dan/california

A whole lot of Russian officers have been telling too many lies for too long to quit now. I am sure there is an entire racket built on getting soldiers they never had "KIA" in order to explain their absence when someone finally comes to check. I fully expect there is a secondary scam to collect the death benefits for these soldiers that never existed. Taking Kherson back as the number one priority makes sense for a LARGE number of reasons. The three simplest being that it is the only Russian presence on that side of the river, It is the largest Ukrainian population under Russian control, and it brings the Ukrainians much closer to Crimean land bridge. Aragon2002 has come around! There is no logic, the Russians aren't escalating because even they can do math and it says they either they don't have an army in three days, or they don't have a country in a week. Tens of thousands of Russian casualties is inflicted with NATO supplied weapons all the casus belli any country in history has ever needed, if they wanted one. They clearly don't. Yes, but real analysis of it English is EXTREMELY lacking. For that matter neither of the regimes involved were noted for their introspection. Boris has a PANAMAX cargo ship worth of flaws. But I will give him this, he understands that once you have picked a side the best answer is to ensure that they actually bloody win. I am going to let the politics of the last twelve years go, for now. The inexcusable mistake that the entire civilized world has been making since AT LEAST 1973 is the refusal to bite the bullet and do what is necessary to quit buying hydrocarbons from absolutely awful regimes/governments. Oil and natural gas consumption could be less than half its current level if rational polices had been implemented decades ago. We have not been willing to take the short term economic pain of doing it rationally, So we are caught in doom loop of crises when these god awful regimes do something god awful. And then we learn NOTHING. Bleep me I hope this time is different....

So much of NATOs pre war analysis was distorted by the extent to which we were apparently reading the Russian General Staffs email in real time, or something of equivalent effectiveness. The problem was that we believed what the Russians were telling themselves. We had given the Russians. a fundamental presumption of competence for forever, so when they said the fix was in for a coup, we believed them. When they sad they were ready to do this crazy thing, we believed them. When they said the Ukrainian military would fold, we believed them. We believed them because THEY really believed these things. It just so happens they were dead wrong. The intelligence agencies just did not do enough of their own homework on Russian readiness, training, logistics and so on. Why would they when they were reading the Russian General Staff's email. Except.....

This just seems to be the Ukrainian's key are of relative superiority. It may be that they just need to keep doing it. Slow and successful is better than fast and on fire.

Extremely accurate shooting by something with a relatively small warhead.

There needs to be a major operation in Poland to do depot level repairs on Ukrainian equipment. It isn't perfect to haul it back and forth like that, but the devil is driving, in case nobody noticed. Obviously the same operation should be training Ukr maintainers at the same time. Everything happening in Ukraine is part of the contest for "after Putin" now. It is all about being able to blame the other faction for losing. Patton was right. We should have rolled right thru Berlin and on to Moscow. The instructor part is important. Russia is cannibalizing its training infrastructure to make it though June.

I really think the HIMARS can blow the Russians out of Kherson in a week or less. The Russian position there is creaking and bending now. I am not entirely sure if would be better to let the Russians retreat or go for a huge cauldron up against the river.

Was the dam hit, or is he just talking about that big ammo dump the Ukr blew up yesterday in this general area?

Ukr pushing back everywhere it can.

Start pouring concrete. It take two years from the day you lay the floor fro the new plant. Every day talking is time wasted. The war reserve is obviously way too small, and Taiwan needs a ton of them too. There would be no landings as long as Taiwan had GMLRS launchers in action.

These are the highest Russian casualty figures I have seen in days. Either they are trying even more desperately to take the salient, or the various Ukrainian pushbacks are inflicting casualties as well as taking back a fair bit of territory.

There is a reason they are screaming their heads of for more artillery.

I hope Putin's propaganda machine likes her enough to find her an apartment on the outskirts of Moscow...

Ukr is firing Brimstone missiles off the back of pick ups, too. or maybe five ton trucks. Seems to work brilliantly. And it is just a better hellfire, which drones seem to do just fine. And even the really big drones don't cost anymore than an Apache. If I may toot my own horn, I have been advocating ground based hellfires on this forum since about ~2010. The APS on the new Panther has to be exceptional for it to be an even vaguely viable concept. No top tier army is ever showing up without enough small missiles and PGMs again. That lesson has been taught. Edit: I forgot to quote in the post from Los above was replying too, sorry.

Yeah, they are over. A helicopter is pretty much a huge flying kill me sign at this point. And some drones can do a LOT of the missions now. You can probably aim this thing better with an Iphone than a great pilot can with a helicopter using the lofting technique, and you can buy what, twenty of them? Fifty? I realize their are much better missiles, but you can put those on trucks, too.

If I am looking at maps correctly this should put the airport in range of tube artillery.

Would love to see the firms data for that spot.

You know, mark 1 eyeball of what might be pre production mock ups, the penetrator looks to be about the same diameter in both pics. So most or all of the improved performance would be from some combination of velocity and metallurgy. I feel that live fire testing just outside of Kherson is really quite urgent. I feel strongly this kit can make a competitive showing in the turret toss competition.

Is there anything on the planet that can take a hit from the M892A3 or A4?

I assume the Germans are using Tungsten, not depleted Uranium? And everybody on this board has seen this picture before?

What are they going to shoot with that? The Yamato? Or is it that even the pieces will rip the turret off the target if it is degraded by APS? Really not sure 50% plus more 120mm ammo isn't better? By the way Zelensky wants 50 of them yesterday, He is including free field test data. He promises to check how many T72-B3s the round can go through length wise. I fact he can start testing the prototype TOMMORROW morning outside of Kherson. If it is parked on the river surrounded by smoking wreckage at 3pm it passes with flying colors.

That list really would equip an army that could TAKE Moscow, instead of merely discouraging it.

How frequently does the U.S. actually measure the muzzle velocity during combat operations? One of the more amazing videos of this whole war is Ru soldiers sliding shells down an icy hill. That can't have done the ammo any good, so much of it just the overall quality of operations.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

https://www.armyrecognition.com/eurosatory_2022_news_official_online_daily/eurosatory_2022_rheinmetall_from_germany_launches_its_new_kf51_panther_mbt_main_battle_tank.html Well, they have been reading the thread. The thing I like the least is the 130mm gun, I am not sure the increased hitting power is worth the reduced number of rounds. Most interesting is they claim the APS can degrade KE penetrators. Cost? if you have to ask.....

It actually disrupts a larger mobilization to commit the third battalions to Ukraine. They are basically the training infrastructure of the Russian army. The process of reconstituting that from scratch would be enormous, and more importantly SLOW. It has not, but in the next ~15 years there is a real risk of getting caught on the wrong side of a technological transformation. I not sure big ships are still a thing as missiles and drones get smarter. The Donbas is important only as long as Ukraine can inflict more damage than it is taking. Keeping the UKR forces as a viable field army and making the Russians bleed is all that matters. The donor conference this week needs to come through. 99% agree, but what does a Donetsk City that absolutely hates them gain Ukraine? They deserve to be part of Russia, worst punishment available. Yeah, it is going to be a long bloody summer first, at best. Every single piece of hardware in Europe, and 75% of U.S. capability needs to be on it way to Ukraine, or Taiwan RIGHT NOW. There is not and will not be crisis somewhere else that can't be "contained" for a year two if it comes down to it.