Maciej Zwolinski

I would not dispute that, but that is beside the original point. The original point was whether Ukraine deserves support solely because 1) the attack on it is a Russian land grab in Europe and that kind of political move should be resisted in principle; and 2) the attack on it is indirectly aimed at and would have the effect of undermining NATO, and NATO should indirectly defend against it; or , as a conditio sine qua non, in addition to the preceding points 3) Ukraine also has to display moral superiority over Russia in some ways (democracy, human rights, corruption, adherence to LOAC, whatever else). In my view 1) and 2) are entirely sufficient reasons.

Well, no. Russia is expressly threatening NATO and trying to rebuild Soviet Union which threatened all non-communist countries with nuclear war. It is a self-declared enemy of all NATO countries - which probably includes yours (apologies if I assume incorrectly). Ukraine is a country fighting a defensive war against that enemy and Ukraine's win can undermine that enemy, allowing NATO years or decades of peace, without balooning defence budgets. There are more than enough reasons to support Ukraine even if they go completely tit-for-tat with the russians and shoot a prisoner for every Russian attrocity. And use antipersonnel mines, cluster munitions and thermobarics which apparently are plenty effective. That moral high horse does not need to grow any higher.

Very apropos our topic du jour.

Exactly. Tet offensive style. Perversely, big Russian casualties work to their advantage from that angle, because if they have thousands of soldiers and units of "technika" to throw away, then surely they must have an order of magnitude more in reserve, so the war is lost already.

On the other hand, at this stage putting thermals on drones seems something of an issue. There have been reports from the Ukrainian side that they have been relying on Russian drones not having night vision and scheduling resupply runs, troop rotation etc. for nighttime when they are relatively safe from drones. Also, Russians have been reported to order from China drones with image intensifiers as a cheaper substitute. So there must be some problem for now with putting TI on drones, either with technology or cost.

Presumably it is not only the issue of friendly fire, but also the drone being susceptible to camouflage. I suppose the cheaper and smaller the seeker is, the easier would be to fool it by throwing a camo net over the tank

That was already happening in Zaporozhe in August-September this year. Especially at the tip of the summer offensive (Orichiv -Tokmak axis) the UKR were winning massively the counterbattery battle and heavily attritting RUS tube artillery. There were reports that Russians are shooting back mostly with lancets and glide bombs released from 50 km behind the front line. Obviously with the pressure in Zaporozhie lessened, they will supplement the traditional artillery in those units, but that is going to be in addition to the lancet launchers present in place. Also, in the latest reports from AFAIK Andreevka direction Mashovets mentions artillery brigades and Lancet launcher units side by side as equally important elemets of RUS fire support. Since it is probable that at some point Russia will encounter bottlenecks in production of artillery barrels but they can keep churning out cheap suicide drones the drones are only going to take over more and more of artillery's job in the Russian army.

Out of all real estate contested in this war, the corridor is big freaking deal. It messes up the Ukraine's sea lanes of transportation really bad and includes two of the Ukraine's biggest cities. Also, morale effects are going to be huge. Good luck telling Ukrainians they have won the war if they get to lose Melitopol and Mariupol.

That is a deeply unfair and frankly insulting post. You are talking about a man who is living inside Ukraine and who bases his pessimistic view on his assesment of war weariness level of the ordinary Ukrainians. Something you by definition would not know about, and the Western press would not report about - not newsworthy enough. Frankly, In this forum on this subject only the opinion of Haiduk and Zeleban matters, as they are the only ones who can take a measure of that metric. And you are saying that Zeleban thinks that people he meets every day are losing the will to fight not because he sees the symptoms of that, but because he has been "inadvertently convinced by Russian propaganda"? What hubris! Shame on you.

Good old C2H5OH. Looks dead drunk to me.

That is very interesting in light of your critique of the conservative mind a few pages back. This is a typical conservative position, based on empiricism and intuition (instinct even, and the most basic ones: the survival instinct, the reproductive instinct and preference for "us" vs the "other"). Whereas the left-wing (in US English: liberal) mind is the one more likely to result in the "pereat mundus, fiat [insert the preferred moral value]" view as a result of deductive reasoning from abstract moral axioms, which is a typical "rational" mental process.

Most of it, yes.Just like the Russian propaganda.

Why not? As recently as the Covid pandemic anti-vax communication was suppressed in a million of formal and less formal ways. The West is no virgin which would be suddenly debauched by this. BTW from today's perspective there is no doubt that McCarthy was mostly right.

I have been waiting for this. Return to WW I fighting methods is now almost complete. Only the gas is missing.

Why necessarily UGVs? Could this not be done by drone UAV dropping those spiders as currently they do mortar bombs?

Well, no. Have you seen the size of it? Most of Russian stratregic targets are out of range

Good luck and happy hunting!

Good. Sic semper traditores.

How about fighting electronics and computers with raw high explosive power - putting a rocket engine & rudimentary guidance kit on a couple of CBU-55-type devices, establishing local EW superiority over a corridor say 15 km long just to protect them on the way and firing a salvo of thus-created GLHMEB (Ground Launched Huge Motherf***ing Explosive B****ard) towards the enemy trenches? According to Wikipedia, a CBU 55 was dropped only once in Viet Nam, it managed to create a 4-acre fireball and kill 250 Charlie (or Charlies? Was it ever pluralised)? It would clear mines, fill in trenches, throw dragonteeh around and suffocate Russians left, right and center. A can of instant desert. Somewhat similar shock and awe effect to the one achieved in WWI by mining under the enemy trenches and blowing up whole corridors filled with TNT. Just without waiting for weeks.

Anyone in doubt who really designed the exploding cat crate?

Unfortunately, in the current conditions it is so easy to create a strong defensive line just with mines, trenches, drone operators, guns & Lancets behind and just a handful of people in the first line that even heavy losses in personnel do not really undermine the ability to defend in place. People have been wondering why Russians are so stupid to waste infantry, tanks and IFVs just to take a slag heap at Avdieyevka. I am not sure if it is just stupidity or the Russian lessons learned from the Zaporozhe campaign. My hypothesis is that they concluded that in the current defensive paradigm: 1) any attack will require heavy losses and will be slow to progress; this has to be accepted; AND 2) on the contrary, defence can be set up using mostly low quality personnel in low to moderate numbers, provided that artillery & Lancet support can be ensured; THEREFORE 3) most of the manpower and part of the equipment (tanks, IFVs) is only necessary if one wants to attack, and otherwise will be superfluous; THEREFORE 4) it is better to use the soldiers and equipment up in attacks which will yield modest territorial gains, rather than forego any territorial gains, have the mobiks rot in the trenches and possibly go bolshevik out of boredom. This hypothetical line of reasoning, while very inhumane, is not without internal logic. Moreover, the slag heap near Avdieyvka is not such a bad terrain objective, if RUS command concluded that the days of big advances are over, and the desirable endgame for the Russians is just to keep status quo in Zaporozhe and Donbas. Eliminating UKR salient from which Donieck can be conveniently bombarded is as good an objective as one can reasonably find in this situation.

No, it rather means that a conventional mechanised warfare will be largely obsolete and replaced by drone warfare. I imagine a full-scale non-nuclear conflict (assuming no war in space and no significant naval element) would have the following aspects (in the chronological order): the air phase- the drone phase- the conventional phase- the assymetrical phase. Whoever wins both the air war and the drone war, will have sufficient control over the battlefield, that the opponent will be reduced to digging in deep and trying to survive for as long as possible. No offensive action other than local counterattacks mostly on foot would be likely. The winner of the air war and the drone war will still have to reduce the loser's strongpoints , Zaporozhe style, which leaves some room for conventional warfare as we knew it: with tube artillery, unguided MLRS and a smattering of tanks and IFVs. This is were the non-loss-averse side could have some advantage, as they could last under the enemy fires longer. But most likely the one who controls the battlefield through drones would win eventually. Once this conventional phase is won, then the loser could stop defening ground and resort to guerilla warfare.

EMP does not have to be generated by a nuclear explosion, so there are ways to do it in a non- escalatory way. On the other hand, AFAIK it is fairly easy to harden equipment against it, provided that someone remembers that stuff must be hardened.

Also, a lot of experts are yearning to see a large scale mechanised attack because that is what they think proper war looks like, and everything else must be an aberration or at best, coping with inadequate resources. I imagine a French or Prussian liaison officer looking with disdain at the Union attack at Cold Harbor in 1864 and shaking his head at the inability of the colonials to press home a bayonet charge or better coordinate attack columns etc.

Late August 1917-early September 1917. After Pilckem Ridge, before Menin Road.