia unleashes these 200k+ conscripts that is reported to be amassing on the border. So far, as far as I know, Ukraine has had the numerical advantage re troops. However, that looks like it’s about to be reversed

Russian Invasion of Ukraine: Every Day, February 24th, 2022 – February 1st, 2023.

by mapsinanutshell on youtube pic.twitter.com/RW04b1ztY2

— OnlMaps (@onlmaps) February 3, 2023

This guy’s estimation of the number of soldiers on each side

Ukraine are getting weapons/vehicle/ammo. Russia are losing them. 200 000 badly trained infantry marching towards modern IFVs…………

It appears we are training Marines,and pilots for fast jets.  How many tornados did Germany keep flying?  I don’t think we have any jets going for grabs the first gen typhoon is going soon and we keep parking that posh yank jet we rent in the sea.

It’s going to be a brave move for either the UK or Germany to give up jets Putin will spin it as WW2 all over.

We are (west ) going all in for Ukraine and righly so. The Russian state clearly has no compassion for it’s people or the state of Ukraine or indeed the world.

At least we are 1 less far right neanderthal as either he shot himself or was killed at point blank range.

They’re asking for fighter jets, but they’re next to useless on their own, they need the whole battlespace solution, so ISTAR, AAR, etc, etc otherwise they might as well just have the old MIGs.

Yup they need full support with ground crews ect I feel the next few months are going to be horrible

Considering that the RAF are complaining about the delays in training up our own pilots I am curious as to where the availability is going to come from. Its something like 5 years due to all the hanging around waiting for various courses.

I guess it might end up with we can hand over all our typhoons since we dont have the pilots trained to fly them.

Ukraine are getting weapons/vehicle/ammo. Russia are losing them. 200 000 badly trained infantry marching towards modern IFVs…………

Throwing endless waves of disposable (prisoner) conscripts at Ukraine has seen the Russians make very slow and almost steady progress and it has not come cheaply for Ukraine in lives or ammo to repel them. We dont see the losses Ukraine are having, but they’re not insignificant.

Putin seems not to give a damn what it costs him in conscripts

We are (west ) going all in for Ukraine and righly so.

The gesture is excellent.

But, headlines are we (UK) can’t even defend ourselves e.g. armed forces are running out of ammo just through training exercises, so what aren’t we hearing?

But, headlines are we (UK) can’t even defend ourselves e.g. armed forces are running out of ammo just through training exercises, so what aren’t we hearing?

UK defence has always been the sacrificial (cash) lamb when times are tough.

4 of the 6 operational tours I deployed on were whilst on a pay freeze. With a round of redundancies thrown into the mix for good measure.

Defence will have been asked to train with less to enable the diversion of resources to support commitments to Ukraine. Good for UKR, not good for our defence and readiness.

My BIL captains a navy destroyer and its eye-opening some of the stuff he says about funding & supplies etc

I’ve been in the cruise missile bay that’s a very tall ships gym because we can’t afford the launchers or missiles they were designed for

@dissonance I think I read somewhere 7-8 years from entry to people actually reaching the trained strength. It’s hard ti see how there’s room in the training pipeline for this.

Lots of commentators saying that we will be providing fast jets. Thing is what – presumably most Tornado/Harrier/Jag have been scrapped and we’re hardly going to be handing over the latest spec Typhoons or F-35B in case they fall into Russian hands.

I think I read somewhere 7-8 years from entry to people actually reaching the trained strength. It’s hard ti see how there’s room in the training pipeline for this.

I imagine it’ll be the latter end of the pipeline if anything, a conversation to type (CTT) then a conversion to role (CTR) type scenario. Or a hybrid version of the two, simply put learn to fly the jet then fight the jet. Groundcrew and engineering training can be run concurrently. It could also be done out side the dedicated training pipeline with unit instructors picking up the work potentially.

But there will be an impact on wider UK defence no matter the option that is used, that’s if it’s even a realistic option.

And your point about the commentators is valid. I can’t abide them. They’re either people who should know better and chat rubbish for clout amd cash, or people that have no clue and live out the ‘I nearly joined’ fantasy through blogging.

The quality are a thin sliver that gets lost in the noise of the other two groups.

I think I read somewhere 7-8 years from entry to people actually reaching the trained strength.

Quite possibly. It was some stupidly high number of years and 5 stuck in my mind. I was going to say the Ukrainians would be sending us trained pilots so that would knock some time off but on second thoughts I expect all their trained pilots are needed.

Harriers were sold off cheap to the yank marines so they definitely arent available.

I dont think we have anything like the desert storage the yanks have for mostly decommissioned but not quite so yes would expect the others are now drink cans etc.

Typhoons maybe we could hand some over but would tend towards the US having a fit if we suggested handing over some F-35s.

They would be less concerned about the Russians than any remains being flogged to the Chinese.

@dissonance 5 years might have been the rotary pipeline. FW is a bit longer, I think F35 has added considerable time to that.

As Dissonance says, it’s got to be Typoons that we will train them on? I can’t see another option.

Google says the UK has over 100 of them too, should we decide to give Ukraine some.

Including the UK, 4 NATO countries fly them so there must be a fair few about.

They’re asking for fighter jets, but they’re next to useless on their own

I think the idea is to supply F16s for air defense, not for attacking ground targets. The U.S. must have hundreds of older F16s that are being replaced by F35s. I think Ukraine has trained pilots who could convert to the F16 fairly quickly. However, I gather that Ukraine doesn’t see the F16s as their top priority, tanks and surface-surface missiles are more urgent.

Whilst I fully support the Ukraine and want them to succeed in beating Putin I can’t help but worry that us supplying hardware in the way we are seemingly about to makes us a target for Putin.  How far can we go before we become a legitimate target?  What’s the implications in doing this with regards to out NATO obligations?

It all feels very “tipping point” to me.

Training would happen on Hawks once they’re out of their current grounding.  F35 wouldn’t be an option.  We don’t have enough and they’re not really of the right type.  The B variant has the least range and is the most complicated to operate.  It would have to be a mix of Hawks and Eurofighters that were offered, but it would also depend what Ukraine wanted them for.  Air defence or ground attack.

The real difficulty here is that for either to be effective they need to be operating in regions close to Russia’s border which means that the Russians will simply place S400 long range (and highly effective) air defence batteries inside their own border, out of reach of Ukraine’s airforce or artillery.  Ground based mobile air defence would likely be of more use.

It appears we are training Marines,and pilots for fast jets.

I think that we can forget any short-term use. This will be for the future defence of Ukraine when the RF is back behind internationally recognised borders

Far more useful now will be the long-range missiles to damage RF logistics and reach their air and naval bases in Crimea

”

Whilst I fully support the Ukraine and want them to succeed in beating Putin I can’t help but worry that us supplying hardware in the way we are seemingly about to makes us a target for Putin.  How far can we go before we become a legitimate target?  What’s the implications in doing this with regards to out NATO obligations?

It all feels very “tipping point” to me”

Opposing Putin is far less dangerous than not opposing him. Stop listening to what he says and judge him by his actions, he’s an expansionist tyrant and won’t stop until someone stops him

We can’t train enough for the RAF, so not sure how we can help, plus the lack of planes to give away. Only the USA have enough planes of the right type to make a difference, I think. Surely A10’s would be good against Russian ground targets, not super expensive modern stuff?

RAF admits ‘urgent’ need to solve shortage of trained pilots (inews.co.uk)

It all feels very “tipping point” to me

Don’t worry, I’m sure we will be first in the queue to “ build bridges “ with Russia.

I can’t help but worry that us supplying hardware in the way we are seemingly about to makes us a target for Putin.  How far can we go before we become a legitimate target?

Putin is mostly bluster on this. If he was going to attack NATO countries for supplying weapons, he would have done so by now. He’s already losing badly but hasn’t used nuclear weapons against Ukraine. That means that he knows that the use of nukes would have repercussions that would probably mean the end of his regime. Using nukes against NATO countries would bring an immediate military response and his regime would be destroyed.

Obviously, if NATO actually sent soldiers and tanks in and they marched into Russia itself, he would see that as an existential threat to his regime and nuclear holocaust would be a major risk. NATO knows that and they aren’t going to do that. Supplying long-range weapons that can attack targets deep inside Russia is also off the table. However, Ukraine already has tanks so supplying tanks isn’t really introducing any radically new capabilities. All the hand-wringing about arms supplies leading to Putin attacking NATO countries is vastly overblown – he would have done it already if he thought it would help things.

“Obviously, if NATO actually sent soldiers and tanks in and they marched into Russia itself, he would see that as an existential threat to his regime and nuclear holocaust would be a major risk. NATO knows that and they aren’t going to do that. ”

Zelensky's Russia-vs-NATO joke to David Letterman on Netflix. pic.twitter.com/wraGMI8Spx

— Yasmina (@yasminalombaert) December 17, 2022

@richmars What probably needs to happen is to buy stored F-16s from the US. As with tanks what the Ukrainians need is stuff they can have a lot of, not penny packets of Challenger 2/Typhoon

LOL @shermer75 Twitter joke

I was watching two Chinooks practicing on Holcombe firing range later on Monday evening. Never seen or heard them up there before.

Chinooks practicing on Holcombe firing range

I see Chinooks fly over Rammy occasionally. I thought I could hear them on Monday but didn’t go looking and didn’t see them on the plane tracking websites. I’ve not been lucky enough to see them from the horseshoe either.

What happened to the idea of Poland giving Ukraine their MIGs (29s?)?

That would make a lot more sense, give the Ukrainians something they already know how to use and maintain and then we/US can give Poland/whoever Typhoons and F16s and train them up over time.

If we are going to give fast jets to Ukraine it makes much more sense to give them Poland and let the Poles give the Ukrainians something of more immediate value

We have the chinooks up the valley regularly. This shot was from my patio!

@welshfarmer “Get orf moi laaaaand, Sorry, Aaaaairspaaaace”?

reluctantjumper
Full Member
Whilst I fully support the Ukraine and want them to succeed in beating Putin I can’t help but worry that us supplying hardware in the way we are seemingly about to makes us a target for Putin. How far can we go before we become a legitimate target?

I can honestly say I don’t lose a seconds sleep over Putin using nukes. I’ve lost count of how many times he’s made cryptic threats about using them. He’s a bit of a bore now.

His retaliation is not likely to be a big and concerted attack on an institution such as the NHS. That does concern me but in reality he’s almost certainly been ordering such attacks to be attempted right from the start of the war. (I bet GCHQ have been firefighting from the start, begins the scenes.) I mean to say that he would be using such tactics whether we send arms/planes to Ukraine or not, so best to get on and help Ukraine end this war.👍

What happened to the idea of Poland giving Ukraine their MIGs (29s?)?

There was a suggestion a few weeks ago that the MIG29 spares provided by Poland last Spring may have infact been in the form of complete aircraft….

Bollox….was enjoying the Animals 2018 remix just last night as well. Just stick to strumming your guitar Roger

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/08/roger-waters-pink-floyd-un-security-council-ukraine-russia

richmars Full Member
Surely A10’s would be good against Russian ground targets, not super expensive modern stuff?

Despite its fearsome reputation online the A-10 is quite a vulnerable aircraft when in conflicts with near-peer opponents. It really needs uncontested airspace to operate effectively, and is probably fairly at risk to relatively sophisticated ground based air defences too.

Edit: I appear to have been “blessed” with a rich text editor, which wants to insert all sorts of tags into my post. Hopefully this’ll get rid of them.

Whilst I fully support the Ukraine

Just as a minor semantic point, it’s ‘Ukraine’, ‘The Ukraine’ is what Russians who regard it as a region within their territory call it.

Potatoes potatoes

Throwing Nato airframes at Ukraine is pointless.

Yes, they are very, very good at what they do but the back up required is enormous.

Ground crew, consumables, ammo, diagnostics, maintenence, pens, fuel rigs

Plus awacs, facs,  alarm weaponary,  iff plus loads more. Its another layered system with pilot and plane protection being up there as attrition rates can very quickly nullify your airforce.

The Saab Draken or Viggen was being touted as the best suited but in reality i think its years from  them being painted blue and yellow.

More migs is the quickest easiest solution.

A particularly gloomy forecast for the war in Ukraine, from Peter Zeihan who is never particularly upbeat! Make of it what you will, I like some of his stuff, but I think (and hope) he’s wrong about this.  A more likely scenario IMO is a Ukrainian military victory, turmoil and unrest in Russia resulting in Putin being deposed and an uneasy peace for a good few years while the bear licks its wounds and reconstitures for another go. Not ideal, but it will at least allow Ukraine, Poland, Romania the Baltics and NATO to dig in and shore up their defences.

Apparently that Elon Musk has switched off access to starlink for drones used by the UA, just on the eve of a giant invasion by Russia.

Classy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64579267