poesel

A salvo of HIMARS costs about 600,000 (IIRC). If you spread that to 25 drones, that is 24,000 per drone. I guess the per drone costs for Ukraine for a homemade product is less than that. Especially since they have full access to all necessary material. So yes, Ukraine could easily do this every day. They shouldn't, and they won't, but they could. But the secondary effects are well worth doing this at least once.

I'd like to point out that this whole 'Belgorod Republic' thing is a brilliant next step in the 'boil-the-frog' strategy. Up until now, Russian soil was safe (except for counter battery fire and small scale attacks on infrastructure). Now, another of those red lines has been crossed and nothing has happened. I guess we'll see more of those excursions, and they will become regular enough so that Russia has to spend resources. It also means that Russian civilians will have lots of first-hand experience with the war. Another small step in destabilizing Russia.

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The fun thing is, when Russia retreats from Bakhmut, it will just be a side-note in the war news. Overlaid by Ukrainian advances elsewhere. The next time Bakhmut is in the news, 1–2 years down the road, is when they pick a suitable demolished building as a war memorial for the victory over Russia. In between we will get several CM maps (of different times) and the fight will be immortalized in dozens of urban fighting, small scale scenarios. The final step is forumites doing selfies before said memorial and posting them in this thread.

Question: given the range of the AA systems, why do they have to be IN Kiev to protect Kiev? And not somewhere else where attacks on the AA systems wouldn't land on civilian infrastructure? Or is there an advantage in taking the attacking missile head on? Which would obviously work best if you are the target...

Yes, definitely. No, didn't happen. Too large a gene pool inside Russia to really breed something out. Too much influx from 'non-Russian' genes through wars and trade etc... And not enough time. IIRC the last time Homo sapiens had a real gene selection was when we were down to 10,000 individuals some tens (100s?) of thousands years ago. That was the time we nearly got extinct. Now we are just too many for any mayor changes to happen. Communism has tried to create the 'new human'. With education & gulags. Neither of which worked, else we had a working communist state. The humans are still the same, which is why communism has unfortunately failed. Steve, I'm not going to continue to argue that here. Others have already said all I may have come up with. I'm not an evolutionary biologist, and there are much better sources about this topic than which I can provide. Your arguments are sound with regard to cultural or sociological reasons. But extending that to biology is just plain wrong.

Not may - it is the same (for any reasonably large number of people). Biology plays no part in this. We are all the same (except for some superficial differences). That is not an opinion, it is science. Again, no. Why people drift into these or similar circles have social or cultural reasons. Biology plays no part in this. Darwin would tell you that '100s' of years are not enough to make a dent in the DNA of a group of people. Especially since this group is not isolated (genetically). However, I do agree with the rest of your analysis.

That would be - interesting... I'm not sure if the Ukrainians want to do that since they are just trying to get rid of the Russians. But then, they might have no choice because they need immigration and the Russians are closest - distance wise and culturally. The other options is people from the global south. But if Ukraine shares the sentiment of their neighbours about that, it isn't an option at all. I noticed that, too. But it seems like an easy thing to fix. Sound proofing combustion engines is a well known thing. You could also use a hydrogen fuel cell. More expensive of course, but hey, it's the military.

What happened to this? https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/legged-squad-support-system This is now over 10 years old. Can't get much better for bad terrain (except for a six legged version).

Hey - 2 of the last 3 wars were declared by the French! And don't ask about the time before that... Germany always gets the blame...

Belorussian border guards trying to shoot down a mavic drone. Video from both sides. https://twitter.com/PStyle0ne1/status/1654079710710702081?s=20 (sorry, Twitter does not allow this tweet to be embedded)

I remember that we speculated at the time that the successful retreat from Kherson of the RA was largely due to the fact that Ukraine didn't want to fight over the city and risk high civilian casualties. A special situation which is unlikely to repeat. So I don't think Kherson tells us much about either capability on the attack or defense.

Guessing from the drop time, that is about 50 m above the ground. Not that high. GPS & barometric sensor will give the pilot a good measure for current altitude. Add an accelerometer and you know your angle vs ground. With a fixed forward down looking cam and a little bit of software, you got yourself a working bomb sight. The plane itself is likely styrofoam reinforced with some carbon fiber struts. That is quite durable. I guess this thing costs less than a quadcopter and carries twice the load at three times the range. But it is of course as susceptible to jamming as the copters are. So I guess they will rather max out the load. I should not be surprised what you can do with hobby level electronic skills in a modern war, but I am. Kudos to Ukraine to be that resourceful and to enable their soldiers to try out these wacky things.

Personally, I think that all the talk of the probable limited success of the coming offensive is just a mind game. Lowering the expectations will make any success look the bigger. May also let the Russians feel a wrong sense of security. My guess is we will see Ukrainian soldiers skinny-dipping in the Azov sea this year.

That is what I mean with the missing discussion: what can Russia expect from the west after Russia has left Ukraine and Putin is gone. A clear picture of how that would benefit Russia is necessary to give any would-be revolutionaries a goal to achieve. Of course, there is a price tag for Russia to get back into the international community. Knowing this number (roughly) would help to evaluate if going with Putin is still the right choice.

What I think is missing is a discussion in the west on how to treat a post-war Russia (one that has retreated from Ukrainian territory). We should give Russia a perspective on what to expect when they end this war. Then they can evaluate that against continuing the war and make a proper decision. Currently, the future looks glum with either war and non-war. But sticking with war and Putin is at least a known factor. Thus there is no real revolt in Russia because there is no alternative. This has been verified by the CEO of Rheinmetall a few months ago.

The Chinese can and are ready to suffer more IF there is an economic advantage to it (mostly personal advantage). They are more hardcore capitalists than the commie display may look like. So, the Chinese government can basically do everything they want, but only if this leads to a perceivable better (economic) future for the common public. Failing that, the public can get very, very angry very, very fast (last seen when they were finally fed up with Covid restrictions).

- thanks! This made my day. Choosing the music from "Raumpatrouille Orion" (*) as the official marching song is such a great idea that I would never ever think the Bundeswehr would do that. That is more "Zeitenwende" than anything else! (*) this:

Thanks for that. I wasn't aware of the size of an attack on Taiwan. I thought it would mainly be a fight for the Taiwan strait. If China had won that (long enough) it could pour enough resources into Taiwan to end this quickly. If China were denied (or cut early enough) this path, then that would be the end of this war. Let's hope that Russia breaks up early enough and China will be busy with populating Siberia.

A question about the argument: sending arms to Ukraine diminishes the ability of the US to fight China in Taiwan. Given that a fight for Taiwan would mostly be a Navy & Air force thing (for the US) and the stuff sent to Ukraine is mostly for Army use - how is the above an argument? (that is really a question, not a backhand argument in itself ).

It didn't take 8 years. It took three days in Feb '22. In the 8 years before, nobody relevant thought one tiny bit about it (at least in Germany, and that includes myself ).

You can edit your posts. Just click on the 3 dots in the top right. There might be a time limit, however.

That is one clever design. The boxes are just chipboard cut with a laser cutter. The grenade shells are 3D printed. I guess 3 parts. An eye bolt for connecting it to a drone and I guess a safety pin. The innards are a guess, but probably just a simple fuze, explosives and metallic objects to create shrapnel (the casing won't provide any). Given the fuze and explosives you need less than $3000 of machinery to set up a production line in your cellar.

I have a good friend in the UK who is a brexiteer. I've discussed with him for a while and then dropped it. He is feeling that the Brexit was the right thing, and no fact would (or will) change that. That is his opinion, and he has a right to it. Going by one's feelings is not a bad thing, and to be honest, most (or all) of us do it all the time. Just think about how you chose your car or phone or football team. Problem is, that feelings can be influenced quite easily, while with facts this is much harder. Aaaand Steve already said it much better Not going to argue that, but post WWI Germany wasn't that bad. Without the global recession in 1929 there probably wouldn't have been WWII (at least not the one we know and love ).

Ach - my try at irony has failed... In other news: Germany will up its budget for foreign military aid (»Ertüchtigung von Partnerstaaten im Bereich Sicherheit, Verteidigung und Stabilisierung«) from 2,2b€ last year to 5,4b€ this year. Another 8,8b€ are earmarked for the following years. This money will be used for Ukraine and mainly to supply them with ammunition and parts for already delivered systems. That is about 10% of our military budget. Those expenses have broad support in parliament (everyone except the extreme left & right, which together have 15% of the seats).