danfrodo

We'll take all the help we can get in pressuring this pile of filth to do the right thing.  Hopefully this becomes a cause celeb amongst evangelicals.  

We'll take all the help we can get in pressuring this pile of filth to do the right thing.  Hopefully this becomes a cause celeb amongst evangelicals.  

Interesting intersection.
 

A question for our American friends and any who might understand the DC politics... You know who I am looking at...

We are getting more and more evidence that the Biden team are really asking Ukraine to stop with the Russian refinery attacks?

Why?

 
Russian Oil is not making up much of the market, it has an effect in cutting Russian spending so why?
My poor old brain can only think of the following.
It could be they don't want to give folk the idea of how easy it is to do. But that genie is out already. The box is open... Lamp rubbed et al...

It could be that they know Israel is not going to act in a restrained proportionate manner with Iran and the whole world supply is likely to be disrupted.

If Iran decides to go full in the oil refineries in the area could be taken down very quickly with Iranian backed drones...
Any ideas on a postcard to the usual forum...

Oh, are we gay bashing?  Definitely the root of all our problems!  I thought it was jews but the insightful & informative views here have convinced me it's actually the gays.  Or is it the muslims?  I can't keep up on who is currently destroying western culture/society so thanks for all this information on things that really matter.  Why, in the US 20 years ago we were told how gay marriage would destroy america, and it certainly has!  

Oh, are we gay bashing?  Definitely the root of all our problems!  I thought it was jews but the insightful & informative views here have convinced me it's actually the gays.  Or is it the muslims?  I can't keep up on who is currently destroying western culture/society so thanks for all this information on things that really matter.  Why, in the US 20 years ago we were told how gay marriage would destroy america, and it certainly has!  

Oh, are we gay bashing?  Definitely the root of all our problems!  I thought it was jews but the insightful & informative views here have convinced me it's actually the gays.  Or is it the muslims?  I can't keep up on who is currently destroying western culture/society so thanks for all this information on things that really matter.  Why, in the US 20 years ago we were told how gay marriage would destroy america, and it certainly has!  

Oh, are we gay bashing?  Definitely the root of all our problems!  I thought it was jews but the insightful & informative views here have convinced me it's actually the gays.  Or is it the muslims?  I can't keep up on who is currently destroying western culture/society so thanks for all this information on things that really matter.  Why, in the US 20 years ago we were told how gay marriage would destroy america, and it certainly has!  

No! It’s THE OIL CANS! 
 

Haiduk if you don't like Western values then return all the Western help you've got. Maybe some country that doesn't have the LBGT and genders will help.
Let me think of some of those for you:
- Russia
- China
- Hungary (currently blocking EU aid)
- USA with Republicans in charge (currently blocking US aid)
- Hamas
- Iran
well seems you're out of luck. The people with your values do seem to be on the other side of the war. Maybe you should listen to you buddies Musk and Trump and Orban (who hate LBGT and genders as much as you) and just surrender.

Unjustified? Like the assassination of an Iranian general?

This. The war in Ukraine is getting people thinking about it but the first terrorist attack on a city conducted by heat seeking, pattern recognition driven autonomous drones is going to galvanize the entire West.

Saw this quote from Tim Snyder and thought it fitting to this discussion. It seems to me, Mike Johnson is looking ahead.

Drones reduce the mass of steel that you have to haul around that's only there to make the ammo survive the launch, even if you assume the same number of drones as artillery shells.  They also precision deliver the HE so that you need less of it.  So instead of 50 kg of shell and propellant, you've got 17 kg of R18 drone+5 kg explosive, so there's a factor of 2.5 per munition, and you don't need a big 4200 kg launch system.
 But if you get 1 kill for every 10 drones (reasonably consistent with how Ukraine is doing) vs 1 kill for every 200 artillery shells, the drones get another factor of 20.  You can make all the shells be PGMs, but then they need a spotter (drone), maybe a targeting laser (on a drone) and the shells are basically just  drones with longer range and limited maneuverability because they're ballistic. I'd be more inclined to stuff autonomous drones into 155 mm shells to get the extra range, then let them fly around and do their precision autonomy thing far away from any friendlies.

What?  No.
I want a radio.
A tank is only good if it sees the other tank first and can get the first shot off and has a sufficiently good targeting system to get a 1st-shot kill, and the range is short enough that the other tank doesn't get a round in the air ensuring the near simultaneous death of both tanks.
No thanks.
With a radio I can hide in a little hole and call my friends who deliver action at a distance to make the tank go away without  the guys inside ever knowing I'm there.
But I don't even want to let things get that far.  I'm a geek, I enjoy the comforts of my home office.  I'll take space-based ISR for $1000, Alex. And the questio to the answer is "What do I have to build so nobody will bother trying to sneak up on me, lest they end up suffocating in a cubic mile of popcorn, and they know it?"
(edit: and I see @The_Capt ninja'd me on this.  I need to try to keep more caught up.)

I wonder how much the F-4 Vietnam experience plays in to this (I'm probably mis-remembering the aircraft involved - apologies if so - and possibly this is one of those 'truisms' that turns out to be an urban myth or at least not quite as simple as usually described).  The F-4 was initially designed without a gun / cannon, since it had air-to-air missiles that would supposedly render the gun obsolete - anything dangerous would be destroyed by missiles (or destroy the F-4 by missiles) before they ever got close to gun range. Turns out that the anti-air missiles didn't perform as reliably as hoped, and they did find themselves in dogfighting range without a gun to fall back on.
New versions were quickly developed that did have a gun, and all US planes since then, including the F-35 which is very much meant to not be a dogfighter, still carry a gun, because the cost of including it is relatively small, and the downside of not having one if you happen to find yourself in a situation where it's the best option is comparatively large.

Can we please lay off beating on our brother Erwin at this point? I think people made their points on the merits, let's turn down the ad homs.
...For those who forgot life before Feb 2022, he's put a *gigantic* amount of effort into this community.

I'm sure they launched 15 naval drones from the same five person pleasure yacht they run the huge and complicated operation to destroy NordStream from 😁
...
Anyway, as for the resources. I have heard that a few times (mostly about natural gas, EV minerals are a new one) and I'm confused how it's supposed to work. There are barely places in occupied Ukraine that are further than 100 km from the front line. Most are closer.
Are Russians going to start building new mines and refineries (or gas drills or whatever) there? Full of new, expensive machinery? How long are they going to stay unexploded, considering Ukraine is now blowing up oil refineries hundreds of kilometers inside Russia?
If there was a ceasefire, maybe. But Ukraine doesn't seem to want one, and neither does Russia for that matter.

UKR FPVs are hunting for Russian infantrymen near abandoned Russian tank. After one soldier was hit other try to hide under the tank, but the drone reaches them even there. Finally other drone makes lucky shot and cooks off the tank. I suppose, families of these soldiers will not get any compensations or LADAs - no the body, no money.
 

And even if a drone did not get it the EW beast is going to be the prime target for ATGMs.  I see no way to wrap enough around or on tanks to really get what we need out of them anymore.  Sniping, glorified infantry guns and indirect fire seem to be how they are being employed in this war.  No one has been able to mass them and use them for manoeuvre, breakout or breakthrough.  This means that one of the pillars of the combat arms is essentially been broken.  Air denial means air-land is also out.
I simply cannot see how a US or western ground force is going to far any better against an opponent armed with thousands of drones. Especially if they have fully autonomous capabilities.  I suspect we will create drone swarms to kill their drone swarms so our mech and armor can do their thing.  Until someone figures out that if we have defeated their drone swarms, why not just send in more swarms to kill them too.  I don’t think heavy is going to die because they can die or war is lethal.  I think it will die because we are seeing the beginnings of something that can get the job done faster and better.

And the lead tank was basically screaming "shoot me first! shoot me first!" on every frequency.  Anything using its radio for target homing instead of communication will make a beeline toward it.  So if it wasn't an optical/AI drone, it could have been an anti-radiation drone.

The US "Spearhead" campaign will be next up for me. I'm looking forward to less mud, less woodland, and poorer quality German troops.

Pedophiles and Russia. The beauty of it is that they flee incarceration in the US (pretty tough, but has toilets and you'll likely live) for Russia (awful and not enough toilets), and then join the Russian Army to fight on the Ukraine front (toilets are now literally a hole in the ground) and, because Russia does not give a flying damn about them, they are sent in the next sheep assault and die in confused agony.
Its wonderful. 

I doubt this was kamikadze, looks like it just drop the mine and rolled back. Russian milblogger assumed this drone was too quiet, so sodiers in the trench didn't hear it approach
 

When the unified right wing National Corps slate only manages to get something like 2.5% of the total vote in Ukraine while rightest parties dominate Russia then this discussion gets very silly.