chrisl

I don't think it's really a pay issue - contractors can pay whatever they want and throw around equity and if the gov't needs the service and that's the price, it's not that hard to write the contract.  Especially for creative development where you're going to hire a roomful (or even a small building full) of mechatronics people to build transformers.  They each might cost a lot, but even a decent sized small company isn't going to be that expensive.  Way back at the start of my career I watched someone who was only a couple years ahead of me leave a semi-gov't job (FFRDC) to take a job at a small company developing UAVs at ~3x the salary, plus they'd pay to get a helicopter license.
The harder part about attracting engineers to that is the working environment - going into the classified world tends to be a one way trip, or at least a deep rabbit hole that people take a long time to pop out of, and then they can't even show off their cool stuff.  And the whole working on the classified side of things makes it more complicated to find and pull in outside stuff that's supposed to be air gapped, but that might be useful to incorporate.
The big cost comes in paying for the production run and all the costs wrapped around that.  

I don't think it's really a pay issue - contractors can pay whatever they want and throw around equity and if the gov't needs the service and that's the price, it's not that hard to write the contract.  Especially for creative development where you're going to hire a roomful (or even a small building full) of mechatronics people to build transformers.  They each might cost a lot, but even a decent sized small company isn't going to be that expensive.  Way back at the start of my career I watched someone who was only a couple years ahead of me leave a semi-gov't job (FFRDC) to take a job at a small company developing UAVs at ~3x the salary, plus they'd pay to get a helicopter license.
The harder part about attracting engineers to that is the working environment - going into the classified world tends to be a one way trip, or at least a deep rabbit hole that people take a long time to pop out of, and then they can't even show off their cool stuff.  And the whole working on the classified side of things makes it more complicated to find and pull in outside stuff that's supposed to be air gapped, but that might be useful to incorporate.
The big cost comes in paying for the production run and all the costs wrapped around that.  

I don't think it's really a pay issue - contractors can pay whatever they want and throw around equity and if the gov't needs the service and that's the price, it's not that hard to write the contract.  Especially for creative development where you're going to hire a roomful (or even a small building full) of mechatronics people to build transformers.  They each might cost a lot, but even a decent sized small company isn't going to be that expensive.  Way back at the start of my career I watched someone who was only a couple years ahead of me leave a semi-gov't job (FFRDC) to take a job at a small company developing UAVs at ~3x the salary, plus they'd pay to get a helicopter license.
The harder part about attracting engineers to that is the working environment - going into the classified world tends to be a one way trip, or at least a deep rabbit hole that people take a long time to pop out of, and then they can't even show off their cool stuff.  And the whole working on the classified side of things makes it more complicated to find and pull in outside stuff that's supposed to be air gapped, but that might be useful to incorporate.
The big cost comes in paying for the production run and all the costs wrapped around that.  

I don't think it's really a pay issue - contractors can pay whatever they want and throw around equity and if the gov't needs the service and that's the price, it's not that hard to write the contract.  Especially for creative development where you're going to hire a roomful (or even a small building full) of mechatronics people to build transformers.  They each might cost a lot, but even a decent sized small company isn't going to be that expensive.  Way back at the start of my career I watched someone who was only a couple years ahead of me leave a semi-gov't job (FFRDC) to take a job at a small company developing UAVs at ~3x the salary, plus they'd pay to get a helicopter license.
The harder part about attracting engineers to that is the working environment - going into the classified world tends to be a one way trip, or at least a deep rabbit hole that people take a long time to pop out of, and then they can't even show off their cool stuff.  And the whole working on the classified side of things makes it more complicated to find and pull in outside stuff that's supposed to be air gapped, but that might be useful to incorporate.
The big cost comes in paying for the production run and all the costs wrapped around that.  

Drone is easier to build with common off the shelf parts than a gun- it’s some electric motors and batteries and a chip, and a some sensor to guide it, and maybe a radio. I think it would be instructive for politicians and military leaders to all attend a “build your own FPV drone out of $250 in parts” day, and then guide it via headset to hit a person sized mannequin 5km away.
On the other hand, a gun with any sort of range (ie not the Shinzo Abe Special) requires metal of sufficient strength for the barrel, not to mention bolt if semi automatic. A hobby machinist can still build this, but it’s more difficult than just Digikey/Mouser/Alibaba. Sure, in America guns and gun parts are plentiful and part and parcel of Freedom (TM), but everywhere else it’s a bit harder.
That said, some of our favorite Latin American kleptocrats have banned drones in their countries, but I somehow doubt that will matter when the next revolution comes. The sad thing to me is that the noble guerilla in the jungle with kalashnikov is much more romantic than some four-eyes like me with a pile of drones, pupusas and whatever beer is commonly available. Nobody is gonna have the latter on a tshirt!

Personally, I didn't think the guns were too tight to begin with. There are trade-offs with everything, obviously, and with a gun position you want it to be as dispersed as possible, and no more.
Arguing for wider dispersion is the counter-battery threat, which itself varies by enemy, operational situation, tactical situation, and terrain. In general, the Ukrainians seem to have been following an active CB policy (ie, going after Russian artillery assets whenever they get a chance) over the last ... year? But it is unlikely that policy is consistent across the entire front, due to a lack of ammo, deception measures, and lack of sufficient CB C2 infrastructure everywhere. But as a rule of thumb, I expect the Russians would probably want to be more dispersed than perhaps their doctrine would suggest.
Arguing against wider dispersion are a bunch of factors.
Local defence - I'm not sure how porous the front is, or how often Ukrainian raiding parties are hitting battery positions, but a small tight position is MUCH easier to defend against a ground threat that a dispersed position.
Fire mission command and control - in my experience, each section (2 guns) is managed by a junior officer, and he has to keep shuttling between his guns to ensure they are doing the right things in the right way (bearing and elevation is correct, correct ammo, charge and fuse, etc). If the position becomes too dispersed, either those firing checks have to be reduced or overlooked (with consequent increase in risk), or the pace of fire missions drastically reduced. That's on top of the points @BlackMoria made about limited wire and/or radios. A lot of this can be mitigated with fancy-pants new kit, but these are D-30s. I doubt they are very fancy-pants, and I expect they are using methods and equipment that a gunner from the 1980s would feel intimately familiar with.
Terrain - @BlackMoria has noted that this clearing is quite small, which is true, but FWIW to my eye it doesn't appear to be too small for the number of guns being employed*. It's really hard to eyeball, but it looks to be at least 50m between guns, which is a pretty standard dispersion. Also, the entire clearing isn't available for use due to cresting issues with the surrounding trees - get too close to the trees at the front edge of the clearing and you can't safely depress the barrels enough to engage targets - you'd be firing rounds through the trees just in front of you and, um, that's a really bad idea. That's also why you can't just hide your guns in the forest to begin with.
Edit to add: Terrain part 2 - we can't see the wider area around this position. It could concievably be that this is the only, or one of the few, practical positions for this battery to be. Aside from out in the desert, the battlespace rapidly gets clogged up by all the things you want to be there - ammo and logistics dumps, engineer stores dumps, artillery areas, medical areas, helicopter landing zones, reserve fighting positions, staging areas for units moving forwards and backwards, maintenance area, routes for stuff moving forwards, backwards, and sideways, etc. Given that this area also seems to be heavily wooded and sparsely tracked**, there just mightn't be any other good spots for the guns to be, and the battlespace managers at the higher HQ haven't given this battery commander enough ground to be able to disperse they way he might want to.
 
Interestingly, there seems to be only three guns in this battery. I wonder where the fourth is? I'm guessing it is out of action - either broken, or perhaps destroyed in a previous CB engagement - although it could jut be tucked away somewhere out of sight.
Also, the CB mission as shown seemed focused on the guns themselves, which is fair enough because that's what the unaided eye (or drone cam) can see. But somewhere, not too far away - probably within 100m of the centre gun - is a command post. It's a shame they couldn't identify and target that either instead of one of the guns, or in addition to all of the guns. There is probably also an echelon park nearby - probably not more than 200-500m from the command post - with a bunch of trucks and mechanics and technical equipment and other paraphernalia. Replacing a couple of guns is hard. Replacing a couple of guns AND all that other junk, along with the training of the specialists you find there, is really hard.
 
* although, I suppose you could argue that it really was too small, given that all three guns seem to have been taken out. On the other hand, the Ukrainians seemed to be adjusting between the three guns as if they were three point targets. At that point it wouldn't have mattered if the guns were twice, thrice, or ten times as far apart - once the enemy gunners have the intel and time to accurately adjust between your positions you're screwed, regardless of dispersion. It doesn't matter whether that's a battery of guns or a dug in platoon.
** artillery units need access to good routes - ammo is heavy, and in a sustained battle an artillery unit needs a LOT of trucks coming and going to keep it fed.

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Speaking as a retired artillery officer....three other reasons to explain this:
1. They have insufficient radios and field phones to communicate with the battery command post.  
2.  The clearing in the trees is too small for proper dispersion of the guns.  Knowing that drones are sweeping treelines for targets, the russians may have chanced putting these guns into a small clearing in the middle of a forest with a trail going into the clearing for the tow vehicles.
3. They lack fire control calculators/computers to calculate fire patterns like converge, linear, etc.   The spacing looks about right for just doing a common bearing and range shoot to all guns and the spacing of the guns is about right for overlapping lethal burst patterns.

Clever from the Ukrainian MOD
Has a pop at the 'anonymous sources' talking crap Reminds everyone that these same sources were wrong in Feb 22 Emphasises that the Ukrainians know what they're doing Reiterates the point that for Ukrainians this is an existential war   And for once the music's not crap
Edit: Forgot they used London's Calling by The Clash recently

And since most contracts are forward funded with spending authorizations that reach out at least several months, it's usually possible to keep all the gov't contractors working unless the shutdown stretches long enough for them to hit the limit of their authorized spending.  If you're on a contract that has schedule problems, it's like a time machine because gov't time stops but you have a chance to catch up.

Give Ukraine the ability to deliver 500 JDAMs a day to a depth of three hundred kilometers, AND clear every Russian aircraft bigger than a small quadcopter out of Ukraine's skies, and the counteroffensive will move right along. In the absence of that Ukraine is prosecuting this the old hard way about as well as it possibly can. Parts of the Pentagon just can't wrap their heads around this.
Heck we can't even pull our heads out of our rear ends and manage to send some our new laser toys over for a test against drones in real world conditions. Because if they work we need thousands of them, and if they don't we need a new plan soonest.

I started to watch but it got implausible fast and I stopped maybe 1/3 of the way in.  That's not a trivial depth to work at for SCUBA divers who have to use mixed gases, and the idea that 6 people are going to do it from a 15 m sailboat stretches plausibility.  That the boat will then be left parked on a stand (apparently in isolation?) where it's pristine except for "traces" of explosives (but no other signs that it's been used for a significant SCUBA operation?) is an even bigger stretch.  I might see if I can find the Spiegel article outside a paywall later.  It's faster to read than to sit through video.

I started to watch but it got implausible fast and I stopped maybe 1/3 of the way in.  That's not a trivial depth to work at for SCUBA divers who have to use mixed gases, and the idea that 6 people are going to do it from a 15 m sailboat stretches plausibility.  That the boat will then be left parked on a stand (apparently in isolation?) where it's pristine except for "traces" of explosives (but no other signs that it's been used for a significant SCUBA operation?) is an even bigger stretch.  I might see if I can find the Spiegel article outside a paywall later.  It's faster to read than to sit through video.

I started to watch but it got implausible fast and I stopped maybe 1/3 of the way in.  That's not a trivial depth to work at for SCUBA divers who have to use mixed gases, and the idea that 6 people are going to do it from a 15 m sailboat stretches plausibility.  That the boat will then be left parked on a stand (apparently in isolation?) where it's pristine except for "traces" of explosives (but no other signs that it's been used for a significant SCUBA operation?) is an even bigger stretch.  I might see if I can find the Spiegel article outside a paywall later.  It's faster to read than to sit through video.

I watched the documentary and I find it really bad. In german I would say "tendenziös" the english meaning would be tendentiously. A lot of known information was not presented. If this was intentional or just bad research I can not say but especially the spiegel has lost a lot of journalistic credibility in recent years and had a  pro russian tendency. Not long ago they did an article where their only source was a russian spy so they published direct russian propaganda and similar events.
They somehow forgot to mention in the documentary that Diana D. is a russian national, that wasn't born in Ukraine/crimea and only got an ukrainian passport in 2001. After she went to crimea she did a lot of pro russian activity. In the documentary she was portrayed as ukrainian and they found it not strange that she appeared in russia after the bombings.
And I don't know why they missed the seismic profiles of the explosions that clearly contradicts their assumption that only a small amount of explosives was used.
Some of the conclussions they draw there are not very logical. I would like to see how they picture the Andromeda doing the work on 4 pipelines in short amount of time on open sea. I work with specialised ships/ shipcrews that work in bomb disposal. The amount of specialised equipment needed to only work in depths of 5-10m with explosives is really high. I asked some of the divers if they think it was possible to do the work needed from Andromeda. They laughted in my face. Most of the divers have navy background......
 

Re: possible insurgency
1. First off, as Steve already said, things can theoretically happen. We're talking about the most likely scenario. Anyone who predicts future with 100% certainty is a fraud.
2. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of bad blood. Just as you saw a lot of Crimeans genuinely cheering up and supporting the invaders in 2014, the Crimeans saw people on mainland Ukraine cheer powerlines being blown up as 2 million people plunged into darkness, water channel being cut off, the roads being blocked for cargo traffic, with all the little nasty consequences that were actually physically felt here. The reactionary post-2014 policies, laws and rethoric weren't great either. But compared to all the mayhem what's been happening since Feb 2022, this is nothing. And people are TIRED of chaos, flying jets, drones, explosions and death. Those who are currently in the trenches or came from there are tired as well.
3. What would be "the cause" to rally behind? They can't even formulate victory conditions for the current war. Nor can they achieve anything significant, with all their men and equipment in the field. Rallying (who, civilians?) to do something a huge army can't do? That requires guts and there's none. Only stupidity and hubris. They are unable to say NO when told to do something stupid or illegal. Saying no requires guts.
4. You need to understand the reality on the ground. Pretty much all Crimeans who haven't left have Russian passports. What, 1.5-2 million people? Myself included. Because living here without one is practically impossible. Hell, I know Crimeans who left and are currently on mainland Ukraine that also have Russian passports, issued in Crimea in 2014 (illegaly, obviously). For Ukrainian government to take back control, they'll have to deal with it somehow. And bunch of other documents. There's already been laws and decrees passed aimed to make the transition back as painless as possible. There's a whole ministry that's dealing with issues like these. Refer to Ministry of Reintegration sources for more information.
5. That being said, it's been nine years, and nobody can pretict how much more time will pass before that. It can happen in two months, or in two years, or in ten. And with every single day, people are growing more tired. They are trying as hard as they can not to notice what's happening now. And there's no land warfare close by yet. When it comes, they'll have much more incentive to make it stop ASAP.
 
Re: how am I doing?
My life isn't as horrible as for some others out there. But things can change literally any minute, as for everybody else in the region. So I am trying to live in the moment while I can.
For those who don't know, I tried to get to Estonia via St.Petersburg back in September. Before Feb 2022, it was illegal (by Ukrainian laws) thing to do. I managed to contact some Ukrainian officials and learned that it is okay during the war, if your purpose is to leave the occupied areas/Russia.
But, as I also have Russian passport (issued locally after 2014, and almost impossible to get rid of without being put into danger), Russia views me as Russian citizen first, and by their laws, I had to get foreign travel passport in order to leave. I did that, and it took time. I also had to prepare money and other affairs. Thus I managed to get to the Estonian border only in September. My thinking was that it would be safer to deal with Russian documents after I cross the border, not before.
I knew that Russian passports issued in Crimea are not recognized by the EU. My Ukrainian foreign travel passport was outdated by that point. The rules are: you can apply for asylum if you have no valid travel documents. But when I got to the border, Estonian police and border guard told me that everything is fine with my Russian passport (the travel document I had to use to leave the Russian side of the border, because Russian laws) and thus I cannot ask for an asylum.
I told them many things about myself, and that I would be in danger if I return, but they did not care. They were angry and not cooperative, unwilling to listen. They blamed me for not coming sooner and for other things I had no control over. That night at the border is something that still haunts me to this day. Being rejected by the people who you considered to be good and being sent back to modern day neo-USSR. And there are things that I am not telling you here, because it is dangerous...
Anyway.. I came to St.Petersburg. Got seriously ill. Still, I got tickets to Vladikavkaz in order to try crossing into Georgia. But soon I found a lot of info online that told me the same story would happen there as well. There were no other good alternatives that came to my mind. Going somewhere else eastward wasn't looking like a good idea either, legally, logistically and for other reasons.
At that time, my little sister was still in Crimea. I've decided to come back here and deal with whatever happens to all of us together. Since then, there was a harsh winter without work. Serious depression, from which I barely managed to recover on my own, without meds or therapist. The dangers that are lurking out there are real. But I know who I am and what I stand for, and where my allegiance is.
Most importantly, I know that the bastards have already lost. I knew that back in Feb 2022. They will not succeed, no matter what happens to me personally. They can't do anything good in this world, and there's no "winning" for them in any shape or form.
I've stopped working on my Unity dev career for now. I tried to find some remote work, but failed and had to return back to working in a store. I do see a future where things go at least a little bit better. But for that to happen, a lot of people have to put in a lot of effort. There's nothing free, and freedom itself is not free. We all have to work for it.
Alright, I've already said much more than I should've. Over and out.

And proper supporting equipment is even more important than the actual manpower. If Russia is out of jammers, out of artillery that put a round within a kilometer of the aim point, and out of counter-battery radar, heavily manned trenches just run up the casualty count. I still think Ukraine has gotten it more right than wrong, concentrating to soon and to obviously just lets the the Russians concentrate as well.
I will also point out that Ukraine and the U.S. have run at least one first class info op about how the Ukrainians were going to attack in this one place, and only this one place...

So all of them would have had window seats! 😈

Staged death as variant. During the search in Prigozhyn's office, several documents of different surnames with a a photo of Prigozhyn were found. I think he can have own double, like and Putin

I would flat out ignore virtually every anonymous quote you are hearing on this topic. Everything that is being leaked is driven by agendas that cannot be assessed and isolated from any real context. We quite literally don't know who is saying what, why, when or how. It could be Milley talking in the Oval or some Colonel sitting at the Rosslyn Starbucks. We will find out several years from now.

Volunteered?  I'm inclined to think UKR simply paid some poor bastard to haul a load of cargo in his truck.  Would the GRU have any scruples paying a russian driver to do that?

That is professional humor, thanks!  You should post more often 😄
And if UKR had pushed harder we more casualties but still been stuck it would have read "UKR's seeming lack of concern for casualties...."

As utterly crazy as this is it might be a viable option for assaulting over a minefield. The thing I thing it gets slightly wrong is that it is controlled by the person on it. The poor bloody infantry need to be thinking about what their jobs are  if they live to dismount this little death trap. Also if the passenger doesn't have to control it, it implies it could be sent back for more passengers, and/or supplies. On the  extremely optimistic assumptions that something like this had a couple of kilometers of range, and that you could produce a couple of battalions worth of them, you might be able to get enough people and firepower over the minefield to allow a breaching operation to succeed. My, no doubt deranged, vision would be this centuries version of an air assault. Of course it might be even more suicidal than last century's version. But there would be at least a chance of disrupting what seems to be the emerging era of defensive dominance.
Like an air assault of course it will only work with the element of surprise, which may itself be close to extinct.

I'd say not fanciful at all.  and great for resupply.  very very very interesting.  Would be great for raids over the Dnieper.  Probably a lot less dangerous than rubber boats.

That big drone in your second paragraph is the first target of the little drones (or really their owners, who might have some fancier high altitude thing to take it out.)
Sensing has to be distributed, and you aren't necessarily limited to one sensor/drone. It will end up being multiple systems that mesh in various ways.  In the Diamond Age concept you don't have to hope your drones can loiter longer - you just have to make them cheap enough that you can afford to run them in randomized shifts so that they have time to recharge and you still have high enough density of them in the air for defense.  And they don't all have to be in the air - many can be parked, sensing passively, just as radio silent as the attack drones, with other devices producing the signal that they sense off of.  And LiFePO4 are good for *way* more than 200 charge cycles to 100%, but they have lower energy density than Li:ion and Li-Po.  You'd probably go for max energy density, since you may not even expect them to last 200 cycles in action anyway.  Ukraine gets what, a few days per drone?
Whoever has a good near term solution will probably find it classified very quickly, if it wasn't developed in a classified space to start with.  We definitely haven't seen anything that's good for defense yet, and given the speed that the western MIC works at, may spend a lot of money for a while without seeing much progress.  And whatever the first few solutions are, they won't last long once someone has to face them - a military with the flexibility that Ukraine has shown will come up with solutions on the fly.