Ukrainian media is reporting the shoot down of a VKS A-50 AEW&C and a Il-22 Coot ELINT plane over the Sea of Azov.
Russian signals intelligence warnings shut down the Kerch Bridge earlier in the day, thinking the PSU sorties were a Su-24 strike.
🧵 1/ rbc.ua/rus/news/zsu-p…
I think it likely the PSU gave off the signals of a Su-24 Storm Shadow strike and actually sent out Su-27's hunting, tricked out with 100(+) km range AIM-120C's.
Think of the WW2 "Operation Vengeance" P-38 raid that killed Adm. Yamamoto.
It would give a single Ukrainian PSU Su-27 a chance to break within 100 km and blarf a volley of lock on after launch AMRAAM against these converted cargo & airliner planes.
5/
The US fighter pilots don't like 'pitbulling' the AMRAAM when they "Fox 3."
That is, firing a AIM-120 seeker in the lock on after launch (LOAL) with missile seeker doing autonomous homing at range.
This is because there tends to be more US fighters than enemy fighters.
6/
To use ~2008 fighter pilot slang:
"Shake a pitbull up in a sack and when you let out. It's goes for the first thing it sees.
In which case, you have a 'mad dog' event."
A PSU Su-27 fighting one on many doesn't have this issue.
7/
Ukraine could only pull this AMRAAM Ambush once.
They decided to make a high operational risk/high operational pay off poker bet and won the pot.
8/8 End
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Elon Musk’s plan for XAI satellite data centers, and all use of space for any purpose, faces inevitable collapse until a solution emerges for the problem of Kessler Syndrome (see Wikipedia). 🧵
This will occur when enough collisions of small orbital debris pieces from old dead satellites hits the steadily increasing number of new satellites until the whole thing spirals into mass collisions.
Kessler Syndrome computes that this will destroy all existing
2/
...communications, navigation, observation and research satellites in low/medium orbit, and prevent all further satellites launched, for 40+ years, until enough pieces fall out of orbit into the Earth’s atmosphere.
3/
Do you remember all the 2023 US Navalist accounts o X that screamed at @johnkonrad and I about pointing out the containerized anti-ship OWA drone threat to the US fleet.
Welcome to 2026 Ukrainian anti-ship OWA drone threat, you US Navalist yo-yo's. ⬇️
"Operation Spiderweb with Chinese characteristics" is coming for you all, and we have the receipts.
We need a whole lot of air defense guns everywhere to stop drones that you guys still refuse to fund.
2/
For fun and reference of guns versus missile air defense, this YouTube test scenario pits 100 Shahed-136 one-way attack drones against the historic US Navy Task Force 38.1 from 1944.
THE UNITED STATES STRATEGIC BOMBING SURVEY
Bombing Accuracy, USAAF Heavy and Medium Bombers in the ETO
MILITARY ANALYSIS DIVISION
First Edition 3 November 1945
Second Edition January 1947
You find both mission failures & gross errors were "excluded data" 2/
And that both increased altitude and the number of combat boxes involved made CEP worse.
>>This is essentially a complete tactical bomber cell in a box, sized for a small mobile drone team operating at brigade level or below. It is not a strategic deep-strike weapon, and it is not pretending to be one.