Ukraine

I’d also like to know what the chuff Sweden and Finland are doing

The Swedes are part of the training mission, not sure if the Finns are.

It’s the same resentment often displayed by the English towards Ireland, India, etc etc

absolute bobbins

as for Putlers response, I’m quaking in my boots  😉

Sweden have provided some very effective AFVs

Europe as a whole has provided more aid than the US – despite what Trump says.

well, one thing Putin has proved is that his ICBMs actually work and can hit a target versus the thinking they are not being maintained and won’t work

they must have telegraphed it had a conventional warhead to NATO to avoid a response that must surely be planned for and ready to go should a nuke be used

I’d also like to know what the chuff Sweden and Finland are doing

Donating more by %GDP than most other countries in bilateral aid and equalling most others in EU contributions (5th and 6th out of 41). About €7bn between them https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker

The Swedes are part of the training mission, not sure if the Finns are.

Finland is also part of both the UK-led Interflex and the European Union Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine (EUMAM)

Sweden (and Saab) have supplied (given/sold) a lot of military equipment to Ukraine, including AFVs and tanks. Sweden is also on the doorstep of Russia’s Baltic assets (that reamin) and essential stand between the fleet in St. Petersberg/Kaliningrad/Belarussia and the Atlantic, with Denmark and Norway essentially acting as a first line of defence should the Russians decide they want to put everything into the Atlantic. Putin has wanted Gotland for a long time and not just for the sheep.

Sweden has seen, very recently in fact, significant cyberattacks against civilian infrastructure on the back of its support for Ukraine. The people doing the attacks are apparently hacktivists, but the targeting is oddly so very, very closely linked to the Russian government’s statements of the day.

TL;DR: If you are in the Baltic and want to go out, you _HAVE_ to go past us. It’s the reason that we have had a lot of overflights, intrusions and beached submarines in the past (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_S-363)

Zapp Brannigan approved tactic

Moving back to the economy…

Steve Rosenberg has reviewed “Today’s Russian papers on today’s economic problems in Russia: “Butter 30% more expensive than last year…price of potatoes up 65%.” Plus, the rouble falls past 100 against the dollar & “Chinese banks tighten checks on payments…””

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MErU1hTVNsM

You will know nuke is deployed when you don’t have live broadcasting and your internet connection is not working properly.

Both sides are now testing their missiles on each others.  You know, to see how effective their weapons are and to probe each others.

Remember, Russia is No middle east to be battered at will.

Steve Rosenberg has reviewed “Today’s Russian papers on today’s economic problems in Russia: “Butter 30% more expensive than last year…price of potatoes up 65%.” Plus, the rouble falls past 100 against the dollar & “Chinese banks tighten checks on payments…””

Sounds familiar?  Look at the inflation in the UK.  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rl4rgdj12o

inflation wise not even in the same ballpark chewkw

Any info on the multiple storm shadow hits from yesterday?

Apparently 8 to 10 were used on a single target, which must have been horrific for anyone underneath that  amount of firepower

Both sides are now testing their missiles on each others.  You know, to see how effective their weapons are and to probe each others.

No, Storm Shadow and ATACMS are not the same things as ICBMs.

This Twitter post shows multiple ICBM strikes:
https://x.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1859585952693313758

They are multiple warhead strikes (so each missile delivers multiple warheads), but the warheads themselves are dummies, there aren’t any explosions when they hit the ground. It’s quite possible that Russia hasn’t been able to fit conventional warheads into the missiles, they are designed to deliver nuclear warheads but won’t have the precision needed to deliver small conventional warheads. So, militarily not much use really, an expensive way to make a lot of noise and kill a few random civilians.

Any info on the multiple storm shadow hits from yesterday?

Apparently 8 to 10 were used on a single target, which must have been horrific for anyone underneath that  amount of firepower

A lot of missiles for 1 target, how many have we/france given Ukraine?

The target must have been quite important to justify the use of that many

Storm Shadow is a development of a French long range anti runway denial weapon that originally carried  cluster munitions. It has a single explosive rather than the small bomblets, but the payload is still only about 450Kgs. You’d probs still need to use multiple weapons to destroy a larger target.

I don’t think it will be used in the F-35 fleet, so may as well give them to Ukraine

Hmm looks like the target was Southern Command officers

??? Regarding the strike with Storm Shadow missiles on the command post in the Kursk region, – Dosiye Shpiona

? 18 servicemen were killed,33 were injured, including 3 DPRK soldiers. Most of the victims are officers of the Southern and Eastern Military Districts.<br><br>[image or embed]

&mdash; MAKS 24 ??? (@maks23.bsky.social) November 21, 2024 at 2:04 PM

<script async src=”https://embed.bsky.app/static/embed.js&#8221; charset=”utf-8″></script>

srry link here!

??? Regarding the strike with Storm Shadow missiles on the command post in the Kursk region, – Dosiye Shpiona? 18 servicemen were killed,33 were injured, including 3 DPRK soldiers. Most of the victims are officers of the Southern and Eastern Military Districts.

— MAKS 24 ??? (@maks23.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T14:04:45.750Z

I wonder why the Euro allies don’t follow the russian way of dealing with accusations:

Surging Lavatory: Six storm Shadow missiles fired from Ukraine into russia…
MOD and all allies: Really, thats laughable. Nothing to do with us. Fake news!

Why do “we” accurately update?
Yes, we fired them
Yes, no limits to range
Yep, we supplied them
Yes, you can blame us
etc etc. Why?

One thing we could learn, Shirley, is the art of “Dickcraft” which in this case, russia excels.

10 storm shadows on the Kerch bridge – the why not?

10 storm shadows on the Kerch bridge – the why not?

Wrong tool for the job.  It might cause some localised damage, including possibly holeing the deck, but nothing that wouldn’t be repairable in fairly short order. The warhead simply isn’t big enough to cause significant structural damage to such a target.  The truck bomb used in the 2022 attack was claimed by the FSB (credibly IMV) to contain around 22 metric tonnes of high explosives, on 22 pallets.  Over 50 storm shadows worth. Even that didn’t damage the bridge irreparably.

I would have thought the the threat of using these things is as important as using them. Russia now has to disperse and move back from bases and depots ‘near’ Ukraine….

this new Russian weapon – the Oksana Thunderbastid – is it real or are they just covering up for ineffective ICBMs?

this new Russian weapon – the Oksana Thunderbastid – is it real or are they just covering up for ineffective ICBMs?

There are so many new weapons in the world nobody knows exactly how those weapons work.

Apparently only the West has all the powerful resources.  Wait a minute, the media knows?

 …. the Oksana Thunderbastid …

Oh ya, that’s a good name for something that is thrown over neighbour’s fence.

codename Oreshnik does sound like a rash cream

Thunderbastid

We need to have a word with the northerner that names Putin’s war weapons. 😉

this new Russian weapon – the Oksana Thunderbastid – is it real or are they just covering up for ineffective ICBMs?

Stick with Ukraine’s first identification, RS-26 Rubezh ICBM, for now. They used to make the Soviet Union’s missiles as well as their tanks so if anyone knows…

Russian media refer to it as Oreshnik. US DOD spokesperson Sabrina Singh said that it was based on the R26 and the US was notified before the launch through nuclear risk reduction channels https://www.c-span.org/video/?540165-1/defense-department-briefing

Google R26 Rubezh for more; it isn’t new

The whole is it an ICBM or not is a semantic question that changes with possible range; it’s a ballistic missile. It may or may not be hypersonic but we’ve seen Ukraine shoot the hypersonic Kinzhal down with Patriot, which was an unexpected corner of the performance envelope

notified before the launch

Educate me on this; presumably the notification is of a time period where civilians could make a run for it in time, so if both sides know about it, why are we notifying each other  – to avoid accidental escalation e.g. ”it’s ok, we know it’s not a Nuke”

i doubt it was for civilian benefit. as i said up there i suspect it would have been so they avoided ‘alarm’ when NATO spotted a ICBM had been fired and avoid a retalation which will have undoubtably be planned for in the event of a nuke being used

Teports on X that Krasnodar has been hit? Wasn’t that where the Russian missile was launched from?

Or to put it another way, where the Bastard launched the Thunderbastid.

It allegedly came from a different area on west bank of Caspian Sea

Tit for Tat, who’s going to blink first…..  ?

@Kryton, there’s a vast array of  intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance (ISTAR) gathering tools directed at this sort of thing. From human intelligence (HUMINT) sources through signal intelligence (SIGINT) all the way to space-based launch detection and satellites.

As well as all the traditional information on weapon capability, force doctrine, standard operating procedures (SOP’s). techniques, tactics and procedures (TTP’s) from the strategic level down to unit level readiness and response times.

How’s that for a bunch of military jargon!

ElShalimo
Full Member
It allegedly came from a different area on west bank of Caspian Sea

Ah, right. Something unrelated has gone pop then.

to avoid accidental escalation e.g. ”it’s ok, we know it’s not a Nuke”

Bang on (if you’ll pardon the phrase 🙂 ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Risk_Reduction_Center

And that ^. Always forget the good old dog and bone option.

Back into day we used to have CFE (Combined Force Europe Treaty) inspections, I remember driving my boss about as part of a team escorting some Russians counting helicopters, tanks and what not. Making sure weren’t hiding stuff, then groups of NATO officers would go to Russia and do the same.

It’s all one big game really

Something burning in Krasnodar, fuel depot?

??? More from Adygea, Krasnodar Krai!

— MAKS 24 ??? (@maks23.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T20:56:12.338Z

The whole is it an ICBM or not is a semantic question that changes with possible range; it’s a ballistic missile. It may or may not be hypersonic

AIUI, the IC part just refers to the maximum range (i.e. intercontinental), so greater than 5,500 km. It can reach any target within that range. Any ICBM could be used as a tactical weapon against much closer targets if wanted, but it’s still an ICBM because the maximum range is over 5,500 km. Any missile with that sort of maximum range will be hypersonic on reentry. (Hypersonic is defined as Mach 5+.)

AIUI, the IC part just refers to the maximum range (i.e. intercontinental), so greater than 5,500 km. It can reach any target within that range. Any ICBM could be used as a tactical weapon against much closer targets if wanted, but it’s still an ICBM because the maximum range is over 5,500 km.

Yeah, but…

You’ll see the same missile referred to as an IRBM (intermediate-range BM) as well, e.g. “can confirm that Russia did launch an experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile,” said Defense Department Deputy Spokesperson Sabrina Singh” (from the C-Span link ^^).

It’s semantics that began with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), which stopped ground-launched BM and cruise missiles with ranges between 500km and 5500km. The R26 and a couple of earlier Russian missiles were alleged to violate that and so were designated ICBMs by Russia.

Russia wouldn’t stop the developments and China, Iran and N.Korea, who weren’t INF Treaty signatories, were also developing IRBMs, so then-President Trump withdrew from the treaty.

Semantics

PS Storm Shadow is normally air-launched and doesn’t count. ATACMS is ground-launched, but 300km range and doesn’t count either

Any missile with that sort of maximum range will be hypersonic on reentry. (Hypersonic is defined as Mach 5+.)

A truly hypersonic missile needs to manoeuvre for accuracy at hypersonic speeds. Not all Mach 5+ missiles can do that and aren’t considered usefully hypersonic

I see Kim Jong has joined the Nuclear rhetoric this morning…..