Maciej Zwolinski

That is a huge proportion, during the Indochina War the French Foreign Legion made up just a bit over 10% of the frontline strength of the French expeditionary corps. And that was a formation specifically created for that kind of occasion.

I agree -obviously- with the part about Russian slow tempo of advance. However, there are some other elements, which make the recent Russians offensive actions more dangerous than the earlier ones, regardless of the low tempo. 1. The mere possibility of breakthrough. I won't quibble whether it would be an operational breakthrough or a smaller one, but people report that there could have been a breakthrough and transition to exploitation by Russians. That is significant. The last time it happened for Russian was after Severodonetsk 2 years ago. In the meantime they could not, and now they can again. 2. The sheer repeatability of the RUS set piece attack method,. They have been redoing the same approach again and again in Avdieyevka, Bachmut/Chasiv Yar, Ocheretovate and elsewhere. Each time it works in the same way, the Russians finally drive the UKR away. Obviously, time and casualties are hugely important variables in this equation. But the outcome is not really in doubt. If the UKR receive ammunition for artillery, they will be able to fire defensive barrages and counterbatery fires, possibly suppress Russian artillery and hopefully screw up their method that way. But even then they will have nothing against the gliding bombs. I doubt that the UKR have even a shadow of an idea, how to counter them. If I were Shoigu, I would order conversion of 3/4 of the fighter force to gliding bomb tossers and have them fly multiple delivery missions, as much as the airframes can stand. 3. The UKR losses. It is too early to have a reliable loss estimations for either party, but previously in similar of actions comprising mostly static defence under RUS arty fire the losses were very high for the Ukraine and well over the acceptable exchange rate. I know the Russians are losing tons of vehicles, but for the UKR personnel is the vulnerable asset, and they do not come off well in this exchange.

I am not sure. Yesterday and the day before there were reports talking about RUS breakthrough in Ocheretyne and the need to abandon the hitherto defence line. Tone of the reports very similar to the post-Severodonetsk reports. Today's Tom Cooper's substack also in this line of thinking. https://xxtomcooperxx.substack.com/p/ukraine-war-26-april-2024

Come on, Obama's policy vs Russia was disastrous. It's hard not to see the harebrained "reset", setting various "red lines", e.g. use of gas in Syria which have come and passed ineffectually, the 2014 invasion and finally open warfare by Russian army as steps which inexorably followed from one another because of lack of any meaningful US response at the previous step. Talking hard and then not producing any stick whatsoever, big or otherwise, suggests that either the stick is so rotten that it will fall to pieces or the wrists are too limp to wield it.

Sure, Russians do progress through natural selection rather than intelligent innovation, yet they do progress.

If the recent Russian experiments with smoke are successful, the smoke may yet make a comeback to prominence it has not had since 1918. Many armies started WW II expecting to use lots of it, and then they did not, eventually repurposing their means of smoke delivery to fire HE.

I do not think that is doable. The last time that the Ukrainians tried to shoot down VVS aircraft lobbing KABs with a roaming Patriot battery near the front they got that battery shot up with an Iskander strike for their trouble. At the same time KABs are cheap and plentiful so shooting them down instead of the carrier aircraft will not work either (and recently they got a range extension). Unfortunately I see zero possibility to stop the gliding bomb attacks from continuing or even increasing pace. How is the Kerch bridge related to Russian air strikes? Their aircraft do not have to fly from Krimea and are not dependent on that bridge for supplies.

This makes me think, that the idea behind Johnson's obstruction was to delay the Ukraine aid for so long, that once he stops stalling, he will be allowed to present it as "Johnson's plan" and will actually take political credit for it. That would be a really devious plan. Macchiavelli could not hold a candle to him.

I have seen a fair number, but they were in black and white, motorcycles had sidecars with MG 34 and the soldiers had funny helmets. On a more serious note: this bizarre throwback to 1940 got me thinking and I realised, that in all those films of both Russian and Ukrainian defensive positions I have not seen much of barbed wire. Since so much of this war is dismounted infantry assaults, theoretically it should be very helpful. What is going on? Is it not useful anymore? Too easy to destroy with modern artillery, or what?

But my point is that not only liberal democracies should be allies against a country which uses a war of aggression as means of policy and wants to upset the political balance. First things first - let's fight the aggressor together with everyone who wants to protect the status quo and principle of peaceful resolution of international disputes, and then the EU can drag the Ukraine over the coals over fulfillment of accession criteria. They are different things.

That attitude is a huge mistake - this is what keeps the ranks of the West's enemies are always full. If the only ones who are worthy of support are those who share the - rather unique- views of the West on social issues such as homosexualism, religion, ethnic minorities etc. then it is no wonder that finding allies in places such as Africa and Asia is difficult. Kabul University tweets about graduation of the gender studies class a couple of months before the Taliban stormed Kabul come to mind. It is an unforced own goal on part of the West. If the aim is to defend the post-Cold War order against an attempt to change borders by force of arms, then every victim of aggression deserves to be supported, regardless of his social policy. Think Kuwait 1990-1991.

Targeting method must be different. Guidance based on GPS has always looked like a temporary solution - this is the universal navigation system used by literally everyone and for which millions of engineers worldwide produce all kinds of devices also in enemy countries. The knowledge how to jam it must be widespread.

Kofman in his latest podcast which is focused on drones proposed a reason, why it is significantly more difficult to use drones in support of a go forward maneouvre. He says that Russian ECM is effective and droning Russian defensive positions requires operating within the umbrella of ECM emitters emplaced in the RUS trenches, where drones will work significantly worse. He says that the drones really can shine when engaging units which are on the offensive and have left the ECM cover. Kofman in general praises Russian ECM and for example, he says that GPS guided munitions have been generally degraded. Excaliburs are left unused in some units, and Ukrainians are asking for GMLRS with DPICM warheads which may still do damage despite the missile being spoofed by ECM and going off course.

Where did you get the idea? They were very effective as tactical bombers, only vulnerable to interceptors due to low speed. Where the enemy air cover was absent or not effective, StuKas worked very well.

A drone homing in on ethanol in exhaled air practically guarantees a hit on Russian soldier.

I think the "joke" becomes more apparent in the context of the Soviet Union, when huge part of books, films and art was specifically about Wehrmacht being the worst enemy of the Russian man. And in order to underline the heroism of the Russian man, sometimes (particularly at the beginning of those films/books) the German soldiers were portrayed as extremely well trained killing machines, while the Soviets as victims and well meaning, self-sacrificing amateurs with basic weapons. And of course the atrocities of the Werhmacht and Waffen SS were played up. So the symbolic message of painting a Waffen SS divisional symbol on a tank or a helmet I would read like a combination of <<Russians, I hate you, I am your worst nightmare, I am a superior soldier and a human being in general, your weapons are no match for mine, and I will take revenge on you with horrible deeds straight out of "Go and See">>. I have no doubts it may be an attractive message for a soldier in this war. Obviously, a hard sell to someone watching news in the West.

He was hoping for a door to Narnia, where no barrier detachments or sellers of polonium tee would find him.

For an army in the time of peace, that reasoning makes a lot of sense. However I do not think that a country fighting an existential war would be so picky, if the nationalists actually follow their ideology and volunteer for service. And values such as machismo and hatred for the foreign enemy may actually translate into high combat morale, being more valuable than the ability to easily get along with women or sexual minorities. There is a lot of literature about people becoming good soldiers in war often being poor soldier material for a regular peacetime army.

There is no better use for far right elements than to draft them into the army and let them fight some other nation. They are supposed to like it.

"Madiar is a homo"

On a more serious note, one of the few things which could explain this refusal to surrender which sometimes borders on madness is the belief that Russia will eventually win and all prisoners will be repatriated like von Pannwitz' Cossacks and will meet a similar fate to the repatriated von Pannwitz Cossacks. That, or those particular soldiers who refuse to surrender are guilty of attrocities and are afraid of Ukrainian revenge more than anything.

"Oh BTR of the lake, tell me your wisdom: how to get the hell out of here?"

Not yet, he keeps mentioning a future episode discussing drones in more depth. Although the comment about drones being better on the defensive usually appears in comparison to conventional artillery, from which I deduce that pursuant to Koffman it is the tube artillery which has offensive advantages. My guess is he refers to the fact, that during an offensive against enemy hiding in field fortifications, artillery needs to shoot up trenches, which requires large amounts of HE on target in short time, which drones cannot match, and anyway it would be uneconomical to try to do so .

Very likely. Giving priority to the moving targets is the basic overkill avoidance logic. Don't think so - logically, the first step is recognition of the shape of soldier or vehicle, moving vs non moving comes into play when there are several things of the right shape to chose between. The most cost-effective camouflage would probably be breaking up the shape

For a couple of months already Kofman has been commenting about drones being one more thing which is more helpful on the defence than on the attack. This may be one element of it, the attackers being the side which moves more.