beardiebloke

Not convinced this will make any difference whatsoever but I would take it as a sign that the BSF isn't doing so well. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/11/kremlin-declines-to-comment-if-naval-chief-sacked

Saw this and thought it was pretty wild. Drone fitted with a really long spool of fiber optic cable to avoid EW. Obvious practical issues but if the distance is not so great it should work. https://www.threads.net/@maks_23_ua/post/C4N23bHKkBN

There was at least one incident but it doesn't seem very common. It's been discussed here but I struggle to find the posts. I think this is the one I remember from last year around Andriivka.

https://euromaidanpress.com/2023/12/17/ukraine-starts-mass-production-of-750-km-range-kamikaze-drones/ Not sure why kind of explosive payload but I guess they can mix it up easily enough as it's all domestic production.

Interview with a civilian volunteer who builds/organises/flies drones. Autotranslate does an OK job but there's one word "RETRIK"? that I'ld like to understand. I think a lot of context is lost on me - how many like him are there? How many volunteer groups supply the front with FPVs. He shares some very frank opinions about government/military procurement.

Just saw this UGV announced... https://www.kyivpost.com/post/23189 This particular weapon is probably not a game changer... I mean the flying FPV drones seem very effective already. Perhaps these are cheaper? Carry more? I think in the future you can only prepare your drone forces based on best guesses about what you will face. Then when your plans collide with reality, strong domestic adaptable means of production will become crucial.

English version of the infographic here: https://t.me/uawarinfographics/2874?comment=25382 Also curious of the source but a good sign even if it's only roughly correct. A month old Reuters article quoting a "Western official": https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-ramps-up-artillery-production-still-falling-short-western-official-says-2023-09-09/ If we assume production of 1-2m shells per year then any usage above 5500/day means your stocks disappear and eventually reach 5500/day *assuming* you produce 2m per year *and* get them to the front where they are actually fired. Just my amateur back of envelope take.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/urban-warfare-project/id1490714950?i=1000629620464 A few pages ago folks were talking about the lack of basements in CM... this podcast covers some of the issues. It touches on a lot of topics but not overly in depth, I thought it's a nice a food-for-thought episode. One of the themes was that a less technologically advanced combatant can try to level the playing field through the use of tunnels and subterranean structures, but not the other way around. If drones level the ISR playing field enough perhaps it would pay for western armies to think about how they can dig deep, if they haven't already.

And for drones too when you look at daily number as a percentage of the total! Which just makes the remaining artillery pieces less effective if it carries on.

Should have been more clear. By GPS I meant that now bombers have GPS so no longer need to use lights on the ground and dead reckoning to navigate so folks can be complacent about wartime light pollution. I have vague memories of blackout drills when I was growing up in Seoul in the late 70s/early 80s, possibly for this reason. At the front where it matters more I suspect RU will be more sensible, but that shoreline doesn't look like a country on a proper war footing.

Did you mean that the big light "behind" the ship was the moon? It looks like three very bright light sources on the ship as the drone gets closer. Even without a full-ish moon the coastline appears so well lit up that this looks like a hard target to miss. If those ship lights were there to help spot drones ... well, not very effective without an alert watch. Light pollution isn't only bad for astronomers. With all the GPS etc I imagine old skool blackout curtains and light curfew doesn't happen anymore.

No sound? RU may have finally attrited UKR's supply of irrelevant music clips. This marks the end.

This broadens the criteria for "Russia winning" a great deal. Anything short of Russia not comprehensively losing and starting to behave itself could be considered "Russia winning". As for time running out, it appears more likely if you extrapolate the speed of the counteroffensive based on what we've seen in the last few weeks/months, but far less likely if you anticipate a slow-then-quick bankruptcy style decline it RU's capabilities. I cautiously favour the latter. If this does turn into a Korean style stalemate, then it will be relative stability that matters. It would suck but life could go on in relative peace.

So all the discussion about blowing up/repairing the Kerch Bridge was a waste of time if RU can't even get there anymore?!?!

Don't get me wrong, it would suck... a lot. But whatever they achieve wouldn't last forever and have no impact on the war.

The globe is covered by a lot of submarine cables. In theory Russia could cut many of them and cause mayhem. However, they can be repaired (as they often are). Russia on the other hand has only two cables going east to Japan. To the west it's all terrestrial or to Kaliningrad. They can transit China but that's expensive. They could connect to the south but all of those countries are difficult and/or expensive. Basically a NATO + Japan blockade (for as long as required) of telecoms to Russia would be crippling. They could still get services via some countries to the south but they are known for being expensive at the best of times. Bonus fun fact: telecoms is a sanctions exception (AFAIK) and a source of hard currency income. Probably nothing compared to oil but still. So if they want to do this in a significant way the west could retaliate in kind, but a lot harder and longer.

Yes I agree. I was just trying to make the point that videos on TG showing the army levelling a town with indiscriminate shelling isn't a good look. Public opinion may not count for that much in Russia but it's still not a good look. Kosinskoye looks like just a small group of buildings around the border crossing but Grayvoron up the road is a bit more substantial.

Not only will they need to figure out how to defeat the .. um... Russian Legion (is that what they're called?). The usual methods will destroy these towns completely. And what happens to the civilians? Can they flee south to Ukraine? Will they get across to the north without their own side shooting them? I know there is a lot said about Russian false flag ops taking civilian lives but this wouldn't be a one-off, localised event.

Possibly taken out of context but I reckon it's plausible. RU soldiers being delivered to a treeline with regular trucks, not even up-armored mad max ones. I thought RU had a zillion BMPs.

Does the UK get teenage boys to name all of their weapons systems? Storm Shadow sounds extremely cool. This one even has a HARDBUT version.

Well it seems to start out just a little eccentric but gets progressively weirder. The gist of it is that US/NATO pushed Ukraine into a ware with Russia so that they could use the crisis to accelerate digitisation of the UKR government and then use Google/Azure/Amazon tech to control the country. Also that Covid wasn't really that bad and governments were scaremongering to control citizens. Sure, UKR gov't uses cloud services but so do lots of companies and governments, that doesn't mean these tech giants cooperate to undermine democracy or that UKR is no longer sovereign as a result. They also say that Zelensky banned all opposition parties, not just some Russian-linked ones. I thought the presenter's style sounded a bit Tucker Carlson and guess what, he's an ex-Fox presenter and ex-real estate investor/promoter. The channel even states that it's not presenting news but entertainment.

Some pretty wild conspiracy theories there. App looks pretty cool though.

Happy Easter! Update on drone development: And poor opsec from UKR:

I had the pleasure to attend this talk by Prof. Michael Clarke a couple of weeks ago. He's an ex-RUSI Director General and active academic. No breaking news here but a good summary including some interesting historical background and global context. The video didn't include the Q&A afterwards which went a little off the rails with one audience member saying she was scared of getting nuked and that we should have a dialog with Russia . He responded by acknowledging that it was possible that the fighting stops with some never ending negotiations about Crimea/Donbas but seemed to portray this as a rather bleak future.

I agree... I just meant it's weird comparing the amount of discussion/uproar about tanks when it feels like the planes are coming.