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

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If I may add, I have been thinking much the same as Nuuumannn. Being a history nut, I see the similarities in the beginnings of both WW! & WW2. Just as in history, Russia will take Ukraine with only lip service from the world. Then, the next step, just as Hitler took Poland, Putin will take Bulgaria or Romania. Still no action by those having treaties but possible declarations. Again the Phoney War or Sietzkrieg. Then when Putin tries to take Poland, the world will begin to actually fight. This next one may last more than a decade or two.
 
Glider said:
I just found this photo of Russian tanks that are supposed to be entering the fighting. The top cover looks hastily fitted and I wonder if the Javelin AT rockets are making their presence felt

View attachment 659304
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The "top-cover" is explosive-reactive armor. It explodes when an incoming round impacts it. It has a full sheath of armor underneath. This reactive explosion adds to the effective protection of the inherent armor without adding the weight of more steel plates. The cage over the top is designed to protect against top-shoot rounds. This is not an improvisation.
 
Don't think that Romania or Bulgaria will be a pushover, though - plus they are NATO nations.
They will hit any Russian advances head-on and make such an attempt very costly.

As far as the "cages" atop the Russian armor, these are field mods as a result of previous fighting in the eastern Ukraine, where they were attacked with improvised weapons.
 
We could use a "you scared the crap outta me" award.
 
Admiral Beez said:
I'm surprised over the last year that Ukraine's mikitary wasn't upgraded from their Soviet surplus kit.
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The problem is Ukraine is not a wealthy country and can't really afford an escalation in defence expenditure, not to mention having to restock its forces with the continuing Donbass conflict, which never really stopped. Its best hope is supply of weaponry through the West now overt Russian occupation has begun in the East. Britain has supplied hand held anti-tank weaponry to the country, which will prove useful in guerilla style warfare of the type that's been conducted in the country as of late.

It's interesting to watch the state of the war - trench warfare has proven necessary as large parts of the combat arena are flat plains, with the odd village here and there that usually gets flattened by artillery, followed by hurried advances to the next objective, where new trenches are dug. The frontline is for the most part, up to this point relatively static, with movement between the two sides confined to the taking of towns and villages in and around the front. The separatists remain in control of the East and with more substantial and overt Russian help - let's face it, the Russians have been in Ukraine from the outset - that's not going to change very soon and the frontline will progressively move further west as the Russian influence will be a more mobile approach to territory occupation.

It's interesting to look at Google maps. Take a look at the coastal areas between the cities of Mariupol and Berdyansk in the south of the country on the Sea of Azov, which contains the border of the Donetsk region, The Donbass, which was the frontline, and trenches and roughly hewn bunker sites can readily be made out in the terrain. If you look closely you can see in some of the smaller villages, the destruction wrought from shelling. Entire villages have been destroyed.
 
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DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
Unfortunately, all the soldiers on the small island were killed.

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"Idi Nahui!" Brilliant!

Sadly the Ukrainians have no navy to speak of. That Moskva cruiser is a powerful thing, look at those cruise missile launchers, deadly supersonic things that are extremely difficult to counter if all fired simultaneously. Even the best See-wizz would find it hard to knock them all down. This was the tactic that the Kiev Class cruisers and their replacements as offensive elements of the Russian navy were based around. An American carrier would find it a very difficult prospect to shoot down every one, which will be what's needed because just one hit is gonna be a bad day for whatever's on the receiving end of those things. The Kiev carried 24 of those big Bazalt supersonic cruise missiles, I don't know how many that Moskva carries, but they'll be equally if not more potent.
 
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nuuumannn said:
An American carrier would find it a very difficult prospect to shoot down every one, which will be what's needed because just one hit is gonna be a bad day for whatever's on the receiving end of those things.
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However, a USN Carrier task Force has cruisers and frigates that are bristling with countermeasures for such a situation.
They'll also lock on the source and counter-battery even while they're swatting the last of the inbound missiles.

The radar on the Cruisers was sensative enough to track 16" shells fired on Beruit back in the 80's - not much will get past them.
 

It's not a matter of tracking them, it's bringing them down. 24 missiles launched in waves four every few minutes is going to stretch the defences, no doubt about it. I have no doubt the US Navy would not allow itself to be put in a position where a Russian warship could launch its cruise missiles at the task force, but bear in mind that if it did happen, the surface fleet would be supported by submarine launched cruise missiles, joined by cruise missiles launched from aircraft such as the Backfires, all of which could do a heck of a lot of damage, if such a scenario were to happen. To believe that every missile in such a concentrated attack would be shot down is a bit of a stretch, even for modern defences. It just takes one.

During the 70s and 80s the US Navy ships were not as well defended with CIWS as they are now and it's unlikely that a massed launch of these missiles against a carrier strike group would result in every missile shot down. Even the Bazalt was supersonic.
 
The defense layer around a task force is really impressive.
Aside from the CAP over the fleet, Cruisers alone carry about 122 missiles each as part of the Mark 41 missile system equipped with the SM-6 and they are at the ready 24/7 - this has been a maturing new threat upgrade in answer to the Chinese navy's offensive systems, which Russia lags behind.

Of course, if any enemy missiles get past the SM-6, there's the air-launched defenses and closer in, the Phalinx - in return, launch points are marked and targeted.

It would be an ugly endeavor to attack a USN Carrier task Force.
 
Admiral Beez said:
I'm surprised over the last year that Ukraine's mikitary wasn't upgraded from their Soviet surplus kit. They need F-16s and Leo IIs from surplus Nato stocks.
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there is no something like "surplus NATO stocks" - lead time for prime military equipment are years now - two years ago Poland ordered F-35 - start of delivery has been set up no sooner than 2028, the same with every possible piece of military hardware from US - lead time for most of the spares is 8-"who knows?" months - this the relity of "corporate culture" /"our lawyer will analyse this" world
 
DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
Sometimes a fabricated legend with a mesage of hope can ignite a spark.
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Back in the 1990s an ex FB111 Wizzo, name of Dale Brown wrote a novel, Chains of Command, in which this very scenario, in this very place, under these very circumstances, takes place. The young Ukranian "ace in a day" even flew a MiG29. Talk about life imitating art! (If you can call such a trashy action novel "art".)
Dale was stationed at the SAC base right next to our commuter crew base, and had started trying to write novels while he was still on active duty. Never met the guy, but ran into his reputation a couple times, as he was a bit of an anomaly in the culture of SAC. There's a ne'er do well Wizzo in the book who doesn't fit in, and whom I suspect to be a bit autobiographical. Don't think I'll offend anyone by revealing that the book ends with the madman Russian dictator being decapitated in a joint US-Ukranian surgical nuclear strike. Will Putin follow the script? Stay tuned.
 
The F-35 isn't surplus.
The F-16, F-15, F-18, etc. is surplus as newer models are entered into service.

As for the F-35, it's being manufactured in a non-war environment, meaning that it's manufacturing is done at a relaxed pace, with orders processed in chronological order.

This is not "corporate culture" (nice "new age" catch-word, by the way), but standard business practice.
 
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