Russian invasion of Ukraine discussion

[WillieThom]

Well, for starters, their pilot sustainment training is totally inadequate, and has been for many years, in part because they can’t or won’t afford the maintenance that flight hours bring. Its been this way for at least 30 years, which probably causes a lack of good instructors, as well, and impacts initial and improvement training.

That plus old avionics plus airframe fatigue plus lack of PM....

It doesn't take an intel specialist to deduce the "why's" of the crappy state of aviation fleet.

My partner at work is a retired F15 crew chief from the Air Force. He said that years back they had a few Russian jets land at the airfield they were at. I cant remember where he was at the time. He said just from a quick glance walking by he could see the planes were in very poor shape and had obvious patch work and rigging going on.

They’re just holding back their super-secret 7th generation stealth fighters/bombers for when—excuse me, if—they start losing loads of guys and need them to tip the balance of the scales back into their favor…

[tn1911]

Exclusive-U.S. weighs sending 100-mile strike weapon to Ukraine -sources

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/tops...es/ar-AA14D6p0

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Pentagon is considering a Boeing proposal to supply Ukraine with cheap, small precision bombs fitted onto abundantly available rockets, allowing Kyiv to strike far behind Russian lines as the West struggles to meet demand for more arms.

U.S. and allied military inventories are shrinking, and Ukraine faces an increasing need for more sophisticated weapons as the war drags on. Boeing's proposed system, dubbed Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB), is one of about a half-dozen plans for getting new munitions into production for Ukraine and America's Eastern European allies, industry sources said.

NIce!!!

[mack7.62]

The GLSDB is the 250 lb small diameter bomb, a guided glide bomb, mated to the M26 rocket motor so launched from HIMARS or MLRS. The M26 rocket motors are from the M26 cluster munition which was pulled out of service due to Western countries banning cluster munitions because of their dud rates. This whole Western concept of hamstringing yourself to fight a more "humane' war is pretty stupid, I have noticed though that Germany appears to be the hoarders of NATO supplying Ukraine with off route anti tank mines that were banned in 1997 and were supposed to be destroyed along with the old Soviet era stuff they still had.

[Slater]

To my knowledge, the US military hasn't even ordered GLSDB yet. So I guess this would be a "combat test before purchase" arrangement.

[WillBrink]

LOL, there's a "I wanna surrender" hot line Russians can call. Master psy ops/PR move by the Ukrainian's:

[tn1911]

Russian Death Toll To Hit 90,000 As Grisly Cost of War Revealed

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukra...ldiers-1763829

Man!!! The level of Hell being prepped by Satan for Putin once he dies is gonna be epic!

[WillBrink]

Russian Death Toll To Hit 90,000 As Grisly Cost of War Revealed

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukra...ldiers-1763829

Man!!! The level of Hell being prepped by Satan for Putin once he dies is gonna be epic!

These numbers are estimates by the Ukrainians and western intel orgs no doubt. The fudge factor must be +/- quite large. Could be half that, could be 50% more then that. I'm still taking most figures I read with much skepticism personally.

[The Dumb Gun Collector]

I suspect the numbers are quite a bit higher.

[chuckman]

Numbers are all over the place and the variance is interesting given the sources (Russian numbers for Uke losses vs Uke numbers vs NATO numbers, etc.). It's hard to ascertain what is legit and what is psy ops a work.

[Averageman]

So aparently Putin has fallen down the stairs at his residence?