TheVulture

Not unrelated, but the UK army started receiving its first Archer artillery systems (L52) from Sweden in early 2023, so yes, they are basically shipping the AS-90s to Ukraine as they are being replaced in active service by new systems.
I believe Sweden have also sent some Archers to Ukraine, so they're getting some more modern systems too, not just stuff that's being retired. Archer I think is on a par with the French Caesars that are getting a lot of praise.

About developing of warfare by spiral again %)
Since Russia unable to use A-50 AWACS close to our borders, it flooded our space by long-range recon drones Orlan, Zala, SuperCam, which with rotations are may to observe large squares of frontline and in the deep rear. Reportedly only for one day up to 200 UAVs can be spotted behind out lines. UKR side just hasn't enough radars, EW assets and SAMs, SHORADs etc to cover all frontline to prevent penetration of such number of drones in the rear. Except all of this we have large lack of anti-aircraft missiles of all types, including SHORADs and even MANPADs 
Yesterday likley as experimental act of desperation training Yak-52 was use to shoot down two Russian drones over Odesa oblast. Like in WWI times second crewman takes LMG in the cabine to fire at the drones. BTW this flight was successfull - two enemy drones were downed. And this is obviously more cheap method, than waste missiles. There is a one problem - risk of friendly fire, because small aircraft can be similar on radar to the drone

Videos of "dogfihgt" with Orlan-10
So, if some have operational P-51, Spitfires, Bf-109 , it will be useful

 

That Vladimir Putin makes bad decisions from our perspective is not the same thing as him making irrational decisions.
In that light, I think you should ask yourself whether or not the Russians would have preferred the US to be still mired in Afghanistan while also trying to support Ukraine. And you should ask yourself whether or not Putin would have preferred a safely pliant Ukrainian government (being coerced not just by the Kremlin but also the White House) over the risks associated with going en banc with a full attempt at conquest. Finally, please come up with a single evidenced example of Trump giving Russia or China pause in their foreign policy behavior. This claim is often made yet nobody can point to one…though moments of pause and dismay abound among American allies during the same time period. 
Putin’s timing wasn’t about losing the restraining hand of what we are supposed to imaging was an intimidating Trump administration vis a vis Moscow…it was the recognition that a window of opportunity was closing. Indeed, events have shown Putin didn’t realize it already had.

More likely that we're going to get back to the mid-2023 situation where Russia is no longer able to make incremental gains and Ukraine can push them back slightly in a few places. I'm not expecting anything dramatic personally - just a shift in the media narrative which is currently "Russia is slowly grinding Ukraine down".

Well if the pattern is consistent we should get a troll through here in the next week or so, shedding wolf's tears about the "inhumanity of this terrible war" and how we need to stop it now.  Of course the way to stop it is to cut off funding to Ukraine and force them to the negotiation table.  To which we will ask - just like last time - "What f@cking table?!"

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

Mixed feelings. Congress version is stronger than Senate one (ATACAMS + Russian actives). But... How much thousands lives have gone, what economical damage was done, how much our lands were occupied until both political forces have been conducting own dirty pre-election games during these five-six months. All this could have been avoided if Senate agreed to continue lend-lease law. 

It's currently being reported that the House has passed the Ukraine aid deal 311-112.
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/house-vote-ukraine-israel-taiwan-aid-04-20-24/index.html

This really speaks to a political leader who simply does not understand how the modern world works. Of the US wants roughly the same economic footing it had pre-WW2, back when its population was about 125M, then decoupling globalization makes perfect sense.  How many jobs in the US will have to go back to manufacturing and resources?  Entire generations of Americans will have to go back to the coal mines and steel mills.  Costs for everything will go through the roof, unless of course Vance’s plan is all JP Morgan and plans to pay future US workers next to nothing to do all the work that has been outsourced.  And then there is the uncomfortable realities of the money markets and foreign investment.
The US does not get to be large, powerful and rich without the global order that it built, fought for and now needs to keep fighting for.  It baffles me that the average voter in the US does not really understand this let alone a senator.

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.

For those who remember the British 'Dragonfire' anti-drone laser test from January, Grant Shapps (UK defence secretary) is now talking about possibly delivering it to Ukraine relatively soon.
It's timeline was originally aiming to be in service 2032 (assuming it can be made to work adequately). The time line was accelerated to 2027, because I'm sure it's possible to finish R&D 5 years sooner just because politicians have decided.  Now Shapps is saying it may be delivered to Ukraine even sooner than that because a system that is 70% done next year is better then one 99.9% done in 3 years.
More realistically, Ukraine needs any air defence it can get,  and the system gets to be tested heavily in real conditions, which will probably improve design iteration. So I guess we'll see whether it can become a meaningful and cost effective anti-drone system or whether its a white elephant.
Edit to add: whatever the rationale behind the decision making,  announcing it now has a lot more to do with timing of domestic and European politics, and the content of the announcement likewise.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68795603

For those who remember the British 'Dragonfire' anti-drone laser test from January, Grant Shapps (UK defence secretary) is now talking about possibly delivering it to Ukraine relatively soon.
It's timeline was originally aiming to be in service 2032 (assuming it can be made to work adequately). The time line was accelerated to 2027, because I'm sure it's possible to finish R&D 5 years sooner just because politicians have decided.  Now Shapps is saying it may be delivered to Ukraine even sooner than that because a system that is 70% done next year is better then one 99.9% done in 3 years.
More realistically, Ukraine needs any air defence it can get,  and the system gets to be tested heavily in real conditions, which will probably improve design iteration. So I guess we'll see whether it can become a meaningful and cost effective anti-drone system or whether its a white elephant.
Edit to add: whatever the rationale behind the decision making,  announcing it now has a lot more to do with timing of domestic and European politics, and the content of the announcement likewise.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68795603

Also from the department of over-cooked advertising spiel on British drones and lasers, BAE and Sentinel Unmanned recently announced they'd done the first successful firing or a class IV laser from a drone, which makes it sound like they've mounted some high power laser weapon on a drone, but turns out to be a laser target designator for guiding precision munitions.
In know we've discussed in the past the tendency for military procurement to take a concept like a $500 drone used for spotting and produce a $50,000 drone to do the same job better, but not 100x better. This longreach drone looks to fit that description: https://www.baesystems.com/en/product/longreach----a-groundbreaking-elevated-targeting-capability
And look how many important sounding acronyms they get in to the key features list:
Multi-role platform Static and covert loiter capability CLASS IV NATO (STANAG 3733) Compliant Laser Designator with SEESPOT and laser rangefinder Compatible with precision strike weapons including APKWS® and Brimstone™ Suitable for targeting indirect fires Advanced situation awareness, STANAG 4609 Target recognition & tracking AES256 Link Encrypted MESH enabled – radio agnostic ATAK integrated SATCOM integrated Precision landing Autonomous mission capability In-built safety features including emergency parachute Hardened for operations in GNSS-challenged environments Looks cool though...

Also from the department of over-cooked advertising spiel on British drones and lasers, BAE and Sentinel Unmanned recently announced they'd done the first successful firing or a class IV laser from a drone, which makes it sound like they've mounted some high power laser weapon on a drone, but turns out to be a laser target designator for guiding precision munitions.
In know we've discussed in the past the tendency for military procurement to take a concept like a $500 drone used for spotting and produce a $50,000 drone to do the same job better, but not 100x better. This longreach drone looks to fit that description: https://www.baesystems.com/en/product/longreach----a-groundbreaking-elevated-targeting-capability
And look how many important sounding acronyms they get in to the key features list:
Multi-role platform Static and covert loiter capability CLASS IV NATO (STANAG 3733) Compliant Laser Designator with SEESPOT and laser rangefinder Compatible with precision strike weapons including APKWS® and Brimstone™ Suitable for targeting indirect fires Advanced situation awareness, STANAG 4609 Target recognition & tracking AES256 Link Encrypted MESH enabled – radio agnostic ATAK integrated SATCOM integrated Precision landing Autonomous mission capability In-built safety features including emergency parachute Hardened for operations in GNSS-challenged environments Looks cool though...

For those who remember the British 'Dragonfire' anti-drone laser test from January, Grant Shapps (UK defence secretary) is now talking about possibly delivering it to Ukraine relatively soon.
It's timeline was originally aiming to be in service 2032 (assuming it can be made to work adequately). The time line was accelerated to 2027, because I'm sure it's possible to finish R&D 5 years sooner just because politicians have decided.  Now Shapps is saying it may be delivered to Ukraine even sooner than that because a system that is 70% done next year is better then one 99.9% done in 3 years.
More realistically, Ukraine needs any air defence it can get,  and the system gets to be tested heavily in real conditions, which will probably improve design iteration. So I guess we'll see whether it can become a meaningful and cost effective anti-drone system or whether its a white elephant.
Edit to add: whatever the rationale behind the decision making,  announcing it now has a lot more to do with timing of domestic and European politics, and the content of the announcement likewise.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68795603

For those who remember the British 'Dragonfire' anti-drone laser test from January, Grant Shapps (UK defence secretary) is now talking about possibly delivering it to Ukraine relatively soon.
It's timeline was originally aiming to be in service 2032 (assuming it can be made to work adequately). The time line was accelerated to 2027, because I'm sure it's possible to finish R&D 5 years sooner just because politicians have decided.  Now Shapps is saying it may be delivered to Ukraine even sooner than that because a system that is 70% done next year is better then one 99.9% done in 3 years.
More realistically, Ukraine needs any air defence it can get,  and the system gets to be tested heavily in real conditions, which will probably improve design iteration. So I guess we'll see whether it can become a meaningful and cost effective anti-drone system or whether its a white elephant.
Edit to add: whatever the rationale behind the decision making,  announcing it now has a lot more to do with timing of domestic and European politics, and the content of the announcement likewise.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68795603

New update from General Oleksandr Syrskyi:
https://t.me/osirskiy/650
 
 

Please explain what means that is.

When EU parliament is doing better than the House of Representatives, I hope Speaker Johnson looked at the eclipse without protection. What a ridiculous mind boggling genuinely bad look for the Republican Party, Congress and the U.S. At this point, a pure Ukraine bill should be able to pass. The fact it cannot, despite a majority of republicans, democrats, a bipartisan majority in Congress, alongside a majority of the American people, due to one man, the speaker, and I suppose, one presidential candidate, how can any ally of the U.S have faith in us? I mean, let’s be blunt, support for Ukraine is bipartisan and popular and not a fringe position. The fact that despite this, we are unable to pass the bill will not reassure any American allies, nor our enemies, nor neutrals to trust us.

I wonder how much the F-4 Vietnam experience plays in to this (I'm probably mis-remembering the aircraft involved - apologies if so - and possibly this is one of those 'truisms' that turns out to be an urban myth or at least not quite as simple as usually described).  The F-4 was initially designed without a gun / cannon, since it had air-to-air missiles that would supposedly render the gun obsolete - anything dangerous would be destroyed by missiles (or destroy the F-4 by missiles) before they ever got close to gun range. Turns out that the anti-air missiles didn't perform as reliably as hoped, and they did find themselves in dogfighting range without a gun to fall back on.
New versions were quickly developed that did have a gun, and all US planes since then, including the F-35 which is very much meant to not be a dogfighter, still carry a gun, because the cost of including it is relatively small, and the downside of not having one if you happen to find yourself in a situation where it's the best option is comparatively large.

I wonder how much the F-4 Vietnam experience plays in to this (I'm probably mis-remembering the aircraft involved - apologies if so - and possibly this is one of those 'truisms' that turns out to be an urban myth or at least not quite as simple as usually described).  The F-4 was initially designed without a gun / cannon, since it had air-to-air missiles that would supposedly render the gun obsolete - anything dangerous would be destroyed by missiles (or destroy the F-4 by missiles) before they ever got close to gun range. Turns out that the anti-air missiles didn't perform as reliably as hoped, and they did find themselves in dogfighting range without a gun to fall back on.
New versions were quickly developed that did have a gun, and all US planes since then, including the F-35 which is very much meant to not be a dogfighter, still carry a gun, because the cost of including it is relatively small, and the downside of not having one if you happen to find yourself in a situation where it's the best option is comparatively large.

I wonder how much the F-4 Vietnam experience plays in to this (I'm probably mis-remembering the aircraft involved - apologies if so - and possibly this is one of those 'truisms' that turns out to be an urban myth or at least not quite as simple as usually described).  The F-4 was initially designed without a gun / cannon, since it had air-to-air missiles that would supposedly render the gun obsolete - anything dangerous would be destroyed by missiles (or destroy the F-4 by missiles) before they ever got close to gun range. Turns out that the anti-air missiles didn't perform as reliably as hoped, and they did find themselves in dogfighting range without a gun to fall back on.
New versions were quickly developed that did have a gun, and all US planes since then, including the F-35 which is very much meant to not be a dogfighter, still carry a gun, because the cost of including it is relatively small, and the downside of not having one if you happen to find yourself in a situation where it's the best option is comparatively large.

I wonder how much the F-4 Vietnam experience plays in to this (I'm probably mis-remembering the aircraft involved - apologies if so - and possibly this is one of those 'truisms' that turns out to be an urban myth or at least not quite as simple as usually described).  The F-4 was initially designed without a gun / cannon, since it had air-to-air missiles that would supposedly render the gun obsolete - anything dangerous would be destroyed by missiles (or destroy the F-4 by missiles) before they ever got close to gun range. Turns out that the anti-air missiles didn't perform as reliably as hoped, and they did find themselves in dogfighting range without a gun to fall back on.
New versions were quickly developed that did have a gun, and all US planes since then, including the F-35 which is very much meant to not be a dogfighter, still carry a gun, because the cost of including it is relatively small, and the downside of not having one if you happen to find yourself in a situation where it's the best option is comparatively large.

I wonder how much the F-4 Vietnam experience plays in to this (I'm probably mis-remembering the aircraft involved - apologies if so - and possibly this is one of those 'truisms' that turns out to be an urban myth or at least not quite as simple as usually described).  The F-4 was initially designed without a gun / cannon, since it had air-to-air missiles that would supposedly render the gun obsolete - anything dangerous would be destroyed by missiles (or destroy the F-4 by missiles) before they ever got close to gun range. Turns out that the anti-air missiles didn't perform as reliably as hoped, and they did find themselves in dogfighting range without a gun to fall back on.
New versions were quickly developed that did have a gun, and all US planes since then, including the F-35 which is very much meant to not be a dogfighter, still carry a gun, because the cost of including it is relatively small, and the downside of not having one if you happen to find yourself in a situation where it's the best option is comparatively large.

I wonder how much the F-4 Vietnam experience plays in to this (I'm probably mis-remembering the aircraft involved - apologies if so - and possibly this is one of those 'truisms' that turns out to be an urban myth or at least not quite as simple as usually described).  The F-4 was initially designed without a gun / cannon, since it had air-to-air missiles that would supposedly render the gun obsolete - anything dangerous would be destroyed by missiles (or destroy the F-4 by missiles) before they ever got close to gun range. Turns out that the anti-air missiles didn't perform as reliably as hoped, and they did find themselves in dogfighting range without a gun to fall back on.
New versions were quickly developed that did have a gun, and all US planes since then, including the F-35 which is very much meant to not be a dogfighter, still carry a gun, because the cost of including it is relatively small, and the downside of not having one if you happen to find yourself in a situation where it's the best option is comparatively large.