dan/california

Good article on the state of hide and seek. Short version, the camo is getting better, but not as fast as the sensors are.

Handy how to from the WP.

These people need to leave Russia, yesterday!

About six weeks is my guess...

They use synthetic aperture radar to evaluate urban damage. Very interesting. also, some interesting use of FIRMS

But regardless of the damage to Hong Kong, which was severe, the damage to China's overall economy proved tolerable. Xi isn't going to be deterred by economic damage, regardless. He is simply to insulated from the well being of the Chinese people as a whole. What WILL deter his is enough military power on Taiwan to make it clear he will wind up like Putin has in Bakmuht, incomprehensibly large losses with absolutely nothing to show for it, not even a flag planted on smoking wreckage. Xi could lose 80% of the Chinese navy and it would be a symbolic/propaganda victory if he got too parade through Taipei. Losing 80% of the Chines navy and getting nothing for it except an economy 25% smaller than it was the month before is an entirely different thing.

We need to put a Marine division on Taiwan, ambiguity has exhausted it usefulness. It will be interesting to see if this prompts another round of brain drain.

It has been widely understood on the the thread that the invasion was designed to support a coup, as opposed to being a fully formed military operation of its own. What the report makes clear is that coup had failed, or at least was nowhere close to succeeding, and the Russians launched the invasion anyway. They have been doubling down on failure ever since.

On a lighter note this beaver is convinced this trench will be his dream home, just as soon as he turns it into a pond. Edit: Can one of the bigger drones deposit him on the Russian side of he line a a place they will regret?

What the Chinese have done in Xinjiang is what Putin wants to do in Ukraine. And for the record it is bleeping ugly.

Don't quit when we are winning, and the other guy deserves it.

Pretty good psy ops, if true.

Can I be greedy and throw in electromagnetic impulse for the mortar, instead of charges? Or would that be gilding the lily?

hcrof is dead on here. In particular a 120mm breach loading mortar makes more sense by the day vs 120mm smoothbore designed to send APFSDS down range. You have to show most of the turret to shoot APFSDS, that seems ever less healthy even with the best armor and APS on the planet. I am mildly concerned that some wrong lessons could be drawn from this war if the late model NATO tanks show up, and just shreds giant gaps in in the crumbling and corroded mess that currently passes for the Russian army. Not that would be unhappy about the Russians getting shredded, but it would reduce pressure to rethink things as much as I think the Pentagon and various other defense ministries need to rethink them. I mean the Chinese could be as stupid as the Russians have been even after watching the Russian's disaster, but I don't find it likely.

I agree with Bill. But even if cesmonkey is correct, admitting that Trump's Ukraine policy is completely unknowable, because he makes it up all over again after breakfast every day, is not exactly an endorsement of his candidacy.

Gentlemen, for the record, I think NATOs entire air force should be committed to this war, and every Russian soldier in Ukraine, Crimea and Donbas included, sent home on fire. I am just musing a little on where things could wind up because political support for my plan A seems limited. My plan B is to send Ukraine enough stuff to win just as completely, albeit more slowly. We are are just BARELY staying on track with that one. The spring /summer offensive will tell us one way or the other. That said, and assuming there is not a sudden agreement about NATO getting involved, Simoyan's latest screed is RELATIVELY much less crazy than than what most senior Russian propagandists say, most of the time. It is not a rant that they will nuke London unless we give them Kyiv, with references to child sacrifice and pagan rituals. Is this significant or just filler for Russian TV on a Sunday afternoon, I have no idea, but it is a bit different.

Very well stated, and Simoyan's proposal is certainly the the sanest thing we have heard on Russian TV in a while. Now that is an extremely low bar, but it still might be the beginning of the negotiation Russia has to have with defeat. It is also possible she is out a window in the next 24 hours. It is only a 155 years since the U.S. bought Alaska, more to the point it is how Putin thinks about things, everyone seems to agree it is to hard to burn down the Kremlin and hang the man. So I guess we we are going to have to negotiate with him instead, at least a little bit. This, if it humanely possible this war needs to end with an actual peace, not a DMZ and a seventy five year staring match. That might be to much to hope for, but it should be the goal. Of course this negotiation is not going to happen until after the Ukraines spring/summer offensive. So the first question is what do both armies have left.

This was after some minor advance in Ukraines E.U. application. Europe needs to say yes one more time. It might not be easy, and you might be able to do some sort of five year guaranteed program, as opposed to immediate entry, but this needs to happen.

As far as NATO goes i think the U.S. is 100% on letting Ukraine in the day the shooting stops. I think there is a pretty good understanding that if we had let them in sooner we might have avoided this tragedy. And now not even Russia is stupid enough to think they can fight NATO. Would love for billindc and The_Capt to chime in on that. As far as the EU goes it is literally what the Ukrainians are dying for, the hundred martyrs died for it on the Maidan in 21014, and they have been paying in blood ever since. The bureaucrats can ca go do bureaucrat things, but if Zelensky can tell Ukraine they are in the club, he can tell them they have won this war. Is that easy for Europe, obviously not, is it easier than five years of a frozen conflict followed by another full scale war? You tell me? Edit: Oh, and it is an unspin-able loss for Putin, which isn't nothing.

Insofar as I can tel from my Sunday morning read around the Russians payed this bill for at most a few hundred meters of ground gained in a very few places. A few hundred meters might be to generous actually...

I am simply pointing out that if the EU wants Ukraine to make a deal, this is the carrot to get it done. As you say there would be a great deal of consultation involved. My advice would be to lock the relevant government ministries and functionaries in a not too comfortable hotel and tell them to move things along.

Drone defense, or else...

I had strongly suspected this was the purpose of the new Gazprom raised unit, but apparently there is a separate effort to provide the elite epaulets without the risk of incoming fire.

This is actually on the Europeans, mostly. Zelensky can, maybe, concede the DPR/LPR and Crimea if FULL NATO and EU membership was signed on the same day, at the same table, by the same people. The FULL part of that sentence is important. So what does the EU want more, five years of this war blowing hot and cold, or maybe they work round a few pages in the rule book and get this done?