G.I. Joe

Can I point out that virtually all the really quick ones happen in deserts...

6 months is not a 'long' war, by any stretch. The only shorter one I can think of is the Falklands. And the Football War. Even GWI was longer, although granted not by much. And the French /were/ on the winning side in WWI.

rotflmao!  "If you are going to insult me, do it properly".  The judges are scoring
9.5   9.5   9   10.0    
and @acrashbmoves into 1st place!

Really specific complaints there.  I am pretty sure the UA has the whole "leg blowing off" part covered based on even a modest take on casualty figures.  I mean we could always push more indirect fire and, of course ammo.  Of course if the sole driving logic is "kill more Russians!  Damn the consequences!!" A combination of chemical weapons and a deep biostrike would pay fantastic dividends in that department - a little bit 'o' sarin at the front door, a dash of anthrax in the back.  
Here is a crazy idea, modern militaries have forgotten more ways to blow off legs and kill people than you can imagine; however, at some point they become totally counter-productive - like getting into a barfight and pulling out the other guys eye and eating it, it sounds cool and definitely has an effect but your friends are not going to share a cab ride home with you.
My point on AP landmines is pretty simple: the political cost will not be offset by the battlefield gains.  If you find that frustrating, well try fighting an insurgency with a hand and three fingers tied behind you back and come back to me.

Hmm, well I know nothing of the good retired Gen but I am sure he has his own calculus upon which to base his opinion.
Personally, given the data and information I can see, the Russian military system is sick.  The devolution in tactics, the loss of anything that resembles operational offensive - they never really came out of the "pause", and them now dancing to Ukraine's tunes around Kherson are all symptoms.  Right along with reports of low morale, poor support, flailing targeting and other indicators of system failures (e.g. baffling suicidal OPSEC violations) point to an eroding Russian military system.  Russian option spaces have shrunk to the point that it appears all they have left are WMDs, "holding on" and tactical nibbling - they appear to have exhausted all others, if they have another gear they should have dropped into it back in Jun.
Of course Russia can lose, any nation can lose a war...I think we have demonstrated this enough times.  I suppose the question is "how much is enough?"
All war is negotiation - and sacrifice.
So in these sorts of things definitions become incredibly important.  "Russia cannot lose" - what does that actually mean?  Because by any political or strategic goals metrics, it already has lost this war. 
From a selfish western perspective, stepping back, one could argue that 'we' have gained-
- Ukraine - there is no other end-state to this thing other than Ukraine in the UE and NATO - Putin and his cronies can quack and blather but that ship sailed after March.
- Finland and Sweden.
- NATO defence spending commitments for the next decade.
- A clear demonstration to the globe that we are willing to defend the current global order to any and all revisionist states (kinda) - we have re-established a certainty.
Our opponent, on the other hand, has gained about what 60-80k sq kms of destroyed, largely empty countryside? [Aside: no there is not mountains of resources in the area they control, we covered that one already]  A crushing economic trajectory that will put them in the 3rd world if it goes on long enough.  A Europe that is literally re-wiring themselves away from Russia's one trump card.  A pretty much destroyed military - in both physical and more importantly psychological domains.  And a historic loss of global influence and credibility that will haunt them for the rest of the century.
Doesn't look too bad on paper...however, it leaves a nasty unresolved feeling doesn't it?  The single largest problem is that we in the west have never defined our war goals, our strategic and political endstates.  We went from "oh crap, ok so let's figure out how to support an insurgency", to "oh crap, ok so let's how to support a defence", to now, "oh, crap, let's figure out how to support an offence".  We have been stuck on, "let's make sure Ukraine doesn't lose" that we never figured out what it means to ensure that "we win...enough."  The west's victory is directly tied to Ukraine's outcomes in this war - all stop.  So what does that look like?
I have opinions but it is really up to our political leaders to lead and determine what "that" is, or is not.  The absence of this is apparent in a lot of the narratives such as Gen Dannatt's where we are very nervous about a run-away war in intensity or duration - especially duration because we have all had our fingers burned recently.
I think the impulse to re-establish certainty is overpowering, particularly within the large establishments of power such as government and militaries - they are the very definition of positive capability. Russia as a scary global power was a certainty, people built entire careers on it, trillions spent on defence for it.  The global order as we knew it, another enormous certainty, we built everything on it.  This entire war has been one enormous global uncertainty, and it is offensive to our sense of order - there are parts of the world where this sort of behaviour is expected, Europe was not one of them.
So victory is directly tied to "how much certainty is enough?"  And here is the thing, victory does not simply 'happen', which is very disconcerting trend I am seeing in the west - Ukraine+snazy weapons and support = "victory happens"...what it is not happening fast enough....happen faster!....hmm, maybe they should negotiate....
Victory is work, it is built, it is earned.  And we are back to sacrifice.  If we cannot define what we want, we cannot define what we are willing to spend to get it - which makes our negotiation position largely in the blind - more an act of faith and hope than a deliberate extension of collective human will to re-assert our certainty.  
I guess my question back to Gen Dannatt (with respect) and the mass of the mandarinate ( @LongLeftFlank that is a brilliant word btw) - "What is our certainty?" "What are we willing to lose?"  Until someone can answer that, then we really have no idea if this war is worth the continued effort from a western interests point of view.
Personally, I think that if we keep doing this for a decade, it will be time and money better spent than other adventures that were far less central to our certainty - but "how much?!", "how long?!"
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/human-and-budgetary-costs-date-us-war-afghanistan-2001-2022
But what about the "recession" and my gas prices?!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007–2008
My advice - we are in this thing until Russia is back in their box and we have a gang of thugs in power we can actually do business with - we will then risk manage that train wreck of a nation, we have dealt with worse.  We are in it until Ukraine is re-built into a shining example of what western national building really means.  We are in it until we can demonstrate what western collective resolve looks like for the rest of the world into the 21st century, and that while we may have to renegotiate what world order looks like, my grandkids will damn well have their hands on that pen.
But I am just some guy on the internet.  
 
 

Nice piece of equipment.
I have to admit that the scale modeler side of me is contemplating whether there would be any point in making a model of one any smaller than 1:1 scale...

Ukraine will get the Black Hornet 3 drone: https://mil.in.ua/en/news/norway-and-great-britain-to-transfer-to-ukraine-black-hornet-micro-unmanned-aerial-vehicles-and-nightfighter-anti-drone-systems/
I´ve actually used this drone myself, incredibly easy to operate after a short briefing. And it is so small that you can´t hear or see it if it is more than 10 meters away. It is designed to be used in Squads or Platoons for recon, also suitable for urban conditions as it can fly very low undetected to look under bridges etc.

This rivalry between services goes well beyond the bizarre. In the 1980s, a DOD plant representative where I worked asked me to help him develop a joint military specification for aircraft turbine engines (there were three specs at the time, one for each of the Navy, the Army, and the Air Force) that basically had different requirements for the same engines. The need developed from an issue with the same engine used on Navy and Air Force airplanes. The Air Force engines were developing corrosion on the turbine blades of the engines, but not the Navy engines. It turned out that the Navy spec required a corrosion preventative coating, that the Air Force choose not to incorporate in their spec because the AF engines weren’t going to be used at sea, but then the AF based aircraft on bases next to the sea and they corroded. The combined spec effort went nowhere because the Army and AF couldn’t even agree on an agenda or need. So much for having the Nation’s interests at heart.

I think it's time for all the folks who have been focused on land war to read some naval history! In particular, Ian Toll's The Conquering Tide offers an example of exactly the sort of friction projection leading to collapse that you're describing at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. It also details how we build a military that was built around anti-friction capabilities.
At the tactical level: The friction of having to fly their Zeroes down the slot to engage Henderson field meant that a huge fraction of Japanese aviation losses were operational as opposed to combat for the duration of the Solomons campaign. Weather was the real killer. We projected more of that friction on them by degrading airfields further down the slot so that the Japanese would have to engage at long range. We built a system robust against that sort friction by incorporating self-sealing fuel tanks and by aggressively using PBY Catalinas and submarines to rescue downed airmen and return them to flying units.
At the operational level: we ran two offensive operations - the push in the southwest pacific under MacArthur towards Hollandia and Rabaul and the central pacific under Nimitz towards Saipan. This tick-tock operational cadence forced null decisions on the Japanese: the couldn't decide which offensives to mass against and consequently kept their battle fleet in being. That null decision also meant that the Japanese moved their ships around frequently without committing them to battle. More operational losses (and submarines!) and wasted fuel, which they had little of.
At the strategic level: our undersea blockade imposed enormous friction on the whole Japanese war industry - it's better to sink oilers than capital ships because without fuel, capital ships are lovely hotels. The Japanese navy bemoaned this, calling it the Hotel Yamato, because it would be too expensive to have it sortie regularly. Once the 3rd/5th fleet got up and running, that undersea blockade became something like modern deep strike. We could hit anywhere in the Japanese Empire with little warning, and we chose to disrupt their plane production and staging infrastructure regularly. That forced the Japanese to concede lots of territory without fighting for it, and to fight ineffectively and without reinforcement where they did decide to fight.
The whole Pacific Campaign was cumulativist friction projection onto the Japanese until their war machine collapsed into an armed mob. Of course, we could do that because our industrial might allowed us to put together the 3rd/5th fleet, essentially producing two whole additional US Navies during the war.
Here are some stay thoughts:
1. If your strategy is negative-decision focused, how do you maintain home-front morale without decisive battles? Abstract friction is great if you understand it. How do you sell that to people?
2. In WW1, the negative-decision strategy was one of exhaustion. Is there a negative-decision strategy that can win without that? We ultimately did engage in annihilational battles against the Japanese because we badly overmatched them by '44, and it still took a pair of nuclear weapons. Can you win without exhausting your enemy of without the shock and awe of some sort of annihilational capability?
3. What does a modern anti-friction capability look like in a military? What's the equivalent of self-sealing tanks and PBY Catalinas?

I have the feeling that reality came closer to CM. The all seeing eye (in CM) created a lot of unrealistic tactics. But now with the ever present drones this has become the new reality. So the tactics in real life have become more similar to the ones we already had in CM.

This is something that comes up a lot in Soviet/Russian weapons design and it basically boils down to the fact that their systems are designed to meet challenging specifications on a budget/technology base that's much smaller than the US has, so what ends up happening is that they will prioritise "hard" factors that can be easily quantified (like number of missiles etc.) and compromise on the "soft" factors (like how compartmentalized your design is and its ability to survive damage).

A good example of this is Soviet jet engines. Soviet engine technology and metallurgy was backward compared to the West, but they still needed to put out comparable amounts of power to Western engines in order to maintain performance (basic physics) in a useful airframe, so they compromised by having engines with very short lifespans/TBOs compared to Western counterparts.

I'm actually writing a paper on this comparing the Russian T-72B3 obr. 2016 and Ukrainian T-64BV zr. 2017 showing how Ukraine's more Westernised approach to modernising its tank fleet has different priorities to that of the Russians.

Ah, the PA-48 Enforcer! I've always had a soft spot for the PA-48, not least because the P-51 is probably my favourite aircraft of all time (or at least tied with the Spitfire for that distinction)...and I also have a fondness for weird prototype aircraft and unbuilt design studies.
In all fairness to the people who promoted the turboprop F-51 concept, it wasn't quite as out to lunch an idea as it may sound on the face of it. The Enforcers would have been new-build airframes and the redesign was quite extensive (by the Eighties re-evaluation, the PA-48 was down to about 10% structural commonality with a stock F-51D). From when Cavalier started work on the Turbo Mustang III in the mid Sixties until the re-evaluation of the PA-48 in 1983-84, I don't think anyone was suggesting the Mustang as a frontline attack aircraft for a high-intensity conflict such as NATO vs. Warsaw Pact, but rather as a light attack / counter-insurgency aircraft. Looking at the aircraft used in, or developed for, that role in roughly that timeframe and the decade or two after (A-37 Dragonfly, Strikemaster, IA 58 Pucará, A-29 Super Tucano, OV-10 Bronco, etc.), the PA-48's performance and capabilities look pretty good and it probably would have been competitive in terms of price and operating economics as well. One key difference is that most of the COIN/light attack types that did go into production were based off of trainer designs that were already in large-scale production and didn't require committing to a "new" airframe. Another practical reason the Enforcer never caught on is that the USAF already had the OV-10 Bronco and A-37 Dragonfly in service and there really wasn't any niche to fill between the two types that could justify a third.
Nonetheless, yes, the Piper Enforcer probably does come in ahead of the F-20 Tigershark and the Boeing Skyfox on the list of top efforts to stretch out an existing aircraft design's service life that were ultimately a bridge too far...
Of course, it isn't just aircraft whose mystique can outlive their effectiveness...I remember the consternation from some when the Iowa-class battleships finally got a well-earned retirement to museum ship status in the 2000's.

Ah, the PA-48 Enforcer! I've always had a soft spot for the PA-48, not least because the P-51 is probably my favourite aircraft of all time (or at least tied with the Spitfire for that distinction)...and I also have a fondness for weird prototype aircraft and unbuilt design studies.
In all fairness to the people who promoted the turboprop F-51 concept, it wasn't quite as out to lunch an idea as it may sound on the face of it. The Enforcers would have been new-build airframes and the redesign was quite extensive (by the Eighties re-evaluation, the PA-48 was down to about 10% structural commonality with a stock F-51D). From when Cavalier started work on the Turbo Mustang III in the mid Sixties until the re-evaluation of the PA-48 in 1983-84, I don't think anyone was suggesting the Mustang as a frontline attack aircraft for a high-intensity conflict such as NATO vs. Warsaw Pact, but rather as a light attack / counter-insurgency aircraft. Looking at the aircraft used in, or developed for, that role in roughly that timeframe and the decade or two after (A-37 Dragonfly, Strikemaster, IA 58 Pucará, A-29 Super Tucano, OV-10 Bronco, etc.), the PA-48's performance and capabilities look pretty good and it probably would have been competitive in terms of price and operating economics as well. One key difference is that most of the COIN/light attack types that did go into production were based off of trainer designs that were already in large-scale production and didn't require committing to a "new" airframe. Another practical reason the Enforcer never caught on is that the USAF already had the OV-10 Bronco and A-37 Dragonfly in service and there really wasn't any niche to fill between the two types that could justify a third.
Nonetheless, yes, the Piper Enforcer probably does come in ahead of the F-20 Tigershark and the Boeing Skyfox on the list of top efforts to stretch out an existing aircraft design's service life that were ultimately a bridge too far...
Of course, it isn't just aircraft whose mystique can outlive their effectiveness...I remember the consternation from some when the Iowa-class battleships finally got a well-earned retirement to museum ship status in the 2000's.

Ah, the PA-48 Enforcer! I've always had a soft spot for the PA-48, not least because the P-51 is probably my favourite aircraft of all time (or at least tied with the Spitfire for that distinction)...and I also have a fondness for weird prototype aircraft and unbuilt design studies.
In all fairness to the people who promoted the turboprop F-51 concept, it wasn't quite as out to lunch an idea as it may sound on the face of it. The Enforcers would have been new-build airframes and the redesign was quite extensive (by the Eighties re-evaluation, the PA-48 was down to about 10% structural commonality with a stock F-51D). From when Cavalier started work on the Turbo Mustang III in the mid Sixties until the re-evaluation of the PA-48 in 1983-84, I don't think anyone was suggesting the Mustang as a frontline attack aircraft for a high-intensity conflict such as NATO vs. Warsaw Pact, but rather as a light attack / counter-insurgency aircraft. Looking at the aircraft used in, or developed for, that role in roughly that timeframe and the decade or two after (A-37 Dragonfly, Strikemaster, IA 58 Pucará, A-29 Super Tucano, OV-10 Bronco, etc.), the PA-48's performance and capabilities look pretty good and it probably would have been competitive in terms of price and operating economics as well. One key difference is that most of the COIN/light attack types that did go into production were based off of trainer designs that were already in large-scale production and didn't require committing to a "new" airframe. Another practical reason the Enforcer never caught on is that the USAF already had the OV-10 Bronco and A-37 Dragonfly in service and there really wasn't any niche to fill between the two types that could justify a third.
Nonetheless, yes, the Piper Enforcer probably does come in ahead of the F-20 Tigershark and the Boeing Skyfox on the list of top efforts to stretch out an existing aircraft design's service life that were ultimately a bridge too far...
Of course, it isn't just aircraft whose mystique can outlive their effectiveness...I remember the consternation from some when the Iowa-class battleships finally got a well-earned retirement to museum ship status in the 2000's.

Ah, the PA-48 Enforcer! I've always had a soft spot for the PA-48, not least because the P-51 is probably my favourite aircraft of all time (or at least tied with the Spitfire for that distinction)...and I also have a fondness for weird prototype aircraft and unbuilt design studies.
In all fairness to the people who promoted the turboprop F-51 concept, it wasn't quite as out to lunch an idea as it may sound on the face of it. The Enforcers would have been new-build airframes and the redesign was quite extensive (by the Eighties re-evaluation, the PA-48 was down to about 10% structural commonality with a stock F-51D). From when Cavalier started work on the Turbo Mustang III in the mid Sixties until the re-evaluation of the PA-48 in 1983-84, I don't think anyone was suggesting the Mustang as a frontline attack aircraft for a high-intensity conflict such as NATO vs. Warsaw Pact, but rather as a light attack / counter-insurgency aircraft. Looking at the aircraft used in, or developed for, that role in roughly that timeframe and the decade or two after (A-37 Dragonfly, Strikemaster, IA 58 Pucará, A-29 Super Tucano, OV-10 Bronco, etc.), the PA-48's performance and capabilities look pretty good and it probably would have been competitive in terms of price and operating economics as well. One key difference is that most of the COIN/light attack types that did go into production were based off of trainer designs that were already in large-scale production and didn't require committing to a "new" airframe. Another practical reason the Enforcer never caught on is that the USAF already had the OV-10 Bronco and A-37 Dragonfly in service and there really wasn't any niche to fill between the two types that could justify a third.
Nonetheless, yes, the Piper Enforcer probably does come in ahead of the F-20 Tigershark and the Boeing Skyfox on the list of top efforts to stretch out an existing aircraft design's service life that were ultimately a bridge too far...
Of course, it isn't just aircraft whose mystique can outlive their effectiveness...I remember the consternation from some when the Iowa-class battleships finally got a well-earned retirement to museum ship status in the 2000's.

Our pilots already have more 100 sorties each for 6 months of war and if we take CAS jets - Su-25, we lost 9 visually confirmed Su for this time and two Mi-24 (I suppose we lost more choppers, but anyway this is not catastrophical losses in front of the face of Russian AD). Is this too much? Especially in first two months, when Russian fighters flew in our airspace. A-10 has more optoins for guided weapon, so can be very useful. As variant even Tucano would be very good as alternative of "MLRS style" firing of helicopters 

You can bomb and straff things with A-10s in CMCW, which is set more than 40 years ago (halfway between now and WWII). I recall at the time congress mandated the Pentagon conduct tests to see if the old WWII P51 Mustang was still a viable ground attack platform (it wasn't). Nostalgia over the 'mystique' of certain aircraft often outlive the aircraft themselves.

The USAF may not have but as a (at that time, when they were first introduced) US Army FIST Chief and "occasional controller when no FAC around" my response to it, as well as all my peers, was, "Holy *(%#&*, that thing is the BOMB!!" 
Of course that was quite a few years ago and the air environment has gotten more lethal. But man, when they first showed up.....
Dave

Now,  I'm very ignorant of Air, in general, buuuut.... A10 would be a good fit for for UKR,no?
Tactically oriented platform,  combat proven and perfectly designed to slaughter SOV vehicles in a contested air space.
I mean, This is the war it was born to fight. 
RUS doesn't have air dominance, so tactical UKR A2AD could provide attack corridors,  HIMARS et could suppress RUS SAMs, although not Iglas etc.  
It also feels like a lower, entry rung on the way up the Air ladder to NATO level SEAD and 4-5th Gen air platforms.  
Running ops in contested tactical air space is something UKR Air Control already has experience in, so "plugging in"  a better Frogfoot would give them starter experience with NATO platforms, systems and procedures, without the organizational complexity, massive tech requirements and systems upgrades that 4th gen+ air frames need. 
Thoughts..? 

Definitely. The article on The Drive also raises a very good point that if the "Dika Laska" MiG-29s are indeed two-seaters, it is very efficient asset utilization. Since the MiG-29UB (like earlier two-seat MiGs, but unlike most other two-seat versions of frontline fighters, including the Su-27UB) lacks the full combat capability of the single-seater (most significantly, it has no air search radar, just the IRST unit), additional MiG-29UB airframes would be of much less value to frontline fighter squadrons than single-seat Fulcrums. But if the "spare parts" arrive in Weasel Mode, they provide a very significant capability without taking away fully capable fighter airframes...
 
(And I stand ready to be corrected if my Bing translation of Wild Weasel (дика ласка) is off-base... )

Putin's invaders find themselves increasingly in HARMs way.

Definitely. The article on The Drive also raises a very good point that if the "Dika Laska" MiG-29s are indeed two-seaters, it is very efficient asset utilization. Since the MiG-29UB (like earlier two-seat MiGs, but unlike most other two-seat versions of frontline fighters, including the Su-27UB) lacks the full combat capability of the single-seater (most significantly, it has no air search radar, just the IRST unit), additional MiG-29UB airframes would be of much less value to frontline fighter squadrons than single-seat Fulcrums. But if the "spare parts" arrive in Weasel Mode, they provide a very significant capability without taking away fully capable fighter airframes...
 
(And I stand ready to be corrected if my Bing translation of Wild Weasel (дика ласка) is off-base... )

Russia wanted own parade in Kyiv. Ok, they got it. On the eve of Independence Day (24th Aug) an exposition of destroyed Russian vehicies was placed like "parade order" on Khreshchatyk - the main street of Kyiv
 

It makes sense to integrate HARM with the MiG-29, since that is the primary fighter-bomber asset of the PSU with the kinematics most suitable for HARM usage (Su-27s are more valuable as fighters and Su-24s are too few and a bit too vulnerable).
Justin Bronk suspects they might also be using it against EW assets, but no hard evidence of that yet.

It is officially confirmed that Ukrainian MiG-29s are firing HARMs (also, by accident, full breakdown of latest arms package in tweet above) :