Apparently, Putin has been hiding this war. That will be harder when all the Russian Vacationers come flocking home.

Exaggeration for effect:
Suppose the head of Chicago’s DPW concluded that every employee had to be screened to see if grandparents, or spouse’s grandparents, had been born in Indiana. Those who were so discovered were no longer to be allowed to drive heavy equipment or be allowed near DPW fueling facilities.

For the OCD types, this is a hyperbolic analogy. Use it to picture what various levels of Russian command might think they have to do or be ordered to do. Who’s driving the local equivalent of the Gordons Food Service truck and what do we/should we know about him? Somebody’s going to be assigned to that question and will not be doing whatever else he’d been paid to do.

And if we can’t vet the guys what rearrangements do we make? Meet him outside the gate and transfer his load to a Russian military truck?

And if it turns out the Russians are ignoring the whole thing…well, that’s a dandy thing to know, isn’t it?

“Not something you can load onto a smallish drone that the Ukrainians usually use. “

Correct. If HARM is being employed, it’s likely launched from a manned aircraft such as an Su-24 or MiG-29. It would take a few months to integrate HARM onto a new aircraft, but given the interface documents, the Ukrainians have enough aerospace expertise to do it.

I’m not wedded to the idea that HARMs were used in the Saki attack, but it would explain why incoming Neptunes weren’t shot at, if indeed Neptunes were used in the attack.

Note also that an air-defense radar in southern Belarus went up in smoke today, so Saki isn’t an isolated incident — just the one most distant from the front lines.

Be ready to defend yourself: 13 minutes, and Vlad is fighting the WEF/NWO/NATO/Davos cabal.

Regarding the HARM systems being used against the Roosian radar assets. The Roosians have to light up the radar and you have to have something (usually a manned asset) close enough to send the HARM downrange (80 miles max).

Not something you can load onto a smallish drone that the Ukrainians usually use. HARM is 13 ft long, and weighs 783 lbs,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-88_HARM

Fog of war but it would seem to require a big strike package? Good to hear the Ukrainians are using them to degrade the Roosian systems.

But our current weapons are a whole generation ahead of the Gulf / Iraq-war-era weapons. I’ve said it here before, but it bears repeating: If America were to face the Russians in Ukraine, it could roll-up the entire Russian army in a month. That’s with its current weapons.

But let me expand on that. Within a decade, America will leap ahead another generation of weapons while, with the sanctions now in place, Russia’s capability will actually recede. So within ten years, America will be able to roll-up the entire Russian army in a *day*.

And I’m being literal, not hyperbolic, in that assessment.

We have plenty of photographic evidence from private satellite fleets and local social media posts to confirm the Ukrainian version of events.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/widespread-destruction-seen-after-blasts-at-russian-base-in-crimea

This includes four distinct craters on the airfield, two buildings completely obliterated, and a whole lot of airplanes burned to rubble.

Now, I’m not up on the latest Russian aircraft design, but this aircraft looks damaged to me:

https://www.thedrive.com/uploads/2022/08/10/su-24-wreck-saki-air-base-ukraine-russia.jpg

“The Pentagon is notorious for understating weapons range for its various delivery systems so I do believe we’re looking at a successful ATACMS strike.”

That was my first thought too, but the Pentagon, the secretary of defense, and Biden himself have all said they are not giving Ukraine ATACMS. That’s different than what they did with HARM, which is to say nothing at all about it beforehand.

“streif mentioned the possibility that the Ukrainian’s may have used their Neptune system in a land attack mode IIRC. You would have thought the Roosian AA/SAM systems could deal with subsonic cruise missile atack, oops, Moskva part two?”

It has recently been revealed that the United States has given Ukraine the AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM). This was not acknowledged beforehand, but it was admitted by the U. S. after wreckage of HARM missile bodies was shown off by the Russians. It’s conceivable that parts of the Russian air defense system was taken out by HARMs first, providing a corridor through which the Neptunes could fly.

“I keep recalling the high number of senior Russian field officers killed, and I wonder if there isn’t a weapon system involved that we civilians know nothing about. One that is too secret to risk using extensively, but too effective to forgo using altogether?”

I think the strikes against multiple command posts and over 50 ammo dumps can be adequately explained by GMLRS. In fact, they are perfect applications of those weapons.

Ray. One issue for the Russians is their lousy leadership, poor NCO corps, junior officers without initiative. Seems that some of the big shooters were shot doing captains’ jobs; trying to get a platoon in contact unstuck and moving or something. Risky business for anybody at that end of the business.
And other reports seem to imply some communications intell as to where these guys are and in what they are riding. And, lastly, they mostly hang out a some HQ and those are discernible from the burn pit. Hit it and you likely hit them.

Roosia can’t afford to have an AWACs type aircraft running a circuit to keep the nappies at bay?

Welcome to the world of 24/7/365 risk, Vlad. That’s why he can’t have nice things?