chrisl

A certain large asian country likely has comparable EO capability at Mars to what Russia has over Ukraine.
They're not at parity with the west, but can realistically get there.  Successfully landing a functioning rover on Mars on the first time out (along with an orbiter to watch it and relay for it) is no mean feat.

Sounds like it was taken by an Improv Everywhere flash mob.
Just wait til they roll out the no pants day.
 

Kherson as-is is more of a resource sink for Russia than for Ukraine.  Everybody currently enclosed is going to end up dead or as a prisoner, and it's just a matter of them deciding which they'd rather be, and when.  
In the meantime, Russia has to keep using up supply-chain capability trying (or at least pretending) to support the units penned up there.  Once they're gone, all that capability can go back to supplying what's left of their Donbas positions.  So in some ways it's preferable to let Kherson stew a bit longer, running out the resources that are stockpiled there and using up supply capability (and bridging equipment) to keep supplies moving.  So for now, I'd leave them as a logistics problem for Russia rather than turning them into a logistics problem for Ukraine.  But it's also something of a humanitarian and political question, because there are a bunch of civilians in there, too, and it would be preferable to liberate them quickly.

Kherson as-is is more of a resource sink for Russia than for Ukraine.  Everybody currently enclosed is going to end up dead or as a prisoner, and it's just a matter of them deciding which they'd rather be, and when.  
In the meantime, Russia has to keep using up supply-chain capability trying (or at least pretending) to support the units penned up there.  Once they're gone, all that capability can go back to supplying what's left of their Donbas positions.  So in some ways it's preferable to let Kherson stew a bit longer, running out the resources that are stockpiled there and using up supply capability (and bridging equipment) to keep supplies moving.  So for now, I'd leave them as a logistics problem for Russia rather than turning them into a logistics problem for Ukraine.  But it's also something of a humanitarian and political question, because there are a bunch of civilians in there, too, and it would be preferable to liberate them quickly.

I've been thinking about this for a while from the technology side and what you really have to do is ask what the tank does for you and how to replace it, like you did here.  And then reframe the question in those terms.  I think the real question is "What's the future of direct fire for ground forces?"  The "ground forces" part is important because we've already seen direct fire disappear in the Navy (WW II was the transition), and in the Air Force, where if you see the enemy plane visually before it's smoking on the ground you probably effed up somewhere.  It hasn't happened on the ground because, as I think you pointed out, war always comes down to a guy in a hole in the ground with a gun.  Somebody has to actually take and hold areas, and it's that guy and his friends.  
Tanks are just a way to bring fire against that guy in the hole, because until recently, indirect fire was imprecise enough that clever guys can make their holes in the ground fancy enough that when the "boom" stops they can come back out with their guns to defend the hole against the other guys who want to sit in them.  But modern tech is at a point where we can almost identify all the holes with remote sensors (air and space) and send each hole its own targeted munition.  Tanks are/were a way to bring up HE for addressing harder defenses and masses of guys, mobile MG pillboxes for addressing moving masses of guys, and AP sources for addressing the tanks that are there to do the same things to your guys.  But it's also a big heavy target with a very demanding logistical tail, and you have to protect the tail as effectively as the tank or you just have big monument to build a park around when it breaks down or runs out of fuel.  And now every squad (in some armies) is carrying a missile that can destroy that tank from the horizon just by pointing in the general direction and pushing a button.  
A swarm of loitering munitions with long dwell time can supply the targeted HE on-demand.  Or a MLRS with PGMs if you need a lot of bang a little slower.  Drones are at a point where they can knock on the door of a bunker like a land shark and wait til you open the door before blowing up.
A swarm of lightly armored UGV with swappable modules can provide a lot of the other services:
MG without a head that has to be kept down. CIWS for defending against the other guy's loitering munitions Rocket launcher for close (a 100 m up to a few km over the horizon) fire against various targets, including residual tanks Rescue vehicle to get the guys in the hole out to medical care quickly Contribute to the Borg spotting network, because it can have eyes in every direction at all times.

Vlad is asking the professionals for advice on how to surrender?

Vlad is asking the professionals for advice on how to surrender?

Big news, or best trolling EVER. I think poster is a serving U.S. army officer.

Since Russia seems once again to be the largest supplier of arms to the UA, stopping those arms deliveries from RU could be a starting point...

Vlad is asking the professionals for advice on how to surrender?

And as long as there's a fair possibility of political collapse, it's going to be better to wait for the new regime, because there's no reason to believe they'd honor agreements of the old one.  Particularly in the case of Russia.

And as long as there's a fair possibility of political collapse, it's going to be better to wait for the new regime, because there's no reason to believe they'd honor agreements of the old one.  Particularly in the case of Russia.

Putting on my rosy tinted glasses here; if the Russian Federation shows signs of crumbling, could we make lifting of sanctions contingent on mutual control over the nukes and start a new round of deescalation? The Russian nukes are controlled and successively decomissioned (maybe not fully to be realistic) and the West follows suit to some extent.

We've done it before. (not crowdsourced of course, government funded) Look up "Megatons to Megawatts" for some interesting reading. It's a little known fact that for 20 years, HALF of all US electricity production from nuclear energy (So about 10% of total) used to be Soviet/Russian nuclear warheads decommissioned due to arms control treaties. The project was a solution to the maintenance of security over thousands of nuclear warheads to prevent diversion of the SMN (special nuclear material). Through various processes it was downblended into harmless (from a "go boom" standpoint) useable fuel for regular nuclear power plants in the US. Thousands of warheads. What better way to make use of old warheads than keeping the heat and lights on. Beats burying them somewhere.

Dave

Already trying to compete for typo of the week...

That's probably the best typo we're going to see all week, and at current levels of activity there are going to be some good ones.

Back to the "Is the tank dead?" question.
My answer is "No, but it depends on who has the tank and who they're fighting" and goes back to a post I made in May regarding whether modern military technology favors the defense.  Modern military tech favors the side that has it.  
If you have a bunch of tanks and you're facing an opponent who has at/over the horizon "if you can detect it it's dead" ATGM capability, the tank is effectively dead - you have to basically have infantry go through the hard way and clear everything (and really *everything*) to the range of the defender's ATGMs.
If you have tanks and all your opponent has is LOS RPGs, you can use your tanks more or less the same way you'd have used them in CMBO - combined arms infantry support role, and tank on tank in some environments.  Especially if your tanks have both modern sighting/shooting capability and modern RA and APS to defend from RPG fire and the occasional ATGM.
We've gotten to watch this in Ukraine.  On Feb 24 it was an almost symmetric technology situation: Russia and Ukraine were both equipped almost identically with old Warsaw Pact stuff and its descendants, with a big dose of modern ATGM and drone technology on the Ukraine side (some of which is Ukrainian - I saw some good ads for the Stugna-P).  Russia started with bad tactics and assumptions and was stopped quickly by a lot of 1 shot/1 kill ATGM activity, with virtually every UA squad carrying multiple modern ATGMs. Plus TB-2s with IR guided ATGMs.
Now things are turned around and Ukraine is on the attack.  Something that has stood out to me is that the Ukrainians are  still willing to ride in on top of their armor and race in on wheeled vehicles after the events of the last 6 months.  I take that to mean that while on paper Russia has ATGMs at least superficially similar to the Stugna P, in practice they're not widely distributed - certainly nothing like the proliferation of Stugna/NLAW/Javelin in the hands of the UA.  So when the UA put a dozen tanks on the front, along with a bunch of mounted infantry, they could actually execute combined arms attacks because they had confidence that they wouldn't lose all the tanks (and their riders) in the first 20 seconds.  They still have to deal with RPGs, but if they're unguided they're low accuracy at longer ranges and have to be fired from ranges where light arms/MGs can suppress the operators.
This war is really showing the relevance of asymmetries in capabilities.  It started out as close to a modern symmetric war as you could have: two former Warsaw Pact countries with essentially the same equipment and training, and really that was the situation in 2014.  Mass won in 2014.  Ukraine started breaking the symmetry in 2014 by getting western training to modernize the way they fight. They managed to contain the Donbas action and use it as a way to improve the training and experience in their of their active and reserve military.  Russia didn't.  
Fast forward to 2022, and we saw the improved strategic and tactical capabilities of Ukraine at the start, combined with the added asymmetry of 3 ATGMs for every tank in the RA, and gigabytes of ISR.  Ukrainian forces disappeared into fog and started melting the initial Russian attack.  We never really saw a lot of massed Ukrainians, but they hit the Kyiv/Kharkiv front hard enough that Russia was forced to withdraw.  And from there the asymmetries have grown - western governments developed confidence that Ukraine could win and started pouring in resources for both immediate use and long term development - material, training, ISR.  And sanctioning Russia, so the RA has become more and more desperate for equipment, falling back on older and older stuff, expanding the asymmetry in the other direction as Russian capability deteriorates.
So the tank is fine if your opponent doesn't have a bunch of modern ATGMs, and hosed if it does. So if it's UK/Sweden vs. the US, the tank is dead.  But the same is true for just about anything - does a particular capability create an asymmetric advantage?  It all depends on who is facing who.
 

The one item I think we can all agree on is UA opsec has been spectacular.  We know very little about the UA tactical structure and if they are actually distributing small packets of armor to back up their spearheads.   Also there was at least one post by Russians of an armor counterattack that just simply got shot to hell by AT weapons and possibly arty.  (typically it sounds like they didn't have infantry support.)
One possibility  (and this thought comes from an earlier post by LLF of a drone recon of a Russian position) It may be (and very likely) that UA had reconned the Russian defenses in depth and knew there wasn't much in the way of armor facing this area.
One other thought - it seems UA forces are quite used to taking on enemy armor with just AT weapons.  I suspect that is not the case with Russians especially all the new cannon fodder that has been pushed forward.  Just a few tanks could make all the difference there.

Back to the "Is the tank dead?" question.
My answer is "No, but it depends on who has the tank and who they're fighting" and goes back to a post I made in May regarding whether modern military technology favors the defense.  Modern military tech favors the side that has it.  
If you have a bunch of tanks and you're facing an opponent who has at/over the horizon "if you can detect it it's dead" ATGM capability, the tank is effectively dead - you have to basically have infantry go through the hard way and clear everything (and really *everything*) to the range of the defender's ATGMs.
If you have tanks and all your opponent has is LOS RPGs, you can use your tanks more or less the same way you'd have used them in CMBO - combined arms infantry support role, and tank on tank in some environments.  Especially if your tanks have both modern sighting/shooting capability and modern RA and APS to defend from RPG fire and the occasional ATGM.
We've gotten to watch this in Ukraine.  On Feb 24 it was an almost symmetric technology situation: Russia and Ukraine were both equipped almost identically with old Warsaw Pact stuff and its descendants, with a big dose of modern ATGM and drone technology on the Ukraine side (some of which is Ukrainian - I saw some good ads for the Stugna-P).  Russia started with bad tactics and assumptions and was stopped quickly by a lot of 1 shot/1 kill ATGM activity, with virtually every UA squad carrying multiple modern ATGMs. Plus TB-2s with IR guided ATGMs.
Now things are turned around and Ukraine is on the attack.  Something that has stood out to me is that the Ukrainians are  still willing to ride in on top of their armor and race in on wheeled vehicles after the events of the last 6 months.  I take that to mean that while on paper Russia has ATGMs at least superficially similar to the Stugna P, in practice they're not widely distributed - certainly nothing like the proliferation of Stugna/NLAW/Javelin in the hands of the UA.  So when the UA put a dozen tanks on the front, along with a bunch of mounted infantry, they could actually execute combined arms attacks because they had confidence that they wouldn't lose all the tanks (and their riders) in the first 20 seconds.  They still have to deal with RPGs, but if they're unguided they're low accuracy at longer ranges and have to be fired from ranges where light arms/MGs can suppress the operators.
This war is really showing the relevance of asymmetries in capabilities.  It started out as close to a modern symmetric war as you could have: two former Warsaw Pact countries with essentially the same equipment and training, and really that was the situation in 2014.  Mass won in 2014.  Ukraine started breaking the symmetry in 2014 by getting western training to modernize the way they fight. They managed to contain the Donbas action and use it as a way to improve the training and experience in their of their active and reserve military.  Russia didn't.  
Fast forward to 2022, and we saw the improved strategic and tactical capabilities of Ukraine at the start, combined with the added asymmetry of 3 ATGMs for every tank in the RA, and gigabytes of ISR.  Ukrainian forces disappeared into fog and started melting the initial Russian attack.  We never really saw a lot of massed Ukrainians, but they hit the Kyiv/Kharkiv front hard enough that Russia was forced to withdraw.  And from there the asymmetries have grown - western governments developed confidence that Ukraine could win and started pouring in resources for both immediate use and long term development - material, training, ISR.  And sanctioning Russia, so the RA has become more and more desperate for equipment, falling back on older and older stuff, expanding the asymmetry in the other direction as Russian capability deteriorates.
So the tank is fine if your opponent doesn't have a bunch of modern ATGMs, and hosed if it does. So if it's UK/Sweden vs. the US, the tank is dead.  But the same is true for just about anything - does a particular capability create an asymmetric advantage?  It all depends on who is facing who.
 

Using boats to cross rivers? Oh my god, such a highly unexpected turn of events. Truly, nobody could have predicted that.
This makes me think about the bridges. I was already thinking, Ukraine is competent at river crossings and Russians are not, so blowing the bridges might be in their favor even if the intent to continue moving ahead. soon. Chance of cutting off the enemy now might be worth slower advance later.

I've always regarded the RUs use of referendums as a bit of gaslighting for the West. So that they can say: "See the local people want to be aligned with us and want our protection. How can you be against that, unless you really don't like democracy."  It doesn't work anymore, except perhaps the 'tankies'.

Back to the "Is the tank dead?" question.
My answer is "No, but it depends on who has the tank and who they're fighting" and goes back to a post I made in May regarding whether modern military technology favors the defense.  Modern military tech favors the side that has it.  
If you have a bunch of tanks and you're facing an opponent who has at/over the horizon "if you can detect it it's dead" ATGM capability, the tank is effectively dead - you have to basically have infantry go through the hard way and clear everything (and really *everything*) to the range of the defender's ATGMs.
If you have tanks and all your opponent has is LOS RPGs, you can use your tanks more or less the same way you'd have used them in CMBO - combined arms infantry support role, and tank on tank in some environments.  Especially if your tanks have both modern sighting/shooting capability and modern RA and APS to defend from RPG fire and the occasional ATGM.
We've gotten to watch this in Ukraine.  On Feb 24 it was an almost symmetric technology situation: Russia and Ukraine were both equipped almost identically with old Warsaw Pact stuff and its descendants, with a big dose of modern ATGM and drone technology on the Ukraine side (some of which is Ukrainian - I saw some good ads for the Stugna-P).  Russia started with bad tactics and assumptions and was stopped quickly by a lot of 1 shot/1 kill ATGM activity, with virtually every UA squad carrying multiple modern ATGMs. Plus TB-2s with IR guided ATGMs.
Now things are turned around and Ukraine is on the attack.  Something that has stood out to me is that the Ukrainians are  still willing to ride in on top of their armor and race in on wheeled vehicles after the events of the last 6 months.  I take that to mean that while on paper Russia has ATGMs at least superficially similar to the Stugna P, in practice they're not widely distributed - certainly nothing like the proliferation of Stugna/NLAW/Javelin in the hands of the UA.  So when the UA put a dozen tanks on the front, along with a bunch of mounted infantry, they could actually execute combined arms attacks because they had confidence that they wouldn't lose all the tanks (and their riders) in the first 20 seconds.  They still have to deal with RPGs, but if they're unguided they're low accuracy at longer ranges and have to be fired from ranges where light arms/MGs can suppress the operators.
This war is really showing the relevance of asymmetries in capabilities.  It started out as close to a modern symmetric war as you could have: two former Warsaw Pact countries with essentially the same equipment and training, and really that was the situation in 2014.  Mass won in 2014.  Ukraine started breaking the symmetry in 2014 by getting western training to modernize the way they fight. They managed to contain the Donbas action and use it as a way to improve the training and experience in their of their active and reserve military.  Russia didn't.  
Fast forward to 2022, and we saw the improved strategic and tactical capabilities of Ukraine at the start, combined with the added asymmetry of 3 ATGMs for every tank in the RA, and gigabytes of ISR.  Ukrainian forces disappeared into fog and started melting the initial Russian attack.  We never really saw a lot of massed Ukrainians, but they hit the Kyiv/Kharkiv front hard enough that Russia was forced to withdraw.  And from there the asymmetries have grown - western governments developed confidence that Ukraine could win and started pouring in resources for both immediate use and long term development - material, training, ISR.  And sanctioning Russia, so the RA has become more and more desperate for equipment, falling back on older and older stuff, expanding the asymmetry in the other direction as Russian capability deteriorates.
So the tank is fine if your opponent doesn't have a bunch of modern ATGMs, and hosed if it does. So if it's UK/Sweden vs. the US, the tank is dead.  But the same is true for just about anything - does a particular capability create an asymmetric advantage?  It all depends on who is facing who.
 

Back to the "Is the tank dead?" question.
My answer is "No, but it depends on who has the tank and who they're fighting" and goes back to a post I made in May regarding whether modern military technology favors the defense.  Modern military tech favors the side that has it.  
If you have a bunch of tanks and you're facing an opponent who has at/over the horizon "if you can detect it it's dead" ATGM capability, the tank is effectively dead - you have to basically have infantry go through the hard way and clear everything (and really *everything*) to the range of the defender's ATGMs.
If you have tanks and all your opponent has is LOS RPGs, you can use your tanks more or less the same way you'd have used them in CMBO - combined arms infantry support role, and tank on tank in some environments.  Especially if your tanks have both modern sighting/shooting capability and modern RA and APS to defend from RPG fire and the occasional ATGM.
We've gotten to watch this in Ukraine.  On Feb 24 it was an almost symmetric technology situation: Russia and Ukraine were both equipped almost identically with old Warsaw Pact stuff and its descendants, with a big dose of modern ATGM and drone technology on the Ukraine side (some of which is Ukrainian - I saw some good ads for the Stugna-P).  Russia started with bad tactics and assumptions and was stopped quickly by a lot of 1 shot/1 kill ATGM activity, with virtually every UA squad carrying multiple modern ATGMs. Plus TB-2s with IR guided ATGMs.
Now things are turned around and Ukraine is on the attack.  Something that has stood out to me is that the Ukrainians are  still willing to ride in on top of their armor and race in on wheeled vehicles after the events of the last 6 months.  I take that to mean that while on paper Russia has ATGMs at least superficially similar to the Stugna P, in practice they're not widely distributed - certainly nothing like the proliferation of Stugna/NLAW/Javelin in the hands of the UA.  So when the UA put a dozen tanks on the front, along with a bunch of mounted infantry, they could actually execute combined arms attacks because they had confidence that they wouldn't lose all the tanks (and their riders) in the first 20 seconds.  They still have to deal with RPGs, but if they're unguided they're low accuracy at longer ranges and have to be fired from ranges where light arms/MGs can suppress the operators.
This war is really showing the relevance of asymmetries in capabilities.  It started out as close to a modern symmetric war as you could have: two former Warsaw Pact countries with essentially the same equipment and training, and really that was the situation in 2014.  Mass won in 2014.  Ukraine started breaking the symmetry in 2014 by getting western training to modernize the way they fight. They managed to contain the Donbas action and use it as a way to improve the training and experience in their of their active and reserve military.  Russia didn't.  
Fast forward to 2022, and we saw the improved strategic and tactical capabilities of Ukraine at the start, combined with the added asymmetry of 3 ATGMs for every tank in the RA, and gigabytes of ISR.  Ukrainian forces disappeared into fog and started melting the initial Russian attack.  We never really saw a lot of massed Ukrainians, but they hit the Kyiv/Kharkiv front hard enough that Russia was forced to withdraw.  And from there the asymmetries have grown - western governments developed confidence that Ukraine could win and started pouring in resources for both immediate use and long term development - material, training, ISR.  And sanctioning Russia, so the RA has become more and more desperate for equipment, falling back on older and older stuff, expanding the asymmetry in the other direction as Russian capability deteriorates.
So the tank is fine if your opponent doesn't have a bunch of modern ATGMs, and hosed if it does. So if it's UK/Sweden vs. the US, the tank is dead.  But the same is true for just about anything - does a particular capability create an asymmetric advantage?  It all depends on who is facing who.
 

Back to the "Is the tank dead?" question.
My answer is "No, but it depends on who has the tank and who they're fighting" and goes back to a post I made in May regarding whether modern military technology favors the defense.  Modern military tech favors the side that has it.  
If you have a bunch of tanks and you're facing an opponent who has at/over the horizon "if you can detect it it's dead" ATGM capability, the tank is effectively dead - you have to basically have infantry go through the hard way and clear everything (and really *everything*) to the range of the defender's ATGMs.
If you have tanks and all your opponent has is LOS RPGs, you can use your tanks more or less the same way you'd have used them in CMBO - combined arms infantry support role, and tank on tank in some environments.  Especially if your tanks have both modern sighting/shooting capability and modern RA and APS to defend from RPG fire and the occasional ATGM.
We've gotten to watch this in Ukraine.  On Feb 24 it was an almost symmetric technology situation: Russia and Ukraine were both equipped almost identically with old Warsaw Pact stuff and its descendants, with a big dose of modern ATGM and drone technology on the Ukraine side (some of which is Ukrainian - I saw some good ads for the Stugna-P).  Russia started with bad tactics and assumptions and was stopped quickly by a lot of 1 shot/1 kill ATGM activity, with virtually every UA squad carrying multiple modern ATGMs. Plus TB-2s with IR guided ATGMs.
Now things are turned around and Ukraine is on the attack.  Something that has stood out to me is that the Ukrainians are  still willing to ride in on top of their armor and race in on wheeled vehicles after the events of the last 6 months.  I take that to mean that while on paper Russia has ATGMs at least superficially similar to the Stugna P, in practice they're not widely distributed - certainly nothing like the proliferation of Stugna/NLAW/Javelin in the hands of the UA.  So when the UA put a dozen tanks on the front, along with a bunch of mounted infantry, they could actually execute combined arms attacks because they had confidence that they wouldn't lose all the tanks (and their riders) in the first 20 seconds.  They still have to deal with RPGs, but if they're unguided they're low accuracy at longer ranges and have to be fired from ranges where light arms/MGs can suppress the operators.
This war is really showing the relevance of asymmetries in capabilities.  It started out as close to a modern symmetric war as you could have: two former Warsaw Pact countries with essentially the same equipment and training, and really that was the situation in 2014.  Mass won in 2014.  Ukraine started breaking the symmetry in 2014 by getting western training to modernize the way they fight. They managed to contain the Donbas action and use it as a way to improve the training and experience in their of their active and reserve military.  Russia didn't.  
Fast forward to 2022, and we saw the improved strategic and tactical capabilities of Ukraine at the start, combined with the added asymmetry of 3 ATGMs for every tank in the RA, and gigabytes of ISR.  Ukrainian forces disappeared into fog and started melting the initial Russian attack.  We never really saw a lot of massed Ukrainians, but they hit the Kyiv/Kharkiv front hard enough that Russia was forced to withdraw.  And from there the asymmetries have grown - western governments developed confidence that Ukraine could win and started pouring in resources for both immediate use and long term development - material, training, ISR.  And sanctioning Russia, so the RA has become more and more desperate for equipment, falling back on older and older stuff, expanding the asymmetry in the other direction as Russian capability deteriorates.
So the tank is fine if your opponent doesn't have a bunch of modern ATGMs, and hosed if it does. So if it's UK/Sweden vs. the US, the tank is dead.  But the same is true for just about anything - does a particular capability create an asymmetric advantage?  It all depends on who is facing who.
 

That's probably the best typo we're going to see all week, and at current levels of activity there are going to be some good ones.