dan/california

On one level I agree with you, and on one level I am for ANYTHING that make Russian recruitment harder. Wide circulation of this video would seem to really help the latter.

Really interesting stuff. The newest bits , at least to me, are about what was happening right before and after 2/24.

According to what he said a month or two ago he is an oil trader, and was just getting so busy he couldn't post in a significant way. Nothing about the way the energy markets are bouncing around implies that is changing any time soon.

https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2022/07/30/german-pzh-2000s-in-ukraine-wear-out-error-message-after-heavy-fire/ Below is from Armor magazine spring 2022 Dear Editor, After seeing what upgrades have been given to the Abrams M1A2 Systems Enhancement Package Version 2 that I have been on since 2016 and to the new Advanced Multipurpose (AMP) round that might potentially be issued in a time of war, I am under the impression that the overall design and capability of how good the M1 can be is being ruined by good-idea fairies. When I first arrived at my battalion, we had the flex mount for the tank commander (TC)’s .50-caliber weapon. A few years ago, we had the flex mount replaced with Common Remote-Operated Weapon Station (CROWS) 3 (“lo pro CROWS”). The “lo pro CROWS” has become an absolute waste of money to have on the tank. Why? Because it’s another electronic thing that breaks or stops working, and the .50-cal solenoid loses timing. To keep it working requires extra time to ensure that it will work properly – vs. the flex mount, which was simple and easy. Also, the “lo pro CROWS” blocks the TC’s forward vision when he is either in nametape defilade or when he has his hatch in “open protective” mode. And it turns the TC into a gunner when he is trying to use it vs. having his head out of the hatch to correctly survey the battlefield. The best thing for the tank is to get rid of the costly and problematic CROWS and replace it with the flex mount (Commander’s Weapon Station). The AMP round, in concept, is great. The biggest issue I foresee with it is that the Ammunition Data Link that interfaces with the round may break. When that happens, with my understanding of the round, it basically turns it into a glorified high-explosive (HE) anti-tank (AT) round, which defeats the purpose of developing this new round. The AMP round’s capabilities are fantastic; the issue is that it relies on electronic components that will break at the worst time. A better alternative is to take the multipurpose AT round and turn it into an HE round. How to accomplish this? By my understanding, removing all the penetrating cones’ components and cramming the projectile with explosives would do it. Then replace the fuse from air/ground to impact/delay, with the fuse set from the factory on impact. Why an HE round? Because as I read many accounts from World War II, I saw that all sides expended, on average, significantly more HE rounds than armor-piercing (AP) rounds. And when in heavy tank-on-tank combat during World War II, HE was still expended more than AP. Having an analog system is generally more reliable and simple to understand/maintain. Especially for main-gun rounds. Another improvement for the Gunner’s Primary Sight/ Thermal Imaging System would be to have the turret/hull position shown in the optic rather than just on the Gunner’s Control Display Panel. It would be something similar to how it is in the Commander’s Independent Thermal Viewer (CITV). The only difference is that it wouldn’t show where the CITV is looking. SGT BEN SCHNEIDER Company B, 1st Battalion, 35th Armored Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The fancy go bang HAS to work, if you don't want to spend the money to make it WORK, simple is much better.

What Ukraine needs is a REAL counter drone solution. Anything in advanced development anywhere in NATO/Five Eyes should be sent to Ukraine immediately. It would be real world testing, and quite possibly the vital linch pin in this war. I know they are paranoid about the Russian getting ahold of something. But the Russians can't make a bleeping mobile phone. It is just extraordinarily hard to learn that dispersal is is EVERYTHING in modern war. The lessons will continue...

I am fairly certain he was murderous bleeping bleep who considered war crimes to be a form of light amusement, but you can't accuse him of being lazy....

It is exactly what a unit that felt abused would do. "The orders didn't say to paint over the old symbol, they said to paint the new one." Will be truly fantastic if we see the burned out wreck sometime time soon.

Another Javelin kill in VERY similar terrain to the one on the last page. I wonder if they are both from the same action?

Nowhere near that long actually. although there are variables we don't know enough about even now. But 24 hours after a mostly successful SEAD campaign the Russians would be done. The Russians would come apart almost instantly once the PGMs started raining down from 30,000 feet. The Russians have barely been able to function with a small fraction of that amount of pressure on their supply lines. Never mind what a heavy brigade or two would do the Russians excuse for an army. CMBS does a nice job of modeling what would happen if you try to run a couple of companies of T-72s down a road at a platoon of Abrams.

What is kind of crazy is that the mail in Russian controlled Kherson delivered them. It shows the extent to which the Russians are not really in control.

Seeing/hearing a fair bit of evidence the Russians are suddenly able to hit things occasionally. Iranian/Chinese drones arriving in theater maybe? I suspect some sort of new countermeasure needs to be shipped soonest.

This is another case of Ukraine working with only part of a tool set. NATO doctrine would have the counter battery fire being conducted by some combination of GMLRS and aircraft. But Ukraine doesn't have nearly enough of the former, and the latter cannot operate over Russian lines at all, and and have few if any PGMs. So they are frantically patching together a doctrine based on what they actually have. Using GMLRS on bridges is another case in point, it works but it isn't actually made for that. The air dropped 1000 pound PGMs designed to penetrate concrete would just put the the thing in the water instantly.

If I am remembering several things correctly they would need about twice the range to be really effective in a counter battery role.

And NOT being there allows us to be a lot more discriminating. There are not multiple drones strikes per day just to protect an array of outposts in outermost nowhere. What would completely bleep all of our enemies except China is getting off oil as a ground transport fuel, because at $15 per barrel they all go broke. Maybe the current lesson will finally sink in.

More trainloads of zinc coffins seem to be the only available form of communication.

Not many places have paid more for bad choices than the LPR/DPR...

Convenient timing, yes?

What I said yesterday that made twitter mad was considerably harsher than that....

It had a lot of merit right up until the Russian state/army demonstrated that is as about as rational and trustworthy as a rabid dog. It doesn't matter what you thought of the dog last week, there is only one solution now.

The single biggest question of the 21st century is whether we can teach China the fundamental lesson it took a catastrophic war to teach Japan, without having said catastrophic war. To whit is about 8 orders of magnitude cheaper to buy an Island than it is conquer it. I mean at this point it isn't that most Hawaiian golf pros speak Japanese, it is that they are starting not to speak english.

The way he repeatedly tries to shove everything back into Clausewitz is clearly overdone. The more interesting part is comparing war to the weather/climate at a mathematical level. In particular, we know a lot about the physics of the weather, and yet we are very bad at predicting it. A little better than fifty years ago, and a lot better than a hundred, but still very bad at it.

I would simply point out that A) This bleeping war IS a Tom Clancy novel and b) There is no shortage of other players. Indeed Azerbaijan is more or less conquering Armenia as we speak. Ans China is eventually going to pull its head out of its rear end and realize that it can fight a losing war for Taiwan and destroy the world economy in the process, or it can take over a quarter of Russia while waving a Ukrainian flag and be congratulated for doing so. From the standpoint of the, very few, people in the area in question it is somewhat better to belong to the oppressive dictatorship that at least feeds you regularly, and paves a road occasionally.

NATO pilots need some live fire exercises before they move on to the main show in Ukraine.

Digging trenches there doesn't even make any military sense. If the Ukrainians are that close it is already over. I guess it could be the Chechens deploying to stop unauthorized retreats? In which case a full M270 load would just be planetary improvement.

Interesting thread. The short version, their systems integration is lousy, and the designers assume vastly better trained operators than they actually have.