How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Fenris]

Quote from a youtube clip in my feed.  Any DE people able to verify? 

Quote

According to information published by the German newspaper Bild on September 15, 2024, Germany approved the sale of advanced RCH 155 155mm wheeled se lf-propelled artillery systems to Qatar. In return, Qatar will hand over 12 of its 24 Panzerhaubitze 2000 (PzH 2000) self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine. The vehicles will be brought up to operational standards in Germany before being delivered to Ukrainian forces.

This is the clip.  Nothing amazing.  Might be clickbait - https://youtu.be/Poo5TMFHKPY

Edit - actually, I think this is the story

Quote

Germany will supply Ukraine with twelve more Panzerhaubitz 2000 for 150 million euros!
Six of the modern artillery guns with a range of more than 30 kilometers will be delivered this year, announced Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (64, SPD) at the US air base in Ramstein. Six more will follow next year.

https://www.bild.de/politik/deutschland-gibt-ukraine-12-weitere-panzerhaubitzen-66dada63850ab075339c9588

 

Haven't seen any footage of them for a long time, I wonder how many are still active.  TBH I don't recall seeing much footage of any UKR artillery in action lately.

 

Edited Tuesday at 07:57 AM by Fenris

[NamEndedAllen]

1 hour ago, Carolus said:

That is a group the size of North America which will retire with little more than the clothes they currently wear. And which the Chinese state expects to pay exactly zero yuan to

What could possibly go wrong?

[Carolus]

50 minutes ago, Fenris said:

Haven't seen any footage of them for a long time, I wonder how many are still active.  TBH I don't recall seeing much footage of any UKR artillery in action lately.

The usage of the PzH2000s in Ukraine suffers from a severe lack of spare parts, courtesy of German austerity.

Inofficially the German BW mechanics are raiding spare parts from every depot in the country and juggle which vehicle to service and which to cannibalize (if it is out of order already for other reasons) to keep the formally required number of minimum "in service" batteries active in Germany while also keeping some of the guns active in Ukraine. Spare part situation for heavy vehicles was pretty bad in Germany even during peacetime.

I heard Ukraine will receive some RCH 155 as well, and since these are based on the new Boxer chassis, I hope the spare part issue will be less severe, it being new and wheels based.

I hope the French Caesars are faring better. 

(The Swedish Archer is apparently quite amazing, but currently in Ukraine are even less numbers than PzH 2000s, which is already an albino tiger in Ukraine. But afaik the Swedes have a more reasonable and better supply chain (also partly because it's a new product))

Edited Tuesday at 08:46 AM by Carolus

[Butschi]

54 minutes ago, Carolus said:

The usage of the PzH2000s in Ukraine suffers from a severe lack of spare parts, courtesy of German austerity.

 

While I would love to blame Lindner for the situation, austerity is not the issue here but simple mismanagement. The German defense budget is higher than the French, and they somehow manage to have aircraft carriers and nukes.

[Astrophel]

5 hours ago, alison said:

This story can be told over and over, about people of all ages and all backgrounds. When I was younger some of my friends went off the deep end, and I thought back then it must be because of drug abuse or serious mental illness that had only surfaced for the first time in their early adulthood. Old people, of course, were losing their marbles anyway so it was only to be expected from them. But now I am well on the way to being an old person myself, I have seen people who were - and still are - accomplished professionals in their fields start believing nonsense that is demonstrably false... And yet they still believe.

It seems impossible that otherwise smart people could have such blind spots - how can you make sense of the world around you if on certain arbitrary topics you abandon critical thinking? It's nothing but faith, religion by any other name. Like religion, the faith is reinforced by the stories constructed around it and the community that tells those stories. But unlike religion, the believers do not understand their faith as a voluntarily decision to abandon critical thinking in one area for the purpose of spiritual nourishment. They mistake their personal confidence for objective truth.

I think most of us read 1984 or Brave New World in school and thought "what a laugh, could never be us!" But it always was us. Of course people in authoritarian countries read those books too, as does the leadership, and the propaganda adapts. How do you know your democratic leaders aren't lying to you as well? Look at all these instances of corruption! The mainstream media is lying to you! Look at all these stories they got wrong! Your education system is captured by a fifth column that is brainwashing your children! Look at all these kids saying ignorant stuff! You see, we're not fascists, they're fascists! Everywhere is equally bad! You can't trust anyone! (But, please, trust us.)

As you say, it's not worth trying to debate when people are that far gone, because they are not playing by the same rules.

It's very challenging to combat the propaganda systems that attempt to seed this kind of distrust in a free country. If you deplatform the pushers you are accused of censorship. If you try to educate the populace you are accused of brainwashing. It's hard to find the right balance. The worst part is even if you do manage to stamp out malicious external actors, the horse might have already bolted. At a certain point "innocent" people may start to independently construct and propagate their own harmful conspiracies, and now you have a homegrown problem. In some ways you can understand why savvy authoritarians like the CCP crack down so hard on seemingly innocuous viral content coming from inside their own country - who knows what the latest fitness/wellness trend could turn into? They know what the last one turned into - The Epoch Times!

We humans like stories.  Stories connect in a way real life does not.  The Soviets discovered this and the russians inherited, while the western world is playing catch up.  Russia is number one in story telling. Stories don't have to be true, they have to be credible and push our emotional buttons.  

Today we are all looking for trusted sources because we don't have time to process all the narratives crossing our screens.

I am surprised Zelensky as a theatre man has not figured this out.  He should sell a narrative about how russian life will look when Putin loses and Kyiv wins - you can imagine: flush toilets for all, a western car, and social security benefits like you never saw before.  I don't know what the message is but Ukraine needs to infect the russian mind with a western virus.

Putin's repressive message revolves around memes of fear.  Ukraine needs to broadcast hope.  Of course this is a major shift from defensive to offensive but the timing is right I feel.

[Carolus]

1 hour ago, Butschi said:

While I would love to blame Lindner for the situation, austerity is not the issue here but simple mismanagement. The German defense budget is higher than the French, and they somehow manage to have aircraft carriers and nukes.

How do you get to Lindner? Austerity politics are older than him taking office, just like the problems with vehicle spare parts (especially for tracked vehicles) are older. 

But while you mention it: the lack of current funding the MoD is facing for both its own rearmament and the arming of Ukraine is clearly Lindner's fault. 

Even a reform or a reorganization needs some budgetary wiggle room.

[Kraft]

https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/skhemy-kreml-dezinformatsiya-asd-hambashydze/33121898.html

Too long to post here Radio free europe article on the russian disinfo leaks this week.

These troll farms made around 34 million fake posts/videos/pictures since january 2024.

Their biggest target is Ukraine itself. Boosting the perception of losses in people and land as well as personally attacking Zelenskyy, Syrskyi and Klitschko.

Germany seems also targeted more than others. Specifically boosting AFD party (and Front National) with comments and spreading anti-(ukrainian)refugee content.

For the US, Marjorie Taylor Green was mentioned by name for spreading their manufactured stories. Note, atleast these farms seem to only boost these voices, not control them unlike the last indictment releases. Much to their dismay when Le Pen then switched her rethoric on russia.

Elon Musk also spread their memes and fake stories. Example with 100 million views.

Funniest part: the reports mentions having to teach Diana Panchenko the use of microsoft word so she can file her post evaluation reports. This lady:

Edited Tuesday at 12:44 PM by Kraft

[Kinophile]

https://substack.com/@phillipspobrien/note/c-69310148?r=1va44s

His thoughts on possible trajectories of the war ending. 

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Astrophel said:

I am surprised Zelensky as a theatre man has not figured this out.  He should sell a narrative about how russian life will look when Putin loses and Kyiv wins - you can imagine: flush toilets for all, a western car, and social security benefits like you never saw before.  I don't know what the message is but Ukraine needs to infect the russian mind with a western virus.

People tend to believe what they want to believe, not what they really want.  I don't think the Russians want to believe that their lives can be better because that would raise uncomfortable questions about why they are sitting around passively accepting their fate.

Very cynical of me, I know, but I watched people die during the pandemic because they wanted to believe the craziest things instead of the truth.  Like gargling bleach instead of wearing a mask.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Carolus said:

How do you get to Lindner? Austerity politics are older than him taking office, just like the problems with vehicle spare parts (especially for tracked vehicles) are older. 

But while you mention it: the lack of current funding the MoD is facing for both its own rearmament and the arming of Ukraine is clearly Lindner's fault. 

Even a reform or a reorganization needs some budgetary wiggle room.

The poor maintenance state of the BW has been, as you say, a fixture of NATO preparedness criticisms for years.  I still remember a report that came out a long time ago that highlighted the problems with the navy, detailing how many ships and subs it had and how many were able to put to sea.  The ratio was depressing.

The lack of spare parts is really, really short sighted.  So much for Germany's vaunted stereotype of being meticulous planners

A very long time ago I thought that Germany should radically downsize the BW in order for the remainder to be fully funded.  Last time I checked there is still too much of the Cold War mobilization concept baked into how the BW is structured.

Steve

[Carolus]

29 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The poor maintenance state of the BW has been, as you say, a fixture of NATO preparedness criticisms for years.  I still remember a report that came out a long time ago that highlighted the problems with the navy, detailing how many ships and subs it had and how many were able to put to sea.  The ratio was depressing.

The lack of spare parts is really, really short sighted.  So much for Germany's vaunted stereotype of being meticulous planners

A very long time ago I thought that Germany should radically downsize the BW in order for the remainder to be fully funded.  Last time I checked there is still too much of the Cold War mobilization concept baked into how the BW is structured.

Steve

All true. I sometimes wonder if the MoD will drag out reforms until the "European Army", only talked about in hushed tones in certain dark circles, might start to materialize. There is a lot of potential for efficiency if European nations stopped trying to raise their own mini-armies and rather tried to build a supernational military. Some promising international models of cooperation already exist between the Germans and the Dutch, and the Germans and the French, and other nations as well.

The problem is, of course, something like that is about as far away from reality as commercial fusion energy. The EU as an organisation is basically 100% a civil economic project. It is wholly incapable of making military decisions within its established legal system.

And establishing the structures of a pan-European army, whether within or without the EU, will be met with the most severe political resistance, even if risks such as "whoops a Putinist populist was just elected and he cannot be unelected for the next 15 years because he abolished the free press, guess we lost half of that branch of the EU army" could somehow be guarded against. 

Edited Tuesday at 03:11 PM by Carolus

[Holien]

A trick to try and use in Russia?

The prep time and infiltration is astonishing.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd7xnelvpepo

Quote

Hundreds of members of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah have reportedly been injured after handheld pagers they use to communicate exploded.

Lebanon’s state news agency said there were blasts in the southern suburbs of Beirut and several other areas. Hezbollah's al-Manar TV also said many pagers had exploded, without identifying those hurt.

 It also is worth wondering what a state who supplies these devices can do...

[ArmouredTopHat]

Slightly off topic but what on earth happened here and why have we not seen something similar in Ukraine. 

[ArmouredTopHat]

Also, a retort for back when Capt said everyone is dismounting away from combat / trench lines...

https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1fizg1r/agressive_dismounts_under_fire_compilation/

 

[mosuri]

On 9/16/2024 at 6:21 PM, Battlefront.com said:

"What's old is new again"

Maybe they should bring back the turret fighter for drone hunting. Finally a time for Defiant to excel!

[LongLeftFlank]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

So much for Germany's vaunted stereotype of being meticulous planners

 

You have horses! What were you thinking?

[Hapless]

10 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Slightly off topic but what on earth happened here and why have we not seen something similar in Ukraine. 

Looks like Israel pushing the button on a long term op, having somehow gotten a load of explosives packed pagers into Hezbollah's hands:

Not 100% impossible that it's a cyberattack causing batteries to overheat, but maybe 90% impossible.

So, WTR Ukraine, unless you can get equipment pre-prepped with explosives into the enemy's supply chain so you can blow them up it's not going to be that relevant.

[Battlefront.com]

35 minutes ago, Carolus said:

The problem is, of course, something like that is about as far away from reality as commercial fusion energy. The EU as an organisation is basically 100% a civil economic project. It is wholly incapable of making military decisions within its established legal system.

I have long wondered why anybody talks about an EU military when it would be far easier, politically at least, to have a NATO wide integration plan that nations agree to contribute to.  It would achieve the same end result.  A component of funding could come from the EU in the form of cost sharing (tax credits, incentives, etc.) as well.

Steve

[ArmouredTopHat]

4 minutes ago, Hapless said:

Looks like Israel pushing the button on a long term op, having somehow gotten a load of explosives packed pagers into Hezbollah's hands:

Not 100% impossible that it's a cyberattack causing batteries to overheat, but maybe 90% impossible.

So, WTR Ukraine, unless you can get equipment pre-prepped with explosives into the enemy's supply chain so you can blow them up it's not going to be that relevant.

Thinking about it, I am honestly surprised we have not seen such sabotage at least broadly at any point with Ukraine (That we know of) Can only imagine the carnage wrought from a tiny amount of explosive snuck into certain devices or components. 

Still, from what we have seen so far, what an excellent way to eliminate specific individuals with minimum collateral. 

Edited Tuesday at 03:53 PM by ArmouredTopHat

[Carolus]

3 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Slightly off topic but what on earth happened here and why have we not seen something similar in Ukraine. 

 

The most likely story I have seen is that Hezbollah set up a shell company to buy pagers and other communication equipment pieces which are harder to hack or listen in on.

Israel however had its own shell company which sold the shell company of Hezbollah modified devices that can be triggered by a specific pager message and will either set off a small hidden explosive or cook off the battery.

 

[ArmouredTopHat]

https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1835985672202502527

 

A deeper dive into the 'punishment' pits that make the Russian army look like something out from its Tsar days. 

[Battlefront.com]

7 minutes ago, Carolus said:

 

The most likely story I have seen is that Hezbollah set up a shell company to buy pagers and other communication equipment pieces which are harder to hack or listen in on.

Israel however had its own shell company which sold the shell company of Hezbollah modified devices that can be triggered by a specific pager message and will either set off a small hidden explosive or cook off the battery.

 

Yeah, that is what I was thinking.  Being able to selectively screw around with a general supply chain without collateral damage is nearly impossible.

Steve

[ArmouredTopHat]

Its been a while since we had casualty numbers talked about, thoughts on this and its accuracy? 

[Sequoia]

Just hoping this doesn't help revive credence to the notion of the super effectiveness of Mossad. We all saw one of the worst intelligence failures in history last year. 

[dan/california]

Bleeping bleep people, I take a months Vacation from the forum, because of an actual vacation, followed by an attack of real life, and Steve sells the company!