pintere

From a Ukrainian Telegram. Can’t confirm, though interesting if true. We may see more of western troops being introduced gradually into ever more direct roles.
"France secretly sent its military to Ukraine - ex-Pentagon official Stephen Bryan
According to him, about 100 Foreign Legion soldiers from the 3rd French Infantry Regiment were stationed in Slavyansk to support the 54th Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. They do artillery and surveillance. In total, it is planned to send about 1,500 legionnaires to Ukraine.
It is not possible to confirm that information…"

This! The National prejudice attitude that many on this forum seem to have toward Russians tends to color their comments and lead them to dehumanize and demonize the Russian people as ignorant savages who are always drunk, raping and killing babies. Yes, possibly the conscripts and prisoner “volunteers” are more brutal and resigned to their deaths than seems the norm. Can you say Igor Sikorsky, Tolstoy, Tchikovsky? Not everyone is ignorant, uneducated, and brutal. No one should be surprised by Russians who make intelligent and insightful statements. I see the same ignorant and prejudicial statements about every opponent the U.S. has ever faced. It’s much easier to kill a fellow Human being when you make that person out to be so inferior to you.

Personally I don't know how I feel about tanks being on the way out vs not but probably good to bring up these tweets. Makes sense to me, if offensives can't happen and you need something to use against enemy pushes and everything else is in short supply....is it ideal? Guess not but better than dead friendlies.
Random poster I follow but he brings up a really good point that does not just apply to Abrams but to just in general the mindset of full on conventional conflict and the amount of losses expected and the fact the West haven't had the type of playing field in forever and the last time comparable was a cakewalk (ish).
So....what was the expected tank losses in a full on conventional NATO vs USSR conflict?
 

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.

It should be noted that the 20k number is very early, and doesn’t at all reflect the situation now. From what I’ve gathered, many of those volunteers either quit soon after arriving or have made their way back home by now in any case. 
The Ukraine foreign legion has three battalions currently active, with one extra used for training. A handful of other foreign volunteers are scattered throughout the regular Ukrainian units, but these are few and far between. 
Based on this I estimate that there’s probably in the ballpark of 5k foreigners in the Ukrainian military right now. Certainly no more than 10k. But perhaps our Ukrainian regulars can give a more informed estimate than this.

I would very much like for the Ukrainian strategic strike campaigns to stop being “symbolic” and start shaping the battle space for re-engaging in offensive operations.  Symbolism is great but destroying Russian abilities to effectively defend an 800km frontage with a highly degraded military are much better.  Further, “symbolism” is not going to keep western support coming…operational gains that push the Russians back will.  The thumbnail sketch plan:
- Re-establish denial of air and ground. 

- Hit the RUAF hard and keep them well back.
- Hit The RA where it hurts…logistics, enablers and C2.  Prioritize artillery and EW.
- Hit the SLOCs.  Hard military targets that move all that hardware and people to the front and then up and down it.
- Solve for offence.  Stop using FPVs defensively now that artillery is showing up and use them offensively en masse.  Saturate bridgeheads and try bounce crossings at scale.
- Re-establish forward momentum and get the RA reacting to them, not the other way around.
- Bite, grab and hold….repeat.  Eventually, if we are lucky, corrosive warfare will work again and the RA will have to re-set like it did in Fall 22.
That is one helluva bill to pay but it is the one in front of the UA and the West to support.
Do not waste limited military high end hardware on “symbols”…use it to kill the Russian war machine.

To do what with exactly?  Choke off the Crimea?  Except for that whole strategic corridor problem of course.  Screw that, the Kerch Bridge would soak up a lot of punishment for not enough gain.  Russia’s ability to attack or defend is not dependent on it right now at all.  Maybe if they got bottled up in the Crimea but that would take breaking the defence in the middle which is no small hill to climb.  Nor will Russia fall by some weird symbolism.  
Use the damned missiles to hit strat LOCs, airfields, ports and C2 nodes to erode the Russia ability to prosecute the war directly.  In the business we call it “shaping”.  Then solve for those minefields and regain operational offensive initiative.  The Kerch Bridge does little to support any of that beyond making us feel better.

So for once the Russians would be right if they said it was all the CIA‘s doing 😂

I think if Ukrainians get to choose what the limited funds are used for, Abrams is not on that list

Found this in the thread of the GOBLN:
Ukraine has developed a drone mine-detector called “Brave 1”. It can survey 3000 m2 on a 30 minute charge. The drone scans the surface and creates a map of metal containing objects using GPS tags. It grades the size of each detection and attaches photos or video of the ground.

So for once the Russians would be right if they said it was all the CIA‘s doing 😂

So for once the Russians would be right if they said it was all the CIA‘s doing 😂

So for once the Russians would be right if they said it was all the CIA‘s doing 😂

So for once the Russians would be right if they said it was all the CIA‘s doing 😂

Some time ago this was biosphere reservation "Sribnianskyi forest" (Kreminna area). Complete devastation. Filmed by "Azov" brigade on retaken positions.
CM should have this type of trees after period of intensive shellings - just a standing or falling down barrels without branches and leaves. 
 
 

So for once the Russians would be right if they said it was all the CIA‘s doing 😂

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

I hereby swear that if M Johnson actually allows for big aid package to Ukraine that I will not call him any more bad names.  Until the next UKR aid package he blocks.  UKR needs this so badly.  I wonder how long before US 155mm & patriot ordnance is actually on site at the front?
 

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.
 
 

Given Warhammer has long been another hobby/interest of mine, I had to Google. The internet did not disappoint. 

The problem with battleships guns is that they can only be fired from a battleship. They are sort the poster child for somethig that is going to be few, expensive, and too valuable to lose. Where you can dump cruisse missiles out submarines, and other PGMs out submarines that are much harder to kill, or cheap surface vessels that could be praticlly disposable. The unbelievably expensive radar, defensive lasers, and who knows what else a surface ship will need to actually be survivable can go on a platform dedicated to staying alive, and providing C4SIR to the miisslie barges..
Ranges for artillery and drones are just going to go up, and then up more. 
https://www.nammo.com/story/the-range-revolution/
100 km 155 is in late stage testing.
Perun covers current and near future drones here with his usual brilliance, was posted a few pages ago, but definitely worth your time if you haven't watched it yet.
What all of this adds up to is an ever expanding grey zone/no mans land in a more or less equal fight between first tier militaries, and probably vastly higher costs for a first tier power to take on a second, or third tier one. We are already at the point where both sides in Ukraine can barely bring a vehicles within 10km of the front, and they certainly can't stop moving in that  zone for more than a minute or two. Next year in Ukraine that could easily be twenty km instead of ten. In the next war, five or ten years from now it could easily be fifty.
 
U.S. is at the point of trying to get rid of towed guns completely. They can't shoot far enough, or scoot fast enough.
 

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.

It looks like I have 2 more. Rattenkreig and The Cross of Iron.

I think the "joke" becomes more apparent in the context of the Soviet Union, when huge part of books, films and art was specifically about Wehrmacht being the worst enemy of the Russian man. And in order to underline the heroism of the Russian man, sometimes (particularly at the beginning of those films/books) the German soldiers were portrayed as extremely well trained killing machines, while the Soviets as victims and well meaning, self-sacrificing amateurs with basic weapons. And of course the atrocities of the Werhmacht and Waffen SS were played up.
So the symbolic message of painting a Waffen SS divisional symbol on a tank or a helmet I would read like a combination of <<Russians, I hate you, I am your worst nightmare, I am a superior soldier and a human being in general, your weapons are no match for mine, and I will take revenge on you with horrible deeds straight out of "Go and See">>.  I have no doubts it may be an attractive message for a soldier in this war. Obviously, a hard sell to someone watching news in the West.