panzermartin

Yes AI will have to bring changes to the system. I hope the elite understands they can't put everyone out of work while they hold the keys to automation and the big share of goods. This will either lead to most people going extinct or to another revolution like in 1789. Hopefully the second.

Apart from balloons they are also strange exagonical things flying around. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/12/politics/unidentified-object-canada-alaska-military-latest/index.html What is going on, aliens?

There have been reports that the intiital UKR force in Bakhmut was around 30.000. On 10 January 2023, Polish think tank Rochan Consulting estimated Ukraine may have ten brigades fighting in Bakhmut, or around 30,000 personnel. I understand this includes artillery crews and reserves that could be outside the ring but, has any part of the main force withdrawn to avoid encriclement or Ukraine is going to sacrifice this huge capable force to the last man?

But seriously a jet slower than a P51 mustang?

Hmm good points and apparently Ukrainian pilots who have previously flown the frogfoot might be disappointed with the new bird : https://www.google.com/amp/s/theaviationgeekclub.com/su-25-vs-a-10-heres-why-the-frogfoot-might-be-better-suited-than-the-warthog-for-cas/

Tornados? And why A10s havent been discussed much , they could be the equivalent of SU 25 which seems popular in this conflict , flying low avoiding the fat S400s and going tank hunting in the stepes

That's an interesting observation, I hadn't noticed. The original tweet is to blame because it makes a conclusion with a chart not based on a fixed number and then claims "increase in chip imports". Why she did that?

Oh cripes, we get tens of violations from turkish warplanes everyday for decades deep in the agean, that balloon story is almost cute. Poor thing got lost so many miles away from home

What a crazy war. Imagine this kind of footage from WW2 battles. We haven't grasp how erratic to the extreme everything could be. (And politely wishing for more uncertainty and randomness and a touch of analogueness in the inevitable digitalness of modern CM titles)

No he couldn't, he was in Athens in 1941. But this was equally awful enough to shape a collective memory and hate for generations of ukrainians.

Well it depends. For instance my father never got over his dislike for germans , seeing executions, people dying from hunger , life was very difficult in the big cities. Nothing to eat etc...Even hearing the german language would raise his hair. I could understand but I couldn't carry on the hate which I guess was the healthy thing to do. For sure it has more impact on older generations but we should not underestimate the "collective memory" either.

Not surprising. Generations of russians were raised with the wounds of the great patriotic war, inflicted from enemies coming from their western borders. 27 million dead, every family had lost one or more members. Putin will play this card again and again and people will follow. Leopards are great but they trigger more and more population into a "new patriotic war" mentality and this is against Europe in the long term.

Yes I don't doubt they have been fighting in a more coherent compared to Russians in a situation of overwhelming enemy firepower that could otherwise lead to chaos and panic. And let's accept that last stands like Mariupol were probably not in vain. Bakhmut probably will be a case study in this depending on the outcome and the strategy Ukraine will follow till the end. But in general I doubt the losses estimates and the ratio with Russians is right. @MikeyDs 1 to 6,5 seems extreme. 1/2 to 1/3 as @The_Captnoted could be closer to the truth. But even in this ratio and if we take the most pessimistic numbers and the UKR losses are over 100.000, Russians will have lost more than the whole original invasion force at best and at worse close to half a million troops. Anyway, the main point of my post was, there is a chance Russia could finally exhaust Ukraines effective manpower and maybe we will see less WW1 defenses from the high command as the war goes on. Ukraine will be more mobile with the new hardware anyway, we will see.

Yes its true that in some cases they had no other options. Also in the beginning of the war they had no APCs to safely escape the battle zone. But there are voices from the front lines that indicate that sometimes they are left to their fate under fierce TOS, arty and airforce bombardment.

Wiki is also providing various estimates from different sources that can help, but it's hard to fully trust anything especially as the war goes on. Vehicles losses are more reliable, as there is usually visual evidence. On the crew losses you refer its a good point but even if the Russians have lost 3000 tanks for example with all their 3 man crews that would be only 9000 casualties. Painful casualties of specialized troops but still in cold numbers not a difference. And we know many of these tanks were just abandoned, stuck in the mud, damaged and even in the destroyed ones crews could get away. So I don't think vehicle crew add that much to the total casualties. Destroyed BMPs with squads inside could be multiplying losses but how common were those we don't know.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64455123.amp

I assume they could be equal, at least in human losses. Especially because of the great volume of enemy artillery and the stubborn UKR static defenses in a a year of fights. Plus RU had the ability to strike bases, barracks and concentrations of troops relentlessly in a daily base with a variety of long range rockets and air force, an ability UKR didn't have for a long time and somewhat the HIMARS covered that gap later. As for the numbers on ORYX and other sites, I don't really trust them especially in human losses. I think they are probably accurate in vehicle losses for RU, those were enormous.

My intention is not to equalize, but to question the decisions of an otherwise troop preserving top command. And we don't really know the actual casualties of UKR.

Probably this war won't be won on western equipment alone but how many personnel Ukraine will have left in the end. We are bashing Russia for sending ill prepared troops in human wave style assaults but I haven't seen mentioning that a lot of UKR troops were lost in encircled traps like in Mariupol, Severodonetsk, Soledar, Bakhmut etc while they could have withdrawn to fight another day with better chances. On the contrary RU has shown much more preservance reflexes(at least in defense) , pulling out of unfavorable situations instead of fighting to the last man. I understand the different mentality of someone defending his homeland but it seems these "no step back" decisions are coming from above. A lot men have left Ukraine as well. And a lot have deserted to the east or joined the DPRs and LPRs and some videos of enforced recruitment have been circulating lately. How many can Ukraine sacrifice and how many losses can the foreign volunteers replace as the war widens.

I remember one basic argument of Russian military collapse a few months ago was that Russia was running out of micro chips essential for manufacturing precision weapons. And China would be too afraid to provide these because of West's reaction. Well neither happened, there is a surge of chip imports and China was more than willing to provide these. I have started to think It's a global war already that probably can't be won only in Ukraine.

You mean it could be deep fake AI?

Don't know him. I meant Zelensky

Sad to see war taking such a toll on him. And this speech is... Sad.

The problem is, I don't think the barrel of debt this war will create for economies has any bottom. It will keep growing and escalating and the final bill will be that big that the Abrams maintenance difference cost will be a drop in the ocean. Personally I think the M1A2, despite the headaches, is a more battle proven and a nearly indestructible platform that could prove an Uber weapon like HIMARS. We've seen the issues with Pz2000, who knows what more troubles LEO2 will reveal along the way.

So when US invaded and occupied Iraq, Afghanistan etc (even further away from Europe) with hundreds of M1 tanks it had problem to maintain them because the factories were in US? Doesn't make sense. Or maybe Iraq and Talibans were more important than a world shaping conflict in Europe.