Ukraine’s rocket campaign reliant on U.S. precision targeting, officials say
Washington Post skrev:The senior Ukrainian official described the targeting process, generally: Ukrainian military personnel identify targets they want to hit, and in which location, and that information is then sent up to senior commanders, who then relay the request to U.S. partners for more accurate coordinates. The Americans do not always provide the requested coordinates, the official said, in which case the Ukrainian troops do not fire.
Ukraine could carry out strikes without U.S. help but because Kyiv doesn’t want to waste valuable ammunition and miss, it usually chooses not to strike without U.S. confirmation, the official said, adding that there are no complaints about the process.
[...]
The senior Ukrainian official contended that the Ukrainian military would face the same limitations it does now with conventional HIMARS rounds if they received ATACMS, with Ukraine still dependent on U.S. targeting coordinates.
Amerikansk underrättelseverksamhet har förmodligen spelat en avgörande roll i detta krig. Ryssland skjuter i blindo och slösar därför mycket ammunition.
Here Is What Russia’s Military Aircraft And Missiles Actually Cost
The War Zone skrev:The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 led to a sharp increase in military spending in many countries, including Russia. While the Kremlin is generally keen to promote its big-ticket defense programs, above all to help generate lucrative export sales, it’s far less simple to get a handle on how much Russia itself is currently spending on these various weapons.
However, searching through official Russian documents does still provide some fascinating insight into the costs involved, at least for some key defense programs. This is of particular interest for those military aircraft that have been exposed to combat over Ukraine and, in the process, taken significant losses, like the Ka-52 attack helicopter, as well as some of the critical air-launched weapons that are being expended in the same conflict.
[...]
Shortages of key components are only likely to further drive up costs of Russian military aircraft and missiles, as well as introduce further delays. The Vympel company has been identified by the Ukrainian Embassy in the United States as one of “over 20 Russian military enterprises [that] were forced to suspend their activities in whole or in part due to shortage of parts and components, as well as rising prices due to sanctions.”
At the same time, the use of air-launched weapons like the R-77-1 and LMUR in Ukraine, as well as aircraft like the Ka-52, demand that stocks are resupplied and lost airframes replaced. While this should be good news for Russian industry, the costs of these endeavors need to be weighed up against other financial demands of a conflict for which there is no obvious end in sight.
An analysis from Forbes Ukraine last November assessed that the Kremlin had spent around $82 billion in the first nine months of its war, of which nearly $29 billion was to support the armed forces, $16 billion for soldiers’ salaries, and more than $9 billion for the families of servicemen killed in combat. At that point, the same source suggested that Russian military equipment losses had cost another $21 billion.
Antalet
visuellt bekräftade ryska förluster uppgår nu till 9 153 enheter, varav 1 713 stridsvagnar. Förr eller senare tar den sovjetiska utrustningen slut:
1. BMP-2(K) (722 förluster)
2. KamAZ 6x6 (661 förluster)
3. Ural-4320 (592 förluster)
4. BTR-82A(M) (403 förluster)
5. MT-LB (360 förluster)
6. BMP-1(P) (283 förluster)
7. T-72B3 (281 förluster)
8. T-72B (234 förluster)
9. BMP-3 (226 förluster)
10. T-80BV (215 förluster)
11. T-72B3 Obr. 2016 (203 förluster)
12. BMD-2 (192 förluster)
13. MT-LBVM(K) (156 förluster)
14. BTR-80 (153 förluster)
15. Ural-4320 tanker (150 förluster)
16. GAZ Tigr-M (124 förluster)
17. Orlan-10 (121 förluster)
18. Ural-43206 (116 förluster)
19. KamAZ 6x6 tanker (112 förluster)
20. BM-21 Grad (101 förluster)
21. 2S3(M) Akatsiya (100 förluster)
Näst på tur står 2S19 Msta-S (99 förluster). Det blir mycket att ersätta för Ryssland! Hur lång tid tar det för Sydkorea att gå om som vapenexportör?
Enceladus skrev: ↑torsdag 09 februari 2023 9:12
Hur pålitligt är Musks privata företag SpaceX, speciellt med tanke på den desinformation som Musk sprider?
FCC approves Amazon’s satellite broadband plan over SpaceX’s objections
Ars Technica skrev:Amazon's satellite launch plans took shape in April 2022 when it announced deals for 83 launches over five years using Arianespace, Blue Origin, and United Launch Alliance. Amazon said the deals would let it deploy most of its 3,236 planned satellites. The company plans to deploy two prototype satellites early in 2023 on the upcoming launch of United Launch Alliance's new Vulcan Centaur rocket.
[...]
Amazon's biggest competitor for low-latency satellite broadband will be SpaceX's Starlink service, but Amazon's launch schedule puts it a few years behind SpaceX. The companies have fought each other in FCC proceedings, with Amazon objecting to SpaceX's satellite plans and SpaceX filing objections to Amazon's.
[...]
Starlink speeds have been dropping as it signs up more users, but it's still a viable option for people without access to cable or fiber. SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell said yesterday that Starlink had its first "cash-flow positive quarter last year" and that the satellite division "will make money" in 2023, according to CNBC. For residential users, Starlink costs $110 a month plus a one-time hardware cost of $599.
Musks dagar som monopolist inom satellitkommunikation är räknade. Som bekant har Bezos hjälpt den ukrainska staten att fungera under invasionen:
Enceladus skrev: ↑söndag 18 december 2022 14:14
How Amazon put Ukraine’s ‘government in a box’ — and saved its economy from Russia
Mysterious Russian satellites are now breaking apart in low-Earth orbit
Ars Technica skrev:On Christmas Day, 2013, the relatively small Russian Rokot rocket launched from the Plesetsk site in the northern part of the country. The mission carried three small military communications satellites, but observers noted that the mission appeared to eject a fourth object into orbit.
[...]
Brian Weeden, an expert in space debris at the Secure World Foundation who has studied the Object E satellites, said he did not think the debris-shedding events on both Cosmos 2491 and Cosmos 2499 were caused by collisions in orbit. Rather, they appear to be part of a repeating pattern.
"This suggests to me that perhaps these events are the result of a design error in the fuel tanks or other systems that are rupturing after several years in space rather than something like a collision with a piece of debris," Weeden said.
Har Ryssland ens förmågan att vapenisera rymden? Satellitkommunikation är fortfarande till Ukrainas fördel, även om Musk begränsade funktionaliteten.