The_MonkeyKing Posted April 22 Share Posted April 22 1 hour ago, Vanir Ausf B said: I'm curious to see if there will be any more M1 tanks in this package. 5 of the original 31 have been lost. I think if Ukrainians get to choose what the limited funds are used for, Abrams is not on that list 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted April 22 Share Posted April 22 14 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said: I think if Ukrainians get to choose what the limited funds are used for, Abrams is not on that list Yeah, artillery and AA systems with plenty of ammo. That's got to be top of their list. And at the top of that top? ATACMS with longer range. Not so much to extend where they can hit, but to be able to pull their launchers further back and still be able to hit the same areas they can hit today. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan/california Posted April 22 Share Posted April 22 12 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said: Yeah, artillery and AA systems with plenty of ammo. That's got to be top of their list. And at the top of that top? ATACMS with longer range. Not so much to extend where they can hit, but to be able to pull their launchers further back and still be able to hit the same areas they can hit today. Steve I think patriots are higher on the list than ATACMS actually. It is glide bombs and cruise missiles seem to be what is hurting Ukraine the worst. If they could impsoe enough air denial to really reduce those it would take a lot of the pressure off. The calculus might be different if they got enough of the right kind of ATACMS to drop the Kerch bridge. But if they get enough missiles to do that it would reflect a major change in the Biden Administration's approach to this war. They would need enough not just to do that, but to REALLY press the other Russian supply links to the land bridge for it to really count. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FancyCat Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 Quote Yuri Kokhovets from Moscow was sentenced to five years of forced labor for participating in a Radio Liberty street survey. He answered a question about the war crime in Bucha. Russian security forces identified him from the video and charged him. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maciej Zwolinski Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 47 minutes ago, dan/california said: I think patriots are higher on the list than ATACMS actually. It is glide bombs and cruise missiles seem to be what is hurting Ukraine the worst. If they could impsoe enough air denial to really reduce those it would take a lot of the pressure off. I do not think that is doable. The last time that the Ukrainians tried to shoot down VVS aircraft lobbing KABs with a roaming Patriot battery near the front they got that battery shot up with an Iskander strike for their trouble. At the same time KABs are cheap and plentiful so shooting them down instead of the carrier aircraft will not work either (and recently they got a range extension). Unfortunately I see zero possibility to stop the gliding bomb attacks from continuing or even increasing pace. 52 minutes ago, dan/california said: The calculus might be different if they got enough of the right kind of ATACMS to drop the Kerch bridge. How is the Kerch bridge related to Russian air strikes? Their aircraft do not have to fly from Krimea and are not dependent on that bridge for supplies. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan/california Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 1 minute ago, Maciej Zwolinski said: How is the Kerch bridge related to Russian air strikes? Their aircraft do not have to fly from Krimea and are not dependent on that bridge for supplies. Two separate issues, apologies if I was unclear. What I was trying to say is that a LOT of ATACMS, and the freedom to employ them against the highest value targets in Crimea, at least, could really move the needle. If Biden's NSC just wants to send a few of them to be able to say they did, it won't make much difference. In that case I think Ukraine would be better off with more Patriots. I think Ukraine has always used them to shoot at planes instead of glide bombs. I am sure some have been used against cruise missiles around Kyiv. If they push them forward again they clearly need better protection, that may or may not be a viable thing to do. A way to knock down Orlan/Zala class drones faster than the Russians can put more in the air remains one of Ukraines great unsolved problems. Those new Laser based AA Strykers can't do anything but that? Every one of them should be in Ukraine doing it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_MonkeyKing Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 Situation developing 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
panzermartin Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 More about smoking. This video says this thing can produce a ton of it for hours. Probablly thermal blocking as well. But what a nice sitting target indeed who ironically can't hide itself. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan/california Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 5 hours ago, FancyCat said: Quote https://thingfinder.blogspot.com/2014/09/well-then-says-chen-sheng.html “Well then…” says Chen Sheng From Radicalizing the Romanceless by Scott Alexander. A long essay with which I suspect I might be sympathetic but am finding my interest flagging. Something of a hypothetical abstraction overload of the cognitive circuits. But there is this: I’m saying the causal arrow goes the opposite direction from the one Barry’s suggesting. As usual with gender issues, this can be best explained through a story from ancient Chinese military history. Chen Sheng was an officer serving the Qin Dynasty, famous for their draconian punishments. He was supposed to lead his army to a rendezvous point, but he got delayed by heavy rains and it became clear he was going to arrive late. The way I always hear the story told is this: Chen turns to his friend Wu Guang and asks “What’s the penalty for being late?” “Death,” says Wu. “And what’s the penalty for rebellion?” “Death,” says Wu. “Well then…” says Chen Sheng. And thus began the famous Dazexiang Uprising, which caused thousands of deaths and helped usher in a period of instability and chaos that resulted in the fall of the Qin Dynasty three years later. The moral of the story is that if you are maximally mean to innocent people, then eventually bad things will happen to you. First, because you Quote have no room to punish people any more for actually hurting you. Second, because people will figure if they’re doomed anyway, they can at least get the consolation of feeling like they’re doing you some damage on their way down. Sooner or later I am convinced Putin is going to have this problem. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan/california Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 Quote https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/opinion/moldova-russia-ukraine-war.html By Paula Erizanu Ms. Erizanu is a Moldovan journalist who focuses on politics and the arts in Eastern Europe. She wrote from Chisinau, Moldova. Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Moldova, Russia and Ukraine? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox. More and more people, including Pope Francis, are asking Ukraine to drop its defense and sit at the negotiation table with Russia. Citing the stalemate on the battlefield and Russia’s superior resources, they urge Ukraine’s leadership to consider a deal. What exactly that would involve is largely left unsaid. But it would clearly involve freezing the conflict, resigning Ukraine’s occupied territory to Russia in exchange for an end to the fighting. My country, Moldova, knows all about that kind of bargain. A small western neighbor of Ukraine, Moldova experienced Russia’s first post-Soviet war of aggression, which ended with a cease-fire agreement in 1992. Thirty-two years later, 1,500 Russian troops are still stationed on internationally recognized Moldovan territory, despite the Kremlin’s formal agreement to withdraw them in 1994 and then once again in 1999. The case shows that Russia simply cannot be trusted. It isn't getting enough press that Ukraine simply can't make a deal with Russia, because Russia simply doesn't keep its word. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maciej Zwolinski Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 5 hours ago, panzermartin said: More about smoking. This video says this thing can produce a ton of it for hours. Probablly thermal blocking as well. But what a nice sitting target indeed who ironically can't hide itself. If the recent Russian experiments with smoke are successful, the smoke may yet make a comeback to prominence it has not had since 1918. Many armies started WW II expecting to use lots of it, and then they did not, eventually repurposing their means of smoke delivery to fire HE. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holien Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 13 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said: If the recent Russian experiments with smoke are successful Hmmm I think the only thing that will be smoking is the burning Russian vehicle. But hey the Russians are thinking out of the box... Time will tell... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maciej Zwolinski Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 8 minutes ago, Holien said: Hmmm I think the only thing that will be smoking is the burning Russian vehicle. But hey the Russians are thinking out of the box... Time will tell... Sure, Russians do progress through natural selection rather than intelligent innovation, yet they do progress. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 5 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said: If the recent Russian experiments with smoke are successful, the smoke may yet make a comeback to prominence it has not had since 1918. Many armies started WW II expecting to use lots of it, and then they did not, eventually repurposing their means of smoke delivery to fire HE. I still don't see the utility of it generally. For a specific operation, in concert with a variety of other counter measures, I think it could be helpful. I can easily picture a river crossing with a ton of smoke, EW, C-UAS, and precision strikes (before and during) on all known enemy installations. Similar for trying to get from one treeplant to another. This isn't the sort of thing any military is set up for except at the operational level. Hmmm... if it does prove effective we might be seeing yet another higher held capability being pushed down to battalion level. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultradave Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 6 hours ago, dan/california said: It isn't getting enough press that Ukraine simply can't make a deal with Russia, because Russia simply doesn't keep its word. This is so true. Russia was one of the guarantors of Ukraine's sovereignty. Look how well that held up. I don't get why people keep saying that Ukraine should just negotiate/make a deal with Russia. Any deal made will only last as long as Putin wants it to last. Dave 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Capt Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 54 minutes ago, Ultradave said: This is so true. Russia was one of the guarantors of Ukraine's sovereignty. Look how well that held up. I don't get why people keep saying that Ukraine should just negotiate/make a deal with Russia. Any deal made will only last as long as Putin wants it to last. Dave Well if the pattern is consistent we should get a troll through here in the next week or so, shedding wolf's tears about the "inhumanity of this terrible war" and how we need to stop it now. Of course the way to stop it is to cut off funding to Ukraine and force them to the negotiation table. To which we will ask - just like last time - "What f@cking table?!" 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
omae2 Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 48 minutes ago, Ultradave said: This is so true. Russia was one of the guarantors of Ukraine's sovereignty. Look how well that held up. I don't get why people keep saying that Ukraine should just negotiate/make a deal with Russia. Any deal made will only last as long as Putin wants it to last. Dave No it will not last even that long. As soon as the russians think that they can bite off another slice from Ukraine with moderate losses they will provoke or create a situation where the deal can thrown to the trash bin. They did similar things with the minsk agreements. All these nonsense about negotiations is futile and shows that the west still don't get the situation which they are in. russia long term goal is to either break up the EU or demolish it and they want the USA to get back to the other side of the ocean. They are confident that they can do that because they have nuclear weapons which give them the upper hand against the EU. They are fairly sure that in a case of a limited nuclear strikes against European cities the USA will not retaliate because they simply "not mad enough" and only those who "hate their own country would retaliate." russia want war, and they will pursue this goal for the next decades unless they have a major slap in the face that will make them realize how dumb their plan is. Every attempt to treat the russian elite as a legitimate political entity is just helping their goals. The west should build up its production capacity as fast as possible, to be honest they should have done that 2 years ago. Right now we heading towards the worst possible outcome. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lieutenant Ash Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 Next new weapon? https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/thermonator-proves-americans-idea-of-self-defence-is-increasingly-unhinged/ar-AA1nvWUU?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=NMTS&cvid=8f26b13f6ae840c095bf6b23ae0fb6e8&ei=124 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Capt Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 1 hour ago, Lieutenant Ash said: Next new weapon? https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/thermonator-proves-americans-idea-of-self-defence-is-increasingly-unhinged/ar-AA1nvWUU?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=NMTS&cvid=8f26b13f6ae840c095bf6b23ae0fb6e8&ei=124 Dear Gawd, this one is so absolutely extreme that it straddles that line between genius and insanity. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sojourner Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 Nope, no straddling involved, that's firmly on the insane side of the line. Now, a robot dog that cleans up after your live dog, that would be genius. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan/california Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 Quote https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/us/politics/ukraine-new-american-technology.html He also came to a harsh conclusion: This new version of warfare would likely be awful. “Ground troops, with drones circling overhead, know they’re constantly under the watchful eyes of unseen pilots a few kilometers away,” Mr. Schmidt wrote last year. “And those pilots know they are potentially in opposing cross hairs watching back. … This feeling of exposure and lethal voyeurism is everywhere in Ukraine.” The article has some really good stuff, as quoted above. It also has some completely clueless bits. The author seems to gravely underestimate the size of the miracle it is that Ukraine is still in this fight. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 3 hours ago, The_Capt said: Well if the pattern is consistent we should get a troll through here in the next week or so, shedding wolf's tears about the "inhumanity of this terrible war" and how we need to stop it now. Of course the way to stop it is to cut off funding to Ukraine and force them to the negotiation table. To which we will ask - just like last time - "What f@cking table?!" If my recollection is correct, didn't the guillotine have a plank kind of table to lie on? yeah I think this is the "negotiating" table. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sojourner Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 3 hours ago, sburke said: yeah I think this is the "negotiating" table. I think you're on to something. Then as long as Putin is seated in the place of honor, the only issue to negotiate is face up or face down. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan/california Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 14 minutes ago, Sojourner said: I think you're on to something. Then as long as Putin is seated in the place of honor, the only issue to negotiate is face up or face down. WINNER! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sequoia Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 On 4/22/2024 at 10:52 AM, Carolus said: Some US company heard people in this thread wondering about Western automatic mortars and minefield breaching. How much better will this be (if any) over current equipment? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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