Thread by @UnqualWarlord

Short 🧵 on Russian Air Defense and today's Su-34 Shoot down:

https://twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1548979035748827136

1/Everyone agrees HIMARS has absolutely been a game changer on the battlefield, but few are mentioning one of its important effects - that on the psyche of Russian air defense operators

2/In the beginning of the war Russian Air defense was frankly pitiful, as the columns raced towards Kyiv before an effective air defense umbrella. This is when we saw Bayraktar pick off Tor, Buk and other systems with impunity

3/But since then, the air defense system has been set up and has largely grounded the Ukrainian air force on the front lines(except in limited roles). They are still not close to air superiority, but have succeeded in making operations dangerous.

4/But HIMARS has blown a huge hole in this air defense. It has only been operational in the theater a few weeks but we have seen what feels like hundreds of bases and ammo dumps blow, often well behind enemy lines

5/If you are a Russian air defense operator, you must be on edge: There's a new weapon that seems impossible to stop. They must fear for their personal safety, if one of those rockets decide to target their position. But they'll also fear command chewing them out for inefficacy.

6/Ryan McBeth put out a great video on how HIMARS shows up on radar screens:

7/So these operators are on high alert, have been repeatedly chewed out and are presented with a screen crowded with contacts. They could be dumb GRAD rockets that aren't likely to do much damage
or the HIMARS they've been so worrying about.

8/Under these conditions it might be more likely for a confused operator to fire a missile at a friendly. Friendly Fire incidents are likely to happen during operations of this scale, but a shoot down like this is very significant.

9/9 As these attacks scale up with Ukraine getting more HIMARS and M270, we may very well see
a decrease in the efficacy of Russian Air Defense overall, as operators are put under more pressure
and are more fearful for their safety.