chrisl

FWIW, cyclocross in icy conditions is a nightmare of a different sort.  Decades ago, when I lived in a cold place, there was CX in the early winter and late winter.  Early winter was mud and wet snow.  Late winter was snow and ice.  The fun part is that the ice develops ruts and if you're going down a hill you have to get into the correct rut out of a horrible mishmash of ruts, because once you were in, you were following it like a rail.   Some ruts led to the continuation of the course, and others led to things like trees and picnic tables. 

FWIW, cyclocross in icy conditions is a nightmare of a different sort.  Decades ago, when I lived in a cold place, there was CX in the early winter and late winter.  Early winter was mud and wet snow.  Late winter was snow and ice.  The fun part is that the ice develops ruts and if you're going down a hill you have to get into the correct rut out of a horrible mishmash of ruts, because once you were in, you were following it like a rail.   Some ruts led to the continuation of the course, and others led to things like trees and picnic tables. 

Let's hope they are military Operational Analysis/Operational Research bean counters then rather than the treasury/management consulting type who decided that maintaining adequate national stocks of PPE or a domestic production capability was a waste of money prior to the outbreak of the COVID pandemic.
 
The phrase that has always stuck in my mind was the army officer who described military logistics as 'not so much just in time as just in case.'

That kind of thing can be a lot harder than it sounds, as we got to see over the past couple years.  It's not just the assembly plant where they put the bang in the bombs, but all of the supply chain that leads to that.  The metal suppliers that provide particular alloys, the chemical suppliers that produce the components of the explosives, their suppliers of precursor materials, etc.  And you're trying to do it in a world that has spent decades tuning everything to be just-in-time, carefully forecasted so there's no slack in anybody's supply chain because it costs money to keep extra material around, or even worse, buy it and have it go to waste.

You basically have to do a supply chain analysis regularly, all the way back to everything that goes into it, and keep enough stock on hand to use at the highest likely rate for long enough to ramp up the supply chain to produce at at least the same rate you're using it.  Just doing the analysis is non-trivial, and you have to do it regularly because something you spec today may not exist in production two years from now, let alone ten.  With anything electronic the obsolescence time can be less than a year, and the production ramp up can be a year or more.  And then there are things where the part number and name stay the same, but there's substantial difference in formulation that can mess up processes that depend on it.  And if there's no commercial market for something that goes into what you need, you have to either stockpile it or maintain an artificial market if you don't want to lose the capability. 

You basically have to do a supply chain analysis regularly, all the way back to everything that goes into it, and keep enough stock on hand to use at the highest likely rate for long enough to ramp up the supply chain to produce at at least the same rate you're using it.  Just doing the analysis is non-trivial, and you have to do it regularly because something you spec today may not exist in production two years from now, let alone ten.  With anything electronic the obsolescence time can be less than a year, and the production ramp up can be a year or more.  And then there are things where the part number and name stay the same, but there's substantial difference in formulation that can mess up processes that depend on it.  And if there's no commercial market for something that goes into what you need, you have to either stockpile it or maintain an artificial market if you don't want to lose the capability. 

That kind of thing can be a lot harder than it sounds, as we got to see over the past couple years.  It's not just the assembly plant where they put the bang in the bombs, but all of the supply chain that leads to that.  The metal suppliers that provide particular alloys, the chemical suppliers that produce the components of the explosives, their suppliers of precursor materials, etc.  And you're trying to do it in a world that has spent decades tuning everything to be just-in-time, carefully forecasted so there's no slack in anybody's supply chain because it costs money to keep extra material around, or even worse, buy it and have it go to waste.

This whole RU offensive on Kyiv thing has been totally confusing for me w a UKR official saying it.  It seems utterly absurd given what we see every day, week after week, month after month.  Yeah, maybe they've got 200k new mobiks or a new draft cohort, but what about equipment, training, logistics, etc?  All these troops could reasonably do is sit in defense or be shredded in more insane cannon fodder attacks.
Even the element of surprise is impossible w all the ISR available.  If they massed 200k near Kyiv we'd all know it and UKR would start hitting the ammo dumps.  And for an offensive they'd need ammo dumps near the start line, they couldn't just leave everything way back where they couldn't move it fast enough to keep up w their lightning-blitzkrieg advances.
Which gets back to how many dead RU men will it take for the population to start to turn on Putin in a meaningful way?  I am guessing a lot of the deaths are simply hidden from the families for as long as possible to avoid backlash and to avoid paying off death benefits.

It should be costed in detail both ways. I strongly suspect though, that the lowest cost/lowest risk way to deal with the problem is just accepting that very large ammo stockpile you might not use all of is not that much more expensive, and furthermore is an insurance policy worth having. It isn't that much money in the overall scheme of the defense budget.
 

You basically have to do a supply chain analysis regularly, all the way back to everything that goes into it, and keep enough stock on hand to use at the highest likely rate for long enough to ramp up the supply chain to produce at at least the same rate you're using it.  Just doing the analysis is non-trivial, and you have to do it regularly because something you spec today may not exist in production two years from now, let alone ten.  With anything electronic the obsolescence time can be less than a year, and the production ramp up can be a year or more.  And then there are things where the part number and name stay the same, but there's substantial difference in formulation that can mess up processes that depend on it.  And if there's no commercial market for something that goes into what you need, you have to either stockpile it or maintain an artificial market if you don't want to lose the capability. 

You basically have to do a supply chain analysis regularly, all the way back to everything that goes into it, and keep enough stock on hand to use at the highest likely rate for long enough to ramp up the supply chain to produce at at least the same rate you're using it.  Just doing the analysis is non-trivial, and you have to do it regularly because something you spec today may not exist in production two years from now, let alone ten.  With anything electronic the obsolescence time can be less than a year, and the production ramp up can be a year or more.  And then there are things where the part number and name stay the same, but there's substantial difference in formulation that can mess up processes that depend on it.  And if there's no commercial market for something that goes into what you need, you have to either stockpile it or maintain an artificial market if you don't want to lose the capability. 

That kind of thing can be a lot harder than it sounds, as we got to see over the past couple years.  It's not just the assembly plant where they put the bang in the bombs, but all of the supply chain that leads to that.  The metal suppliers that provide particular alloys, the chemical suppliers that produce the components of the explosives, their suppliers of precursor materials, etc.  And you're trying to do it in a world that has spent decades tuning everything to be just-in-time, carefully forecasted so there's no slack in anybody's supply chain because it costs money to keep extra material around, or even worse, buy it and have it go to waste.

That kind of thing can be a lot harder than it sounds, as we got to see over the past couple years.  It's not just the assembly plant where they put the bang in the bombs, but all of the supply chain that leads to that.  The metal suppliers that provide particular alloys, the chemical suppliers that produce the components of the explosives, their suppliers of precursor materials, etc.  And you're trying to do it in a world that has spent decades tuning everything to be just-in-time, carefully forecasted so there's no slack in anybody's supply chain because it costs money to keep extra material around, or even worse, buy it and have it go to waste.

That kind of thing can be a lot harder than it sounds, as we got to see over the past couple years.  It's not just the assembly plant where they put the bang in the bombs, but all of the supply chain that leads to that.  The metal suppliers that provide particular alloys, the chemical suppliers that produce the components of the explosives, their suppliers of precursor materials, etc.  And you're trying to do it in a world that has spent decades tuning everything to be just-in-time, carefully forecasted so there's no slack in anybody's supply chain because it costs money to keep extra material around, or even worse, buy it and have it go to waste.

When we're collating reports on the relevance of armour (especially MBTs) it's perhaps important to recall that the RU and UKR experiences of using tanks differs rather starkly in this war. The UA might have a rosier picture of the usefulness of armour, since they're not facing the same organic  AT systems (Stugna, Javelin, NLAW) or the ridiculously efficient PGM strikes of modern 155mm guided by the best battlefield sensor suite ever deployed.
The UA is facing an enemy that's much closer in capability to the kind of foe they were "designed" to fight.
It's also worth bearing in mind that the Russian experience early in the war was very much skewed by the political/strategic considerations that their planners had taken into account which simply didn't materialise. Much of the Russian loss seems to have been caused at root by the assumption that serious fighting wouldn't take place, and that moving under-screened columns down readily-identifiable lines of advance wouldn't be a problem, amongst a hundred other mistaken assessments (most of which would have had to be correct in order for Putin's initial plan to bear fruit) and systematic failings.

Nothing wrong with journalists uncovering sanctions running, the key is for the government to take notice and bust them, which as the arrests indicate is occurring.

I don't think that it cannot be talked about here. I actually think the discussion here is usually very valuable. But over the last fews days I've seen the discussion start to get needlessly personal and that doesn't benefit anyone.

If there is one - just one! - thing we all should have learnt out of the last 20 years of misadventures in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, et al, it's that you can't kill your way out of an insurgency.
Should have, but apparently didn't.

I'm 66 and a cancer survivor. I still run 4 times a week, bike, and swim at the Y. Took a bit to get back to seriousness after chemo but feeling strong now. One thing they told me was that they see that people who are in good health and good shape have the fewest issues handling chemo. Gotta' say I'm glad I WAS in good shape because chemo was a b1tch. Don't recommend. Zero stars out of 5.
My wife is also a runner. She's 68 and looks like she's about 50. Our ultra running days are behind us but I can't stop running. 
Dave

Perhaps the amount spent on defense is not really changing.  It is just that due to the effect of sanctions and lowered productivity from conscription that their overall budget has lowered so much that defense spending that used to be 5% is now 30%. 

Serviceman of 93rd mech.brigade says, their 4-months campaign in Bakhmut is over. They inflicted alot of losses to the enemy, but their losses also enough big. They are going to rotation for R&R (or likely already left the sector) and wish good luck to those, who will come to substitute them.
 
Maybe toughest brigade of AFU. Heavy fights since May under endless Russian arty rains southern from Izium and after this heaviest fights since autumn near Bakhmut. Thanks, guys, you are titans and no one Marvel superhero can't stand nearby
 

An article (in Ukrainian) how Ukrainian volunteers-engineers from Respeechers and i3 Engineering companies and programmers, serving in 125th TD Brigade, created AI warning system ZVOOK (from UKR. "zvuk" -  "sound"). This system allows to complement possibilities of Air Defense radars to detect approaching missiles and kamikadze drones - it's sound sensors listen the air, select suspicious sound, AI analyzes it and if the signal is matches to threat sound, it transmits alarm via cell phones towers to Air Defense datacenters. By the placement of activated sensor,  AD can decide to react on that direction. 
This system had been developing four months and was set up immediately after AI could detect true signal at 50/50 level - because we had a lack of radar covering - on the meeting develppers with Lviv oblast administration, representatives of cell phone operators and militaries they got permission to launch the first trial systems. Gradually engineers enchanced sound mirrors, electronics and could learn AI to work almost without mistakes. Interesting, that most problematic was to learn AI to differ a sound of cruise missile from cows mooing.
In present time 40 ZVOOK sensors already installed on more critical directions, but developers say there are need 600 sensors throughout all country in several echelones to be effective complement of radars. In plans of developers - to make the system capable to determine a coordinates, speed and course of target. Now it can determinate approximately a bearing and elevation angle. Also developers want to scale the project and turn it in future to commercial product.
 https://www.epravda.com.ua/publications/2022/11/28/694314/
 ZVOOK sensor on cell phone tower

And "prototype" of ZVOOK - Dutch soldier of 30th years with acoustic system. But now human ears and brain substituted with electronic and AI
 

About the dragon teeth, I think it's just that if the concrete is not properly mixed, it hardens with cracks going through it, and if rainwater enters those cracks, then the block cracks when the water freezes and expands.
Especially if it goes above freezing in the daytime and then below during the nights, you get multiple cycles of expansion and cracking.
The reason for not mixing the concrete is probably just that the Russians are in a big rush to produce as many of them as possible, and stirring the concrete mix takes time.
I'd expect the same to happen with a lot of those concrete pillboxes they are churning out.

Heh ... the North American auto industry decided that plastic bumpers would be a great cost saver.  Not!   I had a Dodge Caravan van.  Very cold day and my daughter took it out and hit a huge a** porcupine crossing the highway.   Explaining to the auto insurance people the porcupine shaped hole knocked out of the plastic bumper was a interesting exercise.
Insurance adjuster:  "Did you hit a rock or something?"
Me:  "No.  A huge porcupine crossing the highway"
Insurance adjuster:  *blink*blink* "No way that was caused by hitting a porcupine."
Me: "Here is quills as proof and pictures my daughter took, including the deceased porcupine."

Probably just someone dropped a crate unloading a shipment of cigarettes from China.