History in the Making: Russian Invasion

In reply to aircooled :

I've seen numerous reports of the Russians increasing their GPS jamming efforts in recent weeks. The EW side of this whole thing is underreported, but closely watched by those in the know.

As for how the Vipers are going to be tasked, remember that these are early models with short legs - no conformal tanks, and no mid-air refueling (due to lack of tankers) - and fresh crews. They're not going to carry a heavy payload very far, and they're not going to do anything that requires massed formations. SEAD might be on the menu, but they will only offer a small advantage over the MiG-29s that have been lobbing HARMs for months (and the Ukrainians seem to be hitting SAM sites with other, longer-range weapons these days anyway). And anything near, over, or beyond the front lines is high-risk. I'm betting they will spend most of their time behind the line, waiting for an alert so they can go shoot down inbound cruise missiles or the occasional Russian air raid. When they do go offensive, it will be in a profile that allows them maximum survivability, not maximum impact, in part because of their own limitations, and in part because so much has been made of their presence that any losses will have an amplified affect on morale (moreso in the West than in Ukraine itself).

02Pilot said:

In reply to aircooled :

I've seen numerous reports of the Russians increasing their GPS jamming efforts in recent weeks. The EW side of this whole thing is underreported, but closely watched by those in the know.

As for how the Vipers are going to be tasked, remember that these are early models with short legs - no conformal tanks, and no mid-air refueling (due to lack of tankers) - and fresh crews. They're not going to carry a heavy payload very far, and they're not going to do anything that requires massed formations. SEAD might be on the menu, but they will only offer a small advantage over the MiG-29s that have been lobbing HARMs for months (and the Ukrainians seem to be hitting SAM sites with other, longer-range weapons these days anyway). And anything near, over, or beyond the front lines is high-risk. I'm betting they will spend most of their time behind the line, waiting for an alert so they can go shoot down inbound cruise missiles or the occasional Russian air raid. When they do go offensive, it will be in a profile that allows them maximum survivability, not maximum impact, in part because of their own limitations, and in part because so much has been made of their presence that any losses will have an amplified affect on morale (moreso in the West than in Ukraine itself).

Based on these things, my anticipation is air/air and airspace denial. 

In reply to tuna55 :

Ideally, but the Russians aren't really penetrating Ukrainian airspace much. Both sides are using drones and other standoff weapons extensively; those aircraft that are getting up close and personal are doing it on the deck, which is less than ideal for A2A. The F-16s Ukraine will be getting are A/B models that were last upgraded twenty years ago (MLU, which added upgrades to the radar and avionics). They can carry AMRAAMs and are certainly capable of lock-down/shoot-down operation, but this is a 30-year old radar system with a range of ~35 miles. That puts the Vipers well within the engagement envelope of Russian SAM systems if they are engaging targets over the front line.

Regarding the F16s, whether or not they actually use the knowledge to adjust tactics, I am betting the Russians will have a much better idea of when they show up in Ukraine than many of the ground-based weapons that seem to have caught them off guard.

Edit:  Maybe it's time for some Ukrainian artists to start painting fake F16s on airfield tarmacs to troll the Russians

In reply to 02Pilot :

GPS jamming is only partially effective on JDAMs as they also have a backup inertial system.  I suspect they will find them very useful:

...The JDAM system can provide a weapon circular error probability (CEP) of 5m or less during free flight in its most accurate mode when GPS data is available. The system can, however, achieve a CEP of 30m or less for free flight times up to 100 seconds with a GPS-quality hand-off from the aircraft.

JDAM can be launched in dive, toss, loft, and straight-and-level flight modes, and delivered either on-axis or off-axis from very low to very high altitudes. This allows for the delivery of diverse weapons directed against single or multiple targets on a single pass....

In reply to aircooled :

The EV environment in Ukraine is unlike anywhere the JDAM has been employed before, and performance has been severely degraded according to reports (1) (2) (3), with up to ~45% missing their targets.

I am curious if they can install a differential GPS stations in Ukrainian territories that a plane can fly near and get a very solid fix before a drop.  They would of course would want to turn it on and off quickly when not needed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_GPS

In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :

You really need to use better news sources!  You DO know what RT is, right?

US failed to accurately track about $1 billion in arms sent to Ukraine: Watchdog

American personnel failed to adequately track roughly a billion dollars worth of sophisticated U.S. weaponry supplied to Ukraine, falling short of the Pentagon's rigorous security measures for arms that contain sensitive technology or are vulnerable to diversion or misuse, according to a report released Thursday from the Defense Department's inspector general....

....The report, in redacted form, does not allege that any of the weaponry was misused, stating, "it was beyond the scope of our evaluation to determine whether there has been diversion of such assistance."...

...Administration officials have also stressed that the report is based off data that is more than six months old and argued that the meticulous requirements of enhanced end use monitoring are often impractical during an active conflict....

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-failed-accurately-track-billion-arms-ukraine-watchdog/story?id=106305647

That last part seems to indicate that true tracking will always be very difficult since it's going to be hard to prove that weapon you no longer have is currently in a million tiny pieces inside a T-72, which is also in a thousand pieces.

Here is the RT article: https://www.rt.com/news/590463-everything-wrong-with-ukraine-aid/   

You will note that it omits the information in the last quoted paragraph above, but does add some un-linked (certainly un-verifed) assertations of the appearance of weapons elsewhere.

I had some thoughts, but it ain't worth the time.

aircooled said:

In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :

You really need to use better news sources!  You DO know what RT is, right?

US failed to accurately track about $1 billion in arms sent to Ukraine: Watchdog

American personnel failed to adequately track roughly a billion dollars worth of sophisticated U.S. weaponry supplied to Ukraine, falling short of the Pentagon's rigorous security measures for arms that contain sensitive technology or are vulnerable to diversion or misuse, according to a report released Thursday from the Defense Department's inspector general....

....The report, in redacted form, does not allege that any of the weaponry was misused, stating, "it was beyond the scope of our evaluation to determine whether there has been diversion of such assistance."...

...Administration officials have also stressed that the report is based off data that is more than six months old and argued that the meticulous requirements of enhanced end use monitoring are often impractical during an active conflict....

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-failed-accurately-track-billion-arms-ukraine-watchdog/story?id=106305647

That last part seems to indicate that true tracking will always be very difficult since it's going to be hard to prove that weapon you no longer have is currently in a million tiny pieces inside a T-72, which is also in a thousand pieces.

 

Here is the RT article: https://www.rt.com/news/590463-everything-wrong-with-ukraine-aid/   

You will note that it omits the information in the last quoted paragraph above, but does add some un-linked (certainly un-verifed) assertations of the appearance of weapons elsewhere.

I dont quite understand your complaint with the graphic posted. I dont care about the source, im looking at the content of the graphic and link to article since that was  posted. We can sit here and argue about sources and I can find incredibly egregious problems with ABC as a source, or we can debate the content.

The vast majority of the article is based on the IG report, so its accurate. The two lines at the end say there has been REPORTS about us weapons available on the darknet (which is accurate) and that there are REPORTS about weapons meant for Ukraine ending up in the Israel-Palestine conflict (which is accurate, some literally from IDF officials). Seems accurate to me.

I also dont understand how the info being 6 months old matters at all. The report just came out. It just framing so the officials can make the problem seem like less of a problem which also applies to the old "oh its hard to track in an active conflict." which is just an excuse to say, "we arent good stewards of YOUR money," and our excuse is its hard, so you should ignore it.

Look im not an RT fan, but in this very specific example, it appears to be decent reporting.

Yes, most all sources should be considered suspect, but some should be FAR more suspect on certain topics.  Using Russia Today as a source for information on something that paints Ukraine in a bad light, would be like using an official Ukrainian government outlet for the same.  Or, using MSNBC or FOX as a source for news on presidential candidates.

That said, Russia Today or CGTN can be useful source of information for what Russia or China wants you to believe.  They can be entirely true or super deceptive but can be very much assumed to be very slanted in how they present it, which I think is pretty obvious if you read both articles.

I did not quote the RT article "additions" because, as noted, they are completely un-referenced, have no sources, and could be entirely made up (at least in how they are presented in the article).  The quote in the ABC article is a direct quote from a person that should be very knowledgeable on the subject and could be pretty easily verified. 

This also brings up the concept of "truth".  Is is true that weaponry sent to Ukraine was found in Gaza?  Could be. They could be the weapons we give/sell to Israel.  Are they the right serial numbers?  Could also be part of the weapons that Russia has been reported to be sending to Gaza, which could certainly include captured weapons. Lots of "ifs" there.  All potentially true, all potentially deceptive depending on how much information is presented.

Also of note is, the link posted appears to be a pushed, or feed link.  This implies that it was presented to you based either on your browsing history, or the site you where viewing.  Either way, someone thinks, for whatever reason, that is the perspective you want.  

In reply to Opti :

Yeah, the 6 month thing seem irrelevant to me also.  Not sure why he stated that.  It does seem to imply:  "It used to be bad, but it's better now".   I suspect that is not what he intended to imply.

I don't doubt the IG report, but it also, as noted, does not necessarily indicate anything but incomplete record keeping.  The last quote was also very instructional as to why that could be the case.  It seems entirely reasonable to me that it would be very hard, in many cases, to confirm the location of a weapon that has been destroyed, used or expended (as in blown up).  Even tracking a rifle could be very difficult if it's currently on the front lines.

Regarding "reports".  Well, where are these reports? And why didn't they link to them?  There are reports of Nazi bases on the moon also but I have yet to see anything remotely official / believable on that.  It's all very tenuous.  Weapons available on the dark web, well, are they really there, or is it a scam?, has anyone actually purchased one? Do the serial numbers check out (that they are actually weapons sent to Ukraine from the US)?....  it certainly could be a huge cover up... or it could very minor...  or it could be nothing.

Asked if US weapons sent to Ukraine were used in Gaza.

Bing AI knows all:

"I found a news article from ABC News that says the US failed to accurately track about $1 billion in arms sent to Ukraine, including sophisticated weapons like Javelins, Stinger missiles, and night-vision devices 1. The report does not allege that any of the weaponry was misused, stating, “it was beyond the scope of our evaluation to determine whether there has been diversion of such assistance” 1.

I also found a news article from Newsweek that says Israel is worried that US weapons for Ukraine are ending up in Iran’s hands. The weapons were said to include U.S.-made Javelins and United Kingdom-made Next-Generation Light Anti-armor Weapons (NLAWs) 2.

It is important to note that the two articles do not mention Gaza. Therefore, I cannot confirm if US weapons sent to Ukraine were used in Gaza."

I checked to see if I could generate photographic proof, but got:

FWIW, I would think that anyone diverting Ukrainian weapon support to Gaza would have to assume they'd shoot up to the Top 3 people on Mossad's Naughty List...  The profit would have to be overwhelming. 

In reply to 06HHR (Forum Supporter) :

You clearly don't realize you are dealing with a world champion in playing the game shown below.

I was not aware that there were people predicting that the US would have difficulty in tracking weapons sent to Iraq... you know, what the report says, but OK.

Inability to fully track weapons (whether it's a reasonable result or not) certainly creates for the possibility of corruption that you will not know about, but it does not prove it in any way.  Just that if it is happening, you may not know about it.  That is what the report states.  No one is disbelieving the report, we are just not reading into what it does not say.

To be clear.  Is there corruptions happening in regards to US weapons sent to Ukraine?  Almost certainly.  To what extent?  I have no idea, and I don't think anyone does.  Is corruption acceptable?  Certainly not.  Does it happen anyway?  Certainly yes.  Does it only exist in US military dealings?  Absolutely not.  It's everywhere (other countries, US domestic spending etc.), it very important to be aware of the EXTENT of it though.  Which in this case, we do not know.

As previously compared.  I know it is a very unfortunate comparison, but the corruption, and more importantly, waste, involved in both the Iraq war, and especially Afghanistan, were certainly far worse.  I still say the US is getting a very good return for the money spent in Ukraine (all things considered).  I really don't think you could even come close with what was spend (and wasted) in Iraq or Afghanistan.

In reply to aircooled :

His first sentence was complete horse E36 M3. US military does intra-theatre weapons transfer all the time. It's the reason we have a Military Transport Command wing of the US air force and we keep the C5 Galaxy jets flying because they can accommodate the largest weapons systems and fly them anywhere in the planet within 72 hours.  Dude is a whole new level of trolling and pretends to be butthurt that his posts get voted down.

Nice to see you haven't changed a bit.

Abandoned and stolen military gear in the wrong hands is bad. 

Keeping track of military gear used, sold or "given" is hard.

Acknowledged.