dan/california

Just nuts!

Oh I am sure they will try to do both, as ham fistedly as humanly possible. But a first class panic about the safety of the food supply, followed by a crack down that doesn't quite work, is exactly the kind of thing that sends brittle regimes over the edge.

Until bad food kills half an elementary school, and puts the other half in intensive care. Then the security services do a completely bleeped job of trying to claim it was intentional poisoning, and all of a sudden you have a real opposition movement on your hands That would be exactly what I had in mind. Seems like somebody ought to order several thousand, or several tens of thousands, of them for Ukraine. Yes that would require a whole new factory, but whole new factories are the point if we want to win this war.

Yes, exactly! The whole idea might work better on a fixed wing drone that is a little bigger than the standard FPV package. There would more power for better cameras and so on. A the end of the day more stored energy ought to make a more useful piece of kit. But I may be on the wrong side of the cost benefit curve.

I was think to just hook it up to a little tiny generator, and then a small battery or a big capacitor so everything works just like everybody is used to, except for much longer, and with more payload for the splody bits. https://www.amazon.com/RIYIN-Turbine-Generator-Supply-3500rpm/dp/B01MR8SO1N/ref=sr_1_12_sspa?crid=24W51NJDE2Z7L&keywords=Mico%2Bgenerator&qid=1705040197&s=industrial&sprefix=mico%2Bgenerator%2Cindustrial%2C127&sr=1-12-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9tdGY&th=1 This one is not quite right, but but it wouldn't be hard to spec one out.

What Ukraine needs is not just the ability to hold, but the ability to limit their casualties at the same time they make the Russians bleed more. Insofar as i can guess, and a guess is all it is, Russia loses 500-1000 casualties a day, and Ukraine loses somewhere between 100 and 300. If Russian casualties double, and Ukraine's went down by half it would really affect the Russians over time, even if the lines don't move an inch. Ukraine just needs to be able to throw more hurt at the Russians way while reducing the number of people it has in the forward positions that take so many of the casualties. Steve said very early in this war that all Ukraine had to do was keep killing Russians, that is still true, it just turns out that the volume required is a lot higher than we thought.

Ok I went deep down the internet rabbit hole.... Can someone explain to me why we re not ALREADY seeing engines like these powering drones, FPV and otherwise? I know they are noisy but if could launch from five times further back that seems like a decent trade.

Now with english subtitles.

I am not going to quote everybody, but I agree with the general consensus that using a tactical nuke would cost the Russians far more than it would gain them, and even Putin can figure that out. I do have one technical question, although the answer doesn't effect the overall conclusion above. How wide an are would the EMP of a tactical nuke wipe all civilian grade electronics, including drones. Of course it would wipe the Russian drones too, although they might be able to protect them somewhat if they wanted to risk the element of surprise. Again this doesn't change the overall conclusion, but I would like to have some idea of the answer.

I listen to "Ukraine the Latest" pretty religiously. It is the best daily podcast about Ukraine. They give a very just the facts rundown of what is happening on the battlefield, and very strong political/opinion support for Ukraine. Some of the Telegraph's other stuff can very Fox Newsy, but on Ukraine they are quite solid.

It really is settling into a replay of the Western front in WW1.

The most significant purely military news is that ISW still seems to think Russia is accumulating a large, and by Russian standards capable, force to make a push at Kupyansk. Also Ukraine retains drone and EW superiority around Krynky, and is absolutely hammering the Russians there.

Found it.

There was video of this a couple of months ago. I will try to find it.

People who have fallen out of windows, and people who soon will.

But autonomous systems have the potential to change this, even if it is just five or ten of them flying a loop, while the operator grabs them one at a time to target things.

Until a new factory comes on line somewhere, and one side or the other suddenly has ten, or a hundred times as many of the little monsters. Never mind that the new one would probably be better monsters... Long thread about just how awful life is for the mobiks, things that can't go on forever, don't. Someone is clearly following these around by satellite, and they just keep getting tagged as soon as they come too close to the front. I wonder how you get the "privilege" of crewing one? This guy isn't dead yet, but he doesn't exactly look overjoyed with life...

Except wrecking the fabs, and therefore convincing thereby workforce to move to some combination of Japan, South Korea, and The U.S. is a net strategic loss for China. And I suspect it would be one of the harder places in the world to do an unclaimed attack. All three countries would send all business class airliners with gift packs on every seat that included brand new passports. There would be Gulf Streams or military evac planes for the really high value people.

I have to quibble with this one. Sudan is in the midst of a full blown cicvil war. It isn't getting any press because both sides are awful and the humanitarian situation is hopeless, but is nevertheless the case. The fact that Ukraine is providing some competent help to the side that seems to be winning is actually a pretty big deal. If Russia wants send its proxies on the other side more help all of it comes from a set of resources that could otherwise be directed at Ukraine. Furthermore since Ukraine has picked the side that actually wants to fight, Russia would have to send in a great deal more assistance than Ukraine is providing in order to move the needle back the other way. Losing in Sudan would make all of Russias other recent gains in Africa a lot more tenuous. In the cold math of war I think it is a net benefit for Ukraine.

Are they actually UKR SOF, or are they merely UKR who were for example serving in another country’s military, which is already heavily involed in Africa since forever? And maybe it’s just a few guys, with their Polish and whatever friends, and they get the occaisonal ride from American transport planes. I like this...

Yes, but the Question isn't what they got, but what they stole. The Chinese answer to that question seems to be rather a lot.

Their presence in Sudan is tiny, and they seem to be providing assistance to what is looking very much like the winning side. If the RDF keep up their current momentum they could well be the next government. Having the people who basically own half of one side of the Red Sea owe Ukraine a favor or five is exactly how Ukraine could suddenly have the ability to act against Russia further afield in all sorts of ways. It would also provide a great deal of leverage with Egypt, who has been far to cozy with the Russians. I realize the RDF will be an abysmal government for Sudan, but they seem to be fresh out of good choices. For that matter they seem to be out of merely bad ones.

I also agree with this, you can't screw up as badly as the West has for the last thirty years and not a nasty bill at the end of the party. I am think about two percent of GDP in increased defense spending, and two percent in various adjustment expenses. The CHIPS act was at least a down payment on the latter. But we wouldn't even be talking about trying if Xi had been the the least bit patient and subtle. He could have suppressed Hong Kong and Xinjiang with being a performative and genocidal bleep hole about it.