The Ukraine War Just Reached A Tipping Point | Youtube (Invidious link)
> The destruction of Russian air defense is paying off
> Today we're looking into a series of deep strikes carried out by Ukraine that might suggest the years long campaign to attrit Russian air defense is paying off. Every launcher, radar or command station damages opens a gap in the Russian defense network. It looks like these past few weeks Ukraine has identified some of those gaps and is surging drones to destroy whatever target sits there.
> We also have an incredible milestone as our community has now raised over $1M for Ukrainian front line units. I'm so proud of you all and honored to be able to play in role in this. So humbling to see so many good people come together to help those in need.
I agree with Preston Stewart's assessment here, though I would highlight the fact that the hardest thing to do is replace trained and experienced air defense crews, which is an *even* harder and slower process than just physically building the sophisticated air defense systems themselves. ESPECIALLY if you want those air defense crews to ever actually turn the active radar on and actually differentiate between a friend or foe before launching the missiles... which is actually quite a big problem for friendly aircraft in wartime conditions.
There is no way for russia to recover from this snowballing process, especially because by all indications there are numerous areas where russia simply refuses to adapt their air defense doctrine for reasons that clearly don't intersect with reality.
I am not claiming the war will end tomorrow or that there aren't yet still many battles that will be fought, that is impossible to predict but at a strategic level, russia has already fallen a critically far distance behind in the race to solidify and reinforce their air defenses. There is no catching up once you fall this far behind, there is only trying to hide the few actually effective air defenses you have left and maneuver them very very very carefully so that they don't get spotted and blown up by a sky full of flying bombs.
Ukraine can also leverage an air superiority advantage operationally on the frontline to facilitate a devastating concentration of traditional tube artillery after saturating an area with enough drones that the artillery can move in a relative bubble of safety for a span of time. The thing about tube artillery is it doesn't stop, once drones open the doorway for bohdana SPG trucks to move into the region, artillery can continue to lay down oppressive, devastating firepower wherever it is needed for as long as is needed.
Eventually a drone wave will end, artillery barrages on the other hand don't necessarily end until you are destroyed, depending on who is focusing their army at your position.
When people talk about combined arms warfare, they are really referencing the fulcrum at the center of it which is leveraging a degree of power an order of magnitude greater than the density of the defending line to create a breech that propagates into a strategic failure for the enemy. The intention is to create a drill bit that can carve through the bedrock of enemy defenses while wearing minimally down, Ukraine has reached this point of capability and whether or not Ukraine chooses to develop that into a fullblown counter offensive, the potential is there and it is increasing.
All you really need to do is look at the production numbers for how many Self Propelled and Towed Bohdanas Ukraine produces a month and combine it with Ukraine's recon and loiter munition drone production to see there is no way for russia to win this long term, the combination is devastating. No matter what you do to try to mitigate the waves of Ukrainian flying bombs if they also serve as reconnaissance for 155mm artillery you are fucked no matter what unless you turn around and run.
The only real counter russia has to this, and they have been leaning on it as a crutch since Ukraine broke their traditional artillery's backbone, are glide bombs dropped by fighter bombers but Ukraine ALSO is doing this so.... not really an advantage for russia anymore even though they are able to drop a much higher amount.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQpU6vkm4dc&t=46
> Today we're looking into a series of deep strikes carried out by Ukraine that might suggest the years long campaign to attrit Russian air defense is paying off. Every launcher, radar or command station damages opens a gap in the Russian defense network. It looks like these past few weeks Ukraine has identified some of those gaps and is surging drones to destroy whatever target sits there.
> We also have an incredible milestone as our community has now raised over $1M for Ukrainian front line units. I'm so proud of you all and honored to be able to play in role in this. So humbling to see so many good people come together to help those in need.
I agree with Preston Stewart's assessment here, though I would highlight the fact that the hardest thing to do is replace trained and experienced air defense crews, which is an *even* harder and slower process than just physically building the sophisticated air defense systems themselves. ESPECIALLY if you want those air defense crews to ever actually turn the active radar on and actually differentiate between a friend or foe before launching the missiles... which is actually quite a big problem for friendly aircraft in wartime conditions.
There is no way for russia to recover from this snowballing process, especially because by all indications there are numerous areas where russia simply refuses to adapt their air defense doctrine for reasons that clearly don't intersect with reality.
I am not claiming the war will end tomorrow or that there aren't yet still many battles that will be fought, that is impossible to predict but at a strategic level, russia has already fallen a critically far distance behind in the race to solidify and reinforce their air defenses. There is no catching up once you fall this far behind, there is only trying to hide the few actually effective air defenses you have left and maneuver them very very very carefully so that they don't get spotted and blown up by a sky full of flying bombs.
Ukraine can also leverage an air superiority advantage operationally on the frontline to facilitate a devastating concentration of traditional tube artillery after saturating an area with enough drones that the artillery can move in a relative bubble of safety for a span of time. The thing about tube artillery is it doesn't stop, once drones open the doorway for bohdana SPG trucks to move into the region, artillery can continue to lay down oppressive, devastating firepower wherever it is needed for as long as is needed.
Eventually a drone wave will end, artillery barrages on the other hand don't necessarily end until you are destroyed, depending on who is focusing their army at your position.
When people talk about combined arms warfare, they are really referencing the fulcrum at the center of it which is leveraging a degree of power an order of magnitude greater than the density of the defending line to create a breech that propagates into a strategic failure for the enemy. The intention is to create a drill bit that can carve through the bedrock of enemy defenses while wearing minimally down, Ukraine has reached this point of capability and whether or not Ukraine chooses to develop that into a fullblown counter offensive, the potential is there and it is increasing.
All you really need to do is look at the production numbers for how many Self Propelled and Towed Bohdanas Ukraine produces a month and combine it with Ukraine's recon and loiter munition drone production to see there is no way for russia to win this long term, the combination is devastating. No matter what you do to try to mitigate the waves of Ukrainian flying bombs if they also serve as reconnaissance for 155mm artillery you are fucked no matter what unless you turn around and run.
The only real counter russia has to this, and they have been leaning on it as a crutch since Ukraine broke their traditional artillery's backbone, are glide bombs dropped by fighter bombers but Ukraine ALSO is doing this so.... not really an advantage for russia anymore even though they are able to drop a much higher amount.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQpU6vkm4dc&t=46