Ukraine War, 21 March 2023: Air Wars — in the Social Media

Hello everybody!

Hello everybody!

Let’s start at the strategic level. Many are asking me, what do I think about the Russians shooting dow….erm…. not causing a collision with that MQ-9 UAV of the US Air Force over the Black Sea….

What shall I tell you?

Yes, ‘up front’: we’re all dealing here with the kind of people who are priding themselves with the shoot-down of the Korean Airlines Boeing 747, by a Soviet Sukhoi Su-15 interceptor, and killing of 297 of crew and passengers in cold blood, back in September 1983. Who say, they would act exactly the same way, any time again — in that case, and in dozens of other, similar cases (nicely studied in this recent publication, in all the available details). Who are priding themselves with a collision between one of their Sukhoi Su-27s and a Norwegian Lockheed P-3B Orion, back in September 1987….

….which is bringing me to the point: no, I do not know for sure. But, 35+ years of studying such ‘accidents’, and a look at the video released by the Pentagon, are causing ‘that (notorious) itch’ in my small toe. And this is telling me the Russian pilot misjudged his approach — because he’s not used to intercepting such little stuff like General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper. The VKS is not training ‘dissimilar air combat’: at most, it’s training with Sukhois vs Sukhois or vs MiG-29s: aircraft in the same size and flight performances it is flying Thus, it’s pilots do not have the ‘feeling’ for the size of other objects in the air around them. Moreover, while powerful, Su-27s are big, heavy aircraft, with lots of inertia — which is obvious on the video released by Americans. Just pay attention at the ‘fat backside’ of the Russian Sukhoi hanging down some 15 metres below the pilot’s backside, once the latter realised he’s on the best way of colliding…conclusion: while trying to ‘drawn’ the MQ-9 with the fuel he was releasing, the Russian pilot misjudged his approach and the distance, and ‘scratched’ his fin against MQ-9’s propeller.

Hand on heart: can happen to anybody else in the same situation. The question is that of how is that incident then interpreted and where?

In Moscow, it was most welcome. Of course, first instinct was: it was in the international airspace? Ups! Oh, but Russians were not involved, and thus they’re not responsible…. But, since we’re at that: a gallant, noble knight fighting NATO-Nazis killed that nifty US spie plane — and that without using weapons. We’ve shown these Anglo-Saxons: Russia stronk! Give him a medal! Better two… hand on heart: nothing of this is ‘special’.

Lame US reaction? Well, what shall Washington do? Go bombing Russia because of some MQ-9? Hand on heart: the very purpose of sending stuff like MQ-9 into the harm’s way is that they can be shot down without anybody being harmed (well, except, potentially, the semi-competent VKS Su-27-pilot). As nicely demonstrated when nothing happened when some commander of the IRGC Air Defence Force, acting entirely at his own discretion, blew up that Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk/Triton — a much bigger, and far more expensive UAV — back in June 2019.

Fact is: UAVs are ‘unmanned’, with emphasis on unmanned (and nope, that’s not meant in sense of ‘the crew is female’). Point is: if one is shot down: who cares? Shit happens; taxpayer is proudly paying for a replacement; everything is fine. No reason for anybody’s pulse going up even a notch. Even less so to start the Third World War, ‘in retaliation’.

Matter of fact is: at earlier times, Soviets, and then the Russians — and several of their allies — did such stuff to _manned_ US (and allied) reconnaissance aircraft. Like Boeing RC-135s, many of which had 20+ crewmembers on board. Even to Boeing B-52 strategic bombers armed with nukes. Arguably, in most of cases there was no collision….at least unless the Chinese had nothing better to do but to wail about their testosterone-stuffed Shenyang F-8-pilots killing themeselves while almost crashing a USN’s Lockheed EP-3B over the South China Sea, back in April 2001….

Has anybody nuked Beijing ‘in retaliation’….?

Bottom line: please, move on. Nothing interesting to see here.

Clarity…the Final Frontier…

As next…. Yesterday, I’ve criticised certain Ukrainian journos and Ukrainian and Western war correspondents and their big-mouthed announcements of — indeed: demands for— an Ukrainian counteroffensive. For such reasons like, and between others, ‘Bakhmut is not worth holding’ and ‘elections in the USA are approaching’…. Today, I cannot but go on in similar fashion — because of something like ‘popular request’. This time, another of wiseacres is recommending the ZSU to reduce, ‘dramatically’, the number of (its) people killed on the frontline….

Hey! This invention of the idea ‘don’t die for your country, let the other SOB do so’ — is an entirely new concept in the entire history of warfare! Brilliant!

…so much so, the author of the lines in question, apparently, never asked himself if it’s on these ‘faggot generals’ to arm the ZSU better. After all, that (notorious) itch in my small toe is telling me, this time, that there’s at least a distant possibility that the better the ZSU is armed, and the better it gets supplied by ammo, for example, the less losses is it going to suffer. And that itch also tells me that it’s not Ukrainian generals who are sending such obsolete rubbish like M113s and/or YP-765 to Ukraine, so they can claim ‘we did something’ into the micros of the clueless media… or are persistently failing to ship enough ammo, heavy infantry armament, night-vision devices and similar stuff to Ukraine — for…. well, between 9 years and 13 months, meanwhile: whichever way you prefer it….

The same author then went on to complain about the lack of clear geographical command boundaries (within the ZSU).

By side there are so many good examples for this in the contemporary history of warfare….nah: cannot resist digressing: take French generals as example. Is a ‘classic’ in this business…. Based on experiences from the First World War, they have managed to achieve something like crystal clear geographical command boundaries. Now, my memory is never the best, but I think to have read somewhere, years ago, that sometimes around May 1940, or so, that went badly wrong. Supposedly because some corporal and nine other troops crossed some river, and then didn’t care about clear geographical boundaries, but went around rampaging perfectly arrayed French bunkers with attacks from the flank and the rear…. Blasphemy! … and then there were wildest rumours, nothing else, about successors of the same French generals, some 40 years or so later, drawing suitable lessons and teaching everybody who was ready to listen about anything else but such clarities….which — via Chad and Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, and then Rwanda and the DR Congo of the 1990s — eventually evolved into the US Army’s ‘tactics of roaming’, or something of that kind, reportedly used with such a success in Iraq of 2003….meh, who can say any more. Foremost: except the last one, none of these wars was fought by glorious Western armed forces. Therefore, experiences from them do not matter. Period.…

Nowadays, there’s nothing as important as to make it easier for the Russians to orientate themselves by establishing clear geographical command boundaries — and that at all levels. Because the Russian generals are as insistent on ‘clarity’ as so many Western generals and thus have it easier if fighting an opponent organised along clear geographical boundaries (preferably through striking precisely at these boundaries). I, really, can’t but love imagining two generals quarrelling: ‘Your troops killed 2 Russians within my area of responsibility: you jerk, you! Thief…!’

….and in other cases, generals are insistent: there must be clarity for the sake of being able to blame the one that failed, once it’s over. Because people in charge of armed forces are actually nothing better but colleagues in the company where you work, dear reader: excelling in squandering about 90% of their working time with mobbing and intrigues. So also at war. Why should there be any difference?

And if not that, well: everything is better than being flexible or letting subordinates grab the initiative at every opportunity, and acting where it matters… isn’t it? Just imagine what happens if they’re successful, while you’ve tried to prevent them from thinking with their own brains…

At least that author’s example for a failure to achieve such clarity was something like semi-good. Yes, and as reported so often since December, somebody there — no idea if it was Syrsky or Cherevatiy — pilled lots of disparate battalions from different brigades in Bakhmut, with very little prior communication and coordination with commanders on the spot. Clearly along the motto: I command, you do.

However….well, that itch that’s troubling me so much, tells me that such behaviour stands in little relation to geographical clarities. That it’s directly related to something called ‘culture of command’, perhaps to somebody becoming too nervous and losing control, too. For example, if a brigade is responsible for a certain area, then what idiot is sending some ‘independent’ battalion from an entirely different branch of armed forces to reinforce that brigade in the same certain area — and that without informing the brigade-commander in question, first and foremost?

But yes, that’s about clear geographical boundaries, not about the lack of culture and discipline in command… Ah well…. ‘Clarity…the final frontier…where no man has gone before…’: at least the rest of that article was much, much better.

Battle of Donbas

Ah, what actually matters and is the reason you’re reading all of my babbling?

Well, unless you’re one of troops on the frontline, there’s not that much to report. Bakhmut: essentially, the lines are where they used to be, few days ago. That is: the Russians made some advances along the M03, 10km north-west of Bakhmut, but all their attacks towards Roads 0504 and 0506 were stopped cold. Yesterday, the ZSU reported the destruction of an entire assault group of the Wagner PMC. That was about the ‘biggest news’ in something like 2–3 days.

For me, it’s the Avdiivka area that remains worrisome — and here I have another example for how the social media is skewing our impressions about war. The last few days, Ukrainians have released several videos shown the destruction of different Russian ground-based air defence systems (Westerners like to abbreviate them with ‘GBAD’) — by their artillery. People are cheering in reaction: to a certain degree, with good right, because it’s ‘nice’ to see some Tor/SA-15 or S-300/SA-10/12 SAM-system being blown up. However, I’m yet to see at least one post/poster in the social media discussing the meaning of the situation in question. The meaning of the Russians pushing their air defences so close to the frontline, that these get hit by Ukrainian artillery.

….crickets….

Nobody is doing that.

Now, permit me to ‘re-use’ two stills from a video released on 1 March, and shown results of one of Russian air strikes on Avdiivka — as seen from some 2,000m (or more) away. Back then, word was that this saw a deployment of a guided bomb calibre 1,500kg.

I’m always skeptic about Russian reports about use of some ‘super-turbo-precise’ weapons: the System Putin — including army-generals in command of the VKS — has pocketed so many billions, next to nothing was left for financing ‘intelligent weaponry’, and buying this for the air force.

Nevertheless, for me at least, this means one needs to be alerted. Even more so because there are Russian sources indicating they’re not only bombing ZSU positions in the Avdiivka area with precision guided munition (PGM) like Grom and UPAB-1500, from ‘stand-off ranges’ (i.e. by releasing these from distances outside the reach of the Ukrainian air defences), but even by Tu-22M-3 medium bombers releasing free-fall (and 70-years-old) FAB-3000M-54 bombs. Calibre 3000kg. And, occasionally, by Su-34s using ‘lighter’ bombs (say: 500kg). Just like over Mariupol, about a year ago.

If truth, then this means that the VKS is — at least temporarily, time and again — capable of blocking the work of Ukrainian heavy air defences (see: Buk/SA-17 and similar stuff) with electronic warfare; of forcing them to withdraw; or even by destroying them.

….even more so for the following reason: a crew of a Tu-22M-3 bomber might not want to open its bomb bay — in order to release such a weapon like FAB-3000 — while flying at supersonic speed. Is likely to cause damage to the doors-mechanism. Thus, they’re going to do so while flying at high subsonic speed. I.e. at relatively ‘slow’ speed. But, they’re going to do release from an altitude of 12,000–15,000 metres, ‘tossing’ the bomb in direction of the target from some 15–20km away. Is not going to result in a particular precise drop, but: have no doubts, a 3000-kg heavy bomb needs not that much precision.

Point is: this means the VKS considers the airspace there over Avdiivka for ‘safe enough’ to bomb with its Tu-22M-3s from high altitude. Point is that during such attacks, the Russians are 1000% sure there are no Ukrainian air defences around, capable of killing their slow-flying Tu-22M-3s.

That’s no ‘good sign’, in my books.

…and that the VKS is ‘particularly active’ over this area was confirmed at least yesterday, when Ukrainian air defences (perhaps reinforced in reaction to the events reported above?) converted one of its pilots into a paratrooper…

Foremost — and unsurprisingly, considering such reports are ‘flying around’ for more than a week — the Russians seem to not only have consolidated their grip on Krasnohorivka, but — two days ago — broke the Ukrainian frontline west of it, and attacked in the direction of Stepove, crossing the local railway line in the process.

Now, I do not say this is a reason for panic, but this is causing a precarious situation for the ZSU garrison in Avdiivka: it is more than obvious that unless Ukrainians can at least stop any further Russian advance in western direction — or, better yet: push the Russians back to the eastern side of Krasnohorivka — the position of their forces in the area south of that village (i.e. inside Avdiivka) that is critical. Far more so than that of the ZSU garrison in Bakhmut.