Holien

For those interested in listening in on two world leaders talk about Ukraine before the war. More to follow....
 
 

UKR drones, attacked Ryazan' oil refinery were UKR developed "Lyutyi" ("Fury") drones (the second from above in right column). They very similar to Chineese Mugin-5, also used by Ukriane in strikes. By rumors this drone can fly on 1000 km and carry up to 75 kg of warhead. But real data unknown. 
Reportedly during the strike on Ryazan refinery were taken out two from four fractioning columns AVT-4 and AT-6, different by year outpit. Because of this Ryazan refinery lost 70 % of own output capabilities. Most of production of this refinery have been sending to Moscow oblast. Intersting that today was claimed about death of top-manager of "Lukoil" company Vitaliy Robertus - the fourth, since the war began. There are rumors he was kileld diring drone strike, but no confirmation yet 

Near Novopavlivka, Dnipropetrovsk oblast.
Helicopters of 12th Army aviation brigade. Two pilots killed.

There are rumors, sharply increased successes of Russian strikes in last two weeks it's not because their rised recon&strike capabilities, but because of possible information leakage from higher HQ level - all episodes were in Donetsk oblast or close  

This article may explain an increase in Russian ISR:
Russian Shahed-136 With Camera, Cellular Modem Could Be A Big Problem For Ukraine (twz.com)
Co-pilot summary
 

I get the need to vent and all, but you are kinda yelling at the church choir here.  Steve either banned or we chased off the right wing twits (and I mean MAGA-types, not honest Republicans who's biggest crime is simply losing control of their party).
To paraphrase Kofman, Ukraine will never run out of ammunition, they can simply chose to "fire less" (The_Capt rolls his eyes).
This war is in a odd place right now.  Ukraine is under strain and suffering but also appear to have upped their strategic strike game significantly.  Russia, is also suffering but is showing improvements in some disturbing areas, like ISR.  No one has solved for the operational stalemate that has evolved.  Hard to really say what is going to happen but I am getting a strange sense that something is going to give one way or the other soon.

I don't think describing an actual reality is 'getting too domestic'. Trump and his acolytes have made it clear that should he win, Ukraine...and indeed Taiwan...is on it's own and the pressure he is putting on Congress to stymie aid is proof of it.
If you want Ukraine to win, get out there and help make it happen. 
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Senate-passed Ukraine aid package has been put up for a discharge petition today. If it reaches 216 signatures, it can be brought to a vote even against the Speaker's opposition. == As of 12 March == Total signatures: 169 (out of 216 needed) Needed signatures remaining: 47 Democrat signatures: 169 (with 44 remaining). No Republicans have signed yet. We assess: Republican Reps are waiting to see how many Democrats sign before they make a decision. Current top priority: CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE! -- If they haven't signed yet - urge them to sign the discharge petition (H.Res. 1016) to bring Ukraine aid (bill H.R. 815) to a vote. -- If they've already signed on - ask them to reach out to their colleagues to encourage them to sign. You can check your Rep's status at: http://bit.ly/discharge815 Now that the working day is over, we can start intensively circulating the shortlist of Democrats who have not yet signed the discharge petition. This graphic is based on the data at http://bit.ly/discharge815. Both that list and this graphic are by @community4Ukraine. #call4ukraine Reposts welcome - no credit required. Community for Ukraine

Truly America is so stupid. We can't provide a tiny portion of our gdp to a cause most Americans are fine with, to which no American lives are at risk, to degrade the ability of a enemy, and strengthen our own standing in the world....and we are willingly throwing it away. Holy ****, why would any nation ally with us vs China.
We are starving our ally of life for literally no ****ing reason. No reason except as a favor to a certain someone. And no none of the flimsy excuses pass, most Americans, most senators, representatives support Ukraine or at least espouse sentiments to such.

The thing to understand right now is that the Speaker already has no authority. His sole leverage is that nobody wants to go through another debac-tacular leadership election again. And with Buck's retirement and NY23 coming up, the Republican margin will be down to 1 vote for a while. It will then go back up to...2. So, there is little Johnson can do to punish recalcitrant members and plenty they can do to ruin his day, every day.  
The inescapable fact the derives from the above is that there is no plan or agreement. Johnson is a cipher...and Trump's cipher at that...in the House. He has no party loyalty to rely on (as Jefferies does) and his team is made up of pols who have more experience, cliques that support them, etc (i.e. Scalise, Jordan). What plan there is, is simply to stymie aid as long as possible because that's what Trump wants. Thus, the discharge petition.
To the vote, that the discharge petition is even happening tells you it has legs and in this case there are actually two (one from a Democrat and one from a Republican) but it is a hard road to travel and it takes time. How would the vote go? You probably lose about 10 to 15 Democrats but you also probably gain 70 to 100 Republicans. If the vote were a secret ballot, you probably would get 150 plus. Ukraine aid is that rare thing...it is truly popular and bipartisan. If they get the discharge to the finish line, it almost certainly passes...Johnson be damned. 

Hmmm unless they have a way to get it past the dogs in the manger they could promise anything and it ain't going?
🤔

Current situation in Belgorod and Kursk oblasts:
Russian border chekpoint Nekhoteyevka (Belgorod oblast), abandoned by Russian border guards.  Damaged and abandoned free-Russia tank under fire (somebody claimed this is a video of year-ago raid, but maybe later we will have more information)
LFR claims they still hold Tyotkino border settlment in Kursk oblast

Some locals in Belgorod oblast shared infromation Su-27 was allegedly shot down near Belgorod and fell down into forest (this is not IL-76 incident, because Ivanovo, where this plane crashed is in 760 km NE from Belgorod). Single video of probably crash site is a large smoke over the forest, but still no confirmation about jet falling
 

Crash site of IL-76, which fell down near Ivanovo. Some Russian TGs claimed that unknown passengers, who were onboard, were crewmen of A-50. Ivanovo-Severnyi airfield is a base of 610th Center of combat usage and flight personnel retrain, having in own composition IL-76 and A-50 planes, some of which are strored. If this is true, IL-76 crash can be a diveriosion to eliminate A-50 pilots and operators, which probably flew to bring into exploitation A-50, repaired from the storage to substitute previous losses
Reportedly (but not verified) in result of drone strikes on Beriyev aviation plant in Taganrog two A-50 (one of them - that which suffered from small drone attack in Belarus), staying under repar in hangar got additional damages and have taken out for unknown time.

This day was interesting not because of free-Russia troops crossed Russian border, but also huge simultainous drone attack on nine Russian oblasts. Obviously these were chains of one operation on eve of "Putin elections".
Most significant were strikes on oil storage in Oryol - at least one fuel tank was set on fire...
... And attack on "Lukoil" company oil refinery in Kstovo, Nizhniy Novgorod oblast in 800 km NE from closest point of UKR border. The drone precisely hit and set on fire the fractioning column, maintaning 53% of refinery output. This refinery also supplies about 30 % of gasoline in Moscow oblast.
 
UKR drones and MLRS again were launched on Belgorod
Reporteldy a drone with small warhead hit city administration building (2 employees were lightly wounded)

 

Nothing to see here, please move along.
 
 

UKR continues to strike on Russian economy. Several days ago Zelenskyi put a task to GUR and SBU to increase attacks on Russian infrastructure and industrial objects.
Yestardsy UAV hit "Severstal' " steel works in Cherepovets, Vologda oblast. Despite local officials claimed no significant damages and victims, TG sources say the drone badly damaged a blast furnace, which can cause reducing of production.  
 
Cherepovets is in 810 km from neares point from Ukrainian border. "Severstal' " steel works is a huge plant, which alsmot equal by the square to this city.

 
Other incident - unknown it was technical failure or GUR agents sabotage, but in Khanty-Mansiysk autonomus district (Syberia) the oil well сaught fire
 

Bakhmut direction. UKR troops reportedly could slightly push back Russians in Bohdanivka and Ivanivske on the northern flank. 
Near Andriivka on the southern flank, large Russian column was destroyed (I wonder why they driven with Bukhankas and Ural to assault...)
As a mockery on background places music and song form cult Soviet movie about VDV
 

Golfcars also are used by Russians on Avdiivka direction
Situation here still very hard - despite we stabilized situation and our artillery likely got French shells, so reportedly our arty is working tough again, Russians continue own zomby-atatcks, so situation still dynamic and change often. 
Also some words about shells - servicemen tell in twitter they have enough mortar shells, but despite our arty increased own activity, the shells amount still not so proper as before shells shortage. If recently a battery in avarage fired 60-70 ammo for a day, now they can fire about 30 and during final phase of Avdiivka battle this number could be less 10.   
Just for nice picture - FPV has strruck Russian BMP and turned it out in hellish fireball. Likely it hit fuel tanks
 

Some summry for several days in Robotyne - Verbove pocket. 
Russians stopped intensive assaults, instead this moved here more "Shtrorm -Z/ -V" units, manned with convicts. They send them mostly on foot by small groups, but most of them are successfully eliminated on approaches. 
Sometime Russians throw to probes small armored groups, but they had the same fate - FPV drones and mortars/artillery work on them.
National Guard "Omega" special forces work at two Russian armor vehicles and infantry with AT-4 and AGL in vicinity of Robotyne
Russians in mass became to use here many ATVs - own domestic AM1, Chineese "Desertcross" and donated civilians. Despite some of UKR militaries jokingly called these vehicles GFV (Golfcar Fighting Vehicle), a serviceman from Robotyne in own tweet say this is veryu hard target - ATVs are very fast and maneuver - artillery and mortars can't target them, even for MGs and FPVs they are hard targets to aim. ATVs even not always blow up by mines, so this guy told UKR forces lost two small positions, because Russians rapidly came close on ATVs and bursted in the trenches. 
Though this ATV or small jeep wa not so lucky and blew up on mine
 
Also reportedly Russian deployed some powerful EW system near Robotyne, which when turns on blocks the video channel of FPV drones. 

Quoting this note only because it's the most recent one to touch on the naval warfare discussion and I wanted to add some thoughts to that.
On ideas for near-term development of Ukraine's naval drones:
The aim is to destroy the enemy's ability to wage war on the sea.  That will almost always mean that your target is the enemy ship, not the crew.  At the moment exposed enemy crew members are not effective at preventing USV attacks.  If you can get close to a ship you are therefore much better off pressing home a direct attack on said ship than you are trying to blow grapeshot into the face of some rube balancing an MG on the railings.  This will remain the case until exposed crewmembers become a significant threat to your attempts to approach the ship (unlikely to ever happen imo) or until you are able to kill so many crew, so efficiently as to make it a better way of neutralising the ship than sinking it (ditto). Modern warships are already pretty focussed on mitigating the dangers presented by enemy warships, ASMs and torpedoes - those are obviously well-established as primary threats.  To my mind then there is not much to be gained in terms of lethality by having USVs try to replicate those types of attack.  The Ukrainians' current success is being achieved by threading the eye of the needle between their drones not being torpedoes, ASMs or warships but having features of all three:  They are operator-guided and can see their targets from long distances like a warship or a missile and they cause damage on the waterline like various torpedoes or missiles can.  The fact they attack on the surface also means they are too low down for conventional anti-ASM defences to effectively target but they are too small and agile for anti-ship weaponry to hit reliably, either. Given the above, I think it's only a matter of time before this capacility gap slams shut and effective countermeasures to the current generation of Sea Baby-type drones are popularised (although whether the Russians will be the ones to do so seems bafflingly uncertain).  I've mentioned previously that I do think deployable netting/fencing could be an interim solution which could completely neutralise the current threat or at least significantly increase the number of successful attacks required to damage or sink a vessel. Longer term, I agree that naval drones will become platforms for torpedo-type weapons (correctly noted already as basically the best way to sink something otherwise designed to float).  Do we think future navies may start by looking to populate the oceans perhaps even exclusively with torpedo-toting, submersible drones?  Presumably they may spend time at the surface to charge batteries, cruise more efficiently and/or to communicate but what combat advantages, if any, would a drone have on the surface if there is no part of it that needs to breathe?
Even further hence, I wonder whether the ideal future naval drone might be capable of both flight and submersible operations?  Flight could be used for faster travel and to escape from enemy torpedoes; submersion would grant concealment, energy-efficient loitering, etc.  You then of course need to start on a 'torpedo' design that can follow a target into the air and potentially back underwater again.  Get a few of these machines fighting each other close to shore and you've got yourself a hell of a show, if nothing else!

On the friendly side, that's one of the roles of the unit signals officer.
At the national level, there is an office which allocates broad frequency bands for things, generally in ranges in which the physics of the frequency band suit the application. So, there's a large chunk for commercial radio, a chuck for TV, a chunk for high capacity comms links, a chunk for airspace management, some for 3G, 4G, and 5G, some for consumer stuff like TV remotes and garage doors (yes they're low powered and not likely to interfere with anything else, but if they shared a freq with the local 100MW FM station ... well ... everyone's garage door will be opening every time Lady Gaga comes on rotation), a large chunk set aside for military use (although that's always under pressure from commercial operators), more chunks for the emergency services, wifi, satellite comms, etc etc. Then within each chunk, specific operators are allocated specific frequencies.
For mil use, in the olden days the sigs officer of an AO will be given a band to work within, then he'd have to come up with a plan so that each battalion and company and squadron and battery operating in that AO had its own freq to work with, and a plan to move those freqs around every 24 hours or so to mess with enemy signals interception efforts. That's not so much of an issue with frequency hopping and digital  comms - the new radios just sort of listen to everything that's within their band of interest, and know from the data packet headers which ones are 'theirs'.
For EW, you can just dump noise at high power across multiple freqs, but obviously that messes with your own comms. So the EW wonks and the sigs guys will work together to leave gaps in the blanket through which friendly forces can communicate with each other. Generally those gaps will be in places the bad guys aren't likely to be using. So, for example, in Iraq and Afghanistan the gaps would NOT be at or near the freqs that 3G or 4G cellular networks use ... Meanwhile, in Ukraine, presumably the gaps aren't at the common COTS UAS Freqs, except when FF want to send one up.
Generally, I would think that freq management along the front line in eastern Ukraine would be relatively simple. Since there's essentially no civilian activity there, then the entire EM spectrum is up for units to use. Further back the AD dudes would have to manage their freqs a bit more carefully given that there is still a full civilian economy in places like Kyiv and Odessa. But on the other hand they wouldn't generally have to worry too much about Russian jamming that far from the front.
Edit: oh, and don't forget to leave some gaps for the zoomies.

Hi,
As a Swede I thought today would be a good day to stop lurking for a bit and drop a comment. Been playing cm for 20 years and following this forum for a long time.
Thank you all for contributing to this thread, checking it daily. Always a good source for news and discussion, so much knowledge and experience gathered is hard to get elsewhere. 
I always was all for our countrys neutral stance combined with a strong Defense but last decade has of course swayed us all in Sweden a bit. I have my background in the army, cv90. Seeing us finally start to retake our capabilities regarding defense is good.
Anyways thanks for having us in the club I guess (why am I thinking about brothers Marx)?
Carl 

I've been thinking about this post most of the day, and keep coming back to "Neat. Now what?"
Which got me thinking about how other step changes in military capability were handled. The two obvious ones that come to mind are tanks in WWII, and airpower during the Cold War. Now, clearly, in both cases they existed early, but they only really became effective/worrisome/"game-changing" some decades after their entree to the battlefield.
For the infantry, in both cases, the response became basically the same: very small infantry units became fully capable of anti-ing the other thing, either anti-tank or anti-air.
During WWII anti-tank rifles, bazookas, fausts, shrecks, Piats and hearty grenades gave platoons and sections an ability to defend against or attack against tanks, pretty explicitly at the detriment to the nominal role of the infantry, which was to oppose and defeat enemy infantry. That trend was significantly enhanced during second half of last century with things like RPGs and M-72s. This is at the point now where with weapons like Javelin tanks perhaps have more to fear from infantry than the vice versa, even though lugging Javelin around is a royal PITA especially for light infantry.
The introduction of air power, and especially effective CAS, started us on the road to the fully illuminated battlefield, where nowhere is safe and to be seen is to die. During WWII the only real counter that the infantry had was to dig on, or hide, or both. But during the Cold War a lot of effort went into MANPADS, resulting in the Stinger in the 1980s and with other systems following soon after. Just like their anti tank weapons, lugging around anti-aircraft missiles is a PITA which detracts from the nominal role of engaging enemy infantry, not to mention the drain on budgets and training schedules. But on the other hand now every platoon and section is capable of destroying any tank or aircraft that wanders into it's little tactical AO. And once the air and armour battle is won - either locally or globally - then the rest is just mopping up. The degradation of the infantry platoon and section's ability in the infantry-battle doesn't really matter, since while that bit remains hard and unpleasant, it is incredibly harder and more unpleasant in the absence of either air or armoured support.
So you can probably see where this is going.
Assuming UAS remains in play (and why wouldn't it?), then the role of infantry platoons and sections will change again. Instead of being little nodes of anti-tank and anti-air goodness,with some residual anti-infantry capability, they will become little anti-UAS nodes, with the weapons, training, mindset and purpose to defeat enemy UAS in their local area, and also protect or project friendly UAS capability around themselves. If an enemy tank or aircraft turns up then the section or platoon mightn't be able to deal with it themselves, but they will be networked to someone who can - guns, missiles, friendly armour or air, or friendly UAS. And they'll still, you know, carry rifles. Mainly out of habit and tradition, as well as giving the NCOs something to inspect every day. But most of their weaponry, and sensors, and just the general claggage they're carting about will be geared towards winning the UAS fight, because winning that will mean that the rest is just mopping up.
In other words, the infantry will be able to concentrate physically and cognitively on the UAS battle because it won't be their role any more to win the tank, infantry, or local airspace battle.