Lethaface

Nice to see, I can imagine the people giving the training will feel rather involved with how the, often fresh volunteer/mobilized, 'trainees' will fare at the frontlines. They will feel a sense of responsibility.
Hard and extreme sounds appropriate for such a (short) training. I hope it will make the difference!

More and more videos how militaries of different countries honorably see off UKR soldiers after their training course... Now Norwegian instructors on Polish training ground
One man, mobilzed and trained in UK (he is still in UK) told they have very hard and extreme course. Interesting how match NATO trainings to Ukrainian war realities... 
 

47th mech.brigade with Slovenian M-55S and Bradley

Some intimate )))) Adult content ! )))
 

And in the Holy Fudge category of combat footage, we have a new king:
POV guy shows great personal courage, head is on a swivel. Top notch NCO-ing going on.

Without trying to start a semantic discussion about what an arms race is, I have a different outlook. 'We' need to be able to posture a credible defense against a China imposing their will/narrative over Western interests. That mainly revolves around making sure they understand a blockade or even an invasion of Taiwan is a bad idea and harmful for China. 
Military build up to answer China's developments is surely a part of that. But most of it is (geo) political / diplomatical and economical.
But an arms race to have a bigger and better military compared to China on every imaginable front is stupid. China might even win such an arms race without fighting a war, as they have the means of production in place while we might ruin our economies trying to outproduce China (with a different type of economy system. And yes I know and have known about China's policies both national/international and I'm not a fan). 
We need to have better / good enough tools to give China a bloody nose if they decide to try their luck. And enough of it / scaleable means of production, so China can't just calculate the losses as acceptable before we run out of pointy sticks.
If US wants to start a war with China just to see who has the largest ......, I think that US will have to go for that one solo or without NATO at least. I would wholeheartedly opt-out on behalf of NATO if I could.
And on Russia, more relevant for this thread, we need to have the capability to posture a credible threat against any Russian invasion of European (NATO) countries.Over the past few decades we f'ed up and lost that capability. It needs to be rebuilt, but with the lessons of the current war in mind and aimed at the next (defensive) war.
But that doesn't mean we now need a big and military able to conquer a country like Ukraine or Russia against a foe being a clone of the current Ukraine and it's capabilities.
Such differences matter because they influence the required capabilities and consequently the (conceptual) requirements coming from those. 

The post-versailles wehrmacht had a large, well trained, cadre of (nc) officers, many of them fulfilling a 'life long' professional duty in a tradition predating the Nazi regime (not that I think that's new for you 😉 ). That allowed them to enlarge the cadre into a relative large and competent armed force pre WW2.
So at the start of the war they were a rather formidable fighting force (compared to other forces at the time), although that also eroded over time for (among others) the reasons you mention. The same reasons dictate that a sustained war against the Allies was never going to end well.
Still at a mid - low level parts of the German armed forces remained a force to be reckoned with until the bitter end, while national/military strategy,  intelligence and command were passing around the crack pipe (fortunately).
Some of the never ending research and discussions are about a zero sum game whether the WW2 Germans sucked or not. I think one don't needs so much extra research to conclude that in some aspect they sucked while in other aspects their performance was above par. The rest of the details are food for military history academics, but often consumed/regurgitated by people having some pride/ego on the subject without the proper context.

The post-versailles wehrmacht had a large, well trained, cadre of (nc) officers, many of them fulfilling a 'life long' professional duty in a tradition predating the Nazi regime (not that I think that's new for you 😉 ). That allowed them to enlarge the cadre into a relative large and competent armed force pre WW2.
So at the start of the war they were a rather formidable fighting force (compared to other forces at the time), although that also eroded over time for (among others) the reasons you mention. The same reasons dictate that a sustained war against the Allies was never going to end well.
Still at a mid - low level parts of the German armed forces remained a force to be reckoned with until the bitter end, while national/military strategy,  intelligence and command were passing around the crack pipe (fortunately).
Some of the never ending research and discussions are about a zero sum game whether the WW2 Germans sucked or not. I think one don't needs so much extra research to conclude that in some aspect they sucked while in other aspects their performance was above par. The rest of the details are food for military history academics, but often consumed/regurgitated by people having some pride/ego on the subject without the proper context.

And strategy. And intelligence. And jointness. And unified command. And ...
The Eastern Front rather puts the lie to that old canard about history being written by the victors.

It looks like, from the dirt with a track pattern on it on the fore deck of the damaged tank, that another tank back into this vehicle, treads gained purchase and it back up onto the front deck of the damaged tank.  The rear deck of the backing up tank got under the barrel and the barrel acted like a massive pry bar, pulling the turret off to it current position.
In other words, it was two leopards mating and it went horribly wrong.   😜

There is so much going the wrong way in Germany that I don't even know where to begin and indeed finding reasons why we can't do something is quite popular these days - military spending is really the least of my worries.
But since we are being somewhat unfair: It is easy to demonstrate a 'can do' attitude when you blame everything you 'can't do' on someone else and the things you 'can do' is in no small part actually paid by (that same) someone else...

Back when it still played music.  I swear reality tv and emoticons were the first two horsemen of the apocalypse.

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.

Are we back on the part of the cycle marked Germany-bashing-week already?
Maybe Poland could stop huffing all that sweet sweet Russian gas first?

At the same time fortunately NATO usually doesn't have plans of the special military op type: a major war of aggression against a well motivated and decently armed defender, who has been preparing for war for 8 years. Featuring several axis requiring at least a million men (and other stuff), which weren't available. Topping it of with a brief 'preliminary bombardment - morning' for shock and awe, not mentioning the lack of plans regarding what to do about those pesky urban centers.
I mean if we would think of starting such a war I'd hope someone would at least start worrying whether there is even the munitions / hardware etc for such a fantasy.

In any case I'm sure US/NATO would come up with a different plan to tackle 'Ukraine invasion like 2022' then the one Russia came up with, if it had to. And actually prepare for it (it would take long). But tbh it wouldn't be 'nice', imo it would include bombing from standoff distance for a loooong time.  If anything else even. When the stone age would start to kick in, boots on the ground. Although even then the task at hand would still be very different from OIF.
Probably more like CMSF2 with decent-good trained and highly motivated fighters using Kornets and RPG-29s but then much better organized and with good comms, loads of IEDs, etc, defending guerilla style from hardened positions (so urban centers in CMSF2). It would still be ugly, because that's what fighting against a people always turns out. Even after the conventional phase ends,  'mission accomplished', and blends into an indefinite insurgency on steroids.

One could mention Iran and US but the US had itself concluded 'bad idea' regarding a ground war in Iran, let alone a full scale invasion/annexation. I'm in the 'bad idea' camp as well, for various reasons, and leave it at that.
TLDR, do we really need the capabilities and matching stocks for a war playing the role Russia is playing now?
Not saying / thinking nothing should be done, it's definitely time for wakey-wakey but the goal is not to start a new arms race (or rather should not be).
 

Lolwut? Is this reciprocal?

Hellriders %) (fuses are mounted to mines)
 
 

Really? *A* clearance? I have family members much older than him, who sweated through the full SSBI or Full and TS/SCI process. It’s an 8-15 month trip. This wildly bigoted and troubled not-an-exemplary kid’s religion has nothing to do with the process.  Regardless, we all know (or with any science background, darn well should know ) 19–ish year old teenage brains have not matured. The last part of the brain to mature is the frontal cortex. Where good judgement, self-control, social skills, and decision-making skill come from. So yeah. Not arguing about the drinking or voting age, or recruitment age. I do think it’s playing with fire to put “scores” of 19-21 year olds fresh out of high school into positions with full access to SCIFs material and entry into the JWICS. With no ability or program to monitor the changes these 19 year olds go through on their way to actual biological maturity. What could go wrong? BTW, anyone think he never spouted off about his government conspiracy racist fantasies to anyone anywhere else?
Lastly, the US.military is sufficiently large to revise and assign this critical responsibility to an age appropriate rank and paygrade. The number of slots is “scores”, not “hundreds”. Do we really need to gamble like this? No. While of course it’s no silver bullet, it’s a LOT easier than trying to institute some sort of Total Big Brother real time microscope on every minute of people’s lives.
‘The part of the brain behind the forehead, called the prefrontal cortex, is one of the last parts to mature. This area is responsible for skills like planning, prioritizing, and making good decisions”... and… “The brain finishes developing and maturing in the mid-to-late 20s.” https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-teen-brain-7-things-to-know

The leaked lone dutch commando collecting 298 patches somewhere in occupied territory🙂

This was publicided yesterday, first time Dutch MoD has created a official list of the depth and breadth of the support send to Ukraine (although it's not exhaustive, opsec remains leading principe):
https://www.defensie.nl/onderwerpen/oostflank-navo-gebied/militaire-steun-aan-oekraine 
Not much stuff there that wasn't known here, but some numbers are new I think:

Probably an effort to make sure that frontal armor bug is truly quashed. Research on the actual thing 🤣

That's the same glitch I had with the 'running score'. But don't worry it will correct itself and when you finish your games it will be the final score.
Now just get on with suppressive fires and take those objectives! 😉 

This was publicided yesterday, first time Dutch MoD has created a official list of the depth and breadth of the support send to Ukraine (although it's not exhaustive, opsec remains leading principe):
https://www.defensie.nl/onderwerpen/oostflank-navo-gebied/militaire-steun-aan-oekraine 
Not much stuff there that wasn't known here, but some numbers are new I think:

Situation in Bakhmut according to Bakhmut Demon
Apr 13 day
There are heavy clashes for railway station and territory around. Russians hammered all around with heavy arty and airstrikes, so UKR troops couln't be keep positions. There are many local clashes with variable success. Everything is changing continuously. Some good news from central part of the city - we have successful counter-attack, but details shouldn't be issued.
Southern part of city - we have success along Korsuns'koho str. - clashes are continuing, guys are holding, we even slightly push forward, but not so much, just retaken several previously lost positions.
Northern part of city - situation is more tense, but controlled. 
Orcs are throwing to Bakhmut more and more own meat. 
Apr. 13 night
Nothing good.... Russians are crossing railway, alas.
Apr. 14 (late mornig- noun)
Russian artilery is working very tough. We still hold corridor to Kostiantynivka, do not allow motherf...rs to cross railways, their assaults of Ivanivske and Khromove failed again. We have won one more day, but what will be further, I'not predicting
Apr 14 (mid of the day)
We are advancing along several streets simultainously in northern and southern parts of the city. But this is tactical offensives we didn't break nothing yet. Just our artillery succesfully worked out at orcs, depriving them of support. Railway hasn't been retaken yet [unclear what he meant] 
 Apr 14 (two hours ago)
The road through Ivanivske still holds by 5th assault brigade. Motherf...rs are trying to breakthrough, but proper approach to defense organization of this extra-important "way of life" doesn't allow to do it for them. More even, our guys are fighting them back in small forest southward from Ivanivske. Also we are attacking the enemy on the north of the city in garages area near railways.
The road to Bakhmut (probably from Kostiantynivka)