How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[billbindc]

7 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Russian regimes often appear (sorry for word) "autistic" for the outside world- they percept reality and think in their own, procedural ways. Darya Dugin could be a literal sacrificial animal killed on the altar of Great Russia. Her father would probably very much like this thought, if it only would be about somebody's else child.

Do such esoteric cause can prompt violent assassination attempt on a woman? Doubtful. But not unthinkable in current conditions. Note, that also at least one effect is obvious- mass media all around the world speculated for several days about this assassination. So,if  Russians needed to draw MM attention from something, they succeeded. I know- weak explanation, but knowing how ruthless Putin regime can be I am frankly inclined to believe in even more crazy theories.

Now we will see if tomorrow Russia will "retaliate" in any special way.

I think the big thing that needs to be acknowledged is that we now see a proven and distinct lack of *capability* in the GRU, FSB, Russian army and state in general now. This isn't a regime that's firing on all cylinders and pursuing subtle strategies. It misunderstood its enemies, it misunderstood its own abilities and it misjudged pretty much everything related to the most important action taken by a Russian state since the USSR's dissolution. 

It's *our* perception of them that fuels the idea that some deeply thought through conspiracy is afoot. 

[BlackMoria]

23 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Russian regimes often appear (sorry for word) "autistic" for the outside world- they percept reality and think in their own, procedural ways. Darya Dugin could be a literal sacrificial animal killed on the altar of Great Russia. Her father would probably very much like this thought, if it only would be about somebody's else child.

Do such esoteric cause can prompt violent assassination attempt on a woman? Doubtful. But not unthinkable in current conditions. Note, that also at least one effect is obvious- mass media all around the world speculated for several days about this assassination. So,if  Russians needed to draw MM attention from something, they succeeded. I know- weak explanation, but knowing how ruthless Putin regime can be I am frankly inclined to believe in even more crazy theories.

Now we will see if tomorrow Russia will "retaliate" in any special way.

 

In Russia, this August is very hot:

 

Sheesh.... they are dropping the dropped lit cigarette excuse and going with spontaneous combustion now.   

[sburke]

8 minutes ago, BlackMoria said:

Sheesh.... they are dropping the dropped lit cigarette excuse and going with spontaneous combustion now.   

ha you non believer!  Russia is finally forcing us all to face the true terrifying reality of spontaneous human combustion!

Terrifying Cases of Spontaneous Human Combustion - Slapped Ham

or sumfink

[chrisl]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is the obvious route to go down for a lot of things, certainly weapons.  We've hit a plateau on all kinds of things that require energy to perform their function.  Efficiency is high for things like explosives and propellants.  Clever designs might eek out a bit more performance, but that is all.

I've been following small arms ammunition developments quite intensely for a few years now.  The new polymer based rounds that the US military is adopting are examples of eeking out relatively minor improvements.  This is no black powder to rim fire, to center fire.  Even the problematic caseless ammo concept wouldn't be more than a mild, though significant, improvement if it could be made practical.  On the other hand, having the equivalent of a 7.62 round propelled by the volume of charge found in a .22 round would be.  Or developing a small arm where a 3 or 4mm projectile could perform the same as a much larger one.  That's the sort of thing we could see if the brains in labcoats come up with the basic ingredients and the geeks with pencil protectors figure out how to employ it successfully.

Personally, I'm looking forward to this sort of stuff for more practical things such as transportation (including space based).

Steve

From the perspective of someone who develops technology (I do aerospace, but not splody things, though I've been around some directed energy stuff), what you're trying to do is increase the amount of energy you deposit on the target, and ideally only the target of interest.  From 50,000 ft, there are two ways to do it - you can increase the energy density at the source or you can increase the energy density at the target.  Most of the history of weapons and splody things is increasing the energy at the source, with modest work on the energy at the target.  Bow and arrow to black powder to TNT to modern propellants propelling a pointy thing (kinetic energy only) or shell of black powder to TNT to tritonal, and increasing the amount of energy sent downrange by increasing rates of fire and masses of fire (lots of tubes, whether it's shoulder to shoulder lines of the Napoleonic era or bunches of 152 mm tubes today).

There appears to have been a major shift in western development that is all about precision of depositing that energy downrange.  There are a lot of reasons behind it, and it's been used and improved for decades, at least since GW1, but now we're seeing it in a peer conflict with Ukraine on the precision side and Russia on the mass side.  Some time ago, I worked on a space thing to do high precision astrometry - measuring positions of the stars to an unbelievable precision.  The US Navy was working on a similar mission at the same time, with a only a little lower precision - they and the USAF still do navigation by the stars (even if there might sometimes be a few layers of things in between).  I worked out what the precision mapped to on the surface of the earth: a few cm.  They didn't want to target a building, or even the door of a bunker like we saw on videos in GW1.  They wanted to be able to hit the doorknob.  If you can reliably hit a doorknob 1000 km away with a modest amount of high quality HE, you don't need to get 10x the energy density into the warhead.

That precision brings a lot of advantages. It makes your logistics a lot easier if you don't need to bring tons and tons of HE shells up to within 20 km of the front every day.  Way fewer trucks and truck drivers at risk, and less manufacturing committed to keeping that supply of trucks.  And so on..  And it reduces your risk of having the current Russian problem of those tons and tons of HE falling victim to stray butts because big tobacco has infiltrated your country. And it reduces collatoral damage - you don't have to bomb Belgorod flat and get RU civilians all worked up, you can blow up the ammunition dumps and the oil storage facilities without any stray shells (aside from what flies out of the ammo dump) going into civilian areas.  Increasing the energy of the splody part by making 10x more powerful HE runs you into the problem of having big ammo dumps full of stuff that you really don't want to be around when someone drops a butt in the wrong place.

And to get that precision you need a lot of resources - it's not just making a missile with a 5 cm CEP.  You need all the ISR to precisely find targets, the sensors for moving targets, the communication systems to convey that information to the control room or missile, etc.

You still need some mass, or at least ROF+retargeting speed.  Kind of like late in a game of Asteroids when there are a zillion asteroids coming at your one ship - if you can't fire and retarget fast enough, all the precision in the world won't help.  

[poesel]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

So a few years back I was asked what to watch out for, my answer was "Big 5" of defence technology:

- Unmanned

- C4ISR - integrated and connected everything

- AI/ML - next gen computing that can tie the first two together in ways we are still figuring out.

- Additive Manufacturing

- Military Energy

 

1) is the logical successor of 3)

2) definitely yes, IMHO the biggest and most likely game changer in the near future

3) yes - image recognition will make decoys very, very hard in the future

4) meh - maybe useful for some things if you are way out in some godforsaken mountains. But too complicated and too limited for any big impact.

5) ok, what is that? Must have missed that in physics.

[Beleg85]

37 minutes ago, billbindc said:

I think the big thing that needs to be acknowledged is that we now see a proven and distinct lack of *capability* in the GRU, FSB, Russian army and state in general now. This isn't a regime that's firing on all cylinders and pursuing subtle strategies. It misunderstood its enemies, it misunderstood its own abilities and it misjudged pretty much everything related to the most important action taken by a Russian state since the USSR's dissolution. 

It's *our* perception of them that fuels the idea that some deeply thought through conspiracy is afoot

This may be very true; we may overthink whole thing that is in fact simple. Geniuses at Kremlin could came up with an idea they needed a martyr before new wave of strikes and simply checked whom they have in dossier. It could be as simpel as that; I personally doubt it, but it is more probable than mafia-style non-political scores. Steve goes for  FSB/GRU infights, and he  can also be equally right.

Now we have theories that woman in cascet is in fact not her. That is ofc crazy, but note that all Russian newspapers described body completelly charred in the auto- that is the level of chaos they have there, they couldn't even agree on one version.

13 minutes ago, sburke said:

ha you non believer!  Russia is finally forcing us all to face the true terrifying reality of spontaneous human combustion!

Remember folks, if you ever visit Russia- do never throw your cigarettes to the ground. It can hit hidden ammo depot.

Edited August 23, 2022 by Beleg85

[sburke]

2 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

This may be very true; we may overthink whole thing that is in fact simple. Geniuses at Kremlin came with an idea they needed a martyr before new wave of strikes and simply checked whom they have in dossier. It could be as simpel as that; I personally doubt it, but it is more probable than mafia-style non-political scores. Steve goes for  FSB/GRU infights, and he  can also be equally right.

Now we have theories that woman in cascet is in fact not her. That is ofc crazy, but note that all Russian newspapers described body completelly charred in the auto- that is the level of chaos they have there, they couldn't even agree on one version.

This is the problem I have in trying to understand Russian actions.  I'm simply not sure I can.  It is like trying to understand the attraction to Qanon.  I simply can't make the jump.  So trying to read the tea leaves as to WHY some part of the Russian power spectrum might do this and why Russians don't go WTF? to their gov't just aren't items I think I'll ever be able to wrap my head around.

[Grigb]

Ek, my pot about RU mindset disappeared. Sorry. So, few short points I would like to note:

• GRU is infamous for killing RU citizens to get specific effect from RU population. The most famous case is murder of RU officer Sergey Shevelev, the first RU officer killed during RU war with Georgia. Heinous Georgians killed RU peacekeeping officer! Even though he was killed by a sniper from building inside RU base where RU Speznas was located.
• I do agree with Steve that most likely FSB is not related. UKR saboteur group in Moscow is big slap on FSB face. And when I hear somebody slap FSB I start looking for GRU. FSB just got turd and they got rid of it as quickly as possible without caring how it looks like.
• There is one idea I also would like to mention - notion of Fatherland War. In RU cultural mythology RU cannot lose Fatherland War or war when whole nation rises up to defeat foreign invader. 1812 War and WW2 war were Fatherland Wars. In both wars RU faced much more powerful foreign invader and won. That was because the whole nation raised up! But how to force whole nation to rise? Through the anger. And how to get nation anger? Heinously killing somebody vulnerable like kid or woman. Just saying.

[The_Capt]

11 minutes ago, poesel said:

1) is the logical successor of 3)

2) definitely yes, IMHO the biggest and most likely game changer in the near future

3) yes - image recognition will make decoys very, very hard in the future

4) meh - maybe useful for some things if you are way out in some godforsaken mountains. But too complicated and too limited for any big impact.

5) ok, what is that? Must have missed that in physics.

1) is in reality an output of 3-5 and directly linked to 2).  

4) We have already put them onboard ships and as the get smaller and more portable it reduces the natures of logistics loads.  Spare parts is a big one.  4&5 together begin to form a tailless logistical concept, which would change warfare more than anything we have seen in some time.…so maybe a bit more than “meh”.  

5) Right now any military capability comes with an energy cost, to construct and sustain.  One could argue that energy is a competitive dimension that drives logistics.  The ability to generate, store and use energy is central to military evolution, always has been.  Right now the three primary storage mediums are fuel, explosives and batteries -(this is different from previous centuries where food, water and animals were in that role).  The density of those mediums created modern warfare as we know it.  If we can develop higher density mediums, higher efficiency consumption and the holy grail…renewable and locally available.  You once again re-write warfare.  US has been all over this one, largely because they know direct energy weapons are a battlefield requirement in the future and they significantly drive up energy costs.  

[Grigb]

1 hour ago, keas66 said:

Seems like from Grigb's last few posts - the Russians are still trying to push out from the Kherson bridgehead  ...while their supply lines across the Dnieper  are under  attack  . They don't seem to think they have a problem ?  Ignoring reality ? or   is the situation on the ground not as bad as it looks for the Russians  . I don't understand  what they are doing currently if everything posted here about their vulnerabilities and the increasing strength of the AFU is actually true .

This is the opinion of Mashkovets regarding bridges. He might be right, but he also might be wrong. Still, it is good opinion to consider.

Quote

So let's take it in order...

1. Regarding the bridge crossings across the Dnieper – at Antonovka, the railway at the Dnieper and Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, as well as through Ingulets at Daryevka.

Unlike most of our media and various experts, I am not sure that the extent of their damage completely excludes their use, or completely eliminates the possibility and prospects of their restoration and repair. For example, in the area of Daryevka, the Russian command quite confidently lets vehicles through a "patched" regular bridge, and heavy armored vehicles through a bulk (???), or a pontoon (it is necessary to clarify) bridge nearby.

Moreover, it should be understood that bridge crossings are not the only possible transport and logistics communication through a water obstacle, with the help of which it is possible to deliver MTO [Material and technical support] items to the bridgehead, or to maneuver and transfer OVT [may be he means MBT]. For example, there are also ferries, motor pontoons, and other watercraft, including those capable of transporting tanks and other heavy equipment. So, one night it will be quite enough for the enemy to transfer 1-2 BTGr to the right bank in this way, the next night... repeat this procedure... etc. Not to mention ammunition, fuel, food and so on...

Therefore, in this context... I absolutely do not understand the information hysteria about the alleged "bridge blockade" of enemy troops on the bridgehead, which someone consciously or unconsciously disperses in the domestic information sphere. Calm down, we haven't blocked anything or anyone there yet. Moreover, completely... Complicated – yes, created certain problems for the enemy – too, yes. But there is no need to talk about any complete blockade...

2. Now for "fire control"... The first question is, what exactly do you mean by this term ...? By definition, this is a type of fire impact on a piece of terrain, an object, or a line or position that completely excludes the physical presence of enemy forces and means on them, without them being undefeated by your fire means, at ANY TIME.

Consequently, the use of the term "fire control" in relation to the bridge crossings in the rear of the Kherson -Berislavsky bridgehead is a significant exaggeration.

The second question is, why the hell did the AFU not establish fire control over the ferry and pontoon crossings of the enemy, the exact location of which they know well ...? Maybe because they are mobile and are moved  by the enemy ... no? Maybe because the point is that the means of destruction of the AFU can carry out the so-called "fire control" only over stationary objects such as a road or railway bridge, or a dam ...?

3. "Escape and evacuation of the enemy command" from the bridgehead. Thus, a number of elements of the combat and operational control system of the enemy group of troops "South" were moved to the left bank of the Dnieper. However:

- not all of them have moved...

- with modern army means of communication, this is unlikely to have particularly affected such key parameters of enemy command and control as stability, stealth or mobility.

- this fact, in the context of the level of combat capability of the enemy troops, is of importance exclusively in the field of the moral and psychological state of their personnel (and even then, only with the wide dissemination of this kind of information in their units and subdivisions).

Therefore, it is clearly not worth giving the fact (of the relocation of the control bodies to the grouping of enemy troops "South" from the right to the left bank of the Dnieper), the value of the level "we are breaking them, the enemy is running". At least, it is definitely not needed to describe it as "the flight and exodus of the enemy from Kherson"... he is not running yet and is not "going anywhere" yet...

 

[Beleg85]

23 minutes ago, Grigb said:

• GRU is infamous for killing RU citizens to get specific effect from RU population. The most famous case is murder of RU officer Sergey Shevelev, the first RU officer killed during RU war with Georgia. Heinous Georgians killed RU peacekeeping officer! Even though he was killed by a sniper from building inside RU base where RU Speznas was located.
• I do agree with Steve that most likely FSB is not related. UKR saboteur group in Moscow is big slap on FSB face. And when I hear somebody slap FSB I start looking for GRU. FSB just got turd and they got rid of it as quickly as possible without caring how it looks like.

Very probable version; if we will not see additional events, this become even more possible. However, if something (except usual ammo depots) will blown up soon in Russia- I think we can safely say the start of 'UkroNazi" fake terror campaign has begun.

 

23 minutes ago, Grigb said:

There is one idea I also would like to mention - notion of Fatherland War. In RU cultural mythology RU cannot lose Fatherland War or war when whole nation rises up to defeat foreign invader. 1812 War and WW2 war were Fatherland Wars. In both wars RU faced much more powerful foreign invader and won. That was because the whole nation raised up! But how to force whole nation to rise? Through the anger. And how to get nation anger? Heinously killing somebody vulnerable like kid or woman. Just saying.

It reminds me of those fascinating comparisions between German perception of their country as Fatherland and Russian notion that their own country is Rodina- Motherland. It actually had real effects on how people percieved WWII. S.Aleksievich had some interesting essays about, but the topic was also studied by serious scholars, and it was one of few times when gender antropology reached actually useful, credible conclusions on its own.

So do now Russian nationalists use rather word otchestvo or they go straight into Rodina in their talks?

Edited August 23, 2022 by Beleg85

[chrisl]

3 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

1) is in reality an output of 3-5 and directly linked to 2).  

4) We have already put them onboard ships and as the get smaller and more portable it reduces the natures of logistics loads.  Spare parts is a big one.  4&5 together begin to form a tailless logistical concept, which would change warfare more than anything we have seen in some time.…so maybe a bit more than “meh”.  

5) Right now any military capability comes with an energy cost, to construct and sustain.  One could argue that energy is a competitive dimension that drives logistics.  The ability to generate, store and use energy is central to military evolution, always has been.  Right now the three primary storage mediums are fuel, explosives and batteries -(this is different from previous centuries where food, water and animals were in that role).  The density of those mediums created modern warfare as we know it.  If we can develop higher density mediums, higher efficiency consumption and the holy grail…renewable and locally available.  You once again re-write warfare.  US has been all over this one, largely because they know direct energy weapons are a battlefield requirement in the future and they significantly drive up energy costs.  

Precision is a big part of the solution to the energy problem.  The less stuff you need to accomplish the task at hand, the smaller the logistic tail and the less total energy you need, and the less energy you need to haul that energy around.

[sburke]

LOL nice response

Quote

 

Estonia says it hasn't received a request for information from Moscow despite the Kremlin's claims that a Ukrainian woman fled to the Balkans state after assassinating Darya Dugina with a car-bomb.

Russian intelligence agency FSB alleged that after the killing in the outskirts of Moscow, the suspect and her daughter fled across the Russian border into Estonia.

Russian state-owned news agency Tass had earlier reported that Russian law enforcement agencies had placed the suspect on the country’s wanted list, with Moscow seeking her extradition from Estonia.

FSB said the pair had been travelling in a Mini Cooper that used various licence plates, including registrations from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the Russian-controlled areas of east Ukraine.

A spokesperson for Estonia's police and border guard service said  they had not received any request for information from the Russian authorities, adding: "We can publish the data of people moving across the border only in the cases prescribed by law, and the situation where the Russian special service accuses them of something in the media is not one of them."

Ukraine has denied involvement.

 

 

[The_Capt]

11 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Precision is a big part of the solution to the energy problem.  The less stuff you need to accomplish the task at hand, the smaller the logistic tail and the less total energy you need, and the less energy you need to haul that energy around.

B.I.N.G.O. And in a war of exhaustion the side that makes better use of energy has what now?

[Vet 0369]

On 8/21/2022 at 1:28 PM, Letter from Prague said:

I heard USAF don't want to retire A-10 because then the Army might get them, and they don't want Army to operate fixed wing combat aircraft.

The U.S.Army/U.S. Air Force “Key West Accord of 1947” prohibits the Army from having “armed aircraft.” In fact there was a “major fervor” when the Army put door gunners on helicopters. In the view of the Air Force, even that was forbidden by the Accord. I doubt that there was ever any serious consideration of transferring the A-10s to the Army.

[The_Capt]

9 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:

The U.S.Army/U.S. Air Force “Key West Accord of 1947” prohibits the Army from having “armed aircraft.” In fact there was a “major fervor” when the Army put door gunners on helicopters. In the view of the Air Force, even that was forbidden by the Accord. I doubt that there was ever any serious consideration of transferring the A-10s to the Army.

Someone probably blew a blood vessel when this happened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_AH-64_Apache.  Let alone whatever all this self loitering stuff is, or missile systems.  Not sure there is much point to that service border anymore, but they tend to go on well past the point of sense.

 

Edited August 23, 2022 by The_Capt

[Vet 0369]

On 8/21/2022 at 3:37 PM, MikeyD said:

You can bomb and straff things with A-10s in CMCW, which is set more than 40 years ago (halfway between now and WWII). I recall at the time congress mandated the Pentagon conduct tests to see if the old WWII P51 Mustang was still a viable ground attack platform (it wasn't). Nostalgia over the 'mystique' of certain aircraft often outlive the aircraft themselves.

The P-51 (Air Force designation F-51)Mustang was never a very effective ground attack platform because of it’s liquid-cooled engine and radiator on the bottom of the airplane that made it very vulnerable to ground fire. That’s one of the primary reasons the “Jug” (P-47) was developed by the USAAF for ground attack duties. Unfortunately, Air Force conception was “shining knights of the air in their powerful metal steeds clearing the skies of opposition!” That’s one of the reasons why, along with costs to maintain the P-47, the newly created Air Force scrapped all the P-47s and used F-51s for ground attack in the Korean Conflict, where they sucked because of their vulnerability to ground fire. Inter-service rivalries exist to this day.

[Billy Ringo]

Out of left-field observation and comment, which may or may not have any merit but it might explain a little of Russian behavior.    37% of Russian men over 15 are alcoholics and there may be an additional X% with drug issues.  Alcoholics' main priority is the ability to have alcohol readily available along with the available time to consume it.  EVERYTHING else is a distant second and some cases nothing else really makes a difference.   37% plus any additional drug/substance abusers is not a small minority--it is a population of significant size that highly likely affects the Russian mindset.

Why might that matter? 

1. A large percent of Russian men may simply not care about what goes on beyond their own little lives.  Bomb Ukraine?  Draft my neighbor's kid who comes back in a casket?  Sure, who cares as long as I can still drink.   They may pay lip service about caring, but in reality it's not that important.   Couple that with the TV telling them its' NATO/Ukraine's fault it gives them a built in excuse to not do anything.  So they don't.  Just continue on drinking.

2. Russian women may be more callous because, at some point, they probably wish that 37% would go ahead and die so they can move on with their lives.  Trade $$ for a perennial drunken spouse or family member?  Sure--not that bad of a deal.

I realize that alcohol isn't the cause of this war, but when those of us on the outside of Russia are looking in try to figure out if/when the Russian populace will say enough is enough and rise up, understand their mindset of simply doing nothing....this may play a part in it. 

Again, out of left field observation but sometimes we have to look outside the box to find part of our answers.

[Grigb]

1 hour ago, Beleg85 said:

So do now Russian nationalists use rather word otchestvo or they go straight into Rodina in their talks?

Otechestvo is much more formal and is used mainly in political speeches, statements and patriotic slogans. So, unless they want to make an especially solemn statement Rodina is used. And, yes, on amateur level of my observations I do believe that it is an interesting topic.

[Haiduk]

4 hours ago, Grigb said:

and next Kherson map

Thanks for maps, Mashovets is writing too much and I just have no time now to translate his observations. Though there are some suspicios, he and DefMon takes info from one another and not always 100 % verified, but indeed nobody can do better (except General Staff, of course  )

I need to add from his older materials, which I couldn't post here. Russians moved to southern front BTGs of 35th CAA and placed them initially in Energodar area - in the "dead end". Also units of 5th CAA were placed also on left bank of the Dnieper between Oleshki and Nova Kahovka. They also moved here about 6 BTGs of PMC from Bakmut area and placed them on Vasylivka and some eastern together with about 2 BTGs of 46th Rosgvardia operative brigade from Chechnya. Russian VDV forces, moved from Bakhmut and Izium directions also mostly were placed on the left bank (execpt one BTG of 76th air-assault division) close to Dnieper. 

This created some "uncertainity" - where Russians will attack? Mykolaiv? Zaporizhzhia? Kryvyi Rih? By opinion of Mashovets we should to track the 35th CAA movements - by strange coincidence, exactly this army was on the spearhead of offensives on Kyiv and later on Izium direction. And exactly command of this army better assessed situation and make war more agressive, having success (especially on Izium axis). So, looks like Russian SVO Command considered 35th army (and troops of Eastren Military District in whole) as more capable to complete tasks. 

So, in last days first BTG of 64th MRB (Bucha murderers) of 35th Army crossed the Dnieper and was threw in the battle near Snihurivka. Today some Russian TG channels claimed Russian troops launched offensive with objectives to take Mykolaiv and even Ochakiv (!) 

PS. On your map Blahodatne village should be marked by red color. Russians assaulted it  already three times during a week or maybe two, and likely after 35th CAA elements appearing, they managed gradually to take the village. Two days ago was a report about their "partial success" on southern part of village. Yestarday - the same. Today - "UKR troops destroiyed enemy ammo dump in Blahodatne" (though there are two other Blahodatne in this area). Blahodatne defended elements of 63rd mech.brigade of Reserve Corps.

Edited August 23, 2022 by Haiduk

[Beleg85]

We live in strange times when one of the best (unironically) satirical accounts on the net is actually MoD of country at war. XXI century and we still like to taunt our enemies:

[Huba]

Regarding UA ISR advantage:

 

[The_Capt]

45 minutes ago, Billy Ringo said:

Out of left-field observation and comment, which may or may not have any merit but it might explain a little of Russian behavior.    37% of Russian men over 15 are alcoholics and there may be an additional X% with drug issues.  Alcoholics' main priority is the ability to have alcohol readily available along with the available time to consume it.  EVERYTHING else is a distant second and some cases nothing else really makes a difference.   37% plus any additional drug/substance abusers is not a small minority--it is a population of significant size that highly likely affects the Russian mindset.

Why might that matter? 

1. A large percent of Russian men may simply not care about what goes on beyond their own little lives.  Bomb Ukraine?  Draft my neighbor's kid who comes back in a casket?  Sure, who cares as long as I can still drink.   They may pay lip service about caring, but in reality it's not that important.   Couple that with the TV telling them its' NATO/Ukraine's fault it gives them a built in excuse to not do anything.  So they don't.  Just continue on drinking.

2. Russian women may be more callous because, at some point, they probably wish that 37% would go ahead and die so they can move on with their lives.  Trade $$ for a perennial drunken spouse or family member?  Sure--not that bad of a deal.

I realize that alcohol isn't the cause of this war, but when those of us on the outside of Russia are looking in try to figure out if/when the Russian populace will say enough is enough and rise up, understand their mindset of simply doing nothing....this may play a part in it. 

Again, out of left field observation but sometimes we have to look outside the box to find part of our answers.

A lot of assumptions that would have to link up here.  The first one on alcoholism or alcohol consumption overall does not really add up: https://ourworldindata.org/alcohol-consumption

Then there is the hypothesis on what alcohol does to motivation.  It tends to remove inhibitions and contributes to anti-social behaviours as opposed to dampening them.  Now if 40% of adult Russian males were hooked on opioids, maybe?  But didn’t the US go through it own thing with that and I don’t think we can point to a national addiction apathy correlation.

Idea really starts to feel stretched once one digs into it…

[Beleg85]

48 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

This created some "uncertainity" - where Russians will attack? Mykolaiv? Zaporizhzhia? Kryvyi Rih? By opinion of Mashovets we should to track the 35th CAA movements - by strange coincidence, exactly this army was on the spearhead of offensives on Kyiv and later on Izium direction. And exactly command of this army better assessed situation and make war more agressive, having success (especially on Izium axis). So, looks like Russian SVO Command considered 35th army (and troops of Eastren Military District in whole) as more capable to complete tasks. 

Oh, guys from Bucha, Chernobyl and Izyum. I can bet Russians figured out that 35th CAA is already radioactive and half dead anyway after their adventures at Chernobyl so placed them in Enerhodar area now. Nice, cosy glow.

But seriously, it is surprising they are still in action. Probably with most of the cadre replaced, but still. Given their lower social status (Eastern MD) Russians will probably use them as cheap cannon fodder when LDPR is temporarly unavailble.

48 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Today some Russian TG channels claimed Russian troops launched offensive with objectives to take Mykolaiv and even Ochakiv (!) 

They have a sense of humour, I'll give them that.

1 hour ago, Grigb said:

Otechestvo is much more formal and is used mainly in political speeches, statements and patriotic slogans. So, unless they want to make an especially solemn statement Rodina is used. And, yes, on amateur level of my observations I do believe that it is an interesting topic.

Regarding Dugina, did you notice the ceremony was quite private? Not many conducts, caravans etc. If they wanted her martyred, I would expect massive rallies, several highest officialls, perhaps even Putin himself; certainly more than several hundred hardcore followers that happened to pay her last respects. Meanwhile funeral was not small, but not massive either (unless those crowds were underreported in most media).

Edited August 23, 2022 by Beleg85

[poesel]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

4) We have already put them onboard ships and as the get smaller and more portable it reduces the natures of logistics loads.  Spare parts is a big one.  4&5 together begin to form a tailless logistical concept, which would change warfare more than anything we have seen in some time.…so maybe a bit more than “meh”.  

Ships? Ok, I'll give you that. Big enough so that size and weight does not matter and difficult to resupply checks all the boxes. Even more so when they sail in space.

I thought more about land warfare.

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

5) Right now any military capability comes with an energy cost, to construct and sustain.  ...

I understand what you are saying here. But as an engineer, I cringe a bit with your mixing up of terms and definitions.