Maciej Zwolinski

Mr Murz, he dead

I think you discount the completely mistaken posture of Russian army during the first days of the invasion. They tried to conquer Ukraine in columns of march allowing themselves to be encircled and attacked from all sides. That way they debilitated their force to the extent completely nullifying their nominal force superiority.By March 2022, their northern pincer almost got annihilated West and North-East of Kiev. They were at their weakest in March 2022 and from that date, the Russians gradually improve. I do not think that Ukrainian air superiority is ever going to happen. The countries supplying UKR with F-16 are not even trying to suggest that. They won't have the numbers, and the F-16 AFAIK are intended to replace the current fleet of Mig-29 and Su-25 in their defensive and limited close air support tasks, as the former Soviet aircraft have reached and exceeded the end of their technical usability.

Apparently Murz and his friends do not share the view there are only weak fortifications behind Avdieyevka. In Polish military twitter this has been a common opinion, that there are and that ZSU should have started making field fortifications all across the front at the latest in the late summer of 2023 and are now behind the curve.

Tissues are bourgeois inventions, comrade. Since the last 5-year plan all tissue and toilet paper factories have been retooled to make sandpaper. And better make a good stock of it while it lasts, comrade. Next year they are all switching to coarser grain. PS. True story from actual experience of living under "real socialism". Two things they could never produce in sufficient numbers was toilet paper and rope for baling hay.

Come on, he posted an interesting quote which happened to be said by George Patton and not celebration of George Patton. Is Patton now cancelled to the effect that all his quotes are thoughtcrime? I did not get the latest memo from the Ministry of Truth, apologies.

You spelt Constantinople wrong:) I do not think that there has yet been the opportunity for Istanbul to fall, the name is in official use for less than 100 yrs.

That is very bad news.

It is a very good comparison, in that it shows that there may be different wargoals for different participants. To crudely simplify that very complex topic: UK and France wargoals included lengthy mobilisation and then defeating III Reich via a combination of blockade, strategic bombardment and positional warfare. They assumed that Poland can well be defeated in the meantime, and intended to fulfill the alliance by reinstating Poland after the final Anglo-French victory. Poles were not officially told that, though. Some Polish officers and politicians understood that just from their own analysis of the situation. But most people waited for the French to start their relief offensive after the first week of the war, and the actual expectation was that we will hold the Germans at worst at the Vistula before the French destroy the Wehrmacht from behind . Official position of the Ukraine being full return to legitimate borders, my hunch is that their minimum win condition is to reinstate the pre-2022 border in the south while retaining freedom to join Nato and EU. An armistice line in Donetsk and Lugansk changed in Russian's favour could probably be accepted after much wringing of hands. Now it is a moonscape anyway. On the other hand, some nations supporting Ukraine can have entirely different perspective on what constitutes a win. No nuclear exchange and Ukraine avoiding total subjugation, possibly.

This time the aircraft seems to be hit much to the south of Avdieyevka, so either the attack is unrelated to the battle, or the Ukrainians managed to find an approach route from Avdieyevka to e.g. one of the Crimean airports and set the ambush somewhere further on the way. I hope the reports on the Ukrainian SAM ambush on consecutive days mean that they finally dedicated one of the Patriot units as a roving battery and we will be hearing about it more often. This will sound callous, but their military utility when guarding civilians in Kiev or Odessa was limited, whereas trying to make glide bombing risky for Russians is extremely important at this moment. Even in light of the huge risk the Patriots would be located and attacked.

Alas, to late to help the defenders of Avdieyevka

That is likely. Precision artillery rounds are more resistant to countermeasures so they may still be needed for specialist purposes against particularly hard or valuable targets. But they can be purchased in lower number.

Costs down, weight of explosive material up. Tube artillery in this war resembles a forge with thousands of very myopic but very strong smiths constantly hammering away all around them. It is best used on the offence to batter down fortifications and buildings, and on the defence, to set up fire concentrations on the attacking units and barrages in front of them so that they cannot go forward. You need to be able to deliver via drones the HE equivalent of, say, 5000 155mm rounds per day without bankrupting yourself to think about replacing tube artillery in this war.

I am hoping for that as well, but I am not sure how this could happen. Russian glide bombs are tossed from the distance of 50 km to front line on the Russian side. AFAIK Su 34 (and as of late also Su 24 unfortunately) approach high and fast from a direction roughly perpendicular to the frontline and at the furthest possible distance, they make the toss - pull up and release the bomb. Then they immediately reverse direction and head for home. Apart from the height and distance being higher, the technique is roughly similar to Russian helicopters tossing unguided rockets. This means, that in order to counter those attacks Ukrainian aircraft would have to be able to reliably shoot down Su 34 and Su 24 on their approach flight to the bomb release point (say 70 km behind the front on the Russian side?). Assuming the Ukrainian aircraft are F-16 with AIM 120 C they theoretically could do it, the missiles having a 100 km. range. However, F-16 would be fighting from big positional disadvantage. In order to hide from RUS SAMs and air-to-air patrols, the F-16s would probably be approaching very low. Therefore, once they release the missiles they would be firing from low up, at targets first fast approaching and then fast egressing, close to the far end of AMRAAM maximum range, from the frontal aspect of the target and then in a stern chase. Would this scenario still yield a significant enough probability of kill? I do not know, but there are a lot of factors decreasing it compared to the theoretical optimum. While doing this, Russian air to air patrols are a non-trivial risk factor, even now from time to time they account for Ukrainian aircraft with the R 37s. Also, while trying to hit Russians 70 km on the other side of the front, the Ukrainian F16 would have to pop up in Russian SAM envelope. In light of those risks, I do not think Ukrainians would be willing to risk their few precious F-16 if the probability of killing the glide bomb carriers is low. So I am afraid that your scenario might not happen in real life. But maybe I am wrong somewhere in this reasoning, or the Ukrainians surprise me with something. Hopefully they will.

Do you refer to any existing APS or write in an abstract way (that it would be good if someone developed an APS with such capability in the future?)? Also, does the Ukraine actually use any APS now?

That is quite a typical dynamic. Since WWI the tactic of vacating the first line in case of heavy bombardement has been used (although more often in connection with artillery bombardment than air). And the classic attacker's response to this is infiltration.

Re. inhumanity of that strategy - note it bears a strong resemblance to how Wagner would advance its convict units and everybody thought this was only possible because nobody cared about the convicts. Now ordinary Russian military units are using the same strategy, with the same insane risks to the individual infantrymen.

Why without glide bombs? What would prevent russia from using glide bombs around Robotyne?

The messages of col. Shuvalov (may not be a real name) strongly resemble letters from Verdun

That is not a security guarantee agreement though. It is about supply of arms, various ways of political cooperation etc. But security guarantee is a type of military alliance which nobody will sign with Ukraine now, obviously.

I understand that but that is not the point. The point is that in this case democracy has generated a situation where the executive branch of the governement is blocked from realising its preferred policy and in that sense, seems weak. I am not offering any value judgements on the US constitutional system of checks and balances because I do not have enough knowledge of it. I also have not seen any evidence for longing for a Russian-type governement on this thread. I am already regretting making that post.

I have no right to vote in the US election and try to stay out of very heated discussions on the subject for my own safety's sake - so this is just a brief clarification comment on the general logic of the argument. Here it goes: Is it not the whole point of Biden administration looking weak and bad that it can be blocked by a group of opposition House members (or, as some say, even one individual, the House speaker)? I mean, an administration which openly states its aims and then cannot carry them through looks weak precisely because of that.

Three FSB agents got medals for their diligent work at dislodging it.

A harrowing read. I listened to Wolski's podcast yesterday, he and the guest expert think that 110 Mech Bde is going to be refitting for the next year.

Torpedo is of course the original suicide drone so all of the above characteristics could apply to it if someone takes the effort of designing a modern autonomous torpedo. The thing which would differentiate it from the off-the-shelf or even obsolete designs is the distance over which it is autonomous - a few miles, 50 miles or the entire run from your shore to the target at sea or enemy harbour. I referred to the soviet 650 type because it is already available and requires only the delivery vehicle to be built around it which does not have all the complexities of a manned submarine. It is only worth the bother because going under the water which is a gamechanger. Once you are restricted to using sound as the main medium of detection everything becomes several orders of magnitude more difficult. Detection, defence, staying afloat after below-the-waterline or under-the-keel explosion. ASW is really a different kettle of fish. And to work, it requires a system. Which I bet the Russians let rot after the end of the Cold War. They would have to rebuild it, it is enormously costly and difficult to operate - one more strain on the Russian war economy/society. Or they would have to take submarine drone/autonomous long range torpedo attacks entirely on the chin, per 1916-1917 unrestricted submarine or 1940 Atlantic War without even a hope for developing a better defence. Frankly, if the Ukrainians develop submarine attack drones I expect Russians just to put the Black Sea Fleet and all RUS civilian shipping in dry storage.

Or create a bigger drone which would be in essence a self-propelled torpedo tube for one of those ex-Soviet wake homing monsters.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_65_torpedo You would not need more than 2 of those drones on station at the same time. Once the wake homer is in the water it can swim at 50 knots (27 nautical miles range) or at 30 knots (whopping 54 miles). If released from 10 miles away at an unsuspecting ship, in about 10 minutes that ship should be in two halves. And in the worst case even if the target ship notices the incoming torpedo and tries to escape, it just acquired a Moby Dick on its stern going after it for miles and miles. Scary weapon.