My analysis of Afrin Liberation Forces footage of a series of ATGM attacks against Turkish/Turkish backed militia positions around Jindires (Afrin region - N. Aleppo).
It shows a 7 Metis-pattern ATGMs fired in quick succession.
The Assads regime is known to be the main supplier of ATGMs (mostly 9M113 Konkurs) to the ALF in the past, with the only realistic alternative being small purchases of various ATGMs from corrupt pro-Turkey rebel groups.
The number of ATGMs used in this attack indicates that ALF recently received a new substantial shipment of Metis-pattern ATGM from the regime.
What seems to be more interesting is that based on the observed time-of-flight (up to 12 seconds) ATGMs used appear to be 9K115-2 Metis-M1 which entered the service in the Russian Army only relatively recently (March 2016) - previous versions of Metis have shorter time-of-flight.
So, it appears that the Assad regime has been supplied with 9K115-2 Metis-M1 ATGMs by Russia and in turn, they (likely with the knowledge/approval of Russia) have supplied the ALF with these modern ATGMs so they can be used against Turkish forces and their proxy forces in Afrin.
The question now is whether Turkey will decide to retaliate (especially if these ATGM attacks escalate) and if so whether it will be by further arming rebel groups in Idlib, or by more direct action(s) against the Assad regime.
1. The author is apparently making a judgement over a weapon system purely based on his own limited experience - with no references to any other sources, data, or analysis. That is an increasibly small (and rather falwed) sample size for judging a type of weapon systems.
3. Based on the description of authors experience it didnt appear that the unit he served in was particulary capable, skilled, or well-equipped in the use of combat drones.
/long thread/ While I dont think attack helicopters (AHs) are dead, IMO Chieftan is in this video way overestimating their viability on a modern peer and near-peer conventional battlefield
He starts with the "It can do thing that nothing else can" argument, but without acknowledging that the amount of things that attack helicopters can do that other assets or combinations of assets are unable to do has shrunk a lot in recent times.
The Polish order for 96 AH-64s is repeatedly brought up as an argument for AHs being just fine, but that order appears to be an outlier and subject of uncertainties that could see it scaled down or cancelled.
/thread/ There has been a lot of talk recently about vulnerability of European armies regarding functionality of the US made weapons (and US componenets/data used in non-US weapons) with the F-35 being the prime example.
In this thread I want to explain how things are.
1. There are no "kill switches" - people should not be mixing movie/game stories and reality 2. But unless we are able to source everything (parts, software, data) needed for a weapon system to work, we are dependant on the manufacturers support,
including permissions of the government of the country manufacturer is bases in. That level of dependancy can vary based on how much we are not able to obtain or find workarounds for.
@shashj I disagree with how some things are presented/claimed
1. The current NATO requirements, including US forces are for comfortably curb-stomping Russia
@shashj 2. The whining about the number of brigades is extremely stupid because it always only counts our peacetime forces - ignoring our mobilization plans and potential.
@shashj 2. We would currently be able to defend against Russia - it just wouldnt look nice or be an easy, low-casualty war.
/short thread with statistics for 3rd aniversary of the start of the war/
Russian and Ukrainian visually-confirmed equipment losses since the start of the Russian 2022 invasion of Ukraine by category
Since people are asking for Starlink alternatives, here is their current status.
No satellite service comes even close to Starlinks capabilities and capacity and that wont change for years (and one of those that might become competitive, Amazon Kuiper, would also be a US system)
The best alternative is to lay optical fibers and other "normal" connections to Ukrainian positions and ensure that there is a good LTE (it has decent speed and better coverage than 5G) connectivity for mobile users.
Just for pure regundancy reasons, I would expect at least the fixed Ukrainain positions in the rear areas to already have some "normal" alternative. Without Starlink, the worst affected would be mobile users near the frontline.