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Russian invasion of Ukraine


Sonam

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1 minute ago, Todd_is_God said:

There's also the (apparent) issue that our intelligence agencies appear, before seeing photographs of a claimed to have been shot down missile, to have been completely unaware that a missile that could only have been armed with a nuclear warhead had even been launched.

Doesn't it just look like any other cruise missile?

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8 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

Doesn't it just look like any other cruise missile?

I've no idea, but certainly casts doubts on the practical usefulness of the Early Warning Systems that both sides bang on about.

All very well being able to detect ICBM launches, but Russia now know their air launched nuclear missiles can be launched undetected.

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1 minute ago, Todd_is_God said:

I've no idea, but certainly casts doubts on the practical usefulness of the Early Warning Systems that both sides bang on about.

All very well being able to detect ICBM launches, but Russia now know their air launched nuclear missiles can be launched undetected.

They have been lobbing missiles about Ukraine for months though. How do we know any missile has gone undetected by NATO monitoring? NATO have decided not to directly do anything about it. That doesnt neccesisarily mean that any of them have evaded detection. It would presumably be different story if a missile was tracked heading towards a NATO country... 

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Just now, Bairnardo said:

They have been lobbing missiles about Ukraine for months though. How do we know any missile has gone undetected by NATO monitoring? NATO have decided not to directly do anything about it. That doesnt neccesisarily mean that any of them have evaded detection. It would presumably be different story if a missile was tracked heading towards a NATO country... 

Just the wording of that release makes it sound like they did not know a nuclear missile had been launched.

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23 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

Doesn't it just look like any other cruise missile?

It comes in multiple variants. USSR used the original version exclusively as nuclear armed cruise missiles. But the Russian Republic created a conventional warhead variant that entered service in the very early 2000s (so its much newer with more modern components).  These have been used in Syria and Ukraine. But  now there is photographic evidence that Russia fired the older version (thus the story). So it will look like just another cruise missile except to trained eyes. 

Its not the only weapon they have fired that could be nuclear, the Iskanders also have a nuclear variant. 

Edited by dorlomin
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37 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

I've no idea, but certainly casts doubts on the practical usefulness of the Early Warning Systems that both sides bang on about.

All very well being able to detect ICBM launches, but Russia now know their air launched nuclear missiles can be launched undetected.

Russia has always known this. An ALCM (or MRBM/IRBM/ICBM) cannot be categorized by type unless it has performance that excludes all other options. As the AS-15 is a subsonic, cruise missile, that matches a vast majority of the Russian options. If it only flys 1,000km, that narrows the options a bit, but doesn’t clearly identify it. Without eyes on the missile, it’s nearly impossible to identity the version/model/type.

For that matter, Russia had/has nuclear artillery systems (2S7 Pion) within 10 km of the Ukrainian border. The last report by Russia, about 2000, was that “nearly all” nuclear artillery shells had been destroyed.

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15 minutes ago, Newbornbairn said:

That's why switching from Trident to cruise missiles for a deterrent is a bad move. Far more potential for misunderstanding.

Also why the proposals to mount conventional, advanced tunneling munitions onto ICBM’s causes other risks.

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1 hour ago, TxRover said:

Russia has always known this. An ALCM (or MRBM/IRBM/ICBM) cannot be categorized by type unless it has performance that excludes all other options. As the AS-15 is a subsonic, cruise missile, that matches a vast majority of the Russian options. If it only flys 1,000km, that narrows the options a bit, but doesn’t clearly identify it. Without eyes on the missile, it’s nearly impossible to identity the version/model/type.

For that matter, Russia had/has nuclear artillery systems (2S7 Pion) within 10 km of the Ukrainian border. The last report by Russia, about 2000, was that “nearly all” nuclear artillery shells had been destroyed.

True, but there was plenty chat from Western intelligence that they were watching Russia closely for any movement of their nuclear weapons to bases etc to gauge readiness to carry out their threats.

Clearly their surveillance isn't as good as they think if Russia was able to launch one in the middle of a war without them knowing.

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5 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

True, but there was plenty chat from Western intelligence that they were watching Russia closely for any movement of their nuclear weapons to bases etc to gauge readiness to carry out their threats.

Clearly their surveillance isn't as good as they think if Russia was able to launch one in the middle of a war without them knowing.

Movement of the missiles isn’t necessary when a bomber takes off from a base with nuclear and conventional ALCM’s available. That might suggest why they wanted pictures of the impact debris. I think you are looking to slate NATO intelligence without any credible evidence.

 

4 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

Weren't medium range nuclear missiles banned until recently?

Sort of, the 1991 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty banned ground launched cruise or ballistic missiles with 500 to 5,500 km range. The Russians were non-compliant around 2010-2014 and declared non-compliant in 2017, the U.S. withdrew in 2019. Note the ban was only for “ground launched” weapons.

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17 minutes ago, TxRover said:

Movement of the missiles isn’t necessary when a bomber takes off from a base with nuclear and conventional ALCM’s available. That might suggest why they wanted pictures of the impact debris. I think you are looking to slate NATO intelligence without any credible evidence.

I'm not looking to slate NATO at all. 

I just thought the statement was very blasé considering it appears to suggest the first time they were aware of an exclusively nuclear armed missile being launched was a picture of it after being shot down.

It does, however, highlight massive holes in the early warning system that I imagine many might be surprised by given the usual depictions of launches being detected etc.

Edited by Todd_is_God
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Image

 

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When we were training in trenches it utterly pissed down one night and I had to spend it in the cold clammy clinging mud. It is vividly one of the worst memories in my life. No one was trying to kill me, I knew hot food was only a day or so away and I knew a dry clean change of clothes were waiting for me when we rotated out..

Day after day, week after week of that energy draining, hope sapping mud must be a vision of what real hell is like. The mud gets into your food, you constantly have to clean your weapon, even taking a shit becomes a task of getting the slimy cold things off off you to somewhere they will not get slimier and finding a way to dump and wipe without getting more mud on than shit off. 

Trench foot is a huge risk. The skin becomes cold and wrinkled and circulation to the outer bits gets cut off. The skin dies allowing in disease and things like blisters and open sores develop leading to further infections and worst case the foot can end up being lost. Prevention is theoretically easy, keep the foot dry and change socks regularly. But, well those pictures... taking those boots and socks off once a day for your foot inspection will be another chore of mud, cold and discomfort. 

Bleak pictures. 

f**k Putin and f**k every one of his apologists.

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3 minutes ago, Newbornbairn said:

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/ukroboronprom-is-developing-weapons-with-a-range-of-1-000-km/

 

Ukraine apparently developing it's own long range missiles. Worth remembering that in Soviet times, a lot of their missiles were built in Ukrainian factories. 

Kyiv to Moscow is about 865km, just saying.

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Interesting little note from the Institute for the Study of War 26/11/22 report on the Russians in Ukraine.

“Russian officials are continuing efforts to deport children to Russian under the guise of medical rehabilitation schemes and adoption programs. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on November 26 that the Russian occupation administration in Luhansk Oblast conducted medical examinations of 15,000 children between the ages of two and 17 and found that 70% of the children (10,500) are in need of “special medical care” that requires them to be removed to Russia for “treatment.” The Resistance Center stated that Russian officials intend these forced deportation schemes to lure children’s families to Russia to collect their children after the children receive treatments, at which point the Resistance Center assessed Russian officials will prevent those families from returning home to Ukraine. The Center‘s report is consistent with ISW’s previous assessment that Russian officials are conducting a deliberate depopulation campaign in occupied Ukrainian territories.

Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova additionally posted an excerpt from a documentary film chronicling the story of the children she adopted from Mariupol. Lvova-Belova has largely been at the forefront of the concerted Russian effort to remove Ukrainian children from Ukrainian territory and adopt them into Russian families, which may constitute a violation of the Geneva Convention as well as a deliberate ethnic cleansing campaign. Lvova-Belova's documentary is likely meant to lend legitimacy to the ongoing adoption of Ukrainian children into Russian families, just as the guise of medical necessity is likely intended to justify mass deportations of Ukrainian children to Russian territory.”

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On 26/11/2022 at 12:01, Todd_is_God said:

Clearly their surveillance isn't as good as they think if Russia was able to launch one in the middle of a war without them knowing.

It seems the Russians have been using Kh-555’s, the conventionally armed version of the nuclear Kh-55, for quite some time for strikes on Ukraine. Given the weapons systems are externally almost identical, are deployed in the same manner, perform the same (until impact), and are deployed from the same bases, I think you are incorrect. Until they got a picture of some item of the crashed missile differentiating the 55 from the 555, it’s impossible to tell which is which without extensive inspection.

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