hcrof

Just to add to that, encryption adds latency (lag) to the signal. I understand FPV video signals are typically unencrypted analogue signals to minimise the latency, otherwise they get harder to control due to the delay from video input, processing, sending, display, human reaction time, input, sending, processing, motor reaction time etc. it all adds up.

Not sure about that - they say the government is illegitimate. They say that all russian speaking areas of Ukraine should be part of Russia. But I don't think they have ever claimed the whole country - all their maps of a future Ukraine show a small rump state centred on Kiev.

Relevent video for the previous sea drone conversation. Defending against them seems like a hard problem to solve, especially when you are in a peer conflict and you can't just be pumping out radiation all the time to try and spot drones. Having watched the video, I tried to think of solutions to the problem he described. A tethered observation drone might help, but quite easy to spot if it is emitting radar and less effective if it relies on passive measures. Sonar may be the solution but it limits your speed and is only really usable by high-end ships with quiet propulsion. Finally the defensive sea/air drone swarm may work but also limits your speed and is resource-intensive.

I don't think your argument really addresses the point here. Russia does not have to be as effective pound for pound as Ukraine, they can use more resources sustainably. So in a static situation they can use more shells than Ukraine so even if they are more wasteful the number of casualties may end up being the same. That is obviously not ideal for Ukraine - if both sides are just sitting in trenches taking 500 casualties a day then the war is not going to end any time soon.

Agreed that NATO can choose not to export, but that would badly damage their reputation and I would be surprised to see many countries following France's example. I guess the point is that NATO is not at war but Russia is, so NATO might have more potential but not use it. Also both sides are importing shells from 3rd countries (often under the table), and both sides use various calibres. In other words it is really complicated and I don't think counting production numbers alone is a very good proxy for how many shells will be fired by both sides this year. Thankfully the NATO numbers are finally going up at a faster rate than Russia's so hopefully Ukraine will be at least stable soon with regard to the artillery balance.

On the other hand NATO countries have internal needs beyond Ukraine and also export ammunition to other countries, so Ukraine will not see even half of that production.

Alternatively, the interest on any russian money in banks etc can be handed to Ukraine, even if they don't get the money itself.

and a video from the Sergei Kotov attack. Looks like the ship spotted them at least a few hundred meters out but they may have approached from behind a civilian ship. The Sergei Kotov is retreating from the drones while shooting (with a deck gun?) but the drones are faster. I wonder how stabilised the deck gun is? Edit: rewatched with sound and that doesn't sound like a deck gun - maybe another RPK over the rail which explains why they can't hit anything!

Or a salvo of cheap(?) vampire missiles with a drone mounted laser guiding them onto all the squishy bits like radars and aiming systems for ciws. If the ship pops smoke to protect from that then it has just blinded itself to the real threat of the kamikaze boats.

video of the attack on the landing ship Caesar Kunikov from the deck. Lots of MGs, not a lot of night vision by the looks of things. And it seems that maybe the seababy can take a few small calibre hits (modern inert explosive warhead?)

To be fair I thought the Ukrainians said that it was 12, but I lost the original quote and can't seem to find it again. Also it doesn't say much about the condition of the rest of the "evacuated crew"...

One thing that struck me is that a relatively small ship got hit by multiple massive (900kg) warheads and yet only 12 deaths? Was the ship operating with it's full compliment? If not then no wonder they can't have multiple people manning deck guns 24/7

My concern is that you need crew to operate these things and the USN (or RN for that matter) do not have bodies to spare, thus the decision is postponed for another day...

I wonder if the issue is money - if the fleet budget is being plundered to pay for the land campaign they can't adapt ships and training easily, let alone develop a new drone force. On the other hand they need to demonstrate they are trying to do something to keep Putin happy so they put assets at risk (Russian attitude being you are not fighting if you don't take casualties anyway.) This is all compounded by remarkably poor leadership. This situation can't be stable though, surely the Russians will have to think of something eventually... Edit: I imagine (with no evidence at all really) that the BSF can barely pay for fuel right now due to cut budgets, let alone more crew to man machine guns and searchlights. But they can't have the hard conversations with Putin to say the fleet needs to be mothballing ships to save money right now, not charging off to fight Ukrainians.

I seem to remember from peruns last video he focussed more on artillery. Russian artillery quality is degrading from mostly SPG to older towed guns and they are beginning to run low on barrels. There are still loads of towed guns in store but many of them are very old indeed and can't take modern ammunition or are limited to 12km max range (dangerously close to the front line for a relatively immobile system and very vulnerable to drones).

So I don't want to dogpile this, and to be honest what you said sounds good in theory. Having said that, US threats would have little credibility right now, large deliveries would have to be made. On top of that, those deliveries would likely not include large numbers of 155 shells since the whole world is running short of those at the moment. So that puts us in the position that the US government has finally mobilised to help Ukraine, so expectations are going to rise again - why not take another shot at victory? Maybe because they don't have the shells - well at that point the threat is not looking so bad for Russia after all so they continue, at least to get a better negotiating position. The sorts of coercive diplomacy that works on small, isolated countries does not work on a conflict of this scale and commitment. Both side are in too deep to back off now.

I heard there have been no further deliveries, but I would be surprised if all those shells are already spent, unless the rumours about ever second shell being a dud are actually true. For now I will not be optimistic on this front for another few months yet, but what do I know...

I'll bite... Similar to 1916, both sides are exhausted but still swinging. Both sides think they can win and noone has proposed a solution that is remotely acceptable to both sides. Russia wants a divided and submissive Ukraine with a puppet government in power. Ukraine wants to return to 1991 borders and a substantial security guarantee to prevent Russia from invading again. Those are totally incompatible positions so they keep fighting. In WW1 the central powers were blockaded until they were unable to keep fighting. It took another 2 years. That is likely how this war will end. If the West allows Ukraine to lose then pax Americana is over and we return to the bad old days, except now we have nukes. So we need to make sure they don't lose. It really as simple as that.

I don't disagree about the 1916 analogy but how do you think the warring sides would have made peace in 1916? Under what terms? And who would enforce them? Edit: and wasn't the war being fought in french and russian territory in 1916 due to rapid early advances by the central powers? And who won in the end?

Literally the only "evidence" they have is a picture of a submarine with a tarpaulin on top. That's it. The best part is that "Liz Truss disappeared for three days" like she personally swam over and blew up the pipe. This is getting desperate...

Something like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAUL_(shotgun)

You make it sound like the border is a binary issue, which just plays into extremist talking points: "Biden wants millions of brown trans rapists to cross the border because he is an evil person who hates white America - trump would shut it all down" Vs "The fashists want to shoot Mexicans on sight so the solution is to not come up with any solution to the border because if bad people want something we should do the opposite " Not helpful.

To be honest an armoured recovery vehicle is probably more useful to the Russians than another tank at this point (yes I called a BMPT a tank, the purists are all clutching their pearls right now...)

I wonder if precision artillery rounds like Excalibur are going to get rarer - a drone can do the same job for a tiny fraction of the price. But dumb artillery, especially mortars, will be around for a while.

1:3 is the numbers/combat power required for a successful attack. It is not supposed to be the expected casualties.