Posted on 04/18/2022 11:07:14 PM PDT by libh8er
Britain is set to send Stormer armoured missiles to Ukraine to help blast Vladimir Putin's aircraft out of the sky and repel Russia's new offensive in the east of the beseiged nation, it is reported.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has pleaded with the West for greater firepower as Putin's war machine begins a new phase of its bloody invasion with a full-scale offensive to take control of the mostly-Russian speaking Donbas in the east.
And now Britain will soon send armoured Stormer High Velocity Missile (HVM) launchers, the Sun reports, with the Ministry of Defence demonstrating them for Ukrainians on Salisbury Plain two weeks ago.
It is understood the 13-tonne vehicles can be flown to the war on C-17 transport planes in days.
Dr Alan Mendoza, of security think tank the Henry Jackson Society, told the Sun: “These vehicles are the best kit yet sent to Ukraine and will leave Russian pilots quaking.
“The UK is putting Putin on notice that Russian aggression, war crimes, and rocket strikes will no longer be tolerated. The UK should wear Putin’s inevitable angry and overblown reaction to this as a badge of pride.”
But Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British troops in Afghanistan, told the paper that UK's major boost to Ukraine's forces risks further angering Moscow, with the threat of retalitation coming in the form of "cyber attacks, sabotage, assassination or other covert attacks for which his intelligence services have proven capability, including in the UK.”
The Stormer is manufactured by BAE Systems, needs just three people to operate it and and uses Starstreak missiles, which can be used to take down low-flying aircraft and leave pilots terrified of attempting low-level attacks.
(Excerpt) Read more at mirror.co.uk ...
So exactly where will the C-17 transport plane land this equipment? And won’t the Russian notice and immediately take it out with missiles? It won’t do much good in Lviv or western Ukraine, it needs to be brought east. Will these last any longer than the s-300 anti-aircraft Slovakia sent (1 day)?
Transporting weapons to Ukraine will be a legitimate reason to shoot down whatever plane or ship is carrying it (from Russia’s point of view). That will be a legitimate reason for Britain to declare war on Russia (from Britain’s point of view).
Why would Britain declare war?
Good for the Brits.
They are wheeled armored vehicles. It drives over the Polish border making @1000km a day. There is no way to intercept that unless the Russians have real-time surveillance and on the spot targeting over all Ukrainian roads.
Just seems odd to me the Brits would make public announcement of this alerting the Russians to their plans instead of quietly trying to slip it in. I’m sure the Russians already have plans in place to intercept military equipment coming over the border. They have satellite coverage and that’s a long haul for them not to notice.
Im assuming that would be if the Russians start bombarding Poland. Which is what some of these Russian troll characters seem to want.
If Russia shoots down its transport planes?
Putin realizes that any attempt to shoot down a British transport plane will immediately worsen his situation - so he has no choice but to "grin and bear it."
Regards,
"See this chip on my shoulder? I dare you to knock it off!"
Putin would have to be crazier than an Amish rapper to dare attack a British transport plane over Ukrainian territory!
Regards,
They fly into a war zone? If it flies it dies. That’s been made clear by the Russians.
There are already lots of Starstreaks on operational status in Ukraine but not mounted on the self-propelled launcher vehicles
Its one thing spotting x item at a given point in time, but a very different thing to get intercepting munitions to where that item x will be a couple of hours later.
Its a very old problem with aerial interdiction. It doesnt work all that well unless one has sufficient degree of aerial supremacy such that you can keep attack aircraft patrolling very nearby while waiting for targets of opportunity. As it happens, that is just what a system like Stormer/Starstreak is supposed to prevent.
Or one can just bombard the roads. Roads dont move and you can use “safe” assets like missiles or high altitude bombers to hit them. Worked OK in WW2 because the allies had lots of planes, no matter that roads are easy to fix. See what the French did re the “Voie Sacrée” at Verdun, under long range artillery fire.
What are you crazy? Of course it will be shot down if they are able to catch it sheesh. Do you actually think Putin is just gonna look away? hahaha
But in spite of that some transports have been flying in to Ukraine.
The Russians did get one the other day.
American ships were sunk in the Atlantic for shipping arms before we even entered WWI and II. They were legitimate targets according to the Germans even if they also carried passengers. I’m not saying the same thing will happen, but what if?
C-17’s have continued to land in both Kyiv and Lviv. They have done so openly, and flights have shown up on open source trackers like flightradar24 in real time as recently as last week. No doubt, Russia has the ability to intercept both aircraft and ground convoys delivering these weapons. Putin knows this, as do we. What Putin (and freepers) doesn’t know is how “we” would react to a C-17 being shot down or a ground convoy being attacked. My guess is there would be a measured and proportional response. I don’t think Putin wants anything to do with NATO, but he may decide at some point he has to do something about it.
And then, what happens?
Okay, I'll spell it out for you: The British transport manned by British airmen gets shot down over Ukraine. The British will - of course - have to retaliate. Then the Russians retaliate. Then the U.S. gets involved. Game over!
Regards,
If you saw that missile in a James Bond movie, you’d think “come on, that looks sooo fake!”
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