Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[PussEKatt]

IMHO the very least the USA should do is issue a veiled threat to Putin ( he has threatened the west more than once )

[chrisp65]

I know what’s happened here.

The Russian drones contain a small child frantically sketching out what they see. They’ve presumed the U.S. technology would be in a similar place so as it was lost at sea it would be their word against the U.S..

This leap forward by the U.S. in surveillance technology will have shaken Putin.

[Mic09]

39 minutes ago, blandy said:

I think they’re just exposing the Russian claims as lies in the PR war for global public and government understanding.

Also, Americans will really care about the PR of it - they are the freedom loving democracy wielding force for the good of the world (as some claim) so a response would have to be proportional. 

[magnkarl]

FSB building burning in Rostov. I presume the building fell out of its own window and someone smoked on the wreckage.

Edit, it appears to have blown up before falling out of the window.

Edited March 16, 2023 by magnkarl

[bickster]

7 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

FSB building burning in Rostov. I presume the building fell out of its own window and someone smoked on the wreckage.

Edit, it appears to have blown up before falling out of the window.

Fire investigators in Russia are very good, they've already determined that a short circuit caused it and that exploded the fuel tanks.

[magnkarl]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

Fire investigators in Russia are very good, they've already determined that a short circuit caused it and that exploded the fuel tanks.

Said investigator has likely already fallen out of the window, so one can't check his work.

[Genie]

8 minutes ago, bickster said:

Fire investigators in Russia are very good, they've already determined that a short circuit caused it and that exploded the fuel tanks.

Yet Russia will probably sling a bunch of missiles at Ukrainian hospitals in retaliation for this attack which was an electrical issue. 

[Xann]

Russia is on catch up after realising masses of tanks aren't looking like the bread and butter of the present and future battlefield.

It would be quicker and cheaper to get hold of a modern mostly intact US drone.

Bringing one down over the sea means less damage from impact and possible fire?

The question is whether this was an opportunistic or propaganda attack, and the above has no bearing? Or pre meditated and there's a team in place to pick up the booty?

Can't help thinking it would be a bit of an oversight if there wasn't some sort of self destruct on really sensitive tech in an unmanned vehicle, tbh.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

40 minutes ago, PussEKatt said:

IMHO the very least the USA should do is issue a veiled threat to Putin ( he has threatened the west more than once )

The US doesn't need to do things like this publicly.  In private I suspect Russia have been told what's what.

The US does not need to project strength,  Russia on the other hand does when we all know its weak. 

 

[blandy]

16 minutes ago, Xann said:

Can't help thinking it would be a bit of an oversight if there wasn't some sort of self destruct on really sensitive tech in an unmanned vehicle, tbh.

Not so much self destruct as anti-tamper. The issue with ‘mission impossible’ style self destruct tech is inadvertent or erroneous activation would present a problem, potentially a serious one if it occurred in flight or was a dormant failure. So instead of explosive or pyrotechnic type stuff, alternative means are implemented to prevent exploitation. It’s not the sort of thing which you can read about and learn from the internet, you’ll just find stuff like this

https://www.militaryaerospace.com/computers/article/16724334/antitamper-technologies-seek-to-keep-critical-military-systems-data-in-the-right-hands

Quote

Systems integrators are using a variety of anti-tamper technologies to ensure that the U.S. military's most closely guarded secrets stay out of the hands of potential adversaries as the Department of Defense and the defense industry continue to develop and refine anti-tamper technology. With this kind of technology in place, the most critical information remains secret.

 

[Mozzavfc]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

 

How does dumping fuel onto a drone cause it to crash? I would have assumed that these drones are pretty sturdy and are built to fly in adverse weather conditions 

[LondonLax]

Just now, Mozzavfc said:

How does dumping fuel onto a drone cause it to crash? I would have assumed that these drones are pretty sturdy and are built to fly in adverse weather conditions 

It clipped the propeller on the fly by. 

[blandy]

7 minutes ago, Mozzavfc said:

How does dumping fuel onto a drone cause it to crash? I would have assumed that these drones are pretty sturdy and are built to fly in adverse weather conditions 

It shouldn’t do. Hitting the prop, causing imbalance in the prop shaft and extreme vibration however would render urgently landing the UAV necessary. Fuel dumping, dousing the air vehicle in AVGAS would likely disrupt sensors and RF links at least temporarily. It might also cause glass surfaces through which cameras look to become at least partially obscured. There’s also fire risk 

[blandy]

8 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

It clipped the propeller on the fly by. 

That’s what the US says. I’m slightly sceptical that the SU-27 could clip the prop without also making contact with at least one of the fins and damaging that, too. Given how ridiculously close the second SU27 is in the video, it’s perhaps more likely that the jet wash and the force from it caused significant damage to the engine and/or prop.

[LondonLax]

Just now, blandy said:

That’s what the US says. I’m slightly sceptical that the SU-27 could clip the prop without also making contact with at least one of the fins and damaging that, too. Given how ridiculously close the second SU27 is in the video, it’s perhaps more likely that the jet wash and the force from it caused significant damage to the engine and/or prop.

Yeah, it seemed a bit odd with where the propeller is positioned, and the way the camera cut out completely.

I think the gist is that the Russians were doing their usual trick of messing with a drone but this pilot misjudged and got closer than he was intended, actually bringing the whole thing down. 

[PussEKatt]

31 minutes ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

The US doesn't need to do things like this publicly.  In private I suspect Russia have been told what's what.

The US does not need to project strength,  Russia on the other hand does when we all know its weak. 

 

All that you say is true,but,Putin has gone public and I think the USA/NATO should show him,and Russia ( in no uncertain terms ) that he is NOT the big fish in the pond that he seems to think he is.All this sabre rattling from Russia needs to be put in its proper place.

[Xann]

21 minutes ago, blandy said:

So instead of explosive or pyrotechnic type stuff, alternative means are implemented to prevent exploitation. It’s not the sort of thing which you can read about and learn from the internet, you’ll just find stuff like this...

Cheers.

Did you read it? Amongst the code scrambling it offers up "a pyrotechnic event to blow the chip up" to counter X-rays.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, LondonLax said:

the way the camera cut out completely.

Hmmm. That’s another area of doubt. The camera is in a turret under the vehicle. The antenna providing the feed to the GCS is however on top of the vehicle, so it’s possible that was damaged. I don’t know for sure that the video feed is from the C band antenna, but the video quality suggests so. There are also flush satellite antennas on the top of the spine, but bandwidth issues and latency maybe point to them not being used for high def video. So maybe either the video feed carried on, but has been edited off the released video, or the antenna was damaged, ending the feed to the GCS. If the latter is the case, the aircraft on board data storage would have the video still.

Most likely is the US just chopped the publicly released video. The kind of very end colour blocking doesn’t look like the type of thing that occurs when a digital feed (either out of a camera, or over a RF datalink) drop out occurs.

Edit: One more thing, having just watched the video again. If the video is being sent via wideband satcom, then as the SU-27 is immediately over the top of the Reaper, it would completely obscure the link between the UAV and the satellite, and thus explain the exact timing of the drop out of the video, at the end of the twitter. Same applies via the C band antenna.

[blandy]

14 minutes ago, Xann said:

Cheers.

Did you read it? Amongst the code scrambling it offers up "a pyrotechnic event to blow the chip up" to counter X-rays.

Of course I’ve read it! I didn’t say “there’s no such thing as using pyro or explosives etc. just that there are issues and that the more cutting edge technologies tend to use other methods. You/we are not going to learn much from the internet on this stuff in terms of any detail.

edit. I did imply for the Reaper that “instead of”. I can’t know that for sure. Should have been clearer.

[blandy]

I will add, for the Reaper, which is a pretty modern system and therefore likely equipped with pretty recent avionics, that pyrotechnic devices would be less likely to be used, but the tech is extremely highly classified and no one is going to truthfully identify, publicly, how it is protected.