Russia invades Ukraine

[Darandio]

Interesting and clever tactic. But begs some questions of, how did they achieve that. I would assume the Moskva must've been pretty close to some land for that to be possible because drones don't exactly have ranges of hundreds of miles - or fly that fast - and seeing as you'd have to have the drone approach the ship from the opposite side of the ship to the missiles, that means that either the drone or the missiles would need to take a very roundabout route to get to the ship. Would seem like some quite tricky logistics to pull off.

The ship was around 60 miles offshore when struck. The type of drone in question has a range of over 3000 miles, you did manage to get the bit right about it not being fast though.

 

[TheEdge]

I'm quite impressed that no one on the Moskva seemed to think "I wonder why the Ukrainians are making so much noise with that drone that poses no real threat to us, perhaps they are trying to distract us"

 

[Trackman]

As noted above, the Ukrainian tactic was apparently to exploit a weakness in the radar system - basically that it couldn't look in two directions at the same time. So they flew a drone high up and at the limit of the detection range to catch their attention, and then fired a surface skimming missile from the other direction.

It's a bit poor when you think about it and they must have known about the flaw, it seemed to have no support from any nearby military ships for radar and I guess the Russians have sophisticated land based systems for detecting missiles.
I bet it wouldn't have happened to a US cruiser.

 

[najaB]

I would assume the Moskva must've been pretty close to some land for that to be possible because drones don't exactly have ranges of hundreds of miles...

On the contrary, the drones the Ukrainians are using have a range of a few thousand miles and when it comes to NATO systems there's a reason that the Global Hawk is called that - missions of 30+ hours aren't uncommon covering 10,000 miles and more.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

It's a bit poor when you think about it and they must have known about the flaw, it seemed to have no support from any nearby military ships for radar and I guess the Russians have sophisticated land based systems for detecting missiles.
I bet it wouldn't have happened to a US cruiser.

If that flaw exists, do you even need a drone to exploit it? Can't you just launch simultaneous missile attacks on both sides of the ship, on the basis that the ship will only detect one of the attacks, which means one of them is very likely to succeed. (Maybe using a drone is a lot cheaper/better at conserving ammunition? Especially since you have a good chance of getting the drone back afterwards)

 

[dakta]

Interesting and clever tactic. But begs some questions of, how did they achieve that. I would assume the Moskva must've been pretty close to some land for that to be possible because drones don't exactly have ranges of hundreds of miles - or fly that fast - and seeing as you'd have to have the drone approach the ship from the opposite side of the ship to the missiles, that means that either the drone or the missiles would need to take a very roundabout route to get to the ship. Would seem like some quite tricky logistics to pull off.

The wikipedia page gives the operational range of a neptune missile at up to 190 miles. Don't know what drone type used in this particular instance but if it was one of the turkish ones wikipedia page for that says communication range of 190 mile and endurance range of 3200 miles - looks totally feasible.

And re using multiple missiles, it gets expensive but yes you can and I would expect to be the case where practical as you still need to get past the last line of defence if detected. It's been suggested by some news sites that 2 hit this ship (did any miss?) so that'd tally.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

On the contrary, the drones the Ukrainians are using have a range of a few thousand miles and when it comes to NATO systems there's a reason that the Global Hawk is called that - missions of 30+ hours aren't uncommon covering 10,000 miles and more.

Wow, doing a bit of Googling, and I see you're right, there are drones with 1000 mile + ranges. That does change the calculations a bit.

 

[najaB]

Wow, doing a bit of Googling, and I see you're right, there are drones with 1000 mile + ranges. That does change the calculations a bit.

As an example of the high-end of UAVs, Japan's Global Hawks were self-delivered from Palmdale California to an airbase in Japan - 18+ hours and 5,000miles away.

 

[TheEdge]

If that flaw exists, do you even need a drone to exploit it? Can't you just launch simultaneous missile attacks on both sides of the ship, on the basis that the ship will only detect one of the attacks, which means one of them is very likely to succeed. (Maybe using a drone is a lot cheaper/better at conserving ammunition? Especially since you have a good chance of getting the drone back afterwards)

Yes, if your anti ship launchers are land based and can only fire from one direction. The scale of even small anti-ship missiles is magnitudes bigger than what you are thinking of when you think missile. The TB2 drone max take off weight (from Baykar numbers) is 700kg, that's the aircraft and its fuel and any war load. A single Neptun missile is 870kg. This is not something that can be mounted to a drone to be airbourne, these need to be attached to decent sized strike aircraft or helicopters.

Wow, doing a bit of Googling, and I see you're right, there are drones with 1000 mile + ranges. That does change the calculations a bit.

The USAF and RAF are flying their drone missions over the Middle East from bases in the continental United States.

 

[yorksrob]

I see the PM's been barred from Russia.

No doubt he'll be devastated at the news.

 

[deltic]

I see the PM's been barred from Russia.

No doubt he'll be devastated at the news.

If one was being cynical one could read it as Putin giving a boost to Johnson before the May elections! Its not as if he was likely to be planning a summer holiday on the Trans-Siberian railway

 

[Falcon1200]

Not just Boris, Russia has barred Nicola Sturgeon too ! They can console each other......

 

[DustyBin]

Not just Boris, Russia has barred Nicola Sturgeon too ! They can console each other......

It would actually be funny were the situation not so serious.

 

[68000]

Russia are going like North Korea so I doubt many people will want to visit in the future

 

[Gloster]

As far as I can see Putin has not take such action against other leaders. The UK is a nice, middle-range target for him: not so minor that other countries say, “So what,” but not so major that it is likely to hinder any deals that he may want/need to make. It also has the advantage that it will go down well with his sponsors, feeds his dislike of the UK and may well result in some stupid bit of bombast by Boris, his cabinet or his favourite newspapers.

 

[yorksrob]

As far as I can see Putin has not take such action against other leaders. The UK is a nice, middle-range target for him: not so minor that other countries say, “So what,” but not so major that it is likely to hinder any deals that he may want/need to make. It also has the advantage that it will go down well with his sponsors, feeds his dislike of the UK and may well result in some stupid bit of bombast by Boris, his cabinet or his favourite newspapers.

Which is exactly the reason the poisonings took place here as well.

I see it as all the more reason for us to remove all vestiges of the Russian state from our economy. There really are no plus sides to having anything to do with that country. Let someone else have the risk of dealing with it.

 

[DustyBin]

As far as I can see Putin has not take such action against other leaders. The UK is a nice, middle-range target for him: not so minor that other countries say, “So what,” but not so major that it is likely to hinder any deals that he may want/need to make. It also has the advantage that it will go down well with his sponsors, feeds his dislike of the UK and may well result in some stupid bit of bombast by Boris, his cabinet or his favourite newspapers.

He banned Biden and most if not all of his team a while back, and added nearly 400 members of congress more recently.

 

[yorksrob]

I notice on the BBC feed the Russian foreign ministry has accused London of "Isolating Russia internationally, creating conditions for containing our country and strangling the domestic economy".

Fair play to them, they're spot on the money. Good to know we're getting it right.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

As far as I can see Putin has not take such action against other leaders. The UK is a nice, middle-range target for him: not so minor that other countries say, “So what,” but not so major that it is likely to hinder any deals that he may want/need to make. It also has the advantage that it will go down well with his sponsors, feeds his dislike of the UK and may well result in some stupid bit of bombast by Boris, his cabinet or his favourite newspapers.

As @DustyBin has pointed out, Joe Biden has received the same honour. I don't think the choice of Boris and Sturgeon has anything to do with the size of the UK - it will be because to a very large extent, it's been the UK that has taken the lead in persuading the West to supply Ukraine with arms and sanction Russia. Although yes, if Putin particularly dislikes the UK, I could see that being a factor too.

 

[najaB]

I don't think the choice of Boris and Sturgeon has anything to do with the size of the UK - it will be because to a very large extent, it's been the UK that has taken the lead in persuading the West to supply Ukraine with arms and sanction Russia.

I thought up-thread it was demonstrated that the UK lagged behind several other countries in the sanctions placed on the oligarchs? The only place that I would say we've taken the lead was in the commitment to stop importing Russian hydrocarbons - but that will be because we barely imported any to start with.

 

[yorksrob]

I thought up-thread it was demonstrated that the UK lagged behind several other countries in the sanctions placed on the oligarchs? The only place that I would say we've taken the lead was in the commitment to stop importing Russian hydrocarbons - but that will be because we barely imported any to start with.

As I've mentioned previously, impounding a couple of yachts isn't going to impact Russia's war machine. Damaging the heart of the countries economy is more likely to.

 

[jon0844]

I thought up-thread it was demonstrated that the UK lagged behind several other countries in the sanctions placed on the oligarchs?

I think we talked tough early on, but seemed to give plenty of time for people to move themselves and their assets out of the country before the sanctions actually kicked in. A bit like when we imposed new Covid restrictions on visitors, and gave sufficient notice to have people packing into the airports to beat the deadline.

 

[yorksrob]

I think we talked tough early on, but seemed to give plenty of time for people to move themselves and their assets out of the country before the sanctions actually kicked in. A bit like when we imposed new Covid restrictions on visitors, and gave sufficient notice to have people packing into the airports to beat the deadline.

Ah, but we've been supplying the weapons. That's what counts at this precise time. We need to ensure that the supply continues.

 

[jon0844]

Ah, but we've been supplying the weapons. That's what counts at this precise time. We need to ensure that the supply continues.

It does count, but given the influence Russia has had over many politicians (of different parties) you must wonder why we gave people an opportunity to 'escape' before taking action.

 

[yorksrob]

It does count, but given the influence Russia has had over many politicians (of different parties) you must wonder why we gave people an opportunity to 'escape' before taking action.

Very true. For someone like Abramovitch, as an example, even though he's linked to the Putinist state, he does seem to have been a genuine friend to the country prior to the war. I can see why we might want to have given him a head start.

 

[JamesT]

It does count, but given the influence Russia has had over many politicians (of different parties) you must wonder why we gave people an opportunity to 'escape' before taking action.

My understanding is that as these sanctions are not as a response to a UN resolution or similar, our current legislation requires a legal case to be worked up and presented to the minister for sign-off. So the wheels may have been put in motion before the money was extracted.

 

[Yew]

As @DustyBin has pointed out, Joe Biden has received the same honour. I don't think the choice of Boris and Sturgeon has anything to do with the size of the UK - it will be because to a very large extent, it's been the UK that has taken the lead in persuading the West to supply Ukraine with arms and sanction Russia. Although yes, if Putin particularly dislikes the UK, I could see that being a factor too.

The NLAW anti tank weapons that we manufacture have proven to be very effective.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

My understanding is that as these sanctions are not as a response to a UN resolution or similar, our current legislation requires a legal case to be worked up and presented to the minister for sign-off. So the wheels may have been put in motion before the money was extracted.

I believe that is exactly correct. We generally put in the sanctions as quickly as we could, but we do have rule of law in the UK so the Government can't just go around freezing people's property ion a whim. And complying with the law basically meant it wasn't really possible to enact the sanctions against individuals more quickly than we did.

 

[najaB]

And complying with the law basically meant it wasn't really possible to enact the sanctions against individuals more quickly than we did.

Surely it would've been okay to break the law in a very specific and limited way?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Surely it would've been okay to break the law in a very specific and limited way?

You mean maybe something like a special (non-military) operation?