Biden needs to grant Zelensky’s request for a no fly zone. USAF should clear a flight line to that 40 mile convoy and let the A-10’s come through and destroy it all. The time has come for the world to realize that Putin is a madman. He is not going to negotiate and he will break any commitment that he did negotiate. There appears to be ample outrage within Russia itself that the would not escalate and bring the misery to their homeland. He is going to level the cities of Ukraine to where they are uninhabitable. The death toll from this invasion will get to into 10’a of millions over the next year of Putin is not stopped immediately. De-hydration, starvation, and exposure will kill millions in a horrible manner. Start at the front of the convoy. After the first mile is gone in 10 minutes the rest will surrender
If that convoy is actually 40 miles long, the A-10s would run out of BRRRTTTTTT. That being said, I suspect there’s probably a reason that convoy hasn’t been attacked yet (i.e. it’s bait).
Impossible. We were told by some on this site that NATO is responsible and that Putin had no designs on returning Ukraine to the fold.
Agreed. My big takeaway following this thread is that this whole thing is a giant Rorschach test for how someone views the current adminstration.
I don’t think the Russian have enough assets to attack on four fronts and have a 40 mile long bait can on their foremost front. They don’t seem to have the logistical capacity either. A-10’s have plenty of range to cover that convoy. And if for some reason they can’t, there are plenty of assets available to attack from higher altitudes.
Get those turkish drones to target all of the fuel trucks in that convoy. Turn those fuel trucks into a big bomb.
I’m not talking about fuel range, they’re flying mini-guns and can’t carry enough ammo to actually blow up 40 miles of vehicles. I’m sure that convoy serves an actual military purpose beyond bait, but the odds are that the vast, vast majority of it is logistics vehicles and it probably has the best air defenses of any Russian forces in Ukraine. The Ukrainians are regularly blowing up Russian armor convoys, so there must be some reason that one has been left fairly intact.
As a point of information there are already A-10s based in Poland and my guess is that over the next several months there will be many more. These articles are from 2015 by the way. U.S. A-10 Thunderbolt attack planes have arrived in Poland A-10s in Poland prove they can land anywhere U.S. A-10 Tank Busters deployed to Poland...again. I also wouldn't be surprised to see A-10s deployed to the Baltic states over the next couple of months, too considering that they could be the next on Putin's list, keeping in mind that like Ukraine they were part of the former Soviet Union and also have a number of ethnic Russian citizens.
Not sure if this has already been posted but good article about why the Russian Air Force is not being more aggressive: https://rusi.org/explore-our-resear...ary/mysterious-case-missing-russian-air-force
I actually think Medvedev’s point is valid. I would certainly advise my national spokespeople to avoid using the term “war” to describe any economic sanctions. That said, it’s pretty rich for him to use that tone to lecture others on the risks of aggressive language when his country is physically shelling a sovereign nation while threatening nuclear retaliation for any other nation that steps in their way.
Not to mention, A-10 are not supersonic and are easily targeted in a high AA threat environment. They are meant not meant to be a deep strike capability.
In the next level of this is weird, Lukashenko appears to have given a televised address to the Belarusian security council denying that this was anything more than a “surgical operation” to stop Ukraine from firing missiles at Belarus, while standing in front of a map showing Russia’s invasion plans (and including arrows that would seem to show Russian troops moving from Odessa into Moldova).
A-10’s have plenty of capability to kill tanks and armor. Not sure how many they would need to deploy to kill it all but the capability is there. The Ukrainians are having success at close range with Javelins. It is a great product but it isn’t cheap and not required to kill trucks, just armor. Probably to dangerous right now to send men on foot that close to the convoy. My guess is that they have a position set up down line of Javelins to stop the few mile or so of the convoy.
Yes, I picked up on that early on. The thread title pits Biden on the opposite side of Putin, which may serve to trip a subliminal 'knee jerk reaction' to side opposite Biden for some... which would have the awkward effect of finding oneself on the side of Putin (if one accepts the premise, or fails to see the folly of it...but I'd like to think our fellow Gators are above such a simplistic thought process). It would have been interesting to see the same ploy wrt to Trump vis a vis Putin. Or Xi. Or Il... Very interesting... Alas, the cat is out of the bag, and we can only speculate as to the extent TDS might have skewed the poles under such a set up.... I'll say this much about Biden and this event--as with all things Biden, less is more... ...and he's done a fair job of staying 'less' in this case. (except perhaps wrt to the withdrawal from Afghanistan--more was definitely in order there... but we need not conflate the events in grading them, as each can be graded indpendently). jmho/fwiw.
The issue is the number of 40mm rounds the aircraft can hold. The magazine can hold 1,350 rounds of ammunition. The pilot can select a firing rate of 2,100 or 4,200 rounds a minute. So you get some where between 20 and 30 seconds of BRRRTTTTTT before they have to fly back and re-arm.
A10’s have about 15sec of trigger time. I noticed most of the convoy pics show vehicles staged, but what about troops. Russia would love certain optics vs others. They probably don’t want any planes in that area. When you have a lot more targets than ammo, that means they can shoot back Ukraine has to safeguard what they have at use it in the most useful way possible. I am certainly not optimistic about any positive outcomes oops, covered while I was one finger typing
When I see this guy I still remember my hotel's gift shop in Minsk (16 years ago!) selling postcards with this guy's face on it. Seemed kinda kitchy then.
