Is Ukraine about to have a war?

[ORAC]

Assuming it was a ballistic missile and slowed to zero vertical velocity at its apex and accelerated under gravity to M2.5 - then it would have peaked at just over 50,000ft and fallen for 60 seconds before impact.

Since it’s accelerating under gravity the distance from the launch point is irrelevant, it’s the height from which the descent commenced which determines the terminal velocity.

[BlankBox]

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...878299651.html

First unrectified images of Saki Air Base in Crimea ...

Twitter

[ORAC]

https://twitter.com/chriso_wiki/stat...MSZrTFWjsIT6rg

@the_ins_ru has obtained an archive of complaints made to the Russian military prosecutor's office, which provides some very interesting insights from various perspectives into the experiences of Russian soldiers in the Ukraine war. Here's a thread highlighting some of them…

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...860605441.html

[ORAC]

What you pay for and what you get - whilst the general has a villa and Ferrari in Cyprus…

Reactive armour on captured T80 found to be blocks of rubber….

https://twitter.com/chriso_wiki/stat...MSZrTFWjsIT6rg

[Wokkafans]

Non-explosive and non-energetic reactive armour

"NERA and NxRA operate similarly to explosive reactive armour, but without the explosive liner. Two metal plates sandwich an inert liner, such as rubber.[1] When struck by a shaped charge's metal jet, some of the impact energy is dissipated into the inert liner layer, and the resulting high pressure causes a localized bending or bulging of the plates in the area of the impact. As the plates bulge, the point of jet impact shifts with the plate bulging, increasing the effective thickness of the armour. This is almost the same as the second mechanism that explosive reactive armour uses, but it uses energy from the shaped charge jet rather than from explosives.[2]

Since the inner liner is not explosive itself, the bulging is less energetic than on explosive reactive armour, and thus offers less protection than a similarly-sized ERA. However, NERA and NxRA are lighter and completely safe to handle (and safe for nearby infantry), can theoretically be placed on any part of the vehicle, and can be packaged in multiple spaced-out layers if necessary. A key advantage of this kind of reactive armour is that it cannot be defeated via tandem warhead shaped charges, which employ a small forward warhead to detonate ERA before the main warhead fires."

https://military-history.fandom.com/...eactive_armour

Re Russian NERA/NxRA: "Each reflecting plate array consisted of an assembly of three layers ; a heavy armor plate, a rubber interlayer and a thin metal plate, all glued together."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ex...reactive_armor

[NutLoose]

You can understand why HAS sites are all angled off from one another, those blast walls used here simply channelled the initial missile hits into each aircraft bay, and by staggering them across from each other ensured any blast in one would channel into the two opposite….. good design….. not.

[ORAC]

Interesting background information - but all the information states the T-80 is supposed to be fitted with reactive armour…..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-80#Armour

https://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/c.../ussr/t-80.php

https://www.military-today.com/tanks/t80.htm

[Bagheera S]

Originally Posted by ORAC

Assuming it was a ballistic missile and slowed to zero vertical velocity at its apex and accelerated under gravity to M2.5 - then it would have peaked at just over 50,000ft and fallen for 60 seconds before impact.

Since it’s accelerating under gravity the distance from the launch point is irrelevant, it’s the height from which the descent commenced which determines the terminal velocity.

ORT21 Tochka, (Scarab C) Tactical BM with a range of 185km and burn out velocity of Mach 5.3. The Ukrainian’s had approx 500 of them from the USSR, nobody seems to know how many they have left. However they’ve been used before eg on 24 March 2022, they used one to sink the Russian Navy amphibious landing shipSaratov and in doing so demonstrated remarkable accuracy.

[ORAC]

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/st...MSZrTFWjsIT6rg

Everyone in the OSINT community is holding their breath for new satellite imagery from yesterday that should show the extent of destruction of RU equipment at Novofedorovka. My guess is, based on this video we geolocated to about 1.6 km from the explosions, all equipment is gone.

[dead_pan]

Images already out - see BlankBox's post above

[ORAC]

Dead_pan,

Link is to a video of the blown out windows and wrecked buildings 1.6Km, giving an idea of the devastation closer to the airfield and chances of any equipment or aircraft surviving undamaged.

[The Helpful Stacker]

Originally Posted by ORAC

Dead_pan,

Link is to a video of the blown out windows and wrecked buildings 1.6Km, giving an idea of the devastation closer to the airfield and chances of any equipment or aircraft surviving undamaged.

This link.

​​​​

Twitter

[petit plateau]

Originally Posted by Bagheera S

ORT21 Tochka, (Scarab C) Tactical BM with a range of 185km and burn out velocity of Mach 5.3. The Ukrainian’s had approx 500 of them from the USSR, nobody seems to know how many they have left. However they’ve been used before eg on 24 March 2022, they used one to sink the Russian Navy amphibious landing shipSaratov and in doing so demonstrated remarkable accuracy.

Almost as if the guidance system has had some clever improvements.

[BlankBox]

Here's some clearer and enlarged shots...looks like a whole can of whoop ass got dropped...

https://www.reddit.com/gallery/wl5u8h

Whatever did this amount of damage needed help... Ruskies wouldn't be bright enough to stash munitions in the middle of an airfield would they??

...and here another interesting pic...

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarV...y_airfield_in/

[ORAC]

A good thread.

https://twitter.com/warinthefuture/s...sGdE3LZbFzSQbw

A few thoughts on the multiple impacts (pardon the pun) of this strike 1/14…

[Beamr]

Originally Posted by BlankBox

Whatever did this amount of damage needed help... Ruskies wouldn't be bright enough to stash munitions in the middle of an airfield would they??

Apparently they are. In your posts upper picture the worst hit areas were reported being ammunition storages in between the AC.

[rattman]

Originally Posted by Beamr

Apparently they are. In your posts upper picture the worst hit areas were reported being ammunition storages in between the AC.

consider that they had a crowd fund some forklifts to help with loading munitions, I have no doubt in my mind munitions are stored close to the flightline so less effort is required to manhandle them to and onto the aircraft

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1533922622794350592


Also starting to appear on russian telegrams, poland is suspending all naturalisations of russians and are starting to issue 2 month deportation notices

[Just This Once...]

The only clear(ish) pics I have seen are of the aircraft dispersal and flight line. Missile hits, GPS guided, multiple LoA, reasonable mensuration, slight AMPI shift (minor plan error, almost no height error), impact fused, known effects, no evidence of bulk ordnance at dispersal (beyond ready-use / aircraft armed) and no reliance on secondaries. All in my opinion, of course.

[Tartiflette Fan]

"This base was protected by an overlapping coverage of two S-400 battalions backed up by state of the art air defense network and multiple EW and AS radars. twitter.com/pmakela1/statu…"

If this is correct it is going to make the situation of the two directors of the company that produced the S 300 and S 400 very perilous indeed. If you recall they were arrested several weeks ago - perhaps after the first Himars successes.

[Beamr]

Originally Posted by Tartiflette Fan

If this is correct it is going to make the situation of the two directors of the company that produced the S 300 and S 400 very perilous indeed. If you recall they were arrested several weeks ago - perhaps after the first Himars successes.

It makes Turkey reconsider its S400 purchases as well. Are they going to hang on to those as they appear to be worth nil. Or withdraw and get the chance to buy F35 (or at least latest updates for their F16's).