Weapons donations from the United States and European countries will take weeks, if not months, to reach the front lines.

Despite billions of dollars in additional weapons and security assistance that NATO announced this week, allied officials said Ukraine would not be ready to launch a dramatic counteroffensive or retake large swaths of territory from Russia until next year.

Donations of missiles, combat vehicles, ammunition and air defenses from the United States and European countries will take weeks, if not months, to reach the front lines.

Some of the newly committed weapons have not yet been bought or built.

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  • dragontamer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    4 months ago

    That’s not what is being reported. They are still making advances. Even pro-Ukrainian channels are reporting this.

    Advancements of a few sq. kms a day mean nothing compared to 2022 or 2023 style movements that the Russian 1st Guards Tank Army (when Russia attacks) or Ukrainian Counter-offensive (in late 2022) performed.

    The line is more static today than ever before.

    Kinda false, there are a number of videos showing artillery hitting moving targets, maybe those are rare, but they are non-zero.

    It requires special rounds like Copperhead (laser guided artillery), or BONUS (Infrared Guided / Heat guided Artillery). These rounds are very special and are not typical artillery. And they only work in very specific circumstances.

    Copperhead needs someone at the frontline shining a laser to pinpoint the target. BONUS only works vs hot tanks or vehicles. So “some”, very rare very expensive artillery rounds, can hit a moving target. But we can ignore them for the most part since the 99% of artillery rounds used are dumb rounds.

    If the glide bombs are easy to intercept, why are Uranians complaining about them all the time?

    Because Ukrainian defenses only work vs glide bombs if they have an ambush setup. And Ukrainians have very few anti-air missiles. Russia only has to attack randomly along the front, and the Ukrainian ground defenses are too slow to reposition to the movements of Russian aircraft.

    But Ukraine is 100% allowed to intercept and kill Russian fighter/bombers using these glide bombs. Ukraine simply doesn’t have the capacity to effectively and reliably do so however. That’s why F16s are so important, they are fast enough to launch air-to-air missiles vs the glide bombers and whittle the Russian aircraft down more reliably.

    As for the American systems, it seems odd that if Ukraine already has unlimited permission, why are there still articles about Ukraine asking for it repeatedly?

    Its not what you said earlier. What the Ukrainians wish is for more permissions. Ukrainians want deep strikes that can target Russian Air Bases. Ukraine wants to hit the fighter/bombers on the ground before they take off. These locations are so deep into Russia that USA is nervous about authorizing it, as it’d definitely be another escalation.

    But Ukraine is 100% allowed (and already has), shot down Russian fighter/bombers on glide bomb maneuvers. Its a difficult shot for a ground-to-air system like Patriot. But it should get much easier to do after F16s arrive.

    To be honest, we both want Ukraine to win, and all was saying is that in a modern war where both sides have access to a lot of resources, there are no wonder weapons that will shift the game sufficiently to push for a quick win and that we should not underestimate the enemy. Things help and we in the West, should be doing more to help.

    F16s should be key for the glide-bomb problem. But I’m seeing estimates that Ukraine needs 200+ F16s for that to really be enough.

    A dozen or so F16s is barely moving the needle. But at least Ukraine has some F16s coming and can start doing something about that particular problem.