sross112

I think service should be voluntary until that alone doesn't fill the need. When volunteers can't cover it, then the draft is perfectly fine. I agree that those that are pacifist or conscientious objectors should be allowed to fulfil non combat roles. I personally don't want to be in a foxhole next to someone who isn't there to fight, and believe that anyone else on the line would have the same opinion. With that being said, anyone who fails to answer the call and flees their country should have their citizenship revoked for life and not be allowed back in for any reason. I know it sounds harsh, but especially in an existential conflict like this one I think it is fitting. It is your choice to flee, but in doing so you should no longer get to identify with that country or nationality. It is an insult to all of those that stay and suffer, whether in the military or not, for that person to continue to have the rights of the others without shouldering the responsibility. As the CPT said, there seems to be a disconnect between rights and responsibilities in a lot of nations nowadays. Freedom isn't free and those rights come with a price tag from time to time.

The way I read the NATO stuff with Trump was that it was all about the money. That's how I read almost everything that he did and does. Now. I am not a fan. I know that many of you will be tempted to call me names or belittle me in some manner, but I'm going to make an observation anyway. There might be more availability of weapons and equipment under him, as he would likely see it as some sort of US MIC super Walmart. No doubt there will probably be an end to aid packages, but there is a good chance of actual investment into production and sales. As long as someone else was paying the tab, he could yell from the podium that he "fixed it" and that it was a "win" for his constituents, the tax payer, and the economy. It would certainly be a win for Ukraine if everything was for sale and it sure might be, as I believe he is very myopic when it comes to foreign policy and security.

I don't think so until counter drone is solved for. The defender would still be able to send their drones to bust up the offensive operations, ISR for arty, etc. Until one side can deny drones I don't think there will be much movement.

The vast majority of attacks appear to be vehicle borne from all the videos we see, so the old school long strings of wire really wouldn't do much at all. The only places I could see it being useful would be hasty entanglements in contested locations. Inside buildings, tree lines, etc that will either considerably slow an assault or push the assaulting elements out of cover. And maybe filling defilades near defensive positions with entanglements would be useful as well. I remember seeing some videos from defensive positions that were well established prior to the invasion in 2022, but I don't recall seeing any wire obstacles there either. Maybe the armored vehicle centric type of combat made it to where there was little to no value in creating belts of wire even before? Does anyone remember seeing it used in the Donbas positions?

You are just a ray of sunshine today!! In the meantime, Maginot Line fortifications might come back into season. How else do you defend a line other than covering it in several feet of reinforced concrete with screened apertures to keep the drones out?

So the way I think through this is that the country with the biggest drone budget wins. Whoever can field the most UAV and C-UAV will control the battlespace and everyone else is toast. Therefore if you aren't the largest economy in the world you need to figure something else out. So the natural response will be nuclear proliferation as that is the only trump card left in the deck at that point and if you don't have nukes you are defenseless. I guess this is a good thing for defense budgets as all other systems can be scrapped and most countries will only have to maintain a few ICBMs. I reckon we can all look forward to a unprecedented period of peace among mankind or nuclear annihilation.

Isn't the number one thing that the UA troops were saying was the game changer for recent battles the glide bombing? This correlates to the drone discussion as that is what drones can't deliver yet: LARGE amounts of HE. They also can't support long range C4ISR like a HIMARS can. They don't have the kill radius that those tungsten balls do either. I'll give FPVs their due as they are the only indirect option that has proven effective on moving targets close to the front. That is where they are very useful is right on the front and close behind it. Anything deeper than that is a toss up. Look at the last airfield strike where quite a few long range UAV's went in. If you had a choice between that many UAV's or the same number of ATACMS, Tomahawks, or Storm Shadows which would you take? Which would give you the most damage and loss to the enemy? Now that will lead into the what is available question, and that is where this war is a disconnect between the ground in Ukraine and if the US was prosecuting the same conflict: resources. The UA has had to develop the UAVs and FPVs in order to fill a gap that is not present for the US. A thousand pages ago a lot of us agreed that C4ISR and ammo to hit the targets equals success. The UA has been starving for ammo. If we really want to test the theory of where these weapon systems fit into the future, give the UA the platforms and the ammo and see where the drones get meshed in. My bet is company level and below integral fire support and recon. For those reasons I don't believe that the UAV's will usurp the other systems, but they will become complementary. I do believe they will be very significantly expanded and should be prolific on the fire team to company level, but I don't see how in their current form they can replace 50lbs of explosive and fragmentation 50 or more kms away in a matter of minutes. The defensive primacy will only last until there are effective drone countermeasures, whatever they may be. Once that is done, those layered indirect fire platforms and the other members of the traditional combined arms will be back on deck to make things happen.

Ok, so looking at the actual poll, this is typical media/political spinning. The headline conveniently leaves out that 70% think that the US should either continue or increase aid to Ukraine with the only split being whether it is given with or without oversight. The actual question (question 4 of the poll) was "How much of a role do you believe the US should have in helping to negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war?" 71% responded with either a major role or a minor role by combining the two choices. The question was not what the headline above says and neither was the answer. Later on question 7, 69% respond that they support the US urging Ukraine to negotiate a settlement to the war. Maybe that is because most people want wars to end? In the end a typical poll with wishy-washy questions that can be interpreted to the will of whatever political slant one wants. edited to add link to poll: https://quincyinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Quincy-Institute_rev-tabs.pdf

Maybe someone in the oil industry can explain it to me as I don't understand why the US would care about Russian oil exports. The US is a net exporter so doesn't less oil from Russia mean more money/profit for US big oil? More money for US big oil means more money for US politicians, so why would there be US outrage against strikes on Russian oil infrastructure? The only reason I can see is if Russian oil is financing US politicians to a greater degree than the US oil is, maybe that is it? Wouldn't the main consumers of Russian oil be the biggest ones to throw a fit? Like China and India?

The interception of FPV video doesn't seem overly problematic to me at this point. It is on a one way ride to a target and trying to let Ivan know to duck in time to avoid it on final approach is going to need a level of communication and networking that is a ways off by anyone's standards. The real use of intercepting video feeds will be from the recon drones. What they are looking at is good intel, but watching the video on their way back to their launch points will be much more valuable. Is that how we were seeing the Orlan crews getting hit a couple months ago? Probably be a good plan to implement standard procedure to launch one drone from somewhere other than your headquarters and bug out immediately after recovery to different location before the arty falls.

Did Putin actually refer to Ukraine as an equal sovereign political entity and not a wayward Russian possession? If so, that is a pretty big change in rhetoric out of Moscow.

EW question. There have been several references to the RA not being able to use their own drones due to their own EW. Is this a hazard of EW that it shuts everything, including your own stuff, down? Or is it able to be directed at a certain range of signals and if your stuff is different from the enemy's yours will be fine? I'm assuming that both sides are using a large array of commercial drones and military drones that operate on a plethora of signals and due to that the RA is just jamming everything? Seriously don't know much about this, so any clarification is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

How about throwing something like Javelins on a Sea Baby? Stand off range up to 4 km. Fire and forget so no need for a bunch of fancy gun stabilizers. Way lighter than the MG and accompanying ammo. A couple platforms launching 4 to 6 from a couple klicks out hitting the bridge and weapons points before the suicide boats roar in for the kill. Then maybe a small torpedo version. Smaller torpedo design for a range of a couple km. Like a mini unmanned PT boat without the need to approach into the small arms range and can be used again if it survives. Another thought watching these with our conversation on water obstacles is using these unmanned water platforms for logistic support and even casevac supporting bridgeheads. They would present fast small targets, have really good range and decent payload capacity. Could solve for supporting light forces with bunches of these whereas the heavy forces always need the bigger boats or bridges.

I honestly don't think Russia would respond with anything more than rhetoric. They've pulled key assets from the Finnish border and even key air defense assets from Kaliningrad to replace losses in Ukraine already. The leadership knows deep down that NATO is not an offensive alliance and they have no worries about being attacked by them without a provocation that couldn't possibly be ignored. If they didn't truly believe that, they wouldn't still be in this war fighting a "second rate" power and wasting all their hard to replace assets that would be critical to the defense of their homeland in the event of a NATO attack.

Both are right, but just like everything else in the real world the approach is situationally dependent. First rule is that you never engage in a breach and clear of an occupied building unless you HAVE to. The only time you have to is when there are non-combatants known to be inside and for whatever reason the building needs to be secured. Fighting inside buildings is very deadly and should be avoided at all costs. If you do have to take the building then the preferred method is to always enter as high as you can. It isn't always the roof, but if you can make entry somewhere other than the ground floor it is preferred. The ground floor is usually the most heavily defended and any competent defender will make every threshold a kill zone. Even if you can't get to the roof but you can enter the second story, it is generally a better option. The roof presents the tactical problems noted by others, but in a perfect world with all the right tools and transport it would be the way to go. If you do have to enter the ground floor, then you make your own door if at all possible. Explosive breaching is the preferred method as it generally makes the inside of the breached area uncomfortable for any defenders. If you don't have explosives you can use vehicles. Generally knocking the corner off a structure or punching a hole in the wall. These are messier and don't usually result in a nice clean entry point, but they tend to avoid the preset defenses and traps. The other thing to keep in mind in order to help mitigate other tactical problems is to always isolate the building before entry, either control approaches with fire or physical security. Failing to isolate allows the enemy options to escape or reinforce and therefore should be avoided if at all possible.