The War in the Ukraine

SolarWarden said:

Not sure if true but claims by this channel that another early warning radar was hit. This claim was posted 10 minutes ago before this post

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1794777805294858712

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How does the Russian nuclear doctrine treat such strikes?
If it's just redundancy, then it shouldn't be serious But if it seriously cripples the early warning system, wouldn't Russia have to initiate an all out attack on the US/NATO when MAD/second strike capabilities are disabled/heavily reduced?

Proton said:

How does the Russian nuclear doctrine treat such strikes?
If it's just redundancy, then it shouldn't be serious But if it seriously cripples the early warning system, wouldn't Russia have to initiate an all out attack on the US/NATO when MAD/second strike capabilities are disabled/heavily reduced?

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and why should US/NATO tho ? or does Russia really have to respond with nuclear weapons to say Ukraine ?

Has Ukraine been in such desperation that they lure Russia into nuclear response and hope NATO direct intervention ?

Proton said:

How does the Russian nuclear doctrine treat such strikes?
If it's just redundancy, then it shouldn't be serious But if it seriously cripples the early warning system, wouldn't Russia have to initiate an all out attack on the US/NATO when MAD/second strike capabilities are disabled/heavily reduced?

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Tough questions. I can't even speculate what is going through the minds right now of Russian leadership. Part of me thinks, if claim is true, that maybe the radar was not operational?

Stealthflanker said:

and why should US/NATO tho ? or does Russia really have to respond with nuclear weapons to say Ukraine ?

Has Ukraine been in such desperation that they lure Russia into nuclear response and hope NATO direct intervention ?

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Given the sheer fanaticism with attacking the Kerch bridge (zero military value for many months now) and Belgorod, I think it’s safe to say that they clearly don’t care about Russian redlines. It’s entirely possible that they simply don’t believe they really exist, given how many ‘redlines’ have been crossed.

Never underestimate what a dying and cornered enemy can do. They are at their most dangerous, with nothing to lose.

Stealthflanker said:

and why should US/NATO tho ? or does Russia really have to respond with nuclear weapons to say Ukraine ?

Has Ukraine been in such desperation that they lure Russia into nuclear response and hope NATO direct intervention ?

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I don't know the exact reasoning of the Russians, but if they can no longer maintain effective deterrence, then shouldn't they assume that NATO will take the opportunity to go for a full out nuclear strike to get rid of the Russian threat? And likewise NATO should assume that Russia is going to go for all out aggression, so they themselves would have to act quickly to eliminate Russia?

Sure, cool minds may prevail and all that, but isn't such reasoning the fundamental logic of deterrence?
Have to remember we've never had such bad relations between major nuclear powers, if there's ever a time when the necessity of deterrence must be taken at face value, isn't it now?

SolarWarden said:

maybe the radar was not operational?

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Even if it's operational, BMD Radar is very optimized in their job for space surveillance, that they may deliberately neglect conventional targets.


Pavel have some good table on these radars. You can see many of them have minimum altitude of some 100 km, they were made to ignore conventional targets. The range also indicates long pulsewidth suitable for application for some high resolution pulse compression technique as they have to contend with many targets outer space like Satellites.

Skye_ZTZ_113 said:

Given the sheer fanaticism with attacking the Kerch bridge (zero military value for many months now) and Belgorod, I think it’s safe to say that they clearly don’t care about Russian redlines. It’s entirely possible that they simply don’t believe they really exist, given how many ‘redlines’ have been crossed.

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Who is "they?" If you mean Ukraine then they have no redlines when it comes to attacking Russian targets. It's weird that Ukraine gets invaded and many seem to think Ukraine can go too far in attacking military targets in Russia. Invading has consequences and Russia is feeling them right now.

Skye_ZTZ_113 said:

Never underestimate what a dying and cornered enemy can do. They are at their most dangerous, with nothing to lose.

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So you are saying Russia is a dying and cornered animal? If that is what you think it is by their own making.

Stealthflanker said:

and why should US/NATO tho ? or does Russia really have to respond with nuclear weapons to say Ukraine ?

Has Ukraine been in such desperation that they lure Russia into nuclear response and hope NATO direct intervention ?

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I don't understand this logic that if Russia uses Nukes, then Nato enters the War. What is the logic behind it. Is the logic from Nato perspective, How dare Russia uses Nukes in Ukraine, so i am going to send my conventional troops into Ukraine so that they get hit by more Nukes? Or is the logic, I am going to nuke Russia in response?

tamsen_ikard said:

I don't understand this logic that if Russia uses Nukes, then Nato enters the War. What is the logic behind it. Is the logic from Nato perspective, How dare Russia uses Nukes in Ukraine, so i am going to send my conventional troops into Ukraine so that they get hit by more Nukes? Or is the logic, I am going to nuke Russia in response?

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and why bother attacking BMD Radar which practically have no real use in Ukraine war ?

The logic is that the prevalent premise that NATO will back Ukraine If Russia going nuclear there. But then who knows. Maybe more dopamine boosters for apparent lack of progress ?

Stealthflanker said:

Many, like attempt of engaging low RCS targets like storm shadow as early as possible, Ballistic missile defense mission. you name it.

I mean it can easily be found if anyone really bother calculating or reading stuff from S-400 brochures. They even generously provides detection range for their radars one can use 4th root law to calculate with. Even obvious information like coverage against Ballistic missile which is about 60 km in range.

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Storm Shadow are used for time-critical targets or strategic assets such as air bases. They are not appropriate missiles to be launched to attack operational maneuver groups on the line of contact or, in short, tactical targets such as those that the S-400 could be defending in this case, since the S-300 or any other short/medium range system could be doing this same task.

The S-400 was 50 km from the contact line, a Buk could have been performing the same function, which would certainly be a much smaller loss than compared to a system like the S-400.

Possibilities are a lack of air defense systems to cover front-line maneuver units or anti-access denial as the F-16 threat looms beneath the Russians on the front line.