I’d say the new Russian Starlink-like satellite constellation will help with reducing costs thanks to the improved accuracy.
AP buries the lede as usual:
It’s an expensive and time-consuming way to wage war since only 5% to 9% of what Ukraine fires gets past Russian air defenses, according to Watling.
The opposite is also true. And it is part of the equation: you send cheap drones to force the use of expensive air defense. It is a war of economic attrition.
Do provide citations to substantiate the claim that Russia is spending more on air defence than the west is on drones. Meanwhile, if you want to see actual economic war of attrition then go look at what Russian missiles are doing to infrastructure in Ukraine where there are no air defences. For example, around 70% of imports and exports went through Odessa which is now blockaded. And Ukrainian warehouses are being systematically eliminated. https://dengi.ua/en/business/9761324-russian-strikes-on-warehouses-how-the-war-is-reshaping-ukraine-s-logistics
$50k for long range drone vs $2M for missile defense. So it’s $1m to attack vs $2M to defend.
https://defence-blog.com/cheap-drones-are-beating-russias-billion-dollar-air-defenses/
In practice Russia uses Pantsir https://odin.t2com.army.mil/WEG/Asset/96K6_Pantsir-S1_(SA-22_Greyhound)_Russian_Short-Range_Air_Defense_Gun::Missile_System which has point defences rather than just using missiles. Russia has also developed Yolka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yolka_(drone_interceptor) interceptor drones. Also, cost of production in Russia is far lower than it is in the west. What you’re reading in your link is projection, their analysis is based on what’s happening to yanks in the war on Iran. Anybody who thinks Russia uses S300/400 or Buk systems to intercept drones is not engaging with reality.
Pantsir which has point defences rather than just using missiles.
Pantsir is missiles, just many smaller ones. It’s still $200k missile to stop vs $50k drone.
Also, cost of production in Russia is far lower
Reported prices include foreign exchange rate differences. If Pantsir was built in the US it would be $2M per missile instead of $200k.
No, Pantsir also has guns for close range interceptions, and you’ve just walked back your original claim by an order of magnitude. But even if we take your 200k number, how would you say that compares to not having AD at all which is the case in Ukraine? Do you think it’s worse having all your infrastructure destroyed or better, if it is a matter of attrition which side do you think is coming out ahead here?
Guns aren’t effective against drones which is why the Pantsir-SMD-E was ordered which removes the guns to add more missiles for drone defense.
Right, and one side has a whole lot more to send
Russia really doesn’t. You’d think they do but they don’t between grift and fraud they barely have infantry equipment let alone modern air defense missiles. It’s why they keep ending up fielding cold war era equipment.
That doesn’t make sense given that they’ve been steadily advancing. There’s no substitute for munitions, and there’s no hiding their scarcity. Also, the reason armies around the world, including the US and Ukraine, still field Cold War Era equipment is that apocalyptic stockpiles of it were made on both sides so it’s abundant, dirt cheap and largely parts compatible with the equipment that replaced it.
Russia? Steadily has to be a euphemism right? Because it’s several thousand days, tens of billions of dollars and what a million dead over projected estimates. That’s not evidence of incoming victory that’s evidence of attrition and stagnation against a non peer nation.
It’s Manchester United going 0-0 with an incredibly low ranking pre kindergarten team woke chanting about how close it was.
No, steadily is the word.
Because it’s several thousand days, tens of billions of dollars and what a million dead over projected estimates.
What estimates?
That’s evidence of attrition
Yes, Russia had been using an attrition strategy for most of this war, using drones and shelling to exhaust their opponent’s reserves of troops and equipment. The reason this has been working is that Russia can field more troops and is producing more equipment.
It’s Manchester United going 0-0 with an incredibly low ranking pre kindergarten team woke chanting about how close it was.
Then you’ll have to forgive my confusion as to how and why the kindergarten team now fully controls one fifth of Man U
Putins comments to reporters said two weeks, the intercepted plans lay out a two week strategy those are estimates.
You get that attrition is the dumbest possible thing to use a strategy when you start a surprise war with an overwhelming disparity of force right? Like choosing the way most wars are lost as a strategy reenforces the fact they’re quagmired.
Again you miss the point, a group of grown men shouldn’t not lose slower they should have already won and handily at that.
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Always interesting seeing Nazi narrative enjoyers outing themselves. Franz Halder and Goebbels may have done irreparable damage to the US brainpan.
Um… I’m a nazi?
The study of battles like Stanlingrad show a noble victory by the Soviets at a great expense to their manpower and equipment. A heroic win, nonetheless.
During Operation Bagration, they were swarming and enemy lines with a flood of armed cavalry riders (horseback).
One of the factors that ensured Soviet victory besides brilliant maneuvering and deception, was their ability to overpower the enemy with sheer numbers.
The idea of the human waves or “zerg rush” as you so eloquently put it is the invention of ideologically committed Nazis such as Goebbels popularised in the west when Franz Halder was employed by the US army as a historical consultant and put in charge of a team of Nazis to give their account of fighting the Red Army as the “official” account of events. To put it bluntly it’s Nazi cope about how they lost to a group they believed to be “untermench”. I also didn’t call you a Nazi simply that you like many in the west due to the US push to popularise it are a purveyor of this Nazi cope.
Edit: Also the zerg comparison is clearly racialised and even if unintentional should be something you should do some introspection on.
I don’t know what to tell you when the Russian ministry of defense in 1993 reported the total military death toll was 8.7 million AND that is a conservative figure.
It was a bad joke, for sure, but not inaccurate one.
On a serious note, the USSR wasn’t prepared for full-scaled war when Germany invaded. What they were up against made their struggle even valiant and their victory so much more tremendous.
I don’t know if we’re on the same side of this, but the USSR saved the world. They’re the heroes, here.
total military death toll was 8.7 million AND that is a conservative figure.
Over 3 million of those were PoWs murdered while in captivity, which leaves number of deaths roughly similar for both sides meaning that the supposed human waves attacks didn’t happened, or were employed by both sides equally or weren’t causing noticeable difference in losses for the attackers.
Having lots of casualties and human waves being employed are not the same thing you realise this right? When facing a more industrialised power hellbent on your extermination there are going to be heavy casualties.
It is bad, racialised and inaccurate I would highly recommend some introspection on likening certain groups to bugs.
The USSR was as prepared as it reasonably could have been given it’s material position and timeline (moving to a war economy, moving factories beyond the Urals, holding troops away from the border to avoid a blitz wiping out the army, the Molotov Ribbentrop buying time to recover from the civil war, etc.) while more time definitely could have had them more prepared that is a meaningless what if. It is however true the soviets were heroes who won a tremendous victory.
Why didn’t they think of that before!
Now it makes sense why Zelensky keeps firing all his generals until he found one that came up with this genius idea!
Oh Fedorov was dismissed too.
