SteelRain

Ahhh, 120mm Silverbullets...
 
 

Wasnt this source discussed before as pushing pro-russian narrative in disguise? 
Like all the 'deeply concerned for Ukraine' western media outlets

Flurschadengeschwader...
 
 

In 1994 the Danish were the first to use the Leopard 1 in combat in Bosnia vs Bosnian Serbs. The Danish acquired Leo 1A3 with welded turrets in 1976 and upgraded them to 1A5DK in the early 1990's.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bøllebank
Fast forward to 2023 and it looks like Operation Bully Bashing II is on the way. Lets hope for the Mouse to feast on another Cat 😀
German and Danish instructors training Ukrainian Crews in Germany.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5uVIPFpTC4

In 1994 the Danish were the first to use the Leopard 1 in combat in Bosnia vs Bosnian Serbs. The Danish acquired Leo 1A3 with welded turrets in 1976 and upgraded them to 1A5DK in the early 1990's.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bøllebank
Fast forward to 2023 and it looks like Operation Bully Bashing II is on the way. Lets hope for the Mouse to feast on another Cat 😀
German and Danish instructors training Ukrainian Crews in Germany.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5uVIPFpTC4

Look at all those pristine flat Surfaces just begging, CRYING OUT for some lovely ERA... 

My brother in law just died a needlessly horrible drawn out death, today. He fought for decades in a variety of ways to defend the USA. One person was directly responsible for how it went down. My sister is heartbroken, and enraged at what happened. I am in more than a foul mood. So my thoughts right now are colored in a certain way by this tragedy. Not particularly with distance, nuance and diplomacy. What happens when you are inside the box, not outside. My apologies if you don’t like them. I don’t either.
Lot of talk lately about Ukraine has GOT to produce big battlefield wins, now. Trying to put myself within Ukraine’s box:
1. Your country was suddenly invaded by one of the largest monsters in the world, ravaging your cities, raping and killing civilians. That is awful. We condemn it. You will collapse in three days.
2. We are NATO. We are a hugely powerful military alliance designed  to defend ourselves against that very same horrible monster.  Because we all fear trying to do so alone. Like you. Too bad you aren’t in NATO.
3. There won’t be any cavalry coming to your rescue, on land, sea, or air. But good luck, we support you brave people. Here are a lot of supplies and defensive short range weapons. You go fight the monster. We’ll cheer you on. 
4. OK, you have been doing a great job! Well done. Even with most of your cities and power grid regularly under missile and drone attack in the winter,  thousands of casualties, and smashed into rubble cities, you are still standing! Great job! Here are some more weapons, and one with a little longer range. It works really well so you can continue to not only survive but make some progress. Not too much progress though. Might be dangerous. So, no to your other requests for planes and long range weapons. We can’t risk getting attacked by the monster.. But we will open war crimes investigations into the massacres, rapes and civilian killings and targetings.
5. Hey, you haven’t won yet! We don’t think you can win although the monster has obviously already lost. You have really fracked up his army good. By the way, our patience is growing thin and you haven’t defeated one of the world’s largest military powers yet. After a whole year.  We are the richest group of countries ever on Earth.  We have awesome military capabilities beyond belief. And lots of nuclear weapons. If we lose interest and get tired, you probably will have to negotiate away big chunks of your country you fought and died for. If you only achieve a stalemate against the monster. Unless you defeat that monster, real soon now. Here’s a few older tanks we made a long time ago. And a handful of rusty old Soviet/Russian jets, some don’t work though. Please don’t complain. It’s ungrateful.
6. Oh, hey. Go out there as soon as the ground is firmed up and really tear apart the monster, the monster we are definitely not wanting to get any madder at us. No pressure, but if you don’t defeat the monster right now, you are pretty much up a creek because we’re tired and have real problems here in our nice undamaged, heated homes. By the way, we are worried about you defeating the monster. What will happen to the him? He might hurt us. But don’t forget, the monster has already lost.
7. I mean, yeah, the monster just threw a few hundred thousand troops at you and you survived and all. Well, most of you. But hey, they weren’t well-trained. And we all know the monster has already lost (as far as threatening us over here in NATO - yay).  So you better defeat this monster by yourself, Right now. We gave you a LOT of equipment so you should be able to do this on your own. We can’t get involved. But here are a few more old jets. Don’t work so good right now, but…
8. We just got Finland into NATO!  Mostly thanks to you!). Now we are even stronger, and NATO makes sure none of us have to try to defeat the monster on our own. Like you. Because we don’t think we could. We can’t give you more powerful offensive weapons because it would have taken you all last year to learn how to use them. And then you might have defeated the monster. And we are really really worried because that might be bad. For us. You understand. So go out there NOW and defeat the monster. Or we will probably have to reduce our support for you. Like, if things get really bad for you. Not winning. We might not be there. As much. Or something. Hard to tell. But go win. Now. OK? 

PS. I really am pleased at how the West has helped out. I just don’t think it’s been soon enough with enough of the right stuff to end it before the political rot sets in. So I’m ventilating how it might feel. While I am grieving.

I think a lot of this springs from a sort of ignorant entitlement mentality.  The world is just supposed to keep the US on top because it is the US.  This completely misses the sacrifices and decades of work it took to position it on top - and frankly everyone in the western world should be happy it worked out that way.  But no, the US should be able to simply “Let it be” and somehow the world will keep spinning the way it has - this is beyond ignorant and is heading to dumb.
Here is a crazy thought for all the Russian apologists, isolationist, Cro-Magnon-adventists who try and frame this war as anything than it is: Some wars are worth fighting, and this is one of them.
”Oh if we had only…[insert upside down theory]”. Well we did not. Russia invaded a nation that was minding its own business and is killing innocent people in a naked power grab.  I do not care if Russia wigged out because NATO - so freakin what?  We use our words not poorly aimed cruise missiles.  
This entire war is not the result of anyone’s foreign policy other than Russia and Putin.  Every nation that joined NATO did so of its own free will - you know, the thing we are supposed to be protecting?  Anyone who suggests that we should live in a world where we let regional dictators pull of nonsense like this war - “to avoid war” is deluded.  Or, as I suspect is in this case, is that kid in the class who is just clever enough to be contrary and get attention but has no real solutions to offer.

Interesting documentary about the Ukrainians getting trained on challenger 2 with a look into the simulators and other activities. The Ukrainians seem to be a mix of veterans and mobilised personnel.
https://youtu.be/S9-Eghtai3s
 

On the lighter side,

MITSI studio did a nice little animation on how countries fight their wars. The last one is a great tribute to Ukraine basically smashing RFs. Moskva skinking, turret tossing and drone mastery. 



Youtube Mitsi Studios

Also, check out their Battle of the Atlantic video

"Ukrainian soldiers on their way to Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, March 22, 2023. ARIS MESSINIS / AFP"
* BMP-1

Monuments or recycled.  I do not know if there are any left in stocks awaiting final disposal; however, getting those operational at this point would likely cost more than purchasing new ones.  Capability wise, the Russians are going back in time, Ukraine is going forward.

Hehe, Russia bringing out the ol' boys, true demonstration of Russian heavy armor capability
 
 
 

"Column of Ukrainian tanks towards Bakhmut, in southeastern Ukraine, on March 20, 2023. ARIS MESSINIS / AFP"
* Ukrainian T-64BV

Yes, I didn't think of the old t-72. I'm used to see smoke launchers everywhere nowadays. I agree with you
But the most important thing is that the russian tank is dead, no matter the type😎

Not necessarily. The early T-72's came without smoke launchers. This would fit the assumption that the Russian reserve of T-72 tanks is almost depleted.

Here is an early T-72 without smoke launchers.

In my opinion this is some kind of early T-72 without ERA stuck in reverse gear. The bore evacuators on both T-62 and T-72 tanks are roughly at the same spot. The presence of what looks to be a luna search light on the right hand side of the barrel would support my assumption as it sits in the distinctive spot since the introduction of the T-64.
The gunner moved the turret to the 7 or 8 o'clock posotion propably to allow the driver to escape. Sideskirts and the sudden violent cock of scheme are also more in line with a T-72.
I've upressed a screencapture with Photoshop.

I think this is a really weak article. The basic fact that "Zeitenwende" is all talk with nothing actually happening is true and to some that may come as a surprise. But after all, Scholz was elected for being Merkel 2.0. That said, the fact that not more money was spent so far probably boils down to what I said earlier: more money won't make the Bundeswehr administration more efficient and at the very best it will just take more time.
The rest, I think, is very inaccurate and even naive. I'll just go over a few examples:
This is basically saying: Scholz promised 100 billion € for the army but instead spent 200 billions on German's energy bills. But in reality both is money Germany doesn't have, it is financed by credit. So, it is not like the government took money from one project and spent it on another. Moreover, the 200 billions were literally about families not being able to pay their energy bills. Does anyone think US voters would have looked kindly on arms deliveries to Ukraine when at the same time they didn't have electricity and/or heating ? The 200 billions, in parts, silenced the discussion about whether we can afford to take part in the sanctions against Russia and in that regard (I won't go into the actual details of spending the money) it was money that probably helped more in the current situation than the Zeitenwende-money ever will.
This is basically the same thing as with criticising Isreal. Not everyone who does is anti-semitic and not everyone who criticises US politics is anti-American. Many, many Germans protested against nukes on German soil back in the day which was part of a larger pacifist movement - many of the Greens (who are now very pro-weapons deliveries to Ukraine) were there, too.
This ties in with the above and is both naive and inaccurate. First of all, we tend to forget that Germany is West Germany + GDR. The latter was not protected by the USA but was their enemy. A detail but an important one. Moreover, during the Cold War, Germans didn't have that much of a choice: The USA were still an occupying power, not our friends. During that time many GIs were here and a lot of personal ties between Germany and USA were made. There were and are many personal friendships but that is a different thing. Of course most West Germans were grateful that US and NATO kept the Soviets at bay. But at the same time everyone was aware that even without global nuclear apocalypse, Germany was likely to end up as wasteland in case of the Cold War going hot. Better dead than red was something many here didn't subscribe to. Now, Vietman was a bit before my time. In my personal experience the real low point was the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Being bashed for not joining a war that violated international law and was based on lies and fabricated evidence doesn't make good friends. Do I need to go on with Guantanamo, water-boarding and stuff like that, that most here found entirely disgusting (possibly on a My Lai level)?
That only 46% think that the US are a reliable ally is related to the above but in addition Germans do watch the news. 😉 Even before Trump there was much talk (from the Bush and the Obama administration) about "Old Europe" and especially under Obama there was a perceived shift towards Asia instead of Europe. Then there were all the NSA-shenanigans. Tapping into our Chancellor's mobile? Reliable allies, for certain. (Remember that Snowden is considered a hero, not a traitor by the majority of Germans for exactly this reason.) 
I don't think I have to discuss Trump here. Suffice to say that it reminded many who were naive about states being friends that states interact based on interests and that the US (like probably all other countries in the world, this is not about US-bashing) would be a reliable ally for just as long as it is in their interest to be.
Apologies if my words hurt feelings. This is a difficult topic. Let me say that many Germans like US culture - um, no, US lifestyle, the USA are still too young to have something that qualifies as culture 😉 - have US friends, love to travel there and all that. This personal level is just not the same as trusting the USA as a state or the US government.

Nothing of this should come as a surprise to anyone here. We German forumites told you so more or less every time when everyone demanded that Germany should deliver Leopards from Bundeswehr stocks to Germany. 🤷‍♂️

And much of the news coverage has been "woe is Ukraine, they don't stand a chance" rather than "why can't the alleged second most powerful army in the world take a small town like Bakhmut in months, and why are they trying anyway?"  

One thing about this war that I find very frustrating is that we, the collective West, seem to constantly allow Russia to define much of the narrative. It's usually not too difficult to expose their lies, but we appear to always allow them to first make accusations, to which we then respond. Maybe it's just the impression that I have, but I would really like to see the West go much more over to the PR offensive. Let's put Hollywood and 5th Avenue to work on this.
The Russians are the biggest bunch of pearl clutching, hippocritical Karen's on the planet. I find it disgusting how they were all a bunch of "good little Athiests" during the Soviet era. Now, their same leaders, including Putin, have suddenly found God. Naturally, he's on their side. It's just so transparent. They also scream about how NATO is defacto an active participant in this war, which is complete BS. Our armies are not shooting at anyone. Yet, nobody points out that the Soviets not only sent everything but the kitchen sink to Korea in the 1950s, they also sent Russian pilots, who were actively engaged in combat with American forces.
We need to go after them mercilessly on the public relations front. I think it would also help to educate so many in the general public, all over the world, who suffer from selective memory loss and continue to want to give these scum bags the benefit of doubt and give deference to the point of view of those "poor Russians who are just acting out because they feel threatened."
Boy, I just needed to rant for a minute today.

These are the real dividers in Europe:

 
and of course this:

 
From: https://atlasofprejudice.com/

Again, they probably should have tried that about 10 months ago and not after nearly a year of wasting ammunition and equipment losses. 
That, and this is a Zap Brannigan strategy:

Shame on you, mate. And all who liked your foolish remarks.
https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/aussenpolitik/laenderinformationen/ukraine-node/ukraine-solidarity/2513994
'Germany is also the largest contributor to the refinancing fund of the European Peace Facility (EPF), which so far has enabled the provision of 3.1 billion euro from across Europe; these funds are to be made available between 2022 and 2026, to support the delivery of military equipment from EU member states to the Ukrainian armed forces'.
Get it? All those so called gifts from several European countries, are mainly paid for by...yes, the Germans.