History in the Making: Russian Invasion

JFW75 said:

Day 3 of bomb threats against schools in the Baltics. Local schools here in Latvia were evac'ed and searched, again, this morning.
 

Make that 4 days in a row now. Threats are emailed in Russian from spoofed servers in eastern Europe, lots of garbage, etc. etc. Still makes them search the schools every morning for threats. 

In reply to reemsultan :

I just hate it when the Russians attack using canoes.

Some updates (not great news if you are pulling for mother Russia):

 - No final independent number yet, but the Russian assault on Avdivka, just the northern part, has resulted in the lose of 40+ vehicles!  Likely more to come.

 - The ATACMs attack on the airfield in Berdiansk looks to have potentially taken out most of the helicopters there (it is primarily a helicopter base).  Which includes, seemingly, at least 5 KA52, the primary anti-vehicle air weapon for the Russians, which don't exist in huge numbers anymore and are rather important do them.

 - The Ukrainians may have done another landing, this times a bit farther north of the destroyed bridge, near Kherson.  This potentially could threatened the western, backup, rail line from Crimea.

 - The Russians have lost a few SU25 in the last few days.  It appears like the Ukrainians have deployed some new anti-air weapons, and the Russians are discovering that the hard way.

As noted previously, the independent review on loses that comes out occasionally, is likely to be pretty impressive.

Also, the word is the ATACMs the Ukrainians have are not the full range versions (about half of what is shown in the map above).  If so, these would not be able to reach to Kerch, even if they had the right warhead. I am super suspicious the Ukrainians might do a bit of "field mod" to change to warhead otherwise!

In reply to aircooled :

If the wiki description of the early models is correct, the shorter range version has 3X the payload of the long range version, implying the same rocket motor for both. Field creativity could still update to a conventional warhead of appropriate mass to obtain the desired range.

JFW75 said:

JFW75 said:

Day 3 of bomb threats against schools in the Baltics. Local schools here in Latvia were evac'ed and searched, again, this morning.
 

Make that 4 days in a row now. Threats are emailed in Russian from spoofed servers in eastern Europe, lots of garbage, etc. etc. Still makes them search the schools every morning for threats. 

And doing this would endear the Russians to whom?

It endears Russia to nobody.

Once again, Russia is trying to be a terrorist nation.

Looks like the numbers are coming in on the Russian Avdiivka offensive.  They pushed hard, in open ground during daylight.  When that didn't work, they did the same thing with reduced forces...  There is a claim of 1300+ dead bodies seen, in one day!

The Russians seem to be doing very well defending against the Ukrainian offensive (likely mostly the result of the insane amount of defensive structures build), but also seem to be almost criminally stupid in their offensive operations!

Despite losing limbs, Ukrainian sappers return to work clearing land mines

KHARKIV REGION, Ukraine, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Andrii Ilkiv, a Ukrainian police sapper, had his leg amputated below the knee after a land mine blew up beneath him in September 2022.

By May the following year he was back at work, standing on a prosthetic limb, sweeping for and defusing mines.

The 37-year-old father of four is one of 14 sappers who have returned to their demining jobs in a national police unit of some 100 people, despite being wounded in blasts while clearing mines during Russia's invasion.

***************

There is more, but I am not going to copy it all here.

And I do not know if this is just Russian hype, or Ukrainian hype.

The Russians are planning to hit Ukraine with a space launch vehicle

There have to be better suited missiles for this sort of job.  Of course launching one of those might cause another international incident.

In reply to Noddaz :

This seems like a plan out of an anime (strong Moonlight Mile vibes in fact)

Launching a conventionally armed ICBM seems like a great way of letting everyone know how well maintained (or not) your nuclear deterrence arsenal is.

In reply to eastsideTim :

I'm reasonably certain the nukes need more maintenance than the rockets do. Not to mention much more technical maintenance as the radioactive components degrade the other components and helium embrittlement degrades the pit.

I think I could get a rocket to fly with fuel and an instruction manual. I'm not sure I could do that with a nuke without killing myself. 

In reply to Toyman! :

I do not think it is meant for saying the nuke is kept up so much as saying, "We can hit right here with a nuke, if we want to. Here is proof."

Yeah, the nukes are a whole other issue.  If they can put an ICBM on a target properly, maybe they are still putting enough effort into keeping everything functional.  If they can't hit a target, or blow up on launch, it's a good bet their nukes aren't being taken care of, either.

In other news it sounds like their offensive may have slowed down a bit,  Ukraine had to pull back, but I guess Russia is not in a position to hold the slag heap they retreated from.

They are not looking at using an ICBM rocket. They are looking at a satellite launch type rocket like the Soyuz.

In reply to eastsideTim :

ICBMs don't degrade in storage the way nukes do, though.  Those need regular maintenance and replenishment of the various special materials.  A downside of materials unstable enough to make a big boom is that they are unstable.  

IIRC the US's nuclear arsenal requires/required fissile material needed to be removed and replaced with re-refined materials on a regular basis.  One of the reasons we agreed to disarmament was that it coincided with how many "devices" were about to age out anyway.

aircooled said:

They are not looking at using an ICBM rocket. They are looking at a satellite launch type rocket like the Soyuz.

I stand corrected.

I keep seeing articles that say Putin had a heart attack. Any reliable sources?  Is everyone just holding their breath waiting to see what's going to happen?

In reply to Stampie :

AP says they are baseless claims made by a single internet blogger who claims to have inside information. 

If he does have one, it's going to take while for people to get to him to help.

Toyman! said:

In reply to Stampie :

AP says they are baseless claims made by a single internet blogger who claims to have inside information. 

 

All one has to do is wait.  I assume everything today from unnamed sources is a baseless claim until proven to be true.  I can make 10 big stories from this month that if you wait 72 hours you'd found out we're unfounded.  Next month there will be more.  

Meanwhile in Latvia...

Latvia plans to hand over confiscated cars with Russian registration to Ukraine

And in other news, if you aren't with us you are against us...

The US knows about shooting Russian soldiers for refusing to follow orders

Noddaz said:

Meanwhile in Latvia...

Latvia plans to hand over confiscated cars with Russian registration to Ukraine

Good! I'll see less RUS tags here in Riga going forwards!

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

ICBMs don't degrade in storage the way nukes do, though.

That kinda depends on the ICBM.  The early ones are about as complex as a space launch vehicle because they ARE space launch vehicles.  Literally, most of the early spacecraft were launched on slightly modified ICBMs.  Those rockets are full of gaskets, valves, and batteries that have a limited shelf life.

The US phased out liquid fuel ICBMs fairly early because of the maintenance requirements, but the Russians still have a bunch of them.