Huba

Every time I read someone writing in all caps "HERE'S WHAT THE MEDIA WILL NOT TELL YOU" it goes into my mental spam filter and I just ignore it. Same with comments that end with "crying with laughter" emojis.

My view is pure old school MAD deterrence: 'if one nuke is blown up to create a dirty bomb, mofos, then two do.'
The second would be Kursk NPP, 3GW, just 100km from the frontier.

 

Muscovites seem to be genuinely worried about this bridgehead and are striking it with everything they have, including Iskanders.
Edit:
Also this:
As horrible as it sounds, the biggest contribution made by these few armor companies that UA lost in the first days of counteroffensive, was showing everyone that they in fact are not equipped to do  offensive actions in a way acceptable for UA command AND NATO partners. Here's hope that that half-assing our support is really ending and they will get all they need, including the most destructive weapons in our disposal. 

Depends how high the wire is, and how bright the searchlights and how alert the guards... Only 80% joking.

A pitty Ukraine must limit itself in response when comes to striking Belarussian territory... interesting if core Wagnerites will content themselves with living in tents?
There are many discussions here if Wagnerites can be used to put additional pressure on Lithuanian and Polish borders- till now, we know that most violent actions by "emigrants" were closely coordinated by Russian intelligence, if not directly insipred and planned by them. With advent of this new mercenary brutal force, things may heat up, especially since they have plenty of contacts in Africa. If camp is indeed for them, it is unlikely they will simply sit there doing nothing.

When only tool at your disposal is a drone:
 

Or incompetence or malice.
Look at the persistent anti-nuclear power efforts supported by the Soviet Union. They don’t care which group they use, just the ends that matter.

When only tool at your disposal is a drone:
 

While I generally agree, the nature of this fight is existential. A lot of things have to be put to the side unfortunately.  Reality trumps what may have been desired. I am sure the UA would prefer not to mine their own country, but considering how many Russia is dumping, that earlier figure of them clearing 10x as many as they laid is likely going to be a low ball for the reality facing Ukraine. 

Muscovites seem to be genuinely worried about this bridgehead and are striking it with everything they have, including Iskanders.
Edit:
Also this:
As horrible as it sounds, the biggest contribution made by these few armor companies that UA lost in the first days of counteroffensive, was showing everyone that they in fact are not equipped to do  offensive actions in a way acceptable for UA command AND NATO partners. Here's hope that that half-assing our support is really ending and they will get all they need, including the most destructive weapons in our disposal. 

Sushko is a fabricator. Avoid. 

Regarding Ukraine and AP mines, the annual meeting of the parties to the Ottawa Convention has just concluded.
This from a newsletter I just received a couple of days ago:
“Ukraine is a reliable member of the international community and fully committed to the implementation of all international obligations including to the non-use of anti-personnel mines as a means of warfare”. Ukraine further added that even while exercising its right to self-defence, Ukraine has not sought to use this prohibited weapon. “We remain fully committed to the principles of the Ottawa Convention, to the letter and spirit of the Convention,” concluded the delegation.
So while Ukrainian troops might have used AP mines, the official Ukrainian position is still that they do not want to use those things.
That might change, of course, but it's worth keeping in mind that the mine ban convention is completely voluntary.
 

I made a little map of airbases Russia is known to be using for operations in Ukraine. This is not comprehensive but should give an idea of what a difference ATACMS could make.
Henichesʹkyy and Berdyansk are already in Storm Shadow range. Yeysk, Taganrog and Millerovo probably are as well, depending on how close to the front lines Ukraine is flying their SU-24s.
So the difference in capability comes into play in southern Crimea, including the Kerch bridge if Ukraine is allowed to target it.

 
 

Quantity has a quality all its own said someone, somewhen. There are publicly available satellite pictures of Russian helicopters sitting in the on air fields in Northern Crimea. The issue is that repeated disasters have at least taught the Russians to disperse them. So Ukraine would only get one or two helicopters per missile. Whether or not that is a good deal depends on how many missiles you have, and how much damage the helicopters are causing. The choppers have proved to be a problem, so if there are enough missiles on hand...
 
I think a lot of the ATACMS awaiting upgrade are currently DPICM war heads. They would actually be far MORE useful to Ukraine, for things like killing helicopters. We would just have to get over ourselves. While we were at it we could send Ukraine a few tens of thousands of the older M26 rockets for the HIMARS. The grid square deletion experience might have noticeable effect on Russian morale. 

The bases of those helicopters are flying from come immediately to mind. And then we have to see if the ATACMS come with permission to shoot them at the Kerch bridge. I suspect a combined attack on the bridge by ATACMS and Storm Shadow would be more than Russian air defense can handle, assuming it could handle either one.
There is also the simple issue of maintaining the pressure Storm Shadow is applying now. Russian rail junctions have become very unhealthy places. 

Mashovets writes Russia threw into the battle there PMC "Potok" ("Stream") and "Fakel" ("Torch") of Gazprom. On the northern flank already was invoilved PMC "Veterany" of Shoigu. All these PMCs are just cosplay of Wagner, having poor effectiveness. "Potok" already appeared on Bakhmut direction several months ago, but after first clashes and artillery hits abandoned positions. Russian milbloggers wrote, that as commander of this PMC was appointed employee of Gazprom, retired police officer, who had some security duties in this company. He had no skills in military like and most of commanders of lower levels, personnel had poor training, so first fight they failed in several days, reveiving scorn from Wagners

Russian TG:
Now contact line near Rabotino [ukr. Robotyne] is along this white line. UKR need to overcome just one field to reach northern part of the village

I've always been an area studies guy myself so it's never revved my engines much either. But this sort of thing *is* influential in how conflicts get explained to the public at large so we need to pay some attention. One need only look at how Mearsheimer is *still* being approvingly quoted by the Musk supplicants on Twitter to see that real world political implications come from what are often just very dry intellectual exercises in policy justification. Seen in that light, Phillips is attempting to lower the resistance to arming Ukraine and raise resistance to deferring to Russian interests. Call it another front in the war if you will. 

So it looks like Ukraine will buy/ get a battery or two of ground launched Naval Strike Missiles from us. This is rather interesting development. So Poland at the moment has 4 batteries (12 launchers total) and probably around a 100 missiles for them. There was a big order for more made recently, worth IIRC around $500M or so, enough for double what we have already. Polish milnet was in a bit of a pickle regarding it, as what we have is enough for our foreseeable needs, with more needed either for foreign deployments, or indeed to allow sending what we have to Ukraine.
So I wonder what applications will these have, given that UA Harpoons already keep the BSF at bay around Odessa? One application would be striking ground targets of course, NSM is capable of that but it would be a waste of very expensive missile (with relatively small warhead). It doesn,tt have the range to strike Sevastopol or Kerch ( 220km stated range, while 300 is needed). I guess it could be used to attack ships in the Sea of Azov ports like Mariupol or Berdyansk, flying overland, thus denying Russian their use for resupplying the front. IMO this would be it's primary use now.
If Ukrainians manage to push the frontline a bit though, It would spell doom for the BSF, attacking ships on anchor in Crimean ports, but more importantly it could cover the entire Sea of Azov and thus trap it in the eastern part of the Black Sea.
Link to the original article (in English)
https://defence24.com/armed-forces/polish-coastal-defence-missiles-heading-to-ukraine-exclusive

The idea of dropping munitions from planes to clear minefields was always a nonstarter in the past, for a number of reasons. As a new combat engineer private in the US army I remember watching a video (VHS I think) of Iraqi positions before deploying and the DoD wanted recommendations on how to breach them. Afterward I told the lieutenant we should just do a B-52 strike to clear a path. He didn't respond. The airstrikes were always too inaccurate and the ground could be impassible to vehicles.
There are two different ideas here that should be clarified: breaching a minefield and clearing a minefield. Frankly both are scary.
The explosives in mines is very stable, and the fuse is the key to setting it off. (when fatigued and stupid we would toss explosives around in really unsafe ways, but here I still am) So to actually clear a mine explosive needs to be placed directly on/next to it or it needs to be physically removed. Both of these require the mine to have been discovered by the persons doing the clearing. And then you have to be in the minefield doing stuff like, pop and drops, ring mains and line mains.
To breach the minefield the mines simply need to be moved out of the way. This is where MICLICs and bangalore torpedoes come in, vehicles with plows, and maybe airstrikes if they can be precise and not destroy the ground rendering movement impossible. They are expected to blow the mines out of the way, and if they detonate them that's good. But not expected. So napalm could work if it was hot enough to ignite the fuses. Otherwise it would be very poor as it would not push the mines out of the way.
I appreciate these discussions about the more modern state of mines and mine clearing, especially drones. My heart breaks to see the density of the minefields that are being laid. This will takes many years to clear and the cost to the locals will likely be extraordinary. Perhaps more and better automated mine clearing is the key, I feel like we have neglected this like many things as we thought these wars were a thing of the past.

So it looks like Ukraine will buy/ get a battery or two of ground launched Naval Strike Missiles from us. This is rather interesting development. So Poland at the moment has 4 batteries (12 launchers total) and probably around a 100 missiles for them. There was a big order for more made recently, worth IIRC around $500M or so, enough for double what we have already. Polish milnet was in a bit of a pickle regarding it, as what we have is enough for our foreseeable needs, with more needed either for foreign deployments, or indeed to allow sending what we have to Ukraine.
So I wonder what applications will these have, given that UA Harpoons already keep the BSF at bay around Odessa? One application would be striking ground targets of course, NSM is capable of that but it would be a waste of very expensive missile (with relatively small warhead). It doesn,tt have the range to strike Sevastopol or Kerch ( 220km stated range, while 300 is needed). I guess it could be used to attack ships in the Sea of Azov ports like Mariupol or Berdyansk, flying overland, thus denying Russian their use for resupplying the front. IMO this would be it's primary use now.
If Ukrainians manage to push the frontline a bit though, It would spell doom for the BSF, attacking ships on anchor in Crimean ports, but more importantly it could cover the entire Sea of Azov and thus trap it in the eastern part of the Black Sea.
Link to the original article (in English)
https://defence24.com/armed-forces/polish-coastal-defence-missiles-heading-to-ukraine-exclusive

A very interesting piece of RUMINT, but from a notoriously reliable guy. Reportedly Ukrainians (with a little bit of foreign help...) managed overhaul and put back in service some S200 missiles. He hints at G2G use, with some small modifications it could be useful and rather hard to defend against.
 

So it looks like Ukraine will buy/ get a battery or two of ground launched Naval Strike Missiles from us. This is rather interesting development. So Poland at the moment has 4 batteries (12 launchers total) and probably around a 100 missiles for them. There was a big order for more made recently, worth IIRC around $500M or so, enough for double what we have already. Polish milnet was in a bit of a pickle regarding it, as what we have is enough for our foreseeable needs, with more needed either for foreign deployments, or indeed to allow sending what we have to Ukraine.
So I wonder what applications will these have, given that UA Harpoons already keep the BSF at bay around Odessa? One application would be striking ground targets of course, NSM is capable of that but it would be a waste of very expensive missile (with relatively small warhead). It doesn,tt have the range to strike Sevastopol or Kerch ( 220km stated range, while 300 is needed). I guess it could be used to attack ships in the Sea of Azov ports like Mariupol or Berdyansk, flying overland, thus denying Russian their use for resupplying the front. IMO this would be it's primary use now.
If Ukrainians manage to push the frontline a bit though, It would spell doom for the BSF, attacking ships on anchor in Crimean ports, but more importantly it could cover the entire Sea of Azov and thus trap it in the eastern part of the Black Sea.
Link to the original article (in English)
https://defence24.com/armed-forces/polish-coastal-defence-missiles-heading-to-ukraine-exclusive

Depending on who's accompanying you, I really recommend a quick train trip to Figueres where, on top of enjoying the train ride itself,  cultured people can visit an (reportedly) amazing Salvador Dali museum, and less cultured ones can see this amazing fortress:

So it looks like Ukraine will buy/ get a battery or two of ground launched Naval Strike Missiles from us. This is rather interesting development. So Poland at the moment has 4 batteries (12 launchers total) and probably around a 100 missiles for them. There was a big order for more made recently, worth IIRC around $500M or so, enough for double what we have already. Polish milnet was in a bit of a pickle regarding it, as what we have is enough for our foreseeable needs, with more needed either for foreign deployments, or indeed to allow sending what we have to Ukraine.
So I wonder what applications will these have, given that UA Harpoons already keep the BSF at bay around Odessa? One application would be striking ground targets of course, NSM is capable of that but it would be a waste of very expensive missile (with relatively small warhead). It doesn,tt have the range to strike Sevastopol or Kerch ( 220km stated range, while 300 is needed). I guess it could be used to attack ships in the Sea of Azov ports like Mariupol or Berdyansk, flying overland, thus denying Russian their use for resupplying the front. IMO this would be it's primary use now.
If Ukrainians manage to push the frontline a bit though, It would spell doom for the BSF, attacking ships on anchor in Crimean ports, but more importantly it could cover the entire Sea of Azov and thus trap it in the eastern part of the Black Sea.
Link to the original article (in English)
https://defence24.com/armed-forces/polish-coastal-defence-missiles-heading-to-ukraine-exclusive