1/ Short thread about the loss of 2 Ukrainian MI8 (video released by RU MoD today)
i have read couple things that are totally wrong so i'm just going to explain couple things here (NB. i'm no material expert, but i'll explain in terms of Intelligence POV)
first of all about the video.. here is the video :
and the first comments i read about it from all sorts of "expert" are inaccurate or even dead wrong.
2/ this "Russia’s ability for quick targeting powered by drone surveillance is clearly improving." is dead wrong.
Ru does not need at all "quick targeting" (sic) and is not improving at all.
they had on the contrary plenty time to do so, and even kind of "trapped" the UKR doing so.
so first thing first yes the attack is real, yes it has happened recently there :
https://twitter.com/EjShahid/status/1767887145329369398
3/ so about right there :
so it's about 50km from the frontline and precisely selected to be as "close as possible" yet normally at safe distance from artillery and maybe MLRS. (because they do mistakes like Ru does and do believe that they had this extra 20 km margin on top of the 50 ish..)
anyway the location is great because of several reasons :
river solena & water strings to protect you from infantry directly coming at you
close to roads and major axis to cary on men and material
5/ o this might have been actually the "perfect" spot for a very long time! (one of)
so i'm not going into all details here, but yes the vid is true and yes Ru have made a terrific op here.
so from what i can tell, (and they have done it lots of time in the past, because that is also some regular procedures nothing new or special) they might have seen helicopters coming in an out the area several time in the last weeks or even months -
6/ but in my opinion, UKR were faster at one point in the past doing there ops.
not recently when they got striked.
(oh and by the way i'm sure you all know by now the famous glitching effect of a moving airframe on an image sat) so imagine that Ru
had this for some time about helos -oui c helicoptère en Fra - going in different directions.)
so basically Ru then noted all the moves & duration etc (all the details) because yes they have thousands of people working only on intel analysis
7/ so then they send some UAVs specialized in long distance reco/observation and then they established all connections, all procedures, and then later on superiors (officers) prepared a plan of actions in order to deter what is a threat to them.
so they certainly bring closer than usual, some MLRS launcher. like the Newest Sarma MLRS with DPICM special rocket. (or anything that can do such a job)
so in order to quickly pin down the UA helicopters before launching next phase to finish them off
8/ and then you can notice that this is exactly what happened (the sun is almost full south and high sun, so around 12 am/midday )
and then you can notice several things - first of, the center of the explosion area is about -cross to cross- 80m to what was actually intended, so CEP is quite good there! and also that the RU surveillance drone is full north aboe the hills so it means that no UKR teams with manpads and or EW gun were there to protect the assets.
this is terrible !
9/ then they launched direct strike (in my opinion within an hour later - maybe 30' just to be sure to engage properly) from SU-34 or bigger bomber fighters from above and afar..
interesting to see that this time the missile is right on target (laser designation / heat seekers on turbine)
and also NB (in the blue circle) kerosene that was spilled from previous hit from DPICM ... indicating that yes the helo was "done" there & UA forces rightfully left the scene as fast as they could (on vid)
10/ RIP : Yaroslav Kava and Andriy Bakun, two Ukrainian pilots of Ukrainian 12th Army Aviation Brigade, died in Donetsk Oblast yesterday. Their death is likely connected to the Russian strike on Ukrainian helicopters.
confirmation that at least one crew was killed and mavbe also some wounded in the process (hopefully some crews escaped as we see them running and going into the helo that was able to flee the scene)
11/ the problem is that then
Ru as they had the entire "plan" of UA send some more jets (or directly just in the continuation of helos destruction, & destroyed the "maintenance" warehouse of the airfield along with some personnel - with the trucks in #Novopavlivka. -
Russian surveillance monitored the process - UKR hid helicopter missiles in the truck in one of the hangars not far from the affected helicopter landing area (about 900 m) - maybe with FAB coupled w the UMPC glide kit this time
12/ so in my opinion we are looking at, at least 6 to 8 dead min. maybe more in the warehouse..so if maintainers were there... it could be a total of 15 men
and some wounded or course...
so with the Himars, the radar, the SPH etc. this is starting to be really a 'thing" now.
some people are saying that the Ru loop could be almost "faster" (actionable intel) but it's only one small part.
as show by my analysis and experience, this entire op is a long process and they are using "regular"
13/ there is much much more to say here..
but don't freak out with people who really are just discovering the true nature of things... there is nothing abnormal here
only -as i explained several to friends- Ukr that got lazy and had not enough intel themselves to know about this and also did not apply enough protection to their operations...
but this can be fix & this can be avoid. Also this is war, Ru are doing a full war w 10k of intel men & material to do so. so yes shit happens.
Cardien
back up for J. like JJ
Myosotisbasque
Nicolsa
Le Chep
ninninEO
Cheyenne_2612