Vanir Ausf B

I don't know the details, but I very strongly suspect that 'a small town in Ohio' *could* get aid if certain *cough*qanon*cough* senators and congressmen pulled their heads out of their asses.
It's not a financial binary - Ukraine or Ohio. It's a political binary - Biden doing good makes me look bad.

About 20 new tanks per month, maybe a little more.

Sharing this for the two videos.  One showing rather impressive mud/water capability of a TOS-1A.  The other of someone that will grow up in a free democracy because of the sacrifice of a lot of her countrymen.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/17/2153405/-Ukraine-update-New-Western-armor-is-just-days-away-from-arriving-in-Ukraine
 

There seems to be not much that can be realistically done to counter this, no? From here on out, preventing the enemy from having small observation drones in the air is going to be impossible. So any assault is going to be spotted beforehand, more often than not. Suppressing enemy mortar positions seems more plausible, but for that you need your own observation drones and precision artillery (so at least impossible for RU in this war, for now). That may not help against this relatively new form of ultra-mobile long range artillery, though. But the mortars seem the greatest danger, simply due to their much greater availability and local response times.
It looks like Russians actually did find a counter: Keep sending more waves until the enemy is through their mortar ammo. Although this clearly does not scale/is not sustainable.
BTW, I don't really get why UKR keeps asking for fighter jets, it seems several trainloads of mortars plus ammo would benefit them much more and would be infinitely easier to achieve.

I'd say he is 'on the money'. People were bitching Germany before and even demonstrations held about free the leopard, but so far the only thing countries are doing is cleaning out some olde stuff from the basement. And not even in numbers.

Who else is sending part of their actually modern (2A6/2A5/2PL/2A6E, etc), operational, fleet? Anyone? Ok, Portugal supposedly. 
Regarding 3%, does Germany have 467 operational Leo2A6 (14/0,03)? 
PS My country is also in the guilty corner imo. 

But it does appear to be a real concern.
__________
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned Monday that Ukraine is using up ammunition far faster than its allies can provide it and putting pressure on Western defense industries, just as Russia ramps up its military offensive.
“The war in Ukraine is consuming an enormous amount of munitions and depleting allied stockpiles,” Stoltenberg said. “The current rate of Ukraine’s ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production. This puts our defense industries under strain.”
According to some estimates, Ukraine is firing up to 6,000-7,000 artillery shells each day, around a third of the daily amount that Russia is using almost one year into the war.
Speaking on the eve of a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers, Stoltenberg said the waiting time for the supply of “large-caliber ammunition has increased from 12 to 28 months,” and that “orders placed today would only be delivered two-and-a-half years later.”
__________
https://www.yahoo.com/news/nato-chief-says-ukraines-ammunition-160804274.html
 

"Boris Pistorius said progress made by other countries in sending German-made Leopard tanks had “not been exactly breathtaking, to put it mildly”.
Berlin also announced last month that it would let allies re-export German-made tanks to Ukraine, and said it wanted to team up with its allies to create two tank battalions of Leopard 2s, equating to about 90 tanks.
But so far, apart from Germany only Poland has given the green light for substantial deliveries. Late last month, Canada announced it would send four Leopard 2 tanks and Norway said on Tuesday it was also providing eight.
Pistorius said Portugal had agreed to send three Leopard 2A6s — a commitment he described as an “appropriate contribution” for a relatively small country. But there were currently “no talks underway” on sending more A6s, he added.
He also said Poland would supply Leopard 2A4s but expressed doubt about their “condition and whether they are operational”. He said Canada had already delivered tanks to Poland together with their instructors and Warsaw was waiting for the tanks from Norway.
He added that Poland was also in “advanced talks” with Spain. Nato officials told the Financial Times that Berlin was waiting for a coalition of Leopard 2 donors to be formed before sending its own contingent, adding that the plan was to send the two battalions in one delivery."

EDIT: But I think Germany is bitching. They send about 3% of their fleet. If everyone does that we get nowhere. Portugal 10% and Norway 25-40% is the way to go. Poland is also 4% but they have already sent hundreds of T-72s and more are on the way so Poland doesn't count here.

But it does appear to be a real concern.
__________
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned Monday that Ukraine is using up ammunition far faster than its allies can provide it and putting pressure on Western defense industries, just as Russia ramps up its military offensive.
“The war in Ukraine is consuming an enormous amount of munitions and depleting allied stockpiles,” Stoltenberg said. “The current rate of Ukraine’s ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production. This puts our defense industries under strain.”
According to some estimates, Ukraine is firing up to 6,000-7,000 artillery shells each day, around a third of the daily amount that Russia is using almost one year into the war.
Speaking on the eve of a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers, Stoltenberg said the waiting time for the supply of “large-caliber ammunition has increased from 12 to 28 months,” and that “orders placed today would only be delivered two-and-a-half years later.”
__________
https://www.yahoo.com/news/nato-chief-says-ukraines-ammunition-160804274.html
 

The US has told Ukraine it will not send long-range missiles because it has too few to spare, according to a report.
US officials have said transferring Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to the battlefield in Ukraine would risk a shortage of its own stockpiles and damage its own readiness for any fight in the future, sources have told Politico.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/13/u-s-wont-send-long-range-missiles-ukraine-00082652

Here is extended to the west map of artilelry shellings. So now we can obviously say, Russians made attempt to bypass Vuhledar from west, but their movement to the north from Shevchenko, small village in 5,5 km SW from Pavlivka was heavy shelled by arty and stopped, though Russians claimed in first two days their forces seized some ground between Prechystivka and Vuhledar. So we have direct clashes area 15 x 8 km 

Ukrainian official headcount is as much as I understand it, based on "eliminated", since they cannot precisely tell how many of them are KIA/WIA and state of their wounds. Adding 3xtimes more wounded, even after tapping down official data by 50%, is thus probably still exagarreted. Russian medical system...well we only know for sure Ukrainian one is better. But still both sides have problems with keeping "golden hour" from frontline to operations table, this was specifically stated by medical volunteers with experience from Iraq/Afghan. Nobody can realistically count on helicopter medevac, for example. On Russian side they may occassionally flow some sorties for very big fishes, like wounded colonels with favours in HighCommand, but that seems to be it.
K.Muzyka after journey with Kofman and several others prominent analytics to Ukraine in summer, in which they spoke with both local and central commanders, later remarked in one of his threads that in his view numbers reported by local UA commands do not match up with total headcount at all, i.e. somebody is doing creative accounting, probably on several levels. He was heavily criticized in our netsphere for it and refused to elaborate further on (it's still writing on the water anyway), but there are others too who have serious doubts about validity of these numbers. Judging by stories from Ukrainian and Polish hospitals, Ukrainian side carnage is also tragic. But again, this is all anecdotal and not quantitive.
Ofc. Russian data is pure circus, they already destroyed several Bradleys.

[...] Brandon lives by Herman Kahn's mantra that, "I'm against fashionable thinking." Therefore, his entire life's work has been predicated on challenging conventional wisdom and assumptions on a variety of matters, notably in national security.[...]
https://www.brandonweichert.com/
A person who likes to go against established thinking even if it is right, I am afraid.

Looks like the same story as I wrote yesterday - Russians cleared mines from the road, advanced some forward and were shelled with ammunition, contaning RAAM. They tried to bypass, but this led either to activate of RAAM or to blowing up by TM-62 aside the cleaned road. AT mines and arty plays important role in this war, unlikely for dynamic CM scenarions %)

The first documented use of tank smoke launcher?
Now that I think about it these are even more critical for soviet origin tanks that have to make a 180-turn to bug out.

Here is the same situation. UKR soldiers of 54th mech.brigade (battalion K-2, former aerial recon group) assaults enemy platoon strongpoint "Barracuda" somewhere between Soledar and Siversk. Aerial recon spotted that Russians have in these trenches from 10 to 30 men, but to reach them, our troops have to overcome 300-400 m of open terrain. So, probably attack was launched, when Russians had minimal number of troops on position. Tactic - fast and bold advance of assault groups on BMP as close to positions as possible under cover the tank, then - direct assault.
Judging on video Russians had about dozen soldiers, UKR group has BMP with two squads and two tanks (one of them likely was in reserve if Russians take out attacking tank). In CM likely oppose side should have RPG-7 and additionally SPG-9 or some ATGM... But in real world Russians maybe had at least RPG, but they couldn't use it because were supressed with tank fire - almost point-blank. During the battle position was taken, several Russians were kileld, other, probably fled. UKR had one WIA. 
Video of assault (official K-2 Youtube has 18+restrictions, so I post the same video from NecroMancer's Youtube):

It's not so much that Europe has outsourced security to the US (and somehow fooled them into paying way more for defence than we do). It's that Europe imploded culturally, politically, and economically because of WW2, and the US then took over global leadership.
When Trump says it's "not fair" that EU countries pay less for military, that's based on the idea that we are somehow in an equal partnership. We are not. The USA is running the show, and EU is generally fine with that because the USA is way better than any alternative. And because we really don't want to be too assertive in global politics, telling people in other countries what to do... we've been there.
Also, while the US pays way more for NATO (in fact investing in its own superpower status), European countries spend way more of their GDP on international development and humanitarian aid. So it's not so much that we don't pay our part of the bill - we just pay different parts of it.

https://corporalfrisk.com/2023/02/11/leopard-1a5-see-first-shoot-first-and-then-what/
The Leo1A5 article we have been waiting for! Some top picking here:
"Another key aspect here is that when discussing tank guns, ammunition is often forgotten. There are huge differences between the capabilities of individual tank rounds also when fired from the same gun."
"For the Leopard 1 in particular, the best widely used round for the Leopard 1A5 is the DM63, a German license-produced version of the Israeli M426. You might/probably/perhaps/will bag a T-72B with it, but I wouldn’t want to be the one to try."
"Expert: 105mm DM63 is roughly the same capability as 120mm DM33, which was the main ammo for Leopard 2A4 at that time. So adequate to T-72/T-80's. Let's face it, Kontakt-5 ERA effect on APFSDS-T is controversial."
"Of course, the Israeli connection might be an issue. Or then not. There are unconfirmed (and I stress that word) reports the Slovenian delivery of the M-55S included the DM63 (it seems likely Israel had to sign off on the M-55S in either case considering Elbit’s role in the upgrade, giving some credibility to the rumors)."
"If you could get the Israelis onboard, you might also be able to low-key buy an even nicer piece of kit – Elbit’s M428 Sword. In either case, the M-55S has brought the L7 to the Ukrainian battlefield already, meaning that at least on a smaller scale someone has been studying the options for supplying the gun with ammunition."
"Ukraine has had to settle for Cold War-relics as ammunition due to lack of modern rounds. As such, a modern 105 mm round you have has better performance than a modern 125 mm round you don’t."
"However, everything is not terrible with the Leopard 1. Key among the nice features are the sensors. The Leopard 1A5 is an upgrade to the baseline Leopard 1 based around the EMES-15 sights and fire control system developed for the Leopard 2 (the 1A5-version being designated the EMES-18) which are top-notch compared to almost every tank rolling around in Ukraine at the moment. "
 "ex-German 1A5 and ex-Danish 1A5DK which are even further upgraded (described as “except for the gun, much better than the [Leopard 2]A4“)."
"In modern tank combat, seeing the enemy first and hitting with the first round are a big plus (you will still have to get through the enemy armor, but it’s a start), so the value of these features shouldn’t be underestimated."
"Sure, you probably would prefer to have the armor and 120 mm gun, but better mobility is at least something."
"most importantly, the 1A5 are available in nice numbers."

Interesting RUSI article around some of the challenges of providing Tranche 1 Typhoons
Giving RAF Typhoons to Ukraine Would Be a Very Expensive Symbolic Gesture | Royal United Services Institute (rusi.org) 
Long and short of it is that Typhoons are less suitable for lots of reasons and that the Gripen C is a much better fit.

Against Napoleon things didn't look good for a very long time, but the Russians kept on fighting, and they finally did win.
The Winterwar of 1939 didn't go especially good, to use a nice euphemism, but the Russians kept on fighting and they won eventually. 
And well, the summer of 1941 was way, way, WAY worse for the Russian Army than anything else, but they kept on fighting (against any logic or sensible reason), and they won in 1945.
 
So their history teaches them: how bad it is, even unimaginably bad, in the end we can win.
 
 

I've lived in both China and Taiwan, and aside from a common official language (which diverges more and more each year), I don't think they are really comparable.
From my perspective, there were a lot of things I liked better about living in China, especially when it came to food, urban planning and the unpretentious culture of the so-called 低端人口 "low-end population". But there's no denying that the political system is very hard to cope with as someone who grew up in a democratic country, especially as Xi keeps turning the screws tighter and tighter. The people who grow up in China don't have the same frame of reference, so even when they can admit to flaws in the system, they don't find them as objectionable as those of us who had the luxury of coming of age elsewhere. And, of course, unless they are especially wealthy, they don't have the option to escape to a democratic country anyway, so that shapes the way they look at things. Something someone told me there that stuck with me is that the government is like the weather - it's not something you can change, it's just something that happens to you, and if it blows up your house, or your business, well, 沒辦法 there's nothing you can do. Just deal with it and move on.
To get back on topic, this is why I think the Chinese government does not care especially much about the human cost of an invasion, which people overseas sometimes point to as a reason why an invasion would never go ahead. I believe that the government has a strong enough control over the media that they can manage public opinion, at least to enough of a degree that losing a hundred thousand or even a few hundred thousand soldiers wouldn't trigger major unrest. But I do think they would have to eventually win. Losing would really burst the bubble of infallibility that the party likes to maintain around itself. And I don't think they can frame it like the Russian government could frame the Ukraine invasion, making out like it was only ever a limited operation to stamp out a problematic element in certain regions. With Taiwan you either get the whole island, or you get nothing (with all respect to the people in Kinmen, Matsu islands etc - this is how I believe China will see it). So if they do go for an all-out invasion, they are going to want to have utterly overwhelming firepower... which is why I tend to favor the view of the wonks who predict a late 2020s invasion at the earliest.
In the mean time, the salami-slicing will continue, and I don't anticipate any of the countries having their EEZ violated or PLA bases built on sand bars objectively closer to their coastline than China's will do anything about it. Nobody can afford to lose their largest (or second-largest) trade partner.

You're playing fast and loose with the word "Collapse" , my friend!  
You've identified Russian Army collapse as a precursor to internal domestic chaos,  and I agree.  
But at no point in 2022 was the Russian Army tm,  as a theatre fighting force,  in danger of operatipnal-level collapse. 
It suffered defeats because of local collapses but none of those threatened the overall operational force in themselves. Kyiv was a bad tactical,  operational and strategic defeat -  but the Donbass forces were not threatened and became the core of the next stage. The Sumy defeat was a domino from Kyiv,  becoming pointless after the northern retreat. Kharkiv was very damaging to the northern flank of the Donbass attack but even then we suspected (and its patently clear now) UKR was never going to exploit past local theatre success. Taking Luhansk was simply out of reach of the ZSU's then-capabilities. The Kherson defeat was managed relatively well and while a bad PR moment served to stabilize the whole front, and again,  the rest of the line was not in threat. 
Each time there has been a local defeat the rest of the operation has been fairly untouched and could hold its part while adjustments were made. None of the defeats compounded their effects across the force in general. 
There doesn't seem to be anything in 2023 that will break that process, except for UKR launching a massive, multi axis assault with compounding effects throughout the entire expeditionary force. 
Otherwise the Ivan will just suffer local defeats,  absorb the damage,  adjust and reconstitute and still be there next spring,  ready to go once more. 
Your required collapse requires more than the ZSU can do this year. 
Can you be more descriptive of what you think the ZSU can do? 

Several days ago one soldier has written in twitter that soldiers have to demand from own battalion HQ to supply companies with 60 mm mortars. Because in dense infantry fights its turned out very useful and damgerous weapon. This post summoned many feedback from other soldiers, which were either agree with that or told that 60 mm is a good thing, but it's few skilled crews to use its properly - ther were many accidents of friendly fire with these mortars. 
Here is one of such posts from soldier of 93rd brigade:
Translation:
So it happened that only on last period of our previous rotation in Bakmut 60 mm mortar was appeared and used in our unit. In particular, our aerial-recon unit tried to ajust it fire, when it was needed. Based on results, I also consider that such stuff should be in big numbers on frontline. Heavy infantry clashes are exhausting our potential in part of infantry. And there is no any secret here. Clashes are losses always. Moskovites actively use mortar crews and SPG-9 and this cause problems for our defense. While we expect tanks, IFVs and howitzers, we need to resque those, who hold frontline with own bossoms. And mortars with AGSs can do that. Mimimum one hit with 60 mm mortar helped to stop one of numerous assults of position of our infantry to the south from Bakhmut.  
I can repeat, that AFU has a lack not only howitzers, but also mortars of all calibers. In the autumn Taras Chmut, head of Back-and-Alive charity foundation told that we have defficite in about 300-400 mortars only 120 mm caliber and this is not counting 82 and 60 mm. You can see on numerous videos huge zoo of mortars in our service, sometime from very exotic countries and even from our formal foes, like Iran (probably 82 mm Iranian mortars for Houthi, captured in some way). 60 mm mortars inintially was defined for SOF and TDF units, but soon many other light and not only light infantry evaluated opportunities of these small toys. Alas, load of work for arty and mortars so big, that they are taking out of service not only because enemy fire, but because of huge rate of barrel exhausting. 

Current RUS Donbass offensives also starting to be done with "class-A" units with bad results Seems the RUS "class-A" quality has reduced with losses and new recruits  Current offensives are very different from the past months. Mechanised assaults.  These operations seems to be the start of this awaited RUS offensive This "awaited RUS offensive" is going to look very underwhelming. Also the early signs point to this. One likely goal for these attacks is Izium. The need it to advance to Dombas deeper than Bakhmut. Unlikely to succeed Very sceptical of new fronts opening. Attack from belarus would take many times the current forces and months of buildup like we saw a year ago UKR is clearly preserving its highest quality forces. Line is now been held by territorials, legion and national guard Very hard to tell where the UKR forces are located. Brigades often send single battalion tactical groups all over the place. RUS also seems to have been preserving its highest quality forces UKR seems to have a plan of setting up new 3 corp level formations. Western armored equipment is part of this plan. RUS minimal wargoal is Dombas but it is also the hardest nut to crack. Unlikely to succeed. Best case RUS can hope for is to keep the current lines(take some, lose some) somewhat and exhaust both sides. The current tank discussions going to wrong direction. This new equipment is not going to be in time for the next offensives but is going to give critical future security for UKR. They can afford to take losses now. Even the most perfect major offensive is going to cause losses of armored vehicles in the hundreds. Mike doesn't believe in the NATO equipment wunderwaffe. What UKR need is equipment to equip their new brigades, not so critical is it modernized T-72 or leopard 2A4. Especially the tank debate is over valued. Biggest need is for IFV and APC. Also the greatest technological leap is in western IFV not MBTs. UKR needs artillery ammo, air defense, precision fires, long range precision fires and armored vehicles. In that sort of priority. RUS was very unlucky with the mild winter. Energy war and the UKR strike campaign RUS seems to have run out of missile stockpiles and is now firing at the rate of production. This means maybe one wave per month. Western jets are just a matter of time. No matter what UKR is going have to switch to western airframes. At the end discussion about cluster ammo, escalation and nuclear escalation 
Mike Kofman and Ryan Evans cover a lot of ground in this episode about the war in Ukraine: Russian goals in the Donbass, the coming Russian counter-offensive, the state of Russian and Ukrainian forces, tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, cluster and sensor-fuzed munitions, fourth-generation fighter aircraft, a warm winter, nuclear risk, and more. If you are interested in what's happening in and around Ukraine, this is another must-listen episode.

I live in Taiwan. The vast majority of the population here does not live in the mountains. I can't imagine the PLA would care to spend a lot of resources trying to control what geographically might be the largest portion of the country but demographically and politically is not especially significant. I don't know much about military operations, so perhaps there is some strategic value in controlling a position on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere, but I suspect any invading force would have their hands full just trying to cross the plains where all the people live.
I think there are two parallel discussions on this thread, and they're not the same thing.
On one hand, it would be cool to have a Combat Mission style game where we could play both Chinese and Taiwanese units duking it out in close quarters on a watery map, something like around the Erren river or Taoyuan airport, for example. Quadcopters. UGVs. Factories. Rice paddies. We all know that's a game that would exist more for fun than serious simming, but there's plenty of people on both sides of the strait who would love to play it.
The other topic is what a real-world invasion - or at least military-backed pressure - would look like. And that is likely to be continued economic punishment, diplomatic isolation, political manipulation, spreading of disinformation, cyberwarfare and ultimately a naval blockade and targeted missile strikes to try encourage a critical mass of the Taiwanese population to support a government capitulation. Not really something that can easily be wargamed in the traditional sense, although it could be interesting to see a political sim go there. I suppose Kinmen might be a plausible (and simable!) military target, but I'm not sure the Chinese government would want to risk what that might turn into unless they really feel out of options.
In the real-world scenario, I think the biggest question is just how strongly the US (and Japan) will stand by Taiwan. I have my doubts about the American people's resolve, and I think the Chinese government does too, which is why the PLA continues salami-slicing the median line, building bases all over the South China Sea and flying spy balloons over the continental US. The trouble is for most Taiwanese the status quo is seen as a better situation than increased tensions with China, whereas Americans are playing a different game - they have their own competition with China where Taiwan just exists as an abstract bargaining chip or domestic points-scoring exercise - so it's difficult to get a sense of just how serious the US government is about the country's defense.

Export models have different armor. AFAIK there are none of those in storage.