How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Taranis]

7 hours ago, Huba said:

Definitely CAESAR, Dana/ Zuzana is a differently looking beast altogether, much more resembling tracked SPGs, with rotating turret etc.

There's nothing indicating that CAESAR's are already in Ukraine though, might be a random training video. But if they are there, Ukraine suddenly aquired super nimble 40km+ ranged arty unit, that could acutally make an impact around Izyum, given the distances involved there. 

Zuzana just for comparison:

@billbindc @dan/california
Yes the video previously shown is that of a CAESAR. For me, it's almost certainly training. I will even tell you that it seems to be in Canjuers in the south of France.
What can demonstrate that it is a practice is the fact that there is no crew around the piece whereas the goal of the CAESAR is speed so the loader should be right next to the breech on the right. In addition, the aimer triggers the shot remotely thanks to a remote-controlled box. The funny thing is, I've NEVER used this remote control box and the shot was always fired from the baseplate. The advantage of firing from the baseplate is that the aimer is directly next to the control box and allows it to immediately re-aim the barrel. (and it's safe this way because he is not just behind the breech)

You can see from the video that this is a shot with probably the maximum amount of propellant charge (considering the blast from the muzzle and the height at which the front of the truck rises). In Afghanistan, we were pulling maximum load and the front was rising well a meter high. This would explain why the firing would be done from a distance (safety, training) because the load is maximum and the crew is not used to it. But in practice there is no need at all (it is even useless and a waste of time) to shoot from a remote box.
For a bit more detail and in real engagement there would be 1 to 2 loaders on the right, 1 pilot/assistant loader on the left, 1 aimer just aft left and finally the leader on the rear as seen on the video.

The range of the CAESAR is indeed 42km (by adding kits on the shell reducing the drag added on the back of the shell "RTC : Réduction de Traînée de Culot"). It can go up to 50km with rocket shells apparently (I didn't know those).
Honestly, I think Western artillery will be much superior to Russian ones. One of the comments earlier said they had special shells with comparable range but honestly the russians are already struggling to get normal shells which I'm sure not the case with the west which is full of shells specials. I'm not saying we really have a lot of them but the normal shell to special shell ratio is higher. The Russians claim a lot of things (large reserve of tanks, high-tech missiles, T-90M, T-14) but in the end, there are hardly any or they don't work. Moreover, the western artillery is very experienced by all the previous conflicts and the materials have been perfected. Even if we accept that the Russians obtain an identical range, they will not in all cases have the precision and the intelligence that Western systems use. So UKR will be better than russian in counter-battery. As a reminder, the CAESAR uses a navigation system derived from a nuclear submarine... It hits hard, far and precisely (while for the Russians I have doubts on the last point).

Finally a short video so that you can see a little bit of the handling of the vehicle.
 

 

[kraze]

4 hours ago, FancyCat said:

why is he holding cooking oil, a can and bread? i saw photos of people holding money and a caption that it was payment for the deaths of their relatives but tbh, i ignored it as fake cause, it looked absurd. 

Because you are a westerner.

Russians are extremely poor and right now an average salary there is already down to $100 a month, which means poorest guys like this one gets two digits.

They weren't better off before their economics went to hell so stuff like cooking oil and whatnot is a real treat to them.

It's mindblowing to you, but horrific to anyone sharing the border with russians. Which is why you see any country having one with them in full panic mode. Even a small border like Poland does.

Edited May 6, 2022 by kraze

[Taranis]

“A member of the Pro-Russian troops walks on the roof of an armored vehicle near the Azovstal steel plant in the port city of Mariupol on May 5, 2022. ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO / REUTERS” *BTR-82A : note the steel plates added to reinforce the armor.

[G.I. Joe]

22 minutes ago, kraze said:

Because you are a westerner.

Russians are extremely poor and right now an average salary there is already down to $100 a month, which means poorest guys like this one gets two digits.

They weren't better off before their economics went to hell so stuff like cooking oil and whatnot is a real treat to them.

It's mindblowing to you, but horrific to anyone sharing the border with russians. Which is why you see any country having one with them in full panic mode. Even a small border like Poland does.

"Do you know what the trouble is? The trouble is Earth - on Earth there is no poverty, no crime, no war. You look out the window of Starfleet Headquarters and you see paradise. It's easy to be a saint in paradise, but the Maquis do not live in paradise. Out there in the demilitarized zone all the problems haven't been solved yet. Out there, there are no saints, just people - angry, scared, determined people who are going to do whatever it takes to survive, whether it meets with Federation approval or not."

-Commander Benjamin Sisko, Star Trek: Deep Space 9 S2E21 "The Maquis, Part II"

[Taranis]

44 minutes ago, kraze said:

Because you are a westerner.

Russians are extremely poor and right now an average salary there is already down to $100 a month, which means poorest guys like this one gets two digits.

They weren't better off before their economics went to hell so stuff like cooking oil and whatnot is a real treat to them.

It's mindblowing to you, but horrific to anyone sharing the border with russians. Which is why you see any country having one with them in full panic mode. Even a small border like Poland does.

PS: the small "4x4" vehicle that you see at the bottom of the video is a PVP (Petit Véhicule Protégé = Small Protected Vehicle), it serves as a liaison vehicle, for observers or command. The observers of my unit previously used AMX-10P (because my unit before the CAESAR used AUF-1 = AMX-30 SPG) and VBL. The funny little thing is that my unit's PVP users nicknamed it the "Petit Véhicule Pourri" (Small Rotten Vehicle) because they found it less good than its predecessors. What is to be taken into account is that it was an all-road vehicle and not an all-terrain vehicle. A vehicle that is not well used is always considered bad but it is the use/doctrine the problem not necessarily the vehicle.

[Der Zeitgeist]

As I was saying a few times already:

 

[DesertFox]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Well, this is an interesting bit of psychological warfare.  There's now a countdown for the destruction of the Crimean bridge and a warning that all Russian occupiers should get out now while they can.

https://crimeanbridgedown.com.ua/

Steve

I love it! 

[SteelRain]

11 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

As I was saying a few times already:

 

Lol 12??? Doesn't make sens. The training will take a while and then they have the next logistical strain on them. Is there any purpose other then Germany showed its good will and a combat test on a larger scale?
Wouldn't it make more sense to search for stored M109's, buy them and silently send them to Ukraine?
 

[kraze]

3 minutes ago, SteelRain said:

Lol 12??? Doesn't make sens. The training will take a while and then they have the next logistical strain on them. Is there any purpose other then Germany showed its good will and a combat test on a larger scale?
Wouldn't it make more sense to search for stored M109's, buy them and silently send them to Ukraine?
 

12 is 12 more than 0. Plus right now we have no crew to man them anyway. And by the time we do - there will be more sense to send in dozens more.

These 12 will most likely be used to train our crews domestically, they won't be on the frontlines for at least a month.

[SteelRain]

For all you guys who use www.nitter.net, that is currently down, to avoid getting a Twitter Account, the Twitter privacy mess and age restriction, there are a lot more instances listed on the Git Hub site.

Just scroll down to Live status. 

https://github.com/xnaas/nitter-instances

[kraze]

11 hours ago, FancyCat said:

I wouldn't be so harsh on DMS, what he's listening to and what we are listening to are vastly different. Russian state media has been painting a narrative of Russia being surrounded by NATO and co who want to partition and destroy it for a long time, and that has been a part of Russian thinking since during the USSR.

Not true. DMS knows full well that NATO is a defensive alliance. And he knows full well how things really are because he has an access to the internet. He is here of all places. On a forum where people scrutinize claims and try to prove things.

And even in USSR people knew full well that every russian war was a war of aggression. Word of mouth isn't something you can stop if somebody wants to listen to it. "Protesting in the kitchen" aka whining about state evils at the family table, but silently - was a soviet meme.

What DMS does is a russian version of taqiya - lying to infidels to drive his own agenda. Remember - if DMS was just "fooled" by propaganda (which is, again, impossible in an age of information) - he'd still think that killing Ukrainians and stealing our land would be a bad thing. But what he does is excuses the crime. He is in full support of the war.

Edited May 6, 2022 by kraze

[SteelRain]

16 minutes ago, kraze said:

12 is 12 more than 0. Plus right now we have no crew to man them anyway. And by the time we do - there will be more sense to send in dozens more.

These 12 will most likely be used to train our crews domestically, they won't be on the frontlines for at least a month.

Yeah and with Ukraine switching to NATO equipment and knowing our ****ty politicians, this has the sour taste of indirect German economy aid only, so KMW could sell some more after the war has ended and save jobs in Germany... 

If I were serious about it, I would send some more and instantly order new ones. So much for the proclaimed Zeitenwende.

Hope for you Ukrainians that they will find some more somewhere.

Edited May 6, 2022 by SteelRain

[kraze]

11 hours ago, panzermartin said:

I think we could give a break to DMS living on the other side of the hill . Why should an average Russian trust the West when the last time the "most advanced European nation" crossed their western borders they were sent to concentration camps, died in gas chambers, and executed en mass as untermenschen. They were actually treated like orcs back then too, ridiculed for their standard of living, their tech, their ways of fighting etc. When they reached the priviliedged germans in their hometowns they were enraged by what they saw, the wealth and the comforts they couldn't even imagine. Why on earth would these people that had everything came to their motherland to loot and kill peasants. I firmly believe the current situation is partly linked to the WW2 aftermath. They also spent the "happy" post war years with nuclear weapons pointed at them behind an iron curtain with their adversary already having used them on population twice. 

They have a very different narrative of the World and it will take ages to overcome. 

That would be a somewhat legit argument if we are to ignore 1939-1941, when Russians fought Europe together with Nazis.

And remember - concentration camps, gas chambers and mass executions were a Russian thing before it became a German thing. And, unlike in Germany, in Russia it didn't stop in 1945. It continued up until 1991 and didn't quite stop since, just took a smaller scale that couldn't be noticed by the West.

The difference here is that Germans admitted what they did was evil. Russians are still proud of it.

This is also a reason why a "Nazi" to a Russian doesn't mean "a guy that considers his race better than everybody else's and would do evil things because of it" - because in Russian ideology it's OK. After all they came to kill us because we are untermenschen to them. To a Russian "Nazi" means 'enemy'. Because Germans were the only guys in the past ~200 years that managed to beat Russians so hard. So when Ukrainians started resisting hard in 2014 - we immediately became "Nazis" aka The Enemy. This is also why when Israel tried to relate to us - Jews were called Nazi by Russians as well.

Edited May 6, 2022 by kraze

[Aragorn2002]

13 hours ago, panzermartin said:

I think we could give a break to DMS living on the other side of the hill . Why should an average Russian trust the West when the last time the "most advanced European nation" crossed their western borders they were sent to concentration camps, died in gas chambers, and executed en mass as untermenschen. They were actually treated like orcs back then too, ridiculed for their standard of living, their tech, their ways of fighting etc. When they reached the priviliedged germans in their hometowns they were enraged by what they saw, the wealth and the comforts they couldn't even imagine. Why on earth would these people that had everything came to their motherland to loot and kill peasants. I firmly believe the current situation is partly linked to the WW2 aftermath. They also spent the "happy" post war years with nuclear weapons pointed at them behind an iron curtain with their adversary already having used them on population twice. 

They have a very different narrative of the World and it will take ages to overcome.

You also seem to have a very different narrative of the world, which, I fear, will never change. What the Germans did to Russia, the Russians did to many other countries. Before, during and after the war. Apart from that Russia and Russia alone made WW2 possible in the hope to gain from it.  The Cold War also was their own choice and was a Russian creation, against allies who were at the time pro-Russia/communist and had for a large part made sure that Russia survived the war against Germany AT ALL. If Stalin had played his cards right he could even have joined the countries benefiting from the Marshall help. The Russians were richly awarded for their role in a war, they basically encouraged and created themselves. So no, no breaks for excusing Russian agression, crimes and endless war mongering.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Aragorn2002

[Huba]

Few interesting points about post-war order and peace negotiations. First, Scholz said that there will be no lifting of EU sanctions without Ukraine's consent, which gives them a hell of a leverage over Russia. On top of that he and Biden confirmed that they wont recognize any Russian territorial gains in Ukraine - not clearing if this includes LDPR/ Crimea, but it's still an important statement.

 

Edited May 6, 2022 by Huba

[Der Zeitgeist]

I think in all of these discussions, it's important never to confuse Russia with the Soviet Union. I see the terms here used interchangeably a lot when discussing historic events.

Confusing the two is one of the main reasons for Germany's irresponsible Eastern Europe policies since 1991.

[kraze]

9 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

I think in all of these discussions, it's important never to confuse Russia with the Soviet Union. I see the terms here used interchangeably a lot when discussing historic events.

Confusing the two is one of the main reasons for Germany's irresponsible Eastern Europe policies since 1991.

Why not? USSR is just another name for Russian Empire. They just couldn't call themselves literally that due to 1917 so they pretended it's a willing "union" of republics. Also that was the cool thing at the time to show to the West.

Russia never stopped trying to bring back that empire back after 1991, it's in their ideology, they even have soviet anthem. They also have USSR's seat in UN for whatever reason since Russia never asked to be accepted into UN after 1991 so that means every UN country automatically considered Russia a continuation of USSR. All soviet monuments, streets and its faux history is still there.

So let's not fool ourselves here. Russia is USSR. Just smaller and even more fascist.

Edited May 6, 2022 by kraze

[Huba]

Just now, kraze said:

Why not? USSR is just another name for Russian Empire. They just couldn't call themselves literally that due to 1917 so they pretended it's a willing "union" of republics. Also that was the cool thing at the time.

Russia never stopped trying to bring back that empire back after 1991, it's in their ideology, they even have soviet anthem. They also have USSR's seat in UN for whatever reason since Russia never asked to be accepted into UN after 1991 so that means every UN country automatically considered Russia a continuation of USSR.

So let's not fool ourselves here. Russia is USSR. Just smaller and even more fascist.

But the distinction is really important from the foreign relations perspective. For Germany especially, the remaining guilt coming from WW2 atrocities against USRR was resulting in giving Russia a bit of special treatment/ cutting it a lot of slack - which is unjust as the same approach should be taken against the remaining post-USSR countries, Ukraine especially.

[Der Zeitgeist]

4 minutes ago, kraze said:

Why not?

Because they're hijacking Soviet legacy, especially in defeating Nazi Germany, to pursue their own foreign policy goals today.

Germany accepted this special Status of Russia and completely ignored that we have at least the same amount of responsibilites towards Ukraine as towards Russia concerning WW2.

[kraze]

1 minute ago, Huba said:

But the distinction is really important from the foreign relations perspective. For Germany especially, the remaining guilt coming from WW2 atrocities against USRR was resulting in giving Russia a bit of special treatment/ cutting it a lot of slack - which is unjust as the same approach should be taken against the remaining post-USSR countries, Ukraine especially.

I don't think guilt has anything to do with it. Doing business does. If it was about guilt - Russia would be blasted by sanctions right in 1992, when they started killing people and committing atrocities in neighboring countries. Because that would remind Germans of Nazi Germany deeds, but more so - evils done in GDR.

So letting all the Russian evils slide for 30 years, while also actively trying to force Ukraine to surrender and get occupied for the past 8 - is not guilt. It's anything but.

After all Merkel, Steinmeier and Schroeder themselves still claim they did nothing wrong, even today.

[kraze]

18 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

Because they're hijacking Soviet legacy, especially in defeating Nazi Germany, to pursue their own foreign policy goals today.

Germany accepted this special Status of Russia and completely ignored that we have at least the same amount of responsibilites towards Ukraine as towards Russia concerning WW2.

Russia hijacks nothing, they do have that legacy, it's just that Germany (and West in general) looks at it from the completely wrong perspective. Which is - USSR defeating, or rather being one of the countries that defeated Nazi Germany. That legacy sounds all good and heroic, when you just look at it like that, right?

But the thing is - from the Russian perspective they defeated Germany but lost World War 2. Remember - Russian goal was to steamroll busy Hitler and occupy whole Europe. So not doing that and, even worse, losing half of Europe to a very strong NATO alliance - is why they immediately started Cold War. Even worse - instead of a dream of shelling UK across the stream - they first lost everything they gained in 1945 and then lost everything they gained in 1920s.

It was almost like a personal insult to many of them.

Which is why they crowned a guy, who considered 1991 the worst geopolitical catastrophe of 20th century, not WW1 or WW2. To un-lose WW2. To bring back the empire to at least its 1945 borders (that "we can repeat" slogan is exactly about that, just like the demand for NATO to go back to its 1997 composition so Russia can reoccupy everything it had again)

So the hope right now is for the West to finally look at that legacy from the Russian perspective and see all the things wrong with it.

Edited May 6, 2022 by kraze

[Huba]

New wave of (still unconfirmed) info about Admiral Makarov being hit:

 

[Field Oggy]

3 hours ago, Reclaimer said:

Actually, that's something I've been wondering about for awhile. Does anybody here know the deal with that? Were those blocks supposed to be filled with explosives but fell victim to incompetence/graft? Or, were those egg carton filled blocks some kind of non-explosive reactive armor?

Here you go.

 

[Der Zeitgeist]

16 minutes ago, kraze said:

Russia hijacks nothing, they do have that legacy, it's just that Germany (and West in general) looks at it from the completely wrong perspective. Which is - USSR defeating, or rather being one of the countries that defeated Nazi Germany. That legacy sounds all good and heroic, when you just look at it like that, right?

I fully admit this is a very German perspective, sure.

This obsession with our own history and trying to draw lessons from it (while sometimes failing to) may seem infuriating to other countries, but I prefer living in a nation that's overthinking its own history to one that simply goes back to business as usual after things like WW2 and the holocaust. 

[DesertFox]

Hmmm... stormy weather and high waves again?