danfrodo

This is same AT4 we have in CMBS, yes? Not my favorite weapon but pretty good in a pinch. Seems it works well against light armor but not MBTs, correct?

The positive side of declaring Putin a war criminal (hopefully also designated a terrorist) is that it can be used to dissuade countries and companies from doing business w Putin. It's not the best optics to have folks posting that one is doing new deal w war criminal.

The capture of personnel or equipment from a unit like this seems to indicate that UKR is operating behind RU 'lines', does it not? How does this guy or his unit get close enough to front to be captured?

Even the most excellent, best trained AI would fail if you feed into it wrong input. The AI is supposed to provide an answer to some instance. But if the instance is "russian army is great and big" then it's gonna spit out the correct answer for that input. But the input is just plain wrong -- surprise to everyone except maybe Steve & TheCapt.

Note that AI requires large datasets of information to be 'trained'. how does one get that for something like UKR war? Generals are often "fighting the last war" because that's the most recent information they have and they have to think outside the box to predict where war is going -- that's different nowadays of course because technology is moving so fast. Following up on Probus post earlier, any more Belarus info?

I do computer simulations for a living, physics-based simulations, no human decisions involved. I'd say the issue is not AI or quantum calcs or anything that fancy. The issue is the data entered into the simulations. If the russians and ukrainians were modeled accurately and the simulation 'physics' could handle the small scale unit effects, then it could be modeled. The reality is that Russia was entered as steel when it's actually cheap plastic, while the ukrainians were entered as plastic instead of steel.

I hope we soon have video of this beast shredding some helicopters

Thanks AKD, good to hear that. I hope UKR got them all!

anyone seen this? If this is for real, I am not feeling so comfortable .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIuRIku6GRw

please please please take a wrong right turn and enter Poland. please please please. That would be very short fight. Poland is ready and able.

where on the border are they?

So what's the situation in Mariupol, I wonder? They are cut off from supplies? but maybe are capturing some? how long can they hold out?

I wonder what this does to the loyalty to Putin of the other generals? Someone does get promoted out of this, but hopefully it leads to a military putsch as generals realize they might not be long for the world if they fail -- and they are probably pretty sure they'll fail.

Is that TheCapt in the picture? I thought he was like the Lone Ranger or Orville Peck (masked musician) who no one knows who he actually is.

I have fought a lot of CMBS & CMSF2 battles that look just like this (sans frosty ground)

Wow, this is the best day in quite a while. All the predictions that've been circulating here are starting to come true. UKR appears to be gaining ground. And nice of TheCapt to throw some shade on the continually wrong prognosticators The russian failure reminds me of discussions of Fall Blau, where looking at Stalingrad mess folks say "why did the germans do this plan w not nearly enough resources?". The answer is that the germans did have enough resources relative to their assumptions. They assumed that they'd encircle and smash the remaining soviet armies in the south and then simply drive to the Volga and the oilfields. Similar thing here, where the Russian plan was fine relative to Putin's beliefs about what would happen. So now the question is whether he is actually seeing and understanding the situation. Ordering Belarus into the fight looks like a bad idea, but it's easy to see how he could talk himself into it if he thinks he just needs one more big push to achieve victory (whatever he thinks that is at this point). I wonder what he thinks is the problem? Is he blaming his generals? Troops? traitors & spies? I doubt he'll use chemicals or nukes because he fears escalation w NATO even more than we do, but hey, he's not shown great judgement. I do worry about a russian missile strike taking out Zelensky. I hope UKR has a solid succession plan.

There was post the other day also pointing out that Belarus attack's most likely outcome would be to overthrow Lukashenko. I sure hope this plays out this way. And sending poor quality, low morale/motivation troops against the UKR troops that are (as my daughter would say) hella-motiviated? Wow, that could lead to some serious problems for RU. We all saw those pics here earlier showing Russian replacements w WW2 helmets and ancient weapons. They'll get slaughtered. And how will they make all those terrible Russian WW2 movies if all the prop helmets and uniforms are buried in UKR.

This also shows how scared Putin is of NATO involvement. And it's also why all the crazy threats -- like N Korea, "watch out I've got nukes and I'm craaaaaaazy!". He certainly has the power to conduct cyber attacks but despite the west's very nasty sanctions he as not struck back. Except to kidnap an excellent US woman basketball player, which is yet another terrorist move. I think he's really worried about escalation. We are also, but for different reasons.

Today I took my annual online Global Trade Training for my company, all employees must take it even if, like me, we don't deal w this stuff. Half or more is about not trading w restricted/sanctions companies or sending our technology to help make weapons of mass destruction. How timely.

good synopsis of today's events in the north, and at the bottom mentions Poles interested in a peacekeeping mission into UKR (this is my favorite idea) ALERT: this is from a LIBERAL democratic website, so skip if that's outside your zone. The website founder is an army vet who has had pretty good daily synopsis, similar to here. Has multiple maps collected to tell the story of intense fighting NW of Kyiv. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/21/2087241/-Ukraine-update-Ukraine-is-on-the-counter-offensive-attacking-Russia-s-entire-NW-Kyiv-front

As Putin starts punishing and purging powerful people, the replacment lackeys and other poweful folks are going to start looking at their odds. Once the odds of surviving by doing what Putin wants are less than the odds of surviving by attempting a coup, he's in trouble. So I hope to keep hearing of him purging.

how many AFVs can RU possibly have left??

Given that Russia says it had no choice but to invade because NATO and US are bad and existential threat to RU, this makes total sense. Because Jewish President is making nazi horde army and US set up a super secret bio-terror weapons lab in the most vulnerable place it could fine. Yes, makes perfect sense.

Oh, you clever dog! Let's see who gets this joke

over 200 pages ago on this forum I suggested a "humanitarian safe zone" in western UKR and it sounds like maybe that could happen now? I suggested the Poles start the process. This zone would accomplish multiple things: 1. ensure that some portion of UKR does not fall 2. make the weapons supply line that much closer to the east (RU will freak about weapons moving thru the zone, tough luck) 3. provide an area for refugees inside UKR, so that the MILLIONS of displaced persons are not all hitting europe at once and destabilizing gov'ts in NATO 4. Provide a nice excuse to shoot down RU planes that try to attack the zon 5. zone would start small, around Lviv and expand outward as seems reasonable. I am concerned that there's just too many refugees for EU to handle, so building refugee camps in a defended safe zone would be a good solution. Other countries would be invited to contribute whatever to the zone: military, medical, shelter, food, etc.