LuckyDog

This is the best article on the A-50 situation I saw (it was written after the mid-January downing of one) - https://breakingdefense.com/2024/01/after-historic-shoot-down-why-russia-will-struggle-to-replace-its-a-50-aewc-plane/
According to it, the loss of the specialist personnel could be as significant as the loss of the plane.

Probably "coup de main" is more accurate for what they intended.

Lol
 

No one took a shot at this. I don't have a source that proves it but I think you can look at the attack actions and infer the plan was to take out the head and end the whole thing in a few days:
Columns of mech streaming in from the north and just trying to drive on the roads to Kyiv Air mobile landings at air ports around major cities especially Kyiv Saboteurs activated in the capital as the attack got started. You don't drop air mobile guys that far behind enemy lines with a plan that says it will take three weeks to get to where you dropped them off.
You don't just start driving on the highway if you expected significant resistance.
The combination of these actions points, in my opinion, strongly towards a 2 day plan. Or at least a quick win plan. To me it looked like a plan to attack on a broad front in the east and south but the victory path was to take over the capital. Decapitate the current regime and insert a favorable one that would then take over the army and have it stand down. With that new government in place your forces in all parts of the country can then concentrate on mopping up those that choose not the listen to the new leadership. Maybe not a 2 day plan but 2 days to be a unstoppable several week process.

UK MOD does seem to be paying close attention. 

UK launches military drone strategy backed by $5.7 billion funding and Ukraine analysis. 
Breaking Defence 

Every western armor maker should be patting themselves on the back for the fact that Ukrainian tankers want more of their stuff for the fact that their survivability increases. We sent 31 M1s to Ukraine, we should send the Marine Corps' M1s to Ukraine. Iraq got 120 M1s!  😭

Recently, I noticed that my UKR listening skills have improved noticeably. With the aid of translators and some effort, I can watch and translate UKR videos. So, let check the following interview with UKR AFV expert (former AFU tank officer)
 
 

I want to discuss that RU DOLBOYEBIZM  with formations of troops on a training ground within HIMARs range. I was reading the RU Nat conversations and came across an interesting comment. As usual, RU Nats were arguing that RU generals should be executed. Then one man added, "Don't make blind claims about generals. These formations are common. They [training ground officers] do it regularly, and not only for generals".
I began to wonder why they did it (if it was true). The explanation is actually rather simple: an AWOL problem. There is minimal transportation on the front lines, thus little opportunity to go AWOL. The training grounds are different. It is several dozens of kilometers behind the front line. There are many more possibilities for transportation, including civilian cars.
So, how do you know if somebody is missing? You regularly arrange soldiers in formation and count them. Why can't subordinate commanders count soldiers in small groups and report back to you? Because that is the RU army. Your subordinate commander is full of BS; they take bribes and declare that everyone is present. The only accurate method is to count soldiers oneself.
Dolboyoby. 

Available from https://chacr.org.uk (The Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research, a think tank established for the British Army) as a .pdf

Many (most?) of the feeds we see are downsampled/lossily compressed by the social media sites that they get posted on. The original feeds are probably HD and have a few cm resolution at 1 km, and better at closer.  So if they have a data clearinghouse it's probably possible to extract quite a bit of intel.
There are lots of other things sucking up intel, like babushkanet, cell networks, various NATO planes covered in antennas that circle along the borders, a zillion satellites that passively look and listen in the visible, IR, and radio.  Synthetic aperture radar sats.  If someone had enough money to buy up all the commercial space data over Ukraine, they could probably get a nice picture of where small units are moving on relatively short time scales.

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.

Sounds good. 🇨🇦

Don't really see the point of the Patton quote posting. Far right people love to post another quote of his that "we fought the wrong enemy", implying that he would rather have allied with the nazis. Guy was a piece of work. In his own words, quoted in Peter Harts The Last Battle, during the American offensive in 1918, Patton thought he killed an American soldier who was shell  shocked, hitting him over the head. Somehow this anecdotal admission of possible manslaughter/murder has been completely forgotten despite the scandal in WW2 when Patton simply slapped a soldier.  This wasn't the only time Patton would inflict violence against soldiers of his own country who fought in the first war, he helped put down with force the Bonus Army that marched to DC to get the benefits they were owed. 
Patton was no hero and isn't worth celebrating.

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/02/19/7442486/
Another loophole is closing 

You can send more bang farther and faster than with drones.  Drones can make up for some of the reduced bang with precision - if you can always be sure you can target a weak spot you don't need nearly as big of an explosion.
Artillery sends stuff with a speed that you're not going to see in drones unless you start using the shell as a sabot for a smart submunition.  Laser guiding is a sort of in between thing - you can use a spotter drone (the one who's already calling in the artillery) to paint the targets with a laser.

To bring up that much-overused phrase, war is politics by other means. Russia 'wins' this war only if you define the word 'win' to fit parameters favorable to Russia. Russia 'loses' if you define the word 'lose' in ways that are unfavorable. Did Russia overthrow the Kiev government and divide Ukraine and Romania into multiple Russian provinces? No, they did not. Did they make Ukraine a client state? No. Did they seal off Ukraine from the Black Sea? No. Did they neuter NATO? Nope. Did they spend much blood and treasure trying to straighten out their front line north of long-held city of Donetsk? Yes, they did that. 

$75 billion in aid and the coordination of another $54 billion or so from our allies but hey, what have you done for me lately? 
https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-aid-has-us-sent-ukraine-here-are-six-charts
Which is another way to say that if you are concentrating on particular weapons systems  instead of aggregate economic/military/diplomatic aid than I think you are doing it wrong. 
And on that note, I'm going to head out to a very excellent dive bar of my acquaintance with some friends and drink to the $450 million or so that some old pro-Putin bastard lost in court in NY today. 
Cheers.

Hey Guys,
Took a few years, but I'm back to working on CM stuff. Have revamped my Combat Mission Website and over the last few months have populated it with some old (5 Campaigns). some reworked (5 Scenarios of which three are really new), and some new (6 new scenarios).  Also have other things in the works including a 9 scenario campaign for CMFB ' Task Force Baum'  and a 7 scenario campaign for CMCW 'Son of Major Nosov'. 
Think the new layout of the website makes it easy to not only get at the scenarios/campaigns but should provide enough description to see if your interested in downloading them or not. Would love to get feedback on any of them you attempt to play. Enjoy, and I am happy to be active again.

Decent SPGs, but a long wait time.
 
 

Gah, imagine being Taiwan or South Korea or Japan or Vietnam and watching this absolute ****show. Or Europe. How the hell can any state that relies on American military deterrent be pleased that the Arsenal of Democracy is apparently slumbering?
Shameful. We have thousands of Bradleys piled in storage and we have sent according to wiki, about 200? It was acceptable to say at the beginning, "Ukraine needs to get the logistical pipeline set up" before shipping more, what the hell is the excuse now? This is bull****, expecting Ukraine to conduct offensives with what is virtually hand me downs and a sprinkling of equipment. (Sure, sure artillery shells)(humbug)
How is Taiwan supposed to be feeling good about facing the world's manufacturing giant and then comparing to this? This was supposed to be America's time to shine, to illustrate that time is indeed on our side, instead Xi and Putin are gambling time is on their side and our inability is costing the lives of Ukrainians.

He is apparently alive and back fighting. He commented in this reddit post ( https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/1aqo3gp/if_you_watched_the_combat_footage_from_chosen/