"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again."

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XBe02Drvr said:
Smells like a false flag to me. Excuse to drag heels in negotiations.
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Given their logistical issues and the need to transport thousands of troops from NW of Kiev, around the interior Ukrainian lines, to the Donbas, they could not have picked a worse target for a false flag. Criminy, attack a radio station or TV station, that gives you dramatic audio and/or video too.
 
Glider said:
at the end of the day Russia is admitting that its defences are ineffective. They are supposed to have AWAC's and complete control of the air, and now have admitted that the Ukraine can strike from the air, more or less at will, anywhere in the Ukraine and now over Russia itself.
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Picking an electronically silent NOE helicopter out of the ground clutter from a high flying AWACS is a pretty tall order, even for an alert and motivated operator. A tired, bored, frustrated operator who hasn't seen any aerial actitivity in a couple weeks of midwatches is not that paragon of efficiency at 5 AM, especially if his world has been too noisy to facilitate daytime sleep.
A few of my flight students were Vietnam vet Army Guard chopper pilots picking up their fixed wing ratings. They would park their choppers at the armory next door and show up in flight gear for a dusk fixed wing lesson, then I would give them a ride over to the armory on the way home and they would "goggle up" and go out to practice night NOE. I got a couple of rides with them, and to the uninitiated, it's scary stuff. A "perishable skill" like carrier landings. Occaisonally they would chat up the AWACS bird doing drug smuggling border patrol overhead for a visibility check. Most of the time if they were below 500 AGL with IFF off, big bird would report them invisible on radar and faint on IR. The chopper guys listened on VHF, but never spoke unless they heard or saw traffic or entered the Control Zone. Used to drive the FAA Flight Service Station guys nuts.
 
Jagdflieger said:
That is why I keep repeating and repeating and repeating that economical sanctions are the presently only valid means to cripple Putin's ambitions. Independently of arming the Ukraine to it's teeth, and not fantasizing about possible theoretical military actions by NATO endorsed by the UN.
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I was gonna reply, but you know what, Dave summed it up better...

:rolleyes:
 
Admiral Beez said:
To be fair, China's kit is mostly knockoffs of Russian kit, so China vs. India is pretty much an equal fight of sh#t weaponry.
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An easily drawn but inaccurate assessment of Chinese capability. Yes, it makes knock offs of Russian equipment, but they are good knock-offs and to be feared in terms of regional security. What's more, they act fast and have been consistently upgrading their capabilities to match Western armed forces within the last 20 years, and boy, they've made some progress. No other country has developed a Fifth Gen low-observable fighter and put it into service other than the USA. Sure, we don't know the exact capabilities of the J-20, and we know the initial batch are powered by less powerful Lyulka Saturn engines because the intended engine's development is protracted, but it is an impressive achievement.

It has developed its own Fourth Gen fighter, the J-10 in around half the time that France and Europe developed the Rafale and Typhoon, which is still undergoing upgrades and remains a relevant and capable aircraft. This particular example is an early prototype.

37737578476_ed82571279_b.jpg
Military Museum 03 1

The latest Tu-16 derivative H-6 "God of War" (cool name!) supersonic cruise missile carriers have turbofan engines, modern avionics and advanced phased array radar, a far cry from the Tu-16 of the Cold War.

It would be foolish to underestimate the Chinese in any military scenario. I doubt sincerely they would act as ineffectively as the Russian armed forces has in Ukraine. One thing is for certain, like Western analysts, the Chinese military observers will be watching this action very carefully and they will put the lessons learned into practise in any conflict.
 
nuuumannn said:
It would be foolish to underestimate the Chinese in any military scenario. I doubt sincerely they would act as ineffectively as the Russian armed forces has in Ukraine. One thing is for certain, like Western analysts, the Chinese military observers will be watching this action very carefully and they will put the lessons learned into practise in any conflict.
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To be sure, yet the Vietnamese would like to remind you that last war the Chinese fought in 1979 was easily as big a disaster for China and the PLA.
 
nuuumannn said:
Surely you can't be judging a country's military capability by its last loss over 40 years ago? Really?
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It's the only real experience they had in that time frame unless the rumors of near civil war in the PLA before the crushing of Tiananmen Square are true. So, you have to bear it in mind. Perhaps the modern PLA is better, perhaps not. We certainly did not expect the modern Russian army to so utterly underperform the disastrously poor Red Army of Afghanistan after all.
 
wlewisiii said:
Perhaps the modern PLA is better, perhaps not. We certainly did not expect the modern Russian army to so utterly underperform the disastrously poor Red Army of Afghanistan after all.
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Yup, and a fool it would be to underestimate China's new capabilities. One of the fundamental tenets of combat is never underestimate your enemy. The Russians (and to be frank the rest of the world didn't hold much on Ukraine doing as they are right now, too) did and look where its getting them.
 
Greg Boeser said:
Whoop! There goes Ukraine's support from the environmentalists.
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The Lada remains a popular car among the enthusiast crowd and the type does come with its own deployable "hole-in-the-ozone-layer" so that ship has sailed...

www.dreamstime.com

Kyiv, Ukraine - September 30, 2018: Lada Car. Editorial Stock Image - Image of avtovaz, 1960s: 141250224

Kyiv, Ukraine - September 30, 2018: Lada car.. Photo about avtovaz, 1960s, krokus, soviet, kyiv, design, antique, fiat, classic, cars, based, 1970s, moscow, engine, styled - 141250224
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