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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"The DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile, with a range of approximately 4,000 to 5,000 kilometers, was specifically designed and publicly nicknamed by Chinese military analysts as the "Guam Killer.""
As laid out by warquants -dot- com, China is buying one million OWA drones to destroy all US/Taiwan/Taiwan allied military logistics from Guam to the China coast.
A quantity of one million "Shaheed plus" class OWA drones has quality all its own.
Homicide statistics since the early 1960s are not comparable to earlier periods because medical advances have turned many fatal injuries into survivable ones.
I'm tempted to say the difference between military flag ranks who are competent at 2026 peer to peer warfare, and those who are not, is the understanding and application of attritional loss curves to combat loss rates, electronic warfare and logistics.
The set of curves I had an AI produce for me above have been used for air warfare many times starting at the end of WW2, in the USSBS after WW2 and by many classic RAND airpower studies from the 1950's to 1980's.
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All post 9/11/2001 Western flag ranks are counter-insurgency (COIN) trained & experienced.
They have no gut feel at all to statistical attrition models at all.
These "COIN-head" flags may prove to be highly resistant to changing this. Which is required to deal with drones.
2/
The effectiveness of drones is directly affected by the electronic warfare competence of the drone users.
The fact that the US Army defenestrated every EW practitioner in the 2000's and has compete "EW virgins" as flag rank leadership means it will fail with mass casualties in its first major drone war combat.
1/3
3. The shooter arrived at the hotel the day before the event.😯
4. TSA rules require firearms to be transported in checked baggage, unloaded, and locked in a hard-sided container, declared to the airline at check-in.
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5. Local DC law requires firearms in vehicles to be inaccessible from the passenger compartment and unloaded.
6. Washington DC is not a "safe passage" jurisdiction for non-residents without a license. The shooter lacked this license.
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