How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[FancyCat]

What the hell was Russian air defense doing if it was a Tu-141? Sleeping?

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

What the hell was Russian air defense doing if it was a Tu-141? Sleeping?

This was posted in a Twitter account to document exactly that:

Seriously, though, NATO's air defense detection system didn't function all that effectively for the missile that made it into Croatia, so it would seem there's more work to be done even by the West.

Steve

[Zeleban]

2 hours ago, poesel said:

Right at the end, the Gepard shoots a few rounds in the ground. Looks like the target radar was still following the downed missile and the operator was still pulling the trigger

But happy to finally see the Gepard in action!

interview with Ukrainian Gepard crew

[FancyCat]

Fun fact that many people seem to forget, Ukraine was a essential part of the Soviet Union, a source of manpower, including educated personnel and schools, and manufacturing, for example, the Tu-141 was produced in Kharkiv. Not to mention the Moskva, from Mykolaiv, etc. Always annoys me when I see prowess of the Russian military based on the Soviet era, both WWII and cold war used to denigrate Ukraine, probably the best PR feat Russia accomplished was both casting Ukraine and Ukrainians as Russians while ignoring Ukraine as a vital part of the Soviet Union.

[danfrodo]

Some good info in this summary from today.  Some videos I hadn't seen here.  Along w tear jerker at the bottom.  Looks like UKR is significantly reinforcing Bakhmut sector -- wouldn't it be great if UKR stunned the world and took the fight to Wagnerites.  Wagnerites are probably very weakened and may have been so focused on offense they haven't set up much for defense?  Would be fun as hell to see UKR punch these guys, hard, and drive towards Popasne/Kadiika.  

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/5/2140133/-Ukraine-update-Russia-can-t-quit-Bakhmut-as-Ukrainian-air-defenses-stymie-latest-missile-barrage

 

[G.I. Joe]

15 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Fun fact that many people seem to forget, Ukraine was a essential part of the Soviet Union, a source of manpower, including educated personnel and schools, and manufacturing, for example, the Tu-141 was produced in Kharkiv. Not to mention the Moskva, from Mykolaiv, etc. Always annoys me when I see prowess of the Russian military based on the Soviet era, both WWII and cold war used to denigrate Ukraine, probably the best PR feat Russia accomplished was both casting Ukraine and Ukrainians as Russians while ignoring Ukraine as a vital part of the Soviet Union.

Very good point. The T-34 was developed in Kharkiv, most of the Soviet Union's military transport aircraft were developed by Antonov, the list goes on...

[NamEndedAllen]

6 hours ago, danfrodo said:

Lavrov said Ukrainian electrical grid was a legitimate military target, he was also making RU grid a legitimate target.  I sure hope we see much of RU getting power knocked out.

Wise heads here criticized my question, what line the Russians must cross within Ukraine, that would convince The Allies to give Ukraine longer range weapons to offer Russian cities equal treatment (!), choke off the invaders’ GLOCS, and starve/freeze them out. But I remain unconvinced that Russia cares about the provenance of weapons striking them, or has a magic hidden reserve force to do anything worse than the hideous crimes against humanity they already perpetrate - daily.  They are not nuking anyone, and are not likely to. Whether they lose sooner or later. (Yes, Russia’s leaders DO have much more to lose, much to preserve - apart from Ukraine) Or do we think that if Ukraine EVER wins and forces Russia to retreat behind their international borders, that then they will start nuking? No? Then how soon is *too* soon to win? 

And yes, more effective, and longer range weapons DO make a difference in this war. Consider impacts of St. Javelin, of St. HIMARS. Stretching Russian GLOCS to the breaking point. Smashing more HQs, supply dumps. Push that long awaited Russian military collapse over the edge.
 
How much more suffering do we in the West decide that the women, the children, the elderly, the troops must endure? How many more *millions*? Are there no boundaries for Russia, in Ukraine? 

Apologies, but the immense suffering of the people of this democratic nation is overwhelming. And Christmas is coming.

Edited December 5, 2022 by NamEndedAllen

[Huba]

Polish S-125 in Ukrainian service. Probably as useful as HAWK, and a bit more mobile too. Poland had 20 battalions worth of these some 20 years ago. Some were scrapped AFAIK, some probably stored, and we had 6 (17 batteries) in active service in 2021, all modernized and mounted on T-55 chassis. Still, at least the supply of missiles should be quite hefty, I hope Ukrainians will put them to good use.

Edit:

Rumor at the moment is that we sent a complete battalion (3 batteries). I can easily see more being sent in the future, especially if the Patriot deal with Germany is finalized one way or another. Here's a very good article about PL S-125 modernization if anyone's interested - in Polish, but google translate works fine.

Edited December 5, 2022 by Huba

[NamEndedAllen]

17 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

people like Macgregor bang on and on and on and on about how arming Ukraine means we're vulnerable to China.

Steve, it is also possible that he and/or people like him are using China as a plausible but straw man argument in support of their mission to prop up Russia and its fortunes. Not all of them are without some brain power, and do understand that the required weapon systems are not the same for Pacific/European conflicts. And that expertise gained in assessing USA, European and Russian weapons systems and their employment is valuable. The depth of right wing embracing and allying with Russia and its political (criminal?) system ought not to be underestimated. As bizarre as that truly is.

[poesel]

3 hours ago, FancyCat said:

Hey, at least the Gepards indicate that solutions against drones can be inexpensive. Just gotta get the Germans and Swiss to settle ammo and restart production and sprinkle them liberally across NATO.

The development of the Gepard started in the 60s, and it was first deployed in the mid 70s. The version A2 (the one in Ukraine) was equipped with digital computers in the 80s. Before that, everything was analog - the wet dream of every electrical engineer!

So, restarting the production of the Gepard makes no sense - neither parts nor knowledge are available. However, the idea of the Gepard seems to make sense again. Maybe not on track, but a lighter version on wheels. Radar and fire control should now be much cheaper than in the 70s (relatively speaking - when the Gepard came out it cost about 4x that of a Leopard 1).

[NamEndedAllen]

9 hours ago, The_Capt said:

if war is an evolutionary process,

Technically speaking, *any* pressure on species within an environmental niche causes selection, an evolutionary process. *We* as a species are still evolving genetically - not just culturally - as evidenced by a great amount of research over the past decades describing the differential frequency of gene frequencies, various alleles among population groups across the planet. (Another chapter in the metaphorical book, “Rust Never Sleeps”!)

If any interest:

https://www.science.org/content/article/team-uncovers-new-evidence-recent-human-evolution

https://sciencing.com/humans-are-still-evolving-heres-the-evidence-13719181.html
https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2017/10/12/humans-still-evolving-evidence-age-survives/

[Kinophile]

Humans stay the same, the tech evolves.

Until we develop true biotech that affects us on a genetic level, generation to generation (a la Dan Simmons' Ousters) we'll always bash each other with the latest in stone clubs / HIMARS  for the same selfish short-sighted reasons. 

[FancyCat]

6 minutes ago, poesel said:

The development of the Gepard started in the 60s, and it was first deployed in the mid 70s. The version A2 (the one in Ukraine) was equipped with digital computers in the 80s. Before that, everything was analog - the wet dream of every electrical engineer!

So, restarting the production of the Gepard makes no sense - neither parts nor knowledge are available. However, the idea of the Gepard seems to make sense again. Maybe not on track, but a lighter version on wheels. Radar and fire control should now be much cheaper than in the 70s (relatively speaking - when the Gepard came out it cost about 4x that of a Leopard 1).

I care not for what is its replacement is for NATO as long as it can be conceivably called a "flakpanzer". 

[Sojourner]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Seems might suspicious that there was a public announcement of it and then almost immediately two attacks that have no ready explanation

By that logic it could have been B-21.

 

One can dream...

[Battlefront.com]

42 minutes ago, NamEndedAllen said:

Steve, it is also possible that he and/or people like him are using China as a plausible but straw man argument in support of their mission to prop up Russia and its fortunes.

I think so.  The calls by the right to focus on China seem to have come after focus was put on Russia after 2014.  I also don't recall there being much call to punish China for the crackdowns in Hong Kong.

That said, there's two other reasons.  One is that China REALLY IS a threat to the US.  That they focus only on Communist threats (Cuba and Venezuela for example) goes right to the roots of far right ideology.

The second one is pure racism.  Far right figures, here and abroad, openly state that Russians are white and Christian standing against homosexuality, Islamic terrorists, and other claptrap.  Russians are all about traditional family values!  You don't hear anything like that about the Chinese, despite the fact that they are also huge proponents of traditional family values and are therefore against homosexuality and Islam.  So yeah, kinda hard to not see racism being a part of their position. 

Steve

[NamEndedAllen]

5 hours ago, Huba said:

US position is still way more privileged than basically any global/ regional power's at the moment, including Australia. Thinking about the terrorist threat - yes, the possibilities are endless, but it affects other countries similarly, while US at least is distanced from the potential state-actor enemies. One could very much imagine the XXIst century equivalent of Cuban Missile Crisis being about Chinese drones in Venezuela or something along these lines...

There is nothing comforting in any of this! 
And generally speaking, I’m sure many of us here grew up reading the SF stories and novels exploring how this all plays out. Spoiler: Not pretty. 

[Battlefront.com]

2 minutes ago, NamEndedAllen said:

There is nothing comforting in any of this! 
And generally speaking, I’m sure many of us here grew up reading the SF stories and novels exploring how this all plays out. Spoiler: Not pretty. 

And there's nothing new about this either, unfortunately.  The Houthis have been using drones to hit Saudi Arabian oil infrastructure for years.  In fact, they just hit some ships loading oil.  I believe the first attack was in 2019 (though I could have sworn there was an earlier one) that involved perhaps as much as 2 dozen drones.

Yeah, this threat has been around for a while.  And it's going to do nothing but get worse.

Steve

[Billy Ringo]

10 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I think so.  The calls by the right to focus on China seem to have come after focus was put on Russia after 2014.  I also don't recall there being much call to punish China for the crackdowns in Hong Kong.

That said, there's two other reasons.  One is that China REALLY IS a threat to the US.  That they focus only on Communist threats (Cuba and Venezuela for example) goes right to the roots of far right ideology.

The second one is pure racism.  Far right figures, here and abroad, openly state that Russians are white and Christian standing against homosexuality, Islamic terrorists, and other claptrap.  Russians are all about traditional family values!  You don't hear anything like that about the Chinese, despite the fact that they are also huge proponents of traditional family values and are therefore against homosexuality and Islam.  So yeah, kinda hard to not see racism being a part of their position. 

Steve

What?  Can you please point me in the direction of a significant contingent of "far right figures" who "openly state" this?  

[NamEndedAllen]

3 hours ago, MikeyD said:

One can imagine the US telling Ukraine 'We can't provide you with deep strike weapons for geo-political reasons but if you happened to build your own with some discrete assistance... (wink-nod)'

I believe the Pentagon or WH Advisor announced and confirmed this long ago. Said something like Ukraine has the right to strike at sources of attacks on its territory. Rankles that the USA would not assist in this via equipment transfers, but a) perhaps back channel threats by Putin/minions forced activating Operation Trouser Replacement, and b) at least they didn’t have the gall to try and tell Ukraine what it couldn’t do on its own, in defense of its nation!

[Letter from Prague]

1 hour ago, NamEndedAllen said:

Apologies, but the immense suffering of the people of this democratic nation is overwhelming. And Christmas is coming.

My hypothesis is that most of the West accepted the Russian claims that the Ukrainians are lesser people, even without saying it outright. Somehow the Russians kept the air of a pompous grand empire in the eyes of e.g. French and Germans (see Macron and his bull****). They are the big people with destiny or whatever.

That is why not offending Russians is seen as more important than Ukrainian lives and suffering. Torture rooms and kidnapped children, who cares but making Russia angry, nonono, we can't have that!

This is a stark contrast to how I hear Eastern European people talking about Russians as orcs and barbarians (cockroaches also seem popular term here in Czechia) and how they react to the atrocity of the weekby saying "of course they did that, it's who they are, why would you be surprised?"

Personal experience seems to make a whole lot of a difference, even one that is generations removed.

[Fenris]

Pic from the left side of the aircraft, can see the intact wing tip in the foreground.

 

[Battlefront.com]

1 minute ago, Billy Ringo said:

What?  Can you please point me in the direction of a significant contingent of "far right figures" who "openly state" this?  

Not hard to find:

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-leaders-lying-putin-invasion-ukraine

This is a two-for-one as it's Tucker Carlson saying how right Nigel Farage is to say:

Quote

In the war against Islamic extremism, Vladimir Putin, whatever we may think of him as a human being, is actually on our side. 

I suggest we grow up. I suggest we recognize the real threat facing all of our countries, communities and societies; we stop playing war games in the Ukraine; and we start to prepare a plan to help countries like Syria, like Iraq, like Kenya, like indeed Nigeria, to try and help them to deal with the real threat that faces us. Let us not go on provoking Putin, whether we like him or not.  

Delaware GOP candidate Lauren Witzke:

Quote

Here’s the deal, also, you know, Russia, is a Christian Nationalization, actually Orthodox Christian and Russian Orthodox, so, you know, I actually support Putin’s right to protect his people, and always put his people first, but also protect their Christian values. I identify more with Putin’s Christian values than I do with Joe Biden.

And I'll stop there, as it is going too much towards off-topic.  If you really are curious about this topic, I suggest you punch in this into Google you'll find quotes like this in a few seconds just like I did:

"right wing, christian, support putin"

Steve

[NamEndedAllen]

23 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I think so.  The calls by the right to focus on China seem to have come after focus was put on Russia after 2014.  I also don't recall there being much call to punish China for the crackdowns in Hong Kong.

That said, there's two other reasons.  One is that China REALLY IS a threat to the US.  That they focus only on Communist threats (Cuba and Venezuela for example) goes right to the roots of far right ideology.

The second one is pure racism.  Far right figures, here and abroad, openly state that Russians are white and Christian standing against homosexuality, Islamic terrorists, and other claptrap.  Russians are all about traditional family values!  You don't hear anything like that about the Chinese, despite the fact that they are also huge proponents of traditional family values and are therefore against homosexuality and Islam.  So yeah, kinda hard to not see racism being a part of their position. 

Steve

Excellent points, Steve. And I agree. Do note though that the best propaganda/misinformation has *enough* just enough truth to make it seem plausible. As despicable as it is, your point about racism lines up with Russia’s leading position as largest white supremacy nation. Extremist groups here and abroad link up with organizations there. Which cannot be a good thing.

[NamEndedAllen]

16 minutes ago, Billy Ringo said:

What?  Can you please point me in the direction of a significant contingent of "far right figures" who "openly state" this?  

Sure! Well reported in the USA. Too many to even scratch the surface. Have you actually not been aware of this before?

White supremacist and alt right leader Richard Spencer called Russia “the sole white power in the world.” 

https://www.adl.org/blog/white-supremacists-other-extremists-respond-to-russian-invasion-of-ukraine 

Can we get a round of applause for Russia?” asked Nick Fuentes, on stage last week at a white nationalist event. Amid a roar of applause for the Russian president, just days after he invaded Ukraine, many attendees responded by shouting: “Putin! Putin!”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/05/putin-ukraine-invasion-white-nationalists-far-right

https://www.justsecurity.org/68420/confronting-russias-role-in-transnational-white-supremacist-extremism/

[NamEndedAllen]

8 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

And I'll stop there, as it is going too much towards off-topic.

Oops! Sorry Steve. Posted before I saw your reply.