poesel

FYI - the foreign minister would export Taurus to Ukraine ASAP. But it is the prerogative of the chancellor to decide that stuff. So she cannot say what she thinks.
And what Scholz thinks - nobody knows. Wrong man at the wrong time.

FYI - the foreign minister would export Taurus to Ukraine ASAP. But it is the prerogative of the chancellor to decide that stuff. So she cannot say what she thinks.
And what Scholz thinks - nobody knows. Wrong man at the wrong time.

Ok, I need to add something. The public interpretation of what the pope said is that he suggests that Ukraine should surrender. That is in itself a fact. So the public reaction is in response to that interpretation. That again is a reality.
So the pope better explain himself. He did not speak clearly enough.

Ok, I need to add something. The public interpretation of what the pope said is that he suggests that Ukraine should surrender. That is in itself a fact. So the public reaction is in response to that interpretation. That again is a reality.
So the pope better explain himself. He did not speak clearly enough.

Yes. Read the transcript. I don't know what he thought, but I know what he said.
Technically, he is the absolute monarch and head of the government of the Vatican State. So he IS the leader of a government. Since his faith is rather widespread, I guess that would qualify him as a 'world leader'.

Ok, I need to add something. The public interpretation of what the pope said is that he suggests that Ukraine should surrender. That is in itself a fact. So the public reaction is in response to that interpretation. That again is a reality.
So the pope better explain himself. He did not speak clearly enough.

Pope's message is directed to BOTH countries. He does not even mention the words "Russia" or "Ukraine" as countries. He speaks of the "war in Ukraine" as a geographical location. "Raise the flag to negotiate" can be understood as an expression which means that both countries should negotiate rather than fight a war until the end.
 

The way this is phrased could mean either Ukraine or Russia. Most people do just assume he meant Ukraine.
Very well phrased in the sense of "a great empire will fall".

The way this is phrased could mean either Ukraine or Russia. Most people do just assume he meant Ukraine.
Very well phrased in the sense of "a great empire will fall".

The hanger was certainly struck, atvleastvtwo drones,but any damage inflicted inside is unknown. Lack of fire signatures (no smoke, no discoloration in roof, no damaged/burnt debris outside, no significant EMS presence) raises questions. Still, damage can be significant without fire but currently unknowable. 
UPDATE, Official Claim but no visuals yet:
 

Some good vision here of Challenger 2 on the training range.  Includes an example of one of the things that the reporter says is an issue fielding this vehicle in Ukraine when it gets bogged in a ditch.  He comments at the end re mobility and maintenance being the main problems they've been facing.
 

Mother Of All Bowel movements 
 

Is this quite accurate? Microwave emitters are a form of EW. Broader than lasers,  more of a zone/volume effect weapon, correct? Depending on the power, modulation and sustainment of the effect you can sweep the skies in a certain arc to fry all UAV, or focus on individual units to scramble and drop them. 
Would Autonomy not be just as vulnerable to fried electronics as it is "invulnerable" to classic radio attack?
Eg
From The Crows Nest, podcast ep Feb 14th
From The Crows Best, ep. Feb 28
No shielding is perfect or invulnerable. Everything has a finite quality and bell curve of effectiveness., no? 
As I always say, and my wife hates to hear:
There's more than one way to skin a cat. 
Of course, there's also this:
 
 

Japanese have a lock on that.  If you don't have one of these you don't know what you are missing.  
UltraMax® II 1G One-Piece Toilet, Elongated Bowl - 1.0 GPF - WASHLET+ Connection (totousa.com)
 
When the Russians invade Japan, they'll be shooting each other to send one of these home.

I've been thinking about this post most of the day, and keep coming back to "Neat. Now what?"
Which got me thinking about how other step changes in military capability were handled. The two obvious ones that come to mind are tanks in WWII, and airpower during the Cold War. Now, clearly, in both cases they existed early, but they only really became effective/worrisome/"game-changing" some decades after their entree to the battlefield.
For the infantry, in both cases, the response became basically the same: very small infantry units became fully capable of anti-ing the other thing, either anti-tank or anti-air.
During WWII anti-tank rifles, bazookas, fausts, shrecks, Piats and hearty grenades gave platoons and sections an ability to defend against or attack against tanks, pretty explicitly at the detriment to the nominal role of the infantry, which was to oppose and defeat enemy infantry. That trend was significantly enhanced during second half of last century with things like RPGs and M-72s. This is at the point now where with weapons like Javelin tanks perhaps have more to fear from infantry than the vice versa, even though lugging Javelin around is a royal PITA especially for light infantry.
The introduction of air power, and especially effective CAS, started us on the road to the fully illuminated battlefield, where nowhere is safe and to be seen is to die. During WWII the only real counter that the infantry had was to dig on, or hide, or both. But during the Cold War a lot of effort went into MANPADS, resulting in the Stinger in the 1980s and with other systems following soon after. Just like their anti tank weapons, lugging around anti-aircraft missiles is a PITA which detracts from the nominal role of engaging enemy infantry, not to mention the drain on budgets and training schedules. But on the other hand now every platoon and section is capable of destroying any tank or aircraft that wanders into it's little tactical AO. And once the air and armour battle is won - either locally or globally - then the rest is just mopping up. The degradation of the infantry platoon and section's ability in the infantry-battle doesn't really matter, since while that bit remains hard and unpleasant, it is incredibly harder and more unpleasant in the absence of either air or armoured support.
So you can probably see where this is going.
Assuming UAS remains in play (and why wouldn't it?), then the role of infantry platoons and sections will change again. Instead of being little nodes of anti-tank and anti-air goodness,with some residual anti-infantry capability, they will become little anti-UAS nodes, with the weapons, training, mindset and purpose to defeat enemy UAS in their local area, and also protect or project friendly UAS capability around themselves. If an enemy tank or aircraft turns up then the section or platoon mightn't be able to deal with it themselves, but they will be networked to someone who can - guns, missiles, friendly armour or air, or friendly UAS. And they'll still, you know, carry rifles. Mainly out of habit and tradition, as well as giving the NCOs something to inspect every day. But most of their weaponry, and sensors, and just the general claggage they're carting about will be geared towards winning the UAS fight, because winning that will mean that the rest is just mopping up.
In other words, the infantry will be able to concentrate physically and cognitively on the UAS battle because it won't be their role any more to win the tank, infantry, or local airspace battle.

There seem to be two critical items US provides that Europe can't - C4ISR and Patriots. For almost everything else there is a European equivalent or better (Brad /CV90s, HARM /Meteor, NASSAMs, etc).
I'm not saying CV90s is better than Brad's, but they are certainly equivalent; if UKR swapped every single Brad for a CV90 would there be a drop in effectiveness? Dump the token Abrams and Leos for a fleet of Korean K2s and you're still rolling. 
EU arms production rates and quality of machines can absolutely match US. 
The best (and worst) thing about EU support is that it's non-binary. If the wrong dipsh*t wins the US election then aid drops like a drunk Ivan. EU is slower to get to a point but also slower to leave, and even then intra-member agreements are par for the course. 
Edit-There is a third US item : world wide logistics...damn. 

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/hungary-president-signs-swedens-nato-membership-ratification-2024-03-05/

"Sergey Kotov" according to interceptions of radiochat was attacked by 5 drones. Together with a ship Russians lost her onboard helicopter Ka-29
And again Budanov developed own sense of humor. Soviet rear-admiral Sergey Kotov has died in 1999 in Ukrainian Feodosia. Near Feodosia reportedly the ship "Sergey Kotov" was sunk
 

Havent seen the news here yet but russia officially ended Armata development, citing its high cost as  mine clearing vehicle

Germany never showed "every intention". We have discussed that at length, and we are in line with most of the rest of the West, unfortunately.
The economy is declining as it sometimes does. "no end in sight" is a bit over the top IMHO.
The interest in Ukraine has declined. Of course, modern society is easily bored. The amount of newsworthy items has gone down. But look at us: downing an A-50 has even us only occupied for a few days until we derailed again.
But: the amount of support given by Germany is pretty stable, and I don't see that changing (see below).
That may not be necessary. The political constellation is currently, that the biggest supporters of Ukraine are both in the government (greens & liberals(*)) and the opposition (conservatives).
The next government will most likely include one or two of those parties. Thus, it is most unlikely that support for Ukraine will falter.
 
(*) not 'liberal' in the US sense of the word

Germany never showed "every intention". We have discussed that at length, and we are in line with most of the rest of the West, unfortunately.
The economy is declining as it sometimes does. "no end in sight" is a bit over the top IMHO.
The interest in Ukraine has declined. Of course, modern society is easily bored. The amount of newsworthy items has gone down. But look at us: downing an A-50 has even us only occupied for a few days until we derailed again.
But: the amount of support given by Germany is pretty stable, and I don't see that changing (see below).
That may not be necessary. The political constellation is currently, that the biggest supporters of Ukraine are both in the government (greens & liberals(*)) and the opposition (conservatives).
The next government will most likely include one or two of those parties. Thus, it is most unlikely that support for Ukraine will falter.
 
(*) not 'liberal' in the US sense of the word

Germany never showed "every intention". We have discussed that at length, and we are in line with most of the rest of the West, unfortunately.
The economy is declining as it sometimes does. "no end in sight" is a bit over the top IMHO.
The interest in Ukraine has declined. Of course, modern society is easily bored. The amount of newsworthy items has gone down. But look at us: downing an A-50 has even us only occupied for a few days until we derailed again.
But: the amount of support given by Germany is pretty stable, and I don't see that changing (see below).
That may not be necessary. The political constellation is currently, that the biggest supporters of Ukraine are both in the government (greens & liberals(*)) and the opposition (conservatives).
The next government will most likely include one or two of those parties. Thus, it is most unlikely that support for Ukraine will falter.
 
(*) not 'liberal' in the US sense of the word

Germany never showed "every intention". We have discussed that at length, and we are in line with most of the rest of the West, unfortunately.
The economy is declining as it sometimes does. "no end in sight" is a bit over the top IMHO.
The interest in Ukraine has declined. Of course, modern society is easily bored. The amount of newsworthy items has gone down. But look at us: downing an A-50 has even us only occupied for a few days until we derailed again.
But: the amount of support given by Germany is pretty stable, and I don't see that changing (see below).
That may not be necessary. The political constellation is currently, that the biggest supporters of Ukraine are both in the government (greens & liberals(*)) and the opposition (conservatives).
The next government will most likely include one or two of those parties. Thus, it is most unlikely that support for Ukraine will falter.
 
(*) not 'liberal' in the US sense of the word

Germany never showed "every intention". We have discussed that at length, and we are in line with most of the rest of the West, unfortunately.
The economy is declining as it sometimes does. "no end in sight" is a bit over the top IMHO.
The interest in Ukraine has declined. Of course, modern society is easily bored. The amount of newsworthy items has gone down. But look at us: downing an A-50 has even us only occupied for a few days until we derailed again.
But: the amount of support given by Germany is pretty stable, and I don't see that changing (see below).
That may not be necessary. The political constellation is currently, that the biggest supporters of Ukraine are both in the government (greens & liberals(*)) and the opposition (conservatives).
The next government will most likely include one or two of those parties. Thus, it is most unlikely that support for Ukraine will falter.
 
(*) not 'liberal' in the US sense of the word

To buy? Would Germany really agree to sell them in that time, when in 2014 they rejected to supply engines for BTR-4, because "it may cause more civilian deaths". And even in 2022 there were half years of discussions "will Russia nuke us if we give Leos?"