As they say in Poker, though "You gotta pay to find out". 😁
Anyone who watched the TV series "Ice Pilots" will have seen plenty of the the Lockheed Electra, "ancestor" of the Orion, which was Buffalo Airways' biggest cargo-aircraft. They got that thing into some rough places.
Hmmm...
Clever way to economize on our junk.
Jesus. Imagine being the lad asked to *shoulder launch* a nuclear bomb.
refurbs on the way to Ukraine from the US
Actually of the few nukes Russia lovingly maintains, the tactical/battlefield scale ones are probably ones they've cherished the most I reckon. Suitcase sized, shoulder mounted etc.
Too easy to maintain over a building sized missile in an underground silo.
Big fire in Crimea-
I am of the mind that if someone wasn't bluffing, they'd be a lot more action and a lot less talking. Putin has been rattling the nuclear sabre since February 26th - I think that was the first time he ordered a heightening of Russia's nuclear preparedness level.
I believe there is a line for where Russia would use nukes of some kind, but I don't believe the line is drawn on anywhere that Russia has occupied since Feb 24th. Probably not even the previous breakaway regions in the Donbas. Jury's still out on Crimea. If the time comes where Ukrainian forces can move into Crimea, a risk-reward analysis will have to be done by Ukraine and NATO regarding that campaign.
Agree. Yeah I can't see it either (that they have anything like what is claimed on paper) but would be sure they have some, far more modest, working arsenal.
I think Putin's nuclear threats concerning support of Ukraine are a bluff and should be (kind of have to be) treated as such anyway, but not because Russia has no nukes.
They definitely have some, maybe even hundreds, but given the facade state of their full military I just can't imagine the army etc. is in complete shambles with such obscenely poor maintenanced or updated equipment, while they secretly have all their 1000s of missiles polished off, state of the art, guaranteed to fly. Methinks Putin's government has been pocketing mandatory costs of maintaining and refreshing equipment for a long long while.
Given what has happened in Ukraine, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't have the 1000s of missiles/warheads all ready to launch etc., maintaining a kind of parity with the US.
However there's (unfortunately) a big "megadeath" sized difference between Russia having a "lesser" nuclear power arsenal (say UK/France or China-sized) that is in good working order and could still be depended on to destroy 100s of targets if launched, and them having nothing at all.
These missiles form the last and ultimate form of leverage that a Russian head of state has at their disposal, these birds will be maintained properly even if everything crumbles around them.
I would mark these words because I have strong doubts Russia does actually maintain its nuclear readiness to the degree feared. The display during this 'special operation' has really cast an air of doubt that Russia's military brand hasn't become smoke and mirrors.
Their ICBMs and SLBMs are solid fuel rockets, like their western counterparts. You'd have to disassemble them to get the fuel. And to be honest, it would be foolhardy not to assume that the Russian missile forces are at a similar level of readiness and maintenance to the US Minuteman or Trident missiles. These missiles form the last and ultimate form of leverage that a Russian head of state has at their disposal, these birds will be maintained properly even if everything crumbles around them.
Assured destruction for Russia at least.
Would not be surprised if the rocket fuel in the Russian ones hadn’t been siphoned off. Like what happened their aircraft carrier.
I suspect that is it's orbital speed when it's turned into terminal speed. If you take space as being 100km up, I make it about 15.7 seconds from orbit to ground, though slightly less because it would detonate well above ground. They must have a ceramic heat shield which I'd imagine gets white hot before boom. Nasty business.
Trident seems to have a minimum range of 2000 km so not such a weird positioning as I first thought, as I was wondering if it would be too close.
Yes - those are the Mutually Assured Destruction ones.
That's the Polish Airfield where presents for ukraine mostly arrive.
Rzeszow air traffic controller: 'This used to be such a quiet job, perhaps I could get a job at Heathrow for a rest.'
Mach 19!
So, From the med to Moscow in minutes 🤯
New arrivals? - they just respawn it seems. Maybe Roundup would work.
Hi.
Yes, they do. They use the drogue/basket method with the trailing hose from units mounted on IL-76's.
A number of the type were flown to Belarus in March, along with 2 x IL-76 AWACS aircraft, but have remained there ever since.
Fear of losing them over the contested airspace is a factor.
Any air-to-air refueling is done over Russian airspace.
I haven't been on in a while and I see some new arrivals are enjoying the thread.
Some interesting air asset movements currently airborne:
A USAF Beech King Air is operating its usual SIGNIT track over Lithuania, keeping a close eye on Russias enclave, Kaliningrad. Sweden was operating It's Gulfstreams over the Baltic until the Amphibious Task Force arrived. It's currently sitting about 100 km off the Kaliningrad Coast, its presence intermittently betrayed by the appearance of a Seahawk now and again
One of the USAF's older intelligence-gathering and submarine warfare aircraft, a Lockheed EP-3 Orion is currently over Romania, on the way back from monitoring the Odessa/Black Sea arena. Like the KC-135, it's airframe is based on a passenger aircraft from the 60's and is still in service today. They sometimes, very rarely, cross Irish airspace and have a very distinctive engine note, similar to the older C-130E, as they use the same power plant.
Finally, an RC-135, registered to Luxembourg, but operating from a Turkish base, is currently on it's extensive AWACS and SIGNIT mission. Based on the older Boeing 707 airframe, this type has been re-engined and has made a huge positive impact on recent successful Ukranian air-defence taskings.
Since 2014, NATO has been integrating Western Datalink systems into Ukranian C and C centres, now providing an almost instant downlink from SIGNIT assets to Ukranian commanders. Note the "racetrack" patterns of its recent flightpath.
Musk's company are being paid for services by the US (amongst others) aren't they (?), recalling the past articles about it, when he first started talking about shutting it down in Ukraine because it was costing too much, and how Ukraine must negotiate "peace" with Putin etc. It is not being done entirely for free/charity.
He just doesn't believe it's enough + sees potential there to extract far more out of US govt./Defence dept. budget via scummy public pressure tactics, if Ukraine relies on it.
⚡️The American nuclear submarine USS Rhode Island, which is considered the world's largest underwater carrier of nuclear weapons, entered the Mediterranean Sea, the media reports.
The submarine can carry 24 Trident II intercontinental missiles capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 18,000 kilometers with a maximum speed of Mach 19, that is, more than 23,000 km/h.
About those meetings you have been having discussing and threatening the use of nuclear weapons - here's a little reminder what's at stake, as you seem to have forgotten you aren't the only ones who have them. And ours actually work.
This is adding to the aircraft Carrier George Bush currently just off Split, Croatia and the 101 airborne in Romania.
I feel like there's a much less vague point to this vague question. I'm not quite sure how the post about starlink was headed in this direction but go on? I've researched space debris enough to know I don't want to be the poor engineer who has to be shouldered with that calamity. Some pieces of debris are literally huge, some of the largest pieces of tracked debris are entire main boosters etc. and some are as small as a pea. There's no one way to scoop up all the junk and it should give anyone nightmares thinking about it the junk field grows all the time (100s of them, fascinating constellation), but as far as starlink goes a lot of those units are in low earth orbit and will retire in stratospheric drag.
I'm curious, do you view all satellites as space junk?
Yeah it was a dick move optics-wise of Starlink to disable/suspend service to a single terminal in the war, much less thousands, because of nonpayment.
I know he's got to secure funding for his starlink project somehow but right in the middle of artillery fire might not be the most prudent time to hash out dollars and cents. Do the right thing, leave the terminals on, ask for your deserved outpouring of support later for being instrumental. But far from me to make it sound so simple:
The same time as this, Stalkink also datacapped subscribers to 1TB/mo - and throttled speeds.
Someone asking NTM this :D
Welcome to Boards. The lad commands/has commanded a tank.
Iran's foreign minister says his country provided Russia with drones "before the start of the war in Ukraine"
Hard to say,because many refuse to fight and some even are doing mutiny
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://we.vanillicon.com/v2/e050b53be62f0ae2404c620976170938.svg)
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://we.vanillicon.com/v2/eedacf599b4135dfd56d6fdbddcbd867.svg)
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://wc.vanillicon.com/v2/c635d680d76ce16e490d61f21d7a1353.svg)