dan/california

That was her clue to develop an epic case of digestive distress and immediately declare she was to sick to fly. Sadly she didn't realize it.

This demonstrates two things. Ukrainian special forces are even braver than I thought they were, which is a HIGH bar. The other important fact here though is that the Russians must be truly and desperately short of PGMs for these planes to be engaging with guns. This had to be a max priority mission for the Russian air force, and the best they could do was an incompetent replay of 1953.

Yes, that is the one. One of the more significant commando operations of the whole war.

So did Ukraine merely destroy this radar? Which would be fantastic. Or did they temporarily capture the the control centers, have time to disassemble the main electronics and pack them in water proof bags, and depart with a couple of prisoners who happen to be the senior techs that kept the thing working? Because that would be off the charts. Also isn't this a nearly exact copy of a British raid in 1941 or 1942? Do the Russians even HAVE history books anymore?

Xi is supporting Russia, to the modest extent that he is, because he thinks it would be bad for him if Putin finishes face planting. i am morally certaian he is furious with Putin for bleeping this up and making the entire axis of evil look bad, complete with an infinity of video daily. IMHO, worth what you paid.

Any or all of this is at least possible. The first 13 rules of modern Russia, believe nothing, repeat that to yourself thirteen times.

A meaningful number of them just screaming the war is lost, come home, get drunk, surrender, save yourselves seems like it would have a non zero impact. There is also a small but non zero chance that someone in a position to simply shoot Putin takes it. War translated already has a selection of posts on his twitter feed with RU nats screaming some of the above.

Not sure I agree with this one. This tells the people doing the fighting they are stuck with the same incompetent crooks as commanders forever more. Given the amount of pressure the Ukrainians are piling on the could be some unpredictable reactions by front line units. The surrender, or sudden retreat of even a couple of units could move the southern front in a major way.

You have to love it when the bad guys decide to shoot all the competent people on their own side.

AFU appears to have hit quite a it more than just the S-400. Edit: a popcorn worthy day indeed!

The funny thing is it really could be Putin saying bleep it kill that annoying b@$$@d, or it really could some random air defense unit around Moscow that was told they were headed to a trench in Bakmuht with one mag and a bayonet if they let another drone get past. We may never know given the volume of lies on all side we are about to be assaulted with. Of course there will a whole other conspiracy theory that he isn't really dead. Edit: Ninjad by the better man.

The Ukrainian response to all of this "advice" should consist of one sentence. "The U.S. Air Force is welcome to show up any time."

In many ways the Falklands are the perfect analogy. The one thing I would quibble with is the fact the fighting was on small isolated islands meant that retreat was simply not an option. You could fight, or you could surrender. Also, whatever you want to say about the Argentinian forces in the Falklands, they were Spanish speaking Argentinians and understood themselves to be such. What is holding together units assembled from this sort of round up is beyond me, half of them are probably illegal immigrants from the Stans. On some level I really do think it works because these guys have been abused their whole lives, and come from places where that has never NOT been true. I mean we can have an intellectual argument about the qualities of various principalities in Central Asia before the Mongols, and then the Czars wrecked it utterly, but that sort of proves my point. How long do people think it will take for a real labor shortage to be felt in Moscow, and Saint Petersburg? I do hold very strongly to my opinion that those are the only two places in Russia that matter at all.

If the plot to kill Hitler had succeeded the correct move for the German high command was to move every single unit that could move to try and hold a line somewhere around the Oder. Regardless of the status of the any negotiations, just literally wave U.S./British units on thru to Berlin and beyond, While trying to hold the Russians as far east as humanly possible even when they had spent their last round, and were down to bayonets. There is at least a possibility that by the time the western Allies got to Berlin, the relations with the Soviets would have been so bad they wouldn't give it back. I realize there are a zillion what ifs here. But if every German soldier the In France and Western Germany was either running as fast as they could, or holding a white flag in one hand, and a sign pointing to Berlin in the other what was Eisenhower going to do other than proceed to Berlin as fast as his forces trucks could carry them? There is a great book in there somewhere. Maybe even a CM game, although BFC have done a great job with the late war Eastern Front already. It would be easiest point of departure you could ever ask for in alternate history novel. Stauffenburg just puts the bomb on the other side of the table leg.

I have a suspicion that one of the secondary reasons Russia tries to use units to near annihilation instead of rotating them out is fear of mobiks that have done front line service taking about what a delightful experience it is to provide a target for Ukrainian artillery and drones. That is after they tell people they were systematically lied to about where they were going, what they were going to do there, and paid only a fraction of what they were promised. Once tens or hundreds of thousands of men are back home, even on leave, the Russian propaganda machine is going to have a harder time controlling the narrative.

https://www.ukrainianworldcongress.org/reznikov-invites-f-16-pilots-to-join-the-ukrainian-foreign-legion/ Well it took about five minutes after the ink was dry on getting the planes to start standing up the flying tigers part two.

It was a glorious waste of money that could have kept quite a few mobiks alive if had been better spent, or at least payed some of the promised death benefits. if I was Ukraine I would do a whole propaganda cycle on that.

I suspect we won't know that for quite a while. It is worth pointing out that Ukraine has an unfortunately large population with grudges against Russia the size of a small moon. The kind of grudges you get when they kill your whole family and/or torture you mercilessly for months, maybe years. Russia seems to like to let some of these people go just to spread the word of how horrible they are. If they asked for volunteers, I doubt there was a shortage.

So the the three things referenced above, and every video of trench clearing we have seen in this war have led me to a conclusion. Small arms just barely matter, and when they do matter what counts is sustainable volume of fire. The follow on to that is that is that infantry weapons should use the smallest, lightest round possible. As much carrying capacity as humanely possible should be devoted to ISR on the defensive, and short to medium range explosives on the offensive. The sniper in the Kyiv post article makes it extremely clear that his only real goal is to see and not be seen. He only shoots at something when either he or the enemy has screwed up atrociously. I think regular infantry operate the same way to the extent to which their mission allows it The RUSI article reiterates in great detail the fact that thousands, tens of thousands of rounds are fired for every one that hits the enemy. The role of small arms is to cause suppression, and foreclose the option of a mass banzai charge, and pretty much any modern rifle does both just fine. The Urban warfare podcast, and the whole thing is worth a listen, extensively details how in an urban battle engagement ranges are stupid close , well inside danger close for almost all supporting fires. The primary arbiter of success is the amount of explosives a unit can project. From 40mm grenades, to LAW/Matador/Carl Gustav class weapons. Units also desperately need integral short range drones. Again every gram of rifle ammo takes away from the stuff that matters more. We have all seen many videos of trench clearing, grenades are so important that when a unit runs out of them they simply stop advancing, or even retreat. I freely admit that this is a change of opinion on my part, and it might be less true for a counter insurgency situation. But I think it is a primary lesson from Ukraine for the next high intensity war. The smallest possible rifle round frees up carrying capacity for things that matter more P.S. There was long discussion about the RUSI article in 2018, many of you may remember it.

So my question, maybe THE question, does sending a force five times this size give some opportunity to break thru to the objective, albeit with 40% or 50% casualties? Or does it just get a bunch more orcs barbecued, because this spot was just covered, period? I mean there were two different drones, and least a full battery of artillery raining down.

Things remain exciting in the Kremlin apparently.

So much stuff blows up at once here I can't even figure out what is going on...

Next stop Moscow!

Wagner and whatever Russia is trying to replace Wagner with need to be hunted throughout Africa the same way Al Quedea and ISIS are hunted. Just systematically eliminated.

Look, we can argue about actual information!