Comments by "Spring Bloom" (@springbloom5940) on "Covert Cabal"
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@DonVigaDeFierro
Not exactly true. US military supremacy, has largely been built on diversity of systems. We may have 6 different weapon systems, for the same application; each having different strengths and weaknesses. The best weapon, is still vulnerable to single point failure/neutralization. Take, for example, the entire F35 fleet being grounded, for a fuel line. If all you have is F35, then you're boned. Suppose the enemy finds an exploit to jam its electronics? Or, its stealth isnt as effective as you thought? What if the supply line, for part like the compressor shaft, which has only one mfr, is cut? If you have other planes that can perform the same mission, perhaps not as well, but have different capabilities such as speed, range, agility, payload, numbers, etc. you're not only still in business, but an adversary must be able to thwart all of those threats.
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This is highly inaccurate.
1) They have air dominance in the active theatre(listen to some foreign fighter interviews about constantly being bombed and rocketed by su24s and gunships). They're just not venturing beyond the front.
2) They're not risking it, because they a) have no necessity to at this time and b) are saving it for operations over the winter, when Ukrainian forces are fixed by environmental conditions.
Everyone habitually projects their own motives and doctrine onto Russia; both of which are fundamentally different from the West. Russia is in no hurry whatsoever, they have come to stay and are already planning for next winter's operations. They do not need to risk air assets to speed up an artillery war, because their doctrine dictates withdrawal and bounding defensive action upon significant contact and permits loss rates that Western militaries would consider unacceptable. This allows them to play whack-a-mole with enemy forces and let them punch themselves out. Then, they relaunch from a foothold, retake any ceded objectives and push a little further each time; theyve been repeating this cycle since March. Interventions are a lot faster paced, because you don't have to worry about sustainment; you just blow up everything and go home. Everyone continues to badly misinterpret and overestimate out successes in Iraq (I was there, the bottom line is Iraq never recovered from Desert Storm and they were an empty shell in DS). Whatever happens today, tomorrow, or next week, Russia intends to be there defending that territory, 20 years from now. They're on glacier time, while Ukraine and NATO are playing speed checkers.
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Ill add that BVR is largely wargaming fantasy. With a handful of exceptions under very specific circumstances, every air to air engagement, since advent of BVR capability, has required visual ID of targets, per ROE. That is, you cant just shoot at shadows in the doorway. Any freefire zone will, as you noted, likely be occupied by real threats, not 3rd World operators of 2 generation obsolete export models. The main problem with BVR combat in practice, is that it gives the target a LOT of time to respond. In the case of F35, youre talking about firing a very limited number of weapons, all of which have a poor reliability factor, giving away your presence and then getting chased down and shot in the back, by interceptors. The reality is, no one has any idea if stealth even works, because no stealth aircraft has prosecuted a mission in airspace denied to conventional aircraft, neither has a stealth aircraft attacked an unsuppressed airspace. In fact, by measure of miles flown, ordnance on target and targets destroyed per unit lost/grounded, stealth has a miserably poor record.
The F35 could've been a genuine gamechanger, had it been developed modestly, as a direct replacement for the F117. But, it became an investment paradox, where as the price increases, it becomes harder to drop and progressively less tolerable to potentially lose a plane. Now, we are committed to building an invincible, invisible superhero, instead of a cheap, short range incursion aircraft, thats back on its own side of the fence, before the bombs hit.
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Information is not intelligence and facts do not convey conclusion.
Public sat imagery is of extremely limited value, even when current(I've gone half mad trying to do moderate confidence BDA, from public imagery). Public sat imagery resolution is measured in meters. We measured in centimeters and used stereoscopic viewers on composite sequential images. An example he cites, is '3 - 4 days' capture frequency. Operationally useful imagery is closer to a 3 - 4 sec window; we could look at dozens of images of a single vehicle, captured seconds apart, at more than 90° of separation.
Analysis requires multidisciplinary knowledge. For example, in Desert Storm we looked at vegetation to determine soil structure. From this, we could estimate the weight of a vehicle and take an educated guess at its cargo. So, we could determine if a vehicle were carrying personnel, or ammunition, by using the ratio of light green to dark green, to brown, in a few pixels of surface feature, as a reference.
Obviously, there is some utility to public imagery, just giving a reality check against tactically actionable GEOINT.
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Russian military doctrine is backwards of Western forces. Russia's tip of the spear is low value assets; broken vehicles, obsolete or poorly maintained weapon systems, conscripts and penal brigades, etc. The initial phase, is typically a RIF operation, that disposes of these expendable assets as bullet catchers, to probe eny capabilities. Where US military will try to get a broken vehicle back into action, Russia will abandon them over a flat tire. The follow-on waves increase progressively in experience and capability.
They likely haven't established air dominance, because its been unnecessary and they want to avoid temptation to impose a no-fly zone. Unlike the US, they'll hide their hand and avoid exposing their true capability, until it becomes necessary. The next week or two will establish broad areas of contested control, with apparently disorganized and diffuse asset deployments and then they'll lock the door and trap everyone inside with them.
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Iran has trampled to death dozens of their own people and injured hundreds more. They've launched a completely impotent missile strike and with hand shaking so badly, in fear of reprisal, killed more than a hundred more of their own, shooting down an airliner. Their terroristic impulses are so out of control, that they've killed over 150 and injured hundreds of Iranians and faceplanted themselves, in front of the whole world, in name of 'revenge', for killing their TERRORISM LEADER
I think Iran's biggest problem right now, is one or more of their regional enemies, smelling the blood in the water, knocking them over like a liquor store.
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+Neel Beke
Its entirely likely that that dont have those capabilities and that theyre burning everything they produce, in bomb tests. It would explain a lot of the fizzles. Also, a missile and even a miniaturized bomb, is a LONG way away from a deliverable weapon. Not the least of challenges is thermal design, of both a re-entry vehicle and guidance/control systems - something I highly doubt NK possesses the resources to even approach. If they were receiving developed tech, on the sly, from China, then that would be a concern. But, its really difficult to imagine a motivation for China to do something so contrary to its own interests. China has NOTHING whatsoever, to gain from NK engaging in a war and much to lose over even the prospect of it. As for Russia, they were effectively done with NK a long time ago. They will stand by and do nothing as its reduced to rubble, then pour over the border to supply 'Humanitarian' aid, claim it as a victory and condemn the destroyer, for propaganda value.
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@BabyBird691
They are looking at a central depot being cleared, not at a decreasing amount of surplus. The point being that he implies and outright makes fallacious assumptions, based on a quite literally surface level review of low grade imagery and public defense industry information. Chief among the several reasons the large depots are being cleared, is dispersal. Ukraine has hit a few storage depots with ineffectual drone attacks. However, the fact that they did attempt to strike them, is an imperative to disperse their contents. Second is deployment, which does not imply replacement of a loss; this is perhaps the most pervasive fallacy. As for loss counts, the only source everyone cites, Oryx, has flawed methodology and clear biases. For example, counting the same vehicle multiple times, from multiple different images and counting Ukrainian vehicles as Russian. One specific example of this was a disabled Russian tank that was counted multiple times, as it was moved from location to location during recovery; another is a disabled Ukrainian BTR3, destroyed while in Russian possession during recovery and counted by Oryx as a Russian loss. There's a maxim we followed to keep everyone's head straight - 'Information is not intelligence, facts do not imply conclusion, you cannot tell the truth with a lie, you can tell a lie with the truth'.
Ill give a broadstroke example of actual imagery analysis. On my first assignment, working on the operational planning for the 'Left Hook' in Desert Storm, the team I was on spent almost 3 months studying soil composition, sand grain structure and local botany, so that we were able to identify, from space, whether a truck was carrying personnel, subsistence materiel, or ordnance, based upon the color and distribution of surrounding vegetation. If youve ever wondered what it feels like to have a superpower, that comes pretty close.
An example of assumption, is BDA for the 3 major armor engagements, where the Bradley and Abrams got their fearsome rep. We spent almost a year afterwards, re-counting the destroyed vehicles and sorting out the battles to provide combat assessment (weapon system and crew performance). The Bradley, first off, was responsible for the overwhelming majority of blue on blue, because they were largely detached from the main armor formations and able to engage well beyond positive identification range. Secondly, the Bradley killcount went down dramatically from initial reports, when we started performing onsite BDA of vehicles and found that most had been hit from angles that indicated top down attacks(airstrikes), prior to being shot up by Bradleys. They were just rolling around quickdrawing on anything that popped up in their sights. Destroyed tanks, friendly tanks, etc. They also frequently misidentified AFVs as tanks, from extended range under thermals; leading to its reputation as a 'tank killer'. The perceived superiority of Challengers and Abrams was extremely exaggerated, as about 40% of the armor that Iraq fielded, was non-deployable by US DoD standards. They suffered from a range of issues such as broken hydraulics, faulty electrical, poorly maintained/worn out engines, low fuel, low/no/improper ammunition etc. A large percentage of engaged armor was broken down, or out of fuel, or out of ammo, or just abandoned by crews that didn't want to fight. They fired canister shot at Challengers from 3 times its antipersonnel range because they didn't have proper ammo. Large numbers of tanks were parked on berms firing indirect, because they were immobile, or their turrets wouldn't traverse, or their guns wouldn't elevate. These all being revelations gleaned from combat assessment following the initial BDA and after action reporting that showed only counts and ratios. I mean, we figured out over a month later that an enemy kill credited to a Bradley, was a blue on blue that didnt even slow down the friendly. Yet, it was officially recorded as an enemy kill. The point being that while Iraq indeed had the largest armor force and densest, most up to date air defenses in the region, it was all shot up, broken down, worn out junk from 10 years of them and Iran tuning each other up. Thats what we steamrolled over.
These are mistakes made by the mighty US military, best in the world at everything and unlimited resources. Now, go figure the quality of work from internet neckbeards. Analysis is more than looking at pictures and counting things. Thats just information. One of the biggest problems the Soviets had was massive information gathering with no analytical capability. Lots of people taking lots of pictures and lots of people counting and describing things in the pictures, with no one trying to understand why the things were there.
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@BabyBird691
You forgot to call me Boris...
They are looking at a central depot being cleared, not at a decreasing amount of surplus. The point being that he implies and outright makes fallacious assumptions, based on a quite literally surface level review of low grade imagery and public defense industry information. Chief among the several reasons the large depots are being cleared, is dispersal. Ukraine has hit a few storage depots with ineffectual drone attacks. However, the fact that they did attempt to strike them, is an imperative to disperse their contents. Second is deployment, which does not imply replacement of a loss; this is perhaps the most pervasive fallacy. As for loss counts, the only source ever cited, Oryx, has flawed methodology and clear biases. For example, counting the same vehicle multiple times, from multiple different images and counting Ukrainian vehicles as Russian. One specific example of this was a disabled Russian tank that was counted multiple times, as it was moved from location to location during recovery; another is a disabled Ukrainian BTR3, destroyed while in Russian possession during recovery and counted by Oryx as a Russian loss. There's a maxim we followed to keep everyone's head straight - 'Information is not intelligence, facts do not imply conclusion, you cannot tell the truth with a lie, you can tell a lie with the truth'.
Ill give a broadstroke example of actual imagery analysis. On my first assignment, working on the operational planning for the 'Left Hook' in Desert Storm, the team I was on spent almost 3 months studying soil composition, sand grain structure and local botany, so that we were able to identify, from space, whether a truck was carrying personnel, subsistence materiel, or ordnance, based upon the color and distribution of surrounding vegetation. If youve ever wondered what it feels like to have a superpower, that probably comes pretty close.
An example of assumption, is BDA for the 3 major armor engagements, where the Bradley and Abrams got their fearsome rep. We spent almost a year afterwards, re-counting the destroyed vehicles and sorting out the battles to provide combat assessment (weapon system and crew performance). The Bradley, first off, was responsible for the overwhelming majority of blue on blue, because they were largely detached from the main armor formations and able to engage well beyond positive identification range. Secondly, the Bradley keelcount(YouTube keeps deleting my post for the K word)went down dramatically from initial reports, when we started performing onsite BDA of vehicles and found that most had been hit from angles that indicated top down attacks(airstrikes), prior to being aired up by Bradleys. They were just rolling around quickdrawing on anything that popped up in their sights. Destroyed tanks, friendly tanks, etc. They also frequently misidentified AFVs as tanks, from extended range under thermals; directly leading to its reputation as a 'tank slayer'. The perceived superiority of Challengers and Abrams was extremely exaggerated, as about 40% of the armor that Iraq fielded, was non-deployable by US DoD standards. They suffered from a range of issues such as broken hydraulics, faulty electrical, poorly maintained/worn out engines, low fuel, low/no/improper ammunition etc. A large percentage of engaged armor was broken down, or out of fuel, or out of ammo, or just abandoned by crews that didn't want to fight. They fired canister rounds at Challengers from 3 times its effective antipersonnel range, because they didn't have proper ammo. Large numbers of tanks were parked on berms firing indirect, because they were immobile, or their turrets wouldn't traverse, or their guns wouldn't elevate. These all being revelations gleaned from combat assessment following the initial BDA and after action reporting that showed only counts and ratios. I mean, we figured out over a month later that an enemy keel credited to a Bradley, was a blue on blue that didnt even slow down the friendly, yet was recorded as a successful enemy engagement. The point being that while Iraq indeed had the largest armor force and densest, most up to date air defenses in the region, it was all shot up, broken down, worn out junk from 10 years of them and Iran tuning each other up.
These are mistakes made by the mighty US military, best in the world at everything and unlimited resources. Now, go figure the quality of work from internet neckbeards. Analysis is more than looking at pictures and counting things. Thats just information. One of the biggest problems the Soviets had was massive information gathering with no analytical capability. Lots of people taking lots of pictures and lots of people counting and describing things in the pictures, with no one trying to understand why the things were there.
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@rodgersericv
You dont know that. The point of 'secret weapons' is to hold them in reserve until they are needed, or to use covertly, so an adversary cant develop a defense. As it stands, the US has no apparent need for dedicated antiship missiles, because a number of other weapon systems fill the bill. As long as an enemy thinks the US doesnt have such weapons, they might believe their ships are safe, as long as they have their own secret defense to the known systems. We know for fact, that the US has 'unveiled' various operational EW weapons, only after they were discovered by enemies or press. Its reasonable to assume the US has an array of EW systems, the existence of which are secret.
As long as the acknowledged arsenal provides adequate deterrent, there is no value in disclosing more advanced systems, until needed to restore balance. That said, some weapons are meant exclusively to be used, not brandished. I have first hand knowledge in this. After the Gulf War(513th MI-BDE), I rolled with a survey and documentation team, inspecting targets that had been hit with precision munitions. We saw LGB/GBU hits, TLAM hits and Harpoon hits. We also saw some hits from weapons we couldnt identify. The film was taken directly from the cameras, notes, debris and residue samples collected and put into a locked case with a 'civilian auditor' and team members searched, all before leaving the site. For sure, Ive been somewhat out of the loop, but Ive been to the sandbox recently and seen the work of all the currently acknowledged weapons and to date, nothing Im familiar with, matches the signatures we saw. Maybe a developmental precursor to current weapons? Maybe an abandoned project? Maybe something no one knows about... yet...
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@gallakailancer3692
No, sadly it appears to be incompetence. That or they're just evil liars. From the outset, our 'to Generals' and analysts have been belligerently projecting their own motives and military doctrine, onto a nation that has never operated that way. And then arrogantly judge their military performance based upon that false first principle, with abject refusal to consider any alternate assessment.
100% of the assessments and response is predicated on the presumption that Putin wants to conquer and occupy Ukraine and absorb it into Russia. Which is an outright absurdity, if you simply take Putin's consistent, unwavering word that he doesn't want NATO on his borders. But, say you just assume he's lying, the evidence in hand, the invasion strategy, Putin's history, etc. all contradict the conquest assumption.
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+internetbutthurt
Incorrect assessment. The reason so many missiles were fired, is three fold - 1) redundancy, 2), size of the target, 3) mission objectives. First, if you are like many, gloating that US missiles are not 100% invincible, then youre just an idiot and should stay out of such discussions. Cruise missiles are airplanes and have mechanical/navigation problems, just like any other airplane. If thats not what youre doing, then disregard. Second, at least one of these targets was larger than the neighborhood you probably live in. We arent talking about sending 25 missiles to blow up a house. Also, when they say '3 principle targets', theyre talking about 3 target sites, each containing multiple individual targets. All of which are hit with multiple weapons, as per item 1 and item 3, which I'll now address. Third is mission profile. The targets struck, were believed to house chemical weapons, so were not destroyed as typical hard targets are destroyed. The LAST thing they wanted, was to potentially disperse a chemical weapon, in retaliation for allegedly using chemical weapons. Two or more types of warhead, in varying yields, wouldve been used. Typically an incendiary weapon would be used first, followed by multiple low yield HE weapons, to pile up rubble and sequester any hazardous materials. This is exactly what we see in photos and videos of the target sites.
Those are the broad strokes, its a bit more complicated, but not much.
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@HonorWrought
Because A) that would happen and B) US would be all on its own.
Ok, so, that would also be fairly quick. I have to assume you're talking about a conventional attack, for there to be any utility in the argument. The US is huge, with assets pretty evenly diffused throughout the continent and a significant stationed and deployed force, all around the world, within hours reach of any location on Earth. Long before an attack, they would have to make overt movements that would put NATO on high alert. That massive mobilization has a massive price tag in every aspect, not the least of which is vulnerability. The US alone, has enough raw firepower, to decimate such a force with a first strike. Baghdad 'Shock and Awe' was planned for 3 - 5 days, at that intensity, at dozens of targets around the country. UK and Germany said they wouldn't have any part of it, so it was scaled back to a few hours over Baghdad, to save the coalition. The first month of the Iraq War, was just disposing of old munitions. I was MI in the Gulf War and yes, the Iraqi military was no match for anyone, but no one wouldve faired significantly better against the weaponry and tactics employed. We know the Iraqi ADS were functional and accurate, because they were shooting at the bombs coming off the F117s. TLAM and Harpoons were unstoppable. I worked with a survey team that documented cruise missile targets. We saw structures in heavily defended areas hit multiple times, from multiple directions, with foot-scale precision. We saw structures reduced to rubble and no significant damage to its neighbors.
TL;DR
Zero chance of pulling off a sneak attack and the US could deliver such a punishing initial blow, it wouldn't be worth trying it. Dude, the Sandbox is the US screwing around and trying to fight a war without hurting anyone's feelings.
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