Seedorf81

Oh FFS, here we go
I never thought I'd miss Kettler.

When we're collating reports on the relevance of armour (especially MBTs) it's perhaps important to recall that the RU and UKR experiences of using tanks differs rather starkly in this war. The UA might have a rosier picture of the usefulness of armour, since they're not facing the same organic  AT systems (Stugna, Javelin, NLAW) or the ridiculously efficient PGM strikes of modern 155mm guided by the best battlefield sensor suite ever deployed.
The UA is facing an enemy that's much closer in capability to the kind of foe they were "designed" to fight.
It's also worth bearing in mind that the Russian experience early in the war was very much skewed by the political/strategic considerations that their planners had taken into account which simply didn't materialise. Much of the Russian loss seems to have been caused at root by the assumption that serious fighting wouldn't take place, and that moving under-screened columns down readily-identifiable lines of advance wouldn't be a problem, amongst a hundred other mistaken assessments (most of which would have had to be correct in order for Putin's initial plan to bear fruit) and systematic failings.

But... what if we like the strap?
 
 
giggity

Certifying 16th Air Assault Bde took the British Army about 18 months from formation, IIRC, and all /they/ had to do was successfully apply gravity then walk around a bit.
And that was with fully trained and manned component battalions, and it's 'only' a bde. Certifying a div takes much longer.
To put that metaphorically: I learned how to use a keyboard several decades ago. By your logic I must therefore have written several best selling novels, prize winning poetry, a couple of chart topping songs, and a few movies when I had a bit of down time. And yet, weirdly, I haven't. 
I must just need a better keyboard.

Ahah, yes but it'll still be a Russian nuclear wasteland...

Nice to see the "5 bar" off-road rating in Combat Mission is accurate.
 

Because different countries have different contexts.
Do PzH2000 suck? What about those Gepards - are they worthless? Or the other 12B euros that Germany has provided? None of it is good enough until you get the specific toy you have a temporary hardon for?
Why arent you moaning that the US hasn't given you a Nimitz, or a satellite, or a wing of B-52s?

Tu-141 and other this family of jet recon UAVs didn't have real-time tracking capabilities. UAV just activated own photo and cine-cameras in some points, made a shots and returned back. Then the film was developed, photos/cine was made and tnen whoile team of image decoders tried to understand what they see on theese images, before all this was painted on the maps for generals. So, this "real-time" indeed had at leasdt one day of delay
Ukrianan forces used Tu-141/143 during 2014-2015 as recons. Some were shot down.
Concerning airfield strikes, Financial Times says according to soem sources in UKR MoD, that this was neither upgraded Tu-141, nor new secret Ukroboronprom concern strike UAV with 1000 km range. As if this was completely new model, designed and built by private company. On other hand Politico, again, referring on Ukrainian sources (particularly on Defense Express representatives) confirmed this was upgraded Tu-141
Here a launch process of Tu-141
 

Man, I have so many questions re Wagner/Prigozhin within the Russian internal power structure.
From ISW today:
So, 
A. This, "Wagner Group financier Yevgeniy Prigozhin previously indirectly implied that Wagner forces will train Belgorod Oblast's “people’s militia” in the oblast “to defend the borders of the oblast.” means they will become a future reserve of the WG.
B. This, "The battalions’ independent status from the Russian MoD and Prigozhin’s involvement with Belgorod Oblast officials may indicate the battalions’ affiliation with the Wagner Group" is not a "may", the WG are setting up , funding and training this militia.
C. This, "Prigozhin, however, denied Wagner’s involvement in training the Belgorod Oblast militia", is obviously an irrelevant  lie because -
D. this "the presence of some Wagner former servicemen in the area" - there are numerous articles and anecdotes that no one "leaves" the WG. You could get wounded and discharged, but you never actually leave. It's a mafia, a criminal gang with a tank park; you're member for life, no term limits. "former servicemen" means active/latent agents of the WG. Once you're in you never leave.
Questions...
Why the hell is there a major military formation within Russia that is not beholden to Putin personally, directly? Why does that formation have access to divisional level assets and theater level strike aircraft?  Why does that formation have its own, separate & independent R&D facility? Why is it allowed to train its own militia and co-opt the local government within a critical province Russia is an autocracy that has a fully-fledged military, extensive and diverse internal security formations and complete control of the media. The WG seems to be setting up just like the Iranian IRGC - a separate military force with its own economic, political, military & industrial base. The KGB did build up to something similar but more of a politico-military aspect, not so much the economic side. Maybe if they had, they'd have come out of the fall as much more overtly coherent organisation. 
Is Prig building a literal power base for after Putin? Putin lets him construct his internal power base, with the agreement that Prig will protect Pootler after he steps aside? Prig is far ahead of anyone else except Kadyrov, who has already achieved his own fiefdom.
If Ukraine actively breaks the WG, as a functioning military force (full-on HIMARSes its leadership structures, bombs its internal facilities, turns its elites on each other with betrayals/assassinations, etc) then how does that affect Russian internal power politics? How does that affect Pootlers execution of the war, if his "crack" formation is wasted? Is he safe with the MoD? Is the WG a blocking force on the MoD writ large? That is, the MoD cant leave Ukraine if the WG is locked in battle?
I've been thinking about this a lot, that the end state of the war is not dependent on battlefield success, but a combination of  specific victories against specific Russian formations/power structures.
UKR can kill hundreds of thousands of Russians but it simply doesn't matter, because Pootler and his gang simply dont care about Russians. He/They can lie and say anything, crush anyone, with utter impunity, so large numbers of dead Russians is irrelevant. What is relevant is who comes after Putin. I wonder if that's the real game already being played out right now in Russia, and how will it be determined by results in Ukraine.

While parsing Telegram posts found small tactical tidbit about Wagnerite experience fighting at Bakhmut
 

About going quiet to execution.
If you do a tiny bit of not very difficult research you'll find that nearly all people who know that they're gonna be executed, are usually strangely docile. That behaviour is way more "normal" than resisting.
See:
Jews being shot by Einsatzgruppen
Chinese being buried alive ( or beheaded or shot etc) by the Japanese.
French, Dutch, Belgian, Greek, Yugoslav, Russian (etc etc) partisans being hanged or shot by Germans.
Russians executed by early RED army, White Army, Gpoe, KGB etc,
German warcriminals behing hanged, strangled or shot by Poles, Dutch, Americans, Tsjechs etc,
Iranians hanged by their government,
and the list is very, very long.
I don't know why, but it is very rare that people put up a fight.

Sorry if this was already discussed (I admit to skipping a bit of the cold weather discussion), but a very important difference to previous wars that comes to mind is the abundance of thermal imaging devices, that will make many cold weather survival techniques very risky. Lighting a fire in a trench somewhere might not be an option whatsoever, I guess that even doing it underground in a stove will make the smoke stack stick out like a sore thumb and attract artillery. 
What would be solution to that, except intensively rotating the first line troops? Perhaps some less intense heat sources like oil heaters? Not having at least the most rudimentary shelter where you can go to warm up for a moment sounds really bad.
On the other hand, self heating field rations must make a lot of change in this circumstances.

As an trained, though not practicing archaeologist, it is my (non-)professional opinion that the most important of the early pra-human's inventions was a pointy stick with which he could kill larger animals and defend himself, also from other humans. There would be no leaving the African savanna without this skill (and perhaps ability to make fire). From it follows that we were natural born killers way before we became what constitutes a homo sapiens. If one feels philosophical,  an interesting question is if learning NOT to kill each other allowed us to create civilization, or if it was the ability to coerce an kill others that made bigger social structures possible...
Edit:
On a related note, 2001: A Space Odyssey is the best movie ever made  
 
 

At the pace of the internet this is an old statement, but I've been thinking about it since (and before, just more so now).
On the natural born killers, this is a Hobbesian view.  We do not, and I do not wish to, live in a Hobbesian world.  Locke was much more accurate, and his views create a world worth living in - as it happens, his views strongly informed the US constitution (and others).  Both spoke of man in a natural state, before society takes hold, and while Hobbe's views have some traction - members of primitive societies live in constant fear of disease, starvation, and violence, the latter supporting Hobbes' "nasty, brutish and short" - overall Locke was correct.  
Having said that, if we summarize Hobbes' views, Russian society tends in that direction.  In this table we see echos and outright images of Russia under the Czars until and including now. 
 
Which leads us to the slippery slope.  The angle and length of that slope would, I think, depend on the starting point.  Further, if humans are natural born killers, more would shoot during combat. Modern training leads to a higher active rate in modern armies, but during WWII it was three out of ten doing the shooting, even after becoming combat veterans.
Rather than being natural born killers, isn't it reasonable to say that the horrors of war brutalize away natural restraints?  If the horrors are worse and the starting point worse, the slope is short and steep.  Perhaps Russian society pre-brutalizes residents. 
If the horrors are moderated (through training, medevac, micro-social structures aka "band of brothers", etc.) then the slope would be longer and shallower - allowing more time to catch soldiers before they slip right off the slope.
Or I'm talking out of my butt; but I like to think that my neighbours aren't ready to kill me because I don't cut my grass regularly.

Bourgeoises )

DUDE --  I think you are looking for things that aren't there.  The entire post is a joke -- how is that not obvious????  I said that RU simply wants clean clothes based on their deep desire for good hygeine.  UKR twarted that completely innocent desire by hoarding all the washing machines.  A joke based off the colonel that demaned washing machine as bribe.  If the folks on the forum actually think that was a serious post, I'll delete but I thought the level of absurdity made it obvious as parody.
The other half of the joke was a commentary on the levels of absurdity that the tankies use to excuse RU genocidal war. 
But worst of all, and quite devastating to me, is that DanCA didnt' think it was funny.

I'm sixty years old and practically all my life I have been struggling with the phrase "WARCRIMES".
As I see it, war is by definition a crime and we humans ALWAYS commit horrible crimes during war, civil wars, uprisings, revolutions, conquests and even in peacetime.
Romans, Persians, Dutch, French, Spanish, Aztecs, Vikings, native -Americans, "Arabs", African tribesmen, Chinese, Russians, Japanese, German, and yes even Americans and Canadians and the British (and every other large group of humans), exploited, killed, maimed, tortured and executed their opponents. Be it real or suspected opponents, that is.
Most people, certainly in the West, have the illusion that war can be fought in a "rather clean way".
In my opinion the whole morality-stance on the "yes or no" execution of these Russian prisoners is a waste of time. It is a part of war and as long as we humans go to war, these combat-crimes will happen. I fact, it is a miracle that there are so much frontline-soldiers that DO NOT commit "warcrimes".
I do think there is a big difference between combat-crimes and noncombat-crimes, but if you really want to stop warcrimes, stop war.
 
 

I'm sixty years old and practically all my life I have been struggling with the phrase "WARCRIMES".
As I see it, war is by definition a crime and we humans ALWAYS commit horrible crimes during war, civil wars, uprisings, revolutions, conquests and even in peacetime.
Romans, Persians, Dutch, French, Spanish, Aztecs, Vikings, native -Americans, "Arabs", African tribesmen, Chinese, Russians, Japanese, German, and yes even Americans and Canadians and the British (and every other large group of humans), exploited, killed, maimed, tortured and executed their opponents. Be it real or suspected opponents, that is.
Most people, certainly in the West, have the illusion that war can be fought in a "rather clean way".
In my opinion the whole morality-stance on the "yes or no" execution of these Russian prisoners is a waste of time. It is a part of war and as long as we humans go to war, these combat-crimes will happen. I fact, it is a miracle that there are so much frontline-soldiers that DO NOT commit "warcrimes".
I do think there is a big difference between combat-crimes and noncombat-crimes, but if you really want to stop warcrimes, stop war.
 
 

I'm sixty years old and practically all my life I have been struggling with the phrase "WARCRIMES".
As I see it, war is by definition a crime and we humans ALWAYS commit horrible crimes during war, civil wars, uprisings, revolutions, conquests and even in peacetime.
Romans, Persians, Dutch, French, Spanish, Aztecs, Vikings, native -Americans, "Arabs", African tribesmen, Chinese, Russians, Japanese, German, and yes even Americans and Canadians and the British (and every other large group of humans), exploited, killed, maimed, tortured and executed their opponents. Be it real or suspected opponents, that is.
Most people, certainly in the West, have the illusion that war can be fought in a "rather clean way".
In my opinion the whole morality-stance on the "yes or no" execution of these Russian prisoners is a waste of time. It is a part of war and as long as we humans go to war, these combat-crimes will happen. I fact, it is a miracle that there are so much frontline-soldiers that DO NOT commit "warcrimes".
I do think there is a big difference between combat-crimes and noncombat-crimes, but if you really want to stop warcrimes, stop war.
 
 

I'm sixty years old and practically all my life I have been struggling with the phrase "WARCRIMES".
As I see it, war is by definition a crime and we humans ALWAYS commit horrible crimes during war, civil wars, uprisings, revolutions, conquests and even in peacetime.
Romans, Persians, Dutch, French, Spanish, Aztecs, Vikings, native -Americans, "Arabs", African tribesmen, Chinese, Russians, Japanese, German, and yes even Americans and Canadians and the British (and every other large group of humans), exploited, killed, maimed, tortured and executed their opponents. Be it real or suspected opponents, that is.
Most people, certainly in the West, have the illusion that war can be fought in a "rather clean way".
In my opinion the whole morality-stance on the "yes or no" execution of these Russian prisoners is a waste of time. It is a part of war and as long as we humans go to war, these combat-crimes will happen. I fact, it is a miracle that there are so much frontline-soldiers that DO NOT commit "warcrimes".
I do think there is a big difference between combat-crimes and noncombat-crimes, but if you really want to stop warcrimes, stop war.
 
 

I'm sixty years old and practically all my life I have been struggling with the phrase "WARCRIMES".
As I see it, war is by definition a crime and we humans ALWAYS commit horrible crimes during war, civil wars, uprisings, revolutions, conquests and even in peacetime.
Romans, Persians, Dutch, French, Spanish, Aztecs, Vikings, native -Americans, "Arabs", African tribesmen, Chinese, Russians, Japanese, German, and yes even Americans and Canadians and the British (and every other large group of humans), exploited, killed, maimed, tortured and executed their opponents. Be it real or suspected opponents, that is.
Most people, certainly in the West, have the illusion that war can be fought in a "rather clean way".
In my opinion the whole morality-stance on the "yes or no" execution of these Russian prisoners is a waste of time. It is a part of war and as long as we humans go to war, these combat-crimes will happen. I fact, it is a miracle that there are so much frontline-soldiers that DO NOT commit "warcrimes".
I do think there is a big difference between combat-crimes and noncombat-crimes, but if you really want to stop warcrimes, stop war.
 
 

I'm sixty years old and practically all my life I have been struggling with the phrase "WARCRIMES".
As I see it, war is by definition a crime and we humans ALWAYS commit horrible crimes during war, civil wars, uprisings, revolutions, conquests and even in peacetime.
Romans, Persians, Dutch, French, Spanish, Aztecs, Vikings, native -Americans, "Arabs", African tribesmen, Chinese, Russians, Japanese, German, and yes even Americans and Canadians and the British (and every other large group of humans), exploited, killed, maimed, tortured and executed their opponents. Be it real or suspected opponents, that is.
Most people, certainly in the West, have the illusion that war can be fought in a "rather clean way".
In my opinion the whole morality-stance on the "yes or no" execution of these Russian prisoners is a waste of time. It is a part of war and as long as we humans go to war, these combat-crimes will happen. I fact, it is a miracle that there are so much frontline-soldiers that DO NOT commit "warcrimes".
I do think there is a big difference between combat-crimes and noncombat-crimes, but if you really want to stop warcrimes, stop war.
 
 

Regarding AT issue- short clip of very balsy Ukrainians throwing probably RKG-3 AT granade at Russian armour; unfortunatelly, rather unsuccessfully:
 

The only thing that makes sense is that they (ukraine) genuinely believe that it was NOT their missile or at least their political leaders.
A ukrainian missile wouldn't need the same response from NATO than a russian one.

I have to admit I wish the people adding tasteless music to these clips would get drafted and sent to play a role in their own MTV videos.