According to the open-source intelligence (OSINT) site Molfar, Ukraine has sunk or damaged nearly 60 ships of the Russian Navy.
How, for fuck sake, Russia managed to lose 60 ships to a country that has NO NAVY ?!?
Holy! Shit!
Because it is easier to deny your enemy terrain than it is to keep it.
And Ukraine does have a navy. It is just made up out of very angry remote controlled low observable high speed boats that carry a ton of explosives and don’t have to come home because they want to hug your ship and make it sad.
😆 I love it
Hug your boat and make it sad
Drones really change the calculus
New war meta is crazy this season
War … 2
Eh, they keep releasing new War every few years and idiots keep buying it even though war never changes.
Aaaackshually, it doesn’t make the ship sad because it is an inanimate object.
This is a whole paradigm shift, and it’s not new.
So you have a billion dollar aircraft carrier. How many million dollar missiles can you shoot at it before it sinks? Generally, it’s not a thousand.
Same deal all down the line. A tank is fantastically more expensive than an antitank rocket.
Just the way the world works. You can iterate and improve a small munition way faster than a huge ship.
Tanks are different, it is more or less normal they blow up from time to time, a destroyer not so much. Like an AWACS for example, should never get picked out of the sky.
Great anyways that russia is losing both in ridiculously high numbers.
Even still, there’s a difference between losing one AWACS and losing all of them.
Well, yes and no. Fleet size matters.
UK MoD estimated earlier this year that Russia had about 6 serviceable A-50 airframes; the US alone has 21 E-3s, while France operates 4, and NATO collectively operates another 18 - and that doesn’t factor in other newer and more advanced AWACS platforms.
Russia lost over 10% of their operable AWACS fleet by losing one plane. Russia is HUGE. Their AEW assets were absurdly stretched before, and now they will be even moreso. Any losses they incur will degrade their overall strategic AEW capacity in a very real fashion.
That is the meme, but when I talk to military people they point out Russian incompetence. They do not believe NATO ships are that vulnerable. Ukraine is using a lot of tanks, but because they are using them according to good military doctrine they are not taking nearly as many losses. Note that Ukraine and Russia both got their tank instructions from the old Soviet playbook not a NATO book (though Ukraine as had NATO training as well), there is nothing about using a tank well Russia shouldn’t know, but they are failing to follow their own book on how to use tanks.
On the tank side, some planned updates/replacements for the Abrams were very suddenly canned and went back to the drawing board. The DoD didn’t say why, but a good guess is that they saw how things were going for tanks vs drones in Ukraine, and decided that these new designs would be obsolete before they’re built.
You may bet your bollix that tank designers are earning really good overtime at the moment.
You may bet your bollix that tank designers are earning really good overtime at the moment.
something tells me drone and EW designers are pulling even more OT than the tank guys.
They do not believe NATO ships are that vulnerable
Oh they are, so a shit ton is being done for anti missile, anti submarine, now anti flying drone, should be anti jet ski drone, anti submarine drone, etc.
Also a lot of the late Soviet Union military technology came from Ukraine, plus their military were also trained in the same kind of school of thought as Russia and still know it.
So it makes sense that, when push came to shove, the Ukranians would fast come up with asymetric war solutions against Russia, that Russia wouldn’t be as fast in effectivelly countering them and Ukraine would be quicker at developing new or adjusted solutions once Russia found a counter (or, more generally, that Ukraine would remain ahead of Russian in the cycle were each side develops a counter to the other side’s counters).
Had Russia’s initial blietzkrieg attack worked, it would’ve been a different story, but at this stage it makes sense that Ukraine has the technological edge, not just in the weaponry it gets from the West but also in their own weapons development, especially now that it has much better AA to protect the installations far away from the frontlines working on weapons tech.
Yeah, this definitely feels like a doctrine and training problem. I can’t even imagine a scenario where the US or NATO lost half of any platform like that. Pearl Harbor, maybe? I remember how huge a deal it was when we found out our body armor and APCs sucked in 2001, and that was nothing like losing every missile ship.
To be fair we knew they sucked. Which is why we were working to get them replaced for the iraq war on an emergency basis.
Sure pointing to Russian incompetence is easy. I would like to see how NATO ships fare in a training exercise against a pack of 10 Magura V’s. I’ll bet they will find it is much harder than they thought.
These things are so low in the water they dissapears between the waves for radar and other tracking systems, they can move slow to get close and be within the outer defense layers before they are spotted. And now they even come with deployable mines, grad missiles or even anti air missiles.
So would I. Those in the military who are talking give me the impression they have done tests and while the results are classified (thus I don’t know what the truth is) they have counter measures (which again are classified so I don’t know what they might be)
It’s not that simple. If it was the American military wouldn’t be effective because manpads, javelins, and torpedos would have taken out all the aircraft, tanks and ships.
The military is a fighting unit and protects itself very well. At least, it does it it’s working right. When you have a military being destroyed by a vault interior opponent, it’s because they are fucking to their military…or someone is trying to occupy Afghanistan.
Has a modern military ever gone up against an enemy using lots of small cheap drones though? I’m sure they have plans in place, just can’t recall if they’ve ever really been tested, aside from Russia with the results we see.
Ah, the classic blunder!
This shift happened in the 1930’s. Land based naval bombers prevented the Germans from operating surface ships anywhere near the English coast. Japanese carriers routinely ferried bombers to support naval landings. And of course the US built their entire Pacific fleet around carriers.
A landmass isn’t anything more than a giant, unsinkable, carrier in naval strategy.
So you have a billion dollar aircraft carrier. How many million dollar missiles can you shoot at it before it sinks?
For Russia’s aircraft carrier? Zero. That thing was always catching fire and had to be towed everywhere.
And US aircraft carriers have an honestly embarrassing amount of firepower, completely disregarding the jets. There’s a reason that they haven’t been sunk by anyone other than the USN since Midway. Apparently we have sunk several carriers since WWII, one with a nuke. It survived the first nuke, but the second sunk her. Though the Independence survived both nukes.
This is a whole paradigm shift, and it’s not new.
Got me confused. Are you saying these tactics are new or not? I vote for new, mostly, kinda, but both at once. Sorta.
These tactics are new, but the story is the same it has been for centuries. Huge armies devastated by a new tactic, a new weapon, a new defense. Chariots, heavy armor, crossbows, guns, star fortresses, machine guns, aircraft, now drones.
Tanks aren’t about to go out of style, though. The goal is to not let anti-tank weapons in range of your tanks - as it has been since WWII, just moreso as time goes on. Maybe ditto for ships that aren’t Soviet rustbuckets crewed with drunks, although I think even that is in question these days.
Also, funny enough, the average weapon is getting more complicated and expensive as time goes on. At least for the West, a skilled soldier continues to cost more than whatever they operate, so survivability is worth it even if it means less volume.
Drones and missiles. Air power long ago surpassed ship power and a landmass makes one hell of an aircraft carrier.
If only they had desert power.
Is Putin the Shitan Al Gain?
Marine drones. Basically remote control exploding speed boats, some with rockets on them. They basically attack like hyaenas bringing down a zebra.
I think it was a rhetorical question…
That question was not a question but more like a “Lol, world’s second greatest navy lost to a country with no navy, lmao”
A kamikaze hyena
Ukraine has a navy. The navy just – for the moment – doesn’t have any ships, just boats and anti-ship missiles and USVs and such.
while true… in alpha male mil circle a navy is AIR CRAFT CARRIER, NUCLEAR SUBMARINES, DESTROYER, AMPHIBIOUS LANDING SHIP etc
which is ironic considering Ukraine did take out some destroyers or corvettes or whatever without a “navy”
That is genuinely amazing, losing 60 ships to a country without an actually big navy. Invading Ukraine to have warm waters for your navy, and you still lose.
This is Russia’s “don’t invade Russia in winter”. Don’t launch a naval assault on Ukraine, apparently.
To be pedantic, they have a navy, just no large ships in said navy.
You really gotta count how many cheap boat Ukrainians lost trying to sink 60 ships. Ofc they (suicide boats) are much, much, much cheaper and cause no crew casualties being remotely controlled. So it is super cost effective, And most importantly safe, but if you count pure numbers i am sure Ukrainian losses of those boats are massively higher.
But the fact that russians can still use their missles ships to launch missiles is a big issue. Even if there are fewer of those ships, its not 0 :(… Yet
You really gotta count how many cheap boat Ukrainians lost trying to sink 60 ships.
That’s like counting cruise missiles as aircrafts.
You missed the point (and i should have perhaps been clearer), the chap was saying “no navy”, i am pointing out that suicide drones are still part of that navy and Ukrainians had 15000 personal at the start of the war in the navy.
In the time it would take the current Russian defense industry to build and deploy one of these new missile ships, Ukraine could build and deploy a thousand of these little RC Boat Bombs from 1/1000th the cost.
They’re literally making these boats out of rebuilt engines and 3d printed parts. Russia won’t recover from this war in our lifetime as long as they embrace Putin style leadership.
If they keep this war up, with the current losses in manpower, for another 8 to 9 months, they won’t have enough Russian males to repopulate the country. Putin may be effectively killing Russia as a country. Unfortunately Ukraine may hit that point sooner since they have fewer people.
Thats why i said, they are amazing value for money. But sould be interesting to know just how many boats it takes to take out 60 or so ships
From previous videos I’ve seen it seems like they send 3-6 of these vehicles at a ship each time.
Oh sunk! I wanted to try and find it. So they probably know where it is then. Okay 👍.
That’s impressive.
I’m now wondering how fucking useless the Russian navy would be fighting a nation that also had a navy.
For an amusing read on how well their navy did against the Japanese, in 1905, check out Battle of Tsushima.
The Russians lost 5.045 and 21 ships (more captured and/or damaged). Japan lost 117 and 3 torpedo boats.
Here’s an entertaining video on their journey to Japan.
There’s also the longer form Drachinifel version
The Russians lost 5.045 and 21 ships
Can you please elaborate how one can lose a decimal value of ships?
Some countries reverse commas vs periods. 5.599,99, almost 5600
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That’s number of people in the thousands.
If somebody cuts of the stern.
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I don’t think Russia has ever had a positive naval experience in anger lmao
There’s a long history of the Russian Navy being humiliated. I don’t think there’s been any positive stories at all.
They didn’t suffer any losses during Operation Preying Mantis
He [Putin] also said that the fleet is being replenished with new ships, equipped with modern weapons, and that domestic shipbuilders will hand over more than 40 vessels to the Defense Ministry this year.
Sure, do that.
Is 40 a lot? That seems quite ambitious but I have no idea how long it takes to build one.
Edit: Russia’s built ~16 of these Karakurt-class ships since 2018 lol. So no, it won’t be 40 missle boats.
Russia’s built ~16 of these Karakurt-class ships since 2018 lol.
Meanwhile the Netherlands alone has 24, and the U.S. has over 600.
Russia’s high tech side of their military industrial complex is incredibly weak compared to the old USSR days, and even their low tech side is struggling.
Russia’s high tech side of their military industrial complex is incredibly weak compared to the old USSR days
They’ve been screwed since like the '60s because of the gap in microprocessor tech.
Yeah, let’s face it: the USSR collapsed for a reason, and its MIC was already failing by the time it did.
Yeah I can believe they’re getting 40 vessels in the next year if they include literally everything they’re getting. They certainly aren’t getting 40 corvettes.
It really depends on the kind of vessel though. China for instance has a ton of ships but less than tonnage than the US, and if you restrict that to ships that could realistically conduct long range opperations that tonnage is buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo even lower than the UK and Japan (not combined). So Russia could just be launching 40 new patrol boats next year, or maybe 2 actual ships and 38 patrol boats.
Depends. 40 RC sail boats? No, not very impressive. 40 supercarriers? Yes, very impressive.
At this point, I wouldn’t put it past Russia to claim 40 RC sail boats as “new ships in the fleet”.
No way they’re replacing the bigger ones, like the Moskva. That one was built in a yard that’s now in Ukraine, and Russia hasn’t gotten that part back. Even if they did, Ukraine hadn’t really maintained it.
It was also launched in 1979, and they haven’t built anything that size since the USSR fell.
They’d have to rebuild the infrastructure needed to build the ship. These losses are irreplaceable.
iirc they did build one for Admiral Kuznetsov. It also left that dry dock not that long ago so it’s open now. They’re having trouble funding anything larger than the Adm. Gorshkov class though. Which is about 50 meters shorter. So even if they did decide to throw down a 180M long guided missile cruiser they wouldn’t be able to fund it. In fact they’ve been trying to get something called the Lidar class going and the Russian Navy is just like, “Nyet.”
I’d be willing to take a wild guess and say that at least 30+ of those new vessels are small support boats.
We put Kalashnikov on Sergey’s rowboat, Ukraine cowers before invincible Russian engineering!
Well, they seem to be replenishing their submersible fleet in the Black Sea with lots of new under water vessels: for every ship they lose they get a new sub…
Ships are expensive as hell and drones are comparatively cheap. Missiles too. Ships also take a month off Sundays to build in very obvious places because manufacturing lots of big stuff is pretty obvious to any intelligence analyst posting attention.
Good thing Putin is just as confused as whoever the next US President will be. Good thing these guys are in charge of the nukes.
Yeah, except that per the Montreux Convention, because Turkey has recognized that Russia is “at war”, Russia is not allowed to transit any warships through the Bosporus Strait, so any new combat ship they make has to be made in the Black Sea.
Are they building them in the black sea?
Fuck russia
ohh NO
ANYWAY
I know they’re saying Ukraine sunk those ships…but the headline makes it sound like Putin is saying “Now where did I put that military ship? Was it in the baltic sea? Did I harbor it in the Atlantic? Oh who can keep track of these things???”
There’s this one time my brother was playing some Total War (I think?) And he told me he lost his army. I gave my condolences and he said “No, I lost lost it. I don’t remember where I placed them and now I can’t find them.”
Yu zunk my buttlezhip!
Sounds more like: You drank my bottleshop.
You love to see it! Every little bit helps.
Fuck yeah Ukraine. We love to see it :)
Russian Propaganda: “Our Glorious Nation has acquired a brand new submersible to help its fight against NATO in Ukraine”
We’ve mined this very specific location with very powerful ordinance!
Sink, motherfucker.
Hey, Russian Warship, go fuck yourself.
How big is the black sea… can’t we just give them missiles to cover it?
They have missiles that cover the Black Sea. We could give them the tomahawk but we’re only just now getting AShM versions back out to our own fleet. The best we could probably do is support their production of Neptune missiles. Which are really actually pretty good. It puts them in a pretty small club as far anti-ship missiles go. Which is probably at least part of why the Russians can’t keep anything afloat in the Black Sea.
It’s an area of 168,500 sq mi.
A patriot battery can cover 300 sq mi.
The operative measurement is flight distance. Which, with a dogleg to avoid Crimean Anti-Air sites would max out around 680Mi. Neptune flies 621 miles at max range.
They already have the Black Sea covered.
Meanwhile US defense contractors are probably busy developing bolt on CIWS for their littoral combat ships.
“A close-in weapon system (CIWS) is a point-defense weapon system for detecting and destroying short-range incoming missiles and enemy aircraft which have penetrated the outer defenses, typically mounted on a naval ship. Nearly all classes of larger modern warships are equipped with some kind of CIWS device.”
interesting point - I don’t know of any russian CIWS systems (and boy do they have 'em!) meeting success vs. drone attacks. If their systems were capable of taking them out I think they’d have crowed about any shoot downs, but what I see is a russian navy at the bottom of the sea.
Yes, add USVs to the treat list.
The type of threats these things pose are a lot more similar to missiles than they are to a Rib filled with goons. Low observable and fast, close to shore means that a high level of automation might be needed. Aka… a ciws.
And why I think there might be add ons, is the type of threat is new and existing systems might not suffice. Magura is armored a plane or missile is not.
Please try not using initialisms that a general audience won’t know. That’s why i had to look up the previous one and quoted the info so other people wouldn’t have to look it up also. USV doesn’t even show up in a googling
EDIT
I found it, USV means a drone boat
You are right, sorry. Unmanned Surface Vehicle.
Wut?
That the US and her defense contractors see this and are very busy developing solutions against this very potent threat against their own ships. Since the rest of the Wold als sees this… and that includes some people/groups/countries that might want to sink some American ships. If anything this shows how dangerous Iran could make the Persian gulf for American ships.
Magura proves how vulnerable ships can be, especially against modern wolf packs.
So I hypothesize that they will come up with some form of “after market” installable Close In Weapon System (aka… a bolt on CIWS) to deal with these kind of threats.
Most US Navy ships have had CIWS systems since the 70s and have had many upgrades to their tracking systems since then. The US Army adopted the LPWS (C-RAM) which is basically a portable CIWS for land use. (The Russian version of the CIWS is called a Kortik.)
It wouldn’t surprise me if there are already CIWS-type systems for commercial ships operating in hazardous zones.
I have had the pleasure of standing next to a few CIWS systems during live fire testing and it’s quite the experience.
Yes, very much so. The reason I think there might be add ons is due to the nature of the threat.
Very angry, low visible, high speed, armored, unmanned surface vehicles that hunt in packs.
- The Rim116 might not be usable because by the time you see them you might not want to / can not use a missile anymore.
- The gun based ciws (midas/goalkeeper/phalanx et al.) might not have enough penetration. They are built for engaging unarmored targets.
We can make fun of the Russian expansion of their submarine fleet in de black sea all we want… but if these maguras where an easy threat to deal with they would. No reason to think any NATO surface combatant would do any better when suddenly confronted with a similar threat.
You mean like a big net that sits 50 feet off the boat to tangle the props of all these drones
Or just put era blocks on ships too… lol
Would probably be nothing more than a software update. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were already capable of engaging boats.
They are… gun based ciws can easily be used against ribs and such. I just don’t know if a drone boat ban be armored enough to withstand the onslaught.
The amount of armor necessary would render it useless.
So, Gary Brechner wrote an article about this, like 20 years ago: Basically, that the combination of expense to build, and vulnerability to specific asymmetric threats, that huge ocean-floating warships represent, means that in the long term they are doomed as a serious military platform. They should go on the shelf alongside that thing the Nazis did with trying to build small-building-sized tanks, as something that just doesn’t make sense when all factors are considered.
It might seem that the submarinization of the Black Sea fleet proves him out, but as it happens, I coincidentally got to talk recently to an actual military strategy expert on the topic and this was his take:
- Deterrence is a relevant factor. Lots of expensive military kit is pretty vulnerable. The issue is, if you do start taking steps to attack it, what’s going to happen to you in response. That’s at the heart of keeping a lot of big powers’ naval forces safe, more so than them being invulnerable. Real no-holds-barred war is pretty rare in the modern world; most military kit goes around most of the time being used for force projection or little proxy wars, usually not full-scale war against peer enemies.
- It may be that the big ships are becoming more vulnerable as time goes on, yes, but it’s not like that’s new. Once it does go past the level of “we don’t want to do that / provide weapons so our proxy can do that because we’re scared of the response,” and proceeds to a real fuck-'em-up war, losing big battleships and carriers at a shocking rate has been part of war since around World War 2. They’re hard as fuck to defend and navies tend to be super cautious with where they put them as a result, and once it comes to a real war, they start sinking yes. It’s not like land warfare; it only really takes one day where something goes wrong to sink billions and billions of dollars worth of your navy irrevocably. Adding a new way that that can happen doesn’t necessarily change the shape of the war because it was already happening and was already part of the calculus.
I think, as some other people have said, that most of it is bad strategy and tactics by the Russians, of putting their big naval assets within range of the weapons that can fuck them up and for some reason not reacting (until very recently) when as a result they started sinking like pebbles in a pond.
That makes sense. Although a lot of navy power is smaller ships, frigates and such.
But also the emergence of the drone boat in its current form was for sure hypothesized but now that they are here, the race is on to find a solution.
And several types of ships simply have no alternatives. Carriers, helicopter carriers, amphibious transport ships, oilers.
