Maquisard manqué

I don't understand the tone sorry. The refugee crisis is a humanitarian disaster since the West decided to  violently intervene in Middle east and Afghanistan but without really investing in a long term plan for the day after. 

I read earlier this morning before the ship's sinking was confirmed that 54 crew had been rescued by a passing Turkish tanker. I haven't been able to find anymore information on it.
https://www.fleetmon.com/maritime-news/2022/37901/russian-flagship-cruiser-moskva-hit-two-missiles/
"Apr 14 1200 UTC UPDATE: According to Russian official statements issued by MoD, MOSKVA is still afloat, attempts to tow cruiser to Naval base in Crimea are under way. All crew evacuated to other Navy ships, says MoD. Ukraine insists cruiser sank or sinking. A post in social nets, posted obviously, by seaman, claims 54 MOSKVA crew were rescued by nearby Turkish tanker (there is Turkish tanker nearby, according to AIS data). A mess of information, misinformation and disinformation, of truth and fakes. "

Just look at this!
160 strikes on Feb 24.
40 on April 12
A quarter of the offensive power.  Even more, look at the increasing gaps between the strikes - from weekend duration of 2 days to 3-4 days. This can only increase. It implies that the factories manufacturing the PGMs are unable to keep up with demand (durrr) but because this very, very quickly became an issue it also implies that the initial stockpile was even less than might have been expected.
On average about 20+ are delivered each monday.
If RUS fire off 160 (Feb 24th, a Thursday)+40 (Fri)+50 (Sat)+70 (Sun)+60 (Feb 28th, a Monday) but on April 1st, a Tuesday, RUS fire off 20 PGMs then it suggests that they've fired off a significant portion of your initial combat stockpile. 
RUS then pull in a bunch from their operational reserve (giving them a surge on March 7th), and giving their factories time to accumulate another large amount.
So RUS  attempt to keep up the fires tempo but annoyingly, the Ukies are still kicking and now RUS are burning through the operational reserve at an unnerving rate.
So now.. RUS must reach back into their strategic reserve to give their factories breathing space. But those factories have not ramped up production in any manner that actually matters. A slight increase sure, but not enough. So RUS delay deliveries so that when they do get delivery it's of an actually usable amount.
The trouble is, now RUS are not striking UKR infrastructure or VIP units for day after day after day. They went 5 days in the first week of April with no PGM strikes at all.
They could easily be stockpiling for the supposedly coming Donbass campaign, which is not great - UKR would get hit by a serious surge, possibly double the Wk 1 numbers, which is bad. But after that, if UKR can weather than initial storm, then RUS PGMs will be virtually non-existent.
TL/DR: Rus PGM pipeline is garbage, cannot keep up with demand with existing lines and is unable to expand production. They're stockpiling now for an offensive but will burn through that in the first week. After that, they're empty.

About units of 36th marines brigade in Mariupol. There was information, that marines and some other forces, which held Azovmash plant, in result of operation could join with forces, held Azovstal plant and seaport (mainly Azov regiment).
Now became knowingly that in real Azovmash group had sharp debates inside what to do, because they almost hadn't ammunitin and food. So, these forces divided on three parts. All, who had no more moral forces to continue a fight, decided to stay on the place with wounded and surrender. Russians claimed yesterday they capture 1000 Ukrainan soldiers on Azovmash, but to this time was only one video with about 50 captured, including wounded.  
Other group, led by colonel Volodymyr Baraniuk, commander of 36th marines brigade, on 12th of April conducted desperate attempt to breakthrough to the northern directin to join our forces in JTO. Alas, his group during heave clashes and strikes from the air suffered losses and was dispersed. Some small groups probably continued to go out. Some soldiers were captured. There is no information about colonel Baraniuk. 
Here Russian aerial tracking of their column
Third group of several hundreds marimes and other forces breakthrugh to south and joined with Azovstal group. In own adress, commander of Azov Denys Prokopenko and acting comamnder of 36th marines brigade mayor Serhiy Volyna (he comamnded by one of marines battalions of 36th brigade) claim they will continue a fight and say that we shouldn't make heroes from those, who could fight, but decided to surrender.
 

Interesting approach to trolling the thread. Demanding work on the game like a spoilt brat…

two mines with jet engines strapped to them
You can also say Moskva successfully demilitarized Ukrainian naval defenses by lowering the amount of our antiship missiles by two.

Neutrons are not stopped well by steel. To stop neutrons you need hydrogenous material - water, plastic. Gamma rays are stopped well by steel. The ceramics used fall somewhere in the middle. Concrete is used as shielding for example, and atomic mass wise is in the ballpark of ceramics. Steel can be pretty much transparent to neutrons, a fact we have to take into account in shield designs where a structure may be made up of a web of steel beams. A transverse stiffener in a wall can be a superhighway for neutrons in a direct line of it.
Dave

@BeondTheGrave @OldSarge @G.I. Joe
And other, who asked about Neptune ASM
The missile R-360 of Neptune complex is not a version of Kh-35U, though has similar parameters. Yes, it has very similar hull, and initially since R&D works have started as far as in 2013 or earlier, the missile should be as  localized and upgraded analog of Kh-35. This gave to Russian propagandists a reason to claim "Stupid Ukrainians proud because could copy old Soviet missile ahahaha!", so far like their claims "BTR-4 is reworked BTR-70". Russians in own chauvinism believed that without Russia all industry in Ukraine completely declined and we can't develop nothing own, but upgrade USSR lagacy. But Soviet/Russian Kh-35 was really "long played" project, started as far as in 1977, first prelimilary design was ready only in 1983, brought to tests only in 1992 and adopted to service in 2003! And Kh-35U with some improvements, like coordinates transmittion via satellite, was adopted in 2015
Currently Russian navy use this missile in next versions: Kh-35 (AS-20) for planes and helicopters, Bal (SSC-6) - coastal missile complex, Uran (SS-N-25) - ship-bases missile complex
Turning back to Ukrainian R-360 - since 2013 the missile have changed at least homing heads (or even three) and many more. First test launches were in 2018, but despite on success, there were found many problems in homing, flight stability also sea-skimming mode had enough hight altitude of flight. In 2019 new tests with new homing head and some constructive changes were conducted, but anyway missile demanded many finalization works. Also there was main problem - previous launches were conducted with USA aid - they detected target and transmitted coordinates to launcher vehicle via own sattelite. Ukraine has been developed own targeting radar Mineral-U, but encountered with many R&D problems, so manufacturer tests were passed only in October 2021 and two radars has been preparing to state test program, but unknown either it was started before a war or not. So, in present time Mioneral-U is nor adopted, but probably can be used in test mode. So, the strike at "Admiral Essen" and  "Moskva" could be done both via US satellite and Mineral-U tergeting. 
Also results of test showed that the carrier of missile complex and radar, based on 8x8 KRAZ-7634NE has low reliability and because of bad financial situation on KRAZ plant, technological problems and inability to provide timely technical support and implement constructive changes, there was assumed a decision to change the carrier to Tatra T815 (Chech Republic). Both Mineral-U radars were produced on Tatra chassis, but crossing of RK-360MC on Tatra took some time, so first battalion of Neptune have to be operational in April 2022 only. To this time the unit, armed with this complex - 65th coastal missile battalion had on armament only one launcher on KRAZ chassis and support vehciles. There is unknown either was a missiles or not, because in 2021, when this battalion was established, there was an information he had only dummy of missiles and first real nissiles have to arrive also in 2022. So, this is one possible answer, why Neptunes have awake only now. First reason - they got a missiles only now, second reason - they could have very short number of missiles and kept its for case of enemy landing attempt n Odesa area. But since new missiles issued and UK/Norway offered own ASMs, they could fire free.   
So, about R-360 pararameters: 7 ... 280 km range, 150 kg warhead, velocity - 900 km/h, radar/satellite coordinates and targeting aquisitoin, seeker field of viev +/- 60 deg (even more than Harpoon), sea-skimming mode, seeking during maneuvering, EW protection, maximum range of launcher from the sea shore - 25 km
Composition of battalion:
Three batteries per 2 launchers: 6 launchers USPU-360 (each has 4 tubes of R-360), deployment time 15 minutes
Technical battery:
6 transport-loader vehicles TZM-360 (4 R-360 missiles on each), deployment time 10 minutes, reloading time 20 minutes
6 transport vehicles TM-360 (4 R-360 missiles on each)
1 mobile command post RKP-360, deployment time 10 minutes.
1 targeting radar (optional) Mineral-U
So one battalion should have 72 missiles. Full salvo in 24 missiles simultainously is possible.
First version of launcher USPU-360 on KRAZ-7634NE 

Serial version of launcher USPU-360 on Tatra T815

Transport-loader vehicle TZM-360 first version (KRAZ)
 
Serial versin of transport-loader vehcile TZM-360 (Tatra)

Transport vehicle TM-360 (KRAZ)

Transport vehcile TM-360 (Tatra), serial variant

Mobile command post RKP-360, first variant

Mobile command post RKP-360 (Tatra), serial variant

Mineral-U radar

This is the typical story, and is wildly innacurate. It's an "enhanced radiation weapon". The idea behind it is that the enhanced radiation will penetrate the thick armor of tanks, and yes, kill or incapacitate the crew. However, they are STILL nuclear weapons, with massive blast effects. The "neutron bombs" planned were about the same power as normal thermal fission weapons of the time. They just cause LESS destruction than a comparable thermal fission weapon of the same size, but LESS is a very nebulous term when you are talking about multiple KT range nuclear weapons. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 10-20KT weapons. A neutron weapon would cause maybe 30%-50% the blast yield of those. Dwell on that nugget for a while.
There is no leave the cities and towns intact unless the weapons are detonated in the middle of nowhere. 
Another point is that gamma rays are like extremely high energy X-rays. Neutrons are bullets. AND they activate elements making them radioactive. Steel and it's constituent alloys, for example (Iron, cobalt, manganese). They then become radioactive with varying half lives depending on isotopes. The Cobalt used in hardened steels is the most concern because of its 5.27 year half life. Most of the others are in the neighborhood of an hour to 6 weeks or so. 
Since there is blast there is also downwind fallout. Prevailing weather I believe, is not favorable to the Russians for fallout (but do they even care, really?)
Anyway, the whole neutron bomb leaving the infrastructure intact stuff is a wild exaggeration.

Dave

What's going on in this thread is unfortunately exactly what happened in EU politics. None of our countries are without flaws, but prefer pointing to the flaws in other countries.
While I'm happy the people of Greece are in the EU, the application was a fraud with Goldman Sachs involved and the problems you mention were swept under the rug until the crisis hit. Blame Germany all you want, but if the 'whole system' is untouched I'd advise looking into it instead of expecting Germany/any other country to fix it.
Blaming Putins invasion on Germany is stupid though. Not only Germany is dependent on Russian energy, other countries are as well and indirectly the whole EU is. The alternative was getting even more dependent on USA, which at the time wasn't deemed a good idea by anyone. 
Let's look forward how unity and solidarity can be implemented, not only for a short while because of this war. If we want EU to be a success story, it will require a compromise from every country and every citizen. 

This is the ENTIRE reason why in the past there was a large effort to eliminate IRBMs and tactical (battlefield) nuclear weapons (and why my Army nuclear weapons secondary specialty is no longer relevant 🙂 ) They are destabilizing weapons. Back at the height of the Cold War when we had some 30,000 nuclear weapons to the USSRs 40,000, many, many of those were tactical weapons, and a fair number if IRBMs.
IRBMs are a problem because they naturally are closer to the the other guy, and therefore any warning time is much reduced, which means decision time (do we respond? what is this really?) is close to zero. No one thought back then that a it was possible to employ tactical/battlefield nuclear weapons and have it remain at that level, but rather than it would very quickly escalate to a full nuclear exchange. It was in both the US and USSR interest to eliminate them.
Which leads to the fairly recent hate and discontent about the IRBM treaty, which both sides accuse the other of violating, but more so the Russians violating. The administration's position was to just scrap the treaty rather than try to fix things, allowing more IRBMs, and reverting back to destabilization, rather than try harder to fix the issues. US objections were Russian tests of potentially nuclear capable missiles that violated the range limitations. Russia denied this but it's hard to hide missile tests. Russian objections were of our proposed ground based missile interceptors to be based in Poland (mostly). The objection was the launchers *could* be used as well for IRBMs. They were actually correct, even though there were no plans to do so. Pres. Obama received criticism for "removing" missile defense from Europe. However that missile defense did not yet exist - vaporware from the Bush admin - and replaced it with an immediately deployable and incrementally upgradable system, which also had the side benefit of eliminating Russia's objections.
Over the years there has been a lot of careful tiptoeing around nukes, all with the intent of making sure that they wouldn't be used carelessly (not sure that's the right word). Not to destabilize the balance that keeps them from being used. More recently there has been more belligerence over nuclear weapons, reinstating more tactical nukes, along with rhetoric indicating they could be used. Dangerous stuff that in the past was avoided.
None of which answers the question about whether Putin might use a tactical nuke or what the US might do in response - would we respond in kind by hitting a Russian column/depot, just over the border into Russia, in response to use against a country we technically, don't have an obligation to? That's uncharted territory, although, not for the US DoD, I'm sure. There are undoubtedly scenarios being discussed.

Dave
PS - most important thing I learned about nuclear artillery was how to safely blow them into little tiny pieces so that they wouldn't fall into Soviet hands as they overran us in Germany.

Interesting approach to trolling the thread. Demanding work on the game like a spoilt brat…

Interesting approach to trolling the thread. Demanding work on the game like a spoilt brat…

Sorry couldn´t resist...that Blackadder meme is too fitting for this...
 
 

OCCRP with the goods: https://www.occrp.org/en/

Interesting approach to trolling the thread. Demanding work on the game like a spoilt brat…

A country devastated, dead people in the tens of thousands and all you think about is to play a game? 
Are you serious?

Interesting approach to trolling the thread. Demanding work on the game like a spoilt brat…

To get a perspective! 
Yes the Javelin is 70-80% of the time, a more competent missile than the NLAW. It has longer range, it has a dive attack to prevent any APS systems (Which Russia does´nt use any way). And in the open spaces of Irak, Javelin is the king!
But the cost of the Javelin? Just for the CLU, you get 7 pieces of NLAW! Then you want a missile to fire? Right? And thats another 6-7 NLAWS. So just to fire one Javelin, for the same price. You could fire 13-14 NLAWS! And according to the Ukrainians, the NLAW is very effective (not going down to numbers). And then its about 7 NLAWS fired, per Javelin in Dollars! And the other advantage of the NLAW is! You just need the target to be in sight for 2-3 seconds to fire. No 20-30 sec warming up the sight. 
 
But in the plains in southern Ukraine, I think the Javelin is needed in big supplies. Thats Javelin territory. The wooded parts of Ukraine, in the Kiev region, was NLAW territory.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGM-148_Javelin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_generation_Light_Anti-tank_Weapon

@The_Capt
I already meant some things  about UKR internet infrastructure. Don't want to repeat, just say in whole again - decentralization, flexibility, survivability, revivalability. Fortunately, for 30 years Ukrianian state in bad sense of this word, couldn't regulate in tough way development of internet infrastructure and later development of IT-sector. Yes, some force structures extored the money from IT business, corrupted officials demanded bribes for "non-obstruction of business", but they didn't interfere to their work with instructions how to establish communications. So, as result we got very flexible network, which very hard to supress by single strike. 
I can add in the night before 24th Feb our cyber-forces with support of Western specialists repelled most powerfull cyber attack on our critical infrastructure, government resourses, network nodes. So, Russians conducted operation to "shut up" UANET, but failed.
Internet is enough accessible and relatively cheap in Ukraine. For example i use home wire internet with unlimited traffic for 4$ per month and 4G/12 Gb in cellphone for 5$ per month
Here, for example, a map of 4G cover

I like this man. And to be fair, what can NATO/EU do instead of supplying arms, taking up millions of refugees and implement sanctions. That isn't nothing and a lot more than the rest of the world is doing.

Here's something hopeful for those who believe human nature is irredeemably savage:
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/syrian-fighters-join-ukraine-against-russia-whose-troops-are-now-led-by-their-brutal-commander-dvornikov
Syrians helping Ukrainians, not bad.

It isn't, just highly improbable. What is impossible is that this commission would prove it, even if it was right. They didn't even have access to the wreckage, all they did was reinterpretation of evidence produced by first commission mixed with clinical tinfoilhattery . They even accused the leader of first commission of lying, lost the defamation case and had to apologize. It was a circus.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61083402
Sadly this is partly why Boris is making such an effort is I engage with Ukraine over the war. Without it (and the browny points he accrues from it) he would be out.

RE: Troop Comfort

I don't disagree that troop comfort can be beneficial to combat.  But my point is more that if you find yourself in a military where comfort is considered you are likely in one that is relatively well funded and relatively professional.  So the troop comfort is a low level representation of the quality of the force. If you have a water heater in your tank your officers are probably competent and you probably have other good equipment.

If you gave the Russians troops outside Kyiv heaters in their tanks they wouldn't have done any better because the Russian army is not professional and not well supplied.

----

Troop comfort is a symptom of professionalism and economic input and both of those are beneficial to military success.