Emm... I have mentioned in my last two posts, but it is ok to say it a few times ... it is even hard to believe Ukraine could get that deep and shows a terribly brittle air defence from Ruzzia.
Didn't noticed your post, my bad. It's true that these things shows how brittle Russian air defence in Crimea is. I would relate it with one of their most advanced S-400 system destroyed few weeks ago.
FPV drones is very important weapon in this war. There is lot of videos where these drones is used to attack various targets, but this video shows something what I haven't seen before. What level of precision from drone operator:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/16qxgzf/ukrainian_fpv_drone_flies_into_a_russian_dugout/Theres literally hundreds of those videos from both sides
There are really hundreds of such videos, but there is a nuance. The intensity of the use of FPV drones by Russia has been growing rapidly in recent months, in April there were 10 confirmed cases, in May 64, in June 92, in July 122, in August 242, and in September already 436. Statistics can be viewed
here.
White Ruzzian? like not "black" or Chechen or Gerogian or Uzbekian? Good personal text, it says quite a lotzz. 436 attacks? I would say it can be even more, cheap to produce for both sides, it kind of levels the playing field, if you count all sizes and types and the kills achieved with help of surveillance drones are every day.
Achieving even kills is crazy devastating for Ukraine, simply because of population difference. After loosing the territory with the people on them, and considering everyone that left, UA population is at less than 30MM, while Russia is at 150MM. Meaning with everything else being equal, UA needs to sustain
5x more drones than RU
just to stay equal and have a chance to freeze the conflict at current lines. Put in another way, even if Ukraine somehow manages to achieve 4 kills for every 1 loss they're still doomed to loose. That's why to objective outside observer Ukraine's position is futile and set to fail from the start, and no weapon (outside some weapon of mass destruction) can change that.
Same with USA (335MM) vs China (1.413MM), US would need to sustain over 4x kills just to "level" the playing field.
drone kills are no more dangerous to any side than the other (no more than any other mean of destruction), but speaking of numbers, it is an interesting subject:
There was a German minister (of War) that told the Swiss ambassador:
"Our army is twice the size of yours, what can you do if we invade?", the Swiss took a few seconds and said: "each of our soldiers will shoot twice and then go home".Jokes apart, numbers are important, you need soldiers yes, but modern war is a lot about quality. So,
modern weapons can kill plenty of people in very little time which means that throwing meat into the trenches does not make a defence, it makes hamburgers. Ukraine has enough troops to cover the frontline plus attacking.
The most obvious example: Ruzzia was as large as it is now during the Kherson counteroffensive, yet plenty of land and a major city were liberated.
Another clear example, the
Iraqi army was much much larger than the American troops deployed, but they lost and lost quickly.
By 1988, at the end of the Iran–Iraq war, the Iraqi Army was the world's fourth largest army, consisting of 955,000 standing soldiers and 650,000 paramilitary forces in the Popular Army.
Bottom line, if you bank in the size, you need to revisit the many times in history that numbers simply failed (I could put a few more examples, even dating to the Roman Republic or the Persian Empire times).
Even a relatively modest technological giveaway by the west armies (Stromshadows) has already rendered the Black Sea fleet and Sebastopol "under permanent threat" and destroyed a couple of vessels and the HQ. As of now, there are news of at least 12 Abrams making their way to Ukraine and tests in F16 and (much less publicised) of Gripen, which can carry long range Air 2 Air missiles. I wonder what the very resourceful Ukrainians can do with ATACAMS (ballistic missiles), F16, another batch of bad beasts Abrams and even possible a few Gripen (which can take of from pretty much a stretch of old road anywhere). I guess that we are going to see it, as there is no peace on sight this month.
Also to note that one thing is to have more population, another is to mobilize, train and arm properly an army - a very different exercise. There are reports of pieces of equipment including tanks that come from WW II stocks. If you want to understand the difference, you
can see this video.
The fact that Putin has had to implement forcible conscription and put forward all short of legislation such as accepting people who are pretty much crazies, threatening prison and loosing citizenship,...tells you how difficult may be to go from "population" to "army".
