Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[Panto_Villan]

5 hours ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

I am not sure what your point is.  The countries you mentioned are part of the most powerful military alliance in history.  Israel is nor part of that alliances and cannot possibly be so if it maintains its current policies.  

Israel is no more or less important than any number of countries who aren't supplying Ukraine with arms.  Israel is looking after its own interests.  So is every single country involved or not involved in this war.  

--------- invaded areas of land that they believed were rightfully theirs.  --------- said those areas were necessary to maintain their own security.  ----------- displaced the local population and resettled its own people into that area. 

You can fill those blanks with Israel, Russia, Nazi Germany, France, China,  England Rome, Macedonia,  Mexico, Iraq, Iran, Serbia and many, many more.  

All countries react in their best interests.  

 

Let's assume for the sake of argument that countries do only ever act in their own self-interest, although I don't agree with that at all. I think the point being made is that Israel's current course is not advancing its interests at all.

Israel is a small country surrounded by hostile nations, which has survived mostly because the West (i.e. mostly America) has provided extensive military and economic aid. It's a democracy populated by people that the West feels it owes a historical debt to, and was an important Western-aligned state in an important region during the Cold War. It's a natural part of the Western alliance.

Except they currently seem to be charting a course away from being a democracy and don't appear to be very interested in wanting to remain part of the Western alliance. Is that really in their best interest? I'd argue it's very much not.

Plus the longer this war goes on the more benefits accrue to Iran from their dealings with Russia, and if Russia gets any kind of positive result from this war then nuclear controls are pretty much dead. Everyone is going to learn the lesson that a nuclear-armed state can freely bully their neighbours with no real repercussions and a whole bunch more countries will realise its in their best interests to obtain nukes. And it's really not going to be good news for Israel when a bunch more Arab states are packing nukes.

[sne]

 

[Delphinho123]

Just looking at some of the numbers with regards to how much equipment the Russians have lost is quite staggering. Tanks, Helicopters, drones. You name it, they’ve lost it.

Will they have an army left when this is all said and done? 

Forgetting the horrible casualties and the numbers of men lost (tragic beyond words really), but surely the longer this plays out, the better for the west, provided China don’t get involved - which they’d be mad to. 

Russian economy must also be taking a battering. 

This has gone from being a war won in a couple of days with Putin marching through Kiev to a 12 month war and staggering losses of men and equipment. Nice one, Vlad.

[magnkarl]

It was bound to happen. The AFU have counter attacked North of Bakhmut, and have encircled a large formation of Russians trying to encircle Bakhmut.

Today marks the start of spring, with 12 degrees and rain forecast. The ground will be useless come tomorrow or the day after.

Edited February 27, 2023 by magnkarl

[bickster]

A milestone (of sorts) yesterday. Ukraine claimed they've now downed 300 Russian aircraft (not helicopters, thats another 288)

Thats a hell of a  lot of metal to blow out of the sky

[bickster]

It's a good day to spot UFOs in Russia

 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

Flightradar24 has been a fantastic distraction on my desktop. 

An unknown and unregistered plane left the RAF base in Cyprus and landed in Moldova.

Another 2 unknown and unregistered objects are present flying very slowly along the Belarus border in Polish airspace. They are at 25,000 feet but doing less than 200 mph.  

[sidcow]

19 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

Flightradar24 has been a fantastic distraction on my desktop. 

An unknown and unregistered plane left the RAF base in Cyprus and landed in Moldova.

Another 2 unknown and unregistered objects are present flying very slowly along the Belarus border in Polish airspace. They are at 25,000 feet but doing less than 200 mph.  

 

[magnkarl]

The spring, it cometh.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

An unknown and unregistered plane left the RAF base in Cyprus and landed in Moldova.

Another 2 unknown and unregistered objects are present flying very slowly along the Belarus border in Polish airspace. They are at 25,000 feet but doing less than 200 mph.  

Just for pedantic reasons, really, but they are not unregistered, nor are they unknown. All aircraft are registered and all are “known”.  They just (if they are military) have the ability to legitimately hide that data from places like flight radar 24. Civil aircraft can illegitimately do the same.

aircraft are assigned a unique id (hex code) when built and registered. And this is hard wired (or sometimes software loaded) into the transponder. They are also assigned, by air traffic services, a flight id for each flight. This data, plus a load of other Nav and status data is transponded in reply to interrogations from SSR during flight. Further, ADS-B equipped aircraft also broadcast the data. Mode S is now (I think) mandatory for air traffic in both Europe and the US and will be worldwide before too long.

But military aircraft (NATO) are equipped with transponders which have a kind of parallel set of modes to the civil modes - they have both civil modes A, C & S, and also military modes 1 - 5. Without being too geeky, mode 3 is the same as mode A, with mode C adding in uncorrected Baro alt to the 4 digit flight id. Mode S has the data I mentioned earlier and mode 5 is basically an encrypted military version of mode S.

TL:DR military aircraft can hide their ID and status from civil traffic and SSR, but still (with the cooperation of ATS) operate safely, away from the prying eyes of the internet and others. What they can’t do (unless genuinely stealthy) is be undetected by normal ground radar, which is why they show up on flight 24 as you describe.

[Mandy Lifeboats]

22 minutes ago, blandy said:

Just for pedantic reasons, really, but they are not unregistered, nor are they unknown. All aircraft are registered and all are “known”.  They just (if they are military) have the ability to legitimately hide that data from places like flight radar 24. Civil aircraft can illegitimately do the same.

aircraft are assigned a unique id (hex code) when built and registered. And this is hard wired (or sometimes software loaded) into the transponder. They are also assigned, by air traffic services, a flight id for each flight. This data, plus a load of other Nav and status data is transponded in reply to interrogations from SSR during flight. Further ADS-B equipped aircraft also broadcast the data. Mode S is now (I think) mandatory for air traffic in both Europe and the US and will be worldwide before too long.

But military aircraft (NATO) are equipped with transponders which have a kind of parallel set of modes to the civil modes - they have both civil modes A, C & S, and also military modes 1 - 5. Without being too geeky, mode 3 is the same as mode A, with mode C adding in uncorrected Baro alt to the 4 digit flight id. Mode S has the data I mentioned earlier and mode 5 is basically an encrypted military version of mode S.

TL:DR military aircraft can hide their ID and status from civil traffic and SSR, but still (with the cooperation of ATS) operate safely, away from the prying eyes of the internet and others. What they can’t do (unless genuinely stealthy) is be undetected by normal ground radar, which is why they show up on flight 24 as you describe.

Sorry - I didn't make myself clear.  Flightradar 24 lists the registration and type of 99.9% of aircraft.   The flights I mentioned did not display a registration or type on Flightradar24.   

You know far more about these things than most people.    Is a height of 25,000ft doing less than 200mph unusual?    

  

Edited February 28, 2023 by Mandy Lifeboats
speeling mishsteaks

[blandy]

4 hours ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

Sorry - I didn't make myself clear.  Flightradar 24 lists the registration and type of 99.9% of aircraft.   The flights I mentioned did display a registration or type.   

You know far more about these things than most people. Is a height of 25,000ft doing less than 200mph unusual?  

I mean I’m not looking at whatever it was you saw, but if you saw the registration and type, then I guess you can google those details and find out what type of aircraft etc.?

Normally military aircraft will have their mode S and ADS-B (if fitted) enabled and they would show up with all their details visible. If/ when they wish to mask themselves from onlookers they can turn off transponder mode(s) and disappear. They may use mode 5 to be visible to military control and traffic, or they may as part of their flight plan, have filed “I’ll be in this area/altitude” and civil ATC will keep other traffic out of that location, for safe separation.

25k ft and 200 kts. Not that unusual for some types of aircraft. High for a chopper, so unlikely that, low for something like Global Hawk, slow for a Rivet Joint or [no longer in service] Sentinel, but Hawkeye might fit the bill? I’m guessing, but any of those or more is possible. Like I say if you know the type or flight ID, you ought to be able to find out more.

Edited February 28, 2023 by blandy
[edited to say Sentinel no longer in service]

[Mandy Lifeboats]

27 minutes ago, blandy said:

I mean I’m not looking at whatever it was you saw, but if you saw the registration and type, then I guess you can google those details and find out what type of aircraft etc.?

Normally military aircraft will have their mode S and ADS-B (if fitted) enabled and they would show up with all their details visible. If/ when they wish to mask themselves from onlookers they can turn off transponder mode(s) and disappear. They may use mode 5 to be visible to military control and traffic, or they may as part of their flight plan, have filed “I’ll be in this area/altitude” and civil ATC will keep other traffic out of that location, for safe separation.

25k ft and 200 kts. Not that unusual for some types of aircraft. High for a chopper, so unlikely that, low for something like Global Hawk, slow for a Rivet Joint or Sentinel, but Hawkeye might fit the bill? I’m guessing, but any of those or more is possible. Like I say if you know the type or flight ID, you ought to be able to find out more.

I amended my post shortly after posting. It did NOT display a registration.  A rather crucial omission. 

The planes were approx 200mph (170 kts). 

 

Edited February 28, 2023 by Mandy Lifeboats
Speeling mishsteaks

[Mandy Lifeboats]

See screenshot below. 

Not much more to add.   Happily flying in circles.   

 

 

[ender4]

36 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

See screenshot below. 

Not much more to add.   Happily flying in circles.   

 

 

probably just sightseeing the aurora/northern lights 

[blandy]

2 hours ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

See screenshot below. 

Not much more to add.   Happily flying in circles.

I’d guess Hawkeye, but it’s just a guess. Below airliner cruising altitude, but high enough to “see” a long way. Slow, so suggests prop aircraft. Over polish airspace, so not a UAV like a global hawk, plus too low for that, in all likelihood. But it could be something else entirely. Can’t see how far that is from the border. Pretty close, I’m guessing?  Otherwise it might be some kind of surveillance cover for some other activity than seeing what’s going on over Ukraine.  Intriguing.

[Mandy Lifeboats]

24 minutes ago, blandy said:

I’d guess Hawkeye, but it’s just a guess. Below airliner cruising altitude, but high enough to “see” a long way. Slow, so suggests prop aircraft. Over polish airspace, so not a UAV like a global hawk, plus too low for that, in all likelihood. But it could be something else entirely. Can’t see how far that is from the border. Pretty close, I’m guessing?  Otherwise it might be some kind of surveillance cover for some other activity than seeing what’s going on over Ukraine.  Intriguing.

There seems to be a set pattern to these surveillance craft.  

Swedish Airforce patrol the Baltic and south into Poland.  The US covers the central area of the NATO border.  The Italian airforce patrol Moldova. A Global Hawk from a US base in Italy  covers south Crimea.  

British planes cover the entire area as required but don’t tend to loiter.  They appear to work from the UK to Cyprus or vice versa.
 

There is then a third layer.  Turkey patrols  behind the Italians and Americans.  The Netherlands patrol behind the Swedish and the USA.  The US provides a tanker that flies around Romania and South Poland. 
 

The UK has openly said that our planes have a fighter escort.  They are rarely visible.  
 

I know the Dutch have fighters in Poland that protect the border. I presume the second line of surveillance is to protect the first line and secure the airspace. 
 

[sidcow]

16 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

There seems to be a set pattern to these surveillance craft.  

Swedish Airforce patrol the Baltic and south into Poland.  The US covers the central area of the NATO border.  The Italian airforce patrol Moldova. A Global Hawk from a US base in Italy  covers south Crimea.  

British planes cover the entire area as required but don’t tend to loiter.  They appear to work from the UK to Cyprus or vice versa.
 

There is then a third layer.  Turkey patrols  behind the Italians and Americans.  The Netherlands patrol behind the Swedish and the USA.  The US provides a tanker that flies around Romania and South Poland. 
 

The UK has openly said that our planes have a fighter escort.  They are rarely visible.  
 

I know the Dutch have fighters in Poland that protect the border. I presume the second line of surveillance is to protect the first line and secure the airspace. 
 

I remember seeing typhoons flying around the border in the early days when I looked at Flightradar24 a few times 

[blandy]

21 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

I presume the second line of surveillance is to protect the first line and secure the airspace. 

Maybe, though I feel that the surveillance is perhaps more about intelligence gathering than specific protection or securing airspace. By being able to see and detect what’s going on, what’s moving, what’s transmitting, being able to compile and intercept (signals) and identify and reconnoitre and compute, NATO forces will build up a very useful and informative picture of the situation, knowing what Russian forces are doing, what channels they use, what messages they send, what leaky data (personal mobile phones) says…all kinds. Obviously it also shows Russia “we’re here, we’re watching and we’re ready”, which is a good protection to start with.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

There seems to be a set pattern to these surveillance craft.  

Swedish Airforce patrol the Baltic and south into Poland.  The US covers the central area of the NATO border.  The Italian airforce patrol Moldova. A Global Hawk from a US base in Italy  covers south Crimea.  

British planes cover the entire area as required but don’t tend to loiter.  They appear to work from the UK to Cyprus or vice versa.

There is then a third layer.  Turkey patrols  behind the Italians and Americans.  The Netherlands patrol behind the Swedish and the USA.  The US provides a tanker that flies around Romania and South Poland. 

The UK has openly said that our planes have a fighter escort.  They are rarely visible.  

I know the Dutch have fighters in Poland that protect the border. I presume the second line of surveillance is to protect the first line and secure the airspace. 

There's an RAF Rivet joint flying from ( I assume) Akrotiri, US Global Hawks from Sig' (near Catania, Sicily). Stuff in Romania and Poland and elsewhere deployed from various NATO nations. It'll be like an ongoing major NATO exercise, with co-operating aircraft and ships from all over.