Posted on 01/17/2024 5:59:28 AM PST by SpeedyInTexas
The AIM-9M can be aimed optically or by radar. Once the missile acquires the heat source, an aural tone is provided to the operator.
The operator has the option to uncage the seeker, putting the missile in self track mode.
For the ground launchers, this mode is probably preferred or possibly mandatory.
Good tone, uncage, launch.
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like this on that works for me
https://twitter.com/front_ukrainian/status/1747661029092274240
I don’t know how X works but my impression is that when not signed in many videos will show for us but then occasionally one won’t, unless we are signed in.
MAGA Mike Doubles Down: No Deal on Border
not likely this year as I predicted.
Instead of telling the person that the video is age restricted, X provides indication that the video link doesn't exist.
Probably true, but this is the first one since a while back where one of Speedy’s X links did not work for me either.
X-rated links then? 😀
😀
Well done!
Russia withdrew from Kharkiv region and Kherson to defensive positions in the late fall of 2022. They successfully defended those positions for the entirety of 2023.
No one said it was a good will gesture you dolt, it was done for strategic reasons.
The way to test it is to sign in.
“War in Ukraine Drains Nearly Half of Accessible Russian Reserves” (National Wealth Fund)
Early in 2023, Russia was on track to exhaust their remaining financial reserves in their National Wealth Fund, by Christmas. They took significant measures to delay that, by raising taxes on oil revenues near to de facto nationalization of the industry (still titularly in private ownership, in the Fascist economic model), and gutting non-defense spending.
They were also lucky with a surge in oil prices from July through November (which has since reversed). Russia sinks or swims on the price of oil.
This excerpt from the article you linked, I believe correctly states the Russian approach.
““If the situation regarding energy prices is completely negative, we will use the National Wellbeing Fund,” Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told reporters last month. “But if we see that it decreases (too far), then we will take other budget balancing measures. It’s clear that we are not interested in nullifying the National Wellbeing Fund and sitting without a penny in reserve.””
This is what happened in 2023 - they did draw down the Wealth Fund in a straight line, but avoided total depletion through targeted tax increases, domestic spending cuts, larger budget deficits and ruble printing.
So that seems likely in 2024 as well. They will likely go far with other measures, to avoid reaching a completely illiquid situation with their Wealth Fund.
They are still running huge deficits (even bigger than 2023), with oil/gas revenues down, and defense/security spending up. There is no other elephant in the room like the oil industry was last year, that can produce significantly more tax revenue, without more broadly taxing the economy. The people will likely have to feel it more (after the election, of course).
The Wealth fund was not only used to cover part of the deficit last year, but also to shore up the Russian stock market and the Russian currency. If it gets to the point that they have to sell the stock they bought, or stop supporting the ruble with purchases, either or both may drop - perhaps crash at some point (maybe not in 2024, but maybe).
Expanding the Russian money supply continues apace, even as they have 16% interest rates to subdue the resulting inflation. Something could break on those fronts as well, with inflation getting out of control, or the currency crashing.
Of course, much rests on the price of oil throughout the year.
Bottom Line: They have not fixed the underlying problem of deficits consuming their reserves. They are just spreading the costs around and trying to finance it, to kick the can down the road till later - but they are juggling dangerous margins, that keep getting worse.
When all else fails, they will be left printing rubles to make up the difference. Let there be money! Hello Argentina, Turkey and Zimbabwe.
Thanks, but too much trouble.
The sanctions war continues to ratchet up.
Relentlessly.
Reuters: US Treasury deputy secretary to coordinate new Russia sanctions authority in Europe and Japan
by Kateryna Hodunova, January 15, 2024
“U.S. Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo will hold meetings in Europe and Japan this month to coordinate a new Russia sanctions authority that focuses on financial institutions...
...U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Dec. 22 strengthening sanctions against Russia while also targeting financial institutions that support Russia’s war in Ukraine. The order also allows the White House to broaden import bans on certain Russian goods, including seafood and diamonds.
Adeyemo has arranged meetings with G7 partners, local key private representatives, academics, financial institutions, and other industry leaders from Jan. 16-23. The meetings will occur in Rome, Berlin, Frankfurt, and Tokyo.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the spokesperson told Reuters that the deputy secretary will focus on coordination with partners in using a “new tool” to prevent Russia’s government from bypassing sanctions and getting supplied by G7 economies with critical goods for its military.
According to Reuters, while in Japan, Adeyemo will discuss security and the G7 price cap on Russian oil. In Germany and Italy, the key topics will be the Inflation Reduction Act and U.S.–Europe collaboration on bolstering the resilience of critical supply chains.
The deputy secretary’s trip comes ahead of the second anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Washington and its allies have imposed numerous sanctions on Moscow since Feb. 2022, targeting Russian companies, banks, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, and the representatives of his inner circle.
The U.S. has also worked to identify the companies that ignore sanctions imposed on Russia. It has already openly accused some organizations in the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and China of helping Moscow avoid the measures.”
You had the X issue Monday.
OilPrice.com reports:
Europe’s Nuclear Power Renaissance
By Felicity Bradstock - Jan 17, 2024
“The U.K. plans to quadruple its nuclear electricity generation by 2050 and invest in domestic production of HALEU fuel, while extending the life of existing facilities.
France, despite German pressure for renewables, is set to construct up to 14 new nuclear reactors to meet its electricity demands and reduce fossil fuel reliance.
Sweden and Hungary are also expanding their nuclear capacities, with Sweden lifting its reactor cap and Hungary continuing its large-scale Paks-2 project.”
Not discussed in this article, is Poland’s aggressive nuclear power plant construction program (which was in place and underway before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine).
“Russia withdrew from Kharkiv region”
Yes, they got their butts whipped.
“Kherson”
Yes, they got their butts whipped.
(SecState Blinken) “stayed firm that any settlement required Russia to leave Ukrainian territory.”
Then war it is... until Russia leaves Ukraine.
AFP (French) reports:
“US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday voiced doubts about reaching a ceasefire in Ukraine, saying Russia has not shown good faith nearly two years after invading.
His remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland come a day after President Volodymyr Zelensky, while proposing a global peace summit, stayed firm that any settlement required Russia to leave Ukrainian territory.
“I don’t see it,” Blinken said of prospects for a ceasefire...
...Blinken voiced doubt on President Vladimir Putin’s intentions, noting that the United States spoke with Russia ahead of the February 2022 invasion about what Moscow described as security concerns on Ukraine. Putin at the time had warned about Ukraine entering the NATO alliance.
“You don’t have to believe me. Just read what President Putin says. It was never really about that. It was always about this grand vision of re-establishing a greater Russia,” Blinken said.”
“Ukrainian Crews Set A Complex Missile Trap For Russia’s Best Radar Plane”
“On Sunday night, Ukrainian air-defenses shot down one of the Russian air force’s very rare, and very valuable, A-50 radar early-warning planes, likely killing all 15 people aboard—potentially including high-ranking officers. A Russian Ilyushin Il-22 command plane was damaged in the same attack.
“Who did this?” the Ukrainian air force quipped. The answer, it seems, is the air arm’s 90-mile-range Patriot PAC-2 air-defense missiles. Less likely: shorter-range Patriot PAC-3s or S-300s.
Exactly how the Ukrainians shot down the four-engine A-50 with its top-mounted radar is unclear, but analyst Tom Cooper—who has written many books about Soviet and Russian warplanes—has a theory.
Ukrainian radar and missile crews lured the Russian crews into a trap.
If Cooper’s theory is correct, the Ukrainians set the trap on Saturday, when Ukrainian air force jets—presumably Sukhoi Su-24 bombers—struck Russian air force installations across the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula. “A number of radars were knocked out,” Cooper reported.
The Saturday strikes, the latest in a long campaign of Ukrainian raids on Russian defenses in Crimea, suppressed the Russians’ ground-based radar coverage, leaving the surviving missile batteries on the peninsula partially blind—especially to the north, where the terrain could mask incoming Ukrainian planes, drones and missiles.
So Russian commanders did the obvious, but stupid, thing. They ordered one of their few remaining A-50U radar planes, which normally fly far to the south over the Sea of Azov, to push farther north in order to extend radar coverage over most of Crimea. An A-50’s rotating radar can see airplane-size targets nearly 200 miles away.
A four-prop Ilyushin Il-22M airborne command post with around 10 crew aboard accompanied the A-50. The Il-22 is a radio-relay platform; its crew assists the A-50’s crew by handling communications and data-transfer for which the A-50 lacks the power and processing.
Satellite imagery and radar data seem to place the A-50’s northernmost flight path over occupied Berdyansk, just 75 miles from the front line. That’s within range of the single Patriot surface-to-air missile battery, out of three in the arsenal, that the Ukrainian air force has deployed along the southern front.
The trick was for the Ukrainians to target the A-50 and its accompanying Il-22 without giving the Russian crews too much advance notice of the attack—and without sacrificing their precious Patriot system.
“All Ukrainians had to do was to secretly deploy a suitable SAM system to target the two aircraft from long range,” Cooper wrote. “Perhaps this was one of [air force’s] S-300 SAM systems. Perhaps one of [the air force’s] PAC-2/3 SAM systems.”
“It is also possible that Ukrainians have deployed a launcher and a radar, plus power-supply equipment, from one of their three PAC-2/3 SAM systems ... in combination with one of their S-300 radars.”
There’s some evidence of an S-300-Patriot team-up. A Russian air force Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bomber reportedly detected a previously unknown Ukrainian S-300 battery switching on its radar in the minutes before the A-50 and Il-22 were hit.
If the S-300 battery did the initial illumination, it must have passes along target tracks to a nearby hidden Patriot battery. “The latter powered up its radar for only a few seconds: long enough to obtain its own targeting data, but too short for the Russians to dependably detect its emissions and assess them as a threat,” Cooper surmised.
“And then the Ukrainians started firing their missiles.”
A minute later, the missiles exploded—destroying the A-50 and damaging the Il-22. “With their fire-action over,” Cooper wrote, “the Ukrainian S-300 and PAC-2/3 crews promptly ceased emitting, and started packing [up] their systems to move them away and thus avoid any possible Russian retaliation.”
Down one A-50, the Russian air force may have just two of the jets left; the other six A-50s reportedly are in need of upgrade and overhaul. Unless the air force is willing to risk the last two flyable A-50s, it must make peace with its new inability to provide radar coverage over all of Crimea.
It must, in other words, accept the risk of continuing—indeed, escalating—Ukrainian missile raids on Russian forces on the peninsula.
If there’s any comfort for the Russians, it might be that the Ukrainian air force does not have a limitless supply of PAC-2 missiles. Unless and until pro-Russia Republicans in the U.S. Congress approve the $61 billion in fresh aid to Ukraine that U.S. president Joe Biden has proposed, the Ukrainians may need to begin rationing their missiles—and taking fewer chances on ambitious missile traps.”
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