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Posted
2 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Through the best SAM systems in the world?

SAM's generally work where you have your radar stationed.  Also picking up a drone is a bit different than picking up fighter.  

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Posted
18 minutes ago, BamaATL said:

You do realize we sell these to them, right?  Those countries that donate and then we propose to give them new shit have to agree to pay for said new shit.  Europe hasn't exactly been on it in terms of military spending for a while now, and while they have picked it up a bit, joint strike fighters are a tad on the pricey side.  

Also, to whomever included Taiwan on a list of places where equipment could be donated from, please stop doing that.  

I was more pissed of the misspelling of Venezuela. 

And yes, I understand. Spent a few years doing military procurement. 

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Posted
3 hours ago, Handcruser said:

I’m not sure why people don’t understand this.

2 hours ago, Schulz2.0 said:

Uhh, some of do understand its not as easy as just handing F-16s to Ukraine. We're annoyed that we've hemmed and hawwed about giving multiple weapons to Ukraine and generally dragged our feet at every step. We argued for 6+ months that Ukraine didn't need F-16s before reluctantly agreeing that it was the only viable platform for the. We've drug our heels just granting permission for our allies to train Ukrainian pilots.

I think we all agree is that the frustration is that we all know the F-16 is, as Schulz said, the only viable platform. Nobody is spinning up MiG factories, or able to supply modern European-built fighters in any large numbers (or with a ready inventory of parts)  - meanwhile, we've got possibly over a thousand older ones sitting in storage (and good storage, not the shit Russian storage) - and that's just American (we store a lot of aircraft for allied air forces).

https://www.f-16.net/aircraft-database/F-16/stored-aircraft/

But there is still the concern that Ukraine would probably need a more rugged aircraft such as an F-18 that can handle short landings and takeoffs  (because of the carrier gear and air intake location) or the Scandinavian fighters that are built to take off from roads, plus the location of the F-16's air intake could make it more vulnerable to rough-ish fields (F-16 ain't taking off from a true rough field or most of your typical highways). Flip side, F-16s can handle most of the NATO inventory, and with only one engine, maintenance is reduced (of course it's also a single point of failure) and we have a shit-ton of available parts and people who are used to training foreign pilots and maintenance people.

It sucks, because at the very least, we should have been training at least some pilots and maintenance people going back to last year - even if they didn't get F-16s, they'd be familiar with NATO equipment on some level.

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Posted
1 hour ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

If they can't take Mariupol before the rains hit, what are the possibilities that they can get close enough to rain terror on the land route to rain enough terror down from the skies to effectively shut off Russia' land route? Obviously that would lead to some intense fighting, but it seems like our cluster munitions have mad a huge difference in the last couple of weeks. Will the increased production across Europe and America be able to supply them with the artillery they need to lay seige on the area without actually holding it?

1 hour ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

Seems like ATACMS would be pretty useful in that scenario.

If they can get to Tokmak, which appears doable, even if they don't reach farther south or east towards Mariupol, they would have the ability to drive the Russians away from at least part of the Dnipro due west and/or possibly secure the area around Zaporizhzhia including the nuclear plant (which is technically southwest of Zaporizhzhia the city). The Russians would have Ukrainians pressing on them from the north (artillery over the Dnipro) and from the east, so they'd be a little worried about being cut off or pressed up against the Dnipro (with Ukrainians shelling them from the other side).

Like I said, 39 miles from Tokmak to Melitopol. That also happens to be the range of the S-300s.

If that happens, even if they don't have Mariupol, Ukraine will have the ability to put Melitopol under HIMARS fire, and that is huge because the roads/rails linking Mariupol and mainland Russian to Crimea over the land route have to go through Melitopol, and there's one line that goes SW from Melitopol to Crimea that would mostly be out of range of Ukraine (at least once it gets 5-10 miles outside of Melitopol).

And my guess is that route/railway would be a very tempting target for Ukrainian special ops folks, or even Ukrainian helicopters/drones hunting locomotives - at those ranges, in theory if the drones/HIMARS can keep the S-300s offline, or at least pushed back well out of HIMARS range, Melitopol would probably only have 10-20 miles of S-300 coverage to the north of it.  If the Ukrainians dumped a lot of drones into taking out S-300s or at least did something to keep their radars turned off, the HIMARS would have an easier time of things. 

S-400s have a much greater range, but those are probably being moved into Russia proper, as well as down to the Kerch bridge and Sevastapol.  They could overlap Meritpol and Sevastapol with some S-400 coverage, but depending on elevation and terrain, the Ukrainians might be able to get pretty close before they are spotted. And anything in Sevastapol S-400 wise is out of range of Meritopol, and anything moved closer to Meritopol reduces the amount of coverage for Sevastapol (even if it's not much, the Russians there have got to be very wary).  I imagine there are some serious turf wars over S-400 coverage.

Still, if they can cut that line out of Melitopol down to Crimea, holy shit that would be a game changer.

It's not ideal, but if they finished out the summer/early fall with Tokmak, that probably means retaking Zaporizhzhia as well (at the least, it would be cut off from Melitopol/Mariupol which is extremely bad for the Russians going into the winter) and it all still puts Melitopol in danger, which puts Crimea in danger.

 

 

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Posted

Ukrainians seemed to have shot down 2-3 KA-52 helicopters in the past few days - Russians getting worried and trying to stop the counter-offensive?  Or Ukrainian air defense getting better?

Also, all of our F-16 talk has caused the US to allow F-16s to be transferred to Ukraine.

That's what I choose to believe.

Sylvester Stallone GIF by Warner Archive

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Posted
31 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Ukrainians seemed to have shot down 2-3 KA-52 helicopters in the past few days - Russians getting worried and trying to stop the counter-offensive?  Or Ukrainian air defense getting better?

Also, all of our F-16 talk has caused the US to allow F-16s to be transferred to Ukraine.

That's what I choose to believe.

Sylvester Stallone GIF by Warner Archive

 

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Posted

 FT: Russia has found a simple and effective way to circumvent the oil "price ceiling"

Russia overestimates the cost of oil transportation and related services, which allows it to sell its oil at a price above the limit set by the G7 countries, according to the Financial Times.

Based on information obtained from contracts for the delivery of Russian oil to India in May-July 2023, journalists of the publication found out that in the Baltic ports in tankers are loaded at a basic price of $50 per barrel, which is $10 below the oil ceiling set by the G7. After arrival at Indian ports, the cost of a barrel of oil rises to $66.

Thanks to this scheme, Russia, according to the publication, was able to earn from May to July an additional $800 million. The revenue of the Russian shadow fleet, which carries 40% of the oil, during this period amounted to another $350 million.

The authors of the research suggest that similar practices are used in Russia's oil trade with other countries, including China.

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Posted
10 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

VeneZUELA please..... And their shit is not flying anymore due to sanctions. 

Train their pilots and maintenance people asap. In the meantime work with allies to get them what they know and are ready to use now. Then backfill everyone with Falcons or  F-35's. Shit there should be F-15's patrolling the Russian Border 24/7.  

The F-35 line is chugging as fast as it can right now and it’s not gonna speed up unless the USG pays a crazy amount. The new demand is overwhelming. In fact, it’s a key talking point against us is competitions. 

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Posted (edited)

I saw a stat recently where some 70% of Russians view Stalin favorably. Imagine present-day Germans thinking "Yeah, that Hitler guy was alright." So much points to the need to totally restart with the Russian region. It seems like this will only continue unless it's broken up in more logical ways that don't require strongmen, oppression, and oligarchy.

 

 

Edited by KYHorn
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Posted
1 hour ago, KYHorn said:

I saw a stat recently where some 70% of Russians view Stalin favorably. Imagine present-day Germans thinking "Yeah, that Hitler guy was alright." So much points to the need to totally restart with the Russian region. It seems like this will only continue unless it's broken up in more logical ways that don't require strongmen, oppression, and oligarchy.

 

 

Guess you haven't spent much time or read up on Elon Musk's twitter...

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Posted
6 minutes ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

man, i don't want anything but a carrier as a flagship

I'm sure some of our Navy friends here will chime in, but I think that's a command and control/signal ship.  I doubt its the flagship.

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Posted
4 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:

I'm sure some of our Navy friends here will chime in, but I think that's a command and control/signal ship.  I doubt its the flagship.

According to wikipedia (always the most trusted source) that is correct about it being a command and control ship.  It is the flagship for the 6th fleet and part of the Strike Force Nato, which sounds pretty fucking pimp to me as a strike force name goes.  I'm betting the Russians aren't likely to be happy to see it there.  

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Posted
1 hour ago, MillerEP said:

 

 

 

Our war for our country’s existence was the Civil War, with about 700,000 deaths out of 31 million. Ukraine started the war with about 34 million. 70,000 dead is a ton of people and sad. But I am sure they will be able to ultimately preserve the right for their country to exist as it was intended at its inception, with far less than 700,000 deaths. 

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Posted
2 hours ago, NAVY said:

Different missions. Mount Whitney is all about surveillance. Think of it as a spook ship 

1 hour ago, MissingInAction said:

Yep. We just parked a floating NSA platform right in Russias backyard.

Wonder if it's tracking the location of Russian ships, or looking for missile firings from the Black Sea, either of which might be useful to Ukraine.

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Posted
4 hours ago, NAVY said:

Different missions. Mount Whitney is all about surveillance. Think of it as a spook ship 

Mount Whitney is what I did to my nephew's babysitter a long time ago. 

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Posted
3 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

85B7E40F-A52A-4FC6-9E11-4D14009CA7B4.thumb.jpeg.234c184dcfcca5d5e11e53459a0e07f5.jpeg

It somehow double posted. So here’s a picture of Heidi Klum’s daughter.

My little brother used to run Seal’s tour so this sorta hits close to home. 

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Posted
Hat
and I forgot to add that as with every US Navy ship they are a floating projection of our diplomacy and policies so making a port of call in Istanbul is not lost on the chain of command all the way up to the Commander in Chief.
 
IMG_3367.thumb.jpeg.f70f98528f5deae0a5ef77602d89d5ed.jpeg

Surly always delivers.
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Posted
11 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

What starts here ends up with somebody getting drunk in a port half way around the world.

probably involving a Russian stripper in Saipan

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