dan/california

Out of likes, 100% agree wit this. Xi made a truly large strategic mistake ripping the mask off before he actually had too. The side that learns more, faster wins.

I am seriously tempted to work back to the discussion of how much of the Russian nuclear arsenal even sort of works, but The Capt would hurt me, so......

1700 km, no way that is less than 16 hours.

1700 km, 1100 miles, no way in heck that took less than 16 hours. edit, meant to put this in the Ukraine thread, sorry

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chinatalk/id1289062927?i=1000640696885 Interview with the Pentagon's AI person.

Looks like the Russians are psyching up to what breaks for who if they start another push. I see mobik corpsicles in quantity. https://weather.com/weather/tenday/l/c081912b042b8088e20a39bcd8cc184162d68b6f701c5fdeb55684cf8029d98f#detailIndex5 Highs there not predicted to break zero degrees celsius for the foreseeable.

Any possible further bone about a modern game, pretty please? Understand quitting on Black Sea, but I would LOVE to see something set that incorporated some of the lessons from the war set in 2030 or 2035, don't really care where.

Operating one of these is approaching the same level of suicidality associated with a TOS-1. I suspect that may be because TOS-1s are more or less extinct, and these are the next highest priority. Or perhaps the Russians are pushing them forward to do the same basic job of reducing strongpoints, which almost amounts to ther same thing.

I think the free market price matters because no one is going to deal with hassle of buying sanctioned Russian oil if they can buy on the open market for less. The Chinese, Indians, and others are going to want a significant discount even if the free maket price gets down toward $60, which is the theoretical price set in the sanctions. Interestingly now that India has gotten in the habit of buying sanctioned oil, the Iranians seem to be trying to undercut the Russian price. Which is funny in a very dark way, and might maybe cause at least a tiny bit of friction in the budding Russian/Iranian partnership. This is a great example of how AI can process much more data than existing systems, and vastly reduce the amount of stuff that gets missed.

Brilliant explaining! see below OK, just this once I am going to take the sober and conservative side. JonS can have the crazy side just this once. The reason there have not been more attacks on tankers is that the entire Western strategy in the war is to reduce the world price of oil, and therefore Russian income. And if they can't reduce it that way, to to limit what Russia gets paid thru sanctions. Anything bad happening to tankers anywhere tends to make the price oil go UP. This exactly contrary to what "The West" is trying to make happen. Russia of course is doing whatever it can to promote chaos in the Mideast because of course that makes the price go up. Indeed Biden is sort of, kind of, maybe, making up with Venezuela in large part to put downward pressure on the price of oil. There are other considerations but that is certainly one of the top two. I strongly suspect that the Venezuelan threat to invade Guyana and disrupt the opening of large new offshore fields there was done at Russias behest, and I assume a lot of money changed hands on that one, because Venezuela has a lot to gain from sanctions free oil sales that don't involve the risk of starting a shooting war.

Hopefully they can make a few similar decisions before they wind up in whatever the Russians are calling punishment battalions this week.

That is still ten million dollars an hour, more or less.....

If this is in fact true? Then it moves right to the top of the list that Jake Sullivan ought to be fired.

When you divide what this thing cost by the three hours it lasted in actual use the cost per hour must be spectacular.

The Russians on the receiving end of this must have annoyed someone. !!!!! Does anybody have feel for the credibility of this data? It is priceless information if it is real, and they keep updating it. Read Dmitri every day!

ISW is spooling up like they mean it after the Holidays, two major pieces on the Ukraine war. They seem to think Putin is going double down on a losing bet AGAIN.

I admit it, it is very funny...

Yes, yes I am. Because if all the stuff we sent last summer had gotten there NOV 22 before the mines got laid and Russia cobbled together some abortion of a system to keep fresh meat flowing to grinder, the Ukrainians very well might be back at their Feb 22 borders. But this war has clearly entered a different phase with essentially static lines. NATO and Ukraine needs to take deep breath and make a two year plan, not six four month plans that can't possibly work. The fact they got 155 cluster munitions two months AFTER the summer offensive started makes me utterly crazy... They STILL don't have the M-26 DPICM rockets for HIMARS, Biden needs to fire Jake Sullivan and hire someone with a clue.

100% agree

That would include longer training on the complex stuff, they need to quit trying to do six month trainings in six weeks.

It is also has a relatively short range. Which is why you repeatedly see it being used on cities like Kharkiv. Patriot and Iris-T might be able to intercept them, but they can't be pushed far forward enough with acceptable risk.

And as soon as everything left in the bone yard has a problem with the same part that hasn't been in production for decades, the whole process grinds that much slower. I have visions of people standing around ancient manual everything production machinery trying desperately to understand the alcoholic mumblings of the seventy year olds that used to run it. The real significance is that the drone was obviously in communication with the Bradley, and is just waiting for the mobiks inside to get flushed and greet them with a grenade. As The Capt never tires of saying, this sad attempt at an attack was picked up before it got out of its assembly area. The only question was how much ammo the Ukrainians would have to use to make them good Russians

Both sides are clawing at each other anyway they can. My only prediction for next year is that things that can't last forever, don't. Happy new year....