Ukraine Always Get What You Want

Tim Mak, NPR.

 

Tooze.

Chartbook #114: Azovstal - Mariupol's final battlefield

 

thread:

 

NATO or no NATO - at some point Russia's invasion of Ukraine DOES become a threat to US - or at least NATO security - yes? It's already impacted the US economy (which has been enough to get us involved in a few wars in the past).

 

Yes.

 

Patton had the right idea about Russia.

 

There's increasing chatter in the OSINT twitter world that US recon planes played a role...theory being that their instruments were picking up frequent periods of downtime for the Moskva's radar systems...and then slipped that info to Ukraine when the the time was right.

 

The previous chatter was that the Ukrainians ran a drone at it from one side, drawing attention. Apparently the main radar array was directional, and once they got it looking east they sent in missiles from the west. That was the early explanation/cover story, anyway.

 

Air search radar that only covers 180 degrees is … weird.

 

I don't disagree, and this could be complete BS. Lord knows I have zero radar skills. That was how it was explained when the story first broke, though.

 

Another theory I saw suggested it was Bismarck situation. The simple explanation is that the Moskva was geared to shoot down fast-moving jets, and the missiles that hit it were a bit slower and possibly came in at wavetop height. By the time they figured out there was a threat it was too late to shoot down the missiles or avoid them.
The Bismarck, famously, suffered critical damage to its rudder by slow-moving biplanes. Its anti-aircraft guns were calibrated to shoot at much faster planes. When the British Swordfish torpedo bombers attacked, the Bismarck's gunners had trouble hitting them and the planes were able to score hits of their own.