LongLeftFlank

How it looks "zakryep" - video from Russian side. Three Russian soldiers sit in the remains of position or in the pit covered by fallen tree barrels and branches. The tree-plant, where they sit had been moved down by artillery fire. The guy says they sits here in the dirty pit already the second day and can do nothing - UKR FPVs and DPCIM block any movement. They three times tried to reach positions of their company together with major (likely he is in te put too, because the guy says respectively "with comrade major"), but DPCIM forces them to retreat. He says during they advance to hold the ground, their BMP was hit - ammo, food, water, everything burnt. Bodies of their comrades littered the tree-plant. When situation allows, they leave their shelter and search deads for some food and water. No supply and weak support - just two mortar units rarely fire on Ukrainians.
 

Some time ago this was biosphere reservation "Sribnianskyi forest" (Kreminna area). Complete devastation. Filmed by "Azov" brigade on retaken positions.
CM should have this type of trees after period of intensive shellings - just a standing or falling down barrels without branches and leaves. 
 
 

(Allegory, not history... perhaps)
One famous King who played the game of 'King', of chess, was the Persian Pad-Shah Shapur II, who was taught it by his wazir. The wazir was the better chess player, but the King was always the winner of the game.
The King attained victory by the ingenious device of overturning the chessboard at a crucial point of the game and declaring himself winner. This showed an imagination of the sort that the wazir did not have; and it was for this reason that Shapur was the King, and the wazir would never be anything but wazir.
- R.A. Lafferty

Plus ca change...

Most of us Norteamericanos are old enough to remember this one, right?

[/irony]

TG channel of 177th naval infantry regiment servicemen mothers and wives says for two months in Krynky only 10 % of regimemt were turned back intact from initial 3000 of personnel. So 2700 killed, wounded and missed.
Regiment now in own permanent station preparing new replenishment. 

First Tu-22 kill? Pilots reportedly bailed out. 
 

Then they came for der Mittelstand....
I keep posting energy tech stuff because the modular/miniature/precision armaments revolution is absolutely experiencing the exact same dynamics, just not so well documented (yet).
The West will innovate, but the Chinese will beat us to mass market, every time. With quality more than adequate for purpose. As innovative firms and their ecosystems starve and die, so too will innovation.
Solar panels are now used as fences in Germany because they are more affordable than the usual fencing.
The market standard for solar panels is now moving to Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact (#TOPCon) technology, which improves solar cell architecture to reduce efficiency losses.
The technology was developed by Germany's Fraunhofer Institute in 2013, but large-scale manufacturing takes place mostly in China.
"European manufacturers have no money to change to the new technology. So now there is no competitive advantage anymore and they have to sell old technology."
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/squeeze-on-european-solar-manufacturers-curbs-innovation-cementing-china-s-lead-81072375


 

Then they came for der Mittelstand....
I keep posting energy tech stuff because the modular/miniature/precision armaments revolution is absolutely experiencing the exact same dynamics, just not so well documented (yet).
The West will innovate, but the Chinese will beat us to mass market, every time. With quality more than adequate for purpose. As innovative firms and their ecosystems starve and die, so too will innovation.
Solar panels are now used as fences in Germany because they are more affordable than the usual fencing.
The market standard for solar panels is now moving to Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact (#TOPCon) technology, which improves solar cell architecture to reduce efficiency losses.
The technology was developed by Germany's Fraunhofer Institute in 2013, but large-scale manufacturing takes place mostly in China.
"European manufacturers have no money to change to the new technology. So now there is no competitive advantage anymore and they have to sell old technology."
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/squeeze-on-european-solar-manufacturers-curbs-innovation-cementing-china-s-lead-81072375


 

Then they came for der Mittelstand....
I keep posting energy tech stuff because the modular/miniature/precision armaments revolution is absolutely experiencing the exact same dynamics, just not so well documented (yet).
The West will innovate, but the Chinese will beat us to mass market, every time. With quality more than adequate for purpose. As innovative firms and their ecosystems starve and die, so too will innovation.
Solar panels are now used as fences in Germany because they are more affordable than the usual fencing.
The market standard for solar panels is now moving to Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact (#TOPCon) technology, which improves solar cell architecture to reduce efficiency losses.
The technology was developed by Germany's Fraunhofer Institute in 2013, but large-scale manufacturing takes place mostly in China.
"European manufacturers have no money to change to the new technology. So now there is no competitive advantage anymore and they have to sell old technology."
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/squeeze-on-european-solar-manufacturers-curbs-innovation-cementing-china-s-lead-81072375


 

Then they came for der Mittelstand....
I keep posting energy tech stuff because the modular/miniature/precision armaments revolution is absolutely experiencing the exact same dynamics, just not so well documented (yet).
The West will innovate, but the Chinese will beat us to mass market, every time. With quality more than adequate for purpose. As innovative firms and their ecosystems starve and die, so too will innovation.
Solar panels are now used as fences in Germany because they are more affordable than the usual fencing.
The market standard for solar panels is now moving to Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact (#TOPCon) technology, which improves solar cell architecture to reduce efficiency losses.
The technology was developed by Germany's Fraunhofer Institute in 2013, but large-scale manufacturing takes place mostly in China.
"European manufacturers have no money to change to the new technology. So now there is no competitive advantage anymore and they have to sell old technology."
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/squeeze-on-european-solar-manufacturers-curbs-innovation-cementing-china-s-lead-81072375


 

Then they came for der Mittelstand....
I keep posting energy tech stuff because the modular/miniature/precision armaments revolution is absolutely experiencing the exact same dynamics, just not so well documented (yet).
The West will innovate, but the Chinese will beat us to mass market, every time. With quality more than adequate for purpose. As innovative firms and their ecosystems starve and die, so too will innovation.
Solar panels are now used as fences in Germany because they are more affordable than the usual fencing.
The market standard for solar panels is now moving to Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact (#TOPCon) technology, which improves solar cell architecture to reduce efficiency losses.
The technology was developed by Germany's Fraunhofer Institute in 2013, but large-scale manufacturing takes place mostly in China.
"European manufacturers have no money to change to the new technology. So now there is no competitive advantage anymore and they have to sell old technology."
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/squeeze-on-european-solar-manufacturers-curbs-innovation-cementing-china-s-lead-81072375


 

Then they came for der Mittelstand....
I keep posting energy tech stuff because the modular/miniature/precision armaments revolution is absolutely experiencing the exact same dynamics, just not so well documented (yet).
The West will innovate, but the Chinese will beat us to mass market, every time. With quality more than adequate for purpose. As innovative firms and their ecosystems starve and die, so too will innovation.
Solar panels are now used as fences in Germany because they are more affordable than the usual fencing.
The market standard for solar panels is now moving to Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact (#TOPCon) technology, which improves solar cell architecture to reduce efficiency losses.
The technology was developed by Germany's Fraunhofer Institute in 2013, but large-scale manufacturing takes place mostly in China.
"European manufacturers have no money to change to the new technology. So now there is no competitive advantage anymore and they have to sell old technology."
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/squeeze-on-european-solar-manufacturers-curbs-innovation-cementing-china-s-lead-81072375


 

Not sure how comfortable I would be in a row boat of or Cessna around an active CWIS but fair points.  I think these problems are definitely going to have problems, some unintended and some very much intended.  Some bad actors will gleefully employ them on civilians to terrorize and as part of an overall genocidal campaign.  In reality there is no real difference between a cruise missile striking a civilian housing complex and a cruise missile carrying a bunch of assassination drones.  The drones will be far more effective and vicious but are basically doing the same job.
I am saying that banning fully autonomous drones is a fools errand.  Hell, regulating them is going to be pretty damned hard.  Why?  Because they are potential war-winners right now.  Unmanned systems of all types are deterministic of outcomes.  As such they become, in an existential war, non-negotiable.  Some nations will try and remain on high horses - no doubt Canada will - but this will be as hypocritical as the nuclear equation.  Canada has no nuclear weapons and shakes a finger in haughty disapproval of them, but our very survival has rested upon the safety of the US nuclear umbrella…that we are not even paying for.  Unmanned will be the same beast in many ways.  Some nations will reject them but will be first in line to have them protect any troop contributions to a western coalition.
The one thing I do not know is if unmanned stand as a 3rd shift in the nature of war yet.  Their impact on the battlefield is pretty much undeniable by this point.

No! It’s THE OIL CANS! 
 

I work closely with the MIC and I can assure you that they'll find a way and won't be hurting for money.
As I recently told a project manager - There's no amount of money I can't find a way to spend.

And just to give a sense of how early we are in this iteration of warfare, my great-great-grandfather witnessed the early use of proto machine guns at the Battle of Gaines Mill more than 150 years ago. Imagine where drones will be in 30. 

I take it that the truck in this example is basically the tardis? Ie, despite external appearances it has the internal volume to hold 200 drones plus the crews and equipment required to assemble, target, and launch them, as well as being invulnerable to all types of attack.

Solid "meh" from me.  I mean, sure if we see scope and scale that overtakes artillery and begins to hunt it to extinction, like we have seen with tanks...but the evidence is not there yet.
Guns teaming with Unmanned and Light infantry has happened in this war to pretty solid effects, I suspect it will be a trend that continues. 
I will put 50$ on the bar that the eggheads in the western MIDs are scrambling to figure out how to build and employ a cheap hunter-killer c-drone, drone.  So an equilibrium wave is coming, but the needle will be moved and cannot be unmoved.
Whether it moves far enough to drop a second pillar of the combat arms teams (ie artillery) though?  I am betting "no," at least for another decade.  My guess is that they will share the battlefield and advantage will go to whichever side can combine them the best.
The biggest reason, at least in western warfare will be "control".  Unmanned AI could be let off the leash to swarm and eliminate grid squares, but we will likely get bogged down in legality.  Artillery still has high levels of direct human control, and legal frameworks that govern its employment.  That alone almost guarantees a generational shift. 
In the end we are talking about "killing at distance".  Artillery and UAS share the qualities to push that out over the horizon when linked into modern C4ISR.  Anything that can stop a drone, won't be able to stop PGM artillery and vice versa. Tanks simply do not have the range and are too big and heavy for what we get out of them.  Infantry can hold ground.  Now UGVs are a revolution for holding ground that we have not seen yet.  But there I also expect human-unmanned pairing forward. At least at the start.

Given the recent discussion on weapon systems, here is an article on the Patriot, its success in Ukraine and how this is increasing demand for it and perhaps increasing its longevity
How Patriot proved itself in Ukraine and secured a fresh future

The problem with battleships guns is that they can only be fired from a battleship. They are sort the poster child for somethig that is going to be few, expensive, and too valuable to lose. Where you can dump cruisse missiles out submarines, and other PGMs out submarines that are much harder to kill, or cheap surface vessels that could be praticlly disposable. The unbelievably expensive radar, defensive lasers, and who knows what else a surface ship will need to actually be survivable can go on a platform dedicated to staying alive, and providing C4SIR to the miisslie barges..
Ranges for artillery and drones are just going to go up, and then up more. 
https://www.nammo.com/story/the-range-revolution/
100 km 155 is in late stage testing.
Perun covers current and near future drones here with his usual brilliance, was posted a few pages ago, but definitely worth your time if you haven't watched it yet.
What all of this adds up to is an ever expanding grey zone/no mans land in a more or less equal fight between first tier militaries, and probably vastly higher costs for a first tier power to take on a second, or third tier one. We are already at the point where both sides in Ukraine can barely bring a vehicles within 10km of the front, and they certainly can't stop moving in that  zone for more than a minute or two. Next year in Ukraine that could easily be twenty km instead of ten. In the next war, five or ten years from now it could easily be fifty.
 
U.S. is at the point of trying to get rid of towed guns completely. They can't shoot far enough, or scoot fast enough.
 

I think we have gotten far too comfortable with our “superiorities” over the last 30 years.  To the point they stopped being a factor and simply became basic assumptions. Cam-paint for example.  When I first joined up we were always wearing cam paint in the field because we trained to both hunt and be hunted. Then we got rid of cam paint and frankly I only just saw it for the first time in a long time in training ex pics in Latvia.
We assumed levels of superiority that are unstable.  We cannot always have air or firepower superiority.  If we believe that we always will, then why even bother with psychological operations? Or we box up psychological operations into “hearts and minds” soft and fuzzy stuff that does not jive very well with killing people. This essentially alienates psychological to a weird niche when before, as you note, it was all over the place.  I think it is on a long list of things we need to re-learn as we head into far more competitive warfare environs - right along with capacity and attrition.

Actual, actual....

FSRU Marshal Portovyy out of Kaliningrad (whose pipeline has not been cut off) offloads its cargo at sea to LNG tanker Cool Rover. Which ships the contraband gas to buyers who care less about its provenance than its price.
If [unnnamed Formites] want to act 'wised up' (woke?) about 'strategic global resources', perhaps focus on the stuff that actually moves the needle on balance of trade today.
That would (still) be stuff the belligerents can put in a pipe or a ship or a train and send where it gets the highest price.
Los!

As much as I would love this all to be true, due to the Western innovators' need to raise funds, the Chinese are now able to beat (and undercut) any newly commercialised Western product into mass production by stealing all the required IC under a guise of investor due diligence.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/owners-china-based-company-charged-conspiracy-send-trade-secrets-belonging-leading-us-based
And this is not the TU-144 'Concordski' or Yak-36 'Forget'er' we are talking about any longer. The 'knockoff' products of companies like Xiaomi (which I can get out here in Asia, as well as in Europe) are increasingly comparable to their Western originals in reliable functionality, if not always in service life.
Again, as much as I'd like for that not to be true, we must be realistic about this.....