They literally are running out of their cruise missiles. Their stocks are down to the point at which they just fire off whatever they can produce each month in smaller barrages and the rest of the time it's Iranian Shahed drones. Notice how the attacks on the electrical infrastructure are way down in recent times despite the fact that they never managed to destroy it all.
It's OK, the Chinese have their eyes on their territory & assets
And Ukrainians are more skilled at shooting down these drones and missiles.
It is known that they specifically target medics as reported on Sky News by one of them.
Would that not be exactly the point of leaving the hatch open?
Would you volunteer yourself Francie to go recover your units tank in no man's land?
Isn't this on the same line from the beginning of the war of Russian troops sabotaging equipment and "confused" then when machine not work.
I am always amused when people say there should be peace talks. Putin does not want peace, he wants Ukraine. You can't have one side talking peace while the other is trying to kill them.
Maybe they left in a hurry or, cleverly, left it open so they'd not be sent out again.
I don't think driving from Finland to Russia is as simple as it might have been in years past. Border guards on the Finnish side may reserve the right to question you about why you're driving to Russia and even conduct a search if they think there's anything fishy going on, and may then have further questions if/when they find a big suitcase full of microprocessors.
There's also the other problem of getting quality stuff. Sure, you could have some random guy bringing you L70762 microcontrollers in a shopping bag once a month, but you're going to feel a bit foolish when you realise that it was actually just a rectangular block of plastic with some metal pins glued to the sides.
I remeber Akihabara well in the 90's, baskets of chips etc you could wade through. "Before the Cold War thawed, East Bloc buyers were often seen here brandishing stacks of yen and snapping up precious computer parts."
Do you have any references, articles etc. on Afghans torturing Russians in Afghanistan?
Francie, I'd say that the reasons they are leaving the tank in the first place gives them no time to think, let alone worry about the tank....Life preservation being the main motivator.
Luckily the AFU are very adapt at selectivly striking RU targets to cause maximum trouble. Can imagine the Russians might get abit worried about their arms caches within range of these. Ukraine has a knack of knowing where those are :P
8-)
I'm chuffed that the wing sets are Australian in terms of design, development and manufacture.
You're replying to another 'expert' who has just re materialised on the thread - beam me in Scottie. And March only 7 days old.
I saw some coverage last week of some town where they conducted a "double-tap" strike, where they hit the exact same location about 10 minutes after they first strike it. That's a tactic that's designed to inflict casualties amongst first responders. In that particular case it was firemen who were injured.
At least I think we have established that washing machines are not being dismantled to make bombs, they just happen to contain some similar parts.
The advantage of stipping a western produced appliance is for one:
1) The devices themselves are usually not subject to the same restrictions as other devices
2) The quality of the semiconductors and microcontrollers are much higher.
The quality thing is important. They could totally drive a truck down to Shenzen and just fill it by the shovel-load with Chinese-produced chips. But you're going to gamble on what percentage of that (if any) will meet the quality needed for a CE mark. Normally when you throw together a cheap knock-off piece of tech, that doesn't matter too much. But if you are now using that stuff to determine the firing rules of a munition...you kind of want to be somewhat certain the whole thing won't go up in your face when you wire in a warhead.
So, although this is probably limited, I would not put it past them to gut appliances to get to the decent chips inside.
The source is an FSB leaker who has been leaking stuff since Mar 4th last year. It's impossible to verify if it's true or not, but have read a good bit of their stuff, e.g.
I read on Telegram that the Ukrainians are developing their own Shahids and that there will be swarms of them heading the Orcs way soon.
This all made a random recollection occur to me where there was that panic over the PS2 and how one of its processors could've been acquired by hostile countries to make missile guidance systems.
Looking from a safe distance ...That's all they are going to have....
Never mind Akihabara and baskets of chips.
What I want to know is can you get a basket of chips at Abrakebabra?
And yet border guards have been searching people leaving Finland for Russia.
If the chips are listed on the disk use sanctions list they would be confiscated.
If I was building missiles in a war, I'd take the truck loaded with dodgy chips rather than 3 washing machines in the truck. Just as likely to kill the useful parts in dismantling the washing machine, but run through the dodgy chips and find the working ones would be far easier and result in way more of what you are after trying to create.
It's still pretty simple - loads of Finns cross over to Russia to fill their petrol tanks. Any Russians doing business or who have family in Finland easily get visas. No-one is going to check if they have a box full of microchips in the boot or not when they go back and forth.
But it seems Russia doesn't have too many problems getting stuff like that from Turkey or Belarus, so small-time smuggling doesn't really make a difference.
Thick savages
You mean when they build a $10 million missile they wouldn't want to risk using a 10c chip when they could spend $300 on some western white goods to guarantee the quality? From that standpoint it makes sense.
Russia did produce a list of chips it was seeking from friendly countries months ago and for the most part it was western produced stuff like Texas instruments and not generic chips etc..
Considering the reduced frequency of mass missile strikes on Ukraine, there's something preventing Russia from ramping up or even keeping pace with production.
Time for Ukr to withdraw from Bakhmut from all I'm reading. It's served it's purpose, unless Ukr command know's more than me, which could be possible...
Orwell Road should be ashamed of their mongrel herd of herds.
they're not literally off the shelf though are they? they'd still have to be ordered and the supplier would have to do due diligence. It would still be pretty hard to get them, especially the more specialised ones.
Remember russia has it's own chip making industry. They can make simple diodes and stuff like that. It's just more complicated stuff they need from abroad because their industry is years behind the west.
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