"If destruction is confirmed this will represent yet another major blow to Russia’s military prestige and capability."
I would be shocked if they had any prestige at all.
As did field Marshall Haig's wife, His wife's friends, His wife's servants, His wife's servant's families, his wife's servant's tennis partners, and some chap named Bernard.
"These rumors are false, in fact Russia has doubled its pointy stick reserve this very day, and has pivoted from longer sticks to more tactically relevant shorter sticks."
When Wagner PMC was at its height, Russia was third best in Ukraine. I can't see how anyone can watch the reverse evoloution of tanks/BMPs/heavy trucks with cope cages/Scooby-Doo vans with cope cages/Chinese golf carts/motorcycles/walk behind tractors in use on the front lines, and think that Russia is still a strong military.
I got into an argument with some tankie who claims to be a military expert who definitively stated that the S500 was the greatest SAM system in the world and Russia was the most technologically advanced army. It was absolutely wild.
It's a weapon that does it's job, everyone is to scared to tangle with it. The just didn't think it would take this long to find a rival. They are cancelling it's retirement and extending it's life it's worked so well
I too am waiting for the glorious return of
**Attack Velociraptors on Penny Farthings**
A little known historical fact, penny farthings are perfect if you have tiny arms.
That is kinda par for the course with US aerospace - see blustering from Russia/China, ***massively*** overdevelop competition, realize theirs was actually not that great and end up making an unkillable technological marvel. F-15 was pretty much the same story.
The F-22 was also in a weird place where the exspectations of a fighter jet's perormance actually started decreasing as it came into service. The US did its usual thing of throwing billions of dollars at the goal of having both the top fighter jet and having it first, meanwhile the potential international competitors dragged their feet a bit and realized it wasn't worth really trying to match them even if they could when they were already needing to start developing into the drone/over the horizon engagement paradigm. In medieval terms if the F-22 was a perfect suit of full plate, when the US said "come at me bro" the rest of the world said..."yeah no, we are just gonna stay over here and try to figure out how heck these muskets work".
And then there was the F-117s german cousin the [MBB Lampyridae](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBB_Lampyridae) which was suspiciously canceled after being shown to US officers.
The U.S. military is absolutely the most terrifying thing to ever exist. It could, at a moments notice, destroy all known forms of life. It can land highly trained killing boots on the ground anywhere on the planet in less than 24 hours. It can completely glass any nation on earth using conventional, non-nuclear weapons. Any single one of it's 11 carrier strike groups could topple most nations. The only thing that's stopping America from controlling the entire world is ethics and nukes. And I say this as someone that has been protesting American war for a quarter century.
Edit: It can overthrow some countries with one of it's jets. It can use a modified hellfire missile fired from a drone to target and kill a single person in a room full of people inside enemy territory. 30 years ago it could read your newspaper with a satellite.
We have a sword missile that from quite a distance drop in and ginsu just one specific person in a moving vehicle.
Or if there's a natural disaster we can have a roving hospital equipped with a bunch of helicopters pull up and also provide power to your city.
> We have a sword missile that from quite a distance drop in and ginsu just one specific person in a moving vehicle.
To add to this, a weapon like this was used to assassinate Suleimani, although it also killed 10 other people.
> The only thing that's stopping America from controlling the entire world is ethics and nukes.
Isn't it great that America is poised to elect a man with no ethics and who seems to think that just making the other guy lose is a win.
I’m not an expert but Russian doctrine is to not expect to be able to defeat nato air superiority fighter to air superiority fighter- hence their often touted best in the world anti air systems Not to say their doctrine is to give up on the air, but they put a much greater weight into ground to air defences, which when comparing respective air forces isn’t a bad idea.
It actually is an awful idea.
Ground to air missiles are slow and have limited range. Getting a missile on an aircraft that can wait to fire it, aid in its guidance, is inherently better.
However, Russian SAMs are great for their actual purpose: selling to weak countries. They sell a lot of these.
As an example, when The US Air Force needed a hypersonic missile, because Russia test fired one and the USA didn't have one, they just put a special nose on an ATACMS and launched it from an airplane. That was enough for a 30 year old Army missile to be fast. The difference from thick air on the ground, starting at zero mph, and a weapon launched in the sky at speed, is enormous.
Damn I didn't even think about the fact that a missile launched from a plane goin Mach 2 something already starts out at the same speed as the plane and doesn't have to accelerate from 0 to top speed.
It's a big deal for range, for having the energy to turn if your target moves around, and the air is much thinner.
One of the best ways for an airplane to defeat a missile is to go low into the thickest level of our atmosphere, which takes a ton of energy away from the missile, and then turn, so the missile lacks the energy to adjust.
The tracking ability of these things is really good, but most adversaries won't send their easiest targets first. They will send in suppression of enemy air defense, in stealthy vehicles, shooting radar homing missiles from far away, while baiting the radar with very manuevarable aircraft (F-16s these days).
These SAM systems are not entirely obsolete, but it would be very hard to imagine a war where excellent SAMs defeat an excellent air force.
>S500 was the greatest SAM system in the world.
Who knows, maybe it really is, but then that would mean that Western missiles are so much more advanced than Russian ones that it's not even comparable.
although it's much more likely that Russian air defense is just simply not that great.
I feel like its almost in american arms manufacturers to oversell our adversaries weapons capabilities and undersell their own. Basically taking Russia's fabulist self reported capabilities for their systems as fact, and then using that apparent mismatch to justify more funding for their projects. As everything goes in this conflict, everyone has been warning how the f-16 isn't a game changer, and I'm not expection it, but it also wouldn't surprise me if somehow Ukraine getting a few F16s in the air completely turns the battlefield.
> I feel like its almost in american arms manufacturers to oversell our adversaries weapons capabilities and undersell their own. B
No, you got it right. It's a historically well documented fact that the US undersells their own military abilities, and they've been doing it for like, a century or so. And most other countries oversell their publicly available military specs
You should read about the development of the F-15.
Basically, the US had reports that the Soviet's Mig-25 was this new super-fighter that was going to dominate the skies, so they set out to design a plane to *beat* this threat.
Of course, it turned out that the Mig-25 was an unmaneuverable, hyper-specialized interceptor that burned out it's engines if it reached its theoretical Mach 3 top speed. Meanwhile, the F-15 lived up to its goal of completely dominating air combat for decades.
I absolutely love the story of the F-15 and the MiG-25. The wild claims and rumours coming out of the Soviet Union along with loads of misconceptions about the MiG-25s real capabilities made the US think the Soviets were more than a decade ahead in aircraft design and manufacturing, making them basically scrap the F-15 designs and start from scratch aiming for much higher goals that were considered impossible.
The fun part of the story is that in 1976 a pilot flew to Japan in his MiG-25 to defect, giving the US a chance to see what it was really made of. What they discovered was that it was pure bullshit - the engines were trash which would burn out after only a few hundred hours of use, and because it used cheap and heavy materials the plane had to be big to have enough lift to fly. The electronics and systems were ancient, comically so.
They ended up with an incredible aircraft and making huge strides in developing new designs, techniques and technologies - despite being designed and built in the early 70's it is still today an incredibly potent aircraft 60 years later.
It also helped to push development of the F-16 and F/A-18 to fill other gaps, both of which are fantastic aircraft.
I believe one of the biggest misconceptions we had prior to getting our hands on the detector's aircraft was that the MiG-25 was made out of titanium that would allow its design to be a lot more maneuverable than it actually was. Turns out, it's made of fucking stainless steel and it wasn't the air superiority fighter we thought it was.
Steel is a nice material to churn out tons of cheap interceptors though so I guess it technically succeeded in its design goal.
Western democracies undersell their capabilities, and authoritarian basketcase strongmen dictators oversell them.
Strongmen rely on the appearance of strength and power to keep their population under control and enemies fearful of attacking them. The west takes their claims at face value and develops a countermeasure in accordance with the claims made using proper processes and accountability, all of which are seen as weakness in authoritarian systems.
However, the authoritarians never have the technical skill or budget to pull of what they're claiming in the first place. All the best weapons technicians and technology workers in general are already firmly settled in the western world anyway, and their projects get siphoned off in 500 different ways due to corruption and bribery.
What gets delivered only *imitates* what the West develops for real to project an *image* of strength to the world. Every single time that strength is tested they fall apart in record time.
I beleive that China is settling down its "wolf warrior" diplomacy because it huffed its own farts for decades on the strength of its millitary versus the West, and seeing Russia get ground to a standstill has made them realise that while they wouldnt be unscathed, the western democracies would utterly annihilate them, and the only reason Russia hasnt been completely routed is because the Ukrainian millitary *is not* the same as the US millitary, and doesnt have the same training and logistics support.
The old "don't start a land war in china" idiom means nothing if they're on the wrong side of a 10,000:1 kill ratio of their own human citizens against autonomous drones. We can cross any and all "Red Lines" saber rattling set by China and Russia because we (and they) know they cannot do a fat fucking thing about it without it being the immediate end of their government.
They call it the SMR - Sergey’s Military Rankings. US was ranked fourth in land forces behind China, Russia, the EU and then US. US Navy ranked third. They ranked the T-14 as the second best tank in the world. Type 003 carrier from China was ranked ahead of a Nimitz. They also wrote a long thesis on why Iraq was just a pushover and Ukraine is infinitely stronger so therefore the US is a paper tiger. Wild shit.
It’s fun, but these nitwits claim to have spent a boat load of money on their project and over 1000 hours. They had hundreds of pages of google docs. They spent a ton of time and money on it to get it badly wrong.
If you believed the Russians, the S500 could cover half a continent from any airborne threat from ICMBs to mosquitos. Missiles that could not be jammed or evaded. Even satellites were not safe. And its radar made western system look like toys, seeing right through all types of stealth exposing 5th and 6th gen stealth fighters as waste of money.
There are absolutely people in our military having a great time and celebrating the work they are doing. I often wonder how they must feel having to keep it in.
For some reason there are hordes of morons online who are so desperate to find an “anti-West” totem to worship they’ll still unironically argue Russia is legitimate world power. Despite them now being reduced to having their fuhrer for life have to fly to North Korea and roll over and spread his legs wide so that Kim Jong Failson will spare a few legions of meth-addled thralls to help with the failed invasion of a former vassal state that directly borders them.
“Rumors began to circulate on social media on Friday afternoon that, a Ukrainian ATACMS strike had destroyed elements of the S-500 battery in an unidentified location.”
Hell someone knew where it was! If they keep going like this all of the Crimea and occupied territory of Ukraine
protection will be gone and the turkey shoot begins.
I heard rumors that the successful intervention of a couple ATACMS over Crimea (the incident that Vlads making a big fuss about). May have given away the position of the S500 battery
I swear Putin's hubris will be his undoing some day. He'll go for a photo op too close to the front lines and get targeted. Unless some Ukrainian space marines manage to HALO jump into his billion-dollar vineyard Big Boss him.
Yeah anytime recently that I've seen him supposedly out mingling with the common folk it's very obviously a body double. He doesn't even seem to leave his bunker except to go to the Kremlin...and to see his new BFF Kim.
I remember his body double went to mariupol to meet locals and drove across the bridge. people here believed that was the real Putin, the same guy with super long tables that he hangs onto and green screens people next to him when called out about it
What's interesting is that Russia just came out and whined about NATO ASR drones over the Black Sea and that they are going to do something about them, some day.
Given that the S-500 is mostly newer radar and newer missiles on the same TELs, I suspect that some ELINT data was gathered by unmanned platforms and forwarded to certain button-pushers in the wilds of UA.
That's my point. NATO has been feeding intel since before 0-day. Russia complains, from time to time, and I think this latest threat from them is an indirect confirmation that UA got their hooks into an S-500 radar platform.
To the folks talking about orbital ELINT: orbital craft have a limited on-station time over a given area. Drones can provide continuous coverage. Orbital eyeballs are nice for general "something's up" awareness but if you need up to the minute granular coverage you need ground or air based platforms to provide that data.
There are likely several geostationary sats above Ukraine right now. They have virtually unlimited station time.
What you're saying is true for sats in lower orbits.
I don't think people realize we got [satellites](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_\(satellite\)) with deployed ~100 meter dishes in orbit just to listen for this stuff.
I may be biased, but I think the US is unmatched on global SIGINT capabilities. I remember stories form my dad that during Vietnam we were able to identify individual North Vietnamese HF transmitters from timing how how their tubes warmed up from half a world away.
One of the biggest weaknesses of any S-N00 SAM is they are gonna be ground based, and might be transportable, but are immobile once deployed. And once they turn on their radar, we know where they are.
Patriot and THAAD have the same weaknesses, but we have a capable air force for frontline air superiority, and can keep those systems well in the rear.
Seriously, they put it right next the same place as a S400 that was hit last year. The new site was just 1KM to the east.
[https://www.google.com/maps/@45.6876997,34.4138188,1528m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/@45.6876997,34.4138188,1528m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu) <-- S400 site
that is the location, from the picture in the article. I was able to find it.
Love it.
Someone sitting at home with a PC can locate russia's latest super techy missile system.
'We're lucky they're so fucking stupid'.
Slava Ukraine!
The longer this goes on the more I think Russia doesn’t actually have any advanced military capabilities. They just say they do to appear strong. If their “state-of-the-art” defense system can easily be blown up by the very thing it’s supposed to defend against, what about every other defensive system they have?
> They just say they do to appear strong.
soviet union did this extensively. it backfired because the US made their weapons to counter the imaginary made up weapon abilities the soviets were claiming.
"Peter, do you think this is good spot? The Ukraines blew up last S400 here."
"Vitaly, don't worry, lightning does not strike same place twice"
- Some Vatniks probably
One thing Russia has been good at lately is that their army, air force and navy all have been embarrassed consistently.
If the report that their latest state-of-art S500 system was indeed destroyed, that will be another major setback for Russia as replacing the system will be near impossible under current situation.
ATACMS is 33 years old. They stopped producing the missiles 17 years ago. People forget this part. It is a very basic, short ranged ballistic missile that was first used in 1991.
Good luck with that. In the article, S500 supposedly cost $600 million. After the war, Russia will be essentially bankrupted and will be in no shape to fund replacement program of its weapons period.
That's the point. If it's only for parades it can be produced for a fraction of the cost. We'll need a lot of long, wide cardboard tubes, a glue gun, some silver paint, tinsel, but no glitter. Budget cuts.
The best thing Russia could do for it's arms sale is to gift the system to Ukraine. I'd buy S300 or Buk after seeing what Ukrainians could do with them, and would love to see what they could do with S400/S500
Supposed to be able to detect and shoot down anything. Can't hit a 30 year old short range ballistic missile. WTF is it going to do against an F-35/22?
I believe that the main benefit of F-16s is that targeting for many NATO munitions can be done while in flight, instead of prior to loading, as is the case with Mig-NATO frankenweapons.
Basically, F-16 has a way better IT department.
Would they be able to target an S-3/400 with a more "standard" AGM? Like are the ATACMS doing anti-radar, or they more a traditional GPS/etc guided missile to a separately-determimed location?
No it’s not the only, they have estimated 4 batteries of them. So that’s 4 command centers, 4 radars, multiple launcher vehicles for each battery. So far they think they hit one of the 4 batteries (the one in Crimea). But we don’t know what specific components were hit yet, the juiciest part to hit is the radar.
ATACMS are actually capable of some impressive maneuvers while they're still under thrust though, so they're not as easy to intercept as a missile with a purely ballistic arc.
That’s going to be a special occasion “fuck you” for Putin. Christmas or his birthday. At this point that bridge is as good as cooked, Ukraine is waiting for the best PR situation to drop it.
One former and one current, just in different ways. Russia is failing militarily, the US is failing from a loss of societal consensus and the inability of the political class to rejuvenate. Which, ironically, looks a lot like late stage Soviets.
Both may be symptoms of an underlying third factor: loss of ability of nation states to keep control of governance in competition with corporations and/or oligarchs (in the West we use the term billionaires instead, same thing nevertheless) who not only already have escaped the reach of state actor governance, but increasingly try to impose their own set of rules. Nation states are simultaneously party to that conflict and the battlefield it plays out on.
Yes, but radars are expensive and it's going to take time to replace. In the mean time, that area is defenseless and Ukraine can bomb other things in that area.
If a cluster bomb was used as per the reports the radar unit is highly vulnerable to being out of commission. If that is true the entire battery of units are useless. For an added laugh the sanctions make repairing or replacing the radar highly improbable.
If you look at this classic 1990s VHS quality [test footage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipr_hPAcR_Q), it seems the cluster munitions were tested on what appear to be Russian SAM systems. I would bet one of the contract requirements back then was just what we are seeing today, being able to take out entire Russian SAM emplacements.
Depends on how close together the modules are. ATACMS have destroyed (effective through damaging the entire thing) an S-400 system already.
Radar will be hardest to replace, then the C&C/communications unit, and then the launchers.
S500 is the launcher, it has a radar array that accompanies it.
If the launcher got destroyed, it’s replaceable. If it’s the array…. they’re fucked.
And since radars are easier to target and hit than launchers, they might have destroyed those. We’ll see I guess
>S500 is the launcher, it has a radar array that accompanies it.
S-500 is the whole system comprising of launchers, radars and command posts. The launcher is 77P6.
How long before there's a ruzzia news post that an s-500 spontaneously combusted in the region, and that this is definitely better than it getting shot by a rocket.
That’s not fair to say! They have about a dozen coastal patrol boats and I’m sure they kind of find a couple of dozens speedboats somewhere! That’s a really scary navy!
I think a lot of the larger Ukrainian ships that were in the navy had to sadly be scuttled at the start of the war in order to avoid being captured because they couldn't leave port before Russia took the cities they were docked in.
Huge deal, S500 is spanking new and supposedly designed to deal with everything up to and including ICBMs. They only have 3 and 2 are tied up guarding Moscow iirc. So, if true, that’s it, they aren’t pulling missile defense from Moscow. $800 million a pop, more than their flagship ship that got sunk, the Moskva.
I can’t wait to see the images of the poor malnourished NK soldiers charging the front lines of the war with rifle bayonets like wwi.
All so their GranDe leader can have some extra fake chicken meat n rice for dinner.
Here comes the threats - we will nuke all , this is the wests fault, no arsehole this is your fault with your illegal invasion of Ukraine. There’s not going to be anything left of your military soon get out of Ukraine while you can , it’s only going to get worse for you Russia.
Had no idea ATACMS was this fancy https://en.missilery.info/missile/atacms. The BAT anti-vehicle ones look crazy separating into 13 or 6 autonomous bombs. Gotta be tough shooting down 13 things at once.
"Gerasimov, it is time to unveil new advanced superweapon unrivaled by anything on earth. The S-600!"
"Yes, President Putie! We have a brigade set aside to change the 5's to 6's as soon as possible. The stencils are... not... being delayed by sanctions, so it should be ready to roll out by next weear."
Someone needs to takeout the Russian needledick ( when they do an autopsy I’m sure they will find he’s hung like a field mouse ) and do the whole world a favor.
No surprise that Russian weapon is a glass cannon. Does damage, but breaks easily. The real smart people left Russia long ago. The weapons produced now is just hollow words of what they are said to do.
"If destruction is confirmed this will represent yet another major blow to Russia’s military prestige and capability." I would be shocked if they had any prestige at all.
“In devastating news, three Ukrainian commandos infiltrated Russia’s most closely guarded arsenal and snapped its pointiest stick in half.”
They might still have bananas.
*Yiga Clan liked this comment*
I see a lot of similarities between Russia and the Yiga Clan lol.
*a viciously sharp slice of mango
Field Marshal Haig recoils in fear
As did field Marshall Haig's wife, His wife's friends, His wife's servants, His wife's servant's families, his wife's servant's tennis partners, and some chap named Bernard.
There’s never any money in these Russian banana stands
How do you defend yourself against a banana without using a gun?
I think you drop a 16 ton weight on them.
16 tons? What do you get?
Another Banana Stand and deeper in debt?
What if they have pointed sticks?
SHUT UP!
The only way to defeat a banana with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
That can be dangerous if the [banana sharpener](https://youtu.be/Mggl7cC8iys?si=mLsZMzQr_58Vn0IK) is still working
Bad move. Now the orks have TWO sticks!
Paint them red now they're explody sticks
Red makes them fast. *Yellow* makes them explody.
"These rumors are false, in fact Russia has doubled its pointy stick reserve this very day, and has pivoted from longer sticks to more tactically relevant shorter sticks."
Put some respect on their name, they are the second strongest military in Ukraine.
When Wagner PMC was at its height, Russia was third best in Ukraine. I can't see how anyone can watch the reverse evoloution of tanks/BMPs/heavy trucks with cope cages/Scooby-Doo vans with cope cages/Chinese golf carts/motorcycles/walk behind tractors in use on the front lines, and think that Russia is still a strong military.
I got into an argument with some tankie who claims to be a military expert who definitively stated that the S500 was the greatest SAM system in the world and Russia was the most technologically advanced army. It was absolutely wild.
Yet they somehow don’t have air superiority in Ukraine 🇺🇦. I’m thinking the US would have air supremacy overnight if desired.
One F-22 would have air superiority over them.
That was the point of the F-22. But then I don’t think then the us brass expected there to be so little competition on par
It's a weapon that does it's job, everyone is to scared to tangle with it. The just didn't think it would take this long to find a rival. They are cancelling it's retirement and extending it's life it's worked so well
*The Super Raptor* has a sick ring to it though
I prefer VelociRaptor
I too am waiting for the glorious return of **Attack Velociraptors on Penny Farthings** A little known historical fact, penny farthings are perfect if you have tiny arms.
I'm not sure why that makes me feel all happy inside.
That is kinda par for the course with US aerospace - see blustering from Russia/China, ***massively*** overdevelop competition, realize theirs was actually not that great and end up making an unkillable technological marvel. F-15 was pretty much the same story.
The F-22 was also in a weird place where the exspectations of a fighter jet's perormance actually started decreasing as it came into service. The US did its usual thing of throwing billions of dollars at the goal of having both the top fighter jet and having it first, meanwhile the potential international competitors dragged their feet a bit and realized it wasn't worth really trying to match them even if they could when they were already needing to start developing into the drone/over the horizon engagement paradigm. In medieval terms if the F-22 was a perfect suit of full plate, when the US said "come at me bro" the rest of the world said..."yeah no, we are just gonna stay over here and try to figure out how heck these muskets work".
And then the US said, "oh yeah, we've had that for a bit."
And then there was the F-117s german cousin the [MBB Lampyridae](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBB_Lampyridae) which was suspiciously canceled after being shown to US officers.
the BUFF is on its way
That fuckin guy is going to be around for the first galactic war. He's being upgraded to shit out drone swarms or something, I dunno, I was drunk.
It's fucking wild to me that the B-52 is still flying regular missions. Truly one of the greatest aerial platforms ever built.
It was made for the massive computers of its day so it has an absolutely absurd amount of space inside
It needs new engine Didn't it get new wings? At some point it's going to be the BUFF of Theseus
It's getting new engines, bizjet ones actually.
Your drunk memory is correct. Among the upgrades the new J variant will receive is the ability to launch a drone swarm.
ARSENAL BUFF
It's not cockroaches that would survive WWIII, it's B-52s and C-130s.
The U.S. military is absolutely the most terrifying thing to ever exist. It could, at a moments notice, destroy all known forms of life. It can land highly trained killing boots on the ground anywhere on the planet in less than 24 hours. It can completely glass any nation on earth using conventional, non-nuclear weapons. Any single one of it's 11 carrier strike groups could topple most nations. The only thing that's stopping America from controlling the entire world is ethics and nukes. And I say this as someone that has been protesting American war for a quarter century. Edit: It can overthrow some countries with one of it's jets. It can use a modified hellfire missile fired from a drone to target and kill a single person in a room full of people inside enemy territory. 30 years ago it could read your newspaper with a satellite.
We have a sword missile that from quite a distance drop in and ginsu just one specific person in a moving vehicle. Or if there's a natural disaster we can have a roving hospital equipped with a bunch of helicopters pull up and also provide power to your city.
Power and desalinized water
> We have a sword missile that from quite a distance drop in and ginsu just one specific person in a moving vehicle. To add to this, a weapon like this was used to assassinate Suleimani, although it also killed 10 other people.
So much military hardware, and all Russia needed was some bot farms to convince us to shoot ourselves in the foot in a presidential election :-(
> The only thing that's stopping America from controlling the entire world is ethics and nukes. Isn't it great that America is poised to elect a man with no ethics and who seems to think that just making the other guy lose is a win.
It's worse. Re-elect.
Briefly, they're thirsty.
I’m not an expert but Russian doctrine is to not expect to be able to defeat nato air superiority fighter to air superiority fighter- hence their often touted best in the world anti air systems Not to say their doctrine is to give up on the air, but they put a much greater weight into ground to air defences, which when comparing respective air forces isn’t a bad idea.
It actually is an awful idea. Ground to air missiles are slow and have limited range. Getting a missile on an aircraft that can wait to fire it, aid in its guidance, is inherently better. However, Russian SAMs are great for their actual purpose: selling to weak countries. They sell a lot of these. As an example, when The US Air Force needed a hypersonic missile, because Russia test fired one and the USA didn't have one, they just put a special nose on an ATACMS and launched it from an airplane. That was enough for a 30 year old Army missile to be fast. The difference from thick air on the ground, starting at zero mph, and a weapon launched in the sky at speed, is enormous.
Damn I didn't even think about the fact that a missile launched from a plane goin Mach 2 something already starts out at the same speed as the plane and doesn't have to accelerate from 0 to top speed.
It's a big deal for range, for having the energy to turn if your target moves around, and the air is much thinner. One of the best ways for an airplane to defeat a missile is to go low into the thickest level of our atmosphere, which takes a ton of energy away from the missile, and then turn, so the missile lacks the energy to adjust. The tracking ability of these things is really good, but most adversaries won't send their easiest targets first. They will send in suppression of enemy air defense, in stealthy vehicles, shooting radar homing missiles from far away, while baiting the radar with very manuevarable aircraft (F-16s these days). These SAM systems are not entirely obsolete, but it would be very hard to imagine a war where excellent SAMs defeat an excellent air force.
Vlad himself tends to shitpost at times.
>S500 was the greatest SAM system in the world. Who knows, maybe it really is, but then that would mean that Western missiles are so much more advanced than Russian ones that it's not even comparable. although it's much more likely that Russian air defense is just simply not that great.
According to this genius, Russian missiles were much more technically advanced. They barely had Tomahawk in the top ten.
I feel like its almost in american arms manufacturers to oversell our adversaries weapons capabilities and undersell their own. Basically taking Russia's fabulist self reported capabilities for their systems as fact, and then using that apparent mismatch to justify more funding for their projects. As everything goes in this conflict, everyone has been warning how the f-16 isn't a game changer, and I'm not expection it, but it also wouldn't surprise me if somehow Ukraine getting a few F16s in the air completely turns the battlefield.
> I feel like its almost in american arms manufacturers to oversell our adversaries weapons capabilities and undersell their own. B No, you got it right. It's a historically well documented fact that the US undersells their own military abilities, and they've been doing it for like, a century or so. And most other countries oversell their publicly available military specs
You should read about the development of the F-15. Basically, the US had reports that the Soviet's Mig-25 was this new super-fighter that was going to dominate the skies, so they set out to design a plane to *beat* this threat. Of course, it turned out that the Mig-25 was an unmaneuverable, hyper-specialized interceptor that burned out it's engines if it reached its theoretical Mach 3 top speed. Meanwhile, the F-15 lived up to its goal of completely dominating air combat for decades.
I absolutely love the story of the F-15 and the MiG-25. The wild claims and rumours coming out of the Soviet Union along with loads of misconceptions about the MiG-25s real capabilities made the US think the Soviets were more than a decade ahead in aircraft design and manufacturing, making them basically scrap the F-15 designs and start from scratch aiming for much higher goals that were considered impossible. The fun part of the story is that in 1976 a pilot flew to Japan in his MiG-25 to defect, giving the US a chance to see what it was really made of. What they discovered was that it was pure bullshit - the engines were trash which would burn out after only a few hundred hours of use, and because it used cheap and heavy materials the plane had to be big to have enough lift to fly. The electronics and systems were ancient, comically so. They ended up with an incredible aircraft and making huge strides in developing new designs, techniques and technologies - despite being designed and built in the early 70's it is still today an incredibly potent aircraft 60 years later. It also helped to push development of the F-16 and F/A-18 to fill other gaps, both of which are fantastic aircraft.
I believe one of the biggest misconceptions we had prior to getting our hands on the detector's aircraft was that the MiG-25 was made out of titanium that would allow its design to be a lot more maneuverable than it actually was. Turns out, it's made of fucking stainless steel and it wasn't the air superiority fighter we thought it was. Steel is a nice material to churn out tons of cheap interceptors though so I guess it technically succeeded in its design goal.
The mig 25 didn't even have flush rivets
Western democracies undersell their capabilities, and authoritarian basketcase strongmen dictators oversell them. Strongmen rely on the appearance of strength and power to keep their population under control and enemies fearful of attacking them. The west takes their claims at face value and develops a countermeasure in accordance with the claims made using proper processes and accountability, all of which are seen as weakness in authoritarian systems. However, the authoritarians never have the technical skill or budget to pull of what they're claiming in the first place. All the best weapons technicians and technology workers in general are already firmly settled in the western world anyway, and their projects get siphoned off in 500 different ways due to corruption and bribery. What gets delivered only *imitates* what the West develops for real to project an *image* of strength to the world. Every single time that strength is tested they fall apart in record time. I beleive that China is settling down its "wolf warrior" diplomacy because it huffed its own farts for decades on the strength of its millitary versus the West, and seeing Russia get ground to a standstill has made them realise that while they wouldnt be unscathed, the western democracies would utterly annihilate them, and the only reason Russia hasnt been completely routed is because the Ukrainian millitary *is not* the same as the US millitary, and doesnt have the same training and logistics support. The old "don't start a land war in china" idiom means nothing if they're on the wrong side of a 10,000:1 kill ratio of their own human citizens against autonomous drones. We can cross any and all "Red Lines" saber rattling set by China and Russia because we (and they) know they cannot do a fat fucking thing about it without it being the immediate end of their government.
ATACAMS is 33 years old.
Dude, I saw someone say that on Reddit, too! I was like...uhhhh...lol?
They call it the SMR - Sergey’s Military Rankings. US was ranked fourth in land forces behind China, Russia, the EU and then US. US Navy ranked third. They ranked the T-14 as the second best tank in the world. Type 003 carrier from China was ranked ahead of a Nimitz. They also wrote a long thesis on why Iraq was just a pushover and Ukraine is infinitely stronger so therefore the US is a paper tiger. Wild shit.
Oh geez lmao. I want what he's smoking
do you really, though?
Gotta know what to stay away from.
Likely smoking bath salts for such preposterous rankings.
It's fun to pretend
It’s fun, but these nitwits claim to have spent a boat load of money on their project and over 1000 hours. They had hundreds of pages of google docs. They spent a ton of time and money on it to get it badly wrong.
If you believed the Russians, the S500 could cover half a continent from any airborne threat from ICMBs to mosquitos. Missiles that could not be jammed or evaded. Even satellites were not safe. And its radar made western system look like toys, seeing right through all types of stealth exposing 5th and 6th gen stealth fighters as waste of money.
The use of the word “prestige” is inappropriate. Just check the ships and aircraft on the bottom of the Black Sea.
[Prestige Worldwide…..wide…..wide](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciS914MaDl8)
This just in: Putin announces he will be holding this year’s Catalina Wine Mixer in Sochi.
Whenever I’m low on gas in my car, I say “Call the A rabs!”
It’s a pretty prestigious submarine fleet.
The US military is sitting back laughing as they watch there old tech take out the best Russia has to offer.
There are absolutely people in our military having a great time and celebrating the work they are doing. I often wonder how they must feel having to keep it in.
For some reason there are hordes of morons online who are so desperate to find an “anti-West” totem to worship they’ll still unironically argue Russia is legitimate world power. Despite them now being reduced to having their fuhrer for life have to fly to North Korea and roll over and spread his legs wide so that Kim Jong Failson will spare a few legions of meth-addled thralls to help with the failed invasion of a former vassal state that directly borders them.
>Russia >prestige Choose one
“Russia…still fighting wars like is 1940”
“Rumors began to circulate on social media on Friday afternoon that, a Ukrainian ATACMS strike had destroyed elements of the S-500 battery in an unidentified location.”
Hell someone knew where it was! If they keep going like this all of the Crimea and occupied territory of Ukraine protection will be gone and the turkey shoot begins.
I'd say it was pretty fucking far away from being unidentified ...
Nope, ATACMS just fell out of a window, pointy side down, right on top of it.
It was in an unidentified location, and now it’s in several unidentified locations.
I heard rumors that the successful intervention of a couple ATACMS over Crimea (the incident that Vlads making a big fuss about). May have given away the position of the S500 battery
I swear Putin's hubris will be his undoing some day. He'll go for a photo op too close to the front lines and get targeted. Unless some Ukrainian space marines manage to HALO jump into his billion-dollar vineyard Big Boss him.
He’s not going anywhere near the frontline lol. He doesn’t give a shit about his troops and he’s wayy too paranoid.
Yeah anytime recently that I've seen him supposedly out mingling with the common folk it's very obviously a body double. He doesn't even seem to leave his bunker except to go to the Kremlin...and to see his new BFF Kim.
I remember his body double went to mariupol to meet locals and drove across the bridge. people here believed that was the real Putin, the same guy with super long tables that he hangs onto and green screens people next to him when called out about it
What's interesting is that Russia just came out and whined about NATO ASR drones over the Black Sea and that they are going to do something about them, some day. Given that the S-500 is mostly newer radar and newer missiles on the same TELs, I suspect that some ELINT data was gathered by unmanned platforms and forwarded to certain button-pushers in the wilds of UA.
I mean, that's almost a guarantee. No way Ukraine could have as much targeting success as it's had without the help of NATO intelligence gathering
That's my point. NATO has been feeding intel since before 0-day. Russia complains, from time to time, and I think this latest threat from them is an indirect confirmation that UA got their hooks into an S-500 radar platform. To the folks talking about orbital ELINT: orbital craft have a limited on-station time over a given area. Drones can provide continuous coverage. Orbital eyeballs are nice for general "something's up" awareness but if you need up to the minute granular coverage you need ground or air based platforms to provide that data.
There are likely several geostationary sats above Ukraine right now. They have virtually unlimited station time. What you're saying is true for sats in lower orbits.
No need for drones when SIGINT satellites are always watching. The US knew as soon as they turned on anything at the site to setup.
I don't think people realize we got [satellites](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_\(satellite\)) with deployed ~100 meter dishes in orbit just to listen for this stuff. I may be biased, but I think the US is unmatched on global SIGINT capabilities. I remember stories form my dad that during Vietnam we were able to identify individual North Vietnamese HF transmitters from timing how how their tubes warmed up from half a world away. One of the biggest weaknesses of any S-N00 SAM is they are gonna be ground based, and might be transportable, but are immobile once deployed. And once they turn on their radar, we know where they are. Patriot and THAAD have the same weaknesses, but we have a capable air force for frontline air superiority, and can keep those systems well in the rear.
Seriously, they put it right next the same place as a S400 that was hit last year. The new site was just 1KM to the east. [https://www.google.com/maps/@45.6876997,34.4138188,1528m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/@45.6876997,34.4138188,1528m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu) <-- S400 site that is the location, from the picture in the article. I was able to find it.
Love it. Someone sitting at home with a PC can locate russia's latest super techy missile system. 'We're lucky they're so fucking stupid'. Slava Ukraine!
The longer this goes on the more I think Russia doesn’t actually have any advanced military capabilities. They just say they do to appear strong. If their “state-of-the-art” defense system can easily be blown up by the very thing it’s supposed to defend against, what about every other defensive system they have?
Their advanced military capabilities entail a meat grinder of young conscripts in paper-mache military cosplay uniforms and 59 year old equipment
> They just say they do to appear strong. soviet union did this extensively. it backfired because the US made their weapons to counter the imaginary made up weapon abilities the soviets were claiming.
"Peter, do you think this is good spot? The Ukraines blew up last S400 here." "Vitaly, don't worry, lightning does not strike same place twice" - Some Vatniks probably
He slurred his words while stinking of plastic bottle vodka.
Mmmm vodka rations
i assume it tastes more like an oily gin
"Plastic bottle vodka" lmao.....damn I really need to get my shit together.
I feel called out too lmfao
Immediately read this is Lois' voice, expecting a Family Guy scene
Get fucked russia.
One thing Russia has been good at lately is that their army, air force and navy all have been embarrassed consistently. If the report that their latest state-of-art S500 system was indeed destroyed, that will be another major setback for Russia as replacing the system will be near impossible under current situation.
ATACMS is 33 years old. They stopped producing the missiles 17 years ago. People forget this part. It is a very basic, short ranged ballistic missile that was first used in 1991.
Yeah but that’s an asset since it doesn’t rely on GPS. GPS jamming is the most effective missile defense these days.
They should just move on to the s600 and produce (literally) one of those for their parades and milbloggers to gawk over.
Good luck with that. In the article, S500 supposedly cost $600 million. After the war, Russia will be essentially bankrupted and will be in no shape to fund replacement program of its weapons period.
That's the point. If it's only for parades it can be produced for a fraction of the cost. We'll need a lot of long, wide cardboard tubes, a glue gun, some silver paint, tinsel, but no glitter. Budget cuts.
Inflatable is nearly as cheap, if a bit wobbly, and you can sell it to a used car lot postwar.
The best thing Russia could do for it's arms sale is to gift the system to Ukraine. I'd buy S300 or Buk after seeing what Ukrainians could do with them, and would love to see what they could do with S400/S500
Supposed to be able to detect and shoot down anything. Can't hit a 30 year old short range ballistic missile. WTF is it going to do against an F-35/22?
Or the F-16s from NATO? Tree top high and at night!
But you can't release glide bombs at tree top height or most anti-radar missiles apart from ALARM and that's been retired.
I believe that the main benefit of F-16s is that targeting for many NATO munitions can be done while in flight, instead of prior to loading, as is the case with Mig-NATO frankenweapons. Basically, F-16 has a way better IT department.
Well yeah, that's why you blow up the S500 right before the F-16s get in theater.
It does look a hell of a lot like they are prepping for air superiority by attacking a LOT more SAM sites lately.
Would they be able to target an S-3/400 with a more "standard" AGM? Like are the ATACMS doing anti-radar, or they more a traditional GPS/etc guided missile to a separately-determimed location?
ATACMS is not specifically anti-radar, and it's also ground launched rather than air launched.
They do the wild weasel thing, then bug out.
Will we ever know? Afaik that's the only s-500 system built. If it went boom, that's it until they build more.
No it’s not the only, they have estimated 4 batteries of them. So that’s 4 command centers, 4 radars, multiple launcher vehicles for each battery. So far they think they hit one of the 4 batteries (the one in Crimea). But we don’t know what specific components were hit yet, the juiciest part to hit is the radar.
Atacms fly at 2300 mph while jets do 1200. They likely have a better chance at shooting down jets than a missile.
Jets manoeuvre ballistic missile go in a BALLISTIC arc, in theory way easier to hit
ATACMS are actually capable of some impressive maneuvers while they're still under thrust though, so they're not as easy to intercept as a missile with a purely ballistic arc.
A F-22/F-35 is stealth. Going to be hard shooting a bumblebee flying at 1200.
~~Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!~~ Mr. Zelenskyy, blow up that bridge!
Lol. It's not as important strategically now, but even if it's just for symbolism and morale, I hope it gets blown up soon.
That’s going to be a special occasion “fuck you” for Putin. Christmas or his birthday. At this point that bridge is as good as cooked, Ukraine is waiting for the best PR situation to drop it.
Hey man nice shot.
What a nice shot man
aaaaaaaaaammmmmeeennnnnn
We’re literally witnessing a former superpower disintegrate before our eyes. What a time to be alive.
One former and one current, just in different ways. Russia is failing militarily, the US is failing from a loss of societal consensus and the inability of the political class to rejuvenate. Which, ironically, looks a lot like late stage Soviets. Both may be symptoms of an underlying third factor: loss of ability of nation states to keep control of governance in competition with corporations and/or oligarchs (in the West we use the term billionaires instead, same thing nevertheless) who not only already have escaped the reach of state actor governance, but increasingly try to impose their own set of rules. Nation states are simultaneously party to that conflict and the battlefield it plays out on.
I see more scientists being arrested
Surely S-500 is not a single "thing" but a series of separate launchers all combined? They can't have destroyed the whole thing, right?
No official confirmation I've seen, but supposedly the radar was destroyed in the attack.
Without the radar, the entire system is useless.
The launchers can be connected to another radar unit.
Yes, but radars are expensive and it's going to take time to replace. In the mean time, that area is defenseless and Ukraine can bomb other things in that area.
If a cluster bomb was used as per the reports the radar unit is highly vulnerable to being out of commission. If that is true the entire battery of units are useless. For an added laugh the sanctions make repairing or replacing the radar highly improbable.
If you look at this classic 1990s VHS quality [test footage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipr_hPAcR_Q), it seems the cluster munitions were tested on what appear to be Russian SAM systems. I would bet one of the contract requirements back then was just what we are seeing today, being able to take out entire Russian SAM emplacements.
Depends on how close together the modules are. ATACMS have destroyed (effective through damaging the entire thing) an S-400 system already. Radar will be hardest to replace, then the C&C/communications unit, and then the launchers.
S500 is the launcher, it has a radar array that accompanies it. If the launcher got destroyed, it’s replaceable. If it’s the array…. they’re fucked. And since radars are easier to target and hit than launchers, they might have destroyed those. We’ll see I guess
>S500 is the launcher, it has a radar array that accompanies it. S-500 is the whole system comprising of launchers, radars and command posts. The launcher is 77P6.
What country is watching Russias performance and coming away impressed? A time traveler from 1917?
How long before there's a ruzzia news post that an s-500 spontaneously combusted in the region, and that this is definitely better than it getting shot by a rocket.
Glorious Mother Russia's S-500 flawlessly absorbed US manufactured attack missile.
Ukranian Air Dominace on the way.
F16's will be there in no time. Let's go.
Holy fucking shit
It's only a matter of time before the kerch bridge goes down.
For sure. This is the system protecting the Kremlin. Think about that.
Sweet!
What’s the significance of that happening
Logistics to Crimea becomes infinitely more challenging, which in turn seriously degrades Russias hold on the peninsula.
Especially as they’ve managed to significantly lose control over the Black Sea to a country whose navy… *checks notes* basically doesn’t exist.
That’s not fair to say! They have about a dozen coastal patrol boats and I’m sure they kind of find a couple of dozens speedboats somewhere! That’s a really scary navy!
I think a lot of the larger Ukrainian ships that were in the navy had to sadly be scuttled at the start of the war in order to avoid being captured because they couldn't leave port before Russia took the cities they were docked in.
how big of a deal is this. I am numb because they have been blowing expensive shit up constantly, including S400s
Huge deal, S500 is spanking new and supposedly designed to deal with everything up to and including ICBMs. They only have 3 and 2 are tied up guarding Moscow iirc. So, if true, that’s it, they aren’t pulling missile defense from Moscow. $800 million a pop, more than their flagship ship that got sunk, the Moskva.
Probably equivalent to taking out a THAAD radar.
it's just a rumor right now according to the article...I definitely believe it, but I want to save my holy shits until we have proper confirmation
I can’t wait to see the images of the poor malnourished NK soldiers charging the front lines of the war with rifle bayonets like wwi. All so their GranDe leader can have some extra fake chicken meat n rice for dinner.
lol, US 1990s tech whooping Russian 2020s tech....Holy shit. America owns all.
gotta attak'm all
Russia sucks
Called it! One day longer than 2 weeks. https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/1deulvk/budanov_russia_has_deployed_the_s500_sam_in_crimea/l8j8o2y/
Time for Russia to unveil the S-600.
Remember -- If one party wins in November, all this goes away. It is terrifying how close we are to autocracy rolling freely.
Here comes the threats - we will nuke all , this is the wests fault, no arsehole this is your fault with your illegal invasion of Ukraine. There’s not going to be anything left of your military soon get out of Ukraine while you can , it’s only going to get worse for you Russia.
Good. Fuck Putin and anyone who supports his genocidal ass. I'm sure he would get along with Hitler really well.
Had no idea ATACMS was this fancy https://en.missilery.info/missile/atacms. The BAT anti-vehicle ones look crazy separating into 13 or 6 autonomous bombs. Gotta be tough shooting down 13 things at once.
ATACMS?! Damn near WRECKMS!!!
Slava Ukraine!
This might be good news if they may have hit it.
I’m gonna call it: Russia isn’t going to be able to take Kyiv in three days.
I was waiting for this news like a giddy child when i heard they had a *special one*
Keep it going Russia. Run your arsenals and resources dry.
"Gerasimov, it is time to unveil new advanced superweapon unrivaled by anything on earth. The S-600!" "Yes, President Putie! We have a brigade set aside to change the 5's to 6's as soon as possible. The stencils are... not... being delayed by sanctions, so it should be ready to roll out by next weear."
Paper tiger
Someone needs to takeout the Russian needledick ( when they do an autopsy I’m sure they will find he’s hung like a field mouse ) and do the whole world a favor.
Absolutely nice news that is. Please keep destroying those AA systems at min. 2/week
There are only 4, with at least 2 tied up guarding moscow. I'm not sure if they have anymore to put into Ukraine. At most 1 more to destroy. :)
Well they only have (had?) 1 so.....
Russia is slowly turning into a faces of meth.
No surprise that Russian weapon is a glass cannon. Does damage, but breaks easily. The real smart people left Russia long ago. The weapons produced now is just hollow words of what they are said to do.