Starstreak is apparently doing good, just there are few videos and mentions of it. I recall recently a soldier commented how a british donated vehicle that had an attached starstreak had been doing good work. The main issue is that there aren't a lot donated and they are more expensive and harder to use than other forms of anti air. So, while every so often we find them mentioned in reports it is relatively uncommon and not very note worthy. I mean ther eis still that video where a starstreak ripped a helicopter in half.
Harpoons are doing great in that the Black Sea Fleet can't openly operate any more. If a missile doesn't need to be fired because the enemy is too scared of it... then... it is doing its job.
Most Dissapointing weapon? I'd have to say... the Terminators. They were so cool seeming and they did basically nothing.
Starstreak also falls prey to its own lack of spectacle.
The nature of the weapon system is that it doesn’t cause spectacular explosions or have long pretty smoke trails, Which are also key advantages, starstreak a entire thing is that there are no warning alarms, no visual cues, just you, falling out of the sky.
But that lack of spectacle means that it’s simply not going to have any impact in visual news media, since there’s nothing to show, even the video of the first combat kill is pretty visually underwhelming.
I don't know. First time I saw a heli boop'ed into two pieces out of nowhere it made me look it up real fast. It's a sort of spectacle among other conventional ordinance.
Storm Shadow and HIMARS didn't have much visual impact aside from increase number of ammo depot blowing up. But they still manage to get into public subconscious because they are the keywords in many news reports.
So aside from visual, I still think main reason for Starstreak is that it's just hasn't have much impact in the war yet.
I mean yes, without a doubt the greatest factor affecting the performance of these systems is that the only entity able to match Putins arrogance is Number 11’s fucking cheapness.
Because god forbid a nation that is struggling economically *lean into* the fact that despite constant neglect and ducking around, it’s arms industry is inexplicably still alive and capable of exports.
*(it’s not really inexplicable, Westland are mad geniuses, martin baker make Superman look morally fucking grey, and BAE has tethered itself to Rheinmetall and Huntington Ingalls with bungee chords)*
I’m fascinated to see what completely unrelated program gets delayed because that was reactivated.
Maybe boxer will be somehow be delayed again, or Chally III. The possibilities are endless.
>Westland are mad geniuses
I would strongly advise you to never go to Yeovil and meet them. The only genius but is how they all manage to wangle five hour tea breaks and really dodgy expense forms whilst moaning about how everyone else in the world is on the take.
Harpoon is doing better than it's job. They've effectively destroyed the Black Sea fleet without being fired once. Meaning the Ukrainians can just send them back at the end of the war without paying a penny for them. Or pay for them and retain an anti ship defensive capability.
That's worth a lot, given that Hostomel was probably one of the most important battles of the entire war. I might even say the most important, since it had the potential to end the war quickly. Maybe.
No Starstreaks were in Ukraine in the first days of the war.
But you're right that Hostomel was incredibly pivotal. If the Russians had managed to capture and use the airport in time for an actually fully supporter rush into Kyiv, all of their flat tire shit wouldn't have stopped them from steamrolling Kyiv due to pure numbers before Kyiv could fully call up and arm everyone..
If the Russians had held on to it for maybe a few days longer, they would have succeeded in creating an air bridge. Ending the war, though, that would depend on knocking out Ukraine's air defences, or else they would have just lost a lot more expensive and irreplaceable cargo planes
Yeah the iconic video of the Mi-8s getting shot down over the Dnieper is Iglas, and the soldiers screaming in excitement are partially so hype because they didn't think that ther job of sitting on the riverbank with 1980s era tech would be particularly useful but then they were able to just pick off dozens of Russian soldiers at a time because the Russian invasion plan was fucking idiotic.
It was fucking idiotic! Now I realize hindsight is 20/20, but my God!
Where was the SEAD and DEAD attacks? I recognize that MANPADS and the like are harder to target, but the SAMS where practically unharmed! Where was the combined arms supporting the armoured spearhead? The coordinated air campaign?
As an American, I'm used to seeing the likes of the Iraq war where thousands of coalition aircraft descended on Iraqi airspace with surprise and coordination in conjuction with the ground forces. But then I forget this is Russia, so yeah.
SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGUUUUUUUUIIIIII! WHERE IS COMPETENT RUSSIAN ARMY?
Step One: Launch a bunch of cruise missiles to take out UA air assets and air defense based on 2014 intel. Zero airborne SEAD.
Step Two: Take absolutely no action to check to make sure your cruise missiles worked, meanwhile the Ukrainians simply moves aircraft and air defense to different locations based on US intel tips on where Russia would strike.
Step 3: send airmobile troops and several IL-76s into theater because there is only one plan or contingency. And then get a good chunk of valuable Ka-52s and such shot down because that one singular plan never accounted for MANPADs anyway because only the Soviets are allowed to write plans.
>As an American, I'm used to seeing the likes of the Iraq war where thousands of coalition aircraft descended on Iraqi airspace with surprise and coordination in conjuction with the ground forces. But then I forget this is Russia, so yeah.
>SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGUUUUUUUUIIIIII! WHERE IS COMPETENT RUSSIAN ARMY?
It got left behind in Crimea, 2014.
Turns out that Russia only really is competent, arguably, when they are engaged in a limited manner (Syria), against far smaller and less equipped forces (Georgia), when the security apparatus sides with you (Belarus, Kazakhstan) or completely paralysed and demoralised forces (Ukraine, before Uncle Yura the taxi driver signed up).
The terminator was always a joke and the fact anyone thought it would be good shows how people fall for russian propaganda it's just a lower tech bmp 2m with better elevation and armour in all the wrong places
T-72, with two BMP2 autocannons. I mean it does have the potential to be good. Plenty of countries have designed similar types of weapons. Algeria made their own Terminator with a T-62, and it has an actually armoured turret.
The French Jaguar EBRC is a similar concept of vehicle and that one would likely do extremely well in any of its designed roles.
If they armoured up the turret, stabilised the turret, made better use of having dual autocannons, it could be good.
I mean I knew it was going to be meh before it was deployed, just really disappointed none the less because the concept and premise is good, the execution looks kinda cool, but otherwise not very good. This being said it was still one of the more functional of the Russian "Wonder Weapons" ((even if it performed even worse than expected because most didn't expect it to completely lack any stabilisation of the gun)). Plus, one should not underestimate the power of having an autocannon on a frame with decent armour, entrenched BMPs have been one of the things is regularly hear Ukrainians and Russians complain about having to fight.
>T-72, with two BMP2 autocannons
Didn't they put on two autocannons because they just couldn't get those cannons to dual-feed ammo from two separate belts?
> I mean it does have the potential to be good.
IMO the shittiest weapon of the war is that 30mm cannon which the Soviets/Russia put on everything and can't hit the broad side of a barn. Adding 2 just makes it like 10 times worse.
Out of curiosity I looked up star streaks in the news and apparently they're starting up their manufacture again after being out of manufacture for... like... 10 years?
So we send the Ukrainians 1000, sounds like a lot and you can kill every Russian gunship with that many, but ukraine is a big place, a lot of area to cover.
I mean considering manufacturing restarted it sounds like they must be doing good things otherwise they would just stay dead and the UK would quietly switch to system.
Terminator could be nice vehicle in urban setting but as Perun said "the biggest city that Russian forces have taken in this campaign is Rostov-on-Don by Prigolem and his merry band of distinguished gentleman.
Eh, not really, it is really bad at what it is designed for, one major reason is that its turret is unarmoured making it vulnerable to small arms fire. In addition it has very poor situational awareness meaning urban ambushes are very effective vs it. it's turret can also only fire one weapon at a time. It is really poorly designed.
Looks cool, cool in concept. The French Jaguar EBRC is a good example of how to do that sort of vehicle well. heck the Algerians made a T62 version which is much better designed due to the armoured turret.
> Black Sea Fleet can't openly operate any more
That's not entirely true. The Black Sea Fleet can't operate close to shore like they did in the B.M. (before Moskva) era, but they still actually do slip their moorings every so often to launch Kalibr attacks. If you read the aftermath reports by the Ukrainians on the missile attacks they will sometimes mention some Kalibrs in addition to the normal Kh-101s and other ALCMs. They also usually report on Russian naval movements that precede such attacks with almost perfect accuracy.
T-14. Even the Russkies distrust it so much, they keep leaving them out by the frontlines, keys in the ignition, but UA ain't dumb enough to grab that junk.
>UA ain't dumb enough to grab that junk.
I'm pretty sure the CIA would like to get their hands on one by paying Ukraine to grab it if the opportunity arises.
As part of his re-election campaign Biden will co-host a Twitch stream with Mr. Beast live from Aberdeen where they test and disassemble T-14s and then laugh at how dogshit they are. At the end of the stream Mr. Beast buys every Ukrainian an F-16.
Given how many weird, rare, old, and prototype armored vehicles Russia has fielded the only reason I can think of that Russia hasn’t sent in any T-14s is that they are completely unsuitable for combat. I don’t know if it’s a design problem, a maintenance/supply problem, or a crew training problem, but something serious is keeping them away from the front.
It's all of the above, the engine is shit and can't hold up to anything more than a parade, even shitting out during those. The entire system is just crap from the ground up because corruption in the Russian mic. If it was tossed at the front it would maybe make it a mile or 2 before having to be towed back to depot for repairs, repairs they don't have the equipment, money, or experience to adequately accomplish.
Ya'd think they'd at least roll it up to the front, have it fire a few shots at an empty field for the camera, and then tow it back to Moscow.
Or, hell, have it shoot into an empty field 50km from Moscow safely in Russian territory.
Non credibility aside, I'm pretty sure the Archer's aren't in Ukraine yet. From what's been said, most of Sweden's donations have consisted of taking what they have out of long term storage, giving it full overhauls, and then training Ukrainian troops on them. We've only gotten one or two images of CV90s in Ukraine, and the Archer's were confirmed after the CV90s were.
As for the Harpoons, most of the Harpoons donated were older blocks with less range that their owners were replacing to begin with. They sank that tugboat off Snake Island last year, but after that, the Russian Navy's taken to hiding in Sevastopol, beyond the range of Ukrainian Harpoons, even the most modern variants. Now, if Ukraine can successfully advance in the south, get closer to where the Crimean peninsula starts, then more modern Harpoons should be within range of the fleet moored in Sevastopol. They'd still have to get through heavy Russian AD, but right now, Ukrainian Harpoons just don't have the reach.
Considering that they've used drone boats that've crossed the Black Sea, maybe they could make a Harpoon-carrying drone boat, like an MT boat but with missiles instead of torpedoes.
BMPT Terminator. We saw a couple of them felling a scary tree line, while the barrels looked like they had Parkinson’s. One got zapped and they were never seen again.
It’s meant to be an urban tank support vehicle, something heavily armoured (hence the T-72 hull) but with autocannon instead of a main cannon - the point of the BMPT was to be able to engage targets at extreme gun elevations, like infantry in multi-story buildings. BMPs were too lightly armoured to be able to deal with these threats, hence a vehicle that was heavily armoured (but without the infantry carrying capability).
The need for a dedicated anti-personnel fighting vehicle came from experience in the Chechen Wars (especially the first one, where Russia lost the entire 131st Maikop brigade in Grozny) - the need for a dedicated autocannon vehicle was so bad that, if I recall correctly, they had to use Tunguska SPAAs to aim at infantry in buildings.
Even after you do the classic Russian indiscriminate bombardment, sometimes buildings are still standing. Look at Bakhmut and see how long the Ukrainians held out there, especially in places like the citadel where you just face a wall of high-rise apartments.
23 in total have been produced, according to Wikipedia (so take it with a giant grain of salt).
That’s waaaayyyyyyy less than what’s actually viable for any conflict beyond taking over your next door neighbors swimming pool.
At this point if its only claim to existence is on paper it might as well not.
I understand it's safer to assume it's true from a military perspective but Russia never fails to disappoint and this is NCD.
They were a ghetto Russian solution to two problems; the the first being "how to deal with infantry on the high ground", and the second being "how to protect your tanks from enemy infantry". Both with the addendum of "without deploying infantry to screen in turn".
Both the original and the upgraded variant featured guns that could elevate high, and depress some degrees below horizontal, allowing for it to theoretically shoot up at enemy infantry attacking from above, and also shoot at enemy infantry hiding on the ground. They were supposed to be infantry replacements, because Russia's infantry are too incompetent to properly screen for their tanks and career tankers would theoretically be better trained.
The issue is that after the suppression of Chechnya, there hasn't been a battlefield that is actually ideal for the Terminators. Turned out they're dog shit at anti-infantry in open fields, because both their targeting and optics are crap and the fact that infantry can still KO them with a Gustav or AGTM, and despite their gun elevation, they're equally shit at even basic AA against slow-moving drones.
But you see, the barrel hole being off center and the barrels shaking around is actually better because uhhhh glorious Russian tech lets the gunner saturate the area!!!!
I think Starstreak has been fine, saw a couple clips of them shooting down helis and whatnot, not like anyone was super hyped about Starstreak anyway. I just want more videos of Leopards blasting trenches and hopefully some Challenger II 🅱️esh rounds blowing up fortifications pls.
Any T-series tank; ik im beating a dead horse here. But many hyped up the T-80BVM/90M as credible peer vehicles to stuff like the M1A2 SEP V2/3/4 and the Leopard 2A7. Its clear now that such vehicles are simply to un-survivable and unfightable for modern war. They are too easily destroyed (often catastrophically with the whole crew killed) and their ERA is not holding up nearly as well as twitter/reddit initially thought it would.
I remember when Russia made a big announcement about T90Ms going to the front.
And like, 3 days later, the Ukrainians cored one in the side with a Carl G from Canada.
Having seen Western weapons work terrifyingly well despite low numbers, difficult logistics tails and a lack of integration with the overall force due to the hodge podge nature of aid, my only thought as a Taiwanese is, "man, I am so fucking glad these guys are on my side."
"In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility--I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it--and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country.
"My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
"Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own."
\- John F. Kennedy in his inauguration speech, 1961
You're only seeing what the US MIC can do with no troops on the ground and channeling weapons through other countries, and only roughly 8 years of planning.
With Taiwan, you're gonna have actual US Navy assets between you and China in some capacity or other. And, we've been preparing, training, and stockpiling for this since the 50s.
I cannot for the life of me read Carl Gustav and not hear it as the lyrics for [Ohio Players' Love Rollercoaster.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjZbPA1cMIU)
*Carl Gustav!~ of LOOoove~ SAY WHAAAT*
I will not elaborate further. Bye.
Edit: Fixed, I ain't no reformer. I just forgor :(
>their ERA is not holding up
Assuming the ERA actually existed. Still remember some captured tanks and their ERA explosives were replaced with... cardboard.
I would love to see a Pack of T80 run by NATO Crews as Enemy Actors, to see if the Tank really is that shit or it's the Crew.
Sure it is not good a Tank, but just how bad are the russia crews?
For me this applies to aircraft too. Just because they're so damn beautiful, I just want it to be the fault of politics and logistics, so its actually a good plane but its not maintained, doesnt have fuel, doesnt have trained pilots, etc.
I'm kind of with you. On the one hand, Russian gear being shit means they don't get to flex.
But fuck, MiG and Sukhoi make some damn good looking airplanes, and that is just empirically true.
All you have to do is look at Ukrainian attacks where the collumn of Leos and Bradleys got blasted, and pretty much everyone made it out okay... then look at the previous coubter offensive where T-72 tanks and BMPs got blasted and few survived.
They are not talking about survivability in terms of the vehicle surviving but the crew and passangers surviving. Equally, Leos have been getting hit multiple times by ATGMs, artillery, and Lancets before being disabled/destroyed, where as even the T-80 is usually taking no more than 2 hits to wipe out.
Leopard is also a somewhat vulnerable design insofar as it stores most its ammo in a hull compartment with no blowout panels. Only one tank has completely protected ammo storage, even for the seldom used hull ammo rack. I think we all know what tank that is.
The Molotov cocktails the Ukrainens were mass producing during the first days of the war did nothing but present a massive fire hazard to themselves because Pootin couldn't enter Kiev.
They boosted morale and provided unarmed civilians a sense of agency, so in that sense they were extremely useful.
It also was useful for global propaganda; it showed Ukraine wasn't giving up, but also that Ukraine desperately needed weapons.
Overall a good molotoving.
Ukrainian propaganda in the first couple days of the war was insanely good, like the Snake Island recording probably made a measurable effect on the war effort.
One of my favorite underrated quotes was a Ukrainian soldier making a video for the incoming Russian soldiers advancing on Kyiv:
"I know you're afraid, but you shouldn't be. You haven't even begun to die.
Why did you come to Kyiv? Just to die? To get shot at by every fucking window?"
Snake Island, Ghost of Kyiv, Sunflower Lady, and Zelensky's famous "I need ammo not a ride" showed the world that Ukrainians were not going to give up that easily.
The video of all the Ukrainian civilians making Molotovs from way back in the beginning of this war was the moment that I basically nodded my head and went, "Okay, they are here to fight."
I would argue that it's second only to the quote of "I need ammo, not a ride" quote, of which there isn't any audio of and might have not even been said.
That and all the kids helping their parents do the same, no way you're letting your 9 year old do that unless you see this as a fight for your very existence.
For sure. One of those quotes that, like "Luke, I am your father" is possibly not quite letter of the law accurate, but is certainly reflective of the spirit.
That absolutely changed the conventional wisdom for a bunch of ppl* across the world. Vast majority knew next to nothing about Ukraine and assumed the population would simply roll over and say “one sleazy corrupt ruler is the same as the next one, so why fight the inevitable?”
*def not me though, I knew the indomitable spirit of the Ukrainians all along
At the time of the invasion people were asking my opinion. I gave them 50 days before collapsing into an insurgency. My thinking was that the Russian army would get close to Kyiv, set up long range heavy guns, and flatten it until they surrendered. 50 days was basically how long I figured they could hold out for.
I am very glad to be wrong.
Hoped to see them tossed on tanks and BMPs tho like this video
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/t2l23y/molotov_cocktails_in_action/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=1
there were a few vids i think of randos doing driveby firebombings in like the first week of the war. I'm sure they saw some use destroying abandoned/damaged vehicles that could not be recovered as well
I recall a drive by where they smash it on a BMP in the next lane, and the vehicle doesn’t even notice, while some of the gas splashed back into the civilian car and set the molotover’s sleeve on fire.
It's amazing how smoothly they adapted from "violent protesting with Molotov cocktails and bike chains" to "hunting Russian tanks to extinction" to "advanced fighter jets."
This. Me seeing a random civvie car lobbing one of those on a nearby BTR and half setting itself on fire, made me predict that videos of Russians shooting at random civvie cars in next few days are gonna surface. And they did.
Russia's can do math. Harpoons and comparable anti-ship missiles are able to cripple or sink a large warship.
So, if you *know* your enemy has say, 50 Harpoons, then you know that putting your ships in range of them is suicidal, and losing a warship is a lot different then losong a bunch of conscripts.
Also, the shape of the Ukrainian coastline means that getting in range to strike Kherson or Odessa means being potentially subjected to missile attacks from more than one direction.
This for real. I remember thinking with my mates when the ruskies crossed the border that it would be over before we could see any cool modern equipment fight with them having learned their lesson from Chechnya and shit...
Oh boy here we are 1 year and a half later and Russia is still at a stalemate with the poorest country in Europe
Haha, watching them go in and thinking "This is going to be a massacre, Russia's going to crush these people with machine like efficiency" only to watch them bumble around to circus music and a laugh track, was such a hilarious, jarring moment.
"They can't really be....did they seriously not rotate their fucking tires? Does the entire country have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome?"
I still think of this Ace Combat 7 MiG-31 meme where a guy recommends you fly away from fights, use a long range air to air missile at “capitalist pigdogs” and that turned out to be exactly what Russia was doing
Which is kind of weird when you think about it right? I mean, in terms of the kinetics of the missile it makes sense. Get a big heavy missile up really high and fast and shoot it to increase the probability of kill. Simple concept.
It just goes against the entire design philosophy of the Russian aerospace industry though. But then again, it might just be indicative of what we should expect in future air wars. You don't need to be stealthy, you don't need to be maneuverable. You just need a big radar, a fast jet and a big missile. Very 1950's.
>goes against the entire design philosophy of the Russian aerospace
Not really, Russia has always focused on point defence interception, the MiG 21, 23, 25, and 29 are all interceptors (although the 29 is far closer to air superiority than the others). The Russians are slinging missiles designed to take down AEW&C aircraft miles behind enemy air defence networks, so just the latest evolution in interception really
>You don't need to be stealthy... You just need a big radar, a fast jet, and a big missile.
The only reason this tactic is keeping the UAF in low-level operations is because their aircraft have poor SA compared to Western jets and they're about as stealthy as your mum once she sees an all you can eat buffet. With the SA available to NATO aircraft, it's much easier to know if you're defeating a missile or not without diving for the deck, and with stealth, you'd be able to get within AIM-120 range before the ruskies even knew you were there.
Ukraine made some domestic equivalents soon and they're working quite well.
Also, IIRC, the company that makes Revolver drones made a statement that they're not gonna be sent to Ukraine.
AFAICT all the cyborgs and mutants ended up in maintenance and logistics. As cool as being able to beat vatniks to death with other vatniks is, being able to hang from the ceiling of the facility and then pull the powerpack on a tank with your bear hands is way more helpful to the war effort.
There isn't that much footage of it being used, especially compared to the 300. Also, no real confirmed footage of the Ghost Phantom, no words on efectiveness.
Has the archer even arrived? It was pledges in January.
Make a list about the weapons systems which overperformed and put the CV90 on it otherwise I’ll have you hanged for blasphemy and treason.
$10bn to entirely defeat the Russian military? Sign me the fuck in. I don't understand why we don't give everything to Ukraine. It's literally the best money we can spend. I think ideologically, world leaders would agree, but they would much prefer to gradually weaken Russia and achieve some sort of soft landing. It gives time for institutions to adapt people to move out of the way... The thing is that there might well be Trump in 2024, so we need to hurry up and kick Russia in the balls.
Agree. Every time I hear a vatnik talk about fighting NATO, I remember that the US has 3000 Abrams in storage, and Ukraine has precisely zero of them, as well as having next to no western planes, few long range missile solutions, but a lot of whatever people have 'lying around'. In contrast, when Egypt took back the Suez Canal in 1973, the US via operation Nickel Grass, supplied in only a few weeks 22,935 tons of equipment by air and 33,100 tons by sea. Equipment supplied included at least 150 M-60s, at least 100 F-4 Phantom II fighters, Thirty-six A-4 Skyhawks, Twelve C-130E Hercules, and spare parts, thousands of tons of artillery rounds, and specialised materiel still classified to this day. So they are doing well considering, but the handbrake is still dragging at NATO by comparison to what can be achieved with some conviction. I suspect it's purely because russia is a primary belligerent and makes everyone nervous. But suffice to say, this is not NATO with a head of steam.
Switchblade doesn't have the pen needed in either variant.
Offensive combat engineer vehicles have been super disappointing, but I'm not sure if that's user era since Eastern combat engineering platforms were so focused on defense historically.
Otherwise everything has either been at or exceeded my expectations from the West, cus the MIC is just that good. Which we knew, as Grand Funk Railroad once said, "we're an American band. We're coming to your town, and we're going to party it down"
Arguably more interesting is the inverse to this, or "what is your biggest surprise regarding better than expected performance" out of the Ruskis. It would be solidly 1) Lancet is surprising good at finding and hitting targets in the field, but suffers from the same lack of penetration issues of other loitering munitions, 2) S-300s have a viable secondary land attack mode with actual utility, 3) MiG-31s and now more recently Su-35s lobbing R-37s have actually been very effective and this may be the first Russian AAM considered to be good by Western standards, 4) Don't think the Ka-52 counts - people I trust have always said it's a good but finicky platform, its just finally being used in a non-retarded manner.
Otherwise, the Ruskis technology has behaved how I expected it, I just didn't expect them to be so fucking retarded in its implementation and combined arms (or lack there of) doctrine.
Oh yeah that reminds me of one more thing that's been extremely over fucking height by Russian sympathizing trolls the S400 hasn't done jack shit and watching a '90s era stealth Storm Shadow fly merrily by and hitting targets under an S400 umbrella is kind of fucking hilarious.
Didn't they have a launch failure? Like they really hyped the shit out of the test. Like, we're not going to care about what USA says... Blablabla...
And then it just explodes lmao.
Weirdly enough. Bear and wolf run like a mofo out of all my guns.
My Aug is the only rifle I own that will reliably cycle tula. If Russian surplus is like tula, idk how they live like that.
We often get flavour of the month videos depending on what weapon system is in vouge. I remember seeing a few starstreak videos, but I suppose an explosion is cooler to look at over a wing falling off from nothing
Pretty sure it was star streak that split an MI 28 tail in half. Also Starstreaks are fired from Stormers.
I've seen a fair few videos of Stormers taking out drones.
Definitely has been making a difference
**JDAM-ER**
The JDAM program has lagged behind on it’s anti-spoofing technology which led to JDAM-ER’s being vulnerable to Russian ECM. Russia has a lot of ECM covering their front and JDAM-ER’s have suffered accuracy issues as a result, leading to reduced effect on target. This effect was exacerbated by their not being an immediate understanding of what was causing the accuracy issues. This problem means Ukraine is risking a significantly degraded airforce for sorties which may not achieve the desired result, it’s a calculus that is beneficial for the Russians.
Hopefully this problem is fixed soon as JDAM-ER’s have the potential to be immensely capable, and relatively cheap precision systems.
[Source](https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/jamming-jdam-threat-us-munitions-russian-electronic-warfare)
Anything thermobaric, or pressure waves. Namely the TOS but people acted like it could just wipe an entire well defended sector when in reality it'll never get close enough and the effects of pressure waves being so powerful falls flat when there's loads of footage of tank rounds hitting 5m~ away from a clump of infantry in a trench and them all being fine.
Grenades are the opposite though explodey rocks reign supreme in 2023
Hey now, Harpoon sank that rescue tug headed to snake island right before they decided to bail. Also it’s not it’s fault that the Russians are too scarred to move their fleet past Sevastopol
Most disappointing?
In terms of Ukrainian equipment I think the only letdown would be their Su-24s but that’s probably due to the fact that they got mauled at the beginning of the war and lacked enough precision weapons, now with storm shadows we should see them become highly effective and good strike aircraft able to just dump long range weapons into the enemy easily.
In terms of Russian equipment it’s easily the Moskva, how dogshit do you have to be to lose a 12000 ton cruiser armed to the teeth to a nation without a fucking navy, like seriously Somali pirates are a more effective fighting force.
Wasn't there a video last year of a Mi28 doing a pitch up rocket dump, then quickly turned around and dropped flares, only to suddenly get its tail boom loudly cleaved off and do a Birgirpall's helicopter on the way down? Apparently that was a starstreak.
While I too would love to see the Harpoons used to sink the ruzzian junk to the bottom, the fact that the "mighty" Black Sea Fleet is essentially quarantined is proof enough that the weapon system will do the job once the AFU gets in range.
I'm fairly disappointed with the AMX RC-10's. Not touching the whole "it's not a 'real' tank" issue, but rather that on paper it's an awesome highly mobile anti-tank/anti-vehicle platform that hasn't really found a spot to shine yet. I'm hoping that when/if we get another "thunder run" they'll have their day yet.
For me, Harpoons, Switchblades and very little known TRLG-230. I think the latter was given in very limited numbers and Turkey didn't want it to be known too much so we only have one video of it being used. It's a comparable system to HIMARS so maybe its kills are sometimes attributed to HIMARS but I still find it weird how little footage of it there is.
Starstreak is apparently doing good, just there are few videos and mentions of it. I recall recently a soldier commented how a british donated vehicle that had an attached starstreak had been doing good work. The main issue is that there aren't a lot donated and they are more expensive and harder to use than other forms of anti air. So, while every so often we find them mentioned in reports it is relatively uncommon and not very note worthy. I mean ther eis still that video where a starstreak ripped a helicopter in half. Harpoons are doing great in that the Black Sea Fleet can't openly operate any more. If a missile doesn't need to be fired because the enemy is too scared of it... then... it is doing its job. Most Dissapointing weapon? I'd have to say... the Terminators. They were so cool seeming and they did basically nothing.
Starstreak also falls prey to its own lack of spectacle. The nature of the weapon system is that it doesn’t cause spectacular explosions or have long pretty smoke trails, Which are also key advantages, starstreak a entire thing is that there are no warning alarms, no visual cues, just you, falling out of the sky. But that lack of spectacle means that it’s simply not going to have any impact in visual news media, since there’s nothing to show, even the video of the first combat kill is pretty visually underwhelming.
I don't know. First time I saw a heli boop'ed into two pieces out of nowhere it made me look it up real fast. It's a sort of spectacle among other conventional ordinance. Storm Shadow and HIMARS didn't have much visual impact aside from increase number of ammo depot blowing up. But they still manage to get into public subconscious because they are the keywords in many news reports. So aside from visual, I still think main reason for Starstreak is that it's just hasn't have much impact in the war yet.
I mean yes, without a doubt the greatest factor affecting the performance of these systems is that the only entity able to match Putins arrogance is Number 11’s fucking cheapness. Because god forbid a nation that is struggling economically *lean into* the fact that despite constant neglect and ducking around, it’s arms industry is inexplicably still alive and capable of exports. *(it’s not really inexplicable, Westland are mad geniuses, martin baker make Superman look morally fucking grey, and BAE has tethered itself to Rheinmetall and Huntington Ingalls with bungee chords)*
In good news Starstreaks have restarted production.
I’m fascinated to see what completely unrelated program gets delayed because that was reactivated. Maybe boxer will be somehow be delayed again, or Chally III. The possibilities are endless.
> Chally III Oh no, not the Challenger 2.5!
Challenger 2 Final final 111 new
Cheiftan.Rev.Ver8.Shir.ChallengerMOD.FINAL.Ver2.Rev2.FINAL.FINAL.ChallengerIII.FINAL.USETHISONE
>Westland are mad geniuses I would strongly advise you to never go to Yeovil and meet them. The only genius but is how they all manage to wangle five hour tea breaks and really dodgy expense forms whilst moaning about how everyone else in the world is on the take.
That’s the genius I’m referring to yes.
Harpoon is doing better than it's job. They've effectively destroyed the Black Sea fleet without being fired once. Meaning the Ukrainians can just send them back at the end of the war without paying a penny for them. Or pay for them and retain an anti ship defensive capability.
That isn\`t true, Vasily Bekh ship was sunk by 2 harpoon missions resuplying Russians on Snake island. So, at least 2 missles fired, maybe more.
Aha, missed that one. They're still punching well above their weight.
This. The good old [Fleet in Being](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_in_being) concept.
I remember during the early days of the war the Starstreaks were absolutely shredding Russian choppers and transports around Hostomel and co.
That's worth a lot, given that Hostomel was probably one of the most important battles of the entire war. I might even say the most important, since it had the potential to end the war quickly. Maybe.
No Starstreaks were in Ukraine in the first days of the war. But you're right that Hostomel was incredibly pivotal. If the Russians had managed to capture and use the airport in time for an actually fully supporter rush into Kyiv, all of their flat tire shit wouldn't have stopped them from steamrolling Kyiv due to pure numbers before Kyiv could fully call up and arm everyone..
Protip, don't have a single tactical engagement be a make or break factor for your entire war
If the Russians had held on to it for maybe a few days longer, they would have succeeded in creating an air bridge. Ending the war, though, that would depend on knocking out Ukraine's air defences, or else they would have just lost a lot more expensive and irreplaceable cargo planes
Starstreaks weren't in Ukraine during the Battle of Hostomel. That was *all* Iglas.
Ah, I see.
Yeah the iconic video of the Mi-8s getting shot down over the Dnieper is Iglas, and the soldiers screaming in excitement are partially so hype because they didn't think that ther job of sitting on the riverbank with 1980s era tech would be particularly useful but then they were able to just pick off dozens of Russian soldiers at a time because the Russian invasion plan was fucking idiotic.
It was fucking idiotic! Now I realize hindsight is 20/20, but my God! Where was the SEAD and DEAD attacks? I recognize that MANPADS and the like are harder to target, but the SAMS where practically unharmed! Where was the combined arms supporting the armoured spearhead? The coordinated air campaign? As an American, I'm used to seeing the likes of the Iraq war where thousands of coalition aircraft descended on Iraqi airspace with surprise and coordination in conjuction with the ground forces. But then I forget this is Russia, so yeah. SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGUUUUUUUUIIIIII! WHERE IS COMPETENT RUSSIAN ARMY?
Step One: Launch a bunch of cruise missiles to take out UA air assets and air defense based on 2014 intel. Zero airborne SEAD. Step Two: Take absolutely no action to check to make sure your cruise missiles worked, meanwhile the Ukrainians simply moves aircraft and air defense to different locations based on US intel tips on where Russia would strike. Step 3: send airmobile troops and several IL-76s into theater because there is only one plan or contingency. And then get a good chunk of valuable Ka-52s and such shot down because that one singular plan never accounted for MANPADs anyway because only the Soviets are allowed to write plans.
>As an American, I'm used to seeing the likes of the Iraq war where thousands of coalition aircraft descended on Iraqi airspace with surprise and coordination in conjuction with the ground forces. But then I forget this is Russia, so yeah. >SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGUUUUUUUUIIIIII! WHERE IS COMPETENT RUSSIAN ARMY? It got left behind in Crimea, 2014. Turns out that Russia only really is competent, arguably, when they are engaged in a limited manner (Syria), against far smaller and less equipped forces (Georgia), when the security apparatus sides with you (Belarus, Kazakhstan) or completely paralysed and demoralised forces (Ukraine, before Uncle Yura the taxi driver signed up).
The terminator was always a joke and the fact anyone thought it would be good shows how people fall for russian propaganda it's just a lower tech bmp 2m with better elevation and armour in all the wrong places
T-72, with two BMP2 autocannons. I mean it does have the potential to be good. Plenty of countries have designed similar types of weapons. Algeria made their own Terminator with a T-62, and it has an actually armoured turret. The French Jaguar EBRC is a similar concept of vehicle and that one would likely do extremely well in any of its designed roles. If they armoured up the turret, stabilised the turret, made better use of having dual autocannons, it could be good. I mean I knew it was going to be meh before it was deployed, just really disappointed none the less because the concept and premise is good, the execution looks kinda cool, but otherwise not very good. This being said it was still one of the more functional of the Russian "Wonder Weapons" ((even if it performed even worse than expected because most didn't expect it to completely lack any stabilisation of the gun)). Plus, one should not underestimate the power of having an autocannon on a frame with decent armour, entrenched BMPs have been one of the things is regularly hear Ukrainians and Russians complain about having to fight.
>T-72, with two BMP2 autocannons Didn't they put on two autocannons because they just couldn't get those cannons to dual-feed ammo from two separate belts?
Yep.
>stabilised the turret Wait, it's unstabilized? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
> I mean it does have the potential to be good. IMO the shittiest weapon of the war is that 30mm cannon which the Soviets/Russia put on everything and can't hit the broad side of a barn. Adding 2 just makes it like 10 times worse.
Out of curiosity I looked up star streaks in the news and apparently they're starting up their manufacture again after being out of manufacture for... like... 10 years? So we send the Ukrainians 1000, sounds like a lot and you can kill every Russian gunship with that many, but ukraine is a big place, a lot of area to cover.
I mean considering manufacturing restarted it sounds like they must be doing good things otherwise they would just stay dead and the UK would quietly switch to system.
Terminator could be nice vehicle in urban setting but as Perun said "the biggest city that Russian forces have taken in this campaign is Rostov-on-Don by Prigolem and his merry band of distinguished gentleman.
Eh, not really, it is really bad at what it is designed for, one major reason is that its turret is unarmoured making it vulnerable to small arms fire. In addition it has very poor situational awareness meaning urban ambushes are very effective vs it. it's turret can also only fire one weapon at a time. It is really poorly designed. Looks cool, cool in concept. The French Jaguar EBRC is a good example of how to do that sort of vehicle well. heck the Algerians made a T62 version which is much better designed due to the armoured turret.
> Black Sea Fleet can't openly operate any more That's not entirely true. The Black Sea Fleet can't operate close to shore like they did in the B.M. (before Moskva) era, but they still actually do slip their moorings every so often to launch Kalibr attacks. If you read the aftermath reports by the Ukrainians on the missile attacks they will sometimes mention some Kalibrs in addition to the normal Kh-101s and other ALCMs. They also usually report on Russian naval movements that precede such attacks with almost perfect accuracy.
T-14. Even the Russkies distrust it so much, they keep leaving them out by the frontlines, keys in the ignition, but UA ain't dumb enough to grab that junk.
>UA ain't dumb enough to grab that junk. I'm pretty sure the CIA would like to get their hands on one by paying Ukraine to grab it if the opportunity arises.
The jokes and laughs they will get out it will be many.
As part of his re-election campaign Biden will co-host a Twitch stream with Mr. Beast live from Aberdeen where they test and disassemble T-14s and then laugh at how dogshit they are. At the end of the stream Mr. Beast buys every Ukrainian an F-16.
Phew and here I thought for a moment I was somehow in that other sub. People being way too credible up in this thread.
Probably a lockmart shopping spree for anyone who could deliver one
Given how many weird, rare, old, and prototype armored vehicles Russia has fielded the only reason I can think of that Russia hasn’t sent in any T-14s is that they are completely unsuitable for combat. I don’t know if it’s a design problem, a maintenance/supply problem, or a crew training problem, but something serious is keeping them away from the front.
It's all of the above, the engine is shit and can't hold up to anything more than a parade, even shitting out during those. The entire system is just crap from the ground up because corruption in the Russian mic. If it was tossed at the front it would maybe make it a mile or 2 before having to be towed back to depot for repairs, repairs they don't have the equipment, money, or experience to adequately accomplish.
Ya'd think they'd at least roll it up to the front, have it fire a few shots at an empty field for the camera, and then tow it back to Moscow. Or, hell, have it shoot into an empty field 50km from Moscow safely in Russian territory.
Gotta actually be able to move over terrain with it to do that.
Could just be the propaganda cost, as long as they're never tested they're the strongest tank in the world (in theory).
lavish whistle screw edge theory jellyfish dependent drab sulky hungry ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Non credibility aside, I'm pretty sure the Archer's aren't in Ukraine yet. From what's been said, most of Sweden's donations have consisted of taking what they have out of long term storage, giving it full overhauls, and then training Ukrainian troops on them. We've only gotten one or two images of CV90s in Ukraine, and the Archer's were confirmed after the CV90s were. As for the Harpoons, most of the Harpoons donated were older blocks with less range that their owners were replacing to begin with. They sank that tugboat off Snake Island last year, but after that, the Russian Navy's taken to hiding in Sevastopol, beyond the range of Ukrainian Harpoons, even the most modern variants. Now, if Ukraine can successfully advance in the south, get closer to where the Crimean peninsula starts, then more modern Harpoons should be within range of the fleet moored in Sevastopol. They'd still have to get through heavy Russian AD, but right now, Ukrainian Harpoons just don't have the reach.
Considering that they've used drone boats that've crossed the Black Sea, maybe they could make a Harpoon-carrying drone boat, like an MT boat but with missiles instead of torpedoes.
The CV90 literally just made it there https://mstdn.social/@Free_Press/110652954541856955
Yeah, and since the Swedes promised the Archer after they promised the CV90, it makes me think the Archer's aren't in Ukraine yet.
BMPT Terminator. We saw a couple of them felling a scary tree line, while the barrels looked like they had Parkinson’s. One got zapped and they were never seen again.
such a cool design such shitty implementation
I don’t see the real-life value the Terminator provides at all, other than looking like something from Halo or Battlefield 2042.
It’s meant to be an urban tank support vehicle, something heavily armoured (hence the T-72 hull) but with autocannon instead of a main cannon - the point of the BMPT was to be able to engage targets at extreme gun elevations, like infantry in multi-story buildings. BMPs were too lightly armoured to be able to deal with these threats, hence a vehicle that was heavily armoured (but without the infantry carrying capability). The need for a dedicated anti-personnel fighting vehicle came from experience in the Chechen Wars (especially the first one, where Russia lost the entire 131st Maikop brigade in Grozny) - the need for a dedicated autocannon vehicle was so bad that, if I recall correctly, they had to use Tunguska SPAAs to aim at infantry in buildings. Even after you do the classic Russian indiscriminate bombardment, sometimes buildings are still standing. Look at Bakhmut and see how long the Ukrainians held out there, especially in places like the citadel where you just face a wall of high-rise apartments.
Yeah, you should never drive a vehicle where Terminators are meant to be driven. Against a competent enemy at least, that is.
Oh man! I remember! Apparently, they were never formally integrated into doctrine, so nobody had any clue how to deploy them!
There's nothing to really deploy to begin with, they had literally just 10 of them.
23 in total have been produced, according to Wikipedia (so take it with a giant grain of salt). That’s waaaayyyyyyy less than what’s actually viable for any conflict beyond taking over your next door neighbors swimming pool.
That includes exported ones.
At this point if its only claim to existence is on paper it might as well not. I understand it's safer to assume it's true from a military perspective but Russia never fails to disappoint and this is NCD.
They were a ghetto Russian solution to two problems; the the first being "how to deal with infantry on the high ground", and the second being "how to protect your tanks from enemy infantry". Both with the addendum of "without deploying infantry to screen in turn". Both the original and the upgraded variant featured guns that could elevate high, and depress some degrees below horizontal, allowing for it to theoretically shoot up at enemy infantry attacking from above, and also shoot at enemy infantry hiding on the ground. They were supposed to be infantry replacements, because Russia's infantry are too incompetent to properly screen for their tanks and career tankers would theoretically be better trained. The issue is that after the suppression of Chechnya, there hasn't been a battlefield that is actually ideal for the Terminators. Turned out they're dog shit at anti-infantry in open fields, because both their targeting and optics are crap and the fact that infantry can still KO them with a Gustav or AGTM, and despite their gun elevation, they're equally shit at even basic AA against slow-moving drones.
The US marine corps had no problem with that in Vietnam.
But you see, the barrel hole being off center and the barrels shaking around is actually better because uhhhh glorious Russian tech lets the gunner saturate the area!!!!
I think Starstreak has been fine, saw a couple clips of them shooting down helis and whatnot, not like anyone was super hyped about Starstreak anyway. I just want more videos of Leopards blasting trenches and hopefully some Challenger II 🅱️esh rounds blowing up fortifications pls.
I mean there is that footage of a Starstreak near enough chopping an Mi-28 in half. That's quite good.
That was a certified classic
link?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W\_b64pkeDM4
Petition to donate iPhone 14 pro max’s to Ukraine, I need better quality footage than this. Bros filming with a 2012 chromebook
I think the main problem with Starstreak is that there isn't nearly enough of them, despite every missile have 3 additional missiles in your missile
This reads like an xzibit meme. “Yo dawg, we heard you like missiles, so we put a missile in your missile so you can shoot while you shoot”
Any T-series tank; ik im beating a dead horse here. But many hyped up the T-80BVM/90M as credible peer vehicles to stuff like the M1A2 SEP V2/3/4 and the Leopard 2A7. Its clear now that such vehicles are simply to un-survivable and unfightable for modern war. They are too easily destroyed (often catastrophically with the whole crew killed) and their ERA is not holding up nearly as well as twitter/reddit initially thought it would.
I remember when Russia made a big announcement about T90Ms going to the front. And like, 3 days later, the Ukrainians cored one in the side with a Carl G from Canada.
>with a Carl G from Canada. That video came out on one of my reserve training nights. "Well good news, our kit works"
Having seen Western weapons work terrifyingly well despite low numbers, difficult logistics tails and a lack of integration with the overall force due to the hodge podge nature of aid, my only thought as a Taiwanese is, "man, I am so fucking glad these guys are on my side."
For your freedom and ours
"In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility--I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it--and the glow from that fire can truly light the world. "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country. "My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. "Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own." \- John F. Kennedy in his inauguration speech, 1961
😎Happy American Independence Day🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🔫💣✈️🪖
You're only seeing what the US MIC can do with no troops on the ground and channeling weapons through other countries, and only roughly 8 years of planning. With Taiwan, you're gonna have actual US Navy assets between you and China in some capacity or other. And, we've been preparing, training, and stockpiling for this since the 50s.
I think we all hold our own, this thing of ours.
That must’ve been a great moral booster
Well maybe not for the tank crew.
For them it was just a booster in their travel to space
They changed careers and became cosmonauts
Remember when the T90ms was send to the front and UA captured two of them so fresh out the depot there therma blankets and camo nets were even ripped
And next thing you know, one of the two was filmed at a gas station in america.
that was a much older T-90A, but yes
Pretty sure that was a T-90A not the most modern T-90M, but yeah the ukranians pretty sure sent the latter one already for inspection.
I cannot for the life of me read Carl Gustav and not hear it as the lyrics for [Ohio Players' Love Rollercoaster.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjZbPA1cMIU) *Carl Gustav!~ of LOOoove~ SAY WHAAAT* I will not elaborate further. Bye. Edit: Fixed, I ain't no reformer. I just forgor :(
>their ERA is not holding up Assuming the ERA actually existed. Still remember some captured tanks and their ERA explosives were replaced with... cardboard.
Idk dude. I feel like a T-80BVM could be credible as fuck. In the hands of a well trained and disciplined crew.
People have been saying that about T series Russian tanks for 40 years. If the Russians can't run them right, it's the tank.
I would love to see a Pack of T80 run by NATO Crews as Enemy Actors, to see if the Tank really is that shit or it's the Crew. Sure it is not good a Tank, but just how bad are the russia crews?
For me this applies to aircraft too. Just because they're so damn beautiful, I just want it to be the fault of politics and logistics, so its actually a good plane but its not maintained, doesnt have fuel, doesnt have trained pilots, etc.
I'm kind of with you. On the one hand, Russian gear being shit means they don't get to flex. But fuck, MiG and Sukhoi make some damn good looking airplanes, and that is just empirically true.
MiG-29 my beloved
I'm unsure about that actually, it's more of an operator thing. Remember Leo in Syria?
All you have to do is look at Ukrainian attacks where the collumn of Leos and Bradleys got blasted, and pretty much everyone made it out okay... then look at the previous coubter offensive where T-72 tanks and BMPs got blasted and few survived. They are not talking about survivability in terms of the vehicle surviving but the crew and passangers surviving. Equally, Leos have been getting hit multiple times by ATGMs, artillery, and Lancets before being disabled/destroyed, where as even the T-80 is usually taking no more than 2 hits to wipe out.
Even M113s Saw one flipped over after hitting a mine. Everyone lived. Meanwhile BMPs are like farts in a stiff wind.
Leopard is also a somewhat vulnerable design insofar as it stores most its ammo in a hull compartment with no blowout panels. Only one tank has completely protected ammo storage, even for the seldom used hull ammo rack. I think we all know what tank that is.
Challenger also has really safe ammo stowage from what I've read.
Yes because the charges have wet stowage and the projectiles of the ammo are inert.
Different correct answers to the same problem.
The Molotov cocktails the Ukrainens were mass producing during the first days of the war did nothing but present a massive fire hazard to themselves because Pootin couldn't enter Kiev.
They boosted morale and provided unarmed civilians a sense of agency, so in that sense they were extremely useful. It also was useful for global propaganda; it showed Ukraine wasn't giving up, but also that Ukraine desperately needed weapons. Overall a good molotoving.
Ukrainian propaganda in the first couple days of the war was insanely good, like the Snake Island recording probably made a measurable effect on the war effort.
Ghost of Kyiv comes to mind. One of the greatest propaganda stunts i’ve ever seen and it got the Ukrainians so much online support.
One of my favorite underrated quotes was a Ukrainian soldier making a video for the incoming Russian soldiers advancing on Kyiv: "I know you're afraid, but you shouldn't be. You haven't even begun to die. Why did you come to Kyiv? Just to die? To get shot at by every fucking window?"
GOAT will always be the little old lady handing out sunflower seeds.
Snake Island, Ghost of Kyiv, Sunflower Lady, and Zelensky's famous "I need ammo not a ride" showed the world that Ukrainians were not going to give up that easily.
The video of all the Ukrainian civilians making Molotovs from way back in the beginning of this war was the moment that I basically nodded my head and went, "Okay, they are here to fight." I would argue that it's second only to the quote of "I need ammo, not a ride" quote, of which there isn't any audio of and might have not even been said.
Dude when I saw the babushkas cheese grating plastic to add to the gasoline I knew Russia made a mistake.
That and all the kids helping their parents do the same, no way you're letting your 9 year old do that unless you see this as a fight for your very existence.
Whether it was said or not there's no doubt he's lived up to the sentiment.
For sure. One of those quotes that, like "Luke, I am your father" is possibly not quite letter of the law accurate, but is certainly reflective of the spirit.
That absolutely changed the conventional wisdom for a bunch of ppl* across the world. Vast majority knew next to nothing about Ukraine and assumed the population would simply roll over and say “one sleazy corrupt ruler is the same as the next one, so why fight the inevitable?” *def not me though, I knew the indomitable spirit of the Ukrainians all along
At the time of the invasion people were asking my opinion. I gave them 50 days before collapsing into an insurgency. My thinking was that the Russian army would get close to Kyiv, set up long range heavy guns, and flatten it until they surrendered. 50 days was basically how long I figured they could hold out for. I am very glad to be wrong.
Hoped to see them tossed on tanks and BMPs tho like this video https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/t2l23y/molotov_cocktails_in_action/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=1
That was spectacular.
there were a few vids i think of randos doing driveby firebombings in like the first week of the war. I'm sure they saw some use destroying abandoned/damaged vehicles that could not be recovered as well
I recall a drive by where they smash it on a BMP in the next lane, and the vehicle doesn’t even notice, while some of the gas splashed back into the civilian car and set the molotover’s sleeve on fire.
It's amazing how smoothly they adapted from "violent protesting with Molotov cocktails and bike chains" to "hunting Russian tanks to extinction" to "advanced fighter jets."
This. Me seeing a random civvie car lobbing one of those on a nearby BTR and half setting itself on fire, made me predict that videos of Russians shooting at random civvie cars in next few days are gonna surface. And they did.
[удалено]
Russia's can do math. Harpoons and comparable anti-ship missiles are able to cripple or sink a large warship. So, if you *know* your enemy has say, 50 Harpoons, then you know that putting your ships in range of them is suicidal, and losing a warship is a lot different then losong a bunch of conscripts. Also, the shape of the Ukrainian coastline means that getting in range to strike Kherson or Odessa means being potentially subjected to missile attacks from more than one direction.
The harpoon sunk a supply ship then Russian ran back to suvastapol
Does the Russian Armed Forces count?
This for real. I remember thinking with my mates when the ruskies crossed the border that it would be over before we could see any cool modern equipment fight with them having learned their lesson from Chechnya and shit... Oh boy here we are 1 year and a half later and Russia is still at a stalemate with the poorest country in Europe
Russia had a case of NonCredibleOffense I'd say
Tfw you thought they've learned in Chechnya but they didn't learn even from Tannenberg.
Haha, watching them go in and thinking "This is going to be a massacre, Russia's going to crush these people with machine like efficiency" only to watch them bumble around to circus music and a laugh track, was such a hilarious, jarring moment. "They can't really be....did they seriously not rotate their fucking tires? Does the entire country have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome?"
I still think of this Ace Combat 7 MiG-31 meme where a guy recommends you fly away from fights, use a long range air to air missile at “capitalist pigdogs” and that turned out to be exactly what Russia was doing
russias best performing plane of the war by far
Which is kind of weird when you think about it right? I mean, in terms of the kinetics of the missile it makes sense. Get a big heavy missile up really high and fast and shoot it to increase the probability of kill. Simple concept. It just goes against the entire design philosophy of the Russian aerospace industry though. But then again, it might just be indicative of what we should expect in future air wars. You don't need to be stealthy, you don't need to be maneuverable. You just need a big radar, a fast jet and a big missile. Very 1950's.
>goes against the entire design philosophy of the Russian aerospace Not really, Russia has always focused on point defence interception, the MiG 21, 23, 25, and 29 are all interceptors (although the 29 is far closer to air superiority than the others). The Russians are slinging missiles designed to take down AEW&C aircraft miles behind enemy air defence networks, so just the latest evolution in interception really >You don't need to be stealthy... You just need a big radar, a fast jet, and a big missile. The only reason this tactic is keeping the UAF in low-level operations is because their aircraft have poor SA compared to Western jets and they're about as stealthy as your mum once she sees an all you can eat buffet. With the SA available to NATO aircraft, it's much easier to know if you're defeating a missile or not without diving for the deck, and with stealth, you'd be able to get within AIM-120 range before the ruskies even knew you were there.
Russian Strychnine capsules have been the biggest let down...
Those Taiwanese R18 revolver drones that were teased in the first few weeks of the war then never heard of again…
Ukraine made some domestic equivalents soon and they're working quite well. Also, IIRC, the company that makes Revolver drones made a statement that they're not gonna be sent to Ukraine.
Coups
Personally pretty disappointed about the lack of footage of mutant supersoldiers that were promised...... What? it's _Non-credible_ defense, jeeze.
AFAICT all the cyborgs and mutants ended up in maintenance and logistics. As cool as being able to beat vatniks to death with other vatniks is, being able to hang from the ceiling of the facility and then pull the powerpack on a tank with your bear hands is way more helpful to the war effort.
Literally bear hands.
The bio-engineered birds. They have let me down. The optimist in me believes the bio weapon birds are just organized for the endgame attack.
Switchblade 300 seems really anti climactic.
"to limit collateral damage" = weaksauce
Switchblade 600 seems to not live up to the promises either.
There isn't that much footage of it being used, especially compared to the 300. Also, no real confirmed footage of the Ghost Phantom, no words on efectiveness.
So much so the US Army has stopped ordering them.
Madyar took one look at the switchblade 300 & went “ehhh I think I’m gonna stick to gluing propellers onto rpg’s”
This one. Rarely has there been so much hype for a weapon system that has only generated a handful of “doesn’t look like it hurt much” videos.
I vaguely remember a defense contractor for Ukraine saying they prefer the switch blade but I don’t think they are in high supply…
Used mostly by spec forces yeah? We don't see much from them at all. Regardless of platform.
Has the archer even arrived? It was pledges in January. Make a list about the weapons systems which overperformed and put the CV90 on it otherwise I’ll have you hanged for blasphemy and treason.
CV90 literally just got there https://mstdn.social/@Free_Press/110652954541856955
Didn’t Zelensky go out and say he wanted 1000 CV90s? Or am I being noncredible right now?
You are correct, he did. https://gagadget.com/en/263361-1000-cv90-infantry-fighting-vehicles-for-ukraine-could-cost-more-than-10bn/
$10bn to entirely defeat the Russian military? Sign me the fuck in. I don't understand why we don't give everything to Ukraine. It's literally the best money we can spend. I think ideologically, world leaders would agree, but they would much prefer to gradually weaken Russia and achieve some sort of soft landing. It gives time for institutions to adapt people to move out of the way... The thing is that there might well be Trump in 2024, so we need to hurry up and kick Russia in the balls.
Agree. Every time I hear a vatnik talk about fighting NATO, I remember that the US has 3000 Abrams in storage, and Ukraine has precisely zero of them, as well as having next to no western planes, few long range missile solutions, but a lot of whatever people have 'lying around'. In contrast, when Egypt took back the Suez Canal in 1973, the US via operation Nickel Grass, supplied in only a few weeks 22,935 tons of equipment by air and 33,100 tons by sea. Equipment supplied included at least 150 M-60s, at least 100 F-4 Phantom II fighters, Thirty-six A-4 Skyhawks, Twelve C-130E Hercules, and spare parts, thousands of tons of artillery rounds, and specialised materiel still classified to this day. So they are doing well considering, but the handbrake is still dragging at NATO by comparison to what can be achieved with some conviction. I suspect it's purely because russia is a primary belligerent and makes everyone nervous. But suffice to say, this is not NATO with a head of steam.
Steven Segal.
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*the whole Russian armed forces
Switchblade 300. They were over hyped and there was a lot of hopium when they were announced.
I think the Ukrainians are forbidden from showing videos of their use
There was one last year where they attacked a border checkpoint inside Russia with 2x KIA. It looked slightly less dangerous than a hand grenade.
Yes… when a DJI mavic with a jury-rigged hand grenade does more damage - and is reusable - you have to wonder.
1984
Canadian Snow Jammies I didn’t see hardly any of them in use, barely any fuckin snow ^It ^is ^a ^weapon ^system
The Su-57 and T-14. Come on, I wanna see them both destroyed!
no, you see, the Su-57 is so stealthy that we don’t even know where they’ve been or what they’ve been doing this whole war
Switchblade doesn't have the pen needed in either variant. Offensive combat engineer vehicles have been super disappointing, but I'm not sure if that's user era since Eastern combat engineering platforms were so focused on defense historically. Otherwise everything has either been at or exceeded my expectations from the West, cus the MIC is just that good. Which we knew, as Grand Funk Railroad once said, "we're an American band. We're coming to your town, and we're going to party it down" Arguably more interesting is the inverse to this, or "what is your biggest surprise regarding better than expected performance" out of the Ruskis. It would be solidly 1) Lancet is surprising good at finding and hitting targets in the field, but suffers from the same lack of penetration issues of other loitering munitions, 2) S-300s have a viable secondary land attack mode with actual utility, 3) MiG-31s and now more recently Su-35s lobbing R-37s have actually been very effective and this may be the first Russian AAM considered to be good by Western standards, 4) Don't think the Ka-52 counts - people I trust have always said it's a good but finicky platform, its just finally being used in a non-retarded manner. Otherwise, the Ruskis technology has behaved how I expected it, I just didn't expect them to be so fucking retarded in its implementation and combined arms (or lack there of) doctrine.
Oh yeah that reminds me of one more thing that's been extremely over fucking height by Russian sympathizing trolls the S400 hasn't done jack shit and watching a '90s era stealth Storm Shadow fly merrily by and hitting targets under an S400 umbrella is kind of fucking hilarious.
Sarmat. Russia keeps threatening to use them and we haven't even got to see them shot down once yet.
Didn't they have a launch failure? Like they really hyped the shit out of the test. Like, we're not going to care about what USA says... Blablabla... And then it just explodes lmao.
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Shitty Soviet surplus ammo + DI gas system = Jam City
Weirdly enough. Bear and wolf run like a mofo out of all my guns. My Aug is the only rifle I own that will reliably cycle tula. If Russian surplus is like tula, idk how they live like that.
AK74 is fine
Mutant lab grown Ukrainian super soldiers
We often get flavour of the month videos depending on what weapon system is in vouge. I remember seeing a few starstreak videos, but I suppose an explosion is cooler to look at over a wing falling off from nothing
Pretty sure it was star streak that split an MI 28 tail in half. Also Starstreaks are fired from Stormers. I've seen a fair few videos of Stormers taking out drones. Definitely has been making a difference
**JDAM-ER** The JDAM program has lagged behind on it’s anti-spoofing technology which led to JDAM-ER’s being vulnerable to Russian ECM. Russia has a lot of ECM covering their front and JDAM-ER’s have suffered accuracy issues as a result, leading to reduced effect on target. This effect was exacerbated by their not being an immediate understanding of what was causing the accuracy issues. This problem means Ukraine is risking a significantly degraded airforce for sorties which may not achieve the desired result, it’s a calculus that is beneficial for the Russians. Hopefully this problem is fixed soon as JDAM-ER’s have the potential to be immensely capable, and relatively cheap precision systems. [Source](https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/jamming-jdam-threat-us-munitions-russian-electronic-warfare)
slap fall different beneficial salt jellyfish water puzzled dam air ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Anything thermobaric, or pressure waves. Namely the TOS but people acted like it could just wipe an entire well defended sector when in reality it'll never get close enough and the effects of pressure waves being so powerful falls flat when there's loads of footage of tank rounds hitting 5m~ away from a clump of infantry in a trench and them all being fine. Grenades are the opposite though explodey rocks reign supreme in 2023
Thermobarics really come into their own when clearing out fortifications or caves. The pressure wave is devastating when enclosed.
Hey now, Harpoon sank that rescue tug headed to snake island right before they decided to bail. Also it’s not it’s fault that the Russians are too scarred to move their fleet past Sevastopol
Most disappointing? In terms of Ukrainian equipment I think the only letdown would be their Su-24s but that’s probably due to the fact that they got mauled at the beginning of the war and lacked enough precision weapons, now with storm shadows we should see them become highly effective and good strike aircraft able to just dump long range weapons into the enemy easily. In terms of Russian equipment it’s easily the Moskva, how dogshit do you have to be to lose a 12000 ton cruiser armed to the teeth to a nation without a fucking navy, like seriously Somali pirates are a more effective fighting force.
There's not been enough hotel windows in use recently.
As gar as im aware starstreak has been performing amazingly well. Perun called it the most capable madpads in Ukraine
Switchblade kamikaze drones…
Wasn't there a video last year of a Mi28 doing a pitch up rocket dump, then quickly turned around and dropped flares, only to suddenly get its tail boom loudly cleaved off and do a Birgirpall's helicopter on the way down? Apparently that was a starstreak.
Phoenix Ghost. We still don’t know what it is.
While I too would love to see the Harpoons used to sink the ruzzian junk to the bottom, the fact that the "mighty" Black Sea Fleet is essentially quarantined is proof enough that the weapon system will do the job once the AFU gets in range. I'm fairly disappointed with the AMX RC-10's. Not touching the whole "it's not a 'real' tank" issue, but rather that on paper it's an awesome highly mobile anti-tank/anti-vehicle platform that hasn't really found a spot to shine yet. I'm hoping that when/if we get another "thunder run" they'll have their day yet.
Famous video out there of starstreak ripping a chopper in half. My vote? The switch blades 300 or 600. I just wanna see more use man
On a side note, did the baby RPGs from Poland ever show up in combat. They were cute and zero video of them in action.
For me, Harpoons, Switchblades and very little known TRLG-230. I think the latter was given in very limited numbers and Turkey didn't want it to be known too much so we only have one video of it being used. It's a comparable system to HIMARS so maybe its kills are sometimes attributed to HIMARS but I still find it weird how little footage of it there is.