acrashb

Sure, but those amount to a rounding error in terms of the total value of aid committed. There's 10s of thousands of smart and dumb 155 rounds that will(?) be replaced, along with all the M777s, HIMARS, missiles, javelins, etc.

Lots of sanctionable components.

Lots of sanctionable components.

I will be shocked, absolutely shocked if a Republican led House and/or Senate cuts or reduces aid to Ukraine.   I keep seeing this discussed but from a grass roots perspective I don't see this as being even remotely popular among conservative voters.  Yes----"Biden is corrupt and evil" and conservatives will work hard to counter his agenda.  But I don't see Ukraine support as being on the chopping block--very strong bipartisan support.  
Hell, it's about the only thing most of both parties can agree on.
 
 

That's only true if it's never replaced. And given all the screaming about running down of stocks ... it's going to be replaced. Except the replacement kit will be costed at 2023 prices, not ~2010 prices.

Note: the below is *not* intended to be partisan but rather a reasonable analysis of the current American political milieu. 
I would add some caveats to the above. Putin *was* more popular among Republicans vis a vis  Democrats before the war started in Ukraine but it's actually hard to find any recent data on that now. I would imagine it's not what it was on February 23rd. Pew had Putin's general approval rating in the US around 6% in March. It's also important to note that as of right now 66% of Americans are in favor of continuing to arm Ukraine. That's a big number in a country with our partisan divides. It's also not clear yet where these midterms will shake out. In a normal cycle, this should have been a big year for the out-of-the-White-House party. Candidate quality, Supreme Court decisions and other factors are suggesting that it may not be. We'll see. 
The important point that I was trying to make above is that Ukrainian aid could, at minimum be delayed or cut it's certainly not a popular move in the American electorate. We'll see what happens and of course your vote and mine will have some say in the matter. 

I am getting increasingly irritated by the way we do discussions here. Shall we, maybe, concentrate on what I actually wrote? I answered to a post, which itself was a reaction to Musks tweet. The post picked the one number (85%) and ignored the rest. I explicitly presented the calculation based on the assumption that "the numbers are correct". If so, focusing on the 85% is a flawed calculation. I said nothing else.
Btw. If you give someone something you would otherwise charge him for you don't just lose what that product costs you but what you would charge - money you would have otherwise.

According to the SpaceX figures shared with the Pentagon, about 85% of the 20,000 terminals in Ukraine were paid – or partially paid – for by countries like the US and Poland or other entities. Those entities also paid for about 30% of the internet connectivity, which SpaceX says costs $4,500 each month per unit for the most advanced service. (Over the weekend, Musk tweeted there are around 25,000 terminals in Ukraine.) — CNN, October/14/2022.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/elon-musk-spacex-starlink-ukraine/#paragraph-4de74b4a-e6fa-5ddd-937e-d10fb1ae88bd
I don't think starlink is losing money because of what it is providing to Ukraine - that mostly seems to be paid for. I suspect its more that Starlink's business model is losing money, because satellites are expensive and they haven't got enough uptake to cover the initial costs incurred.

that is very definitely not just a fundamental mistake by the Russians. This thread (among many examples) has shown it to be a universal mistake.

One of the Russian's fundamental mistakes is mistaking toughness for effectiveness.

It is interesting to see that the Russia thinking seems to be that mass still matters.  This is not the first time we have seen Russia tout mass as a key metric of the situation from the very beginning.  Yet repeatedly we have seen the UA with less mass achieve the greater result.  I think it is a fundamental flaw in the Russian theory of war and has driven so much of their thinking - “if only we could get more X, we could then win”.  This echoes WW1 thinking which took years and millions of lives to shift.  We shifted from mass to mobile mass to synchronized mobile mass, and now face smart synchronize dispersed mass.  This is a trend that an extra 300k troops will not solve. 

was that in a side thread link?  Or did I miss that in the UKR thread?  I didn't notice that  -- Dude don't stray of the path!  Keep your eyes on the UKR stuff 🤪😀  I done warned you!

Long thread on Russian logistics. 
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1581023172346118144.html
Nothing new, Russia will need to either repair the bridge, or effectively use the road network via Novoazovsk-Mariupol-Berdyansk-Melitopol to supply the southern front. 
 
 

That wasn't so hard, was it?  

Part of the reluctance for several people was the assumption that Russia always lies - and they said it was a truck bomb.  It's more helpful to think of their statements as Bull**** in the academic sense.  Statements that, while they may be true or false, are made without regard for truth but instead with an intended effect.
Regards why truck bomb vs. rail car, it's possible that this was a matter of various irons in the fire and opportunity.   Or it communicates that no-one in Russia is safe, regardless of whether or not they live by a rail line
And there's no reason to suspect a suicide bomber.  While it is possible, as sross112 says, that Ukraine could generate such, many suicide bombers are caught because of stress behaviours pre-detonation.  Hard enough to get a truck bomb setup in Russia without adding that layer.  GPS-triggered detonation would be more reliable and precise in any event.
 

That wasn't so hard, was it?  

Part of the reluctance for several people was the assumption that Russia always lies - and they said it was a truck bomb.  It's more helpful to think of their statements as Bull**** in the academic sense.  Statements that, while they may be true or false, are made without regard for truth but instead with an intended effect.
Regards why truck bomb vs. rail car, it's possible that this was a matter of various irons in the fire and opportunity.   Or it communicates that no-one in Russia is safe, regardless of whether or not they live by a rail line
And there's no reason to suspect a suicide bomber.  While it is possible, as sross112 says, that Ukraine could generate such, many suicide bombers are caught because of stress behaviours pre-detonation.  Hard enough to get a truck bomb setup in Russia without adding that layer.  GPS-triggered detonation would be more reliable and precise in any event.
 

What's the difference, the main thing is that it looks cool.🤣

One thing I forgot to add is that one of the structures the Russian influence operation depended on was the economic power it could exert on Ukrainian oligarchs. Putin could directly coerce them and their companies and used that power to work through their networks. It is a great example of how Putin burned his ability to influence events once his army rolled across the border. Put simply, once the Russian air force started bombing Avostal, Akhmetov had no asset to lose and so no reason to help Putin. And of course, a lot less economic power to exert even if he felt so inclined.
  

And a funny from DarthPutin:
 

Or he just pissed off his squad leader

Maybe there is an "off plank"?

Drone evolution has an analogue in WWI aircraft - at first for observation, then dropping - by hand - bombs, then air-to-air fighting.  Where this will diverge is the need for the WWI aircraft to return home with their crew.
Regarding shotguns, too much recoil.  Besides, why not kill it with fire?

Drone evolution has an analogue in WWI aircraft - at first for observation, then dropping - by hand - bombs, then air-to-air fighting.  Where this will diverge is the need for the WWI aircraft to return home with their crew.
Regarding shotguns, too much recoil.  Besides, why not kill it with fire?

Guy on the left is obviously tyred..

Yes, the “Russians suck” bandwagon has become about as much groupthink as “The Russians are giants” narratives were at the beginning of this thing.  The Russians are in bad shape and are experiencing multiple systemic failures at just about every level of warfare; however, that obstacle belt looks professionally sighted and constructed for purpose to me.  Now wether it will be part of a much larger effective defensive, is another question.
I would highlight, again, the Russians are fighting by the same playbook we use. The UA is playing by a new set of rules they have had to evolve to by necessity.  A real risk of “Russians suck” is the implied “Ya but in a real war we would do the same but correctly, because we do not suck”.  This is pretty much the exact same narratives coming out of European militaries before the First World War.

I've been looking for AutoCAD dwgs of the bridge for days, to no avail. Usually with a large infrastructure project like this you'll find studies and sometimes even the actual construction drawings. Engineering or Architectural journals will do an article on the thing, with some stripped down cross sections, plans, etc, maybe an interview with the Engineer/Architect. 
With the Kerch - nothing. Nada.
Not a good sign at all when engineers attached to a project either 1) don't want to talk about it or 2) are not allowed to.
Still, there are enough photos from the construction that can give a good idea of how it was slapped together, e.g.:

Thats the railway span on the right.

Better over-head view of the railbed construction.

The above image gives a good sense of just how far apart the road & railway sections are. I assume the lower roadway in the above pic is just a construction access road, removed after completion.

Above gives your basic concrete &steel beam/platform construction.
 

Typical road section.