Doesn’t look like it’s going very fast as the prop is freewheeling slowly before it’s whacked.

Nb the damage is one bent and one twisted blade. They’re variable angle and it’s out of position

gofasterstripes
Free Member
Doesn’t look like it’s going very fast as the prop is freewheeling slowly before it’s whacked.

I assumed the apparent slow rotation speed is just a strobing artefact from the video footage? I’m not sure you can easily ascertain the actual prop speed from that vid.

They could have downed it with cannon fire or a missile without any risk to the jet. The collision only happened because the pilot was dicking around and cocked up.

Firing on an aircraft, uncrewed or otherwise, in international airspace is going initiate a response.

Hence the recklessness instead of very overt armed aggression.

The Reaper like the Predator before it all have zeroise protocols both manual and automatic to erase all data held onboard.

The homeplate is where the recording from the sensors is done, along with routing data, etc.

I assumed the apparent slow rotation speed is just a strobing artefact from the video footage? I’m not sure you can easily ascertain the actual prop speed from that vid.

Think I have a video somewhere of one, let me see if I can find it.

Global Hawks have been in use over the Black Sea since the beginning of the war.

How many “weather balloons” can you have for $32 million I wonder.

99.

99.

I wonder if Nena would agree at that price.

I believe she said “99 red balloons – go buy”

This example shows the difference between normal surveillance operations and illegal provocations. Countries are allowed to operate their ships in international waters. Nobody has a problem with that. Trying to screw up commercial aircraft communications and navigation equipment is illegal provocations. China is upset that Australia is buying nuclear powered submarines so they are flexing their muscles to show that they can disrupt the region if they feel like it and that other countries are too scared to retaliate militarily.

Qantas warns its pilots of VHF interference by stations claiming to represent the PLA in the South China Sea and WESTPAC, along with GPS jamming suspected to be coming from warships off NW Australia

This almost certainly affects other commercial operators besides Qantas pic.twitter.com/D7NoPb8hxu

— Mike Yeo 杨启铭 is also at post.news/thebaseleg (@TheBaseLeg) March 17, 2023

I believe she said “99 red balloons – go buy”

👏👏👏

The mad effort to carry out Putin’s order & capture all of Donetsk Oblast by the end of March is looking increasingly unlikely to succeed yet cost Russia huge numbers of soldiers

Russia is sustaining "1200, 1300 even 1500" casualties a day in its current offensive, mostly in Bakhmut. Killed to wounded ratio is one to three – senior Nato official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

— Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) March 17, 2023

Seven to one ratio of RU vs UKR killed in Bahkmut apparently.

Gruesome tactics – send out a group of conscripts armed with a sharp stick and a woolly hat for protection. Make a note of where the gunfire that mows them down comes from. Shoot at said position. Repeat.

Been reading a book on Stalingrad..
The Russian side ability for suffering and losses is staggering. On a scale many times what is happening in Ukraine. Its very similar in that the weather amd tactics play a significant part in the way attacks are planned and executed.
But the numbers….. WW2 was another level of destruction altogether

Been reading a book on Stalingrad..
The Russian side ability for suffering and losses is staggering.

Russia is a different country now. Putin shares Stalin’s utter lack of concern for human life, but Russians really did face an existential threat back then. Germany’s policy of genocide in Eastern Europe meant that surrender just meant death anyway, so you might as well just fight to the death. In this war, Ukraine is in the same position – surrender means genocide, so they aren’t going to surrender. Russia, as a country, does not face an existential threat, they could just withdraw their soldiers and the war would be over. Putin is keeping this going for his own fantasies of being remembered as the man who rebuilt the Russian empire, but the soldiers on the ground know how pointless their attacks are. Their morale must be utterly nonexistent, they are forced at gunpoint to make suicidal attacks on Ukrainian positions for the sake of a few meters of ground. All they are doing is frittering their army away, they aren’t making any useful gains.

Russia is a different country now

Arguably not. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Russia embarked on a pre-war agreement with Germany to split E.Europe and invaded E.Poland a couple of weeks later, followed by Finland, parts of the Baltic states and Romania.
Russia didn’t formally declare war then, as now; they annexed Polish territory, its people and held rigged elections
It wasn’t until 1941 that Germany invaded the Soviet Union and Russians faced an existential threat

In addition to that.

The population of the Soviet Union in 1940 has been estimated at 194 million, today the Russian Federation has a population of 143 million.

In 1950 the median age is estimated as 23.37, 2020 was 38.6

Millions of those Russian casualties weren’t Russian at all, Ukraine and others formed large parts of the Red Army and even greater parts of civilian deaths as the western parts of the Soviet Union fell to the Nazis.

The Russians have no innate ability to suffer more than their former Soviet dominions do. Nor have they really exceeded the misery inflicted on their former Soviet dominions.

Ukraine itself was conquered by both Hitler and Stalin with brutal repression of dissent inflicted by two of the worst human beings to ever have existed.

Some interesting graphics on twitr showing Russian tank losses. Pinch of salt on the actual numbers but they claim to be hitting more armour every day.
With total numbers into 4 figures, now i dont know if that includes tracked APC types too. As most people call anything big, green and heavy with any gun on top a tank.
I don’t know how many serviceable units they started with, but they must be running out of replacement units as Western MBTs are deployed
Talks of dropping tear gas from drones into trenches, which is worrying

According to the Oryx website, which a has photographic evidence of each kill;

As of today Russia has lost 1854 tanks, of which 550 were captured

Out of a total 9678 AFV lost.

Mind boggling 😵‍💫

Ummm…

As we celebrate Global Recycling Day, let’s take a moment to reflect on what we can do to reduce waste, reuse items, and restore the health of our planet. 🌻 pic.twitter.com/IsINxw4s8A

— U.S. Embassy Kyiv (@USEmbassyKyiv) March 18, 2023

Well I giggled.

Ive not seen this anywhere else apart from LCI and a very pro Ukrainian account, if anyone can verify itd be appreciated

https://twitter.com/LCI/status/1637187448072552449?t=Dj4NkQ0esEEEwxm3BXGHnA&s=09

If Ukraine fails to defend its independence, we will have no choice, we will be forced to enter the conflict,” says Jan Emeryk Rościszewski, Polish Ambassador to France

I don’t think Poland can stomach being in that position again even with NATO behind them so I can see why going on the offence is better than waiting for 100thou Russia troupes at the boarder.
The stakes are frightening

If Ukraine fails to defend its independence, we will have no choice, we will be forced to enter the conflict,” says Jan Emeryk Rościszewski, Polish Ambassador to France

It’s literal, “If Ukraine fails to defend its independence…” i.e if Russia “wins”

The peoples of Poland and Ukraine haven’t had the best history as neighbours, but they both detest the Russian State far more.
Recent pre-invasion polls have shown a more mellow view of Ukrainians https://www.cbos.pl/PL/publikacje/public_opinion/2022/02_2022.pdf

It’s literal, “If Ukraine fails to defend its independence…” i.e if Russia “wins”

If Russia starts advancing considerably in Ukraine, I do wonder what the west / NATO / close neighbours will do.

From Twitter yesterday, signs of Russian drones dropping Satellite distress beacons on AFU positions. The Russians own the satellites these are linked to so pull the data for targeting info….

Obvious solution is obvious… Ukraine drone fly it back across to the Russian camp.

Eh? If you have dropped a beacon in a UKR position, then you must have known where that position is in the first place to have flown a drone there?

maybe they know the rough location, fly the drone over to drop the beacon to be more accurate.

Eh? If you have dropped a beacon in a UKR position, then you must have known where that position is in the first place to have flown a drone there?

Homebrew self guided something or other which uses the emergency beacon system?

Homebrew self guided something or other which uses the emergency beacon system?

Would make more sense, EPIRB’s have a system that sends out a literal ‘ping’ on their frequency so you can locate them by just waving a directional antennae+ receiver and headphones around and walking towards wherever the signal is strongest.

The EPRIB satellite system IIRC works like a reverse GPS, the satellites receive the ping, and calculate between them where it came from, It’s not very accurate, hence the 2nd method of doing it on the ground once you’ve got rescue teams within some proximity.

It’s not like SPOT/InReach which uses GPS location and transmits them over a satellite phone link.

Would it not be fairly easy to jam or interfere with the locater beacon. Surely, all you’d need to do is mimic the signal at a different location or multiple locations and the detector wouldn’t know which one to follow.

Been reading a book on Stalingrad..
The Russian side ability for suffering and losses is staggering.

Another factor not mentioned above is modern communications, at Stalingrad Russian troops had no way to communicate with their families back home, no phones and what few letters got through were heavily censored. The folks back home were largely unaware of how their sons were being treated.

Now, even with the Russia state doing it’s best to filter out bad news, news of conditions at the front and the horrendous casualties is filtering back, hence why so many fled the draft, why recruiting office keep catching fire and why Putin has been so careful to avoid drafting Muscovites whose families may have connections.

Russia’s resolve tends to look utterly unbreakable… until one day it suddenly isn’t, see Afghanistan for instance.

I guess. But then it would depend on how clever whatever kit the Russians are using is.

I don’t design bombs, but hypothetically if I did and was using that sort of guidance, then I’d probably design it to fly to a target with +/- 50m accuracy (because you obviously know where it is), then aim directly at the beacon which I’d just dropped on some weak point. A bit like laser guided munitions, but without actually having to hang around.

So what do we think of Xi’s visit?

Seems that either: he is going to do nada, other than some quiet increase in supplying Russia with ‘things’ or there may, just may, be a word to back off to the benefit of all…?

I suspect it’ll be a combination of a public show of solidarity with a fair bit of ‘WTF are you playing at Vlad?’ Going on behind closed doors.

So what do we think of Xi’s visit?

He’s trying to figure out what’s best for him. Weakening the U.S., NATO, etc. will be his top priority, but he also needs to manage relations with the West. Putin started a disastrous war and is losing badly, China’s not going to throw it’s hat in with a losing cause but they might prop him up just enough to get cheap oil and keep NATO distracted. Xi will do whatever he thinks is best for China, he has no loyalty to Putin.

Putin owes money to the mob.

On @Breakingviews: Russia’s government will struggle to meet funding needs that may reach $90 billion this year. The financial difficulties are pushing the country further into the sphere of influence of China’s President Xi Jinping, writes @pierrebri https://t.co/SYPvbj3Twm

— Reuters (@Reuters) March 20, 2023

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-says-russia-cruise-missiles-blown-up-transit-crimea-2023-03-20/

The relative large attack of Dzhankoi in Russian-occupied Crimea clearly involves some “moped” drones. The noise quite obvious.

And it does look like that they hit targets, rather being shot down.#Ukraine #Crimea #Dzhankoi pic.twitter.com/4HsCXpOLRh

— (((Tendar))) (@Tendar) March 20, 2023

More drones

***UPDATE***#Ukrainian maritime drone (USV) and drone (UAV) attack on #Russian navy at Sevastopol

Treat as unconfirmed, but likely.

Details limited. Video appears to be burning USV caught at harbor floating boom defenses

Even if no ships are sunk, attacks have major impact pic.twitter.com/EiMcGYOEjh

— H I Sutton (@CovertShores) March 22, 2023

This is obviously unconfirmed, but just the fact that it’s quite likely true is an indication of how badly Russia is doing.

https://twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1638476582879731713