Russia's War Against Ukraine

[Crossroads]

On April 20, during the flight of the Su-34 RuAF aircraft over the city of Belgorod, an abnormal descent of aviation ammunition occurred, the RF Ministry of Defense reports.

What air defense doing?

https://twitter.com/uamemesforces/status/1649259034690682880

[Groggy]

On April 20, during the flight of the Su-34 RuAF aircraft over the city of Belgorod, an abnormal descent of aviation ammunition occurred, the RF Ministry of Defense reports.

I think the most shocking thing about the incident is that the Russians actually admitted to it.

[Sir Slash]

Every good Dictator drops a bomb or two on his people on occasion just to let them know...I AM WATCHING. 

[SirAndrewD]

Mainstream media hasn't been picking that up yet.  I guess we'll see where it goes from here.

I wonder what the characterization that it will be far different from what we've seen before means?  More beavers?  Less farm machinery?  More precision munitions?  Ukrainians painting a backwards "A" on their tanks so we can say that we've seen everything in this war, from A to Z? 

It ended up being the employment of NATO provided Arty on on Russian forward positions an some counterbattery action in Bakhmut.  Russians overreacted on comms chatter.  Apparently along the southern front north of Melitopol some Russian units fell back to their secondary lines even thought they weren't actually under direct attack.

[FarAway Sooner]

Wow.  That bodes well for a Spring offensive on the part of the Ukrainians.

[JasonPratt]

Ah, the practice withdrawal shall lure the Ukrainians into a false sense of superiority!

Re painting an A backwards: I'd rather see it upside-down to signify the inclusion of an entire set. (With Turn-A Gundam as a reference.  )

I couldn't stop laughing at the leopard/baby-deer meme. Actually better than the Godzilla vs Bambi equivalent!

[Gusington]

^Good point. Isn't 'A' backwards still...'A' anyway?

[JasonPratt]

Depends on how it was written to begin with. Ukrainian A is symmetrical (and looks exactly like our A),  although that could vary depending on font of course (just like ours). Their uppercase/capital version of Delta however, De, looks a lot like a fancy A (not like a perfect triangle from Greek) leaning verrrry slightly to one side -- so you could in fact flip that backwards, although it would be hard to notice. (The lowercase version looks much like a Greek lowercase delta.)

[GDS_Starfury]

[MengJiao]

On April 20, during the flight of the Su-34 RuAF aircraft over the city of Belgorod, an abnormal descent of aviation ammunition occurred, the RF Ministry of Defense reports.

I think the most shocking thing about the incident is that the Russians actually admitted to it.

I guess it was aliens working for the Chinese?  Or that astronomical satellite?

[GDS_Starfury]

pretty grim scene.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1649542047659851776

[FarAway Sooner]

Interesting bit of hardware geekery on Forbes about how the Ukrainians might be arming the 100+ Leopard 1s that are coming their way.  Obviously, the focus of military hardware pornographers is the trio of tanks mentioned in Star's pic above, but there are only about 100 of those reaching service any time soon.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/04/22/we-dont-know-what-kind-of-ammo-ukraine-is-getting-for-its-leopard-1-and-m-55s-tanks-it-matters-a-lot/?sh=3ec0d71a13b1

It never occurred to me that a backwards "A" might look like anything besides a frontwards A.  I just wanted to weave a little more irony into my question along said lines.

NATO has been donating a fair amount of mobile artillery.  If that comes equipped with superior radar for counter-battery fire, that might make a big difference.  I have no idea how the target-finding for those sorts of systems is done (aside from some generic combination of sig int and UAV spotting).

[GDS_Starfury]

as long as they can see russian tanks, theyll have no problem penning them.

[FarAway Sooner]

So you're saying that the 105mm rounds on the Lep1s will penetrate any tank at any range, regardless of the kind of AP ammunition they're provided?  The article explicitly said to the contrary.

My sense is that those Lep1s will still be plenty useful, as the frequency of a straight-up tank-vs-tank duel gets exaggerated.  I do worry about the logistical burden of 100 Leps 1s, 110 Lep 2s, 31 Abrams, and 18 Challengers.  But I hope the Ukrainians can figure that out.  They seem to have been pretty resourceful so far!

[GDS_Starfury]

Im not saying any tank at any range but I think theyll pen anything they find in the russian army.