Cobetco

I used to watch Chris' twitch streams all the time. I still have him bookmarked.

Despite that, though, in a lot of ways commie blocks are pretty great. Weirdly.
 

Ah, ok my bad I thought you saw some demonic form in a democracy lol. 
 
 

I know some about the US history, but the US wasn't the first republic to exist and the architecture of it's democracy doesn't define what is a democracy or republic. Anyway in NL woman were only allowed to vote from ~1922; most democratic countries weren't fully representative democracies until later in the 20th century. 

I think you might want to look up the definition of Republic. western nations are democracies.

I think you might want to look up the definition of Republic. western nations are democracies.

I think you might want to look up the definition of Republic. western nations are democracies.

Anything coming from Russian offciials is a crap by definition. My preliminary thesis from very early reports ()bound to change): it could be that Russian missile went astray and followed by Ukrainian one. Locals told one source about 2-3 detonations.
Mind anybody with apocalyptic tendencies, that Turks shot down Russian jet with no repercussions. Different circumstances, I know, but panick many people are spreading over Twitter is really getting out of controll.
Probably AA batteries will be moved closer to the border, and supply for Ukraine increased.

The Russians even managed to find clean white underwear. 
 

Today I learned that Ukrainians refer to PKMs as “Pokémons.” 😆
 

sounds like someone has discovered why ww1 was a meat grinder.

Although Macron is another neo liberal bankers puppet, his win against Le Pen is a relief. As a french writer said , between the slap and the punch we have to chose the slap.
The situation in EU the next day would be dire otherwise. But as war goes one, the crisis deepens, the pressure on welfare and on middle class increases, right wingers won't go away and will keep rallying the disappointed. I hope Marcon will keep that in mind. 

Well one could argue that the organization was marginalized long before this whole dance.  The US invasion of Iraq in 03 was definitely a nail in its coffin.  The global order that the UN was supposed to both represent and embody has been stressed and cracking for decades, this has likely just finished the job.
This is not good news.  As constipated and dysfunctional as the UN was it is better than the alternative, which is back to the old anarchy of nations with multipolar power arrangements largely ungovernable besides the rule of the gun.  That is where we were in 1914 except now we have nukes.  So yes Ukraine is bad but what could follow may be a lot worse if we don’t put this whole thing back in a box.
Putin’s sins in Ukraine are historic but if we don’t get our sh#t together collectively he is going to go down as a footnote, assuming there is anyone left to write it down. And if that wasn’t hilarious enough we have climate impacts coming straight at us.
 

so just because my eyes are trained to look for this stuff, that 2nd image has gone through an AI upscale and any speculation should be thrown into the trash, unsure of the first image, didn't compare the res to the original, but considering the guy posting this has 22 followers, expect this to be a twitter follower grab or hes dumb and doesnt under stand that tech, he's posted multiple "high res versions" ignore this pls. its bad data.

so just because my eyes are trained to look for this stuff, that 2nd image has gone through an AI upscale and any speculation should be thrown into the trash, unsure of the first image, didn't compare the res to the original, but considering the guy posting this has 22 followers, expect this to be a twitter follower grab or hes dumb and doesnt under stand that tech, he's posted multiple "high res versions" ignore this pls. its bad data.

Just…wow…seriously, we are going to be studying what the Ukrainian military pulled off in this war for the rest of the century.

Even 200 tanks, and the logistics to keep them running would make a HUGE difference.

So we are not talking about EW, or at least not just EW.  We are talking about an ISR superiority bubble, that if collapses results in a quick ignoble death.  A Sense bubble included data and information superiority.  If everyone has these then
1) surprise is pretty much dead because we are talking decentralized bubbles not a singular big brain one can hit.  You can collapse a Local Bubble but what about the rest?  You might even degrade the operational systems but any given maneuver unit has enough integral capability to create their own bubbles.
2) You have to re-think manoeuvre warfare from the ground up.  The whole thing is predicated on avoiding strength and hitting vulnerabilities, which is pretty hard if an opponent can see you coming miles off.  Further a local Sense bubble collapse also sends a clear signal of effort, which one can also not hide.
3) Mass might be suicidal.  As in Airland battle concentration leading to death does not necessarily flow from air superiority.  By seeing high mass concentration from well back, or even at it is forming means interdiction can come from many vectors.  This plus PGM means NLOS over the horizon massed fires before you even make contact can destroy concentrations of mass.  This indicated land warfare might start to resemble naval warfare but distributed.
And I think this only scratches the surfaces as that Sense bubble has to include a logistics tail or security is impossible.  Honestly I am going to need a bit of time to digest this all, it was Hapless’ mention of snow globes that clicked it. 

your comparing an apple to an orange, the TB2 is considerably smaller than a mq-9 reaper and Super Tucano. and sizes are only going to get smaller still. this is the issue, not just thing is sky does thing in sky things.

Well you are losing me there.  So with modern MALE systems one can literally sit within an friendly AD bubble and strike an opponents rear areas.
Eventually someone is going to mount a Switchblade onto a Class 2 UAV so now you have an airborne system carrying another system that together have an 80km range which means they can hit SLOC entry points in the theatre.  Then someone is going to create a self-loitering system with smart DPICM and hit strategic targets like a ship or port…oh wait.
S’ok though we got AA Guns.

Ok, so I think we are miscommunicating here, what do you define as a "drone"?  UAVs are an entire suit of unmanned aerial systems, from the size of a very small bird/large bug to global hawk.  The TB2 is a MALE (Medium Altitude Long Endurance) which we would call a Class 2 UAV.  These things are literally everywhere and every service has Class 2 and Class 1 UAVs as organic systems.  The really big stuff HALE like Global Hawk are held as strategic assets.
So the TB2 might have a higher profile but a handheld but smaller Class 2s and Class 1s are like the small UAVs you can buy commercially which have much smaller profiles than any AH.  
So we are talking about a layered system of separate classes all plugged into a C4ISR system here. So even if you do managed to shoot down a larger Class 2, good luck with the smaller systems.  Worse, those smaller systems include the NLOS smart ATGMs like Spike and self-loitering like Switchblade (which is about 2 feet long and weighs about 50 pounds) which you can fire into the air all day and not hit.  Put this system into the air and link it to artillery and you basically cannot hide, or run for that matter.  Your LOCs are very vulnerable - how do you knock down a 2 foot flying Javelin warhead that can hit a target at 80kms?  How do you knock down 100 of them?
And we have not even started in on unmanned ground vehicles, which are not that far off.  Now you get a small, very low profile cross country rugged vehicle that can operate at distance...with a Javelin on it.  It can not only park and wait like a lurker, it can move and re-position as well.
If this was only about TB2s or even MALE UAVs it would be challenging enough, as aptly demonstrated by this current war, but add in all the smaller systems and self-loitering munitions and that is what we are talking about as a game changer. 
Finally even the Class 2 TB2 types are no where near the WW2 prop driven attack planes.  Why?  Because a WW2 CAS aircraft couldn't stand off 11km away and kill you with a Hellfire.  That is farther than most MANPADs and even SHORAD systems so we are talking IADs, which the Russian had and they did not seem to do much for them.  So western militaries are investing a lot to try and do something will all these systems but we definitely live in a gap right now.  We will see how it goes.

I think that all should be present - both modern equipment and high-motivated personnel with proper combat spirit. Having combat spirit only there is too hard to withstand with "steam roller". And when you have modern weapon without a will to fight this is also useless (example Iraq army against ISIS).
Soviet and Russian propaganda created the image ot typical Ukrainain as funny ingenuous mild slightly cunning farmer, which likes to drink horilka (Ukrainain analog of vodka), eat borshch and salo. But our nation had not only farmers, but nobles and warriors too. Ukrainans have "frontier nation" mentality, formed during 14-17th centuries - in peaceful time it sleeps, but when hazard come, this "frontier call" wake up in "farmers" a warrior spirit. Ukrainians mostly "anarchic" nation. Unlike Russians we don't sacralize central power, we can self-organize and act with multiple control centers.  
 
Here the translation of good article how we make war NW from Kyiv. This is some artistic text, but it shows the same about told that marines.
But in first order some explainations of names in the text:
Wilderness (other name Wild Fields) - territory of modern Ukraine and partially of Russia SE from Dniepr (ukr. Dnipro) river to Black and Azov seas. Wide steppes, the theater of endless clashes with nomads, where cossack mentality and spirit had been formed. Best analogue is Wild West or Texas.    
Kholodnyi Yar (means Cold Ravine) - location in Cherkasy oblast forests, which several times became a center of rebellions up to the Soviet times in 20th years. The symbol of fighting for freedom and revenge, sung in poem of Taras Shevchenko in strings "and a new wind will blow from Kholodnyi Yar", like a vision of new fight for freedom of Ukraine
 
In the Kyiv region if full-fledged Wilderness. Just in one small forest near small village, which is being contested I counted Armed Forces, National Guard, Territorial Defense, police. some of glorious volunteer units, SOF, SBU, some mysterious unknown special forces guys with strange barrels and just armed muddy guys. 
All this stuff is constantly moving, engaging and withdrawing, someone is brought in, someone is taken away, and everyone tries to get rich with a weapon and ammunition from enemies or allies. Nobody has  coomunication and coordination with no one. The central commans if even exists, it doesn't control anything. Coordination is poorly feasible - it is worth to deal with someone on joint action, as in few hours you find another unit on their place. 
The forest is under systematical hysterical shellings of the enemy of different intensivity and succees level, from which all run away and later gather in new configurations. When the enemy tries to enter the village, our forces eliminate them and armed muddy guys run under fire to collect the weapons, smearing with a blood. Someone grabs Russian helmets, someone takes a shots of enemy corpses, someone writes combat reports. 
Or tank accidently encounters thre enemy BMPs, knoked them fu...g out and drove away. Fu...g shocked enemy infantry is decimated from three sides by unknown people. Whos tank was it, from where it came and where did it go, no one could answer
The single idea, which unites everyone like a cornerstone is TO KILL. 
This is Cossakship. This is the same "wind from Kholodnyi Yar", which hasn't a single center of coordination and supply - where all these people come from, where they arm themselves, where they go after, even they do not know. 
No one military academy in the world taught how to resist this. Welcome to the hell.                

Fixed that for ya
Personally, I suspect that reclaiming Donbass and giving up Crimea is enough of a save to shove Putin off UKR.
BUT, before formal peace takes hold, Ukraine should trash the Crimean bridge with PGMs, as a final last FU. If they can hit those landing ships they can sure as heck drop-kick that 2nd rate make-work.
Turn the Crimea into a deathly financial albatross around Putin's neck. Plus the joy of destroying such a high-profile project, directly attached to him.
"You want Crimea? Sure! Here! Oh, wait one sec - [BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM] yes, NOW we're at peace. Go explain to your useful idiots in Sebastapol why you don't have another 225 billion rubles to repair their land bridge with the Motherland.
****er."
Russia isn't the only nation that can communicate with violence.
 

Well, if people would just listen, the day of the tank as we presently know it is coming to an end.
Here is some statements from those that might have a little more insight than most of the rest of us
But there is still a need for what a tank does, what that will look like in the future will come down to what  man will design to compete on the battlefield of the future at a cost they can afford.
No question we will see, unmanned, lighter faster platforms that can bring a heavy punch to a area needing clearing.
Also, I expect that counter measures to drones and drone type warfare will change and be added to soon. It really should not be hard to develop systems for the task. Because just as important as winning the skies with air power has been, winning the skies with drone power could be just as important.  So ground troops will need light weapon systems that can get the job done as to removing such threats. Actually I think the US has some systems presently that can remove enemy drones from the battle. 
But no question, warfare will evolve from this conflict if we don't go too far and turn this into the last war we as mankind sees.
But what we call tanks in the future (20 - 30 years) will likely change as much as what a tanks from WW1 has changed from our present day  

Been watching this thread since it started and we go through cycles.  When things really appear to start shifting on the ground (via social media) we get really focused on "what is happening".  Then when lulls occur in the newsfeed, we start to splinter off into sidebars and the like.  One could probably create an information overlay based on our activities that could tell a lot about how we saw it just based on the conversation threads. 
For example, if the Russians suddenly surrounded Kyiv, or signal a major collapse we will get very focused and the side chatter will likely stop.
 

two interesting videos.