dan/california

Apologies for splitting this up. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2022/06/28/us-army-unveils-contract-to-build-new-light-tank-for-infantry-forces/ The light/medium tank with a 105 mm high velocity gun is such a compelling use case that the U.S. Army feels the need to reinvent it. This really needs to make the next module, for experimentation purposes.

Virtually everything but the Abrams is an eggshell armed with a hammer, at that point it is all about who has the fastest hammer. These might be a stealthy winner.

The director exhorts the actors with threats of immediate enlistment if they are insufficiently sincere, and he isn't joking. I am sure production is well underway. The fact that Prigozhin has an adult son who is even minimally competent, and they are promoting the fact, makes it even clearer that they are angling to restore the monarchy. Putin would already have had himself crowned if he had a competent adult son. Off the rails is an inadequate description...

Many thanks for the detailed answer! You know "May you live interesting times" really is a curse. The thing that continues to amaze is that it is like no one inthe Putin regime has never read one book about RUSSIAN history. I can't shake the image of a Vegas gambler who has obliterated his home equity loan, and is now shoving the last ten percent of his retirement account onto 27 red, just because he can't get any more bankrupt.

What are the odds that this complete cluster bleep had a little Ukrainian help? Could the SBU have hacked the primary database for the mobilization and turned the chaos up to 11? I mean propaganda mouthpieces of various pieces of the Russian state are declaring this thing to be bleeped by the start of day four. Edit: How long until Shoigu falls out a window?

You are, as always, correct about a great many things. But let's play this out just a little further, before we try to get back to the supply of winter socks and Bradley IFVs to Ukraine. If Putin plays the nuclear card and wins, the nonproliferation regime is GONE. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Iran, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Poland, AND Ukraine will all be nuclear powers within a year. Who knows what other countries would follow along in three to five year timeline? Is there ANY way this doesn't lead to a large scale nuclear war within a decade or two? Malaysia and Indonesia would certainly, be along shortly. I don't know how much nuclear material Vietnam has on hand? Vietnam certainly does, though, any bets they haven't had a plan sitting in a drawer for decades? Putin has put all of us in a place we DID NOT want to be. But on balance facing down Russia now while the whole country and military is provably, demonstrably, failing apart seems like the lower long term risk. If someone like Ghirkin gets put in charge they might be minimally competent for the next round, facing people with independently controlled nukes who have had a while to think about just how awful getting conquered is. I will even concede that Crimea is a different case than trying to freeze that current battle lines, and with that I will attempt to move on. And if Russia can't hold the entrance to Crimea with conventional forces, we are closer to the loose nuke roundup, than the current Russian/Ukrainian war.

We have to straight up tell Putin that if he goes nuclear NATO is all in, Starting with a full cruise missile/SEAD campaign in Ukraine, then boots on ground, then we let the Poles invade Belarus as they so badly want to. The magical nuclear stick can only lead to two places, Russias complete defeat, or the end of civilization. Russia has amply demonstrated what they do to conquered people, and I am a no on that.

Video is worth the watch. They don't talk about the single most important thing about it enough. It is an all electric drive train. The diesel just powers a BIG generator. That means the full electrical power output of the vehicle is available to run a laser or a VERY high powered jammer/radar/ect. The 35mmm cannon is just a place holder until something else is ready.

Rather the only sophistication is in the comm link.

You are more the benevolent monarch type. Mobiks would be my first choice, or at least my first choice that complies with forum rules. Cannon meat seems a little to on point. The Israelis haven't done much, for reasons I still find some combination of mysterious and unconvincing. They will get on board with burning down an Iranian munitions factory though, they do that for fun.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/23/us/politics/putin-ukraine.html The NYT is listening to smarter people finally!

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1573344774026838019/photo/1 It is actually excellent advice, but good luck figuring it out in two weeks...

TURN OFF YOUR PHONE, GIVE YOUR COMPUTER TO YOUR MOTHER, AND BLEEPING PAY ATTENTION. Or in about five years you will be pondering how to immigrate to Luhansk, for your own safety. Best advice you will ever get on this forum.

Ukraine's land, Ukraine's blood, Ukraine's choice. I am just some guy on the internet giving free advice.

Ukraine need stable borders, peace, and prosperity. If Ru folds/collapses/disintegrates by all means take it all, and a few extra oblasts besides. But it is NOT worth grinding for it past 2/24 lines. Take that check The Capt. keeps talking about, tell the folks on their side of the line they have made their bed, plant those shiny new Nato and EU flags in front of parliament and set about outdoing South Korea in the postwar reconstruction. If I were the Governor of Sakhalin I i would trash the airport runway, mine the ports, call a snap referendum on seceding from Russia, and ask Japan for protection. I would quietly tell the Japanese that by protection I meant annex us please. It would be the masterstroke that ended the Russian empire. All the RU Nats would drop dead from a pulmonary embolism, Putin would be deposed as an incompetent laughing stock, and the Japanese would SHOWER the place with development funds until it sunk under the weight of the concrete. The Western defense contractors really do need to roll out some statement tech for the AFU winter offensive. The kind of whiz bang that will have the Chinese write off retaking Taiwan for another 25 or thirty years. OMG that is funny!

Macgregor is a vatnik

There are no good answers, it is why you shouldn't have the war in the first place. And I reiterate that the supposed causes for this one are the worst excuse for a casus belli since the Confederacy,. And at least then they were just being greedy, immoral BA@@^^@@, not lying, amoral, and greeedy BA@@^^@@. And if the sociopaths in the Kremlin keep doubling down, they may yet manage to run up a similiar butchers bill, at least on their own side. General Atomics has noticed that Lockhheed can quadruple Himars/GMLRS production a still need a decade to make a dent in the order book. That said, I hope it works as advertised, and it should have been there months ago. Moments like these are why you keep defense contractors around. The Pentagon's belief that the Chinese haven't stolen their secrets is somewhere between daft and sort of cute, or it would be if Ukrainian solders weren't dying every hour. The real crown jewels are the production technology where the CAD files are insufficient to copy it. Chinese semiconductors being exhibit A, or rather the lack of them is. What he said, smash these bleeps so hard they quit, there is no other way. Smash them so hard they don't have any choice.

It might have made perfect sense to have had a nice, vaguely fair, actually counted election in 2014 or 2015 under U.N. auspices. Although there is still a fascinating question about whether that should have been the whole oblast or just the pieces the separatist held at that time. The problem with a vote in the presumed post conflict environment is that you are simply replacing might makes right over who draws the lines on the map with might makes right over who draws up the voter roles. And there would be a LOT to fight about. Has there been a census in the Donbas in the last twenty years that anybody believes? Were those records kept in Kyiv or the Republics? Even if there were minimally decent records would whatever side they disadvantaged accept them? Places with 1000th the problems of the Donbas are fighting over all these things. I mean the Russians playing fair on any aspect of this is a joke. For starters they will do any and every kind of whatever to claim that their imported population are actually long term residents. By any and everything I mean killing whole villages and giving the imported people passports in their names, not joking. See the post about prisoners above if you don't believe me. Maybe if they were in a good mood they just ship the original population to Siberia and proceed with the faking. If someone in took a Rusian passport are they disqualified form voting? Does anyone who lived there in 2014 have the right to vote? Do they have to prove they are moving back? How? And too whom? So all this comes back rather quickly to who is holding the guns in the area doing the voting. Who is deciding who gets to vote? It might be easier to just argue about the lines on the map, and make sure Ukraine keeps its promises of fair treatment and full citizenship for the people on their side of it. The people on the Russian side of the line are just bleeped. I will reiterate my opinion that Ukraine needs the Donbas all the way in, or all the out. A last and final decision that this side of wherever the line lands is Russia, and that side is Ukraine. Maintaining some sort of "Independent Republics" as playground for the Russian security services is the worst possible outcome. Which is not to say that it couldn't be the outcome, that is why they hold the war, but the current Russian annexation efforts would seem to lean against it, at least. Heck, just the argument over the exact wording of any referendum could take forever, and who gets to decide that? Are we answering that question in Donbas trenches? Or Swiss hotels? I like the hotel option myself. As always Capt I value your opinion deeply.

It will come from the army itself, Just like in 1917. Even if they don't give the mobiks ammo until they are 5 kilometers from the front line, rifles make pretty good clubs. And these guys are going to have HOURS, and DAYS on uncomfortable train rides to discuss how they been done wrong too, and exactly who/what is more dangerous? Trenches full of freezing water with hourly showers of 155 VT, or these fat, drunk excuses for officers, all three of them, in the front car.

Anyone want to give odds these poor serfs, and they really might as well BE serfs, show up at the front in summer uniforms? just in time for some nice cold fall rains? Of course I am optimistically assuming they will have any uniforms at all...

You say that like they ever had one. When we finally get some real stats, years from now, I will bet you a case of good beer the Russian medical performance is not much better than the Union army in the U.S. Civil War. It wouldn't shock me if it was worse. These god cursed mobiks are going to die from things that result in a weeks light duty in a NATO army. Never mind living through a real wound. I am expecting real disease outbreaks too. We need to double check if Ukraine needs any support with vaccines.

Two things stand out about this story. The GREAT importance of anti tank mines in this war. And the fact the the AFU held their positions even when their anti tank wasn't working brilliantly and convinced the Russians to go away. That takes real soldiers. People arguing for going doubling the price of tanks AGAIN with with anti drone lasers and such need an answer for mines. Because unless I missed something the latest M-1s get mission killed just as fast as a T-62 when they run over one, although their crew survival is much better. We won't give them time to lay them is not a very good answer.

It really does make a person want to give Ukraine a thousand cruise missiles, and nuclear warheads for a hundred of them... At any rate it does reinforce the ongoing narrative that that Ukraine is fighting perhaps the most justified war in the history of mankind. Unleashing monsters like this over things that could have been comfortably argued about in in a nice Swiss hotel for the next fifty years is just beyond unconscionable.

I don't think there is much point in holding elections, because the outcome of the vote is going to be almost entirely determined by the pre vote negotiations on WHO gets to vote. As The_Capt and Haiduk have implied that can be argued about forever. I think it makes much more sense cut out middle whatever and negotiate with Moscow about the final status directly. Ukraine needs this to come out one of two ways. In the Ukrainian total victory scenario it is very simple, these areas are part of Ukraine, they get Ukrainian law, Ukrainian rights, and votes in Ukrainian elections. Basically how the south was reintegrated after the U.S. Civil war. It only took a hundred years to work the kinks out, but the basics really were settled in 1865. In the stalemate scenario, where Ukraine can't militarily reconquer the Donbas at an acceptable cost, best scenario is Russian annexation. That lets Ukraine, however bitterly, just forget about the whole region, it is Russias problem. It also means the region loses any claim whatsoever to any political influence in Kyiv. This severs Moscow's most obvious lever into Ukrainian politics. Last but not least it would be the better for the people of the region than almost any in between status. Moscow has treated the Donbas MUCH WORSE than anywhere else in Russia, it has basically been a chew toy for the worst elements in the Russian security services. Belgorod is not exactly paradise, but from the point of view of an average citizen in the L/DPR it probably looks like one. Any form of intermediate status just utterly bleeps the people that live there, and gives an excuse for another war. No one is investing a dime in the Donbas if the final status there is uncertain. I am strongly of the opinion that this is to be avoided if humanely possible, it might not be. See response to The_Capt above... The thread, and everyones blood pressure might benefit from more discussion of Ukraines for an adequate supply, rotation, and laundry of winter socks for its troops, and less on counting chickens that unfortunately are still very fresh eggs. Because getting the socks right will grant us the privilege of arguing about the peace from the best possible place. The Putin's regime's determination to relive 1917 in full never ceases to amaze. And these guys will have LONG train ride to ponder exactly who they want to fight, and what the odds are for being alive in a year depending on the choice. HOLY BLEEP people I can't keep up, there have been eleven response while I typed this.