G.I. Joe

The implications of Patriots being able to handle a complex, dense attack of pretty much everything Russia has contains strategic implications that go far beyond the war in Ukraine. Chinese calculations about Taiwan were just revised negatively yet again. 

Remember when everyone was all a twitter about Russian escalation dominance?  Interestingly, and something I never considered, denial is a form of escalation.  In hindsight it is obvious, denial compresses an opponent options spaces - very effectively as it turns out.  It also neutralizes an opponents ability to escalate.
Russia earned this one with all of its terror missile attacks, however in the end the West held the escalation high ground…and still does.  A whole lot of this war has been us relearning that we are indeed powerful, very powerful as it turns out.  We kept seeing the nightmares in Russia but I think we are slowly realizing that we are the nightmares.  (Nod to Chuck Norris I believe).

Ukraine could lose some Patriot systems when Russia puts its whole weight into it. Would it matter ->NO
There are replacements and single losses are not significant. Also, it is best for Ukraine if all of Russia's deep-strike capability is going toward dead-end inefficient SEAD operations.

Telegraph's article sheds a bit of light on the "attack drones" pledged by the UK:
- these will be of "kamikaze" type
- with range longer than 125 miles
- effect on target similar to an artillery shell
- are specially designed and produced for use by Ukraine
- available by the hundreds and delivered in upcoming months
It basically adds up to a kind of a poor man's cruise missile of sorts. There was no information about the propulsion system, I'd love to see them go with pulse-jet, looks like a perfect application for it.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/05/15/britain-send-ukraine-suicide-drones-twice-the-range-himars/

Can we grant a profanity exception when a forum member is subject to live fire? 
Edit: are the trying to saturate a Patriot battery?

Keep safe, mate. Katsaps get crazy with missiles again, debris reportedly fell somwhere near central Kyiv in zoo area. Let's hope some idiot will not post AA stations again online.

He almost certainly will lose. The question is whether or not he accepts the loss and has the power to get away with it. Istanbul and Ankara aren’t counted yet.

One episode of war...
Today my husband has conducted own 300th combat flight. This is biggest personal number among all Air Forces pilots. This is more, than conducted most famous pilot of WWII Ivan Kozhedub. But every time he emphasizes this it's not something he wants to be proud of.
 

Their C2 were on horseback and runners. They did their calculations with Roman Numerals. Still the Russian Army can't equal them in administration.
 

Have the drones drop a decent sandwich and a note that the Ukrainians will cheerfully feed them instead of shoot them if they surrender.

I am not too hung up on exact frontages.  If the UA has 18 fighting Bdes they can do multiple 5km frontages - I think the tweeters point was it is a lot of horse power to drop and if concentrated the RA will crack.
Whether or not the UA is able to concentrate forces and conduct an old school manoeuvre break-in, break out offensive relies heavily on just how badly eroded the RA is at the time of the assault.  The RA has tac UAS but if they do not have any C2 nodes to plug them into then those fires will not able to respond in time.  What is the state of the RA artillery?  They have been suffering the dual corrosive effects of gun wear out and UA counter battery for months, not to mention ammo production.  We have seen a steady drop in RA effective fires as was noted on multiple separate occasions during their winter offensive.  As to RA deep strike, well unless AirPower suddenly comes on line and can overcome Ukrainian air denial the RA’s ability for deep strike will be limited to those Iranian drones and whatever their AF can lob from afar.
RA would need to solve for all this before it could effectively start hammering the UA logistics tail.  We have been seeing a WW1-style defence dominated battlefield for most of this war.  Only through rapid and precise corrosion has one side been able to create significant operational gains.  The question is, has the RA burned itself out so badly over the winter that conditions have changed fundamentally? If so, then traditional mech manoeuvre and assault is possible for one side in this - the UA.  If not then we will likely see a lot more corrosive strategies in play.  Between RA erosion and UA force generation has the battlefield become so asymmetric that we might see some warfare we recognize before the year is out?
If the UA really has 18 full brigades (a number I doubt, in fact I believe half that may be more realistic) and the RA is blind, brittle and in shock, then yes we could see some significant breakouts and exploits.  But “are we yet?”

First three seasons were enough good, but than further, than more and more terrible. My eyes can't watch last season with flights over Kyiv, standing on flat land %) Lagerta is really cool, but her taekwondo and BJJ-style fights in the movie looks strange %) 
"The Northman" is more cool from my re-enactor point of view  ) 

Seeing as the United Kingdom sending the AFU Storm Shadow missiles is such a hot topic today here is Ben Hodges's take on the news.
I approve this message.
 
Here is a bonus tweet for you guys, I can't be the only one around here who enjoyed watching the television show Vikings. If you watched the show I'm sure you remember this lady. 😁
 

I think a lot of us are looking beyond the grisly stuff in most of the videos. That is probably because most of us are beyond our prime. The young and the dumb watch them for the gorey factor, but I think at least a majority of the people here are looking at the rest of the information provided.
Personally, I have found that I am watching the evolution of the drone more than the actual "kill shots". The complexity of drone operations continues to evolve and watching the videos is how you see that. Think way back to the early days and it was a solitary drone used for artillery observation and now sometimes we are seeing three levels of drones being used in the same videos, so at the same time and place. Used for overall command awareness of the battle, recon up close, and actual attack. And that is just what we are seeing. Then the advent of the FPV drones working in concert with the recon drones. Now whole dedicated drone warfare units are being trained up so who knows what all levels and capabilities they will bring with them with evolving tactics and platforms. Watching the videos gives some insight into these things that would otherwise be a few years away in the books that will cover it.
Also, like @The_Capt said, looking at all the other stuff gives good insight into a unit's field craft. That gives you insight into their training and discipline levels. I think it was just yesterday on the surrendering video that people were talking about the bodies laying around and what that means psychologically and even professionally about the unit occupying that space. You can tell a lot about the overall quality of a unit from how they move individually and as a group, how they maintain their equipment, what equipment is observed, etc. These observations help with the overall understanding of the situation in that area.
Overall I think there is a lot of value from the video footage of this war. There is a lot of nasty stuff posted out there as well and sadly a bunch of it is just about the grisly side of it. Almost everything I've seen on here has some value to it, whereas on other sites it seems to be much more of the nasty shock value stuff.

Read back over the many many posts here. They quote Russian politicians, Western politicians, Ukrainian politicians, Belarussian politicians, the New York Times, the Guardian, Russian TV, Pentagon officials, Kremlin officials, think tank papers, generals in the field on both sides, foot soldiers in the field on both sides, manufacturers, activists, historians, economists, satellite imagery and close combat footage, history books involving similar conflicts, they cover the granular detail of individual combat as well as geopolitical fallout. If this is viewing the war 'through a keyhole' its a mighty mighty big keyhole. Basically the only source not cited here is... uh... Brietbart, (if Brietbart still exists).

Alien Space Bats!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_space_bats
It's a long time since I hung out of soc.history.what-if ... 😁

Can’t say I’m surprised about this:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/05/politics/russia-jamming-himars-rockets-ukraine/index.html
Jamming GPS is a very effective tactic versus UAVs, interesting that the Russians are using it effectively versus HIMARS and Excalibur. Bet the Russians are losing a ton of jammers now. 

This former Bradley crewman loves it!

It looks like M2 in Ukrainian service will be called „Kitty Cat” (I do not dare to suggest another name, commonly used for both cats and ladyparts). UA are really good with social media and I love witty videos they usually post - but this one is just too much 🤣😂
 

Guessing from the drop time, that is about 50 m above the ground. Not that high.
GPS & barometric sensor will give the pilot a good measure for current altitude. Add an accelerometer and you know your angle vs ground.
With a fixed forward down looking cam and a little bit of software, you got yourself a working bomb sight.
The plane itself is likely styrofoam reinforced with some carbon fiber struts. That is quite durable.
I guess this thing costs less than a quadcopter and carries twice the load at three times the range. But it is of course as susceptible to jamming as the copters are. So I guess they will rather max out the load.
I should not be surprised what you can do with hobby level electronic skills in a modern war, but I am. Kudos to Ukraine to be that resourceful and to enable their soldiers to try out these wacky things.

Well, the frontal cortex is also part of our nature. And you were in Bosnia to keep the peace.

Since I am not above shamelessly stealing a joke from Reddit:
 
Are we sure that is an oil depot on fire and not Admiral Kuznetsov pulling into Sevastopol harbour?