How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[hcrof]

58 minutes ago, chrisl said:

The defender at least can make some attempt at concealment and cover, and can stockpile supplies.  The attacker has to move and has to maintain a longer and more exposed logistics tail.  

I'm not actually sure how relevant that is going to be going forward. Satellite lidar and SAR can happily map out every entrenchment you make over time then it is a simple matter of sending a drone to check if they are occupied. If they are occupied you can send more drones to make them unoccupied again. This doesn't work so well now because of strong EW but with more automation the drones can return and report in what they find.

Yes you can add overhead cover but that takes more time and effort and even the strongest positions in Ukraine don't have 100% overhead cover since it is impractical on a very large scale. 

So you retreat to urban areas for better concealment and watch your cities reduced to rubble. I think defending is potentially just as unattractive as attacking in the future...

[poesel]

14 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Kind of my thinking. I mean are we really trying to hide 30-60 ton vehicles that run on small explosions? If we can do that then a small bird sized UAS is basically invisible. So this really is less about individual drones v a platoon of vehicles, and more about battle space management.  ...

So it is great if you have some sort of wireless and silent comms system in your platoon…but the autonomous drones will be sent right to your grid square along with a bunch of other stuff.  ...

A foundational element of land warfare is an ability to seek cover from observation and fires.  Once that is gone, land warfare theory is pretty much dead.  ...

I agree. We talked at length about how low the troops densities at the front are compared to earlier wars. I guess this trend will continue until no human is at the front anymore. We will have a war of attrition where the drones duke it out for us. Probably, some tower defense game will then be the best military simulation.  

[Battlefront.com]

7 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

The whole 2 trillion thing is frequently misleading.

No, it's not.  It represents how much is being invested into this program.  It is a MASSIVE amount of money and it matters not one iota about how much time this money is spread over.  It also represents a nearly 50% increase over what was predicted.  Plus, you have thick rose colored glasses when examining the details, which is not surprising since it is consistent with your previous posts that are decidedly biased in favor of the military industrial complex.

Steve

[hcrof]

6 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

No, it's not.  It represents how much is being invested into this program.  It is a MASSIVE amount of money and it matters not one iota about how much time this money is spread over.  It also represents a nearly 50% increase over what was predicted.  Plus, you have thick rose colored glasses when examining the details, which is not surprising since it is consistent with your previous posts that are decidedly biased in favor of the military industrial complex.

Steve

Just out of interest, what would be the alternative to buying F-35? 

[Battlefront.com]

2 minutes ago, hcrof said:

Just out of interest, what would be the alternative to buying F-35? 

Putting aside UAS for a second...

The alternative was to keep the F-35 in R&D longer and/or to have scaled back on some of its more problematic features.  The F-22 could have remained in production instead of being shut down because the F-35 was supposed to be right around the corner and the costs for it were ballooning.  Trimming the feature set of the F-35 might have produced an ultimately less capable aircraft, but it could still have been a superior one to what already exists at a lower cost over its lifetime.

What gets skipped in discussions about X new system being better than Y existing system is that Y existing system is often an overmatch for the enemy.  Or at worst, "good enough".  The drive towards having the best of the best of the best of the best is expensive and it lends itself to extremely costly (not just monetarily) mistakes.  Defense contractors and the politicians that host them do just fine, national defense often doesn't.

Now we're seeing the rise of UAS.  Something that wasn't considered when the F-35 program was started.  Maybe it should have been.  For sure it should be now.  But with so much money and political capital devoted to the F-35 there's going to be a hard fight to keep any better alternatives stillborn.  Which is the hidden, nefarious side effect of having so many eggs piled into one basket.

Steve

[Général_Hiver]

17 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

What gets skipped in discussions about X new system being better than Y existing system is that Y existing system is often an overmatch for the enemy.  Or at worst, "good enough".  The drive towards having the best of the best of the best of the best is expensive and it lends itself to extremely costly (not just monetarily) mistakes.  Defense contractors and the politicians that host them do just fine, national defense often doesn't.

 

Cough... Panther... cough

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Once again, the forward looking crowd on this thread are not the impractical ones.

Exactly.  The problem with where the world is at with this stuff right now is that the forward thinkers don't have a solid answer about how to deal with this situation we find ourselves in.  The status quo thinking crowd uses this as a justification for maintaining business as usual, either because "what choice do we have?" or "no, seriously, we think this will really work!" or "this is scary, so let's throw everything at it even if we can't prove it will work".

This is why future thinkers, like myself, focus on showing why the status quo is a dead end rather than trying to show what the future might hold in terms of solutions.  I really do not know what the solution to fully autonomous unmanned systems might be.  What I do know is that it is coming, coming quickly, and the creativity of unmanned systems is just beginning to be tapped while the creativity of legacy systems is nearly tapped out.

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Here is a crazy idea…way out there…let’s build lighter forces with much smaller logistics tails…and have no convoys to hit.  I know…insane.

Yes.  Although I just said that the forward thinkers don't have a solid answer, I think we do have some pretty good grasp of the fundamentals are; lower cost, smaller footprint, faster production, and less Humans in the loop.  In my view, the more a proposed solution runs afoul of any of these, not to mention more than one, the less likely that proposal is worth pursuing.

I'm perfectly fine with using dead end solutions as a temporary bridge to something better, but only if they don't suck resources and attention away from the longer term solution.  Arming existing CROWS systems with a new targeting system and airburst munition, for example, may be "better than nothing".  But investing in an Ogre style tank to replace the Abrams is a really dumb idea, as is making the existing Abrams more like an Ogre tanks.  That sort of backwards thinking is worse than doing nothing.

Steve

 

[Battlefront.com]

Just now, Général_Hiver said:

 

Cough... Panther... cough

Heh.  Yup.  Saying that the Panther was one of the best tanks of the war is all fine and well until one looks at how the mentality that made the Panther arguably caused the nation that fielded it to lose the war.  Better in one sense is not always better in the sense that matters most.

Steve

[dan/california]

17 minutes ago, Général_Hiver said:

 

Cough... Panther... cough

 

14 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Heh.  Yup.  Saying that the Panther was one of the best tanks of the war is all fine and well until one looks at how the mentality that made the Panther arguably caused the nation that fielded it to lose the war.  Better in one sense is not always better in the sense that matters most.

Steve

 

Quote

 

https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/products/tracked-vehicles/tracked-armoured-vehicles/panther-kf51-main-battle-tank

https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/products/tracked-vehicles/tracked-armoured-vehicles/panther-kf51-main-battle-tank#anchor-video

 

Just to clarify, are we talking about the 1945 version, or the 2025 version? Because in terms of history repeating itself this is the case study of all case studies.

Edit: The fact that the people who named it don't seem to understand this joke is BIG part of the problem.

Edited July 8 by dan/california

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, dan/california said:

 

 

Just to clarify, are we talking about the 1945 version, or the 2025 version? Because in terms of history repeating itself this is the case study of all case studies.

Edit: The fact that the people who named it don't seem to understand this joke is BIG part of the problem.

I was thinking BOTH Panthers   I might have an undying love for the 1940s version, but I really don't think it did Germany any favors.  Well, at least it was better than the Tiger, which I also have an undying love for

Steve

[dan/california]

 

Quote

https://www.reddit.com/r/DroneCombat/comments/1dy4z4k/russian_soldier_is_launched_into_air_after_his/

Your regular reminder that mines are not a solved problem either.

 

[ArmouredTopHat]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

No, it's not.  It represents how much is being invested into this program.  It is a MASSIVE amount of money and it matters not one iota about how much time this money is spread over.  It also represents a nearly 50% increase over what was predicted.  Plus, you have thick rose colored glasses when examining the details, which is not surprising since it is consistent with your previous posts that are decidedly biased in favor of the military industrial complex.

Again, this is simply incorrect, did you not read the stuff I sourced? That figure is a predicted cost that factors in inflation and other variables over the entire time of service, which is 50 years or so. (Having looked it up, its actually all the way up to 2088. I am literally going to die of old age before the plane is retired) I also pointed out that in the same period of time American 4th gen platforms are going to cost four times that amount to operate. Why is that not considered a massive waste of money? The cost primarily went up because the US military extended the planned service time. 

All of which does not change the point that an F-35 literally now has a cheaper unit cost than a lot of 4th gens. The investment made does not just benefit F-35 frames themselves either, but future equipment that can use its equipment and technology developed for it. I think you should really look at the technology developed for the platform overall and see how useful its all going to be going forward, including for UAS systems. 

 

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Putting aside UAS for a second...

The alternative was to keep the F-35 in R&D longer and/or to have scaled back on some of its more problematic features.  The F-22 could have remained in production instead of being shut down because the F-35 was supposed to be right around the corner and the costs for it were ballooning.  Trimming the feature set of the F-35 might have produced an ultimately less capable aircraft, but it could still have been a superior one to what already exists at a lower cost over its lifetime.

What gets skipped in discussions about X new system being better than Y existing system is that Y existing system is often an overmatch for the enemy.  Or at worst, "good enough".  The drive towards having the best of the best of the best of the best is expensive and it lends itself to extremely costly (not just monetarily) mistakes.  Defense contractors and the politicians that host them do just fine, national defense often doesn't.

Now we're seeing the rise of UAS.  Something that wasn't considered when the F-35 program was started.  Maybe it should have been.  For sure it should be now.  But with so much money and political capital devoted to the F-35 there's going to be a hard fight to keep any better alternatives stillborn.  Which is the hidden, nefarious side effect of having so many eggs piled into one basket.

Have you looked at the operating costs of F-22? Or its readiness rates? F-22 was built as a cutting edge ASF decades before F-35, it was simply far less suited for larger scale production and would of been even more expensive without incorporating a lot of the features that make F-35 so effectively dangerous as a multirole such as its sensor fusion capability. The two planes have vastly different roles. 

Saying that F-35 did not need to be as capable because it was overkill is getting disturbingly close to the reformer base from the US, the same group of people who thought things like F-15 should not of had radars or other advanced hardware. Are we really going to make the same points as Pierre Sprey? These ideas just do not work for air combat. 

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0208reformers/#:~:text=They were particularly relentless in,trainer aircraft—in substantial numbers.

Air warfare is won by the force with the better technology, numbers can be useful but if your 5th gen is going to knock out other planes by a factor of 20-1 then at one point you have to wonder why even bother with 4th gens now...

Saying 'just get UAS' is a little ignorant of the major practical limitations of UAS that remain in place in a field where humans are needed for constant management of complex battlefield systems. Its also ignorant of the fact that UAS are very much being actively developed right now and are likely to be used regardless in the next few decades alongside F-35. You still need human management in the field and F-35 is actually a fantastic platform for this that could coordinate large groups of said UAS platforms with its sensor systems. Certainly in the timeframe of F-35 development a practical UAS system was simply not possible in place of a manned aircraft. 

*Edit*

As a side note, I am a little confused that people have made the argument that the west needs to innovate and do better, yet ignore developments like F-35 which have pushed technology envelopes in certain areas far ahead of the competition. How can the MIC be a broadly conservative movement incapable of change or innovation when projects like F-35 have been completed?

 

Edited July 8 by ArmouredTopHat

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/DroneCombat/comments/1dy0ez2/ua_uav_battalion_strike_drone_company_of_the_47th/

(UA) UAV Battalion "Strike Drone Company" of the 47th Mechanized Brigade Eliminated a Pair of Russian soldiers Using a Destroyed Outhouse as Cover with an FPV Kamikaze Drone, While Another Russian Nearby Was Wounded. (Published on July 7, 2024)

 

Droned in an outhouse, a metaphor for the entire "SMO".

[Battlefront.com]

30 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Again, this is simply incorrect, did you not read the stuff I sourced?

Sure, including skimming the linked article from the Lexington Institute.  Which I haven't thought of for a while, but as soon as I saw the name I thought "oh-oh", but couldn't remember why.  A quick search reminded me:
 

Quote

"The Institute has been criticized for its financial relationship with the defense industry; Harper's Magazine called the organization the industry's "pay-to-play ad agency" based on its usually favorable assessments of military weapons programs.^[7] Loren Thompson is also a consultant to military contractors.^[8]

In 2011, Thompson said that the current rate of U.S. defense spending was not sustainable.^[9] He has also called for a shift in American defense spending towards items such as the Littoral Combat Ship and the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II that can be exported to allies.^[6]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexington_Institute

In a previous post you admitted that the Littoral Combat Ship was a disaster, then you went ahead and cited an article saying how perfect the F-35 by someone that thanks the Littoral Combat Ship is awesome enough for the US and its allies.

So riddle me this.  If the F-35 is so perfect, why is Congress (yet again) trying to take action against it?  In my experience Congress only acts against a program after it has long since been found to be troubled.  In other words, "a day late and a dollar short" as we say.

30 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Saying 'just get UAS' is a little ignorant of the major practical limitations of UAS that remain in place. Its also ignorant of the fact that UAS are very much being actively developed right now and are likely to be used regardless. You still need human management in the field and F-35 is actually a fantastic platform for this that could coordinate large groups of said UAS platforms with its sensor systems. Certainly in the timeframe of F-35 development a practical UAS system was simply not possible in place of a manned aircraft. 

I didn't say any of this.  What I said was they should have kept the F-35 baking in the oven longer and extended the existing systems for the interim.  They were already largely overmatch for most missions most of the time in most scenarios, so it was absolutely a viable path.  Note that I did not say they should have cancelled the F-35 program in favor of UAS because that would be a dumb argument to make since UAS was a viable replacement at the time.  Though Predator should have hinted that that time would be coming (I already made this argument with you several times, including when you first started posting, and you've not addressed it).

Manned aircraft still have a role to play, agreed.  But the end is in sight for them being a general purpose, cost effective system.  The role of CAS, in particular, is already questionable and is becoming more so with each passing year.  The F-35 was explicitly designed to perform that role along with other roles.  Catering to the CAS role is, as I understand it, one of the reasons the F-35 ran into so many cost overruns.  The old problem of trying to be all things to everybody.

My position is clear.  Spending entire country's worth of GDP on one weapon system is something that should be questioned.  And after questioning it, questioning it more.  Your position, on the other hand, seems to be to accept the sales sheet at face value and chalk up the expenses as "that's just the way it's got to be".

Steve

[chrisl]

4 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Sure, including skimming the linked article from the Lexington Institute.  Which I haven't thought of for a while, but as soon as I saw the name I thought "oh-oh", but couldn't remember why.  A quick search reminded me:
 

In a previous post you admitted that the Littoral Combat Ship was a disaster, then you went ahead and cited an article saying how perfect the F-35 by someone that thanks the Littoral Combat Ship is awesome enough for the US and its allies.

So riddle me this.  If the F-35 is so perfect, why is Congress (yet again) trying to take action against it?  In my experience Congress only acts against a program after it has long since been found to be troubled.  In other words, "a day late and a dollar short" as we say.

I didn't say any of this.  What I said was they should have kept the F-35 baking in the oven longer and extended the existing systems for the interim.  They were already largely overmatch for most missions most of the time in most scenarios, so it was absolutely a viable path.  Note that I did not say they should have cancelled the F-35 program in favor of UAS because that would be a dumb argument to make since UAS was a viable replacement at the time.  Though Predator should have hinted that that time would be coming (I already made this argument with you several times, including when you first started posting, and you've not addressed it).

Manned aircraft still have a role to play, agreed.  But the end is in sight for them being a general purpose, cost effective system.  The role of CAS, in particular, is already questionable and is becoming more so with each passing year.  The F-35 was explicitly designed to perform that role along with other roles.  Catering to that role is, as I understand it, one of the reasons the F-35 ran into so many cost overruns.  The old problem of trying to be all things to everybody.

My position is clear.  Spending entire country's worth of GDP on one weapon system is something that should be questioned.  And after questioning it, questioning it more.  Your position, on the other hand, seems to be to accept the sales sheet at face value and chalk up the expenses as "that's just the way it's got to be".

Steve

I'm not sure leaving it in development longer would help.  For someone like me, the best thing evar is a program whose delivery date is past your retirement date.  The way to save money is early identification of requirements that are driving cost and reduce them to something reasonable or eliminate them.  People loooooove to write insane requirements that are physically possible, but well beyond current capability, insanely expensive to barely achieve, and utterly unnecessary if you really dig in to what they actually want the thing to do.  And they hang on to them way past the point where you tell them they could save a ton of money, have just as good of performance, and actually get something delivered.

[sburke]

7 hours ago, holoween said:

What is worse? The drones hitting or the point defense?

the point defense.  The drone didn't cost me anything.  If your answer is that I either die from the PD or the drone, what was the point of the PD? I thought the point of the PD was to protect me, not to shoot me first so the drone couldn't get me.  That is almost worthy of Monty Python.  "Ha I fart at your drone and shoot myself! See your silly little drone is worthless!"

Quote

Also if we have sensors that are good and cheap enough to recognize a truck we can also put it in the point defense and have it not target where our own trucks are.

good luck with that.  Sounds like utter chaos with the PD trying to figure out if it can fire or not trying to predict the path of the drone.

 

[Battlefront.com]

It just occurred to me that if one mounted short range lasers as a point defense system that might actually prove somewhat effective and also (possibly) be safer than airburst munitions.  What got me thinking about this was the link that Dan had a few pages ago to the disappointment with the Stryker DE M-SHORAD system:

https://breakingdefense.com/2024/05/army-soldiers-not-impressed-with-strykers-outfitted-with-50-kilowatt-lasers-service-official-says/

Almost all of the problems cited in this article are range related.  A laser based PD system where the lasers are tailored to 10s of meters instead of 100s might be far more practical defense.  It still runs into a bunch of other problems of PDs, but I'm thinking the most important one (effectiveness) might be largely solved for.

Steve

[ArmouredTopHat]

2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I didn't say any of this.  What I said was they should have kept the F-35 baking in the oven longer and extended the existing systems for the interim.  They were already largely overmatch for most missions most of the time in most scenarios, so it was absolutely a viable path.  Note that I did not say they should have cancelled the F-35 program in favor of UAS because that would be a dumb argument to make since UAS was a viable replacement at the time.  Though Predator should have hinted that that time would be coming (I already made this argument with you several times, including when you first started posting, and you've not addressed it).

F-35 had plenty of time to cook, and 4th gens in service are already approaching the end of their service spans even with extensive upgrades. You really cant string out the lifecycle of those platforms much longer, especially in an environment that's increasingly hostile to them. 

UAS was simply not viable in the roles they wanted F-35 to perform, and wont be for a while yet. I envision the US will be complimenting F-35s with UCAVs down the line as a replacement to 4th gens to make up numbers.

 

 

20 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

In a previous post you admitted that the Littoral Combat Ship was a disaster, then you went ahead and cited an article saying how perfect the F-35 by someone that thanks the Littoral Combat Ship is awesome. 

People can be right and wrong on different matters. If your concerned about sources have some more. Note how literally every pilot who flies them think they are fantastic and literally better than anything else in the air. 

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-f-35-might-be-best-fighter-jet-ever-208703#:~:text=In terms of avionics%2C the,and advanced electronic warfare capabilities.

https://www.businessinsider.com/test-pilot-f-35-demands-more-than-great-flying-skills-2023-11

https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/f-35-cheaper-gripen-czech-republic-says

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/it-only-gets-better-stealth-f-35-becoming-more-powerful-and-affordable-204360

5 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

So riddle me this.  If the F-35 is so perfect, why is Congress (yet again) trying to take action against it?  In my experience Congress only acts against a program after it has long since been found to be troubled.  In other words, "a day late and a dollar short" as we say.

Because congress is filled with idiot politicians who are fed a lot of misinformation on military matters and have a record of cutting anything that costs money without examining why. You only have to look at the Bradley fiasco to understand that. (Yeah turns out that whole movie about it was a bit of a lie)

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/the-mangled-myths-dogging-the-f-35/

If you actually ask the pilots flying these things, you will know that the plane is a genuine winner and is revolutionary in its effect on the airspace and has more than justified its cost. NATO air exercises are really quite good and pit planes in pretty realistic scenarios, and F-35 has proven itself in them, especially the Red Flag exercises that literally threw everything and the kitchen sink at F-35 to test its capabilities. This is not some MIC scam that everyone is in on, the platform works and works damn -well- at its job, far better than any adversary can. Why do you think the Chinese have been trying so hard to steal its secrets?

Yes, UCAVs are probably going to be a feature of the future, I dont deny that, but its a good way from it just yet. There is not much out there drone wise that has the radar and the ability to sling AMRAAMS at targets whilst being stealthy though. Any UCAV capable of doing so is going to be expensive, perhaps as much so as a 4th gen, you need similar equipment to do so. You cannot strap a Meteor missile onto a civilian drone and expect it to work like an RPG-7 warhead. 

The fact of the matter is that the cost of F-35 per unit is going down over time, as is the maintenance costs as more are produced. You picked a strange hill to die on when it comes to a badly managed military project. A decade ago this perhaps might have been more in doubt but now that F-35 is in active service (and actual combat) and has worked pretty much flawlessly, there can be no more doubt as to such a platform being the way forward for manned air platforms. 

[Battlefront.com]

16 minutes ago, sburke said:

good luck with that.  Sounds like utter chaos with the PD trying to figure out if it can fire or not trying to predict the path of the drone.

Yup, and I'd use those same emissions to develop my attack strategy.  Like spoofing.  A drone could approach reasonably close and slow so as to not raise red flags, then confuse the PD.  Cycles of counters to counters would then follow just to get establish/maintain the viability of the initial investment.

Steve

[ArmouredTopHat]

In more relevant news, the Russians went and bombed a children's hospital today. 
 

 

Monsters.

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Because congress is filled with idiot politicians who are fed a lot of misinformation on military matters and have a record of cutting anything that costs money without examining why.

They have a long established track record of approving the funding for projects based on misinformation on military matters coming from both the military and industry.  What they have a poor track record of is trying to undo the problems they created by rubber stamping defense requests.

The F-35 argument is distracting.  Fine, if it makes you feel any better I will say you are 100% correct about the F-35.  I can afford to do that because it has zero impact on any of the relevant arguments I've been making here.  All I have to do is go back and revise my initial F-35 post and swap in the Littoral and the point I made is exactly the same.

Steve

[hcrof]

8 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yup, and I'd use those same emissions to develop my attack strategy.  Like spoofing.  A drone could approach reasonably close and slow so as to not raise red flags, then confuse the PD.  Cycles of counters to counters would then follow just to get establish/maintain the viability of the initial investment.

Steve

I think we need to consider PD as either an APS point blank range system or a system that engages drones further out. The latter can engage them in a more controlled fashion with potentially less collateral damage but requires earlier detection. 

Personally I think if you can detect FPVs early enough then there are lots of ways to defeat them, but that "if" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. 

Edited July 8 by hcrof

[Kraft]

I suggest to opening up a tank dedicated thread

[sburke]

hoping this works - a shared link for WP article on UA attacks on Russian logistics and impact on Russian offensive on Kharkiv.

https://wapo.st/4cwfo03

Just in case, here are portions of it -

Quote

 

Ukrainian attacks on Russian supply lines have left Russian units scrambling for food, water and ammunition, blunting Moscow’s renewed invasion into Ukraine’s northeast Kharkiv region, according to Ukrainian field commanders who shared radio and phone intercepts and results of their interrogations of Russian prisoners of war.

The intercepts and extensive interviews with 10 Ukrainian commanders and troops operating across the front line in Kharkiv — including several who monitor Russian communications and who question POWs immediately after they are captured — paint a picture of increasingly desperate Russian ground troops who are losing personnel and momentum after reinvading across the border in May.

In the transcript of one radio conversation, intercepted in June and shared with The Washington Post, a Russian soldier orders another to ensure incoming troops responsible for carrying supplies understand that there is a dire shortage of food and water.

“Tell each of them … not to listen to the [expletive] guide who says that ‘Water is not needed, food is not needed, everything is here,’” the soldier says. “There is nothing here.”

In the Kharkiv region, Russian forces initially appeared poised to overrun the poorly fortified border region. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that his goal was to create a buffer zone that would limit Ukrainian strikes on cities and towns in Russia. That also could have put the Russians within artillery range of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, potentially allowing them to encircle it.

But Ukraine’s defenses were buoyed in part by a White House decision to allow certain U.S. weapons to be used to strike inside Russia. The Ukrainians used American weapons to hit Russian air defenses, forcing the Russians to pull back some batteries. The Ukrainians also carried out coordinated attacks on Russian supply routes using drones and artillery.

The intercepted communications shared with The Post show that Russia now faces significant difficulty securing sufficient supply routes to serve the basic needs of its troops.

In one communication, a Russian soldier speaks to his parents, telling them he is positioned near the Ukrainian village of Lyptsi, where his unit lost several men and ran out of food.

“We had nothing to eat, but we found a jar of wine and drank it for two days,” the soldier said on the call, which Ukrainian troops recorded.

Col. Maksym Golubok, 42, chief of staff of Ukraine’s 13th National Guard Brigade, said that since Washington lifted restrictions on hitting targets across the border, Russia has stopped massing large groups of troops in the border area and has moved some artillery systems away to protect them.

“They don’t gather people in one place. They operate in small units,” Golubok said in an interview. “We eliminate one soldier at a time, not entire units.”

Still, relentless glide bombs pose the greatest threat to Ukrainian troops. Between early May and late June, Golubok said, more than 660 bombs hit his brigade’s positions in the Kharkiv region.

Dmytro, 29, a Ukrainian soldier responsible for monitoring Russian communications, said that Russian soldiers previously used motorcycles and buggies for supply runs. But after Ukraine, using drones, mined roads and hit supply vehicles, Russian soldiers are moving mainly on foot.

Ukrainian troops are also delivering supplies on risky ground missions, as well as by air using agricultural drones that carry heavier payloads.

 

 

[Letter from Prague]

I think the F-35 program is pretty interesting, because if the stealth works as well as it should (and we have some evidence from Israel it does, but not a lot), it is a genuinely transformative.

If Ukrainians has 100 F-35s, which could fly and drop smart bombs, not only over the frontline but also hundred kilometers into Russia, because they are untargetable to Russian air defence, the war would look very different.

If the stealth doesn't work as well as it should, then it is still good upgrade from F-16 or whatever due to the networked sensors and unmanned integration, but not as good and maybe not worth the money.