cesmonkey

Armsmaker Rheinmetall sets up maintenance hub in Romania for Ukraine weapons https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/armsmaker-rheinmetall-sets-up-maintenance-hub-romania-ukraine-weapons-2023-04-02/

For those that live in Ukraine, can we say that the mud season is over in the southern part of the front?

I had to look up the author. https://yorktowninstitute.org/fellows/stephen-bryen/ https://www.bryensblog.com/about/ He definitely has some expertise. I do understand that the Israeli active armor defense and iron dome systems provide some good capabilities that would be nice to have. I do wonder if he is a little biased in support for them given his Israeli/Jewish ties.

It was an OK podcast. My takeaways were that the GPS signal, by design, is so feint compared to background noise that it's relatively easy to jam. And such jammers are becoming cheap and commonplace. If you want to improve your resistance to jamming, give your device a focused antenna that only looks in the upward direction for the GPS signal and not omni-directional. Finally, other major powers, Russia and China, overcome some of these GPS signal limitations by using powerful terrestrial-based location signal generators that are much less resistance to jamming. The US would be wise to match that capability.

Ukraine Victory Unlikely This Year, Milley Says https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2023/03/ukraine-victory-unlikely-year-milley-says/384681/

Rumored new U.S. aid package coming Monday: https://www.reuters.com/world/munitions-anti-tank-rockets-next-26-bln-us-pledge-ukraine-sources-2023-03-31/

A fairly long and personal interview with Zelenskyy by an AP reporter during a train ride in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/article/ap-zelenskyy-interview-ukraine-war-11de771129fb822f2cd58b443736e72f

NATO, US forces join Romania-led Black Sea military drills https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-military/2023/03/30/nato-us-forces-join-romania-led-black-sea-military-drills/

Is it better for Putin to think he's being successful at Bakhmut, or failing? If he thinks the's being successful, maybe he will take more risks offensively that will end up backfiring spectacularly?

Going on today:

Russia might already be using depleted uranium rounds in Ukraine, but it's not verified: https://www.newsweek.com/russia-depleted-uranium-munitions-uk-military-aid-tank-armor-1790756 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russia-arming-its-tanks-controversial-new-bullet-39682 https://tass.com/defense/1036958

FYI. The guy that maintains that blog and says he his has corresponded with the Ukrainian Volunteer for a few years - according to the blog - is this writer on defense topics: https://news.usni.org/author/kmizokami https://www.popularmechanics.com/author/14085/kyle-mizokami/ @KyleMizokami

Somewhat informative, 26 minute video, by the UK MoD on the training given to the Ukrainians on the Challenger 2

I disagree. NOBODY can predict what Trump would do w.r.t. to Ukraine if he would return to the White House.

Those Russians were very persistent, despite their losses.

Interesting spin on Putin's meeting with China's Xi Jinping this past week: https://ria.ru/20230326/peregovory-1860729863.html Peskov said that negotiations between Putin and Xi Jinping dragged on unexpectedly https://tass.ru/politika/17371755 Peskov: long talks between Putin and Xi Jinping at the beginning of the visit speak of their attitude

So was the scandal that they wasted money on less effective Chinese night vision devices, are is there more to it than that?

Reading the article, the transgressions of the people don't seem that bad to me compared to what they are accomplishing in helping to fight against Russian's invasion of Ukraine. They are doing more for Ukraine than us armchair generals here. Vasquez's transgression, Ripley's Heroes, "Absent Paper Trail"

https://tass.ru/politika/17367387

https://www.1stmardiv.marines.mil/Leaders/1st-Marine-Division-Leaders/Article/578806/lieutenant-colonel-rawlings/ https://riprawlings.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Ripley_Rawlings_IV

https://www.businessinsider.com/celebrated-former-us-air-force-pilot-to-fight-in-ukraine-2023-3 https://ukrainian.voanews.com/a/7002504.html