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United States43505 Posts
On January 15 2024 06:15 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2024 06:00 Sent. wrote:
I don't understand why you're so fixated on nuclear weapons. Even if Russia didn't have them the West would still likely not join the war because the Western public simply doesn't want that. People don't want their soldiers to die, they don't want their civilians to die in airstrikes, they don't want the economy to shift to war mode. Ukraine is an external issue Western governments are expected to handle and those governments have public support to do that in a way that doesn't endanger their citizens. My understanding is that Western air force support could be used to launch extremely long range missiles such that there is a negligible risk to the pilots/planes while providing an enormous amount of support. Is that not the case? As I understand, the US air force is not even defending any positions within Ukraine. An incredible amount of value could be gained by using our air force for safe benefits. As I understand, we choose not to do that because "escalation". Is that not the case?
You fire missiles from NATO planes flying out of NATO airbases and they fire missiles at NATO airbases and then you fire missiles at their launch sites and then they fire back and it gets messy.
We could directly intervene and it wouldn't result in an immediate nuclear exchange but it would result in someone having to look like a bitch. Both sides would steadily escalate until one side has to decide not to escalate any further and accept the failure of their mission. And that's a dangerous area to be in because nuclear states don't like being made to be someone else's bitch.
That's why you play the game that we play where you have plausible deniability. We give them a missile with the coordinates already programmed in. We give them the launch platform (storm shadows are launched from a former harrier undercarriage I think, bolted on to a Soviet jet). We provide the satellite guidance. We found the target. But we go "we're not touching you" like we're six year olds and they have to accept that because what else can they do. But then they stage a coup that's contrary to Western interests in Africa and they encourage Iran to arm the Houthis and when we complain they tell us that it wasn't their fault.
If they go too far you punish them. But indirectly. Indirectly is free. That's the game. Because they can fire back at your proxies without forcing you to escalate in response. You have to let them fire back but you won't let them fire back at you and so it can't be you pulling the trigger.
Incidentally this is what Wagner learned in Syria. Russia was using Wagner to fuck with the US mission because it gave them deniability. The US decided they went too far and wanted to drop the hammer and so they reached out to the Russian army and asked them to confirm that there were no Russian troops in that grid square. Russia couldn't say that there were because it would put them in a difficult position politically, that's the whole reason they were using Wagner, and so they had to reply in the negative at which point the US flattened it. Wagner held that one against the Russian army for a while.
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United States43505 Posts
On January 15 2024 06:23 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2024 06:04 Fleetfeet wrote:On January 15 2024 05:38 Mohdoo wrote:
Since this is an entirely separate topic, I will make it as a separate post because I think the ideas are different enough to justify it:
I have a theory why the war in Ukraine happened. As we all know, nukes are a temporary checkmate weapon. The theoretical limits of propulsion are totally inadequate when compared to lasers. As laser-based weapons systems continue to improve (in all the various ways they are currently totally inadequate), lasers will be able to prevent any missile from reaching its target.
Whether it is an orbital array of lasers, upper atmosphere lasers, or even pre-atmosphere lasers, there will be a point where nukes just aren’t realistic. They will need to either somehow be delivered subterraneously or simply be useless against lasers.
Once this happens, west vs east becomes a lot more 1 sided. MAD definitely favors Russia/China/NK because once we remove nukes from the equation, the western sphere of influence and power is simply way bigger and more powerful.
What if the absolute cutting edge of nuclear missile defense is way further along than we realize? What if the US is close to not being vulnerable to missiles of any kind? What if the classic “sure, we’d intercept 80 of the nukes. But once the other 20 we missed hit the US, it’s all over anyway” simply stopped being true? I think it’s possible Russia believes they are stronger now than they ever will be. If Russia’s threat of nukes ever becomes something no one is worried about, their influence will immediately disappear. The west or the US might even decide to just go ahead and completely wipe out Russia if that ever became true.
Imagine one day the US tests a system and confirms no missile is capable of ever harming North and South America. What if they run some simulations and decide it is 100% reasonable to just wipe out all nuclear-capable enemies in one giant launch? We can nuke them, they can’t nuke us, game over, right? It relies on this technology being robust and solid enough for this to be reasonable. But I think this isn’t some kinda sci fi fantasy. Propulsion and missiles as a whole will simply not be a threat eventually. It’s just a matter of when and what the world looks like at that moment. Maybe the window of opportunity for Russia to take all they can while hiding behind MAD is closing quickly. Maybe they know that.
I think all nuclear capable nations all have the same goal of becoming immune to nukes. It’s just an incredibly difficult task. But it’s not impossible at all. It’s a matter of when, not if. I don't think you can have both of these: "Our science has perfectly and covertly advanced far enough to confirm 100% interception of all rocket-based payload delivery systems" "Their science has not advanced at all, we know this perfectly, and they don't know the strength of our defences, much less ways inside them" Like if you're talking about hypothetical advanced defense systems, then surely advanced offence systems are equally possible, especially when you're suggesting that the very existence of a country is dependant on that technology. The whole premise seems too much like the clean plotline of a movie anyways - reality is a lot messier. Well, I understand what you are saying, but in the case of lasers vs missiles, the idea is that lasers harm an extremely small area compared to a nuke. A satellite capable of intercepting 100 missiles would not be able to destroy a city or something. The amount of area needed to intercept a missile is many orders of magnitude less than the area of damage created by a nuke. The issue with using lasers to intercept missiles is the energy requirements, time to ramp up, precision, and like a million other things. We don't really have good laser weapons at all right now because its a pretty tall order. Its just one of those things that's really hard. Either we would need each system to be fueled by a nuclear reactor or we would need an enormous advancement in reducing energy requirements.
MAD is actually quite good. You don't really want to invest in things that counter MAD because that causes desperation for the people currently relying on MAD. It puts them on the clock. Hopefully they just engage in ever more complicated doomsday devices that preserve MAD but failing that if they believe that you can credibly first strike them without fearing a second strike then they're incentivized to strike now.
It's counterintuitive but world peace would be better served preserving MAD. There should be a building in New York and Moscow in which the opposing power gets to keep some high yield nukes. Then we won't need to invest so much in decoy warheads and MIRVs and submarines and so forth. Just establish a baseline knife at the throat and work from there. The knife at the throat theoretically prevents the knife fight from happening, things start getting really dangerous when either side has a realistic belief that they might actually "win" a nuclear exchange.
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To add to the post about red lines and geopolitics.
Look at the lines the west have not crossed. Western weapons are not allowed to be fired into Russia proper (annexed land in Ukraine does not count), and Ukraine has not been allowed to do a ground offensive into Russia. Even though strategically it would have made way more sense than trying to push into the southern defensive lines.
Those lines are old and still respected.
If Poland (or any other NATO) country was attacked there would be no holding back. There wouldn't be a nuclear war but the conventional war would be unrestricted because both sides have nukes.
The problems right now is that Ukraine has shown us a couple of things:
- modern warfare on your soil fucking sucks and if you aren't backed with nukes it's going to be in your country, regardless of how much aid you get.
- US support is more mercurial than expected.
This could potentially turn into a huge problem. I saw an article about Estonia considering mining their border with Russia even being in NATO. That's not the sign of a country being sure about how much support they can get in time in case of a war. I don't think they doubt they would get support, they are just calculating how much suffering there would be before it's enough.
If US support is completely withdrawn I think the global confidence levels would decrease significantly. Would the EU accept that their only nuclear deterrent is France? Probably not, you'd want at least another couple of countries with nukes.
Same for everyone else really. And the more countries that have nukes the larger the chance of one going off.
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On January 15 2024 06:00 Sent. wrote:
I don't understand why you're so fixated on nuclear weapons. Even if Russia didn't have them the West would still likely not join the war because the Western public simply doesn't want that. People don't want their soldiers to die, they don't want their civilians to die in airstrikes, they don't want the economy to shift to war mode. Ukraine is an external issue Western governments are expected to handle and those governments have public support to do that in a way that doesn't endanger their citizens.
I think you're wrong there. Ukraine is largely seen as "one of our own" by the west, at least us here up in northen Europe. There's a reason we've been so generous in both taking in a large amount of refugees and even gone to the step of training Ukrainian soldiers on our own ground. If the downside of joining Ukraine had just been "being at war" rather than "possible Nuclear doomsday", I'm pretty confident a lot of European countries would. This goes double for any direct neighbours who are next on Russia's hitlist, like Moldova, Poland and Finland.
And for the US, the chance of getting rid of their biggest arch nemesis once and for all would likely be too tempting, so I don't think they would sit out either. They've gone to war for much less
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Still no confirmative reports as of yet, but if true this would a huge blow to Russian command and control. Possible friendly fire, or an F-16 was flying a classified mission with a Ukrainian pilot. If lost, the loss of the crew would be a major experience drain. Regardless if they were shot down, or crashed then they went down over of the Azov sea in winter.
Ukrainian air-defenses reportedly shot down two of the Russian air force’s rarest and most valuable command aircraft on Sunday: a Beriev A-50 radar early-warning plane and an Ilyushin Il-22 airborne command post.
Ukrainian media has cited government officials confirming the purported shoot-downs, but there’s little hard evidence of the incidents.
Ukraine’s RBC Radio posted what it claimed was an audio recording of the Il-22’s crew radioing an S-O-S to controllers apparently in Anapa, on the Russian side of the Sea of Azov’s southern coast. “Urgently requesting ambulance and fire crew,” the crew radioed.
It seems, at the very least, that the Il-22 suffered damage. According to Kyiv Independent, the four-engine, propeller-driven Il-22—which carries up to 10 people and helps to relay radio signals and coordinate front-line operations—was struck along the Sea of Azov coast Sunday night.
The Russian air force had just 30 Il-22s and variants after mutinous Wagner Group mercenaries shot down one of the pricey aircraft over western Russia in June. The Ilyushin command post is only slightly less rare than the Beriev early-warning plane is.
The four-engine, jet-propelled A-50 is Russia’s answer to the United States’ own main early-warning plane, the Boeing E-3. The A-50’s top-mounted radome contains a rotating radar that scans 360 degrees, detecting aircraft as far away as 250 miles. The 15-person crew of an A-50 tracks enemy planes and coordinates the flights of friendly planes.
The Russian air force has just nine A-50Ms and upgraded A-50Us. Ukrainian forces, or their Belarusian agents, apparently damaged one of the A-50s at its base in Belarus back in February.
Kyiv Independent claimed an A-50 was shot down “immediately after it went on duty in the Kyrylivka area of Zaporizhzhia” in southern Ukraine. The alleged shoot-down reportedly occurred just 10 minutes after the Il-22 got hit.
If the Ukrainians indeed struck both the Il-22 and the A-50, Sunday would mark the single worst day for the Russian air force in the 23 months since Russia widened its war on Ukraine. Worse than the day, back in December, when the Ukrainians shot down three Russian Sukhoi fighter-bombers in a complex missile-ambush over southern Ukraine.
If the shoot-downs did occur, it’s worth asking how. While Ukraine’s best air-defenses—its American-made Patriot PAC-2s—can hit aircraft from 90 miles away, A-50s and Il-22s normally should fly at the very edge of that range.
It’s worth noting, however, that the command planes reportedly have struggled to overcome electromagnetic jamming. “Ukrainian forces have found [the] A-50 to be fairly easy to degrade via electronic attack,” Justin Bronk, Nick Reynolds and Jack Watling explained in a 2022 report for the Royal United Services Institute in London.
Did the Russian command planes venture closer to the front line so their radars and radios might overpower the jamming? Maybe, but that’s speculation. And no more possible to verify right now than the shoot-downs themselves are.
Source
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United States43505 Posts
They’re literally irreplaceable. People put a 9 figure price tag on them because that’s what India agreed to pay Russia for one but Russia can’t build new ones. They’re priceless.
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Friendly fire is getting stronger.
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On January 15 2024 06:15 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2024 06:00 Sent. wrote:
I don't understand why you're so fixated on nuclear weapons. Even if Russia didn't have them the West would still likely not join the war because the Western public simply doesn't want that. People don't want their soldiers to die, they don't want their civilians to die in airstrikes, they don't want the economy to shift to war mode. Ukraine is an external issue Western governments are expected to handle and those governments have public support to do that in a way that doesn't endanger their citizens. My understanding is that Western air force support could be used to launch extremely long range missiles such that there is a negligible risk to the pilots/planes while providing an enormous amount of support. Is that not the case? As I understand, the US air force is not even defending any positions within Ukraine. An incredible amount of value could be gained by using our air force for safe benefits. As I understand, we choose not to do that because "escalation". Is that not the case?
Sure but escalation doesn't mean automatic nuclear war.
Russia has plenty of ways to strike back against the western countries.
The west drew a line at their weaponry striking Russia proper and in turn Russians won't arm Iran with modern air defense.
If these rules are broken there is no telling where escalation spiral may lead.
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On January 15 2024 12:31 KwarK wrote:
They’re literally irreplaceable. People put a 9 figure price tag on them because that’s what India agreed to pay Russia for one but Russia can’t build new ones. They’re priceless.
How come they are irreplacable? They made the current/previous ones. Whats stopping them now?
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On January 15 2024 12:31 KwarK wrote:
They’re literally irreplaceable. People put a 9 figure price tag on them because that’s what India agreed to pay Russia for one but Russia can’t build new ones. They’re priceless.
Caveat to that is *if* Russia manages to smuggle enough stuff into the country, they could continue putting these together:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beriev_A-100
It's their replacement for the A-50, which was originally scheduled for sometime this year, but the war's thrown that timeline off the rails. The base plane, the IL-76 is still in active production, so the limitations are on the radome and associated components. There's a very high chance that there are sanctioned components in the radar which limit the ability to build more.
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United States43505 Posts
On January 15 2024 16:18 Branch.AUT wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2024 12:31 KwarK wrote:
They’re literally irreplaceable. People put a 9 figure price tag on them because that’s what India agreed to pay Russia for one but Russia can’t build new ones. They’re priceless. How come they are irreplacable? They made the current/previous ones. Whats stopping them now?
They stopped making new hulls in 1992. They’ve been upgrading a half dozen since then but just the sensor arrays, not the hulls themselves.
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On January 15 2024 16:23 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2024 16:18 Branch.AUT wrote:On January 15 2024 12:31 KwarK wrote:
They’re literally irreplaceable. People put a 9 figure price tag on them because that’s what India agreed to pay Russia for one but Russia can’t build new ones. They’re priceless. How come they are irreplacable? They made the current/previous ones. Whats stopping them now? They stopped making new hulls in 1992. They’ve been upgrading a half dozen since then but just the sensor arrays, not the hulls themselves.
You're exaggerating. They are extremely valuable because they are rare (you don't need many) and very difficult to build (lots and lots of cutting edge technology), but Russia is building new hulls (the A-100) and is apparently still capable of upgrading old ones with new sensor platforms, as evidenced by this article from 2023: https://tass.com/defense/1678869/amp
How many parts they can get with the sanctions in place to build more is obviously unknown, but the answer is clearly not 0.
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United States43505 Posts
On January 15 2024 18:07 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2024 16:23 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2024 16:18 Branch.AUT wrote:On January 15 2024 12:31 KwarK wrote:
They’re literally irreplaceable. People put a 9 figure price tag on them because that’s what India agreed to pay Russia for one but Russia can’t build new ones. They’re priceless. How come they are irreplacable? They made the current/previous ones. Whats stopping them now? They stopped making new hulls in 1992. They’ve been upgrading a half dozen since then but just the sensor arrays, not the hulls themselves. You're exaggerating. They are extremely valuable because they are rare (you don't need many) and very difficult to build (lots and lots of cutting edge technology), but Russia is building new hulls (the A-100) and is apparently still capable of upgrading old ones with new sensor platforms, as evidenced by this article from 2023: https://tass.com/defense/1678869/ampHow many parts they can get with the sanctions in place to build more is obviously unknown, but the answer is clearly not 0.
I'm actually not.
The A-100 isn't a A-50. It's 50 higher.
The fact that they're upgrading existing A-50s to A-50Us does not support the claim that the A-50 is replaceable.
There are no new airframes for the A-50 being built. No new ones have been built since 1992. Every A-50 shot down is one fewer A-50 in the world.
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On January 15 2024 19:42 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2024 18:07 Acrofales wrote:On January 15 2024 16:23 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2024 16:18 Branch.AUT wrote:On January 15 2024 12:31 KwarK wrote:
They’re literally irreplaceable. People put a 9 figure price tag on them because that’s what India agreed to pay Russia for one but Russia can’t build new ones. They’re priceless. How come they are irreplacable? They made the current/previous ones. Whats stopping them now? They stopped making new hulls in 1992. They’ve been upgrading a half dozen since then but just the sensor arrays, not the hulls themselves. You're exaggerating. They are extremely valuable because they are rare (you don't need many) and very difficult to build (lots and lots of cutting edge technology), but Russia is building new hulls (the A-100) and is apparently still capable of upgrading old ones with new sensor platforms, as evidenced by this article from 2023: https://tass.com/defense/1678869/ampHow many parts they can get with the sanctions in place to build more is obviously unknown, but the answer is clearly not 0. I'm actually not. The A-100 isn't a A-50. It's 50 higher. The fact that they're upgrading existing A-50s to A-50Us does not support the claim that the A-50 is replaceable. There are no new airframes for the A-50 being built. No new ones have been built since 1992. Every A-50 shot down is one fewer A-50 in the world.
Fine, but they are building A-100s instead (although the number of A-100s they can build is unknown and a lot lower than they wanted to build). Stating that A-50s cannot be built anymore is about as useful as stating that shooting down MIG-21s is amazing, because they cannot be built anymore. So bloody what? They are obsolete airplanes. Now obviously the A-50U is not obsolete, and losing them is a big blow to the Russian airforce, but they aren't irreplaceable: that is what the A-100 is supposed to do.
Now, if you were to state that sanctions makes these airplanes almost impossible, and definitely very costly to replace, I wouldn't quibble with you.
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On January 15 2024 06:23 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2024 06:04 Fleetfeet wrote:On January 15 2024 05:38 Mohdoo wrote:
Since this is an entirely separate topic, I will make it as a separate post because I think the ideas are different enough to justify it:
I have a theory why the war in Ukraine happened. As we all know, nukes are a temporary checkmate weapon. The theoretical limits of propulsion are totally inadequate when compared to lasers. As laser-based weapons systems continue to improve (in all the various ways they are currently totally inadequate), lasers will be able to prevent any missile from reaching its target.
Whether it is an orbital array of lasers, upper atmosphere lasers, or even pre-atmosphere lasers, there will be a point where nukes just aren’t realistic. They will need to either somehow be delivered subterraneously or simply be useless against lasers.
Once this happens, west vs east becomes a lot more 1 sided. MAD definitely favors Russia/China/NK because once we remove nukes from the equation, the western sphere of influence and power is simply way bigger and more powerful.
What if the absolute cutting edge of nuclear missile defense is way further along than we realize? What if the US is close to not being vulnerable to missiles of any kind? What if the classic “sure, we’d intercept 80 of the nukes. But once the other 20 we missed hit the US, it’s all over anyway” simply stopped being true? I think it’s possible Russia believes they are stronger now than they ever will be. If Russia’s threat of nukes ever becomes something no one is worried about, their influence will immediately disappear. The west or the US might even decide to just go ahead and completely wipe out Russia if that ever became true.
Imagine one day the US tests a system and confirms no missile is capable of ever harming North and South America. What if they run some simulations and decide it is 100% reasonable to just wipe out all nuclear-capable enemies in one giant launch? We can nuke them, they can’t nuke us, game over, right? It relies on this technology being robust and solid enough for this to be reasonable. But I think this isn’t some kinda sci fi fantasy. Propulsion and missiles as a whole will simply not be a threat eventually. It’s just a matter of when and what the world looks like at that moment. Maybe the window of opportunity for Russia to take all they can while hiding behind MAD is closing quickly. Maybe they know that.
I think all nuclear capable nations all have the same goal of becoming immune to nukes. It’s just an incredibly difficult task. But it’s not impossible at all. It’s a matter of when, not if. I don't think you can have both of these: "Our science has perfectly and covertly advanced far enough to confirm 100% interception of all rocket-based payload delivery systems" "Their science has not advanced at all, we know this perfectly, and they don't know the strength of our defences, much less ways inside them" Like if you're talking about hypothetical advanced defense systems, then surely advanced offence systems are equally possible, especially when you're suggesting that the very existence of a country is dependant on that technology. The whole premise seems too much like the clean plotline of a movie anyways - reality is a lot messier. Well, I understand what you are saying, but in the case of lasers vs missiles, the idea is that lasers harm an extremely small area compared to a nuke. A satellite capable of intercepting 100 missiles would not be able to destroy a city or something. The amount of area needed to intercept a missile is many orders of magnitude less than the area of damage created by a nuke. The issue with using lasers to intercept missiles is the energy requirements, time to ramp up, precision, and like a million other things. We don't really have good laser weapons at all right now because its a pretty tall order. Its just one of those things that's really hard. Either we would need each system to be fueled by a nuclear reactor or we would need an enormous advancement in reducing energy requirements.
Well, the point of lasers is to unleash incredible amounts of energy in a short amount of time so an ecomode is not gonna cut it. Theoretically you can station a laser satellite in orbit fueled by the sun. Problem is storing the energy gathered over days to unleash at once. And even if you had that kind of orbital defense matrix with lasers that shoot down missiles, what do you do against a laser that shoots from the ground up to destroy these satellites?
That would leave a ground based defense system. It's all very "what if" at this point
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On January 15 2024 19:42 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2024 18:07 Acrofales wrote:On January 15 2024 16:23 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2024 16:18 Branch.AUT wrote:On January 15 2024 12:31 KwarK wrote:
They’re literally irreplaceable. People put a 9 figure price tag on them because that’s what India agreed to pay Russia for one but Russia can’t build new ones. They’re priceless. How come they are irreplacable? They made the current/previous ones. Whats stopping them now? They stopped making new hulls in 1992. They’ve been upgrading a half dozen since then but just the sensor arrays, not the hulls themselves. You're exaggerating. They are extremely valuable because they are rare (you don't need many) and very difficult to build (lots and lots of cutting edge technology), but Russia is building new hulls (the A-100) and is apparently still capable of upgrading old ones with new sensor platforms, as evidenced by this article from 2023: https://tass.com/defense/1678869/ampHow many parts they can get with the sanctions in place to build more is obviously unknown, but the answer is clearly not 0. I'm actually not. The A-100 isn't a A-50. It's 50 higher. The fact that they're upgrading existing A-50s to A-50Us does not support the claim that the A-50 is replaceable. There are no new airframes for the A-50 being built. No new ones have been built since 1992. Every A-50 shot down is one fewer A-50 in the world.
You are getting a bit obtuse here. You said they are irreplaceable. Which might technically be true, in the same way that a sword from the 18th century is irreplaceable. But if you can actually replace them with a newer, different plane for the same role, claiming that they are irreplaceable is a bit weird.
Sure, we cannot replace that exact 18th century sword, but we can build newer, better ones, or even guns if we want to.
Now, i don't know if those A-100s can actually be built currently, or if they can do everything the A-50 does. Up until this morning, neither of those numbers really meant a lot to me.
But i don't think the argument you are currently presenting here is a very strong one.
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United States43505 Posts
On January 15 2024 23:22 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2024 19:42 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2024 18:07 Acrofales wrote:On January 15 2024 16:23 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2024 16:18 Branch.AUT wrote:On January 15 2024 12:31 KwarK wrote:
They’re literally irreplaceable. People put a 9 figure price tag on them because that’s what India agreed to pay Russia for one but Russia can’t build new ones. They’re priceless. How come they are irreplacable? They made the current/previous ones. Whats stopping them now? They stopped making new hulls in 1992. They’ve been upgrading a half dozen since then but just the sensor arrays, not the hulls themselves. You're exaggerating. They are extremely valuable because they are rare (you don't need many) and very difficult to build (lots and lots of cutting edge technology), but Russia is building new hulls (the A-100) and is apparently still capable of upgrading old ones with new sensor platforms, as evidenced by this article from 2023: https://tass.com/defense/1678869/ampHow many parts they can get with the sanctions in place to build more is obviously unknown, but the answer is clearly not 0. I'm actually not. The A-100 isn't a A-50. It's 50 higher. The fact that they're upgrading existing A-50s to A-50Us does not support the claim that the A-50 is replaceable. There are no new airframes for the A-50 being built. No new ones have been built since 1992. Every A-50 shot down is one fewer A-50 in the world. You are getting a bit obtuse here. You said they are irreplaceable. Which might technically be true, in the same way that a sword from the 18th century is irreplaceable. But if you can actually replace them with a newer, different plane for the same role, claiming that they are irreplaceable is a bit weird. Sure, we cannot replace that exact 18th century sword, but we can build newer, better ones, or even guns if we want to. Now, i don't know if those A-100s can actually be built currently, or if they can do everything the A-50 does. Up until this morning, neither of those numbers really meant a lot to me. But i don't think the argument you are currently presenting here is a very strong one.
They’re performing a vital role today. The planned future phaseout doesn’t mean it has a present replacement. The loss represents diminished capability today that cannot be backfilled.
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On January 15 2024 23:55 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2024 23:22 Simberto wrote:On January 15 2024 19:42 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2024 18:07 Acrofales wrote:On January 15 2024 16:23 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2024 16:18 Branch.AUT wrote:On January 15 2024 12:31 KwarK wrote:
They’re literally irreplaceable. People put a 9 figure price tag on them because that’s what India agreed to pay Russia for one but Russia can’t build new ones. They’re priceless. How come they are irreplacable? They made the current/previous ones. Whats stopping them now? They stopped making new hulls in 1992. They’ve been upgrading a half dozen since then but just the sensor arrays, not the hulls themselves. You're exaggerating. They are extremely valuable because they are rare (you don't need many) and very difficult to build (lots and lots of cutting edge technology), but Russia is building new hulls (the A-100) and is apparently still capable of upgrading old ones with new sensor platforms, as evidenced by this article from 2023: https://tass.com/defense/1678869/ampHow many parts they can get with the sanctions in place to build more is obviously unknown, but the answer is clearly not 0. I'm actually not. The A-100 isn't a A-50. It's 50 higher. The fact that they're upgrading existing A-50s to A-50Us does not support the claim that the A-50 is replaceable. There are no new airframes for the A-50 being built. No new ones have been built since 1992. Every A-50 shot down is one fewer A-50 in the world. You are getting a bit obtuse here. You said they are irreplaceable. Which might technically be true, in the same way that a sword from the 18th century is irreplaceable. But if you can actually replace them with a newer, different plane for the same role, claiming that they are irreplaceable is a bit weird. Sure, we cannot replace that exact 18th century sword, but we can build newer, better ones, or even guns if we want to. Now, i don't know if those A-100s can actually be built currently, or if they can do everything the A-50 does. Up until this morning, neither of those numbers really meant a lot to me. But i don't think the argument you are currently presenting here is a very strong one. They’re performing a vital role today. The planned future phaseout doesn’t mean it has a present replacement. The loss represents diminished capability today that cannot be backfilled.
The A-100 is not some future plane. There's very little known about it, but it seems to be production ready. The main issue is obviously that being production-ready and being produced are worlds apart in a heavily sanctioned Russia. https://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/beriev-а-100-airborne-early-warning-control-aewc-aircraft/?cf-view In an ideal (for Russia) world, they wouldn't give a crap about A-50s being shot out of the sky (beyond the monetary cost) because they'd already be replacing them with A-100s. In the real world where sanctions mean they can't source a lot of the high-tech components they need, shooting down an A-50 is a big deal, because they are indeed irreplaceable. But not because they don't have a factory ready to replace them, but because sanctions are doing (some) of what they are supposed to do!
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United States43505 Posts
On January 16 2024 00:53 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2024 23:55 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2024 23:22 Simberto wrote:On January 15 2024 19:42 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2024 18:07 Acrofales wrote:On January 15 2024 16:23 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2024 16:18 Branch.AUT wrote:On January 15 2024 12:31 KwarK wrote:
They’re literally irreplaceable. People put a 9 figure price tag on them because that’s what India agreed to pay Russia for one but Russia can’t build new ones. They’re priceless. How come they are irreplacable? They made the current/previous ones. Whats stopping them now? They stopped making new hulls in 1992. They’ve been upgrading a half dozen since then but just the sensor arrays, not the hulls themselves. You're exaggerating. They are extremely valuable because they are rare (you don't need many) and very difficult to build (lots and lots of cutting edge technology), but Russia is building new hulls (the A-100) and is apparently still capable of upgrading old ones with new sensor platforms, as evidenced by this article from 2023: https://tass.com/defense/1678869/ampHow many parts they can get with the sanctions in place to build more is obviously unknown, but the answer is clearly not 0. I'm actually not. The A-100 isn't a A-50. It's 50 higher. The fact that they're upgrading existing A-50s to A-50Us does not support the claim that the A-50 is replaceable. There are no new airframes for the A-50 being built. No new ones have been built since 1992. Every A-50 shot down is one fewer A-50 in the world. You are getting a bit obtuse here. You said they are irreplaceable. Which might technically be true, in the same way that a sword from the 18th century is irreplaceable. But if you can actually replace them with a newer, different plane for the same role, claiming that they are irreplaceable is a bit weird. Sure, we cannot replace that exact 18th century sword, but we can build newer, better ones, or even guns if we want to. Now, i don't know if those A-100s can actually be built currently, or if they can do everything the A-50 does. Up until this morning, neither of those numbers really meant a lot to me. But i don't think the argument you are currently presenting here is a very strong one. They’re performing a vital role today. The planned future phaseout doesn’t mean it has a present replacement. The loss represents diminished capability today that cannot be backfilled. The A-100 is not some future plane. There's very little known about it, but it seems to be production ready. The main issue is obviously that being production-ready and being produced are worlds apart in a heavily sanctioned Russia. https://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/beriev-а-100-airborne-early-warning-control-aewc-aircraft/?cf-view In an ideal (for Russia) world, they wouldn't give a crap about A-50s being shot out of the sky (beyond the monetary cost) because they'd already be replacing them with A-100s. In the real world where sanctions mean they can't source a lot of the high-tech components they need, shooting down an A-50 is a big deal, because they are indeed irreplaceable. But not because they don't have a factory ready to replace them, but because sanctions are doing (some) of what they are supposed to do!
“It’s not some future plane, though I concede they’re not presently using them and don’t appear to be able to make them in the present beyond the prototype which isn’t presently in service”
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I think the biggest thing is that when it comes to A-50 Russia has like 8 of them total? When it comes to the second plane, the Il-22 I think they have even less of those but this one wasn't shot down and managed to land albeit in a pretty bad shape.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/kfZrcdy.jpeg)
