dan/california

FSB pressure has now made news from the Russian side all but worthless.

https://www.threads.net/@maks_23_ua/post/CwjCZMbqDde Video Pskov Il-76s ON FIRE!

Ukraine program to produce and upgraded Shaheed type drone in quantity seems to be going rather better than Russia's. Moscow's electricity supply needs to go away the next time the Russians shoot at Ukrainian infrastructure.

The great fiddle if they want to use it ruthlessly is what stuff is valued at. They have already adjusted this once. The President/Pentagon COULD start valuing Bradley's at a dollar a peice, and 155 mm shells at ten a penny. I mean it is a transparent dodge, but it might take a LONG time for that to be adjudicated in a way that prevented them from doing it. It would certainly create a longterm legal and political fur ball, but that just seems to be a permanent U.S. institution at this point.

Should have combined these, sorry. It really looks like the Ukrainians are pushing southeast from their current position around Robotyne, and hill 163. They may think there is a weaker spot there, or really want to widen their existing salient. It seems like they deep enough into the Russian lines to put pressure on the supplies and support units of the Russiansnhold the shoulder of their position.

This is a huge hit if confirmed. The other highlights

Apologies for the scattered posting. But the General idea seems to be to park units like this on places the Chinese would find them both inconvenient, and difficult to attack. I fully agree with the strategy, I just think it needs a massive increase in resources.

https://www.marcorsyscom.marines.mil/Portfolios/Ground-Combat-Element-Systems/Long-Range-Fires/

The theory as I understand it is to be able give the Chinese navy the same shore based A2AD problems they are giving us. Park them in highly camouflaged positions on various small Islands and make the Chinese come find them, then make them very sorry. You can spend a lot of time drawing circles in the around Taiwan and a slew of other Islands trying to figure what fleet can operate in what missile envelope. Then go but what if the Marines had some missiles on THIS spot.

Massive fortifications on the actual road to Tokomak , but some vey unfinished stuff on the flanks. I am wondering if this was the same very poor trenches we got film of today.

Was brought up in The title says it all, Putin has purged the guy who designed the defensive plan, and for good measure he has purged several of hi subordinate commanders. It, and the resulting cracks, are starting to show.

I am dying to know what happens to this officer. Does he beg to be exchanged immediately, does he beg not to be exchanged at all? If he is exchanged is he punished or just sent back to the front? Is the whole we beat him up and tied him up thing just a ruse to protect his family? So many questions. Edit: great news that the Russians are starting to surrender instead making Ukraine spend the ammo to kill them.

This unit paid in full for Montgomery's victory at El Alamein, but he made it count. Hopefully the AFU has chosen their moment with equal judgment, and can make it pay off the same way. Slava Ukraini Heroyam Slava Burn the orcs, BURN THEM ALL!

To get back to Ukraine, The second one is interesting because I think there is a non zero chance it was a Russian faction that had a reason to want him gone if the job description is correct. The rest of the tweet explains he was in charge of an anti-corruption unit. Edit: To quote The_Capt, "If you can get them shooting at each other, you are winning".

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/marine-corps-tomahawk-anti-ship-missiles/#:~:text=The Department of the Navy's,48 Tomahawks in fiscal 2022. meant to put this in the above.

I agree in principle, but That is ten percent or less, maybe much less, of what is needed if we are fighting China anytime soon.

Not mentioned i the fact that we have started low rate production on the much longer ranged SUCCESSOR to the ATACMS. And yes the contracts for it need to be increased but somewhere between a factor of ten and a hundred while the ATACMS get sent to Ukraine. Yet again we just dither about it for forever.

Pray God we will do a better job of learning the lessons of this war than that. I suspect. there is a lot of back and fourth in the U.S. military between units and officers that don't realize how much of their doctrine is obsolete. and units and officers that keep a running tally of how may drones their personal savings accounts could swing if it came down to deploying RIGHT NOW. Just to ensure they live long enough for reality to catch up with the procurement system. While we are poking at the U.S. learning lessons can I re-up my question about a petal mine simulator? Do we have one, and are units asked to deal an entire field full of them , at least occasionally?

Almost certainly JDAM-ER, or even some later successor munition to that. They are a great weapon system, but even if they have the munitions Ukraine just doesn't have enough airframes with the capability to deliver them to just blow entire sections of the Russian lines open.

Give Ukraine the ability to deliver 500 JDAMs a day to a depth of three hundred kilometers, AND clear every Russian aircraft bigger than a small quadcopter out of Ukraine's skies, and the counteroffensive will move right along. In the absence of that Ukraine is prosecuting this the old hard way about as well as it possibly can. Parts of the Pentagon just can't wrap their heads around this. Heck we can't even pull our heads out of our rear ends and manage to send some our new laser toys over for a test against drones in real world conditions. Because if they work we need thousands of them, and if they don't we need a new plan soonest.

https://www.threads.net/@maks_23_ua/post/CwfsDLFqZSx Yet more high end Russian radar and EW equipment getting hammered by something with a CEP of about 3 meters.

I think there is at least some evidence that parts of the U.S. Military are absorbing the lessons of Ukraine faster than others. The_Capt has detailed at some length how specific branches and specialties will argue that they already the solution to the challenges the Ukrainian battlefield makes evident, and that heir branch/specialty shouldn't lose ay budget. Exhibit A for this in the U.S. is the decison to proceed with a n EXTREMELY expensive scout helicopter in the face of enormous evidence that trying to fly forward of your own forward lines, or even with a couple of kilometers of them is suicidal. Indeed the army has been ignoring such evidence since 2003 if not before. https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2023/04/19/future-army-recon-helicopter-will-still-need-pilots-study-finds/ https://conference.defensenews.com/speaker/brigadier-general-walter-t-rugen Oddly enough the general making this decision spent his entire career as an army helicopter pilot, or in command of army helicopter operations. I have no doubt whatsoever that he is a skilled and dedicated officer, but I am a wee bit wary that he has some filters that might be a little too rigid. You don't need an extremely expensive new airframe too launch ATGMS, and drones from ten or twenty kilometers behind the front lines. Personally I question if you need an aircraft for that job, all, but a use case can be made for a force that might have to deploy somewhere unexpected quickly. But flying a manned helicopter forward against any thing resembling competent opposition is suicide now, and it isn't going to get anything but worse. The general, and again I don't question his motives or patriotism might just be looking at the problem through the wrong lens, and he probably is not the only one in the Pentagon with similar issues.

At times I think their weekend crew just reads the board, and thereby makes it out of the office for the last brunch seating.