If I was in charge (thank god I’m not), all announcements would be significantly after delivery.
Apparently Wagner is now firing on Russian troops in Bakhmut, according to Prigozhin, to stop them from retreating. Putin is fighting a two-front war.
Better than “well”. Worth noting that the Russian missile in question was a scarce hypersonic type that the Russians don’t have many of and that is hard to intercept. The Patriot system and the Ukrainian operators performed admirably! Meanwhile, somewhere in Russia, some military commander might be falling out a window soon.
On a slight hijack, where do most of you get your war news? I generally look at BBC. or Alajazzera.
The Kyiv Independent has reported (without evidence) that target of the hypersonic missile was the Patriot system itself.
The CNN article quotes two US military officials, including the Pentagon press secretary, as saying the same thing. The Patriot system emits radar signals that make its location susceptible to detection. The same article also quotes Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that the Patriot systems would “definitely” be targets. There is physical evidence that the downed missile was a scarce Kinzhal hypersonic type, which would only be used against high-value targets.
It seems a good bet that what the Kyiv Independent reported is accurate.
I wonder if the “hypersonic” missile really is that. We’ve seen the incredible grift within the Russian military – maybe that even extends to the weapons developers. If it’s really just a slightly faster missile, but they tell Putin it’s hypersonic, who is going to dispute it?
What I wonder is, would it be easier to shoot a missile down when sitting on its target?
Do you mean due to the technical capabilities of the weapon system itself, or due to the psychological effect on the operators?
Technically, it’s probably easier, because something heading straight towards you won’t have much change in its angular position. In principle, you could take a zigzagging path to the target, but maneuverability is pretty limited at hypersonic speed.
You do know that we track them and have shot them down, right? That means we know how fast they actually go. If they didn’t go as fast as Russia claimed we’d be all about laughing at them
Maybe. Or maybe we don’t want the Russians to know that we know.
Further, maybe it’s hypersonic under test conditions, but not on the battlefield.
My point is that Russian tech has been demonstrated to be quite a lot less effective than advertised.
New German aid package to be announced tomorrow - some elements here:
4 more IRIS-T SLM, Anti-air systems
20 more Marder IFVs
30 more Leo1, first generation Leopard tanks, not much armor but still competent on the battlefield.
18 RCH 155 Haubitze, remote controlled 155mm self propelled howitzer. Rapid fire.
More Gepard AA , anti-air 30mm cannons, radar controlled, great performance so far.
100 armored vehicles APCs
100 support vehicles
Surveillance drones
A lot of shells
I ment technically. I guess it will help your motivation too.
The Killjoy isn’t really a hypersonic missile. That term is generally used for missiles that can maneuver at hypersonic speeds. The Killjoy gets up to hypersonic speeds during the boost, but slows greatly and doesn’t maneuver at those speeds.
There’s a big difference between “missile that gets to hypersonic speeds” and hypersonic glide vehicles/hypersonic cruise missiles. Current reporting doesn’t do a great job at distinguishing.
35mm cannons. edit
Updated German contribution list thru April 2023. Interesting to note there were 100 PATRIOT missiles included with the joint German/Dutch system.
Bad day for Russian pilots flying over Russia:
Heck, it’s unclear who shot them down!
Not all good news for Ukraine today:
New footage of the colossal detonation of an ammunition depot in Khmelnitsky, Ukraine, early this morning. pic.twitter.com/b49ItSWPQ5
— Clash Report (@clashreport) May 13, 2023
This is about a battalion-sized slice of a mechanized infantry division (except that it’d be nice to have more Marders rather than APCs).
Along with what’s been pledged already, if Ukraine manages to get these into the line in a hurry, they should have over a regiment of well-equipped troops to spearhead an offensive this summer.
Russian source Izvestia has published photos of alleged Storm Shadow debris from Luhansk. I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to comment on whether the debris is actually Storm Shadow, and as the old joke goes there’s no pravda in Izvestia and no izvestia in Pravda.