How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The_Capt]

7 hours ago, JonS said:

Except that not many in the Bat**** Brigade have planned a NATO intervention, or commanded large units in combat.

It kinda looks like "the hidebound army brass" were right on the money when they passed him over for promotion due to his narcissism. Although, it could be that passing over was the trigger that led to his long step off the short plank he was standing on. Either way, IC 1st/4th Twitter Account is probably the safest place for him these days.

Helluva lot of credibility to blow up on this war, but he found a way.  His wiki page read like "a next gen maverick too real for mainstream military service", followed by his whole government work.  Turns out the guy is so extreme a pro-Russian mouthpiece that most in intelligence would likely suspect he has been compromised.  He has no credibility left in my industry, at least not in the "real world" circles.

[Seedorf81]

3 hours ago, AlexUK said:

(..)

 

i don’t know why that video (and the one of the Ukrainians in the minefield - I have had nightmares about that one) has affected me so much. It is such a terrible waste of lives.

(..)
 

 

All the kill-mame-death-destruction video's haunt me. And not just from this war.

(Overly-Sensitive kinda guy, probably.)

But the Ukrainians in the minefield-video struck me most because of the unbelievable courage those guys showed. Courage in a trench or fierce firefight can be an instinctive thing, because there is hardly time to really think about what is happening, until it's over.

But these guys in that minefield knew what was around them. And the ones that survived the first explosions, plus the ones that later arrived in the other Bradley, knew very well how utterly dangerous it was to try and get the wounded out.

But they went. And when those guys blew up in front of their eyes, the next guys never gave up and stepped on that mine-infested soil. WHILE THEY KNEW!!!

I wonder if I have ever seen more courageous people in this whole ****ty war.

Edited July 3, 2023 by Seedorf81

[billbindc]

39 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Helluva lot of credibility to blow up on this war, but he found a way.  His wiki page read like "a next gen maverick too real for mainstream military service", followed by his whole government work.  Turns out the guy is so extreme a pro-Russian mouthpiece that most in intelligence would likely suspect he has been compromised.  He has no credibility left in my industry, at least not in the "real world" circles.

He’s the German propaganda officer in Saving Private Ryan yelling into the loudspeaker “The Statue of Liberty is kaput!”.

[TheVulture]

From the Times

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b6efdf80-18e1-11ee-8198-bf96b6365670?shareToken=5d0f0ebe55af7b028dec1667385cdfb4

Exiled Wagner group suspends recruitment of fighters

The Wagner group has stopped recruiting fighters after its aborted rebellion last week as Russian state television said the mercenary organisation’s leader had received more than £15 billion in Kremlin funds.

 

The group has announced a one-month suspension in recruitment because of its “temporary non-participation” in the war in Ukraine and its move to Belarus.

[Bearstronaut]

46 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Helluva lot of credibility to blow up on this war, but he found a way.  His wiki page read like "a next gen maverick too real for mainstream military service", followed by his whole government work.  Turns out the guy is so extreme a pro-Russian mouthpiece that most in intelligence would likely suspect he has been compromised.  He has no credibility left in my industry, at least not in the "real world" circles.

He never should have had any credibility post-2004 after he strongly and repeatedly argued that the US could invade and secure Iraq with a force of 50,000.

[Vanir Ausf B]

2 hours ago, Carolus said:

Isn't there an ATACMS warhead which is filled with cluster submunitions?

Something like 80% of ATACMS have a cluster munition warhead. I suspect this is the primary reason why Ukraine doesn't have them yet.

 

[Taranis]

Mo-120-RTF1 mortar

[Vanir Ausf B]

5 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Russia can create powerful concentrations of anti-air and electronic warfare capabilities.

I am sure the helo bases are some of the strongest AA concentrations there are. Making it unfeasible or not worth it for the Ukrainians to hit them with their few long-range precision assets. 

Also, KA-52 has the range to operate from internationally recognized Russia, given the restrictions imposed on Ukrainian weapons use they would become practically untouchable. So if they would feel threatened they would just start operating from Russia like most of the air force is already doing

This.

It's also possible that Russia is moving them around between airbases (what the US Air Force calls reactive maneuver).

Edited July 3, 2023 by Vanir Ausf B

[danfrodo]

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

He’s the German propaganda officer in Saving Private Ryan yelling into the loudspeaker “The Statue of Liberty is kaput!”.

"that's disconcerting"

In some circles being crazy is a feature not a bug.  And being on RU payroll?  How is that a problem for those same circles?

Edited July 3, 2023 by danfrodo

[JonS]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Assuming that these are legit and not recycled strikes with a Ka-52 gun camera aesthetic overlayed - this would average out to about 3-4 strikes per day along an +800 km frontage.

And assuming they are all from June '23.

So, that's three fairly hearty assumptions required for that video;

A. No duplicates

ii. All from June '23

3. All strikes by Ka-52

And let me add a fourth:

d. All equipment show being destroyed is Ukrainian, in Ukraine, by the Russians.

Given that the video appears to be from a Russian source, how many Storm Shadows do you want to bet that those assumptions hold true?

[DesertFox]

 

 

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Something like 80% of ATACMS have a cluster munition warhead. I suspect this is the primary reason why Ukraine doesn't have them yet.

 

Yep. Cluster munitions make the US Congress very uneasy and that’s the other major reason (and more important than range) why they aren’t out there yet.

[dan/california]

4 hours ago, Butschi said:

How do you propose to do that?

Governments can be incredibly persuasive when they set their minds to it. And this is so important that if nothing else works just arrange for them to be bought out buy more reasonable owners. This really is an important lever we haven't pulled. Their is also the option of finding someone on the engineering staff who has a bad habit that isn't quite legal and telling him he can cough up the codes or someone might have to notice his little hobby. There also needs to be a real effort to feed the Russians bad parts as they try to get around sanctions on chips and such. A few missiles cooking of their launch tubes would do wonders for the black sea fleet for instance. The CIA had some real successes with things like this during the cold war.

[dan/california]

No clearer sign of a good hit than rockets cooking off in random directions. 

[dan/california]

A nifty SAM cook off, too. This one has much better video quality.

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Helluva lot of credibility to blow up on this war, but he found a way.  His wiki page read like "a next gen maverick too real for mainstream military service", followed by his whole government work.  Turns out the guy is so extreme a pro-Russian mouthpiece that most in intelligence would likely suspect he has been compromised.  He has no credibility left in my industry, at least not in the "real world" circles.

I've mentioned my theory about mental illness in connection with people like Macgregor, but I'm always up for repeating it

There are some mental illnesses that take quite a while to develop to the point where the person is (or should be) unemployable.  Some of the early symptoms are seen as positives in certain disciplines, such as engineering, military, and intelligence work.  Such people are often viewed as "difficult to work with" even when they are in their prime.  As the person ages the symptoms increase and the person finds it harder to maintain the interpersonal relationships and consistency necessary for the job, but not enough to get them kicked out. 
Another aspect is that as they get promoted they have more responsibilities and impact, which can further highlight their declining capabilities.  Government organizations, especially, have difficulties with firing people outright, therefore they shuffle the problem people around to posts where they can "cause the least amount of damage" and hope that the individual takes a hint and retires.  This can artificially prolong a career that arguably should have ended much earlier, especially when an organization promotes based on time served more than merit.

For me, when I see someone promoting their military or intelligence credentials I look to see what they've done since getting out of service.  If their resume doesn't contain significant and credible employment since retiring, well... there's most likely a reason for that.

Macgregor is just one of a very long list of extreme right wing nutjobs to come out of uniform and into roles that are accepting of their mental state, views, and general personality.  There is no analog from the extreme left because the careers don't appeal to them so they don't tend to join up to start with.  Which means we get crazy ex-Colonels spouting right wing extremism and crazy artists spouting left wing extremism, not as much the other way around (yeah, stereotyping to make a point).

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, JonS said:

And assuming they are all from June '23.

So, that's three fairly hearty assumptions required for that video;

A. No duplicates

ii. All from June '23

3. All strikes by Ka-52

And let me add a fourth:

d. All equipment show being destroyed is Ukrainian, in Ukraine, by the Russians.

Given that the video appears to be from a Russian source, how many Storm Shadows do you want to bet that those assumptions hold true?

I'll add a fifth... Russia has a long history of trying to pass off destruction of civilian or lower importance military targets as if they are high priority military.  We saw this most recently with the KA-52 video of them destroying a "Leopard" that turned out to be agricultural equipment.

It's pretty clear that Russian targeting systems are horrendously lower quality compared to Western systems.  For the most part all we can see are black blobs exploding.  Leopard 2 or SUV, MRAP or tractor?  Tough to say in many of these videos as there simply isn't enough information and Russia's narrative can not be trusted.

Still, even if we apply all 5 filters to this video, there is still likely a dozen or two solid hits on military targets of various sorts (trucks to tanks).  We also have corroborating evidence that some of those hits were Leos and Brads, so the threat of the KA-52 is very real and significant, though most likely not as much as the Russian compilation video claims it to be.

Steve

[Maciej Zwolinski]

18 hours ago, womble said:

What sortof puzzles me is that an ATGM (with a massive warhead to punch through MBT armour) can be effectively launched at 10km range, but "mobile" SAMs struggle to manage that sort of engagement envelope. Starstreak has a ceiling, AIUI of 10km, but won't reach out that far (I don't know the dynamics of why) laterally. Or perhaps Startstreak is rare or fills a more important niche in the AD complex than "Keeping the AHs off our spearpoint formations".

It is a much bigger missile (about twice the dimensions of a Stinger, which has to fit a man's shoulder), it is not being shot from the ground upwards but from the air downwards, and it has a much easier time targeting a tank, than an AA missile would have targeting a helicopter. It must have been a much easier thing to design than an AA missile of similar range. 

[sburke]

9 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

There is no analog from the extreme left because the careers don't appeal to them so they don't tend to join up to start with.  Which means we get crazy ex-Colonels spouting right wing extremism and crazy artists spouting left wing extremism, not as much the other way around (yeah, stereotyping to make a point).

Steve

Many years ago when I was just a snotty teen, what would now be termed a millennial or something I got involved in some radical circles. Didn’t get a lot of what was happening but there was a lot of factionalism. (Cue the forum scene in “Life of Brian” splitter!). I recently had reason to recall one I’d completely forgotten. An organization called the African People’s Socialist Party. They just got indicted for collaborating with a Russian agent. The world is a pretty f’d up place with a lot of f’d up people.  They have this view that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is an anti-colonial struggle.  Some serious drugs would be needed to get to that conclusion. 

[BlackMoria]

2 minutes ago, sburke said:

They have this view that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is an anti-colonial struggle.  Some serious drugs would be needed to get to that conclusion. 

Wow.  That is some non sequitur.    The Russian invasion of Ukraine is an anti-colonial struggle.  Wut?

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, sburke said:

Many years ago when I was just a snotty teen, what would now be termed a millennial or something I got involved in some radical circles. Didn’t get a lot of what was happening but there was a lot of factionalism. (Cue the forum scene in “Life of Brian” splitter!). I recently had reason to recall one I’d completely forgotten. An organization called the African People’s Socialist Party. They just got indicted for collaborating with a Russian agent. The world is a pretty f’d up place with a lot of f’d up people.  They have this view that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is an anti-colonial struggle.  Some serious drugs would be needed to get to that conclusion. 

Russia has very deliberately promoted the storyline of colonialism even before this war.  It's constructed similar to the 1950s/1960s "Domino Theory" held by anti-Communist hawks in the West (especially in the US).  The Russian propaganda states that the West (generally) and NATO (explicitly) is all about Colonialism 2.0.  Today Ukraine, tomorrow Uganda! 

As with just about everything coming out of Russian propaganda, they are speaking far more about what they are actually doing than what they claim the West/NATO is doing.  Wagner in Africa is following the tenants of Colonialism 101 almost exactly.  There is very little difference between Prig and Cortés.

Steve

[Letter from Prague]

32 minutes ago, BlackMoria said:

Wow.  That is some non sequitur.    The Russian invasion of Ukraine is an anti-colonial struggle.  Wut?

Oh, it's very simple.

West = NATO = imperialism = colonialism.
Russia + China = Anti-West = anti-imperialism = anti-colonialism.

It is of course extremely idiotic, but it is simple.

[sburke]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukrainian-artillery-forces-invaders-flee-101600454.html

[sburke]

I’m not quite dead yet, I feel happy!

https://www.yahoo.com/news/commander-russias-akhmat-unit-killed-124413239.html

[Billy Ringo]

40 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

Oh, it's very simple.

West = NATO = imperialism = colonialism.
Russia + China = Anti-West = anti-imperialism = anti-colonialism.

It is of course extremely idiotic, but it is simple.

And I'll add: 

$$$$ under the table = Change My Point of View