dan/california

That is the difference between a functioning army and an orcish mob.

Brutal!

The Pickle is OVER it.

Well the Ukrainians aren't admitting too much, so I guess Putin will have to ban smoking in the whole Russian empire. I am sure that won't upset anyone.

I have two theories, probably both wrong. 1. There would have been HIGH civilian casualties if the hit the portion of the naval base they wanted to hit the most. 2. The aircraft, the pilots, and the PGM? munitions on the base represent a larger immediate military threat. Especially in terms of opposing the the offensive everyone thinks the Ukrinians are about to launch

The next trick needs to be inserting a bunch of special fuses into the Russian logistics system. Ten or twenty guns having breech explosions in a day or two would drop the morale of their gunners to zero.

I wonder how badly an S400 responds to a well tuned jammer hooked up to a car battery and pointed right at it before the Lada anonymous departs the scene, a mile or so away from the radar.

https://www.defensenews.com/miltech/2022/08/11/boeing-nammo-test-ramjet-155-artillery-weapon/ And this just reads like science fiction, but apparently it works.

https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/smd/2022/08/11/this-infantry-squad-vehicle-is-getting-a-laser-to-destroy-drones/ All of this stuff needs to be on the Ukrainian front lines TODAY! Not tomorrow, not next week, TODAY!

They may or may not already be turning a nice SRBM of their very own already, but I would bet a great deal they are working on it. That 700 km distance From Kharkiv to Moscow is top of mind, too.

If the LPDR is going to make a deal they had better do it soon. The way thy are rounding up every male between fifteen and sixty and marching them off to get killed is making the so called Republics easier to reconquer by the hour. I strongly suspect Ukraine has a very long list of people it would like to give a very fair trial and a very unpleasant life sentence. Any sort of deal that doesn't involve turning those folks over wholesale has to be made while you have some leverage left. There is certainly a deal to be made. A coordinated surprise surrender of a couple of battalions in a critical spot could roll up a huge piece of the Russian lines if done correctly. But timing is everything if you want to do more than sign an unconditional surrender and await your warcrimes trial.

Plugged in Polish Ukrainian reporters/commentators aren't going to start bragging about the carefully not shiny new Polish/Ukrainian joint missile development and manufacturing program until they are told too.

Its not gone well....

The following is a NUTTY idea, I admit it. What if, after luring the entire Russian army to the furthest south of Ukraine the target of the Ukrainian counter offensive was MINSK!?! It would be one the greatest masterstrokes in military history if it worked. Just the looks on Putin's and Lukanhesko's faces would be priceless.

Well bleep...

Allow me to repeat my theory that there is a very anonymous industrial park somewhere in Poland that was set up to produce these missiles by the middle of March, maybe with some final bit of the guidance system from a Western defence contractor, and we are now seeing the effects of five months of 24/7 flat out effort by the production team. Next question, how much range does this new toy actually have? Because it is only ~700 km from Kharkiv to Moscow. If I was in charge of building a brand new Ukrainian missile system that is the number I would be aiming for.

The Ukrainians seem a bit peeved after six months of terror bombing. Can't wait for the Satellite pics of this one.

~80 years after Tigers had far more losses to their own running gear than the Russians it would appear that the German military industrial complex has learned exactly nothing...

The Russians have been desperately short of air launched PGMs this whole war. How much do you getlemen want to bet that a LOT of what they have left was in those bunkers?

You know five months is just about how long it would take to ship ship a bunch of equipment to the most anonymous warehouse in Poland, put it back together and start making rockets. Assuming you had the FULL support of the Polish Government, and maybe a tiny bit of help from a U.S.defense contractor, or a South Korean one.. I am sure Poland will be joyously happy with the new joint production line. I also wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they are working on a second stage to put this thing up in the thousand mile range territory. The Russians really should quit while before the hole they have been digging collapses. All complete speculation, but.....

https://wiadomosci.onet.pl/swiat/niecodzienna-sytuacja-na-krymie-rosyjscy-zolnierze-padli-ofiara-deratyzacji/t9pb50z?utm_source=t.co_viasg_wiadomosci&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=leo_automatic&srcc=ucs&utm_v=2 And a bunch of Russian soldiers got poisoned in Crimea somewhere unpronounceable. Supposedly by excessively enthusiastic exterminators. I guess they know vermin when they see them.

If they wanted to start WW3 they should have done it when they still had a functional land army. At this point the Finns will take St Petersburg in week. And there is still the fascinating question of how many of their missiles would make it off the launcher. Be a bit embarrassing to to start the third world war with a fizzle.

There are a lot of analogies with Guadalcanal. Bear with me on this. The Japanese eventually lost because their resupply was gradually choked down over a period of months. Some weeks they got more, some weeks they got less, but on average they didn't get enough to maintain a force that could stand up to the Marines. Even though the Marines had no shortage of problems themselves. In the end the U.S. won the logistics battle, and in an attritional fight that is really the only one that matters. And to put to mildly the Russians are less motivated than the Japanese.

JDAM-ER is definitely better, but newer more, expensive, and there are probably less of them. And that seventy k range is assuming you launch 30,000 feet or higher. It will be a lot less if if launched at 400 ft. What I don't know is how far far back from the front Ukrainian panes have to start hugging the deck, and or how long of a SEAD campaign it would take to meaningfully affect the stand off range at which Ukrainian planes can operate at altitude. U.S. doctrine is built on the assumption that there are enough wild weasels, HARMs, cruise missiles, and god knows what else to essentially obliterate air defenses that can reach ~ 30,000 ft/10,000 meters. Then they can rain JDAMS and other things that are merely expensive on you until don't want to play anymore. How much of this the Ukrainians can do with HIMARs, and some harms remains to be seen. If they can do ENOUGH it is war winning, since trains and railway bridges will both just go away. But there are two things required for this strategy, shells and infantry. Shells are getting tight, infantry is bleeping near gone. And all indications are that infantry is going to get even harder, even faster going forward.

I think, emphasize think, that the problem is the super low level flying that seems to be the only kind anybody can do and survive in this air defense environment. The size of the acceptable launch window goes down with altitude very quickly for anything without a rocket motor. The distance they can glide is directly related to the altitude and speed they are launched with. So if you are launching from the crazy low altitude we are currently seeing you need good avionics integration to put the bomb in the correct window, because it isn't very big.