Ukrainian Counter offensive--will they be able to take Crimea?

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  • Martin asks, "So The Blitz, Coventry, Bristol, Birmingham, Hull, Manchester, Liverpool, Belfast, the Baedeker Raids, happened under conditions of British air supremacy"?
    Hmmm ....
    'Air superiority' is indeed a better phrase. The Blitz was largely a nightime operation where, given the technology of the time, air superiority not possible.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Purgatory Host, Circus Host
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Always happy to admit when I'm wrong. Unlike others who don't seem to realise that it would actually enhance their enormous but slightly diminished stature... :wink:

    Hostly beret on

    @Martin54, personal attacks are not permitted outside of hell.

    Hostly beret off

    la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
  • All I know is pilots in Russian fixed wing aircraft refuse to fly over Ukrainian airspace. They even launch their hypersonic missiles over Russia. And it appears even a large percentage of unmanned Russian aircraft don't make it it targets in Ukraine.

    Doesn't look like Russian air superiority over Ukraine to me.
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    edited August 2023
    It does to the Financial Times, above, where it counts.

    "Military briefing: Russian ‘Alligators’ menace Ukraine’s counteroffensive".
  • You mean the Kamov Ka-50? Or is it the Ka-52? Both are essentially the same airframe. Both are known as the most shot down helicopters in the world. Thanks to the British Starstreak. Just because the Russians are using them along the front lines, does not mean they have air supremacy or superiority.

    Notice, though, I said Russian FIXED WING AIRCRAFT. There is a difference, you should know.

    At best, the air space above Ukraine is listed as "contested." No side has the upper hand.

    BTW I cannot access the Financial Times. It is behind a paywall for me.

  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    But air superiority is not just about fixed wing aircraft. Nor is it some kind of seamless robe over the whole theatre of conflict. There can be general air superiority or even strategic air superiority for one or other combatant (or for neither) and at the same time different local or tactical air superiority.
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    edited August 2023
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    You mean the Kamov Ka-50? Or is it the Ka-52? Both are essentially the same airframe. Both are known as the most shot down helicopters in the world. Thanks to the British Starstreak. Just because the Russians are using them along the front lines, does not mean they have air supremacy or superiority.

    Notice, though, I said Russian FIXED WING AIRCRAFT. There is a difference, you should know.

    At best, the air space above Ukraine is listed as "contested." No side has the upper hand.

    BTW I cannot access the Financial Times. It is behind a paywall for me.

    The British Starstreak is not used against helicopters or any other flying aircraft. Clicking the Alligators link above answers your question.

    Search on "Russian Alligators Ukraine counteroffensive". Sorry about the paywall, it didn't come up when I first looked.

    The logic of your post doesn't preclude mine (or should I say THE CONTENT OF YOUR POST DOESN'T PRECLUDE MINE ?).
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Purgatory Host, Circus Host
    Hostly beret on

    This is getting heated.

    Cool it or take it to hell please.

    Hostly beret off

    la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
  • I finally got into the Financial Times, I think I was able to find your article. Key paragraph:
    Despite its technical superiority, Russia’s air force never gained control of Ukrainian skies thanks to Ukraine’s extensive Soviet-era air defences later bolstered by western systems. Russian fighters straying too far over the frontline into Ukrainian territory risked being shot down.

    https://www.ft.com/content/d8fe8941-3703-433d-ac7a-dab9ba500481

    I rest my case.


  • That's one reason this war has more than a passing resemblance the First World War.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    The Russians failed to gain air supremacy from the first - they don't have freedom to deploy aircraft where they will without considerable risk, and that includes close air support for ground operations. Ukrainian anti-air defences, even before Western systems were deployed, and aircraft haven't "closed the skies" but have significantly impacted the ability of the Russians to use their airpower. But, at the same time, the Russian anti-air defences are strong enough to prevent Ukrainian air forces to freely operate without considerable risk. The result is that, for both sides, the rule book of modern warfare - armoured divisions operating with close air support - has been thrown out.

    Without availability of close air support, both sides are left with just artillery to support their armour and infantry (in this context, a small number of drone strikes and even stand-off air attacks are basically a different form of artillery). The way of fighting wars since the mid 20th century, from blitzkrieg to the Gulf Wars, aren't working ... and, as @Sober Preacher's Kid noted, the Ukraine war is more like the trenches of the US civil war or the Western Front of 1914-18.
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    edited August 2023
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    I finally got into the Financial Times, I think I was able to find your article. Key paragraph:
    Despite its technical superiority, Russia’s air force never gained control of Ukrainian skies thanks to Ukraine’s extensive Soviet-era air defences later bolstered by western systems. Russian fighters straying too far over the frontline into Ukrainian territory risked being shot down.

    https://www.ft.com/content/d8fe8941-3703-433d-ac7a-dab9ba500481

    I rest my case.

    Your cherry picked paragraph and the other 27:
    Russia’s “dragon teeth” tank traps, minefields and multi-layered fortifications are just one set of obstacles in Ukraine’s budding counteroffensive. Another formidable foe turns out to be airborne: the Russian Ka-52 “Alligator” attack helicopter.<snip>

    Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week paid tribute to his forces for continuing to press into Russian-held territory despite Moscow’s “air and artillery superiority”.
    <snip>
    Extensive quotation extensively redacted. BroJames, Purgatory Host
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    Host hat on
    @Martin54, your point, however well-justified cannot be supported by an extensive quotation of pay-walled copyright material. Don’t repeat this.
    BroJames, Purgatory Host
    Host hat off
  • Another supporting statement:
    The Alligator is also highly vulnerable to surface to air missiles when in range. Russia has lost at least 35 of them since February last year, according to Oryx, which documents equipment losses in the war. Colonel Yuriy Ignat, spokesperson for the Ukrainian air force, claimed four had been shot down in the last week.

    From same article.

    In spite of your claim I cherry picked, Financial Times is saying the Russians do not have superiority and the Alligator is vulnerable. Elsewhere it also says the Alligator is not infallible. Poor crop sprayer.

    Game, Set, Match.

  • And here is an update on the Ukrainian Air Force. (It has lost only seven planes this year.)
  • The Russians failed to gain air supremacy from the first - they don't have freedom to deploy aircraft where they will without considerable risk, and that includes close air support for ground operations. Ukrainian anti-air defences, even before Western systems were deployed, and aircraft haven't "closed the skies" but have significantly impacted the ability of the Russians to use their airpower. But, at the same time, the Russian anti-air defences are strong enough to prevent Ukrainian air forces to freely operate without considerable risk. The result is that, for both sides, the rule book of modern warfare - armoured divisions operating with close air support - has been thrown out.

    Without availability of close air support, both sides are left with just artillery to support their armour and infantry (in this context, a small number of drone strikes and even stand-off air attacks are basically a different form of artillery). The way of fighting wars since the mid 20th century, from blitzkrieg to the Gulf Wars, aren't working ... and, as @Sober Preacher's Kid noted, the Ukraine war is more like the trenches of the US civil war or the Western Front of 1914-18.

    Which is almost certainly raising eyebrows in Beijing - where the idea of doing an opposed landing (rather than armoured divisions with close air support) might be looking a bit more complicated than some had thought...
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    BroJames wrote: »
    Host hat on
    @Martin54, your point, however well-justified cannot be supported by an extensive quotation of pay-walled copyright material. Don’t repeat this.
    BroJames, Purgatory Host
    Host hat off

    My apologies.
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Another supporting statement:
    The Alligator is also highly vulnerable to surface to air missiles when in range. Russia has lost at least 35 of them since February last year, according to Oryx, which documents equipment losses in the war. Colonel Yuriy Ignat, spokesperson for the Ukrainian air force, claimed four had been shot down in the last week.

    From same article.

    In spite of your claim I cherry picked, Financial Times is saying the Russians do not have superiority and the Alligator is vulnerable. Elsewhere it also says the Alligator is not infallible. Poor crop sprayer.

    Game, Set, Match.

    So what did Zelensky say?
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Another supporting statement:
    The Alligator is also highly vulnerable to surface to air missiles when in range. Russia has lost at least 35 of them since February last year, according to Oryx, which documents equipment losses in the war. Colonel Yuriy Ignat, spokesperson for the Ukrainian air force, claimed four had been shot down in the last week.

    From same article.

    In spite of your claim I cherry picked, Financial Times is saying the Russians do not have superiority and the Alligator is vulnerable. Elsewhere it also says the Alligator is not infallible. Poor crop sprayer.

    Game, Set, Match.

    So what did Zelensky say?

    I dunno. What did he say?

    At the moment the 'war' seems stalemate .....
  • Which is what I've been saying for sometime. I'm no military pundit and know nothing of the hardware involved but that's how it appears to me.

    If Russia had air superiority they would be bombing Ukrainian positions with impubity. They aren't because they can't.

    Conversely, the Ukrainian's can dent and demoralise Russian positions and infrastructure but lack the 'critical mass' to roll back the invading forces.

    As well as WW1 or the trench stage of the US Civil War, it also has shades - to me - of the 17th century Civil Wars here in the UK - technologies aside of course.

    It is - to an extent - a fratricidal struggle and neither side has an advantage. Parliament eventually gained the upper hand once it had developed the New Model Army.

    I don't think we are going to see that anytime soon. I think we'll see a long hard slog into the winter and the spring with no end in sight unless they all get round a table.

    Meanwhile, more death, more destruction, more futility.
  • unless they all get round a table.

    Ukraine: 'please reverse your invasion of our country'

    Russia: 'no'

    both sides leave table.

    IMO there are basically no circumstances in which Russia wouldn't imagine, if they were allowed any sort of 'negotiation' about a war they started by invading a neighbour, that that wasn't a green light to have another go in a couple of years.

    It wouldn't be a 'deal' - it would be half time oranges.

    Yes we're (the world) consequently in a bind, and it's horrific for the people on the ground. But I genuinely believe that the only way it could be made worse for those people (aside from any killed) is 'negotiation.'

    Negotiating with bullies doesn't work - it might sound like the way forward, but it doesn't work in the playground (Teacher: 'ok little Johnny, we're agreed that if you give little Keith only half your sweets instead of all of them as he originally asked, he promises to not hit you again this month'), and it doesn't work in unprovoked* invasions of one country by another.

    *and if anyone still thinks the invasion was provoked in any sense other than that Ukraine is next to a homicidal maniac and therefore has to just suck that up and not 'provoke' said maniac and generally do what they want, because the West finds the idea of standing up for themselves when actual tanks come rolling in a bit distasteful, then we live in an even darker world than realism makes it look.

  • Yes, it's like negotiating with Hitler. If you promise to leave Czecho, we'll be awfully nice about the Germans from now on.
  • Ghost of Munich.
  • Well, the war had been going on since 2014 at least and it's one of the pretexts Putin has used of course - 'They are oppressing our people in the Donbas ...'

    Shades of the Sudentenland.

    I don't hold out much hope for a negotiated settlement but then I don't hold out much expectation for an imminent Russian withdrawal either.

    What's your solution?
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    edited August 2023
    RockyRoger wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Another supporting statement:
    The Alligator is also highly vulnerable to surface to air missiles when in range. Russia has lost at least 35 of them since February last year, according to Oryx, which documents equipment losses in the war. Colonel Yuriy Ignat, spokesperson for the Ukrainian air force, claimed four had been shot down in the last week.

    From same article.

    In spite of your claim I cherry picked, Financial Times is saying the Russians do not have superiority and the Alligator is vulnerable. Elsewhere it also says the Alligator is not infallible. Poor crop sprayer.

    Game, Set, Match.

    So what did Zelensky say?

    I dunno. What did he say?

    At the moment the 'war' seems stalemate .....

    13 up.

    Or 7.

    Both are true.
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    7 weeks in. 11 to go. Until the autumn rasputitsa - roadlessness.

    9. 9.

    10. 8.
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    7 weeks in. 11 to go. Until the autumn rasputitsa - roadlessness.

    9. 9.

    10. 8.

    Congratulations, @Martin54, you have proven you can count up and down simultaneously,
  • HarryCHHarryCH Shipmate
    Is this somehow interacting with Numberwang (which I still do not understand)?
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Purgatory Host, Circus Host
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    7 weeks in. 11 to go. Until the autumn rasputitsa - roadlessness.

    9. 9.

    10. 8.

    Congratulations, @Martin54, you have proven you can count up and down simultaneously,

    Hostly beret on

    @Gramps49 this is a personal attack, which as you know, are not permitted outside hell.

    Hostly beret off

    la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    HarryCH wrote: »
    Is this somehow interacting with Numberwang (which I still do not understand)?

    Only in the eye of the beholder.
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    7 weeks in. 11 to go. Until the autumn rasputitsa - roadlessness.

    9. 9.

    10. 8.

    Congratulations, @Martin54, you have proven you can count up and down simultaneously,

    It's a gift.
  • I guess I shouldn't mention that the US has approved the transfer of F-16s through Denmark and the Netherlands once Ukrainian pilots complete their training on them. Transfer will likely be the first part of 2024, a mere five months away. Not it time for this counter offensive, but next summer for sure.
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    edited August 2023
    Why shouldn't you? It was signalled three months ago when Biden agreed pilot training at the G7.

    And knowing the Ukrainians, they would start a winter offensive with them if they could. They'd need to start in three months mind, straight down the E105 to Melitopol.

    I suspect they never will. They will have fortress Ukraine 0.8
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    7 weeks in. 11 to go. Until the autumn rasputitsa - roadlessness.

    9. 9.

    10. 8.

    Congratulations, @Martin54, you have proven you can count up and down simultaneously,

    Oh, and, er, 11. 7.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    All 10 on board private jet dead - Russian agencies

    All 10 people on board the private jet belonging to Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin died when it crashed near the city of Tver, the Russian news agency Intefax reports, quoting the Emergencies Ministry.

    The ministry said the 10 people - seven passengers and three crew members - were on board the plane when it came down, and that all of them are thought to be dead, according to Interfax.

    The ministry added that the plane came down near the settlement of Kuzhenkino, Tver Region.

    Courtesy of BBC News.

    Does anyone believe this was an accident ?
  • HeavenlyannieHeavenlyannie Shipmate
    edited August 2023
    Rumours (from Wagner sources) are that it was shot down by Russian air defences.
  • HarryCHHarryCH Shipmate
    Was Prigozhin aboard?
  • HeavenlyannieHeavenlyannie Shipmate
    edited August 2023
    HarryCH wrote: »
    Was Prigozhin aboard?
    Apparently yes
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-66599774
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    HarryCH wrote: »
    Was Prigozhin aboard?
    Apparently yes
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-66599774

    As the feed says, he was on the passenger list. I would have thought he'd be an absolute mug to be on the passenger list of a plane he was travelling on these days.
  • That’s why I added apparently.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    edited August 2023
    [sarcasm]

    If he has died in a plane crash, he can’t possibly have been abducted and detained at Putin’s pleasure by Russian military intelligence services.

    [/sarcasm]
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    I wonder what affect this will have on the Ukranian conflict and Wagner Group worldwide.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    All 10 on board private jet dead - Russian agencies

    All 10 people on board the private jet belonging to Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin died when it crashed near the city of Tver, the Russian news agency Intefax reports, quoting the Emergencies Ministry.

    The ministry said the 10 people - seven passengers and three crew members - were on board the plane when it came down, and that all of them are thought to be dead, according to Interfax.

    The ministry added that the plane came down near the settlement of Kuzhenkino, Tver Region.

    Courtesy of BBC News.

    Does anyone believe this was an accident ?
    As much of an accident as the various people who have recently fallen from windows, down stairs, found Novichok perfume ...
  • TurquoiseTasticTurquoiseTastic Kerygmania Host
    Yes Prigozhin was so important that he was upgraded from "top-floor window" to "aeroplane". I wonder were the other passengers also on Putin's list or merely unfortunate window-dressing? :cry:
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    The BBC is now willing to go as far as passing along someone else's report that "the Embraer aircraft was shot down by air defences in the Tver region", so an accident seems extremely unlikely.
    I wonder were the other passengers also on Putin's list or merely unfortunate window-dressing? :cry:

    One of them is reported to be Pirgozhin's lieutenant Dmitry Utkin.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    edited August 2023
    Cynical me thinks that putting the bodies of people you have finished with in a plane, then blowing it up mid air might be a form of semi-plausible deniability.
  • ArielAriel Shipmate
    edited August 2023
    There is that. Cynical me is wondering whether Prigozhin himself might have staged this with a double. He, if anyone, knows very well what happens to anyone who crosses Putin.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    There may be some kind of housecleaning going on in Russia. General Surovikin, who disappeared shortly after Pirgozhin's coup attempt, was officially removed today as the head of Russia's air force.
  • As a parting gift, did they give Surovikin a plane ticket to the Tver region?
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