chrisl

Shhh.  Maybe there will be a bridging equipment expansion pack.

Shhh.  Maybe there will be a bridging equipment expansion pack.

So did the force positions change along the river on each pass?  Are you seeing the future and can you get the info to the UA?

Apart from Excalibur/ Copperhead/ Krasnopol which are just guided rounds, it is possible to deploy at least some "smart sub-munitions" like in case of SADARM. Given the physics though, guns are really not optimal for launching drone- like munitions, compared to rocket launchers.
Now for MLRS, BM-30 has   UAV launched from the tube since the '80s I think. For US built stuff, the Ground Launched SDB, if fielded and coupled with SDB II, gives you a gliding "drone" straight away. IIRC, the venerable Assault Breaker program envisioned a swarm of "drones/ smart submunitions" deployed with rockets.

Despite the nice simple maps for us civvies, that Times article on the Donbass betrayed its own author's lack of understanding of the logistics, military process and operational flows of this war:
Ehh, last RUSSIAN offensive, probably of this year. 
Not mentioning Ukraine in that paragraph displays a lack of knowledge of the rebuilt and steadily increasing capacity of the UKR forces, especially considering that Kharkhiv was a direct Ukrainian attack and not a follow-up op like Kiev. It gives the impression that Ukraine has no hand in its fate.
This article suggests the authors' bias of Ukraine as still a supine victim, that Russia could freeze the conflict, that Russia stil holds the trump cards. It isn't, Ukraine wont let it and it doesn't.
 

The note about part of the government being paralyzed by fear of nuclear escalation makes a lot of sense.  Germans older than about 50 grew up expecting their country (whether east or west) to become a nuclear battleground because of the USSR and the US.  Even in the US you could see or read analysis in the regular news about how many German towns and of what size would get obliterated by tactical nukes of various yields.  And then Chernobyl happened and heightened that anxiety.  It was big in the late 80s when I spent some time there shortly after Chernobyl, and that generation (my age and a bit older) is now in power.  It even is a major theme in the TV show Dark, where the AKW (nuclear power plant) is at the center of the supernatural happenings.  Germany made a deal with the devil (Russia) to be able to continue using fossil fuels while they develop renewables, rather than go full on nuclear like France, and now there's a faction that is still tied to the root nuclear fears that led to that deal. 

Absolutely me. Had to do a double take.

If I'm the marketing guy at your local defense contractor, the pitch is that you're already there.  The Javelin is quite literally a short dwell time drone with a rocket motor instead of a battery or long duration combustion motor.  It's got all the basic features, and the only thing it's missing is duration and connection back to the local ISR mesh, both of which can fit in the existing package.  Even the systems you need to create the mesh and for data fusion aren't likely to be difficult to come up with or fit into existing platforms - you can make a mesh with cheap cell phones that don't even need a connection to a cell network, just each other.

Droog, Where's My БМП?
 
 

The note about part of the government being paralyzed by fear of nuclear escalation makes a lot of sense.  Germans older than about 50 grew up expecting their country (whether east or west) to become a nuclear battleground because of the USSR and the US.  Even in the US you could see or read analysis in the regular news about how many German towns and of what size would get obliterated by tactical nukes of various yields.  And then Chernobyl happened and heightened that anxiety.  It was big in the late 80s when I spent some time there shortly after Chernobyl, and that generation (my age and a bit older) is now in power.  It even is a major theme in the TV show Dark, where the AKW (nuclear power plant) is at the center of the supernatural happenings.  Germany made a deal with the devil (Russia) to be able to continue using fossil fuels while they develop renewables, rather than go full on nuclear like France, and now there's a faction that is still tied to the root nuclear fears that led to that deal. 

If someone can point to a german transcript I can probably do it.  But I can't type fast enough in german to keep up, and don't have the on-the-fly skillz to just listen in german and spew english out my fingerz.  But here's my best shot at paraphrasing:  
The gist is that Kiesewetter thinks that Scholz and Macron are playing for time and hoping that rather than Ukraine winning, in the sense of Russia being driven out, possibly with regime change or shift of power in Russia, they're hoping that it will lead to a cease fire and withdrawal of Russian troops back behind the borders [I think he referred to January borders]. All that, despite having cover from the Bundestag - he says colleagues in the FDP, the Greens, and the Union [CDU/CSU] are all puzzled.  German industry has been prepared to start delivering and could have sent the first units already, and the numbers that they could send can make a difference for Ukraine.  He [Scholz] seems to have no empathy for the situation that the Ukrainians are in.  Kiesewetter does recognize that Germany does send defensive equipment, and civil supplies, preparation for dealing with war crimes, but not the equipment needed for Ukraine to defeat "this criminal regime".  The German guns are both enough quantity to make a difference, and would send a message to other european nations [subtext: France] to do more. "We all push the Chancellor and expect him to use the tailwind that the Bundestag is providing".  He says a few times that he has no idea why Scholz is being this way. 
Weisband replies that she doesn't know any better than anybody else what's inside Scholz's head and can't guess.  But she sees Scholz and Macron trying to isolate Germany and France.  She thinks that inside Ukraine people just assume those two are trying to isolate their countries (She's a German/Ukrainian dual citizen)
Kiesewetter is really harshing on Scholz, and Weisband is more resigned.
I'm happy to edit with any corrections that come along.

If someone can point to a german transcript I can probably do it.  But I can't type fast enough in german to keep up, and don't have the on-the-fly skillz to just listen in german and spew english out my fingerz.  But here's my best shot at paraphrasing:  
The gist is that Kiesewetter thinks that Scholz and Macron are playing for time and hoping that rather than Ukraine winning, in the sense of Russia being driven out, possibly with regime change or shift of power in Russia, they're hoping that it will lead to a cease fire and withdrawal of Russian troops back behind the borders [I think he referred to January borders]. All that, despite having cover from the Bundestag - he says colleagues in the FDP, the Greens, and the Union [CDU/CSU] are all puzzled.  German industry has been prepared to start delivering and could have sent the first units already, and the numbers that they could send can make a difference for Ukraine.  He [Scholz] seems to have no empathy for the situation that the Ukrainians are in.  Kiesewetter does recognize that Germany does send defensive equipment, and civil supplies, preparation for dealing with war crimes, but not the equipment needed for Ukraine to defeat "this criminal regime".  The German guns are both enough quantity to make a difference, and would send a message to other european nations [subtext: France] to do more. "We all push the Chancellor and expect him to use the tailwind that the Bundestag is providing".  He says a few times that he has no idea why Scholz is being this way. 
Weisband replies that she doesn't know any better than anybody else what's inside Scholz's head and can't guess.  But she sees Scholz and Macron trying to isolate Germany and France.  She thinks that inside Ukraine people just assume those two are trying to isolate their countries (She's a German/Ukrainian dual citizen)
Kiesewetter is really harshing on Scholz, and Weisband is more resigned.
I'm happy to edit with any corrections that come along.

If someone can point to a german transcript I can probably do it.  But I can't type fast enough in german to keep up, and don't have the on-the-fly skillz to just listen in german and spew english out my fingerz.  But here's my best shot at paraphrasing:  
The gist is that Kiesewetter thinks that Scholz and Macron are playing for time and hoping that rather than Ukraine winning, in the sense of Russia being driven out, possibly with regime change or shift of power in Russia, they're hoping that it will lead to a cease fire and withdrawal of Russian troops back behind the borders [I think he referred to January borders]. All that, despite having cover from the Bundestag - he says colleagues in the FDP, the Greens, and the Union [CDU/CSU] are all puzzled.  German industry has been prepared to start delivering and could have sent the first units already, and the numbers that they could send can make a difference for Ukraine.  He [Scholz] seems to have no empathy for the situation that the Ukrainians are in.  Kiesewetter does recognize that Germany does send defensive equipment, and civil supplies, preparation for dealing with war crimes, but not the equipment needed for Ukraine to defeat "this criminal regime".  The German guns are both enough quantity to make a difference, and would send a message to other european nations [subtext: France] to do more. "We all push the Chancellor and expect him to use the tailwind that the Bundestag is providing".  He says a few times that he has no idea why Scholz is being this way. 
Weisband replies that she doesn't know any better than anybody else what's inside Scholz's head and can't guess.  But she sees Scholz and Macron trying to isolate Germany and France.  She thinks that inside Ukraine people just assume those two are trying to isolate their countries (She's a German/Ukrainian dual citizen)
Kiesewetter is really harshing on Scholz, and Weisband is more resigned.
I'm happy to edit with any corrections that come along.

If someone can point to a german transcript I can probably do it.  But I can't type fast enough in german to keep up, and don't have the on-the-fly skillz to just listen in german and spew english out my fingerz.  But here's my best shot at paraphrasing:  
The gist is that Kiesewetter thinks that Scholz and Macron are playing for time and hoping that rather than Ukraine winning, in the sense of Russia being driven out, possibly with regime change or shift of power in Russia, they're hoping that it will lead to a cease fire and withdrawal of Russian troops back behind the borders [I think he referred to January borders]. All that, despite having cover from the Bundestag - he says colleagues in the FDP, the Greens, and the Union [CDU/CSU] are all puzzled.  German industry has been prepared to start delivering and could have sent the first units already, and the numbers that they could send can make a difference for Ukraine.  He [Scholz] seems to have no empathy for the situation that the Ukrainians are in.  Kiesewetter does recognize that Germany does send defensive equipment, and civil supplies, preparation for dealing with war crimes, but not the equipment needed for Ukraine to defeat "this criminal regime".  The German guns are both enough quantity to make a difference, and would send a message to other european nations [subtext: France] to do more. "We all push the Chancellor and expect him to use the tailwind that the Bundestag is providing".  He says a few times that he has no idea why Scholz is being this way. 
Weisband replies that she doesn't know any better than anybody else what's inside Scholz's head and can't guess.  But she sees Scholz and Macron trying to isolate Germany and France.  She thinks that inside Ukraine people just assume those two are trying to isolate their countries (She's a German/Ukrainian dual citizen)
Kiesewetter is really harshing on Scholz, and Weisband is more resigned.
I'm happy to edit with any corrections that come along.

If someone can point to a german transcript I can probably do it.  But I can't type fast enough in german to keep up, and don't have the on-the-fly skillz to just listen in german and spew english out my fingerz.  But here's my best shot at paraphrasing:  
The gist is that Kiesewetter thinks that Scholz and Macron are playing for time and hoping that rather than Ukraine winning, in the sense of Russia being driven out, possibly with regime change or shift of power in Russia, they're hoping that it will lead to a cease fire and withdrawal of Russian troops back behind the borders [I think he referred to January borders]. All that, despite having cover from the Bundestag - he says colleagues in the FDP, the Greens, and the Union [CDU/CSU] are all puzzled.  German industry has been prepared to start delivering and could have sent the first units already, and the numbers that they could send can make a difference for Ukraine.  He [Scholz] seems to have no empathy for the situation that the Ukrainians are in.  Kiesewetter does recognize that Germany does send defensive equipment, and civil supplies, preparation for dealing with war crimes, but not the equipment needed for Ukraine to defeat "this criminal regime".  The German guns are both enough quantity to make a difference, and would send a message to other european nations [subtext: France] to do more. "We all push the Chancellor and expect him to use the tailwind that the Bundestag is providing".  He says a few times that he has no idea why Scholz is being this way. 
Weisband replies that she doesn't know any better than anybody else what's inside Scholz's head and can't guess.  But she sees Scholz and Macron trying to isolate Germany and France.  She thinks that inside Ukraine people just assume those two are trying to isolate their countries (She's a German/Ukrainian dual citizen)
Kiesewetter is really harshing on Scholz, and Weisband is more resigned.
I'm happy to edit with any corrections that come along.

Trent conveniently leaves out the RQ-7 Shadow which is equivalent in capability of the Orlan-10, with 2-4 found in every active duty Brigade Combat Team in the US Army (and probably in the National Guard ones as well, I just can't say for sure), and there are even more in most Aviation units. It is used extensively for reconnaissance at the Brigade Level and is a cornerstone of intelligence collection and fires convergence... We literally have the platform he is saying we need.
AND we also have the RQ-11 Raven down to the company level, again in almost every BCT in the Army (probably about ~40 airframes in a Brigade). Now the actual system is underwhelming and desperately needs to be replaced by a more user friendly quadcopter, but you can hardly say the US Army doesn't have disposable UAV capability. He simply has no idea what he is talking about.

If someone can point to a german transcript I can probably do it.  But I can't type fast enough in german to keep up, and don't have the on-the-fly skillz to just listen in german and spew english out my fingerz.  But here's my best shot at paraphrasing:  
The gist is that Kiesewetter thinks that Scholz and Macron are playing for time and hoping that rather than Ukraine winning, in the sense of Russia being driven out, possibly with regime change or shift of power in Russia, they're hoping that it will lead to a cease fire and withdrawal of Russian troops back behind the borders [I think he referred to January borders]. All that, despite having cover from the Bundestag - he says colleagues in the FDP, the Greens, and the Union [CDU/CSU] are all puzzled.  German industry has been prepared to start delivering and could have sent the first units already, and the numbers that they could send can make a difference for Ukraine.  He [Scholz] seems to have no empathy for the situation that the Ukrainians are in.  Kiesewetter does recognize that Germany does send defensive equipment, and civil supplies, preparation for dealing with war crimes, but not the equipment needed for Ukraine to defeat "this criminal regime".  The German guns are both enough quantity to make a difference, and would send a message to other european nations [subtext: France] to do more. "We all push the Chancellor and expect him to use the tailwind that the Bundestag is providing".  He says a few times that he has no idea why Scholz is being this way. 
Weisband replies that she doesn't know any better than anybody else what's inside Scholz's head and can't guess.  But she sees Scholz and Macron trying to isolate Germany and France.  She thinks that inside Ukraine people just assume those two are trying to isolate their countries (She's a German/Ukrainian dual citizen)
Kiesewetter is really harshing on Scholz, and Weisband is more resigned.
I'm happy to edit with any corrections that come along.

All that time at the start of the pandemic watching Dark and Babylon Berlin auf Deutsch mit deutschen untertiteln turned out to be useful.  
I can follow along with their exchanges fine, but had to do more than a little rewinding to get it down.  Seems like an interesting program - that's all just from the short Kiesewetter & Weisband exchange, and they're going on to discuss Poland next. But his statement and position are a lot more complex than the twitter quote.

If someone can point to a german transcript I can probably do it.  But I can't type fast enough in german to keep up, and don't have the on-the-fly skillz to just listen in german and spew english out my fingerz.  But here's my best shot at paraphrasing:  
The gist is that Kiesewetter thinks that Scholz and Macron are playing for time and hoping that rather than Ukraine winning, in the sense of Russia being driven out, possibly with regime change or shift of power in Russia, they're hoping that it will lead to a cease fire and withdrawal of Russian troops back behind the borders [I think he referred to January borders]. All that, despite having cover from the Bundestag - he says colleagues in the FDP, the Greens, and the Union [CDU/CSU] are all puzzled.  German industry has been prepared to start delivering and could have sent the first units already, and the numbers that they could send can make a difference for Ukraine.  He [Scholz] seems to have no empathy for the situation that the Ukrainians are in.  Kiesewetter does recognize that Germany does send defensive equipment, and civil supplies, preparation for dealing with war crimes, but not the equipment needed for Ukraine to defeat "this criminal regime".  The German guns are both enough quantity to make a difference, and would send a message to other european nations [subtext: France] to do more. "We all push the Chancellor and expect him to use the tailwind that the Bundestag is providing".  He says a few times that he has no idea why Scholz is being this way. 
Weisband replies that she doesn't know any better than anybody else what's inside Scholz's head and can't guess.  But she sees Scholz and Macron trying to isolate Germany and France.  She thinks that inside Ukraine people just assume those two are trying to isolate their countries (She's a German/Ukrainian dual citizen)
Kiesewetter is really harshing on Scholz, and Weisband is more resigned.
I'm happy to edit with any corrections that come along.

If someone can point to a german transcript I can probably do it.  But I can't type fast enough in german to keep up, and don't have the on-the-fly skillz to just listen in german and spew english out my fingerz.  But here's my best shot at paraphrasing:  
The gist is that Kiesewetter thinks that Scholz and Macron are playing for time and hoping that rather than Ukraine winning, in the sense of Russia being driven out, possibly with regime change or shift of power in Russia, they're hoping that it will lead to a cease fire and withdrawal of Russian troops back behind the borders [I think he referred to January borders]. All that, despite having cover from the Bundestag - he says colleagues in the FDP, the Greens, and the Union [CDU/CSU] are all puzzled.  German industry has been prepared to start delivering and could have sent the first units already, and the numbers that they could send can make a difference for Ukraine.  He [Scholz] seems to have no empathy for the situation that the Ukrainians are in.  Kiesewetter does recognize that Germany does send defensive equipment, and civil supplies, preparation for dealing with war crimes, but not the equipment needed for Ukraine to defeat "this criminal regime".  The German guns are both enough quantity to make a difference, and would send a message to other european nations [subtext: France] to do more. "We all push the Chancellor and expect him to use the tailwind that the Bundestag is providing".  He says a few times that he has no idea why Scholz is being this way. 
Weisband replies that she doesn't know any better than anybody else what's inside Scholz's head and can't guess.  But she sees Scholz and Macron trying to isolate Germany and France.  She thinks that inside Ukraine people just assume those two are trying to isolate their countries (She's a German/Ukrainian dual citizen)
Kiesewetter is really harshing on Scholz, and Weisband is more resigned.
I'm happy to edit with any corrections that come along.

Thanks for letting me know - my attempt at using links to dropbox image previews seems to have only shown up for me (a security feature I guess), direct links having unsuccessful.  I have uploaded them elsewhere and beg your collective indulgence (you'll bloody like it and say so) as I repost both parts below.  Mods feel free to delete my previous two posts (when has that ever happened).
 
"Looks like (before the thread hurtles past it) we are touching upon a fundamental of warfare: hills!  How should they be considered in modern war?  An amateur's thoughts:
They are hard to get up. You can see the surrounding land. You can be seen from the surrounding land. That's it.  That's all I can think of.  These broadly mean:
Being hard to get up makes them harder to take with infantry and vehicles, and easier to defend.  They are harder to supply and harder to place heavy weapons upon. Once under your control, you can use them (as in the past) to control the surrounding area, through spotting and direct fire. Every bastard in the area around you can see the hill.  And since the hill is always smaller than it's surroundings, all other things being equal, this means more people will be able to see and hit the hill than are able to see and hit from it. So we have some nuance.  You can say a drone with FLIR negates the benefits of a hill, but how many pairs of eyes are on the hill and how many are staring at the monitor?  Who or what are you going to put on the hill?  Who or what is in the surrounding area?  Anyway, having my mind on the subject led me to starting up Google Earth.  It's amazing what we can do at home with modern tools:"
 
"More Google Earth extravagance further to my previous post:"
"Alas the flight ends there.  I had in fact imported the whole BMU-E into Google Earth, about 180 images, and was positioning for a shot when the whole thing crashed, losing almost all the work I had done over the previous hours.  Bastard. 
I will do it again if I feel it serves enough purpose (I did wonder if it was worth it as I realised how long it was taking), and can perhaps provide for requests should the posts not prove instructional, time allowing."

None of the images are displaying for me - I tried two different browsers.

None of the images are displaying for me - I tried two different browsers.

And the steeper/more difficult the terrain, the more it makes sense to just deal with it remotely.
I'm in the foothills of a steep mountain range (the San Gabriels in SoCal) that are popular for recreation.  Very steep with a mix of scrub and sometimes dense trees.  We have multiple rescues every nice weekend.  If the lost and injured can't tell rescuers where they are, the traditional way to find them is like an infantry assault - hike groups of people in through all the likely canyons to cover all the trails and fire roads.  They still do that, to an extent, but helicopters with FLIR change that significantly.  The local agencies have a ton of helicopters, many equipped with FLIR and NV capability, and fly searches.  Drones are just the extrapolation of helicopters to something small, fast, and cheap, especially if you don't need to have a rescue/medical crew on board to pluck someone out of the forest and treat them. A bunch of small drones with IR vision is way more useful than a helicopter if all you want to do is turn them into coyote food.  The drones become combined ISR/loitering munitions.
And if you have even rudimentary ELINT capability (especially if it's on the drones), you can make it even easier to find and eliminate anybody in the high ground. I even have my own simple ELINT - I added an ADS-B antenna to the roof because it requires LOS and the canyons sometimes make it hard to know who's flying around.  Now I look at a map in my home office and see who's flying around and guess what they're doing from the pattern instead of going outside with binoculars and hoping to get a glimpse through the limited field of view.  A bunch of drones with receivers and their own GPS can buzz around and very accurately locate the source of any RF transmissions that they can pick up.  That's not even hard - it's what the "MLAT" mode of ADS-B display already does using a bunch of COTs hardware that costs less than $150/station retail, and all you need is four stations. Again, the wonder of microelectronics (limited availability in Russia), because it depends on cheap drone controllers (which are pretty sophisticated), cheap software defined radio, and cheap GPS chips.  Once you have the transmitter location, you can send a missile or drone to eliminate it, no boots required.  So even if a defender has the high ground, the attacker can remotely reduce the ability of the defender to coordinate and eliminate individual strong points, negating some of the traditional advantages.

right after Steve gives us bridging equipment.