Homo_Ferricus

Ok, well really hard to tell what that really means.  Could be military socks for all we know - and don't turn a nose up at that one, good socks are a lifesaver in this business.
Regardless, we know Russia has started pulling and China has jumped in to an extent.  What we are not seeing are high end Chinese military platforms or systems on the battlefield.  I encourage anyone interested to take a look at what China is really producing - https://odin.tradoc.army.mil/WEG/List/ORIGIN_china--people-s-republic-of-d6ee02
If the high end stuff was getting shipped we would be seeing Chinese HIMARs show up in force: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHL-03  That plugged into Chinese ISR support could make this war so much worse - the other side of the proxy escalation ladder.

Now let’s not suddenly forget the real reason why China has risen to power…western greed.  We exported manufacturing and every other hard/increasingly expensive job to China because they would do it for a fraction of what western workers were demanding nor was governed by pesky workplace safety regulations.  We wanted cheap everything from Tshirts to running shoes to cellphones.  We did not admit China into the WTO until 2001 and by then we were over-invested in China for our lifestyles that no one could slow that train down:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_and_the_World_Trade_Organization#:~:text=China became a member of,changes to the Chinese economy.
We had started this trend back in the 80s.  There was nothing altruistic or generous about any of this, it really was simply an extension of western benign (and sometimes not) imperial doctrine.  The Western Rules Based order was really designed to keep the West on top. China figured this out and used that system to rise to power.  They did it using Western money, not charitable intent.  China conducted a series of pretty radical economic reforms and the outsourced the industry we downloaded on them to places like Bangladesh and Vietnam.  They then reinvested in their own high tech and bolstered it with an historic industrial espionage campaign.
None of this was “western misguided liberalism gone wrong” it was straight up pursuit of profit and reinforcing our own consumer based economies.  By the time we realized the problem in the mid ‘00 it was too late.  No politician, even Trump, could simply “drop China”.  Since then we have seen attempts at a gradual uncoupling but we are still too dependent on Asian manufacturing and industry, the pandemic showed this in spades.  And now we are stuck.  We either keep funding Chinese rise to power or try and roll the clock back to 1960, which we can’t do with current standards of living and economic realities.
None of this was generous or high minded.  Anymore than British rule of India was.  It was a 20th century version of economic colonization, which like a lot of colonization came back around to bite.

FancyCat, edited for concision:
A drawn-out war is bad for Ukraine. We don't know what might bring Russia to ceasefire negotiations. The best way to bring them to the table is to fight to win the war. Russia will keep the war going if it is to their advantage. The west is not fighting to win, Russia is taking advantage of Western lack of commitment. Russia is using Western fears of Russian collapse and nuclear war to it's advantage, actively promoting such a narrative for it's benefit rather than because it is a realistic one. Russia seems to be pursuing maximal goals.  The west must signal that these cannot be achieved. Why should the west make concessions as Russia does not.  Russia does not offer a negotiation, rather demands surrender, disarmament and fomalisation of annexed land  
The_Capt, edited for concision:
Preamble: You are ignoring reality. The best becomes the enemy of the good. We have a phrase for that in Army.
The Russian regime might collapse. This would be a risk. You think the only way to win is for the Russia to collapse. Russia doesn't need to collapse for there to be peace. You think Ukraine must have total victory and anything else is defeat.  This is holding you back. (6.1) WW3 would be bad, Ukraine is not worth that.  War is costly.  We can simultaniously support Ukrainian resistance and pull back to a new iron curtain behind which could sit a well funded NATO. (6.2) Maximal goals are not the only form of victory. We are looking at a ceasefire scenario with half of Ukraine in Russian hands. (6.3) We must fight to achieve a better negotiating position, this might require Russia to collapse. (6.4) Your argument helps the enemy, by making the war unwinnable, and might encourage people to give up support if it does not achieve total vicory.  This is what Russia wants.  
I feel simply summarising the main points of the exchange as I have here should suffice as a critique.  It took me an hour or so.

So this post and the one above it are what we like to call “losing the bubble”.  You have let your passion for Ukraine cloud objective strategic thinking to the point that you are proposing a denial of reality to insert one of your own that matches that passion.  In blunt terms, if you were on my staff I would be thinking you need a vacation and maybe a posting away for awhile.
1.  We cannot simply discount/avoid/wave away the risks of a full on Russian political and social collapse.  First off it is not “impossible” or even improbable given we have a rigid autocratic political mechanism that has been under significant strain for some time now.  Russia has collapsed in the past (twice in the past century and a bit) and can do so again.  
2.  The consequences of a Russian collapse cannot simply be waived away either.  At best we get a stable regime quickly grabbing power so that the centralized control apparatus stays in place.  That regime will need to 1) have clean enough hands to do an honest deal with, and 2) be supportive in stopping this war.  That is a tall order. Follow on scenarios of a Russian collapse and its impacts get worse from there and we have gone into them many times.  You are essentially so gripped with the Ukrainian cause that you have simply stated “ignore them” with neither proof or logic on why to do so beyond “well it hasn’t happened yet, so it will never happen”.
3.  By your metrics Ukrainian security is not guaranteed outside of a full Russian collapse and regime change.  Nothing would stop Russia from lobbing missiles even if it was forced back to 2014 lines.  So we are back to “we need a full Russian collapse to ‘win’ but ignore the consequences of that collapse because = ‘love Ukraine’.” That makes no sense nor does it address the scenarios where a collapsed Russia poses as greater risk to Ukraine than what they are dealing with now. 
4.  There are plenty examples of frozen conflict where an enduring peace and security were guaranteed: Korea, Cyprus and Former Yugoslavia, to name a few.  Like Israel right now, there is always risk of reemergence of warfare but we can manage that.  So immediately writing off any and all other peace scenarios is not only extremist narrative, it is dangerously reductive thinking.  This is not how high levels of diplomacy, defence and security or economics think about the world, it is how college students on a campus do.
5.  Your position and thesis essentially start with a conclusion and then build a logic model theory of success that only supports that conclusion.  Ukraine must have total victory, all other outcomes are defeats.  Further the West must support Ukraine in this venture to the point that it will risk the total political and social collapse of a nuclear power.  We are to sidestep all that risk for Ukraine.  What happens if we get to 2014 lines and Russia does not quit?  Do we need to go into Russia proper?  This nearly happened in Korea/China in 1950, this was how MacArther talked himself into nuclear weapons and a massive Chinese reaction.
6. We all support Ukraine and want a victory here.  But..and you really need to sit down and think about this…Ukraine is damned important, but it is not that important.  We are not going to start WW3 over Ukraine - even as we skirt around it.  We would be talking hundreds of millions of deaths, even if the thing stayed conventional.  We have 8 billion people on this planet and keeping them all alive takes a lot of energy and resources.  We built a highly complex and integrated system to keep the whole dance going.  One war breaks out between Ukraine and Russia and we already have people starving to death in Africa. Imagine a full on conflagration that drags in NATO. Iran and possibly China.  I am sorry but we could easily go with plan A, which was likely the plan on 24 Feb 22: continue to support Ukrainian resistance, fall back to NATO lines, drop a new Iron Curtain, and fund the hell out of NATO - in fact there are likely big winners in this scenario who know it.  We won the First Cold War, we can take our chances on a Second.
So, no, total 2014 lines are not the only victory in this war by a long shot.  In fact those territorial lines might not even mean victory if they were attainable.  We are very likely looking at a stop line, like in 2014, somewhere in the middle.  Then we will get some sort of shaky ceasefire that we will need to exploit, quickly.  We need to set the conditions to strategically deny Ukraine from Russia.  We know Russia can be deterred, this is why we do not have deep strikes into Poland happening.  We will need to move that deterrence line.  We will likely have to pound Russia until it drops its ridiculous negotiating position and we can land on something more reasonable.  Whether that will take a full on collapse is unknown, we can only hope if it does that we are looking at a soft collapse of political position and not social controls within Russia.
Finally, framing the war the way you have supports Russia.  You are making this war nearly unwinnable via these maximalist rhetoric.  As such, a reader of this thread could easily walk away agreeing with you but arriving at a very different conclusion - unwinnable war = GTFO, because we have already seen this movie twice in the last 20 years.  Which is exactly what Russia wants.
You have narrowed down the acceptable narrative only to those ardent extremist viewpoints that agree with you.  By leaving no middle ground you violate a core component of war: negotiation.  There is no negotiation in your position and that immediately sets off warning bells.  We hear this everyday now coming from all sorts of corners over so many issues.  I vehemently disagree with your analysis, narrative and conclusions based on this fact alone.

Russians gradually have been learing of Ukrainian experience of artillery fire control. If in 2022  - mid 23 we have seen typical Soviet style of whole batteries and even battalions of side-by-side standing guns simultainous work, that now Russians are more and more shifting to dispersing of artillery and work by single guns of a battery with individaual targeting for each.
Here is google-translated post about changes since 2022. "The work was carried out in areas with a low coeeficient of UAV use" - means "ineffective area fire with low UAV usage", though for summer 2022 it's not always could be true, or soldiers then reported about dozen Orlans and Zala, ajusting fire. Probably ajusting was inefefctive or come on too long command chain, which made it ineffective.

 
And addition to this post by other Russian artillerist with my translation:
I'l throw my 5 cents:
Regimental artillery tied on artillery chief (of regiment). He, sitting on command post (let's call it in such way) together with chief of recon, watch streams from UAVs (and intercepted streams of the enemy). Spotting the target chief of artillery transmits it to battery commander or senior battery officer  [he is commander of 1st artillery platoon also] and they transmit this data to the gun. 2-7 minutes for targeting of the gun, the bird [drone] in the sky. First shoot - the fire ajustment from artilelry chief directly to the gun. Or artillery chief opens the map, come into communication with gun commandr through the radio and gives the targeting (angle, azimuth, lines). The gun crew lives on position 2-5 days, further a rotation is coming. Nobody drink on position, it's taboo, else they go to "zakrep" [probably those who have to hold the ground after assault] - and this is more scary than to stormers. 
We don't work with mortars since new year. This is no longer relevant becaus of crews life preservation purposes. Drones already fly on 10 km in the rear, so they clicks them at once  

And here Russian feedback about CAESERs

It is potentially worse than that.  This sort of dysfunction does nothing but feed anti-democracy sentiment.  Democracies die due to abandonment, history demonstrates this quite well.  If the system is seen as "unworkable" democracies often choose suicide.  This is the threat to the US and global stability.  Trump and Greene are symptoms of something far deeper and dangerous....apathy that leads to despair.

The main problem with this attitude is:
1.: It doesn't respect other peoples opinion on the matter, which very common when it comes to this topic.
2.: You guys acting like the west giving charity to Ukraine and not pursuing its political goals. The hypocrisy is strong with the argument that if you don't like our values than join the other side. Which would be a very big problem to NATO.
3.: This topics are not just blown out of proportion but doesn't matter at all. This is why its such a hotly discussed topic on the west. Cause it is a dividing matter, and have no consequence in peoples life. You can chew on it like a bone without any brain based on believes.
So i think we could give the courtesy to Haiduk that he has his values that can be respected not just yours.

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.
 
 

For those who remember the British 'Dragonfire' anti-drone laser test from January, Grant Shapps (UK defence secretary) is now talking about possibly delivering it to Ukraine relatively soon.
It's timeline was originally aiming to be in service 2032 (assuming it can be made to work adequately). The time line was accelerated to 2027, because I'm sure it's possible to finish R&D 5 years sooner just because politicians have decided.  Now Shapps is saying it may be delivered to Ukraine even sooner than that because a system that is 70% done next year is better then one 99.9% done in 3 years.
More realistically, Ukraine needs any air defence it can get,  and the system gets to be tested heavily in real conditions, which will probably improve design iteration. So I guess we'll see whether it can become a meaningful and cost effective anti-drone system or whether its a white elephant.
Edit to add: whatever the rationale behind the decision making,  announcing it now has a lot more to do with timing of domestic and European politics, and the content of the announcement likewise.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68795603

We're all arguing this on a board that's dedicated to a wargame that has implemented at least some level of autonomy at the small unit level for 20 years.  And made it work in reasonable compute times for battalion sized swarms on computers that were nothing special.  The only thing it doesn't have is the physical sensor inputs, and those are pretty straightforward.  And it was all implemented by Charles and maybe a helper (I haven't kept up).  Charles himself might even count as an autonomous biocomputer, since he's really just a brain in a jar.

I don't know if anyone has posted this yet, but  RUSI just published a paper on the present and near future state of drone warfare.
Mass Precision Strike: Designing UAV Complexes for Land Forces
by Justin Bronk and Jack Watling
Excerpt:
Swarming capabilities are commonly touted as the most significant area of capability development in the small UAV defence sector. However, the requirement to swarm introduces significant hardware and software complexity, which in turn drives cost growth and reduces the number of individual assets that can be fielded for any given budget. Massed UAV groupings, as seen regularly in light shows at civilian displays, rely on a ground control station tracking the position of all UAVs in a formation at all times and a central mission computer sending commands to each one to coordinate their movements. This allows large numbers of very simple small UAVs to fly in a coordinated fashion, but it is not a practical approach for military UAVs and weapons in a contested battlespace, due to terrain masking, EW, signal range and emissions control challenges – the ground control station would be struck, decapitating the whole swarm. Instead, for a mass precision strike complex to be capable of swarming tactics, the individual assets involved must have onboard sensors and low-latency datalinks that are resistant to hostile EW disruption. In addition, each asset must carry a mission computer powerful enough, and software complex enough, to fuse the information about terrain, threats and targets received from its own  sensors and those of other UAVs in the formation through datalinks, and to react to that information dynamically in real time. These capabilities are not inherently new, nor are they reliant on advances in AI or complex machine learning models. However, what the requirements for sensors, datalinks and advanced software do is raise component costs, even if used with an inherently cheap airframe/engine combination.
Furthermore, if a mass precision strike system is premised on swarming tactics for its effectiveness against its core target sets, then the number of assets required to use it in a sustained fashion will be increased, due to the need to consistently project sufficient assets into the target area to swarm. In conjunction with the increased hardware and software complexity required, this requirement to sustainably field swarming UAVs in large quantities over time means that fielding this sort of system as more than a ‘Night One’ theatre entry tool is likely to be uneconomical.
In terms of where swarming capabilities are likely to add value commensurate with the additional cost implied by their inclusion as part of a precision strike complex, the primary application will be to improve the capability to overwhelm air defence systems... Other advantages of swarming capabilities are that they can help reduce wasted warheads by deconflicting target selection so that multiple assets do not hit the same target. However, doing so in a way that can differentiate between a target having been hit and successfully disabled versus a target having been hit ineffectively and thus requiring a repeat strike with another asset requires significantly more advanced sensor and processing capabilities than simple deconfliction. Ultimately, for target deconfliction and strike optimisation, the value added question will come down to whether the additional efficiency against defended and undefended target sets gained from functional swarming capabilities outweighs the strike weight foregone by the increase in individual asset cost and the resultant reduction in quantity.

Dead end street?!  It is keeping Ukraine in this war right now.  And we really have not seen artillery being used offensively as part of a go-forward combined arms maneuver either while we are poking holes.  We have seen tons of steel being dropped by the Russians while they retake inches since summer of ‘22.  Ukraine has high precision guns and have not been able to overcome those Russian minefields or defensive positions with much better luck.
Right now inter-arms finger pointing on offensive “go-forward” is akin to whores arguing on levels of chastity.  No one is “go-forwarding”.  By these metrics artillery are as much a “dead end street” as drones are.

This is such a weird take to me as to be somewhat incomprehensible. Like, we seem to be operating in different factual universes. Italians bogged down in Albania? How is that an apt comparison?
What particular weapons systems are we depleting the reserves of? We've been culpably stingy with our second and third tier weapon systems. Your points contradicts one another. If China is learning to fight a western military that doesn't use any of its airforce, any of its modern deep strike capability, any of its naval capability, any of its modernized mech force... learn on, I guess?
On the contrary, everyone is learning that the shape of the battlefield has changed, and changed in ways that seriously favor the defender. The PLAN has to be looking at the videos of the SeaBaby double taps and thinking hard about what their losses crossing the Taiwan strait would look like.
Everybody is looking at the rise of low-energy precision fires and wondering how totally that's broken mechanized mass.
Everybody is looking at the totally illuminated battlefield and wondering how complete their ground-to-space ISR system is.

Oh for principled leaders like this today… certainly not a loser in my opinion 
 

US citizen with callsign "Will", signs a contract with Russian army. Milblogger Kotenok in own TG claims this guy served in US army, but when knew what is going on Donbas decided to join to fight against "nazism". Some time he served in "15th international brigade" (so-called "Pyatnashka") of DNR, now he signed contract in Yugra city in Syberia (74th motor-rifle brigade). Interview in English. I wonder he has Mexican or Hindus roots?
By the way, for contract signing he received 745 000 RUB (about 8100 USD) and futher he will receive 150 000 RUB (1630 USD) monthly (not matter on first line or in th erear)
In many Russian regions local governors rised award for contract signing. In Oriol and Rostov oblasts this award already reached 1000 000 RUB (about 10900 USD) - initially award was 500 000. Russian MoD claims they enlisted about 100 000 contractors and each day about 1700 people came to enlistment offices, especially many come after act of terror in Crocus-hall "to revenge the enemies of Russia". But rising of contract signing award shows the stream of people, wishing to get huge easy money is coming to the end and to stimulate the motivation (and temptation) you have to offer bigger award. Many of people in Russia either too poor or have huge credit indebtness in banks without chances to pay it. And this will push them to army. So, less oil and oil productin export - less money, less contractors. Refineries will burn will it like in White House or not.  

ruh roh!!
China's Quiet Push Into Russia's Far East Puts Putin in a Pickle (msn.com)
 
 

Supposedly russia broke their record with confirmed vehicle losses in a single day. 

Another BOOM of BMP-3
And result of Russian attack attempt on Robotyne. 10 vehicles minus.
 

Who missed Chelly, here it )
 

For March Russians set new "record" of gliding bomb usage - 2300 against 1500 in February
FAB-250/500/1500 UMPK, cluster RBK-500 UMPK and thermobarical ODAB-1500 UMPK were used
 

As someone who has written, recorded and mixed music--Yes this is possible, particularly when inspired or driven to write and record. Mixing and mastering in particular (which used to be painstaking, depending on the level of quality you're looking for) are easier than ever with AI and algorithmic tools.
Yes I agree, you are writing like a mad conspiracy theorist.

As someone who has written, recorded and mixed music--Yes this is possible, particularly when inspired or driven to write and record. Mixing and mastering in particular (which used to be painstaking, depending on the level of quality you're looking for) are easier than ever with AI and algorithmic tools.
Yes I agree, you are writing like a mad conspiracy theorist.

As someone who has written, recorded and mixed music--Yes this is possible, particularly when inspired or driven to write and record. Mixing and mastering in particular (which used to be painstaking, depending on the level of quality you're looking for) are easier than ever with AI and algorithmic tools.
Yes I agree, you are writing like a mad conspiracy theorist.

As someone who has written, recorded and mixed music--Yes this is possible, particularly when inspired or driven to write and record. Mixing and mastering in particular (which used to be painstaking, depending on the level of quality you're looking for) are easier than ever with AI and algorithmic tools.
Yes I agree, you are writing like a mad conspiracy theorist.

As someone who has written, recorded and mixed music--Yes this is possible, particularly when inspired or driven to write and record. Mixing and mastering in particular (which used to be painstaking, depending on the level of quality you're looking for) are easier than ever with AI and algorithmic tools.
Yes I agree, you are writing like a mad conspiracy theorist.