Monty's Mighty Moustache

The report explains how RU army "manages" to remain in the fight thus far.
P.S. Indeed, Murz left full blown suicide note. Except to get a feel of the mood.
And this is how RU army learns from mistakes.

See my other post.  So Ukraine has lost?  We have definitely been around that tree a few times.  Is it right?  Well ok by what metrics has Ukraine lost?  You contradict your own position by stating that we have doomed Ukraine by not giving them enough weapons.  Ok, so if they had enough weapons they could win this war?  So winning the war is possible, except for the part where support to Ukraine has been hijacked to create a self-fulfilling prophesy - “you are going to lose this war, while I ensure you don’t get the support you need to win it.”
As to the war itself:
- Russia has failed to achieve any of its political or strategic objectives, with the lone exception of that land bridge, but until there is a ceasefire, I am not willing to call that one.
- The Russian military is a broken shell of its former self.  The damage done to its Tier 1 military is going to take a decade to rebuild under normal conditions, let alone long term sanctions.  I read a source that notes the Black Sea Fleet is not only denied but down 20%.
- Russian foreign influence has completely backfired - see Finland and Sweden in NATO.  NATO funding will be secure for a decade at least…and frankly we were half way to letting it die before this.
- Ukraine remains and independent sovereign nation.  It has distance to go but it will very likely be western facing for the next century.
- The Ukrainian military is about as battle hardened as it gets.  To the point they could make bank training us.
- Russia chances for serious operational gains remain low.  For all the reasons laid out in the last couple thousand pages.
- Russian internal stability remains highly suspect.  Hell they almost had an accidental coup last year.
You are correct, China is dining out on this and will continue to a point.  The war could end right now, Korean Peninsula style and Ukraine will have won this thing.  Of course Ukraine needs more support, as much as they can get.  I highly suggest you use your democratic rights this year to vote for the party and candidates that are trying to sustain that support, not shut it down.
Is it hard.  Damn straight.  Is Ukraine suffering, absolutely. Are they having force generation problems, very likely.  So what?  What is your answer?  Sue for peace?  Surrender?  Seriously, how on earth did the children and grandchildren of the generation that went through the Depression and WW2 come to this?  “Aw it’s too hard so we should just look away.  Stick to the easy ones so we can score political points.”  This was is not about politics are power.  It is about right and wrong.  What I find so shocking is how the USA, leader and symbol of “right”, is floundering now that history is watching.  How sentiments like yours can be so widespread.  Frankly, if this is the trajectory of your nation, China will be running the planet by 2050.
You want to Make America Great Again - start here and support a nation of people who just want to be free and democratic.  A nation that has been invaded by a brutal authoritarian regime.  Stop hand-wringing and doom saying “Ukraine has no avenues to win this war”…and do something about it!

Ok, enough banter.  Time for serious talk. You have probably noticed that you are not that popular here?  Now I am sure you are telling yourself is is because you are “too real” and enjoy flying by to shake up the “liberals and Europeans”.  But that isn’t why people don’t like you.  No, they don’t like you because you really don’t add anything to the discussion.
You see, people here do a lot of things.  Some are really good at collecting information very quickly.  Others ask really good questions and some of us try and make sense out of this whole crazy thing because we have spent decades in the war business and can contribute that experience - and I do not just mean military vets, I mean dedicated wargamers who are all historians, theorists and philosophers to some extent.
So what this thread is trying to do is understand better.  Before when I poked you to find examples of me “being wrong” about a prediction, well it was a trick question.  I rarely ever make firm predictions because frankly things are simply too dynamic.  I see trends, big ones.  Trends that are becoming unavoidably large and looming.  These trends point to the fact that we are very likely within an RMA right now.  It started back in the early 90s and has been progressing for 30 years.  The effects that information technology, miniaturization and energy density - along with dozens of others, all have on warfare is emerging with increasing speed and impact.  So when I say “unmanned systems are not a temporary thing” well you can take it or leave it but that judgement is based on about 35 years of observations on the changes within military affairs.
Your problem is that you do not come with new information.  You do not come with good questions.  You don’t even come with good analysis and arguments to back things up.  You come with opinion and positions.  And the come on this thread like an evangelist - this is not discourse, it is preaching.  You are trying to make a lab into a chapel and it just makes people angry.
But we should be about forgiveness.  So here is a fun thing we can try: what don’t you know?  What questions do you have about this war that you do not understand?  Maybe we can start there and help you understand better.  Because right now it really looks like a lot of very uninformed “well let me tell you college boy” BS.  You want to make an argument that unmanned systems are a flash in the pan? Why not go out and find some actual analysis that supports that.  We have got hundreds of pages of social media videos, professional analysis links and expertise that disagrees with you.  But do some proof of work and come back with some solid analysis and assessment and we can discuss.
If not, well there are a lot of other forums on the internet where everyone will agree with you, or really lose their minds if that is your kink.
Finally as to the point at hand…the issue is not “counter-drone gear”.  Of course counter-systems will be introduced, and the  counter-counter systems as we will see primacy shift back and forth.  The issue is that this competition will profoundly change how we wage war, it already has.  Data superiority, AI superiority, Silencing, deception, redesign of land units and formations for the first time since WW2…these are all on the table.  We cannot assume dominance based on where we were..we will need to earn that dominance and frankly accept that we won’t always have it.  This will mean hard fights and harsh calculus.  The lazy days of air supremacy are likely over as a minimum. Bilindc noted that one would need to “Deny ISR”, he is right, and I have no idea how to do that on the modern battlefield.  And trust me, if I don’t, you don’t either.  So we can discuss how that could happen or you can keep hand waving and going “aw shucks…airplanes”.  Or you can keep getting tossed onto everyone’s ignore list until Steve comes along and chases you away again.

So, how did you get to the conclusion that UKR are incurring big losses? 
 
And you came to that conclusion how? You just admitted you do not have any data to support your conclusions.
 
Let's be frank, you have no idea what damage these things inflicted on UKR. 
We already saw that the biggest RU effort in using gliding bombs, drones etc at Avdiivka resulted in at most 2:1 losses in favor of UKR. RU forums where you get your information wildly exaggerate the effectives of RU weapons. 
 
Neither Bakhmut nor Avdiivka resulted in cauldron. And in the UKR forces did not got hammered until very last minute withdrawal. 
Agent Mur.z about Bakhmut
Previously posted Murz quote about Avdiivka
You basically have no idea what's going on in reality. 
 
Or you simply do not know what is going on. Military wise, RU was intended to call a second wave in the summer/early fall. Putin is personally delaying it (the RU MOD expected Putin to issue an order by the end of the summer or early fall). Which is understandable considering the potential consequences.
 
Oh, FFS - because unlike RU UKR army tries to take care of UKR military personnel by organizing regular rotations. UKR army need manpower to rotate previously mobilized troops. RU army told to mobilized - F*ck you. 
 
Try not to use RU propaganda talking points on me. It is stupid.
During North Africa campaign British Army lost vast amount of territory twice (pink is map of Ukraine). 

In war you fight your enemy and not just trying to capture as much land as you can. 
So, in reality, every day UKR are inflicting disproportional casualties on RU in exchange for a little bit of land which is war winning strategy. RU strategy of suffering disproportional casualties for a little bit of land is not a war winning strategy. 
 
In war you fight your enemy and not just trying to capture as much land as you can. 
Have a look at UKR reports on RU non manpower losses (yes, my paint skills are not high but you can clearly see the relevant dates) 
RU trucks

RU special vehicles

RU tanks

All graphs show that before the UKR offensive, RU successfully reduced vehicle losses. This would certainly allow RU to win the war of attrition. However, as you can clearly see - as soon as UKR offensive started the trend was reversed.
The main gain for Ukraine during its summer offensive was not land, but rather an effective reaction on Russia's defensive strategy with a complete reversal of the attrition trend.
 
You have no idea what you are talking about. If you look at the graphs above, you will notice that the attritional trend did not reverse back after UKR stopped their offensive. RU rejected the previous effective defensive strategy in favor of the offensive strategy keeping attritional trend exactly as UKR like.
So, two things. First, UKR does not need to go on the offensive since the RU attrition trend is precisely where UKR wants it to be. Second, the UKR offensive was substantially more effective than most people realize - it terrified RU so much that they abandoned their originally successful defensive strategy in favor of an offensive approach that would be fatal for them for them in the long run (but would allow them to keep UKR on the defensive in the short term).
 

$75 billion in aid and the coordination of another $54 billion or so from our allies but hey, what have you done for me lately? 
https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-aid-has-us-sent-ukraine-here-are-six-charts
Which is another way to say that if you are concentrating on particular weapons systems  instead of aggregate economic/military/diplomatic aid than I think you are doing it wrong. 
And on that note, I'm going to head out to a very excellent dive bar of my acquaintance with some friends and drink to the $450 million or so that some old pro-Putin bastard lost in court in NY today. 
Cheers.

Three FSB agents got medals for their diligent work at dislodging it.

Sorry to interrupt the lively discussion about US politics, but I'd want to add my two cents regarding the Avdiivka situation.
Most likely, it will attempt to halt or slow down the current RU attack on the O0542 route. It is the most dangerous RU attack, with the potential to collapse the entire Avdiivka pocket rapidly. If 3rd manages to stop or slow this RU attack down, we could argue that 3rd indeed saved Avdiivka from quick collaps.
 
Most likely, Avdiivka is going to fall because the Russian gliding bombs (UMPK) have not been neutralized yet. Essentially, RU are simply leveling with UMPK UKR strong points that their meat groups encounter. The system works as follows: an RU meat group meets a UKR strong position, dies while the RU command watches it through drones and then RU command orders a bombing of the strong point into oblivion. A fresh RU meat group is then dispatched forward. So, given enough time and bodies, RU will capture the place that once was called Avdiivka. 
 
The situation is advantageous to UKR in Avdiivka. Avdiivka is the most fortified area in UKR. Even with UMPKs, the Koksohim plant and south urban areas are incredibly tough to breach, and RU losses are horrific.
The problem is there is a certain critical vulnerability that RU have found and are trying to exploit now. If they succeed, Avdiivka will fall swiftly. Much faster than it would be otherwise.
Let's discuss the overall situation and then look at my quick map.
RU failed to encircle Avdiivka via Stepove > Orlivka (north axis) and Vodyane > Tonenke (south axis). The assault via Tsarska Ohota (48.11372615890259, 37.77596770282691) toward the major urban area (that pipe infiltration) was originally successful but is now slow and painful. Finally, since the Azov Steel battle, RU want to avoid any major assaults on large plants such as Koksohim.
So, using their standard tactic of persistent pressure by meat groups along the front lines, they discovered the weak spot.

The O0542 road is the primary communication route for the Avdiivka defense sector. Assaulting via Avtobaza and Brevno is the shortest way to reach it. There are not many urban-style buildings in this village-style area. As a result, it provides sufficient concealment for assaulting RU meat groups while providing substantially less cover for UKR defenders against UMPKs.
If UKR manage to neutralize this assault they could hold Avdiivka a lot longer. So, I believe this is the reason UKR commit 3rd assault "to save Avdiivka".

Nah it will not. If Trump get elected he can delay decision makings and troop deployment enough to get Europe tangled in a war alone. I don't understand how an idiot like Trump can compete in the race to white house but i'm not American.
The whole russian strategy is to isolate the USA, and i cant understand how are they that successful with it. It almost feel like you guys wanna lose the next major conflict of the human history.
NATO is a sheet of paper only held together by trust. If you guys betray that trust than you global hegemony will be lost. As soon as peoples around the world get a whiff of cowardliness from the USA they gonna look for other partners. Everything that makes you live on the level of standards that you accustomed is based on your country's hegemony. Once things go down they go down quick.
 
I don't know what you guys doing on the other side of the sea but everything seems messier by the week.

I am sure the average political voter did not get that from a history lesson by a 70 year old Russian autocrat.  There are two levels here in US politics - the theatre and reality.  There is always tension between the two.  Trump is going to make big shows but cannot change reality.  He keeps power by playing a shell game between the two with a base far too ignorant to see it.
We know this.  All his bombastic statements and turbulence of his first term basically went nowhere.  The system absorbed most of it.  Executive orders were overturned etc.  The real damage he did was internal.  Damage to US democracy.  He was so desperate to stay in power that he incited illegal violent action.  He eroded the faith in US democracy.  Everything outside of that is a sideshow…that goes back to that.  So, sure he will play around with Putin to be contrary.  He will make noise, just like last time, but in the end even he sees reality.  Reality is Russia is dangerous and he will see opportunity to leverage the fear of thst danger for political gains.  He will talk big, do symbolic crap but will avoid hard decisions at all costs.

Exactly one year after the first announcement, the project is now finished. In order to avoid
misunderstandings on the part of the company Battlefront.com, I chose the name CampaignPack 😎.
The pack (as described in former threads) consists of 5 campaigns in which the player is thrown
into the events of the summer of 1944 in the sector of the German Army Group Center.
In total you will play minium 52 single missions, maximum 55 single missions (depending on one
branch). To avoid technical problems, I didn't add any mods to the campaigns. But I can, for example,
highly recommend the excellent work of @JM Stuff, especially his extraordinary mod collection of vehicles
and wrecks 👍
I recently visited the forum regularly to stay in touch with people who wanted to register. However, I have
asked the people at Battlefront.com several times to delete my profile.  This request has not yet been
granted to me, so as a quasi "undead" I will always stop by - but I will no longer take part in any discussions
or answer any questions in the forum. To get in touch with me, please write to me at:
E-Mail: f-s-zbg@web.de.😎
Of course, I can still send the campaign pack to anyone interested.
 
So all I can say is:
It was a great pleasure for me to finish this project and share it with many people.
I hope you have as much fun playing as I did creating it 🙏
 
Best regards
Mr.X 

One more caveat: 
A big difference in American politics now from even 7 years ago is that there is a lot of actual intimidation going on on the Republican side. GOP pols get swatted (i.e. have bogus hostage/shooting calls made to police with their address), their kids get targeted online, they deal with waves of threatening emails, calls and texts if they publicly break with Trump. Nikki Haley was swatted in December at her home and just applied for Secret Service protection because of the unrelenting and violent comms she gets. When 20 GOP Senators who would have killed for this border bill in 2015 run cowering from it, it's not because they suddenly had a change of heart. They were scared off it for both political and personal reasons. 
One of America's parties has entered a very dark phase and it's not going to get better unless they lose and keep losing.

I am a coder and 64 bit would be the default for new development. The reason to do 32 bit work would be to support something legacy - either your own code or some specialized library or something.
Yes, more working memory would lead to the ability to support larger maps, more forces. In the modern context more memory available for a 64 big application is somewhat decoupled from graphics performance since that would be handled by the GPU. However CM has traditionally used a lot of CPU power for CM specific work so it is unclear how this would play out in a new architecture. At the time the old engine was made GPUs were not as advanced and BFC wanted to make sure the game could be played without top end GPUs. I imagine the considerations will be different now but how that actually plays out in the design I have no idea. I am not a game developer so I lack any insight in how those choices are / could be made in a modern context. 

I afraid, nobody can say real reasons. Zelenskiy said "I'm thinking about rotation of high military command and not only military leaders, we need to give new pulse to leadership of country. We can't despair, can't give up. We should push everybody in one direction". 
The minister of vetaran affairs resigned today.
There are rumors that Zelenskiy is going to substitute also chief of General Staff general-lieutenant Serhiy Shaptala.
But who can sit oт their places? President's Office (Yermak) is allegedly searching candidatures, but... who dares to take huge responsibility on this duty? Rumors say Sysrskiy and Budanov as most loyal to president rejected to be on the place of Zaluzhnyi and even stood for Zaluzhyi has to remain on own duty. But probably Zelenskiy is very dissapointed by summer campaign results and those who planned this operation - both Shaptala and Zaluzhnyi now should be "punished", especially after Zaluzhnyi in straight way told about "dead end" of war, which can be resolved onlt by significant technological superiruty, and criticized political leadership that they didn't do anything to encourage citizens go to army.
Among soldiers Zaluzhnyi also slightly lost own popularity. Despite he continuously talks that stupid Soviet way of army managment and bureaucracy is almost gone, but soldiers say Soveit marasmus in army is growing month by month. Of course this is mostly work of MoD, not of Chief-in-Command or General Staff, but private Mykola see around the same "sovok" and naturaly blame all top-brass including Zaluzhnyi too.
So, if Zaluzhnyi resigned (and this will be terrible mistake of Zelenskiy), I doubt we will see "march on Kyiv". Troops just accepted new chief and will do own work   
 

I think this is an extension of the whole Zelensky/Zaluzny thing.  Politically towns and cities matter very much.  Militarily the answer is far less cut and dry. 
Looking on the map:

Adiivka has next to zero operational value.  It is stubborn salient that the RA is breaking a division upon - that is its military value.  If Adiivka falls it means next to nothing unless this is somehow the lynchpin of the entire UA defence in this sector - which we know it is not.  No natural obstacles, no transport infra implications.  Any core resources or communications tech centered on Adiivka?
This whole "not one step back" plays well to the public but in reality land war is a lot of trading ground for options.  And right now the RA is not buying anymore options through this whole exercise. 
"But if we lose it, we will just have to take it back."  Well true, but if the RA breaks another division there, perhaps it might be much easier to take back afterwards?  And frankly this whole sector is an offensive nightmare - you take back Adiivka...so what?  Next stop is an urban hell called Donetsk.  This is a side show the RA is being pushed into politically and blowing itself all to hell over.  So Ukraine should keep it just as long as it keep delivering 10:1 loss ratios for the RA.  After that pull back and find another Bakhmut/Aviidka and let the RA smash itself to pieces.
As to Bradleys and Abrahams - sure keep them coming but they are not what this fight will ride on.  C4ISR, unmanned, infantry and guns - get those right and then if there is room on the plane, load a Bradley.
The RA is not some bottomless behemoth.  It is a mess of a military that is playing chicken with itself.  Eventually it will lose.

There are several layers to it. In crude terms, it's that Zalushny has a different vision going forward for how to fight the war that includes, inter alia, very large mobilization and an emphasis on drone warfare. He also feels quite comfortable talking outside the chain of command and in public to attempt to make his vision of the war apply going forward. Zelensky has what could be described as a more political take on the war but really it seems like the biggest issue is that he believes that the civilian primacy over the Ukrainian commander should be complete. It should not be a competition, whatever tensions may exist within the relationship and Zaluzhny has to some degree made it one...even if with pretty good intentions. 
I tend to agree with Zalushny's assessment in military terms but I think in the long run Zelensky has the right of it. If Ukraine is really going to reject the "Eurasian" model Putin sells than it has to fully buy into elected, civilian control of the security services writ large.
My 2 hryvnia. 
 

The tropps from position 1 are not in a position to threaten my flank. They can reinforce the other positions, move to the objective or stay put. If they tey to flank they run right into my fire support. If they reinforce the other positions they fight where i want to fight and so can concentrate my fire and that is if they arrive in time. If they move to the objective ivcan defeat tem in detail. if they stay put i dont even need to fight them.
Now this approach requires good terrain analysis or it will become difficult.
If the enemy deploys vastly different he isnt conforming to the terrain and simply wont be much of a challenge to defeat.
Id also challenge the idea that there is less freedom to manouver with my approach. I have an uncomitted platoon so i can react while broad front approach may find itself engaged everywhere at the same time. That might work in its favour if you have a massive firepower advantedge but id rather not count on that.

Charge of the comets (my new wallpaper).

No its not, its part of the game. Opposing forces quite often fire on one another without seeing each other. Often referred to as suppressive or harassing fire. Although it does give the player an advantage vs the AI since the AI doesnt do this.
But if you dont like area targeting thats fine too, find an opponent that will play by this odd rule. Just dont expect something like this in any tourney.

Welll, unless they’ve also put in place a comprehensive method of eliminating said drones if they violate the “drone no fly zone,” it isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, because, criminals being criminals, couldn’t care less if it’s illegal! It only affects law abiding individuals.

This will be my last comment on this topic:
1. I will not defend myself against accusations that are absolutely grotesque. What do you think? That I am selling Battlefront products illegally via their official forum? To earn what? 150 Dollars ? 😂
2. I have invested a lot of time to create such a huge BattlePack. It was primarily for my personal pleasure. Why did I invest so much time ? I don’t normally post any personal backgrounds, but in this context let me give a short explanation: 
After working in Level A hospitals for 15 years, during the last year I was member of a medical intervention team. My job is to wait for emergency calls. Sometimes there isn‘t any of these so that you are waiting for endless hours. During this time, I am payed AND I can do what I like: sleeping, reading books or watching TV … or doing some PC game stuff like CM. For example: some month ago, last September I started my day and we had to resuscitate a three year old boy who had a cardiac arrest when suddenly stop breathing while he was sleeping. His diagnosis was a huge brain tumor and he passed away some weeks later. Some hours later, I had to open the chest of a 24 year old girl in the ditch who was trapped under her own car. 
Between these two rescue missions, I created CM stuff, as a form of relaxation. 
 
3. Of course, if one creates such stuff, it is nice to share the result with a community like in this forum. I did contact Battlefront in order to get (may be) some logistical support (especially for playtesting) and to offer them to use my work for their own - without any financial interest !!! I thought there was some enthusiasm there for such projects, but this idea was completely naiv. Did I care about that? No, I didn‘t. I continued with my project because it was my own pleasure.
4. Why did I go the way of „pre-ordering“? Sometimes, if you make content and it is placed on an uploading platform, it feels as if your content is swallowed by a kind of blackwhole. So, I have decided to make it this way, in a more personal form. When the content is ready, I will send it to all the guys who like to get it. Nothing more…no payment, no abuse of mail-adresses, only some harmless files of a OC game.
5. My personal happiness does not depend on such game stuff. I have enough real life, children etc.
If players like the content, it will be a pleasure for me. If they don’t like it, it is absolutely ok. And even if my computer should crash and all my stuff was destroyed - so what. It is only a hobby, little fun, nothing more. 
 
Mr.X
 
 

My background is Korean Peninsula analysis and I speak the language but I haven't really focused on North Korea professionally for a few years. That being said, I do try and keep up on news even if not to the level I used to. 
The timing seems off. If he waits a year it is possible that he may have his buddy Donny Trump back in the White House. Trump has repeatedly expressed his opposition to the entire notion of USFK and I suspect he would try to withdraw all our forces from there if he wins the election. 
Additionally, South Korea is going through a truly unprecedented demographic crisis. Their birth-rate is something like 0.78 kids per woman. That is existentially bad for society in general but also catastrophic for a nation that relies on universal conscription for its national security. If Kim waits even five years before making a move the ROKA will have a massive problem fielding enough soldiers to effectively fight the KPA. 
KJU is a relatively young (if unhealthy) man and he has time if he is truly dead set on re-uniting Korea by force. I think trying something now would be extremely foolish. 

Yes , but how that benefits Ukraine? Russia may buckle down in timespan of 5-10 years, but it will be enough to wear down its enemy before that time. Also Russia was never meant to be compoletelly isolated...one can see at Africa and Middle East, they don't seem to shrink their presence and have some undisputed successes, like pushing Frenchmen out of some African states. Hopefully temporarly; but it is sure entire world does not see Russia as a dead horse as we would like.
About US really exerting power we need to wait till elections...it seems for now it is USA that is much more undecided than Russia, with current champion for th seat calling Putin his buddy and that he will end war in 24h. Now it's Trump, so his hands may end in very different place than his mouth was, but who will sit in White House it will be deciding point of 2024 and likely this war. It is UA who is on trajectory for dramatically shrinked options in this phase rather than RU (unless muscovite economy is so bad it will somehow collapse earlier). If UA get lucky, they will play into another round and then perhaps Russia will face their own phase of doom and gloom.
On other side, they did arguably replugged what they could quite effectively regarding industry and bypassed sanctions wherever they could (Kazaklhstan noted something like 1000% yearly growth more in certain business areas). It can be argued that defeats already gave Russian military impulses for change in certain fields- namely, precision fires and specifically drones- that were unthinkable before 2022. Electronic Warfare is for example still their trump card and they produce enough missiles to sustain another air campaign (if it is really directed at achieving most effects is another matter).
There are pros and cons; I personally don't think we have enough non-anecdotal evidence to claim who is militarly on winning curve right now.
Well, this we actually know..."if it doesn't quacks like duck, doesn't walks like duck it probably simply isn't a duck ... If there would be massive examples of disobey, civil unrest and other signs of visible opposition for this war- we would surely see them by now. Several actions of extremelly few brave souls are noble, but don't change overal trajectory.
Well sure some sanctions are better than no sanctions, there is probably nobody here arguing that. It is also difficult to say if even in ideal world, with hardest, longest economcial stick from enraged West Russia could be isolated- world is simply to connected for it. But on other side, hoping sanctions and Russians  do something is not viable long-term strategy for victory. And certainly not the one that can be sold to keep Ukraine in game; a country that already face massive mobiliziation/morale problems at least as severe as Russian ones. Keeping national morale in Ukraine at stable level will likely be one of points of this game in 2024.
Exactly, also my talking point in this debates for something like last 1500 pages. That is why Prigozhin march was for population like watching two pokemons fighting on limited arena, not some existential thing like Russia suddenly breaking (even civil war) or even more phantstically, partitioning itself into regions, like some in western Hemisphere (and silently even some Ukrainians) seemed to expect. Nothing of this sort happened even around Wagner disobedience.
By means of "grudging, cursing and complaining" I meaned "social glue" and common human interactions that are thriving on it in Russia; yes, West managed to turn them into political arguments and ultimatelly define rules of civil society to tame them. It internalized, destilled and crucially politicized quarells as packages of issues (we call them ideas or values) to deal with in civilized way and go on. This is very different than post-Soviet way of complaining as social activity for sake of itself. And the latter one can be misleading for untrained eyes.
Ok, this is direction of this debate that ges nowhere- I was never sold for this "clueless Westerners and cassandric Eastern Europeans" narration nor propagated it here by any post; in fact I made several times a talking point we have in PL limited view of this conflict due to lack of nuclear perspective, like USA/Russia has. *
That being said- popular perception is what rules populations, and politians must hear their voters in long term. So about Russian will to continue war: yes, I think overal Western European public seriously underestimate role of certain areas of Russian psyche, while skipping over others. We literally observe how stereotypes are proven real on our eyes- Russians are throwing their males into meatgrinder with zeal that (most of) us would think impossible after WWII, without major sign of collapse, and seem to like it, or at the most- shrugg their shoulders. I tend to do a roundup over Russian infosphere  (pro-Z, "opposition" and most important one- people following nachuism- i.e. not caring about it at all) every month or so in more details, and sadly don't there any visible signs of breaking or serious discontent. Even smallest, frankly. Yeah, they complain that winter is harsh, eggs are pricely and officials are corrupt; but so what?
I mean, comme on- after two years they still take actual volunteers into Storm-Z detachments, where chances of survival are like playing (nomen omen) Russian rulette with single-shot breechloader. Nobody will convince me this is normal in non-existential, non-religious war, that has all its cruelties streamlined online like if dozen Hannibal Lecters would suddenly open own legal YT channels. And yet, they go.
 
* Btw. I am not Eastern European. I am Central one- that was formated by Latin culture and republicanism, very distinct from mix of orthodoxy and despotism that influenced (or was imposed on) terrains of modern Belarus, partly Ukraine and Balts...and Russia itself- the region we can correctly call Eastern Europe. This is common habit of throwing everyone east of Oder river into one sack "former Warsaw Pact". But historically, it isn't real.
That is good example of beformentioned misunderstanding...how many Russians not directly involved in war actually flew from windows (or met their deaths) since 2022? One dozen? Maybe two? Somebody important- an oligarch, his mistress or son? A politician perhaps? Nope. In Russian terms-often expressed in fears of real persecutions burned in their collective psyche by generations, with hot iron- Putin is still benevolent and very rational leader. It is his greatest claim to authority and fame; that is one of reasons he avoided mobilziation and wide repercussions for so long time, apart from material factors of course.
I didn't see yet any data regarding their spending on internal security alone...it is interesting issue we didn't discussed here, btw.
Oh, 100% agree it is not. But before it realizes it is in dark s..thole (and cause of whom), a lot of water in Volga will need to pass, like some old Russian writer told. Btw.- take adjustment on sheer size of this country; any social processess there takes very slow turn. UA doesn't have such comfort.
Yup, we - or rather Ukraine- are in clinch phase of conflict, at least till late spring. I am not at all in "doom and gloom" camp here, but frankly I am very concern by Kremlin's reading of events and overall attitudes in second half of 2023; they visibly managed to catch breath from something looking like deathspirall. Even Putin seems to be more and more frank with its population, calling SMO war pretty freely and admitting it will take at least 2-3 years of slaughter until West "come to its senses".
Anwyay, we will see. Both camps here are watching into tealeaves at the moment and hoping.

Many years ago I worked on a space mission concept that was doing super high precision astrometry, that is, measurement of precisely where all the stars in the sky are and where they're going (because they're moving and we can measure sensitively enough to care).  It was science driven, but the Navy was working on a competing concept and I had to think for a while about why.  But it was a little after Gulf War 1, with all the precision bombing, and when I did the math on mapping the precision back to a sphere the size of the earth, it amounted to being able to aim not at a door (as they did in GW1, mostly with laser target painting), but at the doorknob using mapping and nav without needing a SOF guy with a laser.  And that was decades ago.
ISR+massed precision == just don't even try it
 
All of this is within the capability of existing technology.  Aircraft systems have been doing essentially this for kind of a long time (see above) with less compact equipment.  You can put a little LIDAR rangefinder on a rifle or a drone and couple it to precision GPS and compass.  The thing that makes your phone big is the need for you to see it and manipulate things on it with your fat fingers.  The size limiter on your proposal is probably the GPS antenna (small) and the laser optics (small).  It probably all exists in prototype somewhere, maybe linked to a VR goggle set that's linked to a local server so a whole squad or platoon can spread out and have borg spotting that's delivered to each other and the rear echelon with the action-at-a-long-distance stuff.
(ETA: you're not just coupling the GPS+compass to other hardware, but also to a detailed GIS model of the area that's enabled by the massive ISR cloud watching the whole thing)

Get the whole FI package when you do. There's a LOT of variety in forces and equipment in, especially in the DLCs, and some great scenarios all around. It's a very different experience from the hedgerows and the steppes!
Dave

UKR M1A1 Abrams with ARAT ERA kit