How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, Zeleban said:

Not at all. I remember these two years of war very well, because I myself partly took part in them. Therefore, there is no need to doubt my health. I remember very well how energetic, optimistic and ready to do anything for victory against the enemy, the people who were near me did not give me the slightest doubt about our victory. But there is nothing of this anymore. I'm already tired of describing the mood of people in the rear. Now there is not even a shadow of the spirit that was in people at the very beginning of this war.  This has nothing to do with the past. This is what it is right now. Let's forget 2022. 2023 is already coming to an end.

You have just proven my point.  Yes, you lived through this whole war and were directly affected by it.  But you are deliberately "cherry picking" negatives that exist today and are dismissing anything that doesn't fit your defeatist mindset.  You can not just dismiss the entire war up until now because it is inconvenient for your narrative.

I will demonstrate:

2 hours ago, Zeleban said:

Perhaps the Polish government understands the danger of this blocking. But the mood of ordinary Poles is by no means in favor of Ukraine. To be convinced of this, you can read the comments of the Poles on any news about the blocking of the Ukrainian borders - they gloat over the imminent and inevitable fall of Ukraine. And the government of a democratic country is obliged to listen to the sentiments of ordinary people.

The people on message boards are not "ordinary people".  In fact, they might not even be people at all.  Have you completely forgotten how swamped all forms of social media have been by Russian disinformation trolls from their bot farm?  Have you completely forgotten Russia's brainwashed successes in various countries pushing Russian disinformation?  Go back and look at any social media platform in early 2022 and I bet there would be worse things that what you are seeing now.

You have already shown a pattern for being sucked into disinformation postings before.  Several of your posts over the last few days prove that.  As I have said each time you did this, you are actively participating in spreading Russian disinformation and that means you are helping Russia.  If a confirmed Russian troll were making the same posts you were making I would have banned that person already.

Stop spreading Russian disinformation.

2 hours ago, Zeleban said:

Previously, I was also confident in the full support of Ukraine by the Poles. But these times have passed as well as the fortitude of the Ukrainians. Now the Poles are more likely to sympathize with the Russians than with the Ukrainians. And I previously argued that Ukraine would fall very quickly without the support of Poland and now the time is drawing near.

You have ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE OF THIS AT ALL.  Even the truckers causing problems at the border are not indicative of Polish support any more than those huge pro-Russian demonstrations in Berlin last year were.  Just like then, the actions you are seeing are tied directly to Moscow and not the local population.

Stop spreading Russian disinformation.  And further, stop disparaging your #1 most important ally.

And skipping ahead to your next post:

1 hour ago, Zeleban said:

At the border with Hungary, 8 Ukrainian citizens were detained while trying to cross the border. The organizer of this “scheme” was detained along with them. Men pay crazy amounts of money by Ukrainian standards to avoid conscription and hide from the war. There are more and more similar messages.

Do you remember how we laughed at the Russians who fled mobilization last year? Now I'm not funny at all

Ukrainians have been fleeing the draft since the start of this war, even when there were long lines of volunteers signing up.  Ukrainians have also been spying for Russia since the start of the war.  Ukrainians have also been actively fighting with Russian forces since 2014.  Ukrainians have also have continued traditional Soviet forms of corruption on military and humanitarian aid since the start of the war. 

By posting this you are in fact saying that when others posted such information in March of 2022 we should have concluded that Ukraine was finished and Russia would be victorious?  Because if you search this very thread you would find such posts.

Stop spreading Russian disinformation.

2 hours ago, Zeleban said:

Yes, but what is the point of carrying out any strategic offensives if the rear of Ukraine as well as the entire supply system falls and if a civil war breaks out in the rear.

Wow.  Sure, and I suppose aliens could come down from Mars and take over Kyiv and put Russia in charge of it.  Even if that happens I suspect that Russia would still screw it up.  This is why it is important to not forget what we know about Russia's capabilities in this war so far.  They are relevant and can not be dismissed because it conflicts with your doom scenario.

There is no signs that Ukraine is on the verge of a civil war.  Messy politics?  Sure, possibly maybe even probably.  But you just admitted that all parties that matter agree they don't want Russia to govern then.  If political problems started to affect the frontline to the point of Russia making gains, that will straighten out the politics very quickly.

2 hours ago, Zeleban said:

No, there is no talk of surrendering to Russia. But speeches about the overthrow of the government are becoming louder, and on the other hand, accusations of an attempted coup in the interests of Russia are heard. and the situation is heating up every day. I don’t think it’s worth reminding how it could end

This is normal in a society under stress which has suffered such horrible losses.  As long as there is no talk of surrendering to Russia, then I am not yet concerned about how political disunity will affect the war against Russia.

2 hours ago, Zeleban said:

This is wrong. Ukraine is in a much worse situation than in February 2022. Most of our most experienced and motivated fighters were killed, captured, maimed, and finally simply tired of the war and require replacement. But there is no one to replace them. You can send us mountains of weapons and equipment. But where can we get soldiers to continue the war?

This is, of course, a source of concern.  However, you are only looking at one side.  Russia's forces are worse now than when they started this war.  And they had overwhelming advantages at the start and yet still got their arses handed to them.  There is no indication that they have what it takes to overcome Ukraine at this time.  That may change, of course, but there's no reason to think that it will.

2 hours ago, Zeleban said:

As for Russia, if you really want to defeat it, then forget about underestimating Russia. We made this mistake before and today we are paying for it.

We have discussed this a million times here.  Underestimating Russia is not smart, but overestimating it is probably worse.  Going into this war nearly everybody overestimated Russia and that allowed it freedom to do things which could have been prevented.  We are having the same discussion about China for exactly the same reasons.

Don't fall victim to Russian disinformation.  Nothing good will come from it.

Steve

[TheVulture]

3 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:

This doesn’t surprise me at all. During the Vietnam Conflict, the “Tail-gunner Joe” idiots convinced the U.S. political and military leaders that North Vietnam would ask the Chinese to help them. Unfortunately, the closed minded fools never bothered to consider the history of the region. The Vietnamese had relatively recently (about 100 years earlier) evicted China from Indochina after about 1,000 years of Chinese domination. Within just a few years after the U.S. withdrew its forces, China began hostilities on Vietnam’s northern border.

Really powerful and influential positions and military who failed to learn the history of the region.

It's one of the most common failure modes in foreign policy: we (for which ever country you are talking about as 'we') tend to anticipate other countries actions in terms of what we are most afraid of them doing, not in terms of what their interests are and what they are trying to achieve. (That, and viewing all unfriendly nations as being mutually co-operating rather than having their own tensions and conflicts with each other).

Hence all the silly talk last year about "is the Ukraine war going to prompt China to invade Taiwan?" No - China isn't remotely ready to do that (I'm of the view that China views invading Taiwan as very much a last resort option when all the better ideas have been exhausted), and nothing about Russia invading Ukraine makes China's chances any better. It's just that America's sense of crisis would be hit most acutely by a China-Taiwan conflict, so that's what they start to anticipate.

[Battlefront.com]

12 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

It's Russian nature to commit crimes. And this time no Mother Russia to avenge or use as excuse for their attrocities. Strange this kind of news doesn't make it to the main media.

I don't know about where you are, but it was in the "top stories" section of the hourly updates on my public radio station.  If you are not familiar with this, they select 3-4 of the most important stories of the hour and make very brief statements about them before the start of the next hour of programming.  Reporting on the video was the 2nd story, the first being an update on Gaza.

I also noticed it in Business Insider while looking up the economic data from my post earlier today.  I haven't poked around much more than that.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

29 minutes ago, Offshoot said:

The Russians have worked out how to manoeuver in the grey zone - Flintstone turtle mechs

Russian infantry uses ‘cocoons’ to covertly move across the terrain - https://mil.in.ua/en/news/russian-infantry-uses-cocoons-to-covertly-move-across-the-terrain/

I don't know why they would conclude that these things are armored in some way.  Maybe?  But more likely they are just camouflaged boxes because even that would be cumbersome and slow to move.  Weighted down with metal or Kevlar?  Yeah, I don't think that is very practical at all.

Steve

[zinz]

About the economic debate. 

There must be significant amounts of money going to the volunteers. We hear about enough complaints when payments to widows etc. Fail. But overall there must be enough that actually gets paid. Sure Russian corruption works as normal but payments must be real otherwise there wouldn't be any volunteers. Yeah those guys know they are signing up for something close to a death sentence, but in the Russian mindset that seems to be an appropriate choice. 

Well so a lot of money is transferred out to very poor people that probably were living with little or no money before. Suddenly they are able to spend money and are happy to get things they only dreamed of before. They will spend that money locally in their communities and not in Cyprus or Paris. 

My point is that you can see the entire spending on volunteers as a gigantic stimulus package for the Russian domestic economy. Sure trade is ****ed but the domestic economy is doing quite well. 

The real losers in the Russian economy are the western style middle class. I am sure Putin is not sad about that one bit. As they are a natural opponent to dictators. Many of them fled Russia. 

The oligarchs seem to have enough opportunities with the war induced changes to have a lot of good earning opportunities or they cut their losses and retired outside of Russia. (with the bonus of less gravity close to windows) 

The state budget is suffering of course. The state is controlling the petrol industry and has to manage the ups and downs of that revenue stream. But the state can print money and do that won't be an issue for the short and medium term especially inside Russia. 

[Letter from Prague]

1 hour ago, Carolus said:

Someone provided a surefire way to get across Russian minefields.

 

 

That's almost as good as equipping airmobile brigades with AeroGavin:

 

 

 

[Hapless]

Haven't seen this before:

It can't be good... on so many levels.

[Zeleban]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

You have just proven my point.  Yes, you lived through this whole war and were directly affected by it.  But you are deliberately "cherry picking" negatives that exist today and are dismissing anything that doesn't fit your defeatist mindset.  You can not just dismiss the entire war up until now because it is inconvenient for your narrative.

I will demonstrate:

The people on message boards are not "ordinary people".  In fact, they might not even be people at all.  Have you completely forgotten how swamped all forms of social media have been by Russian disinformation trolls from their bot farm?  Have you completely forgotten Russia's brainwashed successes in various countries pushing Russian disinformation?  Go back and look at any social media platform in early 2022 and I bet there would be worse things that what you are seeing now.

You have already shown a pattern for being sucked into disinformation postings before.  Several of your posts over the last few days prove that.  As I have said each time you did this, you are actively participating in spreading Russian disinformation and that means you are helping Russia.  If a confirmed Russian troll were making the same posts you were making I would have banned that person already.

Stop spreading Russian disinformation.

You have ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE OF THIS AT ALL.  Even the truckers causing problems at the border are not indicative of Polish support any more than those huge pro-Russian demonstrations in Berlin last year were.  Just like then, the actions you are seeing are tied directly to Moscow and not the local population.

Stop spreading Russian disinformation.  And further, stop disparaging your #1 most important ally.

And skipping ahead to your next post:

Ukrainians have been fleeing the draft since the start of this war, even when there were long lines of volunteers signing up.  Ukrainians have also been spying for Russia since the start of the war.  Ukrainians have also been actively fighting with Russian forces since 2014.  Ukrainians have also have continued traditional Soviet forms of corruption on military and humanitarian aid since the start of the war. 

By posting this you are in fact saying that when others posted such information in March of 2022 we should have concluded that Ukraine was finished and Russia would be victorious?  Because if you search this very thread you would find such posts.

Stop spreading Russian disinformation.

Wow.  Sure, and I suppose aliens could come down from Mars and take over Kyiv and put Russia in charge of it.  Even if that happens I suspect that Russia would still screw it up.  This is why it is important to not forget what we know about Russia's capabilities in this war so far.  They are relevant and can not be dismissed because it conflicts with your doom scenario.

There is no signs that Ukraine is on the verge of a civil war.  Messy politics?  Sure, possibly maybe even probably.  But you just admitted that all parties that matter agree they don't want Russia to govern then.  If political problems started to affect the frontline to the point of Russia making gains, that will straighten out the politics very quickly.

This is normal in a society under stress which has suffered such horrible losses.  As long as there is no talk of surrendering to Russia, then I am not yet concerned about how political disunity will affect the war against Russia.

This is, of course, a source of concern.  However, you are only looking at one side.  Russia's forces are worse now than when they started this war.  And they had overwhelming advantages at the start and yet still got their arses handed to them.  There is no indication that they have what it takes to overcome Ukraine at this time.  That may change, of course, but there's no reason to think that it will.

We have discussed this a million times here.  Underestimating Russia is not smart, but overestimating it is probably worse.  Going into this war nearly everybody overestimated Russia and that allowed it freedom to do things which could have been prevented.  We are having the same discussion about China for exactly the same reasons.

Don't fall victim to Russian disinformation.  Nothing good will come from it.

Steve

 

Well then, just ban me so that I don’t interfere with your stay in the cozy echo chamber of your own beliefs

[Letter from Prague]

48 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I don't know why they would conclude that these things are armored in some way.  Maybe?  But more likely they are just camouflaged boxes because even that would be cumbersome and slow to move.  Weighted down with metal or Kevlar?  Yeah, I don't think that is very practical at all.

Steve

It definitely is traditional ...

Anyway, to post something else than memes. About the people in discussions.

I of course can't talk about Polish discussion boards and comment forums, but on Czech ones, there's a lot of anti-Ukraine comments. There's also a lot of passionate pro-Ukraine people of course.

What you notice though is that from the anti-Ukraine comments, the people tend to write with strange quirks. Like spell a word consistently wrong (Czech pronounces i and y the same but we have stringent rules on when to write which, that they beat into you over 9 years or elementary school) or use subtly different word in a context that kind of makes sense but doesn't sound quite right, or use the wrong grammatical case (like imagine mixing up "American dude" and "dude of America" in English).

I discussed this with a friend who is a linguist specializing in Slavic languages, and we were able to trace a lot of the quirks to features of Russian language, pointing to them being a native Russian speaker.

You don't see those quirks with people who are pro-Ukraine, of course.

[Harmon Rabb]

With some of discussions we have been having here lately, I would say this video is highly relevant.

 

[The_Capt]

6 hours ago, sburke said:

Japan went from being a feudal nation in 1860 to crushing the Russian navy in a historical defeat in 1905.  35 years after that they had the most powerful aircraft carrier fleet in the world.  What's my point?  Don't really have one other than to say China's performance isn't all that unique.

For Asia, maybe.  So “meh China”, except of course when we want to discuss security?  So which is it?  China is just another upstart power with no real attributes.  Or China rise is a clear and present threat to western way of life and we need to invest trillions in defence in order to thwart them.  You can see how the narrative appears muddled.  Also, we didn’t take Japan seriously and it took an A-bomb to bring them down…so maybe we should be a little more respectful this time?

[The_Capt]

7 hours ago, billbindc said:

What are China's exports to the US? Would that matter much if they went for Taiwan? 

How much trade was 1913 Germany doing with Britain and France? 

(Note: I agree on rational terms with your points. I'm pretty sure Chinese diplomats wouldn't be clear on the concept.)

About 1/2 trillion per year.  US sells about 1/4 trillion back.  Pre-WW1 is an excellent example of everyone talking themselves into a war no one really wanted.  Mis-reads, wrong signalling, identities that were already obsolete and unnecessary escalation - along with some baffling alliance decisions - led to an insane conflagration that ruined European dominance forever.  

So can we all be dumb enough to do that again..oh ya.  Putin just proved it in this war.  Now should we?  No freakin way.

So linking this back to Russia and the much larger question:  how does this end?  Russia back in a Cold War shoebox?  China happily making our running shoes for cheap while struggles to feed everyone?  I have yet to hear one coherent post-conflict strategy for this strategic competition.  It all “we will win and figure it out later”…gawd but haven’t we made that particular mistake enough?

[billbindc]

5 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

About 1/2 trillion per year.  US sells about 1/4 trillion back.  Pre-WW1 is an excellent example of everyone talking themselves into a war no one really wanted.  Mis-reads, wrong signalling, identities that were already obsolete and unnecessary escalation - along with some baffling alliance decisions - led to an insane conflagration that ruined European dominance forever.  

So can we all be dumb enough to do that again..oh ya.  Putin just proved it in this war.  Now should we?  No freakin way.

So linking this back to Russia and the much larger question:  how does this end?  Russia back in a Cold War shoebox?  China happily making our running shoes for cheap while struggles to feed everyone?  I have yet to hear one coherent post-conflict strategy for this strategic competition.  It all “we will win and figure it out later”…gawd but haven’t we made that particular mistake enough?

What I keep hearing is that win, lose or draw in Ukraine we are going to be in a warmish Cold War with Moscow that will entail long term containment of Russia while it will be in a cooler one with China. That, barring a disastrous second term of Trump, is pretty much consensus. I do *not* hear people near the actual decision making process talking up war with China. What I do hear is that the US has to create a force posture that deters China while continuing to talk to Beijing so that misunderstandings don’t escalate. In that arena, the US has been advocating for a hotline for decades and after having finally established one, China often refuses to answer it. But Xi definitely walked back some of China’s aggro after the last meeting with Biden and hopefully that trend continues. 

I don’t think anyone can get much past those points given that we do not know some very important things such as how the Ukraine war finally plays out, whether Xi is going to be able to mitigate challenges in the Chinese economy, how US elections are going to go in November, etc, etc. 

 

 

[Carolus]

24 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I have yet to hear one coherent post-conflict strategy for this strategic competition.  It all “we will win and figure it out later”…gawd but haven’t we made that particular mistake enough?

The problem of people focusing so much on "winning" might be that there is a general feeling that we are losing.

The question is still out "what" we are losing.

Western hegemony? Our very existence and way of life? Something in between?

In any case, there is so much internal "not addressing anything", starting with sanction dodging to enemy propaganda being highly successful and arriving at military spending being at an all time low, that people are nervous. Most people don't even want to realise how much Russia and China hate us.

How could anyone formulate a strategy about the post-war situation when it looks like you will be the party that does not get to influence much about anything post war?

There was recently a podcast between four European defense advisors / mil focused journalists.

They are not at all known for doom and gloom. The take-away of the discussion was "Okay, let's end on a positive note: If we continue to do as little about climate change as we have done so far, maybe the Chinese will drown before we do."

Edited December 3, 2023 by Carolus

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Zeleban said:

 

Well then, just ban me so that I don’t interfere with your stay in the cozy echo chamber of your own beliefs

Again with your binary black and white logic!

Telling us about the deteriorating spirit and what people are doing as a result of it is good for us to hear so we do NOT have an echo chamber.  Which is why I want you to stay here.

However, being hyper negative is just as pointless as someone being hyper positive. 

When this war started pro-Russians came into this thread and told us we were living in an echo chamber because, according to their perspectives, Ukraine was just a bunch of Nazis spewing out propaganda and the real war was being won by the glorious forces of the Russia.  When pressed to defend their positions they failed to do so, instead saying "ban me if you want to live in an echo chamber".

I am trying to convince you to not be like that.

Your recent arguments have not been well presented.  For example, draft dodgers have been a problem since the war started.  Showing us a report that 6 guys got caught trying to go to Hungary is useful for us to see.  It shows us that the problem still exists, maybe it is even getting worse.  Good.  But it does not support your claims that Ukraine is about to collapse into civil war.

Another is your claim that social media is some sort of reflection of the average person is wrong no matter what the context, but especially in this one where we know the Russian government spends huge amounts of money making fake social media posts.

An analogy is if people here are saying it is sunny outside now and you post evidence it is raining, that's good.  If you use this to conclude that it is always raining outside or it's a monsoon, that's not useful.

So yes, please help keep us from being an echo chamber through reasoned and well supported arguments. 

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

11 minutes ago, billbindc said:

What I keep hearing is that win, lose or draw in Ukraine we are going to be in a warmish Cold War with Moscow that will entail long term containment of Russia while it will be in a cooler one with China. That, barring a disastrous second term of Trump, is pretty much consensus.

I concur with this, though I'd add that if Russia shifts into some form of civil conflict that maybe as upsetting as a second Trump term.  Even more upsetting if one of the opposition factions secures nukes.  That's the scenario nobody wants and for good reason.

Steve

[kimbosbread]

A while back somebody wondered if it the autonomous drones should be programmed to play cat and mouse with their targets.

I wonder if there’s a similar argument about killing or injuring or damaging the target from a psychological perspective. For example, if you could make drones reliably target a man’s balls, what that do to the opposing force? Would codpieces come back into fashion with a quickness?

What if the drone basically would spray a bunch of napalm on your face, just enough to make your life extra ****ty, but not kill you?

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

I concur with this, though I'd add that if Russia shifts into some form of civil conflict that maybe as upsetting as a second Trump term.  Even more upsetting if one of the opposition factions secures nukes.  That's the scenario nobody wants and for good reason.

Steve

From what we saw with the Prigozhin revolt and the aftermath, it looks like the moment some faction has the power to knock off Vladi there won't be a free for all. This is a demobilized state with demobilized politics run on a system of kickbacks and kickups. Until that system is threatened, I would suggest that a change power would look more like a mafia coup than anything else. The guy who was bad for business goes and the new guy is fine if he keeps the money flowing. 

With Prigozhin we literally saw how little of the security apparatus was willing to get involved.  

[Vet 0369]

5 hours ago, Yet said:

Read your article: "70 additional soldiers" 

which means there was already crew that could use it properly. 

Um, no, it says “now the Ukrainian Military ….” If they meant it to be referring to just those particular soldiers, it would say something like “now they …” or “now those Ukrainian Military ….” The way the original was worded implied that the Ukrainian Military had not been able to operate those systems before the soldiers were trained. How many soldiers are needed to man the systems that Ukraine now has?

[Vet 0369]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

For Asia, maybe.  So “meh China”, except of course when we want to discuss security?  So which is it?  China is just another upstart power with no real attributes.  Or China rise is a clear and present threat to western way of life and we need to invest trillions in defence in order to thwart them.  You can see how the narrative appears muddled.  Also, we didn’t take Japan seriously and it took an A-bomb to bring them down…so maybe we should be a little more respectful this time?

Ain’t gonna happen. In my opinion, most westerners still view both China and Japan as “little yellow people who just copy every thing and can’t design or manufacture anything of any importance. I believe that I, and other westerners who know that that is only prejudice and completely untrue are in the vast minority.

[The_Capt]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I don't know why they would conclude that these things are armored in some way.  Maybe?  But more likely they are just camouflaged boxes because even that would be cumbersome and slow to move.  Weighted down with metal or Kevlar?  Yeah, I don't think that is very practical at all.

Steve

Looks like some sort of sniper hide trick from WW1.  I wouldn’t armour them.  Use real dirt and sod from the same fields.  That would make them nearly invisible to thermal.  But we are talking positioning OPs/LPs and sniper type stuff.  Not much use en masse as I am pretty sure someone would notice a hundred dirt turtles crawling at them and then drop the sky.

Pretty good indication of just how illuminated these battlefields are.

[sross112]

1 hour ago, kimbosbread said:

I wonder if there’s a similar argument about killing or injuring or damaging the target from a psychological perspective. For example, if you could make drones reliably target a man’s balls, what that do to the opposing force? Would codpieces come back into fashion with a quickness?

I personally think that would be way too complicated and there are several reasons it would be a non-starter.

First is national security. You'd have to outsource the production to China or Iran as no western manufacturing company would touch it with a ten foot pole. The instant the public found out about it the crazy mobs would descend and cancel the company because their drone had the audacity to assume a soldier's gender.

Second is the programming needed. The amount of variables that would need to be processed would probably make it the size of a Blackhawk in order to carry the computing power to actually filter through the possible genders to know whether or not the target existed. I thought that maybe to simplify things it could just read the soldier's nametag, but then I remembered how many times I've been somewhere that I was obviously looking at a human that was born with female bits and yet the nametag read Todd, Darryl, or Steve. So that won't work. So then maybe human feature mapping or something, but then there are the memories of interacting with people sporting the thin silky mustache and no adam's apple. By the time the computer was able to make a fair and reliable distinction the drone could be batted out of the air with a tennis racket.

Third and the most worrysome in our day and age of expecting PGM strikes with our newly developed SSW (Scrotum Seeking Warhead), is the actual location of the target. The young may not realize the vast variations in altitude of the target that are somewhat dependent upon the age of the host. Any host over 40 that gets attacked by one programmed for the normal altitude would probably walk away with just some singed hair, grumbling about kids and their toys these days. This doesn't even factor in the environmental aspects. Is it 110F in the shade producing much lower hanging fruit? Or is -20F where the drone will have to gently massage them out of the abdominal cavity before detonation?

Overall, I think it is much too complicated. It would be best to make them go for the kneecaps, as everyone has those, and then on very warm days or against older soldiers you could still get your desired effect without all the extra processing power.  

[cesmonkey]

1 hour ago, Vet 0369 said:

Um, no, it says “now the Ukrainian Military ….” If they meant it to be referring to just those particular soldiers, it would say something like “now they …” or “now those Ukrainian Military ….” The way the original was worded implied that the Ukrainian Military had not been able to operate those systems before the soldiers were trained. How many soldiers are needed to man the systems that Ukraine now has?

I think the problem is that the writer of the news article left a misleading impression, or at least it could be interpreted in such a way that this was the first crew of actual Ukrainians to be trained on the Patriots.  

There have been interviews before with Ukrainian Patriot crews talking about their successes, like this one from CNN:

In the video from June, the crew says they were trained at Fort Sill for two months.

[Harmon Rabb]

42 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

I think the problem is that the writer of the news article left a misleading impression, or at least it could be interpreted in such a way that this was the first crew of actual Ukrainians to be trained on the Patriots.  

There have been interviews before with Ukrainian Patriot crews talking about their successes, like this one from CNN:

In the video from June, the crew says they were trained at Fort Sill for two months.

Correct, I did not mean to suggest that these were the first Ukrainians trained to use this system. Here is a photo from June 2023 that I liked, showing AFU personnel with the system. 

 

Edited December 4, 2023 by Harmon Rabb

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, billbindc said:

From what we saw with the Prigozhin revolt and the aftermath, it looks like the moment some faction has the power to knock off Vladi there won't be a free for all. This is a demobilized state with demobilized politics run on a system of kickbacks and kickups. Until that system is threatened, I would suggest that a change power would look more like a mafia coup than anything else. The guy who was bad for business goes and the new guy is fine if he keeps the money flowing. 

With Prigozhin we literally saw how little of the security apparatus was willing to get involved.  

For sure the devil is in the details.  The big risk is when Putin dies or retires.  If he dies naturally and without warning, this could give too many people an idea that they have a chance to one up everybody else.  That could get very messy.

Even if a transition is quick and smooth, it might not end there.  For example, the group that bloodlessly takes power is also dead set against Kadyrov retaining his cushy lifestyle.  Kadyrov gets word that he's about to be cut off from the money train, perhaps by way of a Spetsnaz force attempting to kidnap or assassinate him.  Or things devolve more slowly and a confrontation happens less dramatically.  Or what if a couple of regions band together and press for more autonomy and the new guys don't want to give it to them?

There's all kinds of ways this could go very badly.

Steve