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This should come as no surprise to anyone... the pro-Russian/anti-Ukraine/isolationist wing of the GOP is vowing that Ukraine will never get another penny of aid from the US. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4619185-gop-critics-vow-no-more-us-aid-for-ukraine/ Their threats only matter if they control either chamber in Congress and/or the presidency. As we've seen, controlling the debate is enough to thwart action. As things are going I don't see a Democrat controlled House and Senate having the 2/3rds vote necessary to override a presidential veto from Trump. So to echo the sentiment a few posts ago... Europe needs to view this new US aid package as a "one off" and keep going with its efforts to support Ukraine better long term. Steve

There is a strong argument to make that Ukraine needs to continue demonstrating to Russia that there is a very big cost to keeping this war going. This is the only hope Ukraine has of convincing Russia to stop the war or at least modify some of its behavior. As unlikely as that might be, one needs to try. Since Russia only understands force, then cumulatively very high profile, expensive, pride damaging attacks that result in trashed bombers, refineries on fire, and ships at the bottom of the sea have outsized importance. Definitely more valuable in that sense than smashing anything directly related to frontline activity. In terms of direct military impact, it depends on which ship/s get sunk or taken out of action. Russia is still launching cruise missiles from ships, which means there's shore and sea based infrastructure to take out that will have an immediate military impact by having fewer things stressing out air defenses. Transport ships are a major component of Russia's ability to supply its forces in the south. While sinking another one or two transport ships won't have a tangible "ah-ha!" impact on Russian ops, any weakening of their supply chain has a military benefit. Especially if they manage to damage the bridge again, which isn't a bad idea to do just should not be a priority. Steve

The bridge is already threatened. Ukraine has demonstrated that it wants to take it out and can, at a minimum, cause it a lot of damage. With the longer range ATACAMS in the mix the threat goes up significantly. Therefore, in terms of threatening the bridge and drawing away Russian resources from other things... mission already accomplished. Steve

I have no doubt that the US has staged quite a bit of stuff inches and minutes away from being in Ukraine (metaphorically speaking of course!). But what I was talking about is how long it will take to get to the frontline, which is different than how long it takes to get into Ukraine. A couple articles I was reading seemed to think it would take weeks or months and what I as point out is that they haven't been paying attention. Now, as to what the impact of all this good stuff will be... I fully agree that the most likely scenario is returning the front to where it was in 2023 where Russia loses big ticket items on a regular basis and finds it very difficult to get its offensive activities to do more than provide war porn for us in the West. As I said several pages ago, for the short term the threat to Ukraine is in the Donbas and not the south. The Kerch bridge has only an indirect relation to the Donbas, therefore it shouldn't be a high priority for Ukraine. It won't have redundant "all of the above" strike capabilities for some time to come. So pull HIMARS back and whack stuff in the Donbas as Priority 1 and neuter Crimea's ability to stage air and naval forces as Priority 2. Kerch is not the key element to focus on for Priority 2. Far better to sink a couple of ships or take out a bunch of aircraft. Steve

Oh this is good... apparently Hunter Biden is now responsible for the theater terrorist attack because Burisma organized it. This according to Moscow. Be ready for the hardcore MAGA folks, like Greene, to start repeating this nonsense: https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/4617540-dont-buy-moscows-shameless-campaign-tying-biden-to-its-terrorist-attack/ Steve

I know that US mass media often falls short of keeping a consistent and fair assessment of the war, and we are justifiably critical of that, but we should also recognize that they have been very consistent and accurate about Russia's threat to the West generally. This article from a few days ago in the NY Times is about Kremlin directed attacks against people living in the West: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/19/world/europe/russia-zelensky-navalny-poland-arrests.html It also seems to indicate that some European countries, at a minimum, are FINALLY taking this long standing Kremlin practice seriously. I guess that's what happens when politicians are no longer routinely on Russia's "payroll" as they once were. Steve

Sadly, the caveat "for now" has to be kept in mind. OK, so aid will start flowing to Ukraine on Wednesday of this week. I've seen some reporting out there claiming the stuff won't get into Ukraine's hands for weeks or months. Poppycock That wasn't true even when Russia was in its initial attack phase. Stuff started showing up RIGHT AWAY and that was all improvised. So no way is that going to happen this time around. The most important thing the US has to send Ukraine are replacement AD missiles. There are only a few points for these to head to and the logistics hurdles between them are VERY small. At lest for an immediate influx. I'm guessing by this weekend Ukraine's AD forces will already have an improved situation. Artillery shells isn't quite as easy. To move hundreds of thousands of shells into the frontlines will take time. Fortunately, they don't need hundreds of thousands of shells to start making a difference. Even getting a few thousand to a couple of key places could make a big difference. And that's the sort of thing that could happen within days. HIMARS type artillery is more like the AD stuff. Ukraine only has a few of these systems and the number of missiles they need to increase their impact on the battlefield is very small. Especially if the first ones they receive have a 300km range. As I suggested a few pages ago, this allows Ukraine to effectively put its HIMARS systems out of harm's way while still being able to hit any target within Ukraine's borders. Popping them off at the Kerch Bridge wouldn't be my top priority right now because the real threat is coming in the Donbas which doesn't use the bridge at all. To summarize... more Russian things go boom within days, not weeks or months. Steve

Yeah, drive by snipes that aren't connected to anything aren't really productive. If I think they are at least reasonably accurate I just ignore them. For example, saying Trump is pro-Russian or RFK Jr. is crazy can be supported by a factual discussion. Saying Biden is a Socialist is just a political talking point with no connection to reality. Similarly, I have no problem with people slamming obvious tools of the Russian state. People like Greene should be called out as, at best, a "useful idiot". Calling Greene's grasp of reality into question is also factually supportable. Sadly, all three candidates for US President have cognitive problems that are clearly evident. The difference is at the best moments, only one of them makes any lick of sense when it comes to supporting a Western style "rules based order" (generally) and US position within it (specifically). The other two oppose it actively and vociferously. Because I don't have a 4th choice, I'm going to vote for the one that at least makes sense most of the time. Steve

I still don't see the utility of it generally. For a specific operation, in concert with a variety of other counter measures, I think it could be helpful. I can easily picture a river crossing with a ton of smoke, EW, C-UAS, and precision strikes (before and during) on all known enemy installations. Similar for trying to get from one treeplant to another. This isn't the sort of thing any military is set up for except at the operational level. Hmmm... if it does prove effective we might be seeing yet another higher held capability being pushed down to battalion level. Steve

Yeah, artillery and AA systems with plenty of ammo. That's got to be top of their list. And at the top of that top? ATACMS with longer range. Not so much to extend where they can hit, but to be able to pull their launchers further back and still be able to hit the same areas they can hit today. Steve

My first thought when I saw that impressive amount of smoke was akin to this classic movie line: How do we know all that smoke in that video was even going in the right direction? Steve

This OpEd is behind a paywall, but I think you can guess that it sums up the feelings of many here very well: The article continues on with quotes from others and factual accounting of what's been going on while Johnson dithered. Personally, I believe Johnson should get credit for finally doing the right thing. He didn't have to or he could have waited even longer to do it. Dems should reward him by voting down the resolution to have him removed. There is some indication that Johnson had to learn the hard way that there's a difference between heckling the person in charge and being the person in charge. He simply wasn't prepared for that transition and it took him months to get his bearings. If he was a stronger man with a better mindset going into the job I'm sure things would have been much better. But he wasn't and so it is what it is. If Johnson can work towards undoing the damage he and his former MAGA associates (there's never friendship in radical movements) have brought about, then I think the country is better off with him than any of the alternatives until after the elections. Perhaps even better than Jeffries, simply because if he is in then 100% of the GOP will work lockstep to oppose EVERYTHING. Steve

Is it better than doing nothing? Sure. Does it complicate drone usage? Sure. But that's all it does even under the best circumstances. All standard smoke problems apply here as they do anywhere else throughout military history. Here's why I don't think this will effectively change the outcome: Ukraine is incredibly windy. Smoke doesn't work well in wind. Even if the wind is fairly mild, or in a favorable direction, air still moves around and that breaks up smoke consistency. The further out from the generators you go, the more that smoke is dissipated even under the best of circumstances. Smoke is difficult to work with at any scale. The bigger the scale, the more difficult it is to work with. In particular the length of time for it to be maintained. Therefore, this will be (at most) a limited capability for one small section of front at a time. You can see even in this propaganda video that smoke isn't very effective. I can see individual buildings, streets, and other things needed to navigate and that's on a tiny pixelated X video. Trained drone operators should be able to navigate pretty easily even with non-thermal drones. Thermal drones will not be affected by this tactic. Even if they use thermal masking smoke, that only works when it is dense. There's just no way they can keep up that sort of density across the whole battlefield. And the further out from the generators, the more difficult it will be to have smoke be dense. Advance routes can be guessed at prior to any operation Russia might launch. All Ukraine has to do is keep a couple of good ISR drones watching those locations and then direct the FPVs to any spots showing activity as they already do. Even if the smoke causes some problems for the FPVs, if they are directed to a spot I think it's more than likely they'll be able to hit their targets. And this presumes that Ukraine isn't able to interfere with the generators, which is silly All Ukraine needs to do is wait for them to start producing smoke and they are sitting ducks because by definition they can't move once they start laying down smoke. It's really not difficult to locate them since they have a very, very, very obvious signature. Send in an ISR drone, see where the smoke starts, then hit them with FPVs and/or artillery. Problem solved. So... I think this is just more Russian copium. It won't do much of anything even under the best circumstances, but even then it won't last long because they should be pretty easily knocked out. Steve

Haiduk, Thanks for the updates on the various parts of the front. It seems that the Russian summer offensive is starting early. I think we're seeing too many attacks across too much of the front for this to be generalized local activity. My guess is they started things early because several weeks ago it became obvious to everybody, including Moscow, that US aid to Ukraine was going to finally happen and do so soon. Moscow fully understands how quickly it will arrive once approved, so it makes sense for them to push as hard as they can before it arrives. Steve

This is a very good indicator of how difficult it is for Russia to find volunteers. They would never offer such large amounts of money if it wasn't necessary. I bet someone out there has a line chart showing how the compensation numbers have changed since the war started and the line is getting steeper as time goes on. There's a secondary problem that comes with this. As discussed by people who understand economies, especially Russia's, raising the compensation rate puts pressure on businesses' ability to retain workers. Standard economics... workers go where the money is. Since Russia was already facing a worker shortage even before the war, and it's only gotten worse since, the latest round of increases is likely to cause significant problems for some sectors of the Russian economy (generally) and specific enterprises. And it won't take long for that effect to happen, at least at a local level. Steve

I had similar thoughts, but I kept thinking... even if there was more extensive damage that we can't see, what would that be? Steel frame? Hydraulics? This is a trailer, there's not much to it that I can't see getting fixed either in Ukraine or, as you suggest, Germany. But it was flow back to the CONUS by one of Ukraine's precious cargo planes (which I presume are based outside of Ukraine). So I'm scratching my head. Steve

Ah, the pitfalls of analogies What I was focusing on the effect, which is one round from a sniper can have just as much effect as several rounds from a mortar. The fact that snipers haven't replaced MGs is completely separate (basically it is impractical for a long list of reasons). So what I'm saying is FPVs are shot for shot superior to mortars by a very wide margin. Up until recently availability and cost meant that the mortars still had a lot of things going for it vs. FPVs. However, it seems to me we're getting to a the point where the drawbacks of mortars is equal or greater than FPVs. In part because mortars are more vulnerable to FPVs than they were previously vulnerable to other mortars and artillery. Sure, but if your mortars are hiding because being exposed results in them being knocked out, then are the mortars likely to be available to provide this sort of rapid fire? That's the point the Russian source was making. They have stopped relying upon mortars because if they are too difficult to keep functional. Drones, either as spotters or as loitering munitions, have made it extremely difficult to remain in one place long enough to fire effectively without serious risk of being attacked. Even if the chance is as low as 1 in 10, that's problematic for a system that is needs to be relatively stationary to be useful. Even if it moved every day and fired only once, odds say it would be hit sometime before 10 days. Even if we grant a 50% chance the FPV hit is ineffective (I think that's being generous to the mortar team), it means the mortar team could expect to be put out of action within 20 days max. That's not sustainable. It's a combo of mortars becoming too vulnerable while at the same time FPVs being able to provide similar or superior results. Steve

Right, but one of the reasons for the high RoF is because the chances of any one shell having the desired effect is rather low. Again, mass vs. precision. One of the things we've always hammered into our CM customers for the past 25 years is that mortars and MGs are there for suppressive effects first, killing effects second. The idea is you hit an attacking company with a bunch of mortar rounds or MG fire and you disrupt their attack, perhaps to the point of forcing it to retreat. We've seen that one or two FPVs have the same effect and possibly even the same, maybe even better, killing effect. It's like snipers in the real world. Shoot a single bullet and hit a single man in a 9 man squad and you have an impact on that squad's performance disproportional to the one man shot. Perhaps even more impact than a couple of mortar rounds dropping by or a spray of MG splash on their position. Steve

Thanks for the perspective. Yes, I remember the Magyar gun hit and that's one reason I was wondering how far Russian reforms have gone. Another interesting note from one of the Russian sources you posted is that they aren't using mortars any more. My interpretation is he said they are too vulnerable and are redundant with FPV and artillery, so there is no point in trying to maintain that capability. Steve

Lots of interesting stuff in this post, thanks! To summarize: 1. Drones and effective Ukrainian counter battery fire has made traditional Soviet/Russian massed and prolonged use of artillery impractical. If Russian gunners stay bunched up, firing up to 50 shells from the same position, they will get hit. This has forced the Russians (after a lot of hard lessons) to change how they operate artillery... 2. It seems Russian efforts to decentralize artillery usage is making noticeable progress. While we have seen some instances of quick local response times, it seems they were limited to static situations where the Russians anticipated future Ukrainian activity. Basically, pre-planned ambushes. Now they seem to be learning how to be less reliant upon pre-planning, which is the traditional weakness of Soviet/Russian artillery doctrine. 3. They've finally gotten serious about discipline at the lowest levels by enforcing sobriety and defined shifts for its artillery crews. Seems pretty basic to us, but we have seen countless first hand accounts of this being problematic within the Russian military as a whole and specifically with the artillery branch. Which is part of the reason why so many empty Ukrainian fields look like the surface of the moon. 4. There's generally no good way to counter battery fire Caesars. They are too far outside of the range of their own artillery and the speed of setting up and displacing is too fast for getting FPV drones onto target (not mentioned in the above, but we've discussed the practical limitation of loitering munitions regarding time and space). OK... so all of this is from Russian sources which, traditionally, have to be considered unreliable until corroborated by other sources. Therefore, the question I have is... how widespread and optimized are the things being discussed above? For example, is this more prevalent for some units than others? Maybe more by military district? We know that Russia traditionally has an uneven and imperfect implementation of "best practices", so what's the story with artillery these days? Steve

Good question. And to this I'm also curious about how CRAB and similar systems compare in terms of performance and cost. Steve

I'm not casting doubt on this being battle damage (it is the most likely scenario), but that sort of damage looks like it could have come from a malfunction with the power module. Either way, I'm surprised that they would have to move the entire trailer unit back to the US for repairs. This looks like the sort of thing that could be done inside of Ukraine. If not, then someone in the Pentagon should be rethinking modularity requirements for future weapons systems. The time and logistics to move this whole thing instead of a component and some engineers is a head scratcher to me. Steve

What further irritates me about the "no aid to Ukraine" minority, and Johnson listening to them, is that 1/3rd of this money is to replenish the US military's own stocks of weaponry. Another big chunk is directly going to US companies to produce new stuff for Ukraine. Which means, more than half of all the funding in this package is staying here in the US. That means jobs and to strengthen our direct national defense capabilities. If you listened to the likes of MTG it was to ensure Ukraine could stop Transcarpathians from speaking their own language in Ukrainian schools. Steve

For the rest of you, don't take the bait and stay away from the US internal political debate that has ZERO to do with the war in Ukraine. When something is so blatantly off topic and deliberately inflammatory, I'm not favorably disposed to people feeding the fire. Steve

Sheesh, if you want to have an enforced vacation from this thread there are far easier ways to do it than to write up a bunch of totally off topic BS culture war crap. Yes, towards a fair and balanced analysis that is on topic to the war in Ukraine (even if it's stretched sometimes). And by "fair and balanced" I don't mean where you get your talking points from. So if you actually have a sense of better judgement, instead of claiming you have, then you should be well aware that dragging your well known ideological baggage into this thread is not appropriate. You've been around long enough to know that I don't make empty promises when I am forced into this position, so if you decide to make another post against your "better judgement" then you'll find yourself with a 2 week vacation. Steve