Peter wrote:
So we should not get into this.
I agree, in any case it was the answer to that comparison of warfare, not ideology. In the end, it doesn’t matter which other conflict in which any kind of regime was ousted can serve as an example and be comparable to Russia, simply for it’s vast size. That is all I meant to convey.
Peter wrote:
Russia cannot be subjugated by any army which can be assembled in 20th or 21st century; it is too big, the logistics too impossible
Exactly. Apart from that, looking back at how such military operations worked, it had to do with loads of air attacks, bombing and a huge level of destruction, pretty much what Russia is inflicting onto Ukraine right now. They are doing something similar than what they did in WW2 but also elsewhere, only this time, they do not have the military capacity they had then.
And of course, there is one more thing to consider: “Regime change” is something which in recent history has not produced much positive results, when initiated from the outside. Neither Iraq, nor Afghanistan, nor any other such attempts really came to fruition, rather resulted in bigger problems than before. IMHO, if a regime change in Russia is realistic, it has to come from within. And that of course has the inherent risk that what replaces Putin might be worse. I bet those who thought getting rid of the Romanovs might open up some opportunities ate their expectations after they supported Lenin.
Russia has strong crypto today but deployment is always tricky
And remember, at last at the beginning of the war, possibly still today, Russians were using unencrypted radios and mobile phones for communication. The didn’t have access to encrypted communication devices.
The Romanovs’ great achievement was to introduce some DNA diversity into the British Royal family 
Key management is really hard to do, especially given that the military is mostly low IQ and thus will often fail to follow procedures. It is quite easy to do very strong crypto today. Russians are doing a lot of social media stuff with phones, but the Ukrainians are reading all the traffic – or at least they can do traffic analysis, and device location. And unfortunately vice versa too. Also remember that if you set up a Whatsapp or Telegram group the traffic is not end to end encrypted so anybody who can pick up GSM data can read it. And most people have set up a group for their family.
I thought this was a good pic. It shows the copper jet from an ATGM making a relatively small hole, at about 10km/sec. The steel armour can be 1m thick and it will still go through, but this one wasn’t.
That pic was deleted from the Ukraine mil telegram channel after a few mins – no idea why.
MedEwok wrote:
Afaik this meaning has also slipped into several languages as a loanword, notably Dutch pantser and Swedish pansar
It’s Italian. Panciera is an armor covering the abdomen In Norwegian (panser) it means armor as well and is as commonly used as armor in English. But it’s also the name of the hood on a car (for unknown reasons) and for speed skates (__panser__skøyte) also for unknown reasons but more a slang word for the speed skates.
Top story now. This picture was taken today by a Norwegian Orion just outside the coast of Norway (in international water)
It’s the Russian frigate Gorshkov. What’s special is that it has the brand new hypersonic (Mach 9) cruise missiles with nuclear warheads on board, the Zircon. Due to the speed, there is a plasma cloud in front and around the missile, making it 100% stealth. No radar can detect it. It is however visible in IR (obviously, due to the plasma cloud), but Mach 9 is awfully fast, giving very little time to react, and the only way to get it is head on.
Russian propaganda movie from tests last year (looks cool though ). But I mean, almost unstoppable.
Due to the speed, there is a plasma cloud in front and around the missile, making it 100% stealth. No radar can detect it. It is however visible in IR (obviously, due to the plasma cloud), but Mach 9 is awfully fast, giving very little time to react, and the only way to get it is head on.
I am 100% sure that is 100% BS, but as expected for anything claimed by Russia.
All long range ballistic missiles are hypersonic, yet they have always been detectable by radar – with early warning systems since the early 1960s. The more recent Patriot missiles can also get ICBMs and such.
It is true that the hot gas around a hypersonic missile attenuates radio signals. This was discovered in the early ABM systems. These use very high acceleration (hundreds of G) to reach hypersonic speeds within a few seconds and in the early days the accuracy wasn’t good so they used a nuclear warhead to be sure of getting the incoming missile when it was still some tens of km away. Due to the radio problems they used very high radio power to get through to the missile. But this has clearly been solved in the intervening 50-60 years. The Patriot even claims to have such accurate radar that it can distinguish between real missiles and decoys (they reflect different / fly differently – don’t recall any details).
Anyway, it takes just one torpedo or a missile to finish this ship…
Peter wrote:
Anyway, it takes just one torpedo or a missile to finish this ship…
Precisely.
It is almost certainly being tailed by Royal Navy and US Navy hunter-killer subs – probably only one at a time lest they get in each other’s way – and the Russians will have no idea they are there.
34 USN and 6 RN nuclear propelled attack submarines are in active service. 40 attack subs need something to do, they can find it, and the Russians know it 
Russia has 11 too, but I understand they don’t sail much.
Peter wrote:
All long range ballistic missiles are hypersonic, yet they have always been detectable by radar – with early warning systems since the early 1960s. The more recent Patriot missiles can also get ICBMs and such.
One has to wonder, but as I understand, the plasma simply eat up radio waves. Ballistic missiles are also travelling through a very different atmosphere, virtually no atmosphere at all, and relatively slow, only Mach 20 (nothing compared with a spaceship entering the atmosphere). It’s only when they get low in the denser atmosphere that they will start glowing, if they ever do that before detonating? Who knows? It’s one hell of a missile though, nothing else like it
Gorshkov is allegedly going south to the Mediterranean sea. Exactly what it’s going to do there is anyone’s guess, say hello to Erdogan perhaps?
Gunboat diplomacy – worked for the Brits 150 years ago, so why not try it again?
Also missile launches are very visible with mil satellites.
