In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :
That's what the Russians did in Syria within the past decade. If they can't have it, they'll just destroy it and anyone who doesn't leave the area before they decide that they want it.
In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :
That's what the Russians did in Syria within the past decade. If they can't have it, they'll just destroy it and anyone who doesn't leave the area before they decide that they want it.
dculberson said:I think a Javelin would be very effective against smaller boats and likely send even larger ones packing as who's going to want to keep fighting with holes in their ship? I did see an article where the US Marines were testing Javelins as a defense against smaller boat attacks against ships. Sure it's not perfect but a hole through a ship/boat is a hole, right? With a 3 mile range, that's a pretty good defense item to have on hand.
In case you didn't see it, the Azov guys used a couple javelins against a Raptor LCW (special warfare combatboat) off Mariupol yesterday and either damaged or destroyed it. The video is pretty crappy but they definitely made two launches against them.
The Raptors were used a few days earlier in the takeover of Berdyansk port (and the border guard base there), which was also documented on video (the beginning of this video).
Javelin would do pretty limited damage to a real warship.
I hate these kinds of voice-over vids, there was the original (longer) raw footage of it on youtube earlier but I can't find it so this will have to do.
- Incidentally , the Raptor is a Russian copy of the Swedish STRIDSBAT Combatbot 90 (which the US also builts a license copy of for our own Navy)
aircooled said:sobe_death said:Even scarier is the Tunguska, which has a higher rate of fire, larger rounds, and missiles as well.
And this is one of the reason why the A10 is not quite as useful as you might think against a modern army. The Russians have a pretty wide variety of AA systems tied to their army (which was designed to fight the plane happy US). Heck, the US effectively did not have much of any AA systems for many years! They just assumed air superiority!
There's also a naval version of this (Kashtan/CADS-1), primarily for defense against anti-ship cruise missiles. But it has twin 30mm gatling guns rather than twin single-barrel 23mm's....
aircooled said:Guess what this is:
Yes, that is a Russian artillery position NW or Irpin, as shot by a commercial satellite company... the Russians are not pleased, and may be attacking the websites of those companies.
Or, you know, you could hide your artillery a bit better.
Not sure I would want to be part of this unit, if it still exists.
They put them out in the fields because they're easier to defend against the hit-and-run anti-armor units with Javelins and such (since those teams like to hide in woodlands). No hiding places out in the middle of fields. Yes, the artillery is more vulnerable to air attack, but Ukraine doesn't have a very large force of aircraft/drones in that area of the country, it seems.
Probably actually a smart tactic by the Russians, especially if they've already secured that nearby treeline.
In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
They must have stolen the idea from Robocop.
tuna55 said:Noddaz said:
from NPR
Russia withdraws from WWII peace talks with Japan in response to sanctions
Japan on Tuesday protested a Russian decision to pull out of stalled peace treaty talks in response to Japan’s sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
The talks had been aimed at resolving a dispute over four islands, known in Japan as the Northern Territories and in Russia as the Southern Kurils. Russia seized them in 1945 and deported Japanese residents.
Because of the dispute, Japan never signed a peace treaty with Russia formally ending hostilities in WWII.
*snip*
That could get ugly. We have our own separate alliance with Japan, and it really needs to stick.
Japan's Navy (er..."Maritime Self Defense Force") is more than capable of dealing with the Russian Pacific Fleet and its mostly Soviet-era ships and aircraft. Japanese Navy is probably the 4th most powerful in the world behind US, China, and Russia's entire fleet), and similar in strength to UK / French navies. Lots of very modern, very capable Aegis destroyers, quiet submarines, and modern maritime strike and ASW aircraft.
They're already very experienced dealing with the same kind of territorial disputes with China over the Senkaku Islands to the south. Pulling out of "treaty negotiations" is symbolic at best, since those negotiations have been going noplace for decades. Status quo isn't going to change there, and there won't be a Pacific war I don't imagine.
In addition, China would not look kindly on those activities in its backyard, which would increasingly militarize Japan and bring more US forces into the region (the opposite of what China wants). And while China is playing coy regarding Ukraine, you can bet China would not take kindly to Russia starting E36 M3 out in the Pacific. Bad for business and doesn't further China's strategic goals.
aircooled said:sobe_death said:Even scarier is the Tunguska, which has a higher rate of fire, larger rounds, and missiles as well.
And this is one of the reason why the A10 is not quite as useful as you might think against a modern army. The Russians have a pretty wide variety of AA systems tied to their army (which was designed to fight the plane happy US). Heck, the US effectively did not have much of any AA systems for many years! They just assumed air superiority!
According to the Oryx site, Russia has lost at least 8 of those (with most of them captured). So maybe they're cool, but they apparently aren't very reliable or defensible lol.... Hopefully the Ukranians can get them back into service.
VolvoHeretic said:In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
They must have stolen the idea from Robocop.
"V-TEC, er...., ED-209, yo!"
After he bombs the Ukrainian cities with chlorine bombs and they still won't surrender, it sounds like PutPut is warming up to use his baby nukes to save face. If he does that, does that mean we get to launch a couple of like sized ones on Belarus from our subs? Better yet on Pyongyang.
Yahoo.com: The Smaller Bombs That Could Turn Ukraine Into a Nuclear War Zone
Wikipedia: Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances
In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
Could the Japan angle be the straw that pulls China back away from Russia? The Chinese do not seem very interested in becoming Russias protector but they will not stand for Japan wiping out Russias Eastern fleet, which they likely would and quite handily. That threat could coax Xiping into a more "let's think this over a little more Vladdy, my boy" scenario.
Javelin would do pretty limited damage to a real warship.
It would be interesting to find out.
With a range of 1.6 miles for the original CLU and since a ship does not have RHA (Rolled homogeneous armour)
or ERA (Explosive reactive armour) that I know of , one of these would at least set fire to the compartment behind the entry hole.
The last time the Russians and the Japanese fought a naval battle it didn't go well for the Russians. Don't think they've forgotten, either.
That said, there's no way Russia is going to pick a fight, let alone a maritime one, at this stage, short of general war. Russia is and has always been a land power; its navy exists to provide some challenge to the sea control of opposing sea powers, but even at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet fleet was never intended to command the sea, only to deny it to the US and its allies. At this point it would be just as one-sided as Tsushima over a hundred years ago.
And the assertion that China does not want any spillover into the Pacific is 100% correct. China was hoping for a quiet year, and certainly will be horrified by the rapid, unified response to the invasion of Ukraine. It must now realize that it has to redouble its efforts to keep the US from continuing to build up strong alliances in the WestPac before pursuing any overt aggression. If nothing else, the Ukraine business has likely pushed back their timetable on Taiwan. They will not want anything to push Asian powers toward rearming, especially in tighter coordination with the US, and Russian aggression would certainly do that.
Note, however, that China's strategic method is to avoid direct alliances and attempt to use coercive methods to achieve its objectives. The Russians have some susceptibility to this, but less than many countries that have fallen in line with China. If Putin wants to go his own way, he can, at least for a while. If he chooses to do so, China will have no real leverage one way or the other. This is the weakness of the Chinese approach - when countries find alternatives to Chinese money and markets, or that decide they can do without them, the Chinese have no diplomatic tools left except for open threats. In the case of Russia, a peer competitor, China would more than likely just walk away from the problem if it decides that Russia is unlikely to be influenced by access to China's wealth.
VolvoHeretic said:After he bombs the Ukrainian cities with chlorine bombs and they still won't surrender, it sounds like PutPut is warming up to use his baby nukes to save face. If he does that, does that mean we get to launch a couple of like sized ones on Belarus from our subs? Better yet on Pyongyang.
Yahoo.com: The Smaller Bombs That Could Turn Ukraine Into a Nuclear War Zone
Wikipedia: Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances
I asked this a few pages ago, and I think we can expect him to use tiny nukes before he loses, unless there is a palace coup first.
In reply to tuna55 :
Thanks, I must have forgotten, it's hard to keep up. Funny how these Presidents (dictators) for Life forget what that really means is only as long as they are alive.
A few pages back it was noted that modern "tactical" or "baby" nukes still had explosive forces greater than that of the original bombs that the U.S. detonated over Japan. Some of the articles posted here seem to contradict that:
"refurbish and improve the NATO weapons, turning them into smart bombs with maneuverable fins that made their targeting highly precise. That, in turn, gave war planners the freedom to lower the weapons’ variable explosive force to as little as 2% of that of the Hiroshima bomb."
"Though such weapons are less destructive by Cold War standards, modern estimates show that the equivalent of half a Hiroshima bomb, if detonated in midtown Manhattan, would kill or injure half a million people."
"the Iskander-M, first deployed in 2005. The mobile launcher can fire two missiles that travel roughly 300 miles. The missiles can carry conventional as well as nuclear warheads. Russian figures put the smallest nuclear blast from those missiles at roughly a third that of the Hiroshima bomb."
Is this true?
"No arms control treaties regulate the lesser warheads, known sometimes as tactical or nonstrategic nuclear weapons, so the nuclear superpowers make and deploy as many as they want."
Personally, I'm a bit turned off by the terms "tactical" or "baby" to describe these weapons. It seems like a way to make their use seem more palatable, which is disgusting. Not only are we talking about numbers of civilian casualties that are impossible for most people to grasp, but long term cancer and other health problems globally.
berkeley Putin. berkeley him hard.
VolvoHeretic said:In reply to tuna55 :
Thanks, I must have forgotten, it's hard to keep up.
No worries! I was a bit taken aback as the replies mostly told me there weren't smaller tactical nukes smaller than Hiroshima. I am glad you posted those links because it confirmed that there are many. For what it's worth, I agree with what you're saying. It's an ugly inevitablility the way I see it.
In reply to volvoclearinghouse :
Agree. I also think the distiction will only be to our deteriment. As I said earlier in the thread, will NATO respond uniformly to a "small, tactical" nuclear weapon? They should, as it is expressly treaty bound to do so via 1996. It could find some NATO countried get cold feet, and then Putt Putt wins by ruining the unified alliance.
"As little as 2%" means something smaller than some conventional bombs.
The bombs dropped on Japan were really small as far as nukes go.
What is interesting is that the Soviets focused on bigger because they could not trust that they could reliably get on target, or that their warheads wouldn't fizzle. The US focused on smaller, more precisely targeted, more reliable weapons. So claiming to have something small is very un-Russian.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:"As little as 2%" means something smaller than some conventional bombs.
The bombs dropped on Japan were really small as far as nukes go.
What is interesting is that the Soviets focused on bigger because they could not trust that they could reliably get on target, or that their warheads wouldn't fizzle. The US focused on smaller, more precisely targeted, more reliable weapons. So claiming to have something small is very un-Russian.
My understanding may be naive and primitive, but here goes:
The US and Russia each have enough nuclear firepower and the means to launch them to end the world by themselves. That takes care of MAD. A rational actor stops there. It's barely rational that way in the first place, but at least you have a balance.
The irrational actor loves to escalate, and Russia has talked enough of "escalate to de-escalate" that makes them a bit silly. A tactical nuke is a technical show, a dizzying escalation, and incredibly and indiscriminately dangerous to anyone nearby now for for the next few decades. Plus the move overturns the chess board. What do the rational actors do now? We should act as if he has broken the treaty and now faces the full wrath of US. I fear that the US blusters, a few European countries point out that tactical nukes weren't part of the agreement, that they won't participate. Then NATO becomes fractured, we respond alone, or don't respond at all, and the plan worked, and the irrational actor wins.
The hunt for superyachts of sanctioned Russian oligarchs Europe has seized 8 ships, so where are these Oligarchs hiding? The Eclipse has two helipads and a submarine, these are straight of of 007 movies. How are they not mad at Putin?
QuasiMofo (John Brown) said:In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
Could the Japan angle be the straw that pulls China back away from Russia? The Chinese do not seem very interested in becoming Russias protector but they will not stand for Japan wiping out Russias Eastern fleet, which they likely would and quite handily. That threat could coax Xiping into a more "let's think this over a little more Vladdy, my boy" scenario.
Honestly I think it is a total non-issue. Someone told me that Putin and Japanese presidents have met something like 30 times to discuss this issue and gotten no place. So this just seems like a formality/symbolic protest to actually pull out of the negotiations that were going nowhere in the first place
Noddaz said:Javelin would do pretty limited damage to a real warship.
It would be interesting to find out.
With a range of 1.6 miles for the original CLU and since a ship does not have RHA (Rolled homogeneous armour)
or ERA (Explosive reactive armour) that I know of , one of these would at least set fire to the compartment behind the entry hole.
I've seen the US Navy videos of hellfire being tested against target ships and they did almost no damage at all other than to the immediate compartment they hit. In other words they had very little effect on mission availability of the ship. Javelin has a smaller warhead than hellfire does.
I think launching a real Javelin with a trebuchet at a ship would probably do more damage than an anti-tank Javelin missile.
volvoclearinghouse said:A few pages back it was noted that modern "tactical" or "baby" nukes still had explosive forces greater than that of the original bombs that the U.S. detonated over Japan. Some of the articles posted here seem to contradict that:
"refurbish and improve the NATO weapons, turning them into smart bombs with maneuverable fins that made their targeting highly precise. That, in turn, gave war planners the freedom to lower the weapons’ variable explosive force to as little as 2% of that of the Hiroshima bomb."
"Though such weapons are less destructive by Cold War standards, modern estimates show that the equivalent of half a Hiroshima bomb, if detonated in midtown Manhattan, would kill or injure half a million people."
"the Iskander-M, first deployed in 2005. The mobile launcher can fire two missiles that travel roughly 300 miles. The missiles can carry conventional as well as nuclear warheads. Russian figures put the smallest nuclear blast from those missiles at roughly a third that of the Hiroshima bomb."
Is this true?
"No arms control treaties regulate the lesser warheads, known sometimes as tactical or nonstrategic nuclear weapons, so the nuclear superpowers make and deploy as many as they want."
Personally, I'm a bit turned off by the terms "tactical" or "baby" to describe these weapons. It seems like a way to make their use seem more palatable, which is disgusting. Not only are we talking about numbers of civilian casualties that are impossible for most people to grasp, but long term cancer and other health problems globally.
berkeley Putin. berkeley him hard.
I'm not a nuke expert but The things I read indicated that the variable yield warheads were on US tactical nukes and at the smallest currently operational Russian one had a much higher yield than Hiroshima. Ymmv. In any case I'm not sure I would expect the Russians to "turn down the juice" If they actually use one.
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