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0 pointsmaxglute1y ago0 comments

Yeah a lot of RU dismissing here.

Whatever shit tier RU MIC/performance has been, it has manage to consistently defeat or mitigate what US+EU has thrown against her. Which includes highend gear like PAC3 MSE. Meanwhile half the reason RU had a hard time was due to facing UKR's abundant legacy USSR systems. At this point it's not unreasonable to dismiss everything in EU arsenal as wunderwaffe tier especially without US support. Including F35... which even if US doesn't restrict usage against EU-RU scenario, could still be borderline paperweight without US tier ISR.

People also forget NATO fought a much shitter/temu RU in Yugoslavia where NATO threw everything at even more legacy soviet systems. All of the awacs, prowlers, F117 barely chiped away at 20% of Yugoslav anti air, something like 700 harms were fired and destroyed less than handful of SA6 batteries. Hard to argue EU part of NATO has better military capability than 20 years ago.

IMO there's a strong chance US would heavily restrict/limit F35 operations against RU. Because one shot down F35 by S400 let alone anything shittier completely evaporates narrative around 5th gen (and what that entails for IndoPac). They'd rather see RU hit F35s in hangers with standoff munitions because at least they can point to JP and SKR and say, see, you need to build harden air shelters.

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fabian2k1y ago

Where are you getting this from? There certainly has been some exaggeration online and in the media about the capabilities of western military hardware, especially tanks. But that doesn't mean they were bad, just that they are far from invulnerable. And there are quite a few examples where they saved the soldiers inside when a Russian tank would have tossed their turret.

Patriot works in Ukraine, they even got a few Khinzal. But of course any air defense is limited by available ammo and you need enough of the right kind of air defense in the right places for this to work well. The Ukraine is really limited by the number of available systems and ammunition. And for something like the Shahed drones you need other ways to defend yourself to avoid exhausting your precious ammunition for advanced air defense systems.

Russia also was shown to be nearly unable to intercept Storm Shadow/SCALP EG at the beginning. So the somewhat aging European cruise missiles were able to easily penetrate current Russian air defenses.

maxgluteOP1y ago

I didn't say western hardware bad, but exaggeration leading to RU dismissal and thinking that EU would be able to stomp RU in unrestricted warefare... especially without US assistence in short/medium time frame.

>patriot works

With US ISR (i.e. AWACs) providing early warning, IIRC correctly UKR was salvoing full patriot battery to intercept single kinzhal/zircon tier hypersonics, i.e. entire supply of EU patriot launcher can be overwhelmed by handful of hypersonics.

>storm shadow

Similarly UKR could sneak cruise missiles through RU IADs is because US info share helped plan missions/routes to circumvent RU defenses. Competent (not even super modern) air defense has like almost 100% interception on subsonic targets like cruise missiles, provided the are detected.

The TLDR is hard to say how EU hardware will perform without US force multiplier tier ISR. Which will effect everything from finding targets to hit, hitting targets, and avoid getting hit even with same/better hardware. Which again, is not to say EU is bad... but EU very unlikely to be US level great.

ExoticPearTree1y ago

> Russia also was shown to be nearly unable to intercept Storm Shadow/SCALP EG at the beginning. So the somewhat aging European cruise missiles were able to easily penetrate current Russian air defenses.

Most likely because they did not have the specs or complete specs for them and how they looked like on radar. There was an article somewhere that I can't find right now where something like this was said: Once a new weapon system is employed against RU or by RU against UA, it takes about two weeks to create countermeasures for it.

Sammi1y ago

"Hard to argue EU part of NATO has better military capability than 20 years ago."

We are seeing Ukrainians regularly hitting russian redars and air defence. Whatever nato wasn't able to do in hte 90s the Ukrainians are fully capable of doing today, because they are doing it. And with lots of european help. So this is just outdated speculation you're doing.

maxgluteOP1y ago

We are seeing improved _US_ ISR in last 20 years enables UKR to hit RU assets. What UKR is fully capable of doing is follow up predominantly US supplied intel, especially for longer range / standoff strikes.

EU part of NATO has improved ISR (helios, sarlupe, copernicus etc) but nothing rivalling US tactical and strategic capabilities, i.e. as far as I know, there's no EU system that provides all weather real time targetting.

eunos1y ago

> People also forget NATO fought a much shitter/temu RU in Yugoslavia where NATO threw everything at even more legacy soviet systems. All of the awacs, prowlers, F117 barely chiped away at 20% of Yugoslav anti air, something like 700 harms were fired and destroyed less than handful of SA6 batteries. Hard to argue EU part of NATO has better military capability than 20 years ago

Likewise the reason why Russia couldn't steamroll Ukraine swiftly is because Ukraine anti air is very formidable (using Soviet hardware no less). That is why it is wrong to simply assume Russia is weak.

eitland1y ago

> That is why it is wrong to simply assume Russia is weak.

russia is weaker than they have been since 1991, possibly 1950.

There is a reason they are now delivering ammo using mules and actually attempting old school cavalry charges on horseback.

And it it's not because donkeys are better than the armoured, tracked towing tractors or because actual horses are better than tanks.

maxgluteOP1y ago

>horses are better than tanks

There's pics of UKR javalin calvary too. It's precisely because they're situationally better than tanks in certain combat conditions. For the same reason everyone is zipping around in dirt bikes and golf carts or UKR retiring M1 tanks from frontlines. Look up survivability onion, tanks/armor get detected and destroyed because they're too visible vs modern frontline battlefield recon. If you want to survive, have to move to smaller/more agile platforms to avoid detection in the first place. RU and UKR are both learning and adapting. It's reflection that last 50 years of doctorine is obsolete, aka everything EU military also hedged on. If shit ever hits the fan, NATO maybe donkeying as well.

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tw23472881y ago

Let's be fair here. If we rightly mock all the silly *pravda sites, the mules aren't exactly reported in the serious press either.

It seems more likely that mules were used where they make sense: Supplying ammo to a trench deeply in the forest, where mules are the superior "technology". Then that observation was blown out of proportion.

Remember that "the Russians are fighting with shovels" was a slogan in 2022.

somenameforme1y ago

One problem with the digital age is you can find news to support any view, regardless of how disconnected from reality it may be. And enough people to echo such that one may not realize how ridiculous they sound.

mrighele1y ago

> IMO there's a strong chance US would heavily restrict/limit F35 operations against RU. Because one shot down F35 by S400 let alone anything shittier completely evaporates narrative around 5th gen (and what that entails for IndoPac)

Israel's F-35 have being going in and out of Iran's airspace with impunity, so no, I don't think that is going to be an issue.

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fabian2k1y ago

maxgluteOP1y ago

>patriot works

>storm shadow

ExoticPearTree1y ago

Sammi1y ago

"Hard to argue EU part of NATO has better military capability than 20 years ago."

maxgluteOP1y ago

eunos1y ago

eitland1y ago

> That is why it is wrong to simply assume Russia is weak.

russia is weaker than they have been since 1991, possibly 1950.

There is a reason they are now delivering ammo using mules and actually attempting old school cavalry charges on horseback.

And it it's not because donkeys are better than the armoured, tracked towing tractors or because actual horses are better than tanks.

maxgluteOP1y ago

>horses are better than tanks

6 more replies

tw23472881y ago

Let's be fair here. If we rightly mock all the silly *pravda sites, the mules aren't exactly reported in the serious press either.

Remember that "the Russians are fighting with shovels" was a slogan in 2022.

somenameforme1y ago

mrighele1y ago

Israel's F-35 have being going in and out of Iran's airspace with impunity, so no, I don't think that is going to be an issue.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse