rocketman

Two more AD assets hit
Buk M3 by HIMARS
And TOR likely hit by the howitzer of 128th mountain-assault brigade
 

Another one of those things I would not think I would ever see in my life .
Neat. 🙂

Gotta be honest, I was a lot more worried about Russian aggression about 22 months ago.  Most people who hand wring over this do not understand NATO or what it really means.  It is the military alliance that secures and guarantees “The West”.  NATO nations comprises a block of nations of almost 1 Billion people who are also heavily invested in each other’s economies.  It does not matter which US president gets in, they all like the money.  And money needs stability and order to fully exploit.  If NATO falls apart then the whole Ponzi scheme falls apart
So What?  The single greatest weakness in The West is a willingness to sacrifice.  So general f#ckery by China or Russia outside of the western sphere gets tolerated in cycles of fading influence largely a victim of ignorance and apathy.  But losing NATO would mean enormous risk and sacrifice on our part, ones that we are not willing to accept.  Forcing The West’s hand is the last thing Putin wants to do.
So if Russia gets cocky and tries to make a run on Berlin, one of two things will happen: NATO will fail, or WW3.  One does not stick one’s toe in or creep into NATO in an overt manner.  It is a binary equation.
As to Russian military threat.  Well it is getting its @ss handed to it by a nation 1/4 its size held together by cash, good will and a freakin Mad Hatter’s menagerie of military support.  Assuming Ukraine collapses (somehow) how Russia would expect to take what they have left and somehow assault an opponent 6 times larger (https://www.worlddata.info/alliances/nato.php#:~:text=In addition to the USA,percent of the world's population.) and over 20 times as wealthy is beyond me.  The RA can’t mount a decent tactical victory after months of  trying but “once they get done with Ukraine they will cut through Europe like prunes through a short grandmother”?  It borders on disinformation to be honest.
Should we take threat’s seriously? Absolutely.  But let’s make sure they are really threats and not jumping at shadows.  We got all sorts of problems, we do not need to manufacture ones.

I believe any of those plans are really not all that likely while SMO goals have not been fullfilled.
However
US troops will not deploy in the hundred thousands to die by FPV drones in a muddy trench if Trump is elected.
Whatever else Europe has (left) in terms of military is tiny in scale and wouldnt stand a few months of current war attrition. 
How many Germans, French, Hungarian.. citizens would really give their lives for say Lithuania? Russia is absolutely fine throwing a thousand lives away per day, are europeans too?
All it takes is some political instability in Europe and mass mobilisation in Russia, which by the absolute lack of anti war movement doesnt seem that unsuccessfull in pulling off.

Russian aviation ‘on verge of collapse’ due to sanctions, Ukraine announces after successful hack (yahoo.com)
 

Grey Zone owner killed. 
 

US Arms Makers Dominate Top Expo As Russia Fails To Sell (Newsweek)
LOL...That is all. 😄

The longer I watch this war the more I wonder if it isn’t a microcosm of how the Cold War would have gone down if it had gone hot in the mid 80s.  NATO had invested in C4ISR, precision and technology.  Russia in mass.  Air superiority would have been in doubt and perhaps resulted in mutual denial.  
Assuming the whole thing stayed conventional we could have seen extensive initial Soviet advances but they would have been strung out and logistics lines were stretched and exposed.  Deep Battle would have kicked in and the Soviets would have found themselves over extended.  They may have then buckled and fell back to NATO counter attack until they could assemble massive defensive positions (minefields etc).
The whole thing may have resulted in incremental Soviet gains at insane costs.  Or right back to the start lines after tens of thousand dead and wounded.  West would have gone back to containment and squeezing while the Soviets buckled under the weight of trying to pay for it all.
Of course a whole lot could have happened differently given scope and scale differences but I can’t shake the feeling that there are similarities.

This podcast claims that a number of the North Korean shells suffer from shoddy manufacturing. 
Good news if true.

This part.  All war is sacrifice.  And in this regard the Western world is perhaps as weak as it has ever been.  Our willingness to sacrifice anything for greater causes is woefully weak.  We will make a lot of noise, cancel people, whatever.  But actually sacrificing something that hurts...no freakin way.  We are three generations into entitlement and no empire in the history of the planet has done well when it pushes the sacrifice to "lessers" (be they internal or external).
Tax havens, choking out social programs, defence spending that does not loop back into our own pockets.  Gawd help us, oil, gas and " export of precision machine tools and key weapons manufacturing equipment components to Russia."
I am not even sure we know how to really give sacrifice anymore.  If someone told people they could cure cancer and have world peace but would have to give up their cellphones, I am pretty sure I know which way it  would go.
So as to Russia, and China for that matter, what is most disconcerting is that this war (and maybe the next one) are highlighting that our adversaries still know how to sacrifice.  Ukraine knows how to sacrifice.  I mean really pay the red coins to achieve something.  In Russia's case it is utterly evil, immoral and illegal by any angle, but say what you will, the Russian's still know how to sacrifice.
So we can talk about Glass Dragons, real estate bubbles, Russian doomed trajectories and demographic statistics all day long.  But until we recognize that our adversaries are willing to lose more than us in order to gain, we are in trouble.  we can't get people to wear masks and take free vaccines in the middle of the worst pandemic since 1918, how can we expect them to endure famine and war?
My biggest fear is that by the time we figure it out, it will too late.  We are like the European powers in 1899, rich entitled and heading off a cliff...all arguing about who should go first.  

And so after much debate, Pooh, Piglet, Owl and Eeyore ventured off to Mongolia, then north to Siberia to see what they could see.
Hours later Piglet came racing back with the others in pursuit.
Pooh:"Piglet what's wrong?!"
Piglet:"are you out of your F'n mind?  Are you blind?  That place has more wildfires than the rest of the globe combined!  They have f'n exploding methane holes and now they have these creepy viruses from 50,000 years ago! Who the hell wants that place?!"
https://abcnews.go.com/International/siberian-wildfires-now-bigger-fires-world-combined/story?id=79422602
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201130-climate-change-the-mystery-of-siberias-explosive-craters
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/world/permafrost-virus-risk-climate-scn/index.html

30 Gepards in 2023, 30 Gepards next year. USA buyback from Jordan for Ukraine.
 

let it go, just not worth it.  Clearly he doesn't comprehend what climate change really means.  You can't argue with someone that takes pride in their ignorance.... and it is just going waaaaaayyyyy off topic

deleted, the above is so awful  just need to walk away

This was in Amsterdam and referencing Israel and Gaza. What has it got to do with Ukraine? Given your wording, it sounds like you are just trying to shoehorn a personal bugbear.

Maybe these young people are climate change zealots because they have to live with the catastrophe that our generation chose to mock & ignore.  Did you see the temperature data from this summer?  This september?  -- Off the f--ing charts.  Things are getting bad much, much faster than projected a decade ago.  

The war must really be a stalemate, what with there being talk of aliens here now...

Meanwhile situation near Avdiivka getting worse. During last 2-3 days Russians not only crossed railroad between coke plant and Stepove village, but significantly advanced north from Krasnohorivka and even entered to easten part of Stepove village (but were pushed back soon), their recon groups also make probes on coke plant territory.  
All attempts of UKR troops to push Russians behind railroad were failed. 47th brigade in theese attacks lost at least two Leo2 destropyed and several Bradleys were damaged and abandoned. 

Video of Russian advance to Stepove, which finished not very good for them
Russians conducted a "Bakhmut tactic" of continuous infantry attacks with artillery support and FPV drone strikes. Usage of armor now significantly reduced, but assault groups mostly have small armor support. Some differences - their infantry coordination, training and command level significantly worse than Wagners, but they have MANY of them and Russian command doesn't interest how much of them will find own death during advance. Reportedly Russian batatlion commanders have been fu..ng out by brigade chiefs and higher for big losses in equipment, but not in personnel. 
From other hand I already have seen two UKR servicemen logical questions, why our command just put troops in passive defense and just "extinguish fire" with small armored fireteams - with such tactic Russians anyway will trumpling staep by step our defense. Why nothing is doing to eliminate of northern salient, for example by strike north from Krasnohorivka and along H-20 road? 
 
UKR 31st mech.brigade engages armored platoon size assault group
And here southern flank of Avdiivka, where Russians havn't significant success - destroyed column of 111th mobilization reserve motor-fifle regiment of DNR
One of attempts of UKR troops to supress Russians in railroad area with Leo2 and Bradley fire.
 

UKR troops activated on Hola Prystan' direction (SW from Kherson) - they set control over Bilohrudove village on Bilohrudnyi island. Likley this happened sevaral days or even week ago, and changes was spotted due to footage of Russian drones. No official information from UKR General Staff. About week ago they strictly rejected to comment any info about Dnipro-crossing operaton.

Russian milbloggers complain UKR troops on bridgeheads, especially in Krynky area have just "unlimited number" of FPV drones, which inflicted heavy losses for armor and logistic vehicles. Also they say UKR trops use multiple recon Mavics, so almost each squad can call artillery fire from right bank in short time.  UKR troops defended by probably new EW assets which Russian bloggers called "EW cupola" - by their words Russian have severe problems with own drones and communications, Russian troops suffered a lack of own EW assets, so UKR drones fly impudent and "khokhols became so insolent that use extreme low altitude helicopter strikes at our positions with S-8 rockets and even deploy SHORAD AD assets in 1-2 km from the river on right bank, shooting down most of our drones, which try to spot artillery". 
Our units also have huge support of "Magyar Birds" unit, which likely already became independent UCAV unit maybe regiment of higer subordination. Russians say "some very known personage (Magyar) set in Kherson on residental building powerful transmitter, which allows his unit reach too far and breakthrough our week EW defense". During last 10 days Russians launched two Kh-31P anti-radar missiles on Kherson, very likely against Madyar's radio equipment.
 
 

Imagine how angry the Russian delegation would be if the President of Kazakhstan greeted them in Ukrainian. 😄
 

Or a grinding war of Exhaustion.  Guy named Bowdish did a long history view and came up with 5 basic military strategies:
- Extermination (not used as much these days but does happen), complete removal of an opponent bottom to top.  Mongols were really good at this one.
- Exhaustion.  Essentially fighting until one side can no longer hold it together on a societal scale. Think end of WW1.
- Annihilation.   The destruction of an opponents ability to fight.  Two sub methods here: Attrition and Dislocation.  Attrition is basically wearing down until military failure happens.  Corrosion is a modern spin on this theme, think of it as rapid precise Attrition.  Dislocation is Manoeuvre Warfare, out tempo, out move and fracture while imposing your own order.
- Intimidation.  The land of Deterrence and Coercion.  However there are examples of Compellance in this space as well.
- Subversion.  We have talked a lot about this one and all that Grey Zone stuff.
So both sides in this war have tried Annihilation and they may have taken it as far as it can go.  Manoeuvre is a distant memory.  Attrition is happening but we may have even run out of options room here.  So we are likely down to Exhaustion.  Keep in mind this is deeper than military Attrition, the calculus is different.  It is essentially draining things like human capita, industrial capacity and economics.  One bleeds an opponent out an a national scale, slowly.  Will becomes very important in Exhaustion and this is why Russia will likely try and keep the conflict in this arena - Putin figures that Russia can take more, longer than the West is willing to give.  He is basically playing chicken with his own society.  Of all the crap he has done, this is probably the most irresponsible: he is betting that a nuclear power won’t totally collapse before the West pulls back.  That is bigger than his or Russian insular BS as we are talking Sum of All Fears stuff.
But here we are.  The good news is that the support bill for the UA will likely go down drastically as defensive warfare will be prioritized.  And as Russia has demonstrated one can basically hold that together with landmines and bailing twine [aside: I wonder what Ukraine and the Wests landmine stocks look like?].
Or maybe peace breaks out.  A dirty unsettled peace that will never heal over.  We will very likely do this again in 10 years or so unless we can cauterize.

For folks freakin out about the expenditure from the west, it might be good to have perspective,
In Afghanistan the US alone spent some 2 TRILLION dollars.  The gov't sitting in Kabul right now is the umm err Taliban.  As of July we had spent about 76 billion in Ukraine.....  For the return on investment, it is hard to say the West hasn't got a financial windfall in kneecapping the Russian military.

And this is how we snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.  Ukraine will fight as long as it can and we should support them until that end.  Here we are discussing one possible end - I am not sure we are even at probable but we need to be ready for it.  Conversations well above my pay grade will land on how things finally resolve with respect to the war.  
After the war we need a modern day Marshall Plan.  One for the history books.  We turn Ukraine into South Korea in a month.  Even if EU and NATO somehow remain off the table there are plenty of other ways to secure that nation.  Not least of which would be stationing western troops on their soil a la the US 8th Army.  We need to follow through or we risk blowing the whole thing.  All the money spent to date will be lost if we leave Ukraine hanging during reconstruction.  If we double down on this and turn Ukraine into a regional economic powerhouse…a friendly democratic regional economic powerhouse, that is how we cement this as a major strategic victory.

For me it was just another Friday. Now I have another reason to celebrate today.🙂 🚀
 
AFU Archer spotted.