chris talpas

Perun discussing the new US aid package
 

Commander Oleksandr Syrskyi's latest update:
https://t.me/osirskiy/670
 

Freedom ain’t free.  Someone has to stop Russia from doing what it is doing which is definitely not “perfectly fine”.  In reality the kid did not run away, his family did when he was 16.  Now that he is 18 and of age; he is “staying away”.  I think every citizen has a duty to protect their nation in times of crisis.  A duty to protect each other when threatened.  If they cannot or will not do that then they really are no longer a nation.  This is one thing I think we have lost, and it will come back and bite us.  There is a solemn duty in being a citizen, and even a greater one in a free nation.  It is one that takes sacrifice for the greater good.  Now this kid could be from a pacifist ideology or religion, ok there are a lot of ways to fulfill this duty to serve.
What I disagree with is that is all fine for a young man like this to selfishly protect himself while his own people are suffering.  Running away to “embrace life” when Ukrainian children are dying back in Ukraine does not wash with me.  Personally I have been in two wars that really had not much to do with Canada.  We were really doing it for some greater global good (really did not turn out well in the end) but we all believed in it and honoured kids maybe a year older than this one who died in crappy places no one will remember in 50 years. The idea that one could “sit out” an atrocity like this invasion of Ukraine and still claim citizenship or ethnicity does not sit well with me at all.  It is shirking duty and letting others pay the price.   As we have discussed this kid does not even have to fight.  He can be in a support trade or work in industry or even humanitarian.  But his people and his country need him right now which is more important than how he gets to spend his twenties.  It is more important than him as an individual.  
Mark my words on this, we have more of this coming.  The future is likely going to demand more sacrifice for the greater good not less.  We will have to stand or kneel in the end.  And right now to my eyes, that young man is kneeling.

All solid and fair points.  If Russia could exploit this succession of tactical advances and translate into something else we could be looking at a new ball game.  However, recall that after Severodonetsk we had some more leg jumping and then an exhausted RA folded like a cheap tent at Kharkiv and Kherson - tactical success does not necessarily signal operational success.
The ability of Russia to continually plug away at this, at the loss levels they are sustaining is frankly baffling.  The losses the RA are talking, based on charts and figures that get tossed up here, are mind blowing - even halfing them to account for over-reporting.  The way to counter glide bombs is to wage a campaign against the RUAF.  Long range AD can deny but take all those ATACMs and start hitting airfields.  Then use SOF and UAS to hit them deeper.  The dangerous aspect is that the Russian may have finally found a way to make air power work for them and that has to be blunted.
As to loss ratios…no one really knows.  I have no idea what the UA losses have been in comparison to Russians for terrain taken.  They could be high or they could be moderate. The UA has likely learned to disperse and they definitely have learned to use FPVs.  I am not sure if historical ratios even can be applied here given the shift we are seeing.  I am not sure UA defence has been static in this one.  It was at Adiivka but since then there is a more mobile feel to the thing.  I would not assume massive losses on the UA side.  They definitely have happened but whether they have been enough to create conditions for a UA operational collapse have yet to be seen.  Finally, while the RA have been upping the air game, we also saw evidence of Russian guns slowing down.  We are not seeing the WW1 level of fires we saw at Severodonetsk.  Nor do we have evidence that Russian fires have gotten anymore accurate or precise.
Honestly, I am not at the doom and gloom point.  The UA is definitely straining but we do not see symptoms of breaking (mass casualties, prisoners, encirclements).  We do see high casualties for the RA but they are also still able to attack.  Until something really gives we cannot say one way or the other.  Now that US support is turned back on I suspect Russia will be forced to move off the offensive but let’s see if that unfolds.

Agreed Canada and most other NATO members could and should do more. But these guys below should show that Canada indeed was and is part of NATO.
 
Fallen Canadian Armed Forces Members - Canada in Afghanistan - Canadian Armed Forces - History - Remembrance - Veterans Affairs Canada

I mean, really Canada has already basically withdrawn from NATO hasn't it?  Can you be considered a serious NATO member when your government says that not only will they not spend 2% on defense but they will never spend 2%.
 

I think first we'd want to invade Canada & dethrone the woke socialists in Ottawa.   "First we take Hull, then we take Berlin!" as the old song goes.  

and US aid is back on track for now

Sanity is optional, you need look no further than the RFK jr campaign....

Guess it depends on point of view.  I want about 100 of these to walk over a minefield and then burn anything that resembles a Russian ATGMs in a 5km bridgehead while FPVs hammer anything that runs away from the flames.  Toss in some EW and a dash of c-bty and one might have the makings for a breaching op that goes somewhere.

Nope, no straddling involved, that's firmly on the insane side of the line.
Now, a robot dog that cleans up after your live dog, that would be genius.

So for once the Russians would be right if they said it was all the CIA‘s doing 😂

Russians gradually have been learing of Ukrainian experience of artillery fire control. If in 2022  - mid 23 we have seen typical Soviet style of whole batteries and even battalions of side-by-side standing guns simultainous work, that now Russians are more and more shifting to dispersing of artillery and work by single guns of a battery with individaual targeting for each.
Here is google-translated post about changes since 2022. "The work was carried out in areas with a low coeeficient of UAV use" - means "ineffective area fire with low UAV usage", though for summer 2022 it's not always could be true, or soldiers then reported about dozen Orlans and Zala, ajusting fire. Probably ajusting was inefefctive or come on too long command chain, which made it ineffective.

 
And addition to this post by other Russian artillerist with my translation:
I'l throw my 5 cents:
Regimental artillery tied on artillery chief (of regiment). He, sitting on command post (let's call it in such way) together with chief of recon, watch streams from UAVs (and intercepted streams of the enemy). Spotting the target chief of artillery transmits it to battery commander or senior battery officer  [he is commander of 1st artillery platoon also] and they transmit this data to the gun. 2-7 minutes for targeting of the gun, the bird [drone] in the sky. First shoot - the fire ajustment from artilelry chief directly to the gun. Or artillery chief opens the map, come into communication with gun commandr through the radio and gives the targeting (angle, azimuth, lines). The gun crew lives on position 2-5 days, further a rotation is coming. Nobody drink on position, it's taboo, else they go to "zakrep" [probably those who have to hold the ground after assault] - and this is more scary than to stormers. 
We don't work with mortars since new year. This is no longer relevant becaus of crews life preservation purposes. Drones already fly on 10 km in the rear, so they clicks them at once  

And here Russian feedback about CAESERs

Hmmm we in the UK have personal experience of this and it has cost us dearly. A very expensive mistake...
I hope for the world's sake America takes note that tearing up years of work and cooperation doesn't magically solve anything and creates problems no one was told would happen...

It is potentially worse than that.  This sort of dysfunction does nothing but feed anti-democracy sentiment.  Democracies die due to abandonment, history demonstrates this quite well.  If the system is seen as "unworkable" democracies often choose suicide.  This is the threat to the US and global stability.  Trump and Greene are symptoms of something far deeper and dangerous....apathy that leads to despair.

These fools want the power and respect of being a global superpower and absolutely none of the responsibility. I'm convinced that if Russia rolled into the Suwalki Gap tomorrow that half of the House GOP would refuse to fund the military.

I mean ... I think that's a joke? But with MT "Empty" Greene (proud veteran of the Bowling Green Massacre) it's really really hard to be sure. That is bat**** enough to have actually leaked out of her ears.
 
Edit: oh FFS. Those really were among the proposals she submitted 🥸

Some "homefront" news. Maybe we have heard of the recent fires at the American and British 155mm munitions factories?
Might be just a coincidence, but...
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/generalbundesanwalt-ermittelt-zwei-mutmassliche-russische-saboteure-in-bayern-verhaftet-a-0115bebd-195a-41fb-83be-da8d642045cd
In Germany, two Russo-Germans have been arrested for espionage and sabotage. They are accused of taking pictures of American and German military installations in Bavaria (one of which is a training facility for Ukrainians on Abrams tanks) and planning to use explosives to disrupt military support transports en route to Ukraine. 
Both of them were in contact with the FSB and one of them was member of a Russian militia unit which operated in Donetzk / Donbas 2014 to 2017. The unit is considered a terrorist group in Germany, so that Russo-German is also accused of membership in a terrorist organisation.
 
 

It was found in experiments that vertical solar panels offer basically the same energy output as an angled panel.
The reason is that although the panel receives less solar radiation energy, the generated heat can dissipate better, which results in increased efficiency, which brings them up to the same output as an angled panel.
 

Remember when Tucker Carlson was interviewing Putin who recited his boilerplate spiel about invading Ukraine to 'de-nazify' it, and Tucker looked personally offended by the remark.

Not sure how comfortable I would be in a row boat of or Cessna around an active CWIS but fair points.  I think these problems are definitely going to have problems, some unintended and some very much intended.  Some bad actors will gleefully employ them on civilians to terrorize and as part of an overall genocidal campaign.  In reality there is no real difference between a cruise missile striking a civilian housing complex and a cruise missile carrying a bunch of assassination drones.  The drones will be far more effective and vicious but are basically doing the same job.
I am saying that banning fully autonomous drones is a fools errand.  Hell, regulating them is going to be pretty damned hard.  Why?  Because they are potential war-winners right now.  Unmanned systems of all types are deterministic of outcomes.  As such they become, in an existential war, non-negotiable.  Some nations will try and remain on high horses - no doubt Canada will - but this will be as hypocritical as the nuclear equation.  Canada has no nuclear weapons and shakes a finger in haughty disapproval of them, but our very survival has rested upon the safety of the US nuclear umbrella…that we are not even paying for.  Unmanned will be the same beast in many ways.  Some nations will reject them but will be first in line to have them protect any troop contributions to a western coalition.
The one thing I do not know is if unmanned stand as a 3rd shift in the nature of war yet.  Their impact on the battlefield is pretty much undeniable by this point.

We'll take all the help we can get in pressuring this pile of filth to do the right thing.  Hopefully this becomes a cause celeb amongst evangelicals.  

Interesting intersection.