Russian invasion of Ukraine discussion

[vicious_cb]

When you ask what happened to Ukrainian claims that Russians run out of missiles in early March.




Military traditions, integrity, honor, hard work, and professionalism are typically cherished in most countries. Ukrainian officers should be proud that they are now viewed as:

Thats what happens you read nothing but western propaganda pieces, rots your brain just like tn1911's. So which is it? Russia is both running out missiles that they can just waste them on striking malls to commit war crimes right? The cognitive dissonance people have is just amazing.

[tn1911]

The cognitive dissonance people have is just amazing.

Really???

Thats not what's going on, in fact do you even know what that really means?

My position is consistent, russian are bad and incompetent they are getting their asses handed to them by a bunch of Ukrainian farmers who everyone including myself thought had no chance until they began taking the once mighty russian military apart one tank at time.

[alx01]

I'll post a few interesting facts, and a question related to each:

Fact #1:
in 1992 Ukraine had 4th largest airforce in the world after U.S., Russia, and China with 1,100 operational combat planes split between 4 air armies.
Probably they had about 200 mothballed planes for parts and spares.

If Ukraine sold 200 planes, decommissioned another 300, Russians shot down ~220 planes, plus they restored 50-80 planes from parts and spares from former eastern bloc countries that leaves Ukraine with a healthy ~420 +/- operational combat planes. That is an enormous number still.

How can a country with such large airforce complain that they need weapons? Unless, of course, their airforce is much smaller due to undisclosed losses.

[alx01]

Fact #2:
Pentagon a few weeks back stated that Russia had: 106 battalion group in active combat in Ukraine and 55 groups were in support/reserve roles in Russia. At the same time Ukraine claimed ~93 Russian combat battalion groups in Ukraine. Battalion group according to wikipedia is 600-800max people. Pentagon/Ukrainian claims put at most 85k Russian troops in Ukraine, but possibly as little as 60k in active combat.

This is significantly less than the originally stated 190-210k Russian troops.

Two weeks ago Zelenski and his representatives stated. Source: https://www.axios.com/2022/06/15/ukr...nbas-arakhamia

Ukraine has recruited one million people into the army and has the capacity to recruit two million more

Here is the question: When Ukraine is supported and supplied by 50 (yes, fifty) large industrialized countries Why does Zelenski claim that Ukrainian forces are outnumbered? Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-b2111350.html

A Ukrainian politician has made a plea for heavy weapons, saying his country is “outgunned and outnumbered” by the Russian attack.

And to answer this - Ukrainians are neither outgunned, nor outnumbered according to their own claims.

[Wake27]

I'll post a few interesting facts, and a question related to each:

Fact #1:
in 1992 Ukraine had 4th largest airforce in the world after U.S., Russia, and China with 1,100 operational combat planes split between 4 air armies.
Probably they had about 200 mothballed planes for parts and spares.

If Ukraine sold 200 planes, decommissioned another 300, Russians shot down ~220 planes, plus they restored 50-80 planes from parts and spares from former eastern bloc countries that leaves Ukraine with a healthy ~420 +/- operational combat planes. That is an enormous number still.

How can a country with such large airforce complain that they need weapons? Unless, of course, their airforce is much smaller due to undisclosed losses.

How could you possibly believe that statistic, regardless of accuracy at the time, means a ****ing thing 30 years later?


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[vicious_cb]

How could you possibly believe that statistic, regardless of accuracy at the time, means a ****ing thing 30 years later?


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The thing is we can't delude ourselves to what the operational reality is on the ground. Its getting so bad even the western media is starting to pick up on it. Lysychansk is falling faster than even I thought a force could push through an urban environment, lets hope its because AFU was able to pull it troops out in time and not a rapid collapse. But its seeming more like the later is true.

Start planning for the worst, perhaps a move on Moldova thru Transnistria is likely sooner rather than later. It doesnt help when people post copium about Final Victory as the Soviet tanks roll into Berlin.

[utahjeepr]

The thing is we can't delude ourselves to what the operational reality is on the ground. Its getting so bad even the western media is starting to pick up on it. Lysychansk is falling faster than even I thought a force could push through an urban environment, lets hope its because AFU was able to pull it troops out in time and not a rapid collapse. But its seeming more like the later is true.

Start planning for the worst, perhaps a move on Moldova thru Transnistria is likely sooner rather than later. It doesnt help when people post copium about Final Victory as the Soviet tanks roll into Berlin.

Maybe I'm reading that last bit wrong. It reads to me like not only are you are hoping this fully escalates into WW3 but that Pootieboi wins.

I really hope I'm misunderstanding you, I'm just starting my first cup of joe.

[The Dumb Gun Collector]

I'll post a few interesting facts, and a question related to each:

Fact #1:
in 1992 Ukraine had 4th largest airforce in the world after U.S., Russia, and China with 1,100 operational combat planes split between 4 air armies.
Probably they had about 200 mothballed planes for parts and spares.

If Ukraine sold 200 planes, decommissioned another 300, Russians shot down ~220 planes, plus they restored 50-80 planes from parts and spares from former eastern bloc countries that leaves Ukraine with a healthy ~420 +/- operational combat planes. That is an enormous number still.

How can a country with such large airforce complain that they need weapons? Unless, of course, their airforce is much smaller due to undisclosed losses.

1992? Why not 82? 62? 1945??

Anyway, the relevant, not hilariously cherry-picked numbers seem to be in this range...

The Ukrainian air force began the war with around 125 operational fixed-wing warplanes, including around three dozen Su-27 interceptors, 50 or so MiG-29 fighters, perhaps 30 Su-25 attack jets and around a dozen Su-24 bombers.

All of the jets are Soviet models that Ukraine inherited from the USSR following its 1991 collapse. All are more than 30 years old and only a few have gotten significant upgrades. The Su-27s and MiG-29s lack modern fire-and-forget air-to-air missiles. The Su-24s and Su-25s carry only unguided rockets and bombs.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidax...h=363930134506

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Ukrainian Air Force comprised about 210 aircraft of all types, including some 98 combat aircraft. However, lack of spare parts for its mostly Russian aircraft had reduced Ukraine's airworthy fighting strength to about a third of the total number.

https://www.globalsecurity.org/milit...ernization.htm


A detailed break-down of known information in Dec 2021..

Against the might of the WMD and SMD, not to mention other Russian-based VKS units that are available to support them, Ukraine’s airpower might seem entirely mismatched. While Western sources credit the Ukrainian Air Force, or PS, as being Europe’s seventh-largest air force, this still amounts to approximately 200 aircraft of all types — compared to around 1,500 combat aircraft for Russia’s air arms.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...orces-stack-up

[alx01]

How could you possibly believe that statistic, regardless of accuracy at the time, means a ****ing thing 30 years later?


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Airplanes have an extremely long service live. Airframes with proper maintenance can serve for 10's of years especially with low hours on them. I don't expect Ukraine was training their pilots to the level of U.S. Airforce in terms of training hours.

Last B52 was manufactured in 1962 - 60 years ago. According to wikipedia

As of June 2019, there are 76 aircraft in inventory; 58 operated by active forces (2nd Bomb Wing and 5th Bomb Wing), 18 by reserve forces (307th Bomb Wing), and about 12 in long-term storage at the Davis-Monthan AFB Boneyard.

Of course it takes upkeep to maintain them in operational capability, but it's feasible.

Iran received 79 F-14 in 1974, 43 are still in service. That is 50 years after the delivery and active combat with Iraq and etc. Iran did not have an aviation industry to maintain them initially. Still under sanctions and could never get OEM replacement or service parts.

Ukraine did have an extensive aviation manufacturing industry and facilities and successfully collaborated with Russian, Chinese, and Turkish manufacturers to provide major components for airplanes/helicopters. Therefore, I don't think they didn't have the capacity/capability to maintain their fleet.

I'm not saying Ukraine did it, I obviously don't know how they operated. But a lot of poorer countries have a tendency to fly their planes far past their guaranteed service life.

Former combloc countries like Poland and Germany kept a lot of their Russian planes and upgraded them contentiously, they definitely could have provided expertise and parts to Ukraine to recover and upgrade planes from storage.

Therefore, it's quite believable that Ukraine had a pretty decent chunk of their air fleet from 1992 left in close to operational capacity.

[alx01]

1992? Why not 82? 62? 1945??
Anyway, the relevant, not hilariously cherry-picked numbers seem to be in this range...

You seem to believe Ukrainian claims that Russia is using missiles from 1950's which have a service live of 10-15 years, yet you doubt that airplanes which can fly for over 50 years can be in service after 30 years of minimal use.

Again, I'm not saying my guess-timates are accurate or those represent factual numbers on the ground. However, I think it's quite reasonable to think that Ukraine has a lot more active air-force than claimed. Very likely they claim lower numbers to confuse Russians to as their capability.