kimbosbread

And this is how nuclear proliferation happens. Well, this war means its gonna happen anyways. Winnie the Flu is gonna be real angry when there are multiple nuked up countries in East Asia.

I view this from the other side. There are 3 possibilities, broadly: Fake coup Coup lost Coup won I agree that the (1) is unlikely. I think (2) is also unlikely for all the reasons that are discussed- Prigogine could have held Rostov indefinitely, and Moscow was there for the taking. (3) seems most likely. The mysteries are: Why did Prigogine take a deal? Why Belarus? The explanation from Admin (coup won, with caveat as to some plotters not being winners) to me, at least has two flaws. First, let’s say Prigogine finds out he is betrayed. Why would Utkin and him not seize Moscow? They have Rostov as a fallback. They can form a breakaway region, stop the war in Ukraine immediately by cutting off supplies, and look like heroes to the rest of the world and have their own country. Second, why do you put a dangerous coup plotter and his army 350km from Moscow? Why not send them to Uganda or wherever their main base is in Africa, appopriately neutred? My explanation is that the coup plotters (FSB and MOD elements included) won, Prigogine was not betrayed, and all have decided to keep Putin or a double on to take blame for the whole mess, and they definitely don’t want a civil war. Prigogine wants to be closer to Moscow, but far enough away that there is a fig leaf of Putin running things. The whole deal thing is similarly a fig leaf. The flaw to me of my explanation is that betrayal is a great explanation, especially given how many Russian nationalists hate Prigogine. But Girkin agrees with me!

I think the Russians are very clever. They’re trying to confuse us to death.

I agree it makes no sense that Prigogine would make a deal when he has the upper hand. And if Uktin and half of Wagner are already in Moscow, why would they follow through with the deal? What kind of deal could it possibly be? - Prigogine is now ruler of Russia? - Prigogine is now ruler of Belarus? - ???? EDIT: There’s no way this is beneficial to Putin. To Russian elite maybe, as a way to pin blame for war on Putin, withdraw from Ukraine etc.

So let’s say Prigogine has gone full gangster and we now have Valhalla-né-Rostov-on-Don. Does Ukraine make peace with Valhalla? Does Ukraine help supply them with air defense against Russian aggression? That would point to a deal having been made if it would happen.

Given the existing comms between Wagner and Ukraine for prisoner exchange, maybe we made a deal with Prigogine? He seems much less nutty than everybody else on the other side.

We need to escalate back. Basically tell Putin Ukraine gets a dozen missiles with nukes to use if anything fishy happens at ZNPP. Unless we really up the ante, there’s no downside for Putin.

Yeah extremely smart. Also hurts the Russia propaganda narritive in that the steady stream of Russians dying on video continues, whereas there are no more (hopefully) trashed Bradleys.

Just wait until China crosses the strait, that’ll give new meaning to unprepared in terms of a domestic economy sense! I think this is very relevant for many things that touch on the military sphere. For example, what happens when a country cant run its infrastructure, and things start collapsing in slow motion (RSA) or prevent its ports from blowing up (Lebanon). I think we’ll see more of this in the future, which will drive more migration and more conflict. Same with water (ie that big african dam), same with food, etc. One amazing advantage the US has is we can suck up as many talented, hard working people from other countries as we feel like letting in- this is one of our many superpowers. However, we’re gonna automate as much away as possible first.

For helicopter detection just have a small fixed wing drone with some microphones and thermal and have it fly a preplanned route silently, and when it finds something phone home and start up the transmitter. Obviously you could strap some HE and frag to it, but you advance warning would already be a big deal.

It’s been a few years since I last read Infrantrie Greift An, but I remember Rommel’s big lessons were as soon as you stop, you dig, and when you attack, go all in. Apparently nobody learned anything from the bush wars either.

Yeah this small escalation after Russia does something atrocious is not gonna work. Russia blows the nuke plant- let’s give UA f16s. I’d say taking out the Russian military is pretty mild- it should be taking out every Russian power plant in western Russia.

I hope that we move towards a smaller, faster R&D and procurement cycle for some stuff as to massive projects. Obviously we some of this during the war where practical considerations force this evolution, but during peace it dies away. Small drones are a good example, but also the evolution of small arms due to competitive shooting. We should be giving free drones to every airsoft milsim and getting them set up with ataks and whatnot and seeing if they can figure out fun solutions for jamming and camouflage.

Not to beat the dead horse of “Underestimating Russia”, but I have several friends who are well-informed and intelligent who work or have worked in national security related fields, who still can’t reconcile Russia’s performance with the model they have in their heads. They keep on saying “there has to be some cunning plan” or “they have to have reserves” or a resigned sigh and reach for the scotch.

Capt’s Razor: Never attribute to cleverness and planning that which can be adequately explained by stupidity or materiel shortages. This also applies to nearly every discussion on China!

I'm gonna on record and say 6.8x51mm is fine for dmr, but is a bad idea and won't happen for your standard infantry rifle or squad mg for a bunch of reasons: Barrel life is going to suck, horribly. SIG claims 12k rounds; that's overly optimistic, 2k is more likely The round is heavier, so less ammunition carried per soldier The round suppresses less well, which makes it unsuitable for general purpose combat, which includes CQB and shooting from vehicles Recoil is higher I think a more promising direction for small arms is going further in the direction of smart munitions- heat seeking grenade/drones, 40mm grenades that can be guided by drone, miniature missiles/drones where a soldier can carry a bunch of these, and they can seek out enemies behind cover at distances of 5m to 5km.

Kadyrov's troops in Belgorod followed up by Wagner seems like the absolute best-case scenario for the RVC/BPR. I can't imagine them not shooting each other.

As we speculated many pages ago, Troits'ke would be a great target to cut rail lines to Donetsk and push supply routes 100km east. If UA isn't averse to holding Russian territory, Urazovo might be the way to go, and that threats Valuyki where Russia previously staged troops.

The idea of UAVs as an aerial minefield is an interesting way of thinking about framing how we think about employing them. If your minefield can be deployed at a moments notice, that is pretty cool. Do some of the principles of clearing minefields also apply to clearing an area of drones?

Yeah all of those are really heavy. I guess what I’m really asking, with zero knowledge of mine fuzing, is can you set off AT mines with something much lighter, ex a jackhammer with a compactor plate, or an electromagnet so you don’t need a giant vehicle to move it around, and it’s more expendable. Ah, so once you find the minefield with roller, flail, plough, sensors etc, then it’s charges all away?

Yeah, the fundamental problem doesn’t change in that you need a bunch of them. Does mine clearing require a lot of mass on the clearing vehicle, or could you make it much smaller and use a jackhammer or electromagnet to trigger mines?

Combat range of a ka52 is ~300 freedom miles, so that means any helicopter base supporting defense is in storm shadow range. Presumably UA knows where they are based, so that might be a nice juicy target.

So this might be an incredibly stupid question, but why aren’t the mine plows/mine clearers unmanned and controlled by a wire or laser or radio by following vehicles? Is it because mine clearing is not something the US expects to do, and the old ways are fine?

The unfortunate trifecta of jamming, signal leakage and signal interference (from too many vehicles or operators) are the achilles heels of unmanned vehicles and are absolutely going to be the driver for more autonomy. This is compounded by going on offense where small drones are gonna be operating at max range and endurance.

At least there’s only one mess the Russians have videos of, so that’s encouraging. If there were big losses in multiple sectors, I would be much more worried and the Russians would be pushing that out as fast and far as possible.