Prediction Thread: When Will Ukraine Conquer Russia

[PLATO]

You love all kind of bullsh!t from your Kiev Bob's whore, but the fact is:

That is so laughable! Do you even know what a Patriot battery consists of? There are multiple components that are spread out over a wide area. It would be physically impossible for a single missile to destroy an entire battery. The key to the whole thing is the radar station part of the battery (which was not damaged). The individual launchers are fairly easily replaced if destroyed. Even that was not the case here as one of the modules was damaged. The extent of the damage is not yet public but we can take some understanding from the Pentagon when they say they are evaluating what it would take to repair it. It has not even been established that it took a hit as I have seen some speculation on there having been a malfunction of some type. At worst, this can be categorized as a slight decrease in effectiveness.

What is really interesting here is that Russia has been planning on how to destroy a Patriot system for two decades and they are proving woefully inadequate to the task. No system can hold up to massed attacks from multiple vectors but I believe the Patriot is doing better than expected. The fact that it is not deployed as part of an integrated air defense system (as it would be if NATO were deploying it) speaks even more to the over performance to expectations.

There can only be one of two conclusions. The Patriot is more effective than we knew or this is just another example of how bad Russia's armed forces are. A concerted effort should be able to take out any system and so far the Russian military isn't up to the task.

[Serb]

Love it!

You love all kind of bullsh!t from your Kiev Bob's whore, but the fact is:

[BeBMan]

Which is why Putin was using that rhetoric of 'nuclear component' weapons when the UK started to supply them a few months back. To agitate that population.

It's a good indication how the war is going for Russia that we see those repeated attempts to play the nuclear scare/blackmail card.

[N35t0r]

I mention the low radioactivity only because if it was higher it might be easier to find and clean up local concentrations in a timely manner before they disperse everywhere. The toxicity is terrible and the burning contributes to the dispersal. I still maintain that there isn't any real benefit to using it in Ukraine as the weapons were designed to deal with effective armor plating using a material that is both more available in quantity and considerably less toxic than alternatives like osmium, which is not only more expensive and harder to machine than DU, but also has considerably more toxic oxides than DU (0.002 mg/m3 upper safe limit vs 0.2 mg/m3 upper safe limit for DU oxides). No effective armor plating in use by your enemy? Then no value over conventional density ammunition.

I also maintain that the use doesn't have to be a big deal, all things considered. Not worth using there but not a big deal that it was.

Oh, I totally agree that DU rounds are generally not worth the PR nonsense.

Osmium is not used in tank rounds, that I'm aware, that was just correcting Oerdin's nonsense that DU was 'the densest metal known to man'.

Challengers can't use other western shells because they've got different guns, rifled rather than the smoothbore Rheinmetall guns found in the M1 and Leopard 2. They also have three -piece ammo, which combined with the rifled barrels means that the saboted ammo they can use is really limited compared to the single-piece of the Rheinmetall gun. They also can't shoot HEAT projectiles.

For all of this (among other reasons), they will be switching to smoothbores as well in future.

[N35t0r]

I thought DU was implicated in birth defects in Iraq

There's been an uptick of birth defects in Iraq since the war, but the link to DU rounds is not really established.

War is hell, and it could be a lot of other things as well.

[Berzerker]

I thought DU was implicated in birth defects in Iraq

[Dauphin]

There are because the U.K. gave them some. BTW that isn't remotely a big deal as they are less radioactive then naturally occurring rocks plus they are the densest metal known to man and so makes an excellent armor piercing shell. Of course, mention anything on the subject and the idiots will wrongly think it has something to do with nuclear weapons.

Which is why Putin was using that rhetoric of 'nuclear component' weapons when the UK started to supply them a few months back. To agitate that population.

[Geronimo]

Dp

[Dinner]

I wonder if the U.K. has tungsten shells some where? I know they were used as AP rounds up to the early 1960's. DU was just superior and ended up replacing them.

[Geronimo]

I remember reading that DU shells are the standard shell for the Challenger. The U.S. used a lot of DU shells in Iraq. Hard to say if they are more damaging to the environment than many other aspects of war though. I am sure the West will pour money into Ukraine after the war to help clean up the mess even though the Russians should pay. If DU shells can help defeat Russian aggression then they should be used. The consequences for the Ukrainian people would be less than being butchered by Russian troops.

if there is no alternative compatible ammo at all for the challengers then I suppose I enthusiastically endorse the use of the DU shells. Ukraine can't afford to shelve any of the few western tanks it received. I hope there is a more conventional ammo available for them however, if only to avoid the bad press and cheap propaganda points.

[Geronimo]

DU's toxicity is several orders of magnitude more hazardous than its radioactivity.

I mention the low radioactivity only because if it was higher it might be easier to find and clean up local concentrations in a timely manner before they disperse everywhere. The toxicity is terrible and the burning contributes to the dispersal. I still maintain that there isn't any real benefit to using it in Ukraine as the weapons were designed to deal with effective armor plating using a material that is both more available in quantity and considerably less toxic than alternatives like osmium, which is not only more expensive and harder to machine than DU, but also has considerably more toxic oxides than DU (0.002 mg/m3 upper safe limit vs 0.2 mg/m3 upper safe limit for DU oxides). No effective armor plating in use by your enemy? Then no value over conventional density ammunition.

I also maintain that the use doesn't have to be a big deal, all things considered. Not worth using there but not a big deal that it was.

[PLATO]

I remember reading that DU shells are the standard shell for the Challenger. The U.S. used a lot of DU shells in Iraq. Hard to say if they are more damaging to the environment than many other aspects of war though. I am sure the West will pour money into Ukraine after the war to help clean up the mess even though the Russians should pay. If DU shells can help defeat Russian aggression then they should be used. The consequences for the Ukrainian people would be less than being butchered by Russian troops.

[N35t0r]

They make for terrible publicity are impossible to clean up (in no small measure because the low radioactivity and tendency to generate lots of tiny dust on impact) and people afterwards attribute every illness to their presence. Totally not worth it this time because Russia has nothing remotely armored enough to see the effective difference in their use.


...but I agree their use should not be considered a big deal.

DU's toxicity is several orders of magnitude more hazardous than its radioactivity.

[Geronimo]

There are because the U.K. gave them some. BTW that isn't remotely a big deal as they are less radioactive then naturally occurring rocks plus they are the densest metal known to man and so makes an excellent armor piercing shell. Of course, mention anything on the subject and the idiots will wrongly think it has something to do with nuclear weapons.

They make for terrible publicity are impossible to clean up (in no small measure because the low radioactivity and tendency to generate lots of tiny dust on impact) and people afterwards attribute every illness to their presence. Totally not worth it this time because Russia has nothing remotely armored enough to see the effective difference in their use.


...but I agree their use should not be considered a big deal.

[BeBMan]

Came across this some days ago....Ukrainian farmer MacGyvers his tractors for mine-clearing