LongLeftFlank
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15
Posts posted by LongLeftFlank
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2 hours ago, Vet 0369 said:
My knowledge is anecdotal from when I was in an F-4 B Squadron in the Fleet Marine Force, Western Pacific (WESTPAC) in 1970 and 1971. Our pilots had a “club” called the Caterpillar Club. The only way one could become a member was to eject from an aircraft. Every pilot I knew, who was a member, had back issues.
IIRC, that's of WW2 RAF origin, and derives from a poem 'Can a butterfly again become a caterpillar?' (author unknown)
A USAF pilot I knew in the 90s was restricted to T38s once the F4s retired, since he was 6'5" (I had no idea that was even allowed), and punching out of any other modern jet would cost him his kneecaps....
He said the worst thing about being groundbound ('Chair Force' lol) was having to give up wearing coveralls (unwritten code). His wife says he walked differently.
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Moscow death count 133.
...So ISIS has basically killed the personnel of a VDV rifle company (in the theoretical event of a full mobilisation). Largely military aged males, and likely above the mean for education and patriotic fervour.
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2 hours ago, dan/california said:
It is just an anti war screed written by someone stuck in the worst of 1970s this is all a racket propaganda.
OK, different Cockburn, but same ideology lol. Pretty sure Andrew's a tankie too....
In uni, we used to call these guys the 'Sandalistas'
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37 minutes ago, Kraft said:
Pavlo Narozhnyi , the founder of "Reaktivna Poshta" and a military expert, gave an interview to the French publication Le Grand Continent.
This is outstanding, don't miss it....
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30 minutes ago, sross112 said:
Maybe someone in the oil industry can explain it to me as I don't understand why the US would care about Russian oil exports. The US is a net exporter so doesn't less oil from Russia mean more money/profit for US big oil? More money for US big oil means more money for US politicians, so why would there be US outrage against strikes on Russian oil infrastructure? The only reason I can see is if Russian oil is financing US politicians to a greater degree than the US oil is, maybe that is it? Wouldn't the main consumers of Russian oil be the biggest ones to throw a fit? Like China and India?
I'm adjacent to the industry and I find the statements fairly mystifying, tbh.
As best I can tell, it's: "Do what'nsoever you want to do with me, Brer Fox, but please, please, please! Don't throw me in that briar patch!"
Or, if you prefer, John le Carre:
"When you and Karla are stuck on your ledge on the Reichenbach Falls and you’ve got your hands round Karla’s throat, Brother Lacon will be right there behind you holding your coat-tails and telling you not to be beastly to the Russians.’
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Adam Tooze devotes most of his latest Chartbook piece to Kamil Galeev's work on detailing Russian dependence on Western (EU) machine tooling. Great signal boost for Kamil!
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-270-how-russia-makes-missiles
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3 minutes ago, Kinophile said:
I'm not sure about this - FPVs are certainly doing a lot of damage, but it was artillery & glide bombs that were the drivers for UKR to get out of Avdiivka. Shelling still happens constantly and a bunker that can resist shelling can resist an FPV. The entrance is the weakpoint, which could be countered by layer physical and EW aspects - eg, a right angle in the entrance hallway, some very short range but powerful jammer at the entrance and decent door?
Well thinking generically in CM terms, the Ukes were hiding their strongpoints in the shattered ruins of whatever settlement (dachas, factories, etc.); that's been a classic underdog move for centuries (La Haye Sainte? Camarrone?). So the Russians had to level those with saturation bombardments using the heavy stuff. Much the same in Bahmut.
But those positions could also be (slowly and bloodily) outflanked, and their LOCs choked off, via the surrounding countryside, where only treelines and the occasional balka provide any kind of concealment and holes in the ground are the defensive cover, with whatever roofing is available.
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24 minutes ago, hcrof said:
Ok so if we are trying to build bunkers under active fire from the enemy that does change the equation somewhat. But how bad is it? If you can't even bring in an excavator then it really limits your options and while throwing money at engineering problems often solves them (Kevlar sandbags?) I am not sure Ukraine has that kind of budget!
If I was in that situation I would be looking to pack something like this, or this on my truck and use it to support a lot of soil as overhead cover in a hand-dug trench. But it won't be nearly as strong as a concrete bunker since a near miss will collapse the walls more easily and a direct hit is game over even for a smaller round.
Yep, all great points, and I appreciate you and @Kinophile and others filling in the gaps on this.
Maybe the word 'bunker' is what's misleading; we're talking more about a 'lid', or some kind of Roman 'testudo' maybe, suitable for tactical 2 man emplacements only.
Core point remains -- whether or not it's 3D printing or even kevlar -- the West still has a chemical / plastics complex that can crank out polymer based stuff in massive quantities, and ship it Ost, within months.
Which we sadly cannot say about most other manufactures, including traditional munitions, as we are seeing. By the time that machine ramps up again (if it even can!), it may sadly be too late for Ukraine.
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5 minutes ago, Haiduk said:
The Golden BB, man!
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1 hour ago, hcrof said:
I've seen a lot of different designs tbh. The panalised system looks better from my armchair thousands of miles away but local supply chain issues may make other designs better in some cases. On the other hand, I have read reports that in many cases local commanders are just doing what they think is best, with limited engineering expertise to draw on so some designs may be wasteful of resources or just not very good.
But all this cement and steel requires heavy vehicles to move up (mud, anyone?), even if it's modular enough that ordinary grunts can assemble it without pioneers.
I'm talking about stuff you can throw on your ordinary supply 4x4s along with camo and wev, and 'install' into a frontline area overnight, (hopefully) before the enemy drones can zero you. Rather than installing your Siegfried line stuff 25km+ back and ceding the terrain in front (hell, do that too).
Will glorified Jersey barriers shrug off 122/152mm? Hell no. But it appears that's *not* what's mostly killing the Ukie grunts at this moment.
...As to flammable, I'd much rather put out a fire on my crappy lego bricks than be picking SPV frag/flechettes out of my skin and eyes. That's the threat that matters now, urgently.
TBH, I believe the WaPo (did I really just say that lol) when they report on Ukrainian villages devoid of menfolk. Bluntly, Putin can shovel more meat into the line (willing or unwilling), so *anything* that lessens that blood flow, even if Ivan/China promptly copies it, is critical path on this phase of the war, to my mind.
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7 hours ago, hcrof said:
The links are broken for me but I am very skeptical about building bunkers with 3d printing - and I say this as someone who designs structures, sometimes against explosions. If plastics are involved multiply that by 10.
Sure, and I freely admit I'm well over my skis here, but still, kevlar is a polymer/fiber.
I'd assume we could find ways to 3D print fibers which offer rudimentary ballistic protection and overhead cover against frag, if not high calibre rounds, which is the menace here, not to perfectly replicate cement and steel.
Truck the hollow lego brix to the front, fill 'em with dirt like a sandbag, etc. Quick 'n dirty! The most urgent need here though seems to be decent overhead cover for foxholes. with prefab hatches to keep drones from flying in. Igloo shape, maybe? Etc.
Just saying that this IS the kind of stuff the remaining non-Chinese industrial base can still crank out in bulk, real fast.... the priority here is to reduce the bleeding, or at least force the use of more drones to yield a given body count. Don't make perfect the enemy of good.
...Search '3D printed bunkers' and you'll find stuff that purports to be structurally sound enuff to bury.
P.S. I don't know what the thermal/masking properties of these plastics are, but ability to install a LOT of these also seems helpful.... dummies, fallback positions, etc.
P.P.S. Are both armies still digging long trench lines? Why? when the primary threat is now overhead? (it's a rhetorical question, I get why)
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(&*^%!! editor wiped out my post)
Over on the defensive side of the mass production macroequation, check this whacky stuff out.
And sure, you'd want this stuff underground wherever possible. But sometimes it won't be possible, in which case I might take a pillbox, or even a glorified pot lid, over what that Ukie commander called a 'bald hole'.
Note that one high volume manufacturing sector where the West (EU and USA) have NOT yet totally given away the store is higher end polymers and petrochemicals. So in contrast to my gloomy prior post, this could be a good place to catch up, innovating prefab substitutes to match China's knockoff/assembly behemoth.
@dan/california, one good reason to accelerate the carbon transition may well be that humanity finds much higher value things to do with hydrocarbons than burning them (yeah, microplastics, but we're doomed any which way)
https://www.archdaily.com/1014542/worlds-first-ever-3d-printed-mosque-opens-in-jeddah-saudi-arabia
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5 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:
Except that Russia's (rather, Siberia's) share of global metals needed to achieve the carbon transition is roughly comparable to its share of hydrocarbons.
...Unless you believe in stuff like deep sea mining, or take a giant hit off the Green Hydrogen bong.
But we're at risk for drifting OT. None of this is going to show up in time to change the outcome of the current war.
My other comment is that oil and LNG are both likely to be comparatively cheap for the next few years [I'm in the business, so I should know better than to say things like that, of course lol].
For example, Japan and Korea, traditional 'price takers' are both now looking to resell huge amounts of surplus LNG they contracted for, likely into Southeast Asia, if necessary subsidising the new power plants that will burn it.
None of this is great news for the planet, but not great for Putin either, plus the Chinese have got him by his undersized ntz at this point.
P.S. If you haven't read Daniel Yergin's 'The Prize', it is well worth it.
Sorry, as I said the energy/metals thing is marginally OT (though probably better than US politix right now), but check these out as a case in point for how deep a hole the West needs to dig itself out of in terms of manufacturing capacity. The headlines speak for themselves:
“Cyclical overcapacity is a feature across the Chinese economy, from steel to lower-end semiconductors,” said clean energy research specialist BNEF in a new report. “But today’s surplus of clean-tech manufacturing is unprecedented.”
(And keep in mind ALL the leading turbine manufacturers in the world except GE were European, up to about 3 years ago. They are all now going bankrupt/exiting and/or having quality problems as they had to cut so many corners to compete on price with Envision, Minyang, etc.)
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...So when we talk here about 'flooding the zone' with a bazillion cut-price drones, or antidrone-drones, or anti-antidrones, just *who* is in the position to walk that talk at this moment?
Very important to be realistic about this. Because whatever Ukraine and its allies innovate on the battlefield is being studied and copied, in real time.
Now whether Russia can effectively employ a bazillion cut rate drones or wevs, we can discuss. But I wouldn't answer that one with a hard No either....
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43 minutes ago, Haiduk said:
Ghana is new source of merceneries for Russia. There are rumors - France so actively now strive to help us even to sending troops, because secret agreement exists between France and Ukraine, that after Ukrainian victory we will help to expel Russians from French-interest zones of Africa. In last years France lost influence and was really pushed off from many of countries by Russia and China.
Hmm, maybe offer $10,000 cash bounty for every Slavic Russian head (freshly severed, no frag damage) they bring with them across the lines. Plus a 2 year noncombatant work contract in a Ukrainian defence plant, renewable, with air fare home at the end.
Double for officers (grab their paybook).
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18 hours ago, dan/california said:
Actually the very way Putin has failed points out how valuable it would be to push the transition harder. Think about what would happen to world oil markets if U.S. oil consumption went down by even 25%. The tech to make that happen EXISTS, all we have to is incentivize its adoption a little more. And when we do all of our enemies except China go broke spectacularly.
I am not saying shale has been a bad thing, the guy quoted above is right about what has happened in the last ten years. But a gallon/thousand BTUs you don't burn is just as much help as one drilled out of Texas.
Except that Russia's (rather, Siberia's) share of global metals needed to achieve the carbon transition is roughly comparable to its share of hydrocarbons.
...Unless you believe in stuff like deep sea mining, or take a giant hit off the Green Hydrogen bong.
But we're at risk for drifting OT. None of this is going to show up in time to change the outcome of the current war.
My other comment is that oil and LNG are both likely to be comparatively cheap for the next few years [I'm in the business, so I should know better than to say things like that, of course lol].
For example, Japan and Korea, traditional 'price takers' are both now looking to resell huge amounts of surplus LNG they contracted for, likely into Southeast Asia, if necessary subsidising the new power plants that will burn it.
None of this is great news for the planet, but not great for Putin either, plus the Chinese have got him by his undersized ntz at this point.
P.S. If you haven't read Daniel Yergin's 'The Prize', it is well worth it.
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10 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:
I asked Vladimir Putin a question at the economic forum in St. Petersburg in 2013, in which I mentioned shale oil and gas from the U.S. He literally shouted at me and said that shale gas was barbaric – because he knew that it would compete with Russian gas....
It was a very rational calculation on his part to speak of an oil and gas weapon – except that it failed. And it failed because of the shale revolution in the United States. If it hadn’t been for shale oil and gas, Putin would have prevailed. But there is a cost: European industry doesn’t have access to cheap Russian gas anymore.
But Putin’s problem is what to do with this gas. You can't just store natural gas. He has to look east, he has to integrate his economy more deeply with China and reduce the historical tensions between Beijing and Moscow. But there are contradictory messages coming from China.
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12 minutes ago, Kinophile said:
Ref economic grind:
On the other hand, the Chinese have stuck their Very Long Strawwwww into Russia even more quickly than I expected....
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Anorcdata: I was visiting NYC on St Paddy's and there was a line all the away around the block waiting to vote at the Russian consulate. No idea who for, although there was a monster truck parked nearby with huge Russian flags (Romanov eagle).
...I doubt those overseas voters are being coerced.
Interesting book excerpt here, on the normalisation of evil, viz. Niemöller....
They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45
...And you *are* an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end?
On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have. But your friends are fewer now. Some have drifted off somewhere or submerged themselves in their work.
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2 hours ago, danfrodo said:
Did LLF get hacked? The above post is rather ..... positive? Uncharacteristically positive. There is a Sun Tzu reference which certainly makes it seem like LLF.
But seriously, excellent points, LLF.
Duuude, this is the LongLeftFlank© gambit I've preached before here; others have too.
As our @The_Capt hath taught us, this is the very thing that the AFU has been doing brilliantly since 23 Feb: set the RU up in no-win situations and then force them to ride the hell ride anyway.
Planting bushels of landmines and lobbing in giant bombs won't help Ivan out of this one. There's just too much squishy ground to cover. Their only possible counter is to feed in equally tough swamp rat infantry, but even after 2 years my read is even VDV just don't have the C4ISR to match the Ukes.
Kinburn spit.
...All that said, those Ukrainian forces are going to suffer heavy losses, make no mistake.
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11 minutes ago, Grigb said:
Quick question - do we have topic regarding Israel? I am subscribed to the RU channel of David Gendelman. He writes short but informative posts that clarify some aspects of Israel operation.
Augh! I love you man, but for the sake of YHVH, don't go there, or at least not on here!!!!
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12 minutes ago, Sequoia said:
If I may ask, Russia has been going around the world recruiting people as troops and often using them as canon fodder. Ukraine, to its credit (afaik) has not. Is this decision for international public relations, military (such troops are unreliable), economic (we have better uses for the money), or something else?
1. There are migrants in desperate parts of the world who would man the modern equivalent of Birkenau crematoria blocks if they could wire home 700usd per month.
2. That said, they can't wire home that monthly pay if they are missing arms, legs or their heads; or if it's simply getting stolen. And word will get around, fast.
3. My personal KPI for Russia running out of mercenary cred, FWIW, is Norks. The Kim dynasty has sent thousands of young men to awful jobs in inclement parts of USSR/Russia (logging camps, mines) to earn money for the glorious Juche state ever since the Gulag tailed off. Their opinion in the matter is not requested.
I suspect there are already some DPKA military specialists working to support the RUAF. When tiny corpses of (underfed) Korean kids start showing up in the storm units, we'll know other options for mercs are running down for Putin Inc.
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
Never thought you'd miss Sarah P, right?
At least she could see Russia from her house.
Plus, those awesome cheekbones (#MCP).