Posted on 03/28/2022 2:45:51 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
The unit was started by young university-educated Ukrainians who had been part of the 2014 Maidan uprising and volunteered to use their technical skills in the resistance against the first Russian invasion in Crimea and the Donbas region. Its founder, Volodymyr Kochetkov-Sukach, was an investment banker who was killed in action in 2015 in Donbas – a reminder of the high risks involved. The Russians can latch on to the drone’s electronic signature and quickly strike with mortars, so the Aerorozvidka teams have to launch and run.
Honchar is an ex-soldier turned IT marketing consultant, who returned to the army after the first Russian invasion. Taras, who asked not to use his surname, was a management consultant, who specialised in fundraising for the unit and only joined full-time as a combatant in February.
In its early days, the unit used commercial surveillance drones, but its team of engineers, software designers and drone enthusiasts later developed their own designs.
They built a range of surveillance drones, as well as large 1.5-metre eight-rotor machines capable of dropping bombs and rocket-propelled anti-tank grenades, and created a system called Delta, a network of sensors along the frontlines that fed into a digital map so commanders could see enemy movements as they happened. It now uses the Starlink satellite system, supplied by Elon Musk, to feed live data to Ukrainian artillery units, allowing them to zero in on Russian targets.
The unit was disbanded in 2019 by the then defence minister, but it was hastily revived in October last year as the Russian invasion threat loomed.
The ability to maintain an aerial view of Russian movements has been critical to the success of Ukraine’s guerrilla-style tactics. But Aerorozvidka’s efforts to expand, and to replace lost equipment, have been hindered by a limited supply of drones
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Thank you for it.
If the Russians have lost 15K killed and 30K wounded, that is about 25% of the entire force supposed to have invaded.
The losses would not be evenly applied.
The losses would be much higher in the North, less in the Southeast, I expect.
They would explain how the Ukrainians seem to be able to launch counter offenses and gain some ground.
I would expect the Ukrainian losses to be higher than that, but as noted, the Ukrainians have an enormous pool of manpower to draw from.
Good, sensible tactic - and something for us to think about when we are ruminating about “what good will a handgun be against tanks?”.
How tasteful.
Will Geraldo Rivera be showing their exact location on camera so Putin’s mercenaries can draw a bead on them?
[I would expect the Ukrainian losses to be higher than that, but as noted, the Ukrainians have an enormous pool of manpower to draw from.]
What the Ukrainians appear to be doing is shoot and scoot, against Russian formations and supply convoys that are strung out across miles and miles of territory. Think steppe raiders in the form of cavalry archers sallying out with their composite bows. Except Ukies are firing one-shot one-kill fire-and-forget man-portable PGM’s. Even if it takes 3 Javelins to completely turn 1 BMP-3 into scrap metal and hamburger scraps, that’s a huge advantage vis-a-vis the bow and arrow warriors of antiquity. Where steppe raiding mounted archers had to venture dangerously close to their adversaries, PGM-armed Ukies can unass the firing point almost before the Russians know they’re there, which has to be hugely demoralizing for the Russians on the receiving end of the munitions.
Hey, got room for a curious widder woman...not looking for a man, but would love to fly a drone. What a perfect job for someone who might have physical shortcomings! (not me, not yer!)
But still...I'll bring the beer and a few shooty shoot shoots!
#4. Great post!
One of the big advantages of the Mongols and other nomadic raiders was they literally lived off the land. When conditions were good, as during the medieval warm period, their mounts could live off the steppes, and they lived off their mounts, to a large extent. That gave them a huge supply advantage.
The analogy of shoot and scoot is apt. The Russian forces gave up many advantages of armored forces by their inability to leave the roads, and their logistics problems.
It appears they completely misjudged the Ukrainians will to resist. They thought it would be a cakewalk.
We sure do! Widder womens would be mighty popular with this crowd.
Especially if you bring beer and shooty shoots.
Best,
L
So basically, they were antifa Fascists, trained in street tactics and armed just like antifa and BLM in America?
[So basically, they were antifa Fascists, trained in street tactics and armed just like antifa and BLM in America?]
The current vibe among some of the right seems to be that Putin is a worthless moron like all the other worthless Russian morons before him. So it’s just fine that Russia, already 4x the size of the EU combined, land area-wise, gets another chunk of territory (i.e. Ukraine). The problem? If Russia ever gets its act together, this means Russia is that much closer to grabbing all of Europe which has roughly the same economic heft as the US.
So instead of have to ward off a basket case Russia, we would have to contend with warding off a revitalized and expanded Russian empire with the same GDP as the US, thanks to its conquest of the EU. Thanks, but no thanks. In the pre-nuclear age, we lost 400,000 dead fighting the Germans. It would be nice if we did not have to storm the beaches of Normandy again.
They should have kept their mouths shut.
You didn’t ping me on this, you devious bastard
REEEE! The source isn’t a obscure blog so it’s obviously propaganda!!! REEEEEE!!!
[You didn’t ping me on this, you devious bastard]
No worries, I won’t complain
NLAW squib fired in besieged and surrounded Mariupol at under point blank range (i.e. before the warhead had a chance to arm):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BEPozYPdNk
Should have used an RPG.
Saw this one, shorty
Well, how long can 350-700 guys last against thousands?
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