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The problem with bullshitting Air Defense for decades.

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[-] Carrolade@lemmy.world 17 points 22 hours ago

Don't underestimate their air defense, it's not dead yet. I'm sure they're conserving interceptors so they don't actually fully run out, and can still deny airspace to more expensive platforms Ukraine would like to use along the frontline.

Their problem has always been too much area to protect, and drones being hard to deal with in general for modern air defense. Not that their air defense is actually useless or anything like that. There's still a lot of degrading that needs to be done to it.

[-] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 9 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

No, their air defense is at a systematic level 1000% describable as functionally dead. You are incorrect, russia's air defense has been shattered especially in the proficiency of their operators.

[-] Carrolade@lemmy.world 16 points 22 hours ago

If that were true, then Ukrainian airpower would be obliterating the Russian army with good old dumb bombs, while Russias fighters were kept at bay by Ukrainian SAMs and the drone threat to their airfields.

Not sure why you're so desperate for this to be true, there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that more work needs to be done. Declaring success prematurely is unnecessary.

[-] Lupus108@sh.itjust.works 13 points 22 hours ago

They're being facetious.

Also it doesn't really matter how good your air defence is when your enemy just saturates the area with cheap targets, at some point it stops being an issue of 'do I have enough ammo to shoot them all down' and starts being a 'there are so many targets coming from so many directions, it becomes nigh impossible to prioritize and coordinate targets to have an effective air defense'.

[-] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 3 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

I am not being facetious, my point about the backbone of russian air defenses having been shattered is just being misinterpreted into me saying there aren't shards of dangerous glass on the ground from a mirror being broken when my point is specifically that the mirror has been broken.

[-] Lupus108@sh.itjust.works 2 points 18 hours ago

Oh, wow. This is a difficult topic to discuss in such small scale like here, we would have to define specific terms of effectiveness to reach a satisfying conclusion. Just so much - I disagree with their backbone being shattered, to stick to your mirror metaphor - the mirror has been cracked into several large shards, there are definitely some smaller crumbs on the ground but several large parts of the mirror are still sitting in its frame. What's important as an attacker is not how tiny you can smash the crumbs, what's important is how large are the cracks between the pieces, because that's where you want to slip through.

Since Russia still can fight a lot of aerial targets it seems that good chunk of the chain of air defense is still functional. They're still able to go through the entire chain for a lot of targets, which is a incredibly complicated process - Detection, classification, tracking, threat evaluation, fire control and fire solutions, Engagement and with missiles also mid course guidance and after the terminal phase you also have to assess the effectiveness to evaluate if you need another try to kill the target. All that works in concert with lots of information sources, different threat levels, different systems for different threats and so on and so on. A shattered backbone in my definition would be if one or several parts of this chain do not work anymore and therefore air defense becomes a game of chance. That is not what I am seeing in the reports, yes the early June attacks on Moscow definitely showed at least a partial collapse of order of air defense in the region, but since we don't see action like this every other day I would argue that Ukraine was able to surprise and saturate the air defense for that sector for that time.

I am not arguing for Russia, I think what Ukraine does with their tactics shows how well they understand the concepts of air defense and how to negate them in order to hit their targets, which is a really admirable feat to achieve against such a potent and well equipped air defense.

[-] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 4 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

I am declaring russian air defenses shattered at a systematic level, that is not the same thing as declaring "success" whatever you mean by that, it is also not the same thing as there being no air defenses left in russia.

If that were true, then Ukrainian airpower would be obliterating the Russian army with good old dumb bombs,

Yes exactly, see the rise of Ukraine beginning to utilize glide bombs more and more with their fighter-bombers at intense flashpoints on the front as a direct example of that happening in real time.

[-] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 21 hours ago

Ukrainian drones are having a hayday in crimea too.

[-] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 6 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

The hilarious part is I am sure the higher ups in the russian military in Crimea are praying for Ukraine to launch a counterattack into the Kinburn Spit and Crimea so they can withdraw from such an existentially unsustainable positions in Crimea before they hemorrhage all their logistical capacity... but Ukraine is playing the waiting game and it seems like the worst possible situation for russians to sustain and yet what can they do? They must know as well as we do that Putin is likely personally and politically incapable of pre-emptively withdrawing from Crimea... it is a wonderful little situation I think.

[-] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 19 hours ago

What a good thought! Yes, it's like a ceasefire would not benefit Ukraine right now, but/and putin would never ask for one because he's not a strategic thinker.

this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2026
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