π₯ Minus A-50U - GUR and the Air Force shot down another Russian plane
π€ As a result of a joint operation of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, another valuable Russian A-50U aircraft was shot down over the Sea of Azov.
β The destroyed A-50U is a new modernized Russian version of the aircraft.
βοΈ This is an air command post that the aggressor state used for long-range radar detection, control and guidance for strikes on Ukraine with missiles from strategic aviation.
π₯ The downing of the A-50U is another serious blow to the potential and capabilities of terrorist Moscow.
π A sharp drop in speed and height of the downed A-50U aircraft was recorded near the city of Yeisk.
β‘οΈ The cost of such a vessel, of which the aggressor state has a few units left, is 350 million dollars.
πΊπ¦ Glory to Ukraine!
One other point. It hasn't been clear what the earlier hit was with, but the articles were speculating that it was a Patriot. This one was 200 miles from the front line. I don't think that the Patriot can reach 200 miles, though (though the A-50 was presumably flying away from whatever hit it, and that might move the crash a bit further away from the impact point). It's just outside the rated range for an S-200, and that's if the launcher were right on the front lines.
Also, from some of the footage here, assuming that it is indeed of the incident:
https://sopuli.xyz/post/9517353
...it looks like the A-50 was dropping flares before it was hit (if that's what those falling points of light were). So I assume that the A-50 crew knew that something was heading their way for some time in advance, and was presumably trying to fly away from it.
I don't know why they'd be dropping flares for what is presumably a radar seeker -- that would be a counter to a missile with an infrared seeker, probably a short-range missile -- but maybe it's standard operating procedure for the Russian Air Force to drop flares or something if an A-50 is targeted by anything.
Both the S-200 and Patriot use radar seekers.
There are drones that are capable of launching infrared missiles -- like, the Reaper can launch an infrared Stinger or infrared Sidewinder. I don't know if Ukrainian special forces have access to some kind of small drone that they could smuggle into Russian territory that could fire an infrared missile.
Unless you are 100% sure of what type of missile is fired at you, standard military doctrine for basically any Air Force anywhere is to drop both chaff and flare simultaneously to cover all the bases.
Also they can be set to drop automatically, at least in US aircraft
Another thread says it was a PAC-3, but I don't know the range.
I think the most common rumor is that they indeed use the long range missiles of the German Patriot system, which is, unlike the other ones, mounted directly on a truck, making it fairly mobile. This could allow Ukraine to quickly get it set up close to the front, shoot her shot and then quickly get the fuck out again. Though I feel they probably might also get good intel from inside Russia to match potential "meeting points". Either that or Russia is even more incompetent than we thought.