How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[LongLeftFlank]

18 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I miss that weird little guy to be honest. Remember the German mannequin? Gawd, this place was a lot more fun back then. 

We were maybe more fun because we were younger too. (Nah, never mind, we're wargamers)

BTW, Imperator @Probus may simply have been honourably retired for somewhat longer than you or I (tbh, I myself keep trying to retire and failing, there's no money in it). And good on him.  And that, not some 'agenda' could explain the difference in his lived experience and current realities. Procurement policies literally shift that quickly (I've watched the death of the last credible non-Chinese renewable energy suppliers and contractors in the 3 years since Covid ended. Even folks who dislike the Chicoms -- like Vietnamese--just can't say no to the crazy low prices).

....And just to tie back to the topic currently prevailing on here, there's a LOT of reasons why large sections of the Western populace are chucking their votes to yahoos and jackasses (the long word is 'demagogues') that have nothing at all to do with Putin brainwashing them on tha Twitter. That's a fairy story Team Blue is telling themselves to 'splain away things they'd rather not face.

.... mainly, that the sleek Smart People presently controlling (with money) all major parties and institutions in the West have shipped most of the proles' Jerbs offshore in an astonishingly short period of time.

Meanwhile, the knowhow ('ecosystems') to manufacture anything at large scales in the West is aging out with us (Boomers/Xers).

This is a Major Problem, but it hasn't yet harmed any of the smug bastards who happily did all this (entirely bipartisan, btw).

So when the Smart People, like elitists throughout history, shriek 'How Could The Mob Possibly Be So Dumb?' well, the proles have their reasons. They always do.

Anyway, ramble over.

[billbindc]

Ah...Madame Simes is up this morning: https://t.co/Ox2Z6OOfmH

 

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

I served in the Canadian military for 36 years. Working strategic force development and procurement that crossed international lines. No ones hands are clean. Cold War ended and everyone wanted to get richer in the afterparty. We are now in the hangover. 

WRONG!  It started before the Cold War ended

I saw this when it first was aired in 1989.  It was a whistle blower who uncovered that the US' HARM missile program was riddled with foreign sourced parts despite it being 100% against the letter of the law.

https://vimeo.com/56396814

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

57 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

We were maybe more fun because we were younger too. (Nah, never mind, we're wargamers)

BTW, Imperator @Probus may simply have been honourably retired for somewhat longer than you or I (tbh, I myself keep trying to retire and failing, there's no money in it). And good on him.  And that, not some 'agenda' could explain the difference in his lived experience and current realities. Procurement policies literally shift that quickly (I've watched the death of the last credible non-Chinese renewable energy suppliers and contractors in the 3 years since Covid ended. Even folks who dislike the Chicoms -- like Vietnamese--just can't say no to the crazy low prices).

....And just to tie back to the topic currently prevailing on here, there's a LOT of reasons why large sections of the Western populace are chucking their votes to yahoos and jackasses (the long word is 'demagogues') that have nothing at all to do with Putin brainwashing them on tha Twitter. That's a fairy story Team Blue is telling themselves to 'splain away things they'd rather not face.

.... mainly, that the sleek Smart People presently controlling (with money) all major parties and institutions in the West have shipped most of the proles' Jerbs offshore in an astonishingly short period of time.

Meanwhile, the knowhow ('ecosystems') to manufacture anything at large scales in the West is aging out with us (Boomers/Xers).

This is a Major Problem, but it hasn't yet harmed any of the smug bastards who happily did all this (entirely bipartisan, btw).

So when the Smart People, like elitists throughout history, shriek 'How Could The Mob Possibly Be So Dumb?' well, the proles have their reasons. They always do.

Anyway, ramble over.

Ramble or not, it's on-point.

The documenation of ITAR dodging for profit is absolutely well established.  I don't doubt that Probus never saw any evidence of it, but that's just the thing... the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  Some of the ITAR dodging maneuvers are explicitly designed to not have good people, like Probus, know what's really going on behind the greenback curtain.

It's not just the defense sector, of course.  There's all kinds of schemes used to dodge sanctions, taxes, import restrictions, etc.  One that I found fun was Ford making commercial vans in Turkey, putting seats in them, importing them as "passenger vans" (which skipped a bunch of tariffs), landing them in the US, taking the seats out, selling the vans as commercial, putting the seats into containers, ship the seats back to Turkey, and repeat the process.

The downside of Capitalism is that it incentivizes breaking the rules if the profit:risk calculation favors profit.  The more rules just means the more creativity needs to be applied to get that profit:risk equation to work.  Anybody that thinks the defense sector is somehow immune from this is... well... misinformed.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

36 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Ah...Madame Simes is up this morning: https://t.co/Ox2Z6OOfmH

 

 

 

Grand Jury was sworn in on June 14th.  As you said a few posts ago, US intelligence agencies must have been in there gathering good stuff for at least a year.  They either decided that they had tapped those sources out of useful info or they looked at the calendar and felt more harm than good would come from keeping the eavesdropping going.

Either way, it is disturbing to see how effective this particular group was.  I wonder if they're going to find paper trails where they paid "speaker fees" to get some of the higher profile celebrity guests to appear on their shows.  I mean, besides Scott Ritter

Steve

[The_Capt]

22 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

WRONG!  It started before the Cold War ended

I saw this when it first was aired in 1989.  It was a whistle blower who uncovered that the US' HARM missile program was riddled with foreign sourced parts despite it being 100% against the letter of the law.

https://vimeo.com/56396814

Steve

Yeesh, the video does not mention foreign manufacture...that makes it worse. This was homegrown American made corruption.

Well if we are going to open this up to "MICs screwing government" we can go back a lot further.

https://dailynews.mcmaster.ca/articles/soup-can-reopens-mystery-of-doomed-franklin-expedition/

[billbindc]

Just now, Battlefront.com said:

Grand Jury was sworn in on June 14th.  As you said a few posts ago, US intelligence agencies must have been in there gathering good stuff for at least a year.  They either decided that they had tapped those sources out of useful info or they looked at the calendar and felt more harm than good would come from keeping the eavesdropping going.

Either way, it is disturbing to see how effective this particular group was.  I wonder if they're going to find paper trails where they paid "speaker fees" to get some of the higher profile celebrity guests to appear on their shows.  I mean, besides Scott Ritter

Steve

That is already happening especially in regard to Orbanist organizations in Hungary.

[sburke]

ahhh all this brings back fond memories of McKinsey.  What fun we had trying to figure out how to isolate the China side of the business.  Heck you'd think the easy part would be the IT infrastructure.  Just set up separate non data sharing systems.  Expensive, but doable.  The problem becomes people.  You simply couldn't trust the China offices cause you know they are compromised.  But hey, I'm an associate in China and I want to do a stint somewhere else in the world (which is encouraged).  Now I'm on the other side of the firewall.  Not that it mattered cause they still haven't isolated the systems.

This was a big deal with the US gov't but to my knowledge nothing has changed despite the amount of visibility it got from Congress.

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Yeesh, the video does not mention foreign manufacture...that makes it worse. This was homegrown American made corruption.

Well if we are going to open this up to "MICs screwing government" we can go back a lot further.

https://dailynews.mcmaster.ca/articles/soup-can-reopens-mystery-of-doomed-franklin-expedition/

Yeah, I seem to recall that the reason the parts failed is because they were foreign sourced.  I could be wrong about that.  I haven't watched that clip in 35 years!  But of course, when American contractors are responsible for American subcontractors making American weapons, any fraud is going to be home grown.

Steve

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

Ah...Madame Simes is up this morning: https://t.co/Ox2Z6OOfmH

 

 

 

And Dmitri himself: https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-09/simes_indictment_9.5.24_unsealed.pdf

 

[ArmouredTopHat]

On 9/1/2024 at 8:31 PM, ArmouredTopHat said:

Ouch

 

On 9/1/2024 at 9:39 PM, ArmouredTopHat said:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1f6neza/continuation_of_ukrainian_tank_destroying_btr_and/

Continuation of my last post, the AFU tank closed in and finished off what was left of the Russian infantry from the BTR unit.  

 

21 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

It seems the Russians sent more kit to this location again (its been featured twice now with the tank previous smashing the BTR you can see to the left side of the road)

Quite possibly the same tank actively rams a Russian MTLB before disposing of it with point blank 125mm gunfire. 

Okay this is starting to get nuts. The same place as before, the Russians sending some tanks this time, which are abandoned / struck (Crews get FPVed) Said tanks are then captured by quite possibly the same tank that's been chewing up the previous Russian attacks on this road which then goes ahead and tows one of the damn things away after laying a smokescreen like an absolute champion. 

Shows you how insane these Russian attacks are and how just a single well placed asset can destroy them.

Not bad for an obsolete platform eh?

 

*Edit*

Further vehicles added to the pile. Seems Ukrainians have turned this area into an utter killzone. Probably a very very happy AFU tank crew out there chalking up the kills. 

Edited September 5 by ArmouredTopHat

[sburke]

Major Russian lenders say yuan coffers empty, urge central bank action (msn.com)

Major Russian banks have called on the central bank to take action to counter a yuan liquidity deficit, which has led to the rouble tumbling to its lowest level since April against the Chinese currency and driven yuan swap rates into triple digits.

The rouble fell by almost 5% against the yuan on Sept. 4 on the Moscow Stock Exchange (MOEX) after the finance ministry's plans for forex interventions implied that the central bank's daily yuan sales would plunge in the coming month to the equivalent of $200 million.

The central bank had been selling $7.3 billion worth of yuan per day during the past month. The plunge coincided with oil giant Rosneft's 15 billion yuan bond placement, which also sapped liquidity from the market.
"We cannot lend in yuan because we have nothing to cover our foreign currency positions with," said Sberbank CEO German Gref, stressing that the central bank needed to participate more actively in the market.

The yuan has become the most traded foreign currency on MOEX after Western sanctions halted exchange trade in dollars and euros, with many banks developing yuan-denominated products for their clients.

Yuan liquidity is mainly provided by the central bank through daily sales and one-day yuan swaps, as well as through currency sales by exporting companies.

Chinese banks in Russia, meanwhile, are avoiding currency trading for fear of secondary Western sanctions.

At the start of September, banks raised a record 35 billion yuan from the central bank through its one-day swaps.

"I think the central bank can do something. They hopefully understand the need to increase the liquidity offer through swaps," said Andrei Kostin, CEO of second-largest lender VTB, stressing that exporters should sell more yuan as well.

The acute yuan shortage also follows months of delays in payments for trade with Russia by Chinese banks, which have grown wary of dealing with Russia after U.S. threats of secondary Western sanctions. These problems culminated in August in billions of yuan being stuck in limbo.

Russia and China have been discussing a joint system for bilateral payments, but no breakthrough is in sight. VTB's Kostin said that since Russia's trade with China was balanced, establishing a clearing mechanism for payments in national currencies should not be a problem.

 

[sburke]

13 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Not bad for an obsolete platform eh?

nothing is obsolete if your enemy behaves like an idiot. 

[danfrodo]

Pokrovske:  Feller here says RU pouring resources into this.  Gotta be very ugly for those UKR defenders.

 

 

[The_Capt]

24 minutes ago, sburke said:

nothing is obsolete if your enemy behaves like an idiot. 

Notice that a few hundred videos of FPV strikes are “isolated incidents taken out of context that do not prove anything.” While a single tank action every few months is “not bad for an obsolete vehicle”?

[ArmouredTopHat]

12 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Notice that a few hundred videos of FPV strikes are “isolated incidents taken out of context that do not prove anything.” While a single tank action every few months is “not bad for an obsolete vehicle”?

I know you have me set to ignore but that gave me a good giggle.

*Edit* Literally footage of tank engagements most days if you can be bothered to find them. 

 

Edited September 5 by ArmouredTopHat

[ArmouredTopHat]

Seems like this is more effective perhaps than one might think. 

[Battlefront.com]

45 minutes ago, sburke said:

nothing is obsolete if your enemy behaves like an idiot. 

Nothing is obsolete if your enemy is using obsolete stuff and behaves like an idiot

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

55 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Seems like this is more effective perhaps than one might think. 

And perhaps, as suggested by the Russians receiving it, more widespread.  At the very least it looks like Ukraine produced a whole bunch of these things and got them distributed before letting them lose.  With other inventions, like the AK strapped to a drone we just saw, there's one or two videos and that's it because that's all there is.

Steve

[Probus]

3 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

BTW, Imperator @Probus may simply have been honourably retired for somewhat longer than you or I (tbh, I myself keep trying to retire and failing, there's no money in it). And good on him. 

Yeah.  You guys could be right.  I've been retired almost 4 years now.  I noticed a steep incline in one of your graphs as of late.  Also, I worked mostly on projects and systems that were...  highly sensitive.  None of them listed in any of the articles quoted.  So the incidence of ITAR non-compliance may have been much smaller than in other projects.

I did work on a ground based project called Space Fence.  It used all modern COTS parts (Commercial Off The Shelf) but that was part of the contract.  Very cool project.  The main site was out on Kwajalein Atoll.  The whole roof of the 2 buildings were Kevlar radomes.

https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/space-fence.html

 

[LongLeftFlank]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Nothing is obsolete if your enemy is using obsolete stuff and behaves like an idiot

Steve

Don't yuk it up too hard. Here's a Uke tank T-boning a friendly APC yesterday.

https://t.me/btr80/20110

For those who like to cherry pick stuff to support their views, Perpetua assembles geolocated imagery on his maps. https://map.ukrdailyupdate.com/?lat=47.767484&lng=37.215500&z=11&d=19970&c=1&l=0

Mind you, these are just the incidents that get (a) imaged and (b) posted online, so don't confuse this with anything like a complete summary of the war.

....I also notice a multi-squad group of Ukrainian leg infantry (presumably) retreating down a road in daylight, in pretty poor order (Prechystivka). Under observation.... 

https://t.me/mod_russia/42966

Edited September 5 by LongLeftFlank

[ArmouredTopHat]

Ukrainians (And those of other countries who help them) certainly do not lack for innovation. 

[ArmouredTopHat]

It seems other Russian propagandists and useful idiots were also hit hard this week. Including the infamous twice convicted paedophile Scot Ritter who just lost his Russian income. Couldn't happen to a worse person. 

Edited September 5 by ArmouredTopHat

[Kraft]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Nothing is obsolete if your enemy is using obsolete stuff and behaves like an idiot

Steve

Obsolete for future procurement strategy probably to some degree, in the current war these vehicles are still potent and given the right conditions able to outperform fpvs.

Not in terms of roi but some things an FPV crew cant do yet. These capabilities are not developed well enough. For example stopping a larger assault with quality EW dead in its track, at this time they are unable to mobilize enough firepower to deal with dozens of vegicles and prevent breaches,  troops unloading and storming trenches often enough for these vehicles still to play a vital role in key areas.

Drones are far better suited to harass, whittle down and most of the time pick of stragglers and supply runners for almost zero cost. Taking a good trench with them is not really possible, unless you commit a lot of the painfully expensive bombers to blow through L shapes or just overpressure everything inside

Edited September 5 by Kraft

[Vanir Ausf B]

2 hours ago, Probus said:

Yeah.  You guys could be right.  I've been retired almost 4 years now.  I noticed a steep incline in one of your graphs as of late.  Also, I worked mostly on projects and systems that were...  highly sensitive.  None of them listed in any of the articles quoted.  So the incidence of ITAR non-compliance may have been much smaller than in other projects.

The State Department fined Raytheon $200 million last week.

In another disclosure, it was revealed that from 2015-2023, Collins exported technical data for printed wiring boards to the PRC. Collins then procured the boards from subcontracted Chinese entities and delivered them to other firms for end use in military aircraft.

https://x.com/ColbyBadhwar/status/1830954538679050431

 

Edited September 5 by Vanir Ausf B