sross112

Or maybe he isn't terminally ill. Maybe he just has some really nasty hemorrhoids (explains him holding onto the table fiercely while having to sit down and the sometimes odd, frustrated, in pain look on his face). He wakes up the other morning, starts reading the newspapers and sees that sources within his government "leaked" that he was terminally ill. He thinks, "I'm not terminally ill, just these damned thermobaric marbles hanging from my anus." Then the next thought is "Oh crap." because he realizes that forces within his government have just announced that he is going to die. Gives a good cover story for whoever decides it is time for him to die of lead poisoning. "Poor Vlad put up a good fight, but his old heart just suddenly gave out." It does appear that he is still very popular with the people and therefore there needs to be a cover story in place in order to have a smooth transition of power when the time comes.

Never heard of Hammers Slammers. Any good? Will need a new book in a couple days so if you recommend it I'll pick it up. The other thing that I think might be something to watch for will be along the lines of what others have said with sensor networks and AI control will be gun networks for area denial. Something like a couple guys in a semi with a flatbed carrying a dozen remote turrets and a skid steer for easy emplacement. All the turrets battery operated and solar fed connected to the sensor network and spread out around a stationary target like a bridge or power plant or along a known approach vector. The guys put them in place, maintain them, feed them and move them as needed but otherwise controlled by AI or someone higher up the network. Something between a .50 and 30mm, maybe 20mm PIVADS style? Then for sensor packages just use small drones. Have a couple dozen or more for each system that all launch and head out 3 or 5 or however many km's is reasonable and find a place to land. Tops of trees, buildings, wherever you want them to and then have them switch into a passive mode or motion/sound detectors. Could also probably stay active and charged with solar since they wouldn't take much juice once landed. This thread and all the wonderful ideas and insight into different areas really keeps me thinking a lot about the future of war fighting. The speed at which we are going to see things evolve in the next few years is probably going to be stunning. Crazy scary but stupid cool at the same time.

I'm going to use the US military as a reference. I think that guns are the best bet because of a few factors, some of which you also mention. APS or a modified APS like system that can slave the existing guns is probably the most workable in the near future. The plethora of guns on automated turrets would most likely allow this with very little hardware and software additions and basically any gun now serving a remote turret is more than capable of destroying a drone albeit at differing ranges. The 25mm bushmaster is going to be able to kill drones further away than a 240. The vehicles are already networked and digitally connected so the big leap would be a sensor package that is looking for drone type targets and keeping everything on the same page. Your thought is great and would work well but it is probably a lot easier and faster to field sensor packages onto the existing forces than it is to generate an entire new mesh web. In the future that will probably be needed but I don't think we will see anything like that for awhile. In the meantime I'm betting it is back to guns. If any new platform is added then there needs to be a choice made between reducing your combat power by removing existing vehicles and replacing them with the new laser/AA asset or adding additional vehicles to your TO&E and coming up with the extra personnel to man and support them. If you use what is currently available there shouldn't be much change to formations and just adding capability. The other problem with the with both the lasers and the sensor drone screen is that they need to be able to maneuver with your elements. So they need to be fast and have the endurance to keep up all day long. If they don't have those then you have deprived yourself of battlefield mobility and that is one less thing your enemy has to do. Then if you aren't mobile you need to be more worried about arty PGM's (as illustrated in this conflict) and I don't think lasers or drones will be knocking artillery rounds out of the sky any time soon. I do completely agree that we are going to see a new layer of conflict with both sides fighting for air superiority at the low level with drones. Kind of like a USAF mini-me. Air superiority drones will definitely be part of the near future and will play a very important role but I'm betting it will be more along the lines of gaining and maintaining control of that layer of the air war than it will be about defending individual units, if that makes sense. It will have the same net result of normal air superiority where it defends the units in the AO or theater or whatever space you maintain superiority over, but will be fought at more of the air campaign level and not by individual ground units deploying their own fleets. More than likely I am wrong and things won't work out exactly as I see them, but this is just my take and how it makes sense to me with where technology is and how we tend to fight. The squad, platoon, company and BN are going to have a bunch more recon drones available and probably combat support drones as well. The control of the airspace above the battlefield will be mostly done by others and will just be another box on the combined arms list that needs to be checked. The US Army Drone Corps will cover from the ground up to a few thousand, the USAF will take it from there to the top of the atmosphere and then the Space Force will secure "To Infinity and Beyond!!!!"......

Yep. I was always taught that if you found yourself in a fair fight it meant your tactics suck. A=B,B=C,C=A, and somehow the circle just leads back to the RA sucks.

New article posted today from Oryx. Comparison on how many western military vehicles have been sent to Ukraine and how many have been visually confirmed destroyed/captured. I was surprised at some of the numbers of delivered equipment, more apc's than I had thought and a couple other things. https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/10/how-is-russia-faring-against-nato.html

I suppose the question is whether you need 10,000 Excaliburs, 1,800,000 dumb rounds, or both? I know there are a lot of targets that are better served with dumb rounds as well as sometimes you just need to saturate or interdict, but hasn't the ISR and PGM combination made a change in the ratio that one would need? If for example Ukraine had 10,000 Excaliburs and was kitted out with the L52 guns on February 24th, would they need such a huge amount of dumb ammo that has been expended? How many of their fire missions would have required a single or maybe two PGM rounds and saved possibly dozens or hundreds of dumb rounds? I'm thinking along the lines of when the laser guided bombs came into the picture and now JDAMs. Sure, sometimes you want a B52 to carpet bomb a grid square, but the vast majority of targets are better served with a single accurate bomb than 100 all over the place bombs. But then, how much is enough? Like you point out, trying to get it right would be pretty tough. Good post. Good food for thought.

Good link, thanks. I hope that their intentions are true and it isn't more political scuffling that will slow, stall or diminish help to Ukraine. Suppose we'll have to wait and see. Life is hard when you are an idealist like me. Constantly let down but still believing in right and wrong, good and evil, etc and being lambasted with shades of gray by politicians and bureaucrats. I'll probably be disappointed in the end but I try to not be too cynical as then I tend to wander around grumpy all the time.

In reading the article it says he thinks we should be sending more weapons both sooner and faster. Pretty sure that is what a bunch of us here have been saying since the beginning. Then goes on to say that he thinks there should be oversight of the money being sent. In the last few days there have been several conversations on here that talked about the pallets of cash to Afghanistan that either disappeared or weren't spent the way they were intended. Overall the gist was those pallets were a waste. Isn't it reasonable to want to make sure that the actual money sent is being used for what it is meant for and trying to keep the graft and corruption to a minimum? Haven't we pointed out how corruption is a rot that will mess up the entire system if let go unchecked? The way I interpret this is just responsibility and accountability. I don't know why anyone on either side of the political isle wouldn't think that is a good thing. I know as a taxpayer I want my taxes used responsibly by our government and lawmakers. I didn't see anywhere in the article about cutting off support or sending less, just having oversight on the money and how it is used. Sounds pretty reasonable to me. If it weren't for partisan politics and media spinning it would probably sound pretty reasonable to most people, but this is the world we live in. So I suppose I should get down off my high horse of reasonableness, responsibility and accountability (terms that surely show my antiquated 20th century boomer coerced mentality) and start flinging mud at one side or the other no matter what they say or do.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake? That is part of why I think the UA is more concentrated on killing Russians and degrading their equipment in the south. If they were more concerned about taking area back they would probably be doing a lot more trying to stop reinforcements coming in. Since every additional mobik that crosses over is another burden on strained logistics it actually helps the UA end game to let the RA stuff as much as they can into the cauldron.

I think the Russian primary military and political goal is to hold Kherson (I know, kind of a no brainer). With that being said, I also think that most military people from around the world would look at the situation and come to the conclusion that it can't be held indefinitely with the compromised logistics that the RA is operating with. So the secondary objective becomes, in true Russian abusive relationship fashion, that if they can't have her no one will. I think they are going to try to turn Kherson into a Mariupol or Stalingrad. Basically try to make it a pyrrhic victory for the UA by causing as many casualties as possible and having Kherson be a pile of rubble in the end that they can get Amnesty International to blame on Ukraine. I don't think the UA is going to play their game though. I think they are smarter than that and they will instead keep up the slow grind on the RA assets as they are presented. They get to inflict losses on the best units the RA has to offer as well as degrade their systems in depth. The Kherson area may look like it is the most favorable to a defender with the long sight lines and flatter terrain with less cover, but that is more applicable to the battlefields of 40 years ago and not today. With the ISR, PGM and long range fire advantage held by the UA it actually makes that terrain less defensible due to it being harder to conceal your forces. This also explains why we see so many more strikes down south on logistics, AA, arty and command centers. I think the UA will just keep killing them until what is left of the RA around Kherson leaves or surrenders on their own. I'll be surprised if they take the bait and try to fight for Kherson block by block before the RA is thoroughly broken and dissolving on its own. I could be wrong in my assessment but it will be very interesting to read about the planning of these operations in the years to come. Kharkiv makes sense to me being about taking area back because it was more about breaking the logistics chain out of Belgorod than the actual liberation of the area itself. I know that liberating territory and the Ukrainian people living under the Russian occupation is very important politically and to the Ukrainian people, but I think the UA has done a very good job of keeping its eye on the military ball of killing Russians and degrading their systems and logistics as that allows them to eventually liberate everyone without taking immense losses trying to force the outcome before they have shaped the battle. When looking at Kherson, to me it is a long series of shaping with short bursts of clearing when the time and conditions are ripe.

I believe I can chime in on this as I am a qualified test subject for these sorts of anti personnel obstacles (raised 2 boys). If the RA can somehow manage to steal all the footwear from the UA, then scattered Legos would definitely be a very effective obstacle to the infantry!!

The big coincidence in this explosion on the bridge is the judge being next to the truck during the explosion. Was the coincidence actually the truck full of explosives being next to the judge? The judge had powerful enemies. If they wanted him dead a car bomb would be a good way to go and something we have seen recently used in Russia. If it was a timed detonation based on knowledge that they were traveling to Crimea the fact that the explosion happened on the bridge would just be an accident (drove faster or slower than anticipated), which makes more sense than the Russians targeting the bridge. This theory, though less probable than some others, actually accounts for several things we've posted here. Like, why the road bridge and not the rail? Why not a missile strike? The FSB is tasked with guarding it, the MOD relies on it for logistics, terrorists didn't claim it and it is one of Putin's babies so it doesn't make sense that the bridge was a target by internal forces. No I don't normally wear a tinfoil hat or visit conspiracy theory forums, but something like this makes more sense. Then that brings me full circle into I've seen a lot of stuff out of Russia in the last 8 months that doesn't make much sense so who knows.

I just find the catastrophizing hard to stomach. "OMG the Republicans are going to take over the House and everyone will be forced to go to church, have babies, own a gun and get a job!!" or "OMG the Democrats are going to take over the House and everyone will be forced to burn their church, kill their babies, turn in their guns and lose their job!!" So if we look at the numbers, a whopping 57 out of 438 representatives voted against the spending package for Ukraine. That only accounts for 13% of the ENTIRE house and 26% of the House Republicans. 150 House Republicans have voted steadfastly for Ukraine. The latest polls predict a shift of 13 seats to the Republicans. 13. Now I'm not a mathemagician but I fail to see how 3% of the House is going to persuade the other 84% to totally change their views and voting. Especially when it has been pointed out the the majority of the citizenry is in favor of supporting Ukraine. And if 74% of Republicans are already voting for support, at that ratio it just adds 10 in favor and 3 whole votes against. That puts future votes at about 378 to 60. So maybe, just maybe people can take a deep breath, self medicate with their chosen medicine, relax and wait to see if there is any effect at all to the support due to this massive political upheaval that we will all be so overwhelmed by. Personally I think the biggest threat to future support for Ukraine will be how the economy goes. It is already going to be tougher and tougher in Europe with their energy crisis and looming industrial crisis stemming from it. If the US economy really tanks it will be hard for the elected officials (NO MATTER THEIR POLITICAL PARTY) to continue support at very high levels and neglect their constituencies.

If he is trying to degrade Ukrainian air defense assets or munitions why wouldn't he point them at air defense assets, supply dumps, HQ's or any other military target covered by AA? Then they either get shot down and eat up munitions or get through and take out the valuable military target. That would be the more sensible way to degrade your enemy's air defense network and military capabilities. Since instead they are primarily sent at civilian targets it is pretty hard to argue any other angle than evil terrorist attack.

When it comes to anti drone warfare the future might be lasers or air superiority drones or maybe even other things, but what about now? This war has had a lot of this, the future of the UA is probably M1s or Leopards, but what can they use right now is the bottom line. I don't see the drone question as being much different. Lasers are out there and being tested but the army with the biggest budget in the world is still in the developing and testing phase. With Perun's latest video and other discussion the UA needs a better option than wasting limited Buk or S300 missiles on these little kamikaze drones. I would think anything bigger than a MANPAD is going to have pretty limited missile stocks, except maybe NASAMS but there you have limited platforms. Some sort of kinetic solution seems like the most viable in the short term. How about the old PIVADS or similar systems. We've seen the Gepards but what else is in storage in western countries of similar use? There's got to be some gun systems out there. I think I saw CIWS turrets on trailers for base defense awhile back. Someone mentioned an Aegis land system. Couldn't an Aegis land system with multiple CIWS turrets cover major targets or lines of approach? You'd think they would be able to have a turkey shoot with the slow stuff but maybe some of our Navy experts could chime in.

Or all he really wants is sharks with freaking laser beams on their heads....

There were thoughts both ways as to whether an unsuspecting driver or a suicide bomber was used. I believe in one of your posts you questioned the ability of Ukraine to produce suicide bombers. I'm personally in favor of the unsuspecting, but it could be either way. As for suicide bombers I've seen a couple videos now of men who have lost their wives and children to Russian missile attacks. Throw in the rape, torture and kidnapping of relatives throughout the occupied areas and I'd bet strongly there are more than a handful of people that would step forward to take an explosive revenge on Russia even if it means forfeiting their lives. We normally equate suicide bombers to religious radicals, and that makes sense as that is predominantly what we've seen for the past several decades. There are many more reasons for making the ultimate sacrifice though and strongest among them would be love, loss and hate. All of which appear to run deep in Ukraine due to this war and the actions of the invaders.

It might prove to be the wrong decision for him as well. If he mobilizes a bunch and they think they are being sent to Ukraine they might think they have a better chance against Luka and his Russian buddies than they do against the UA.

Someone posted pics of this earlier and I was thinking the same thing. If Russia depends on the west for so much of it's technology type products I'm betting they don't make their own transformers and big electrical grid stuff. How much do they have on hand for replacements before places go dark and stay dark?

Those bottom two pictures I think are just for reference to show people what the mangled stuff in the top two pics is. At least that is how I interpret it, otherwise, yes I'm with you that there is no way those are from a blown up truck. @The_Capt above talks about how this is the conventional way of doing a defensive belt, but I'm with you in that I don't see it being an advantage in this war. Just by looking at how things that we've noted for a couple thousand pages have been done differently and the ISR advantage the UA has this looks like a good way to get lots of RA troops killed. The UA used fortified hard points and bunkers for years but they weren't facing the PGM capability that the RA is. I'm still trying to work through it in my head but if you were defending against an opponent that had superior ISR and PGMs I'd think your only viable option is to very very mobile. Any soldiers in fixed positions need to be dug in really really deep and kept well dispersed. Any vehicles or exposed pillboxes will just get hammered. As the UA I don't think you even really try to attack it. I think you just sit back and hammer targets. Turn it into an attritional game and capitalize on your ISR, PGM and range advantages. Let the RA feed as much into the defense as they are willing to lose. Wait until there is nothing worth wasting an arty shell on and then walk through.

I figure anything is probably better than nothing, but obstacles not covered by fire are not obstacles. So this is where the mobilization is most likely thought to come into play. There is still an impossibly long front for the RA to cover with what it has. If it wants to put up a solid defensive line along the whole front a few hundred thousand more troops are necessary. I bet the high command thinks that the mobiks will be able to man a foxhole after their short training and that is why we are seeing the mobilization. Of course the additional manpower requires additional support and supply from their already overburdened logistics. A lack of support, supply, training and equipment results in lots of casualties from enemy action and mother nature, which in turn creates a heavier burden raising more replacement troops and equipment, wash, rinse, repeat. I just don't see how this works for the RA. With the predicament they have managed to get themselves into, I don't see a better plan other than leave either.

There was talk on this sort of angle I think during the Kharkov counter offensive when the Russian state media was reporting that all the troops pushing back the RA were Poles and African Americans. It was deemed that due to their rhetoric of dehumanizing the Ukrainians and painting them to be so inferior that the RA couldn't possibly be getting whooped by them. So every setback has to come from the big evil west. I agree that when looking at what Putin or any in the Kremlin do it is always heavily slanted towards internal perception and not external perception. Of course through their propaganda and rhetoric they have painted themselves into this corner. Right now defeat by Ukraine makes them pick which big lie they want to admit to their people; a) the RA isn't the number 2 army in the world to be feared by all or b) the Ukrainians are actually smart, fierce and stubborn. They have said many times in their media how they are fighting the whole world and I think that plays to your point of somehow being able to be defeated and stay in power. Right now that probably doesn't work due to their lies so they need to have something to feed their narrative. You could almost look at the nuclear sabre rattling the same. Putin actually does the threatening and then if the west responds by putting their nuclear forces on high alert Putin can respond with fist shaking and speeches. Then in the end he can tell his people that he backed down because he loves them and didn't want them to die. He did it for them and he had to pull out the RA and put his nuclear toys away to preserve his people. They would have won if weren't for the evil west. The Kremlin is really in between a rock and a hard place but they have put themselves there. I have found it really hard to wrap my mind around a lot of what they say and do but after looking at it from the position that they have put themselves in it is always a choice between bad and worse. Each decision they make is going to either fire up Ukraine and its supporters in the west or fire up internal forces. Each time they go with fire up the external (bad) instead of internal (worse). This latest missile campaign is a good example. Chucking a bunch of missiles at civilian targets shows strength to the Russian people, force escalation to the Nats and revenge to the MOD, but it shows a terroristic regime to the rest of the world. Which solidifies Ukrainian resolve, increases military support and further isolates diplomatically. But if the Kremlin does nothing the internal pressures mount, and that is more dangerous to their power than anything else. So your theory is a good one that does allow the Kremlin to stay in power and blame defeat on the evil west. I'm not sure though how that could work out without a very direct Article 5 type situation. They can try to bait NATO into attacking on these smaller actions of cutting cables and pipelines and we will probably see an increase in terrorist type attacks on infrastructure in Europe if they are truly going to pursue this angle. Enough of that sort of stuff may do it but NATO has shown good restraint and instead of responding directly to Russia they respond by increasing Ukraine's capabilities and tightening the sanctions. I don't think NATO will take the bait unless Russia starts chucking missiles into Poland or something on that level, clear Article 5 stuff. And I don't think they can do that because it destroys their excuse narrative of a NATO trap. But who knows, Russian logic escapes me a lot of the time so anything is possible.

In something like this it isn't necessarily about what alternative pick you want but what your actionable alternatives are. Yes the rail would be a preferred target but it depends on what assets you have in place where and what their capabilities are. If you have assets with the means and capability to use the truck and don't have suitable infiltration to mine a rail car you have to go with the truck. So it probably is a case of going with what they had, either missile or truck. It's a lot like smuggling drugs in the US. The vast, vast majority is moving from south to north and west to east. Every now and then one will get popped out of sync. When your connection is in Chicago and not Seattle, you have to get your dope from where you can. You'd really rather buy it out of Seattle (rail) as it is of higher grade and costs less but your only connection is Chicago (truck) so you get what you can from where you can.

I think everyone has a pretty good idea who is responsible, but the powers that be are probably awaiting proof. Once concrete evidence is there they have two options: Go public with it and whatever their responses will be. My guess would be more sanctions and stuff like that as once they go public there will be a howl not to escalate. Probably increased hardware support as well. Stay quiet and hit back quiet. Cyber warfare probably the best for this. Especially if they could knock out stuff as an exponential tit for tat. By this I mean establish a ratio for the kremlin. You knocked out power to this island, we take down 5 of your plants, permanently if possible. That is the only thing Russia understands is strength. You have to hurt them more than they can hurt you otherwise their asshattery will persist and if you accept it you encourage it. This is a big fail on NATO and western supporters. Ukraine should have a better AA umbrella by now. It is a defensive weapon, not escalatory, and their is a documented need to protect civilians. There can be absolutely no negative to supplying Patriots or whatever they need to stop this crap. I'm an old testament, eye for an eye type. I know it isn't always appropriate and in this case I don't advocate terror strikes against Russian civilians or anything, but Ukraine should be given the means to retaliate against these strikes. Right now there should be a hundred missiles leaving Ukraine for targets in Russia; infrastructure, air bases, logistics hubs, Black Sea Fleet, pipeline terminals, whatever. Not apartment buildings and crowded parks but sensitive targets. The only way this stuff stops is if it hurts them more to do it than any possible gain they get from it. I think it is apparent that the verbal reprimand and written reprimand haven't worked and it's time for a meeting in the paint locker.

I have no idea if it is possible but thought of something after reading this. A few years back the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration passed a rule requiring the over the road trucks to have electronic logbooks. So almost 95% of the trucks you see running down the interstates over here have one. If you look at them they have a small plastic bubble usually on the rear of the sleeper somewhere. That allows them to use satellite communication back to their company dispatch centers logging all sorts of information (speed, location, hours of service, fuel usage, etc). Now again, not saying it is possible, don't know about being able to use it/hack it/etc. Just thinking that if someone could hack the system it would tell you exactly where whatever truck you wanted to track was all the time. If you had the ability to do that and put a remotely detonated bomb on a truck you would be very dangerous to infrastructure type targets. Not saying that is what happened here, just made me think of the electronic logs, satellite communications and truck bombs. Hopefully that sort of thing isn't possible as it would be a terrorist wet dream.