Anyone have thoughts on if it's increased Ukrainian skill/technology, increased Ukrainian quantity of weapons being sent, decrease in quantity of Russian anti-air defenses, Ukraine hitting 'softer' targets, combination of those, or something else?

[–] BombOmOm 13 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Ukraine has been building out their drone production heavily. It's easy to disperse and doesn't require large facilities that can be destroyed. (A few guys in a garage with a 3d printer and a steady parts supply can pump those suckers out.) And with US, UK, and French authorization to hit targets inside Russia, Russia's air defense is stretched extra thin. Furthermore, Russia has not kept pace with new construction of equipment, things blow up and just aren't replaced.

I only see this pace increasing, Russia has lost the ability to defend their airspace.

[–] thebestaquaman 10 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Lots of good points here. I think it's worth underscoring that even though all these deep strikes are done using Ukrainian drones, the supply of medium range missiles and fighter jets likely massively facilitates them, by forcing russia to concentrate air defences in regions exposed to those weapons.

Hell, just the fact that an F16 could be in the area has a suppressing effect, as it makes the russians more careful in turning on AA radar, which is exposed to HARM's.

I think what we're seeing is the Ukrainians taking maximum advantage of domestic weapons production and the AA dilemma russia is in. This is only going to get better.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 14 hours ago

It's hard to tell what the total success rate is, but the s300s and Soviet aa really doesn't seem to do well against these medium size drones.