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John Kettler

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  1. Like
    John Kettler got a reaction from Rob2020 in Wings of the Red Star Mi-24 the Hind is a must see!   
    This is a must see, because almost the entire thing is about operations in Afghanistan. Has tons of footage showing not just helo ops but the country, terrain, the people, the muj, Soviet troops and weapons, etc.,  and is on YT. Am not providing a link because there is some gory stuff in the video, and I don't wish to get a rocket from the Mods for violating the no gore stricture.

    Regards,

    John Kettler
  2. Like
    John Kettler got a reaction from Brille in T-34 Shockingly Reassessed (Strong Language!)   
    Let me start by saying that those of you who find Blinkov's military analyses with its frog puppet jarring are going to really have an issue with Lazer PIg. That said, if you can get past the bizarre front end and a super abundance of NSFW language throughout, there is a wealth of material here on the realities of the T-34, not the propaganda, self-serving analyses, rigged tests, erroneous assumptions and writings of lazy historians. This makes that long online piece called The Myth of T-34 Superiority seem like a passing thought by comparison, slaughtering sacred cows, "known facts", "reliable data" and other structures built not just on sand, but weak sand at that, with wild abandon, even using statements by Stalin about major T-34 reliability problems. Some long time CM hands talk about depicting Tiger and Panther reliability by reducing the percentage actually available for battle, but that seems highly unfair when you learn that in a 500 km road march, HALF of all the T-34s broke down en route. The Russian crew survival rates were shocking if a. tank was hit and penetrated. Russian figures in Dunn's Hitler's Nemesis showed that when a tank was destroyed, so generally were all the crew members killed or incapacitated by wounds.  This became a huge problem for the Red Army which, unlike the British at GOOD WOOD, who had plenty of replacement tanks and crews with a pretty high overall survival rate (typically 1-2 casualties per tank knocked out), the Russians were being forced to replace the tanks and the crews. This is but one of many topics discussed in this wide-ranging, take no prisoners hour-long video. Frankly, I wish it had been longer, for as deep as it went, there simply wasn't time to really get deeply into various maters. If you've ever heard of the expression "drinking from the fire hydrant", you can experience that by watching this most impressive video. There is a wealth of material, too, in the comments and Lazer Pig's replies. Net net, I believe you will never again look at the T-34 quite the same way again.
     

    Regards,

    John Kettler
  3. Like
    John Kettler got a reaction from Artkin in Bil v C3K AAR – Germans v SMGs in Woods   
    I don't know whether it's modeled in-game, but full power rifle cartridges can punch through cover the Russian SMG cartridges can't . In the example on the War Department training film Infantry Weapons Effect, .30 ball from the M1 Garand goes right through a foot diameter oak tree and clear through a bucket of water behind it. Thus, what's cover for the Germans is more like concealment for the Russians firing a potent--but still not comparable in cover penetration to a 7.92mm x 57mm Mauser--7.62mm x 25mm Tokarev cartridge. If that doesn't amount to a tactical advantage, I've no idea what does.



    Nor is this mere War Department hype, for I've got direct reports from two of my brothers (one ex-US Air Force, the other ex-Army) indicating that 7.62mm NATO ball went clean through cypress telephone poles during firing demonstrations on the difference between concealment and cover. It was drummed into the trainees that trees of this size were concealment, not cover. In case anyone wasn't paying attention, the M60 was then used to saw down the telephone pole section, which was set into a pipe in the ground.

    As a visit to the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine will show, pines constitute ~35% of the tree cover there, followed by oak, ~27%, beech at ~9% and almost everything else being soft wood of multiple types. Therefore, as a general rule, trees in the region won't offer ballistic protection anywhere nearly as good as the oak in the War Department training film.

    Regards,

    John Kettler
  4. Like
    John Kettler got a reaction from Bubba883XL in Official US Army training film on countering the T-62   
    Never saw this 1977 gem in my entire career as a Soviet Threat Analyst, a career which began in 1978. Not only does this show the ins and outs of the T-62 and how it operates with BMP-1s and AT-3 armed BRDMs, but it shows US capabilities, too, including the hulldown disparity, telltale reload indicator, low T-62 ROF and more. On the US end, everything from tanks to tacair and scatterable mines (by automatic minelayer or helicopter dispenser) are all there to see. Nor is the terrain the sere NTC, but someplace very European looking. Not only is there lots of great footage, but some remarkable model work, too. Of particular intetest to players will be the comments on open fire ranges, engagememt philoposophies, ammo selection and other game useful groggery. 

    Offhand, I can't think of a better intro to the real world which CMCW seeks to depict.
     
    Regards,

    John Kettler
  5. Upvote
    John Kettler got a reaction from dan/california in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
  6. Upvote
    John Kettler got a reaction from OldSarge in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
  7. Upvote
    John Kettler got a reaction from G.I. Joe in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
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    John Kettler got a reaction from LuckyDog in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
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    John Kettler got a reaction from Strykr45 in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    womble,

    As far as I can tell so far, no one is telling the complete truth, but what I do believe is that, relative to what Russia could've done long since to devastate Ukraine, it hasn't. It didn't destroy the power supply, the water supply and treatment, waste treatment, etc. By contrast, when the US attacked Iraq, it did directly attack the power grid, doing such things as dropping chains on electrical substations and deploying carbon fiber cabling (via specially equipped Tomahawks) on high tension lines to short them out. Further, the US not only attacked Iraq's water supply, but used sanctions to prevent rebuilding after the first Persian Gulf war.

    https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/iraq-how-us-intentionally-destroyed-iraqs-water-supply

    Neither has Russia gone at the core of Kviv, based, at least, on the reporting I've seen to date. I fully believe that the Russians could've executed their own toned down version of shock and awe with cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, against vital Ukrainian infrastructure, from the get, but they didn't. Am definitely not advocating for canonizing Putin, but certainly by Russian standards, he has been remarkably restrained. The Soviets would've machine gunned the civilians blocking the roads, run them over with tanks, or even strafed them, but he hasn't. Granted, no one has had to conduct military operations with real time broadcasting of almost everything being done, so that most certainly has acted as a damper, because of extremely damaging optics before a global audience.

    There have absolutely been civilian casualties (total count unknown to me; have been focused on military side of things), and it's quite clear that some of the Russian soldiers have been nothing less than murdering, thieving thugs, as both eyewitness testimony and their own calls home conclusively prove.  And accounts I saw yesterday on that French news video make a strong case that some Russian soldiers are simply gunning down hapless civilians. Fortunately, there has been no carpet bombing of residential areas that at I know of in Kviv, Kharkiv, etc. From what I know, Mariupol has been a veritable mini Stalingrad, with concomitant devastation of the city as both sides have fought a seesaw battle to control it. Other places hit seem to offer no such military justification at all, but in such a situation of ever worsening command chaos, how much is troops running amok and how much at Putin's direct behest? I don't know. But if war crimes have been committed, then the perps--at all levels--should be brought to justice.  In the face of modern firepower, am astounded there have been so few reported civilian deaths. 

    But we also know that certain claimed outrages have not occurred (bombing the in fact empty for days Mariupol maternity facility, but selling the story as a slaughter of pregnant mothers and infants by using a crisis actor and suitable BG; shades of the evil Iraqi soldiers stealing ventilators and leaving preemies to die--dreamed up by Hill & Knowlton), and that others (the shopping mall) were legitimate targets because not only was the complex used as a firing location for Grad, but because there was a significant quantity of UA vehicles garaged there as well. We know for a fact, by direct admission of one senior officer who piloted four such missions,  that at least some RuAF operations have targeted civilians with large bombs (mercifully with a high dud rate), and am not quite sure where the truth lies ref MRL strikes, especially considering Azov, for example, which has de facto resorted to human shield tactics to protect their armor, trucks, and presumably infantry against UA strikes. Baiting the other side this way, for protection and propaganda  purposes, is a well-established dirty trick. The North Vietnamese but AAA on hospitals, stored munitions in them and put AAA on the dikes, then raised a howl when we hit them.  Mines are clearly in use by both sides, posing a significant risk to civilians as a result, and these assuredly are not the self-sterilizing variety, either. Have no handle at all on what has or hasn't been hit by thermobarics from Buratino, Uragan and Smerch. Offhand, the only one I know has been used for thermobarics is the Buratino, but that may be because I missed it, forgot, or was never reported. Street fighting footage shows that Shmel series thermobaric weapons are in use. UA has such munitions, too. The evidence of Russian use of cluster munitions in some cities is unambiguous. To my knowledge, areas hit had no military targets in them. At least, that's what Belingcat has shown in its usual meticulous manner. 

    Am of the opinion that if Putin's intention was to conduct limited ops for defined (internally, at least) national purposes, one of which he's been quite vocal about, things have definitely gotten out of control (a problem doubtless made worse by the US-enabled devastation of the Russian senior commanders). But if Putin's objective from the get was to conquer Ukraine outright, then this may be the most restrained large scale military operation in both SU and RF history. This opinion is independent of whether or not Putin was ever able to succeed in such a gargantuan task to begin with, using the forces he had. 

    No matter how you slice it, this war is the usual tragedy for the innocent civilians caught in the middle, be they in Ukraine, Donetsk or Luhansk.

    DesertFox,

    This is the sort of thing Andrew Cockburn wrote about in his shocking to many Inside The Soviet Military Machine, in which, by interviewing Jewish emigres in Brighton Beach, he was able to massively deflate the Bear, by revealing that, for example, alcohol to clean the rotating ring of radars was being drunk, NBC suits were being sold to fishermen, fuel was being sold to civilians. In Afghanistan, soldiers were selling their weapons to get money to buy drugs, too. There are multiple reports of wives and mothers trying to get the Soviet Air Force to stop building planes that were flying ethanol tanks, too. That tanks in storage had been pilfered to some degree doesn't surprise me, but I had no idea it was of such enormous scope and scale as to render the tanks completely unbattleworthy. 

    Regards,

    John Kettler
     
  10. Like
    John Kettler got a reaction from Field Oggy in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
  11. Like
    John Kettler got a reaction from Haiduk in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Haiduk,

    Wonderful song, haunting delivery, beautiful and rousing! thanks much for providing this.

    Regards,

    John Kettler
  12. Like
    John Kettler reacted to Haiduk in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    This is remix of patriotic song "Oh, the red viburnum in the meadow". The viburnum is one of symbols of Ukraine. The song was written in 1914 and since The First Liberation Contests 1917-1920 and later during UPA resistance in 1943-50th became as unofficial anthem of fighting Ukraine. 
    Here is traditional performance of this song (with English subs and some explainations). There are alot of different remixes exist, so I don't know what exacly that, which on the video with tanks
     
  13. Like
    John Kettler got a reaction from Sandokan in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
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    John Kettler got a reaction from Probus in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
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    John Kettler got a reaction from Commanderski in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
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    John Kettler got a reaction from ratdeath in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
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    John Kettler got a reaction from Commanderski in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Believe I have two significant developments to report. The Pentagon has leaked the conclusions of its own analyses of what Putin's really doing in Ukraine and how. They are emphatically counter the official narrative of what Putin's doing, regarding such things as objectives, force applied, targets, attacks on civilians and infrastructure, prospects for chemical attacks and more.

    https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/23/pentagon-drops-truth-bombs-to-stave-off-war-with-russia/

    The second item is incandescent in its own way, for the Pentagon has now admitted it is providing actionable intelligence to the Ukrainian military--mere weaks after saying it wasn't! This goes a long way toward explaining the ever growing list of senior officers killed, wounded or captured. Some wounded and evacuated to Russia have since DOW and declared heroes.

    https://geopolitics.co/2022/03/25/pentagon-targeting-russian-generals/

    Regards,

    John Kettler
  18. Upvote
    John Kettler got a reaction from panzermartin in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Couldn't delete this part.
  19. Like
    John Kettler got a reaction from Taranis in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Taranis,

    Saw the video and found it both well done and engrossing. Believe you did us a service by posting the transcript to supplement the video. While it lacks the immediacy of the radio intercepts, nor does it include all the distractions in the video, such as watching the signal plot and virtual control panel. Thought the intrusion by someone playing the melody for "Dixie" was priceless.

    Regards,

    John Kettler
  20. Like
    John Kettler reacted to Taranis in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    "You forgot that fu**ing air support!" “: unsecured radio communications of the Russian forces picked up by radio amateurs
    The blitzkrieg envisioned by Vladimir Putin to take over Ukraine has failed. The resistance of the Ukrainian army and volunteers has a lot to do with it, but the difficulties of the Russian army on the ground also owe to their own shortcomings.
    In a video published on Wednesday, the New York Times reveals extracts from hundreds of recordings captured by radio amateurs, specialists or volunteers able to intercept, with radio receivers, exchanges broadcast on unsecured frequencies. Their content? Exchanges between Russian combat units in Ukraine during the Battle of Makariv, west of kyiv, at the end of February. Because the Russian army, one of the most powerful in the world, uses public radio waves – and therefore accessible to anyone who wants to listen – for some of its strategic communications on the battlefield.
    These exchanges testify both to the disorganization of the Russian forces at the start of the conflict and to the consequences of the logistical problems on the Russian advance. We hear the Russian soldiers revealing strategic information about the assault, such as when this soldier announces an attack by fighter planes planned "in ten minutes", or about their positions: "We are withdrawing from Motyjyn, we are retreating. We leave an MT-LB [armored vehicle], damaged, ”announces a unit. They also provide evidence that the Russians deliberately target residential areas.
    These unsecured communications testify above all to the setbacks of the Russian forces:
    YUG-95: Request air support from Lampas, from helicopter, do you receive me?
    BURAN-30: YUG-95, received. I can't reach Lampas.
    YUG-95: Received. Try again, try again. The guys are hurting.
    Half an hour later, the same YUG-95 speaks again to BURAN-30: “You forgot that fu**ing air support! You fu**ing forgot!»
    The supply problems, already highlighted by the images of broken down tanks on the side of the roads, are also reflected in radio recordings, where the units declare “urgent needs for supplies of fuel, water, food”.
    Even generals have, according to the New York Times, used unsecured radios and phones, allowing Ukrainian forces to hunt down and kill at least one. The latter were also able to interfere and jam Russian communications. When BURAN-30 asks for a way out, it is thus a Ukrainian who answers him: “Go home Buran, it is better to be a deserter than a fertilizer.»

    Source : Le Monde
  21. Like
    John Kettler reacted to Holien in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Ok just seen this and it made me smile.
     

  22. Like
    John Kettler reacted to Kinophile in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    I always like first person accounts.
    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/american-volunteer-foreign-fighters-ukraine-russia-war/627604/
    @Haiduk what do you think?
  23. Like
    John Kettler reacted to The_Capt in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Anyone posted this?  First if genuine this is really impressive open source work.  Second, holy crap.
     
     
  24. Like
    John Kettler got a reaction from Machor in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Machor,

    For sure, I screwed up what I wrote the first time, but am so mentally fuzzy right now that, even after checking, am sure I got the TBs on the wrong side, but also a) which conflict is the right one, and b) whether the video creator got something crossed up. Regardless, apologies for the resulting confusion, but. the core point remains: Unless the reports are completely false, the Karushka-4 is either temporarily or permanently damaging or destroying mission-critical electronics on the Bayraktar TB2s, downing those targeted.

    As it happens, I have some experience with such things as HPMs (High Power Microwave) DEWs (Directed Energy Weapons) from my Rockwell days. Indeed, was a co-founder of the DEWWG (Direct Energy Weapon Working Group). Such energies can do all sorts of unpleasant things: including fricasseeing missiles on aircraft carrier flight decks because of the energy from a plethora of radar and other transmitters gets inside via a tiny crack and fries otherwise protected microelectronics, detonate fuel and ordnance, burn out radar and ESM receivers, etc. What will jam a radar at long range can damage or destroy all manner of sensitive gear at lesser ranges. Recall, too, this is a weapon good vs ground, air and space targets. A Swiss Army Knife EW system, if you will.

    The traditional Soviet approach was to field a jammer to defeat each active surveillance or bomb/nav system the opposition (led by the US) deployed, such as SLAR, JSTARS, TFR. By those standards, Karushka-4 is not evolutionary but revolutionary, because it combines so many capabilities into one devastating system. The transliterated Russian acronym for what we in the west call EW is REC, RadioElectronic Combat, and now the Russians have not just a jammer but damage inflicter, even a target killer. This is precisely why there is such urgency to get that van back to the US and begin meticulous technical exploitation to see what this immensely potent weapon system can do. Even lacking the combined intercept and jamming hardware, about which a great deal can be learned from the imagery, knowing power supplies and so on, the real secrets of Karuska-4 lie in the computers of the command van, for that is where we will learn the Russian understanding of our various targeted systems and what the strike against them looks like, in terms of frequencies, waveform, signal strength, pulse repetition interval, ERP (Effective Radiated Power) and more.

    Regards,

    John Kettler
  25. Upvote
    John Kettler got a reaction from theFrizz in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    The official score is one sunk, two damaged and some fatalities to those aboard these vessels--all from the previously unknown ship-killer Tochka-U!  Just imagine 50 of these 9n24 submunitions plummeting down onto the decks of LST equivalents likely loaded with fuel and ammo on the decks and maybe on the docks, too. Never mind what's inside any AFVs carried. Those crump sounds are ammo exploding. 

     
    OSINTdefender Retweeted               Granger   @GrangerE04117   Details I got about the attack. At 7:45 AM, a Tochka-U SRBM was fired towards the landing ships Saratov, Tsesar Kunikov, and Novocherkassk. > Saratov sunk at a depth of 5 meters > Kunikov and Novercherkassk left port damaged. 8 killed on Kunikov and 3 killed and 3 injured.. Quote Tweet     Aleph א    @no_itsmyturn · 43m Ukrainian Navy confirms that the Russian BDK-69 Orsk vessel was destroyed at the Berdyans'k port, Zaporizhzhia oblast



    https://armamentresearch.com/9n123k-cluster-munition-and-9n24-submunitions-in-syria/

    Oryx will now have to add a new category to his list of destroyed and captured weapons!  And defense planners now have a whole new antiship threat to worry about. While it's possible to argue that at least some losses from wiped out CPs are tolerable, the direct hit on Russian military capabilities delivered by that brilliant and highly effective Tochku-U strike will be far more measurable and harshly felt, in terms of direct impact on combat power and sustainment on one hand but in terms of foreclosing of previous military options on the other. There is no quick fix for a blow of this magnitude, especially for a force already in acute logistic crisis. Nor, I'm sure, did the planners ever envisage sustaining such devastating losses in a veritable eye blink. It's one thing to maybe lose a patrol craft to an ATGM, but another to lose an entire modernish landing ship loaded with weapons and stores, almost losing three, at that. The Russians should be grateful that these vessels were apparently not carrying the Russian marines in addition to the other cargo. For then, outright catastrophe would've likely ensued.
     
    Capacity 10 main battle tanks and 340 troops  or 12 BTR and 340 troops or 3 main battle tanks, 3 2S9 Nona-S, 5 MT-LB, 4 army trucks and 313 troops or 500 tons of cargo Complement 87–98 Armament 2 × 2 57 mm AK-257 guns (Ropucha I) 1 × 76 mm AK-176 (Ropucha II) 2 × 30 122 mm rocket launcher A-215 Grad-M Strela 2(SA-N-5) surface-to-air missile system (4 launchers) 2 × 30 mm AK-630 six-barreled gatlingguns (Ropucha II) The Ropucha class, Soviet designation Project 775, is a class of landing ships (large landing ship in Soviet classification) built in Poland for the Soviet Navy. The ships were built in Poland in the Stocznia Północna shipyards in Gdańsk. Designed for beach landings, they can carry a 450-ton cargo. The ships have both bow- and stern-doors for loading and unloading vehicles, and the 630 square metres (6,800 sq ft) of vehicle deck stretches the length of the hull. Up to 25 armored personnel carriers can be embarked.

    Regards,

    John Kettler

     
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