Homo_Ferricus

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.

“Why didn’t they just fly the Giant Eagles all the way to Mordor?”
”ISR Billy, ISR”.

I read an interesting discussion with a Russian guy who had grown up in the USSR, with him being unable to understand how anyone would ever vote against whoever was in power. His thinking was that the president could order people to vote for him, and not doing so would be insubordination and get punished. And this worked all the way down the chain: officials at various levels, police, judiciary, election organisers, all follow their orders because not doing so would lead to punishment from above.
People tried to explain that in an established democracy it doesn't work like that. The fundamental difference is that (almost) everyone believes in the the rule of law. There are laws around how to hold fair elections, and anyone violating the laws to try and fix the result is very likely to face punishment. His counter was always "but why wouldn't the authorities just order people not to punish the rule breaking and punish the people trying to do things 'fairly'".  He couldn't seem to wrap his head around the idea that once there is a critical mass of people who follow the rule of law, anyone trying to break the law to fix an election is very much taking a big risk and on their own Anyone who might shield them from consequences becomes liable to consequences from higher up, up to an including the supreme court (or equivalent) and police who aren't under the power of politicians and protected from the consequences of following the law rather than the whims of the head of state.
So in an established democracy, enough people believe in the rule of law, following the law shields you from punishment, and anyone trying to subvert that is knowingly taking a risk that might well get them punished - even the people tyring to subvert the rule of law work on the assumption that the rule of law holds sway and that they are violating societal norms.
In Russia, from what this guy is saying, enough people believe that following orders from above  is what shields you from punishment, and following what the law says rather than what you are told to do is going to get you punished. Trying to follow the law and disobey the wishes of the president is what is violating societal norms, and is the same kind of conspiratorial risk-taking in Russia that trying to steal an election would be in an established democracy.
It was an interesting insight into his mindset that he just couldn't make the mental leap to understand how a society might function where everyone (or close enough to everyone to count) valued following the law more than following orders, and that was what protected people. He always fell back on "but what if someone punished them for that".
So yeah, democracy does kind of require a society built on the foundation  that democracy works and the rule of law reigns, and it is a self-sustaining system that functions very differently to the culture that the USSR and Russia had (and probably had before the USSR as well form what I gather)
 

Danger young “S”.  This is not the first time this distillation has been attempted.  As I allude to in my post, the link between military schools of thought and the societies behind them is not 1) unidirectional, nor 2) in glorious isolation.  There is truth to the above argument but only partial truths.  For example, in war societies themselves shift and change (see Japanese internment camps) so the evolution of their military will also shift and change.  
In the examples you cite, these are less failures in military transposition but in a larger political ideology.  More bluntly we cannot reproduce western democracies in many of these nations.  The failure of western military school in these same nations is a symptom of a large issue.  At the same time history is full of “westernized” indigenous troops who were successfully integrated and operationalized out of line with their home cultures - Sikh Regiments anyone?
A military must be a recognizable extension of its society but that is far slipperier and squishier concept than the picture on the cereal box.

For those interested in listening in on two world leaders talk about Ukraine before the war. More to follow....
 
 

Thanks, Bill. I appreciate the resources you provided, and the context for the discharge petition. Took a moment to track down my rep (who hasn't signed) and rattled the windows a bit.

Thanks, Bill. I appreciate the resources you provided, and the context for the discharge petition. Took a moment to track down my rep (who hasn't signed) and rattled the windows a bit.

Thanks, Bill. I appreciate the resources you provided, and the context for the discharge petition. Took a moment to track down my rep (who hasn't signed) and rattled the windows a bit.

Thanks, Bill. I appreciate the resources you provided, and the context for the discharge petition. Took a moment to track down my rep (who hasn't signed) and rattled the windows a bit.

Thanks, Bill. I appreciate the resources you provided, and the context for the discharge petition. Took a moment to track down my rep (who hasn't signed) and rattled the windows a bit.

I think he means that technically speaking, Russia will probably never exactly run out of war material, because before that happens it will reduce consumption/exposition to risk when faced with a shortage. Therefore one can not just draw a graph with one line representing average production, the other average consumption and at the point where they meet, the Russian army will stop firing guns or have no more tanks. He says this in all his podcasts in particular whenever ammo production is discussed, so I am fairly confident this is what is meant here as well.
And whereas the Russians can decide to reduce the firing rate/usage rate pretty much at will, they cannot increase the production rate by will alone, therefore the replacement rate is the more objectively observable variable.
 

UKR continues to strike on Russian economy. Several days ago Zelenskyi put a task to GUR and SBU to increase attacks on Russian infrastructure and industrial objects.
Yestardsy UAV hit "Severstal' " steel works in Cherepovets, Vologda oblast. Despite local officials claimed no significant damages and victims, TG sources say the drone badly damaged a blast furnace, which can cause reducing of production.  
 
Cherepovets is in 810 km from neares point from Ukrainian border. "Severstal' " steel works is a huge plant, which alsmot equal by the square to this city.

 
Other incident - unknown it was technical failure or GUR agents sabotage, but in Khanty-Mansiysk autonomus district (Syberia) the oil well сaught fire
 

Some summry for several days in Robotyne - Verbove pocket. 
Russians stopped intensive assaults, instead this moved here more "Shtrorm -Z/ -V" units, manned with convicts. They send them mostly on foot by small groups, but most of them are successfully eliminated on approaches. 
Sometime Russians throw to probes small armored groups, but they had the same fate - FPV drones and mortars/artillery work on them.
National Guard "Omega" special forces work at two Russian armor vehicles and infantry with AT-4 and AGL in vicinity of Robotyne
Russians in mass became to use here many ATVs - own domestic AM1, Chineese "Desertcross" and donated civilians. Despite some of UKR militaries jokingly called these vehicles GFV (Golfcar Fighting Vehicle), a serviceman from Robotyne in own tweet say this is veryu hard target - ATVs are very fast and maneuver - artillery and mortars can't target them, even for MGs and FPVs they are hard targets to aim. ATVs even not always blow up by mines, so this guy told UKR forces lost two small positions, because Russians rapidly came close on ATVs and bursted in the trenches. 
Though this ATV or small jeep wa not so lucky and blew up on mine
 
Also reportedly Russian deployed some powerful EW system near Robotyne, which when turns on blocks the video channel of FPV drones. 

Golfcars also are used by Russians on Avdiivka direction
Situation here still very hard - despite we stabilized situation and our artillery likely got French shells, so reportedly our arty is working tough again, Russians continue own zomby-atatcks, so situation still dynamic and change often. 
Also some words about shells - servicemen tell in twitter they have enough mortar shells, but despite our arty increased own activity, the shells amount still not so proper as before shells shortage. If recently a battery in avarage fired 60-70 ammo for a day, now they can fire about 30 and during final phase of Avdiivka battle this number could be less 10.   
Just for nice picture - FPV has strruck Russian BMP and turned it out in hellish fireball. Likely it hit fuel tanks
 

Bakhmut direction. UKR troops reportedly could slightly push back Russians in Bohdanivka and Ivanivske on the northern flank. 
Near Andriivka on the southern flank, large Russian column was destroyed (I wonder why they driven with Bukhankas and Ural to assault...)
As a mockery on background places music and song form cult Soviet movie about VDV
 

On the friendly side, that's one of the roles of the unit signals officer.
At the national level, there is an office which allocates broad frequency bands for things, generally in ranges in which the physics of the frequency band suit the application. So, there's a large chunk for commercial radio, a chuck for TV, a chunk for high capacity comms links, a chunk for airspace management, some for 3G, 4G, and 5G, some for consumer stuff like TV remotes and garage doors (yes they're low powered and not likely to interfere with anything else, but if they shared a freq with the local 100MW FM station ... well ... everyone's garage door will be opening every time Lady Gaga comes on rotation), a large chunk set aside for military use (although that's always under pressure from commercial operators), more chunks for the emergency services, wifi, satellite comms, etc etc. Then within each chunk, specific operators are allocated specific frequencies.
For mil use, in the olden days the sigs officer of an AO will be given a band to work within, then he'd have to come up with a plan so that each battalion and company and squadron and battery operating in that AO had its own freq to work with, and a plan to move those freqs around every 24 hours or so to mess with enemy signals interception efforts. That's not so much of an issue with frequency hopping and digital  comms - the new radios just sort of listen to everything that's within their band of interest, and know from the data packet headers which ones are 'theirs'.
For EW, you can just dump noise at high power across multiple freqs, but obviously that messes with your own comms. So the EW wonks and the sigs guys will work together to leave gaps in the blanket through which friendly forces can communicate with each other. Generally those gaps will be in places the bad guys aren't likely to be using. So, for example, in Iraq and Afghanistan the gaps would NOT be at or near the freqs that 3G or 4G cellular networks use ... Meanwhile, in Ukraine, presumably the gaps aren't at the common COTS UAS Freqs, except when FF want to send one up.
Generally, I would think that freq management along the front line in eastern Ukraine would be relatively simple. Since there's essentially no civilian activity there, then the entire EM spectrum is up for units to use. Further back the AD dudes would have to manage their freqs a bit more carefully given that there is still a full civilian economy in places like Kyiv and Odessa. But on the other hand they wouldn't generally have to worry too much about Russian jamming that far from the front.
Edit: oh, and don't forget to leave some gaps for the zoomies.

I don't think a flechette round is going to do anything that your basic 5.56/7.62 isn't- the problem looks more like drones are very difficult to hit, rather than current ammunition doesn't do enough damage.
It's got me wondering though- how big do jammers need to be to be effective? Could you stick one inside a 40mm grenade with a parachute and bloop them off into the sky a la instant EW barrage balloons?

It appears that you have not kept up on this war.  We are not seeing a "few recon drones spotting" -  which will still be a serious problem with this sort of SHORAD system because LOS (with camera magnification) is much father than these systems can likely reach.  We are starting to see drones being employed en masse on the sorts of scales that these systems cannot deal with. They are not solely being used for recon, but now strike.  Production is reaching massive scales (e.g. reports of 100k per month).
This is not "perfect so we shouldn't bother", it is "expensive and not useful for the environment."  We have gone down this path before and wind up getting into trouble every time - let's send tanks to a COIN fight...anyone?  Massed UAS are not a SHORAD problem, or at least one it can solve.  But that wont stop big business from trying to convince us otherwise.
Here is a scenario - 100 FPVs being driven by 10 crews with repeaters.  These are not even fully autonomous, which we know is coming.  They are EW hardened but we can even accept 50% attrition, so now 50 FPVs are coming in and attacking a position.  These large SHORAD systems now need to track and engage small fast moving UAS capable of treetop and below.  Assuming you have submunitions (which there is no evidence of), and each missile can engage 5 drones effectively - hell give them 100 percent; based on the photos, 5 Coyote systems needed to counter this one attack.  Ok, doesn't sound too bad.  Except for the fact that these FPVs are not working alone.  They are linked into supporting fires.  So as soon as those Coyotes start firing they are going to get lit up and engaged by PGM indirect fires.  But these are trained crews and are scooting, so maybe you only lose half of them, lets say 2 out of 5.
So how many Coyotes do we have in a Bde?  Because the enemy has another 150 FPVs...for todays attack alone.  You basically need to stick one or two in every platoon...fantastic, exactly what Raytheon wants.  And here is the thing...it will not work.  First problem will be clutter.  The enemy will fill the sky with all sorts of junk to toss off detection.  Fire control and coordination will be a nightmare.  And now on a battlefield where everyone is whispering for fear of getting picked up by sound detection, we are going to have dozens of these missiles firing off all over the place.  So we have solved the recon UAS problem by making ourselves visible from freakin space.  And finally sustainment; the enemy is losing ammunition, we are losing platforms.  We cannot keep that up over any period of time.  Like other high end western equipment, we will run out and politicians will never sign off on massive "what if" production capacity.
But let's put this all aside or the moment, this approach will not only be challenged by current reality, it will not solve for what is coming next. UAS are going to get cheaper and more distributed.  They will combine with UGVs so you can lay them like mines and suddenly have them pop up a few meters away.  Drone swarms will be in the hundreds with EFP and launchable sub-munitions of their own.  So while we are investing billions in SHORAD as a solution, we are going to find out it was a half-measure, at best. 
We are so addicted to big, few and expensive platforms, that our solution to their possible extinction on the battlefield is, more big expensive platforms.
So what is the solution?  Cheap and many.  I want a C-UAS weapon that fits under the barrel of a rifle like a GL but has a 1-2 km range and high Pk - so better than a shotgun.  I want UAS, that hunt and kill other UAS.  I want direct fire support on lighter unmanned platforms that do not drink a swimming pools worth of gas per km, and are big and hot. I want infantry that can carry more, move faster and go for days without resupply.   What I do not want are more big, loud expensive platforms to protect my already big, loud and expensive platforms.

Yeah, I agree.
Even with refurbishments the quality problem is not yet materializing on lets say "to a critical" extent. T-80BV and T-72 2000's models keep coming. By many estimates (including "perun"), the cases of T-55 and T-62 have been because of totally different production, warehouse and ammo "pipelines" for these being fast and available. 
We shall see when Russia starts choking here. Next year by most estimates. 
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