dan/california

The depths of mud season have the press/internet blob looking for anything at all while large scale operations are sort of impossible.

The Germans deserve this little gesture after slow walking so many things. It will change the subject if nothing else.

I don't think it can be over emphasized how radically these things will improve when truly militarized versions become available. https://www.google.com/search?q=fpv+drone+bomb&oq=fpv+drone+bomb&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i22i30j0i390l4.11864j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:e93cc490,vid:iq86zp3YTs8 This is actually a converted racing drone. And presumably in large scale production you will get something more like a switchblade, that isn't stupidly expensive, and works better. If the data link is an easier problem than the AI, well we are not short of video game players. I also wonder how the secret service operates without jamming everything for a five mile radius.

This is the important part, we have given this unpleasantly dead horse more than enough beating, until and unless we get more information. And LLF is right Ukraine needs better control over the endless video feed. Goal is to win the war...

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/us-marines-didnt-surrender-british-training-exercise/ A better article...

https://news.sky.com/story/royal-marines-commandos-force-us-marine-corps-troops-to-surrender-in-training-exercise-12458823 More details on this would ba more than a little useful for next iteration of the game. Might never get them but...

As The _Capt mentioned above the Turks have built a truly competitive arms industry, and seem to have made good choices about where to spend their money. They have not managed that anywhere else in their economy.

https://www.saab.com/products/ground-launched-small-diameter-bomb-glsdb Ukraine needs as many of these as can be produced. The perfect weapon to make the land bridge unlivable for the Russians while not be longe range enough to make the escalation doves too twitchy.

And it is much harder to force the side that won the last war to change. We are being set up almost perfectly for a bad case of this problem.

The Turks are a classic case of a rising power who declines to engage the existing hegemon in an area where they are strong, and develops a whole new generation of warfighting that makes a lead on the old measures irrelevant. Carriers superseding battleships for instance. Once that happened your investment in battleships was almost irrelevant to the fundamental navy job of controlling the seas and denying it to the other guy. NATO model ground forces are at risk of getting caught, expensively, on the wrong end of such a shift. Forward edge of battle is going to become almost entirely robotic, very quickly The AFU is only a small increment from being able to attack the entirety of the land bridge. if they can achieve that increment, either by advancing, or some longer range toys, the entire Russian position just becomes a bigger version of the right bank position the Russian army just abandoned. And logistical corrosion will collapse it the same way. And General Winter is here to lend a hand. Technological revolutions are hard on the side with trillions invested in the old paradigm.

It is worse than a crime, it is a mistake... Edit: Of course considering some the people/countries the U.S. has backed in the last ~80 years the really are saints. Hopefully they can get their heads back together focus on the prize. Second edit: It doesn't help that both sides dehumanize the other completely, in terms of rhetoric and propaganda. Third edit: Eight years of the Russians ACTING like something out of Tolkien or maybe Lovecraft figures in there somewhere. And it is STILL a mistake for the Ukrainians to act out but...

Both the mishandling of the Polish incident, and the fact the videos of this screwed up surrender are out in public are signs of stress cracks in the Ukrainian system. Nine months of an existential war is a long time. Furthermore while they freely acknowledge they are getting a great deal of support, they aren't getting all the support they could be, ATACAMS being exhibit A. Zelensky got some bad advice that the Polish incident could be used to pry the taps open wider, and was much too slow to change course. The number of families of fallen soldiers the man consoles every week, on top of everything else, is just wearing him out. Both the prisoner incident itself, and even more so the fact the videos got out are evidence of at least a mild breakdown in command authority. Most of the Ukrainian army weren't soldiers nine months ago, and they just don't have the deep reserve of command authority and military common sense that come from a decade in service among senior NCOs. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/21/russians-accused-of-burning-bodies-at-kherson-landfill This might be the best evidence I have seen of just how bad the Russian casualties might be.

There is a desperate need for NATO/EU wide procurement reform. Nato doesn't need seven kinds of 155mm SPG. It needs ENOUGH of one kind. And this holds for virtually every single major system, with spares support and ammo. I don't expect it to actually happen, but it is desperately needed.

I have definitely seen one drone video with dozens of mobiks dead on one stretch of road outside Bakmuht. Make that two now. Theiner's twitter has some of the links, above is somewhat lighter material. You have to love the way the Russians will do BDA for you.

The ground where the tanks have scraped the snow off does not look frozen hard yet.

Is it my imagination or did the 76th Guards Airborne Division get the bleep hammered out of it in the last stage of the fighting on the right bank, or trying withdraw from same.

I think the initial Russian plan was more of a reinforced coup than an actual war. They expected the coup part too work so well they barely bothered to plan the war part. This led to a shambolic operational plan that revealed their many and manifest deficiencies in the worst possible way, for them. By the time someone convinced Putin to withdraw from Kyiv and attempt the artillery heavy Donbas strategy that was vaguely within their capabilities they had simply gotten to much of the "professional" force killed. Edit: Well that was a proper attack of crossposting.

I don't think the West will fund and supply an invasion of Russia proper. The AFU general staff is too smart to try anyway. They don't have the manpower to hold the supply GLOCs. Since they just taught the Russians how unfortunate that is i don't think they would make the same mistake. Getting Crimea back, with EU and NATO membership will do just fine. At that point living well is the best revenge. Speaking of GLOCs the Donbas will far easier to reconquer simply because Russia has tried to get every male citizen of vaguely fighting age killed. their just isn't anybody left to play partisan.

If the premise is that Russian elites are too afraid of losing power to oppose the war even though it is grinding Russia to dust? I am pretty certain they are also too scared to have their entire everything turned into radioactive glass. Either they are cowards or they aren't. Being afraid to finish what we have started is irrational unless you are assuming a very selective cowardice .

A little less panic and a lot more winning would solve a lot of problems. Two of the worst regimes on the planet are teetering on the edge of total failure, and far too many people want to throw them a lifeline instead of kicking them off the cliff. We are utterly fooling ourselves if we think they will do anything except attempt to rebuild, and do something even worse the next time.

Just scaring them bleepless and sleepless seems reasonably effective...

I will bet my house that a bunch of countries are trying to figure out a carrier for a standard torpedo using this tech. Maybe hang the torpedo 5ft deep in the water. have a slightly bigger version of this drone to haul it into range.

I watch all of it with the volume off. The one in fifty that has narration in in Ukrainian, sadly I don't speak it so....

The Russians being being Miserable ENOUGH is what ends this. The batch in that tent is going to be pretty cold.. I also see some scope for suffocation if they actually managed to tape it up tight...

Excellent ,if grim, article. Assuming the author is correct, and that is a largish assumption, there is nothing for it but to redouble support for Ukraine. If the Russian elite cannot be convinced to change course there is no choice but to kill chmobiks until they simply refuse to show up. Ukraine needs what it has needed for months. Abrams, IFVs, ATACAMS, and as much 155 as it takes. Concrete for new ammo plants needs to be poured YESTERDAY. Ukraine needs to be able to put the best part of a KILOMETER of the Kerch Bridge in the water just to make a statement of resolve. We will see what Russian elite opinion is when they simply don't have an army left.