dan/california Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 So we do we think that is half? a third? a quarter? of the Russians casualties? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongLeftFlank Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 6 minutes ago, Canada Guy said: Even one of the larger oil producing provinces in Canada (Saskatchewan) is discussing modular nuclear reactors. I need to understand the differences between these and old style reactors but am really hoping that the recent announcements in fusion will be viable in 20 years. Now that would be a game changer. Not to become too political but the last US administration had me seriously thinking 'if only China was democratic, I would way sooner have them for a neighbour and ally'. I don't think Americans realized just how much good will they lost in the last administration. If this was a reaction by one of America's strongest allies, I do not see how the last govt could have pulled off such a strong coalition supporting Ukraine (assuming they even wanted to) Guys, I'm actually in the energy / power business and loves me some blueskying as much as the next guy, but could you possibly take that sidebar elsewhere? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan/california Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 2 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said: Guys, I'm actually in the energy / power business and loves me some blueskying as much as the next guy, but could you possibly take that sidebar elsewhere? But I was just psyching up to dive in.... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongLeftFlank Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, dan/california said: So we do we think that is half? a third? a quarter? of the Russians casualties? Yes, that statement is getting a *lot* of press scrutiny right now. Is it KIA, WIA, what? As you know of course, the true question is the *sustainability* of those losses for each side over the next 30 - 60 days. ...Or into the fall/winter? if our longed for Collapse somehow fails to arrive. Which leads directly to the "Collapse" question regarding sustainment of the causative agents. a. The Russian killers are almost entirely artillery and maybe some air strikes. The UA forces tend to be in cover by the look of it; buildings, entrenchments except on the occasions when they get whacked on the move by drones. Which makes them harder targets to hurt, but also more prone to get 'hosed' down by HE once spotted.... b. The Ukrainian killers seem a little more diversified -- ATGWs, sniping, mines -- but still preponderantly artillery. Being on the attack, Russians seem to be caught on the move or in laager more often, but they may also be getting better at avoiding presenting targets. But doctrinally, even their paratroopers remain quite tied to their vehicles. So, using JasonC's old analogy of mortar, gun (or rocket) tubes being fire hoses and the actual limiter being the number of shells/rockets you can truck in to them, how sustainable are these killers? >> Can Side A kill/disrupt enough of Side B's tubes to reduce the volume of incoming? >> Can Side X (and its allies) keep the materiel flowing in? does quality (e.g. accuracy) degrade with time? how much does it matter if the Russians run out of fancy smart stuff and have to revert to 1944 tech? What about fuel? Fuel trucks? Spares? >> Do the belligerents start seriously neutralising (jamming? skeet shooting? drone v drone?) each others' drones in a serious way? raising the number of shells needed per kill back to 20th century levels? >> If the fronts go static, do we see an exponential increase in mine warfare? making attack more costly than ever. (HINT: HELL YES!) The West largely faced crude but effective homemade IEDs in the Stanbox. The Russians can doubtless field vastly more fiendish and lethal devices, even with an impaired industrial base. How many? Can they source key components in volume from unscrupulous suppliers overseas? blah blah blah.... Grim "Arithmetic on the Frontier", as it were, one opinion, framework or model as is good, or irrelevant (e.g. the confounding variable of Will) as another, really. Edited June 1, 2022 by LongLeftFlank 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G.I. Joe Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 15 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said: Guys, I'm actually in the energy / power business and loves me some blueskying as much as the next guy, but could you possibly take that sidebar elsewhere? Agreed, apologies for setting that ball rolling off topic... 11 minutes ago, dan/california said: But I was just psyching up to dive in.... And I had an anecdote on the subject of renewables about how another oil-producing province (Alberta) has a lot of wind farms. They do make great landmarks on a VFR flight... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan/california Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 13 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said: Yes, that statement is getting a *lot* of press scrutiny right now. Is it KIA, WIA, what? As you know of course, the true question is the *sustainability* of those losses for each side over the next 30 - 60 days. Which leads directly to the "Collapse" question regarding sustainability of the causative agents. a. The Russian killers are almost entirely artillery and maybe some air strikes. The UA forces tend to be in cover by the look of it; buildings, entrenchments except on the occasions when they get whacked on the move by drones. Which makes them harder targets to hurt, but also more prone to get 'hosed' down by HE once spotted.... b. The Ukrainian killers seem a little more diversified -- ATGWs, sniping, mines -- but still preponderantly artillery. Being on the attack, Russians seem to be caught on the move or in laager more often, but they may also be getting better at avoiding presenting targets. But doctrinally, even their paratroopers remain quite tied to their vehicles. So, using JasonC's old analogy of mortar, gun (or rocket) tubes being fire hoses and the actual limiter being the number of shells/rockets you can truck in to them, how sustainable are these killers? >> Can Side A kill/disrupt enough of Side B's tubes to reduce the volume of incoming? >> Can Side X (and its allies) keep the materiel flowing in? does quality (e.g. accuracy) degrade with time? does it matter? blah blah blah.... Grim "Arithmetic on the Frontier", as it were, one opinion as is good as another, really. It is KIA sadly, with several hundred wounded, I can't get the whole tweet to display correctly. Even with the difference in the way the two sides are fighting though it points out how staggering the Russian wounded numbers must be. The very credible Ukr estimate of Russian KIA is NEVER less than 150. SO their wounded numbers could exceed A THOUSAND on some days, maybe most days. Attacking is harder than defending, especially the way the Russians do it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gnarly Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said: Yes, that statement is getting a *lot* of press scrutiny right now. Is it KIA, WIA, what? 1 hour ago, dan/california said: It is KIA sadly, with several hundred wounded, I can't get the whole tweet to display correctly. Even with the difference in the way the two sides are fighting though it points out how staggering the Russian wounded numbers must be. The very credible Ukr estimate of Russian KIA is NEVER less than 150. SO their wounded numbers could exceed A THOUSAND on some days, maybe most days. Attacking is harder than defending, especially the way the Russians do it. I can't embed either, but further: Quote “We’re losing 60-100 soldiers per day killed in action and around 500 people wounded in action. So we are holding our defensive perimeters,” Zelensky said.. Edited June 1, 2022 by gnarly 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kraze Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 6 hours ago, Fenris said: I was pointed to this little bit of news yesterday. Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia ditches referendum on joining Russia https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220530-georgia-s-breakaway-region-of-south-ossetia-ditches-referendum-on-joining-russia So as I take it things haven't changed much even after all the current events, even when russian BS is laid bare for everyone to see. South Ossetia is not a breakaway region. It's a Georgian territory completely occupied by Russia since 1992. That way they keep on victim-blaming Georgia for defending itself in 2008, when Russia occupied even more land. "ditches referendum on joining Russia" thus translates to "we decided not to redraw the border so as not to get effed by even more sanctions" 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huba Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, G.I. Joe said: Agreed, apologies for setting that ball rolling off topic... And I had an anecdote on the subject of renewables about how another oil-producing province (Alberta) has a lot of wind farms. They do make great landmarks on a VFR flight... I withdrew from the discussion after one comment to not feed the off-topic, but as you guys had a go at it during the night, I have to write something, sorry in advance So I also have no problem with renewables in general, they have place in the present energy mix, but one has to acknowledge some drawbacks/ limitations - volatility of supply being the chief one, the proposed large scale energy storage solutions that fix that seem way less mature then next gen nukes. The impact on environment is also there, not only of hydro - from my neck of the woods , mass windmills are a threat to birds and are hard to recycle. And absolutely ruin the landscape In case of Germany, substantial (and growing) part of the "green" energy in the mix is burning bio-mass, which is not really scalable and poses a host of other problems with sourcing the material. Other thing is that renewables (well, apart from geothermal) do not solve is district heating/ cogeneration which is a huge thing at least in Eastern Europe - SMRs are just a solution to that, allowing to keep the whole existing infrastructure apart from parts of plants itself. In general, if we are to play a little futurology here, if our global energy consumption was to increase 100 fold in XXII century (got to power the teleporters for 15B people somehow), nuclear/fusion seems to be the only existing technology that could be easily scalable to be up to the task. Edited June 1, 2022 by Huba 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 48 minutes ago, Huba said: mass windmills are a threat to birds My eyes rolled so hard, I think I sprained a muscle. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huba Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 (edited) 8 minutes ago, JonS said: My eyes rolled so hard, I think I sprained a muscle. Hey, we really like our storks over here! And on a more serious note, this kind of impact is really taken into account in new infrastructure investments - hence animal crossings over highways for example. Aaand back to Ukraine: seems that Russia is also looking for transfers of military equipment from abroad, to continue it's war effort: Edited June 1, 2022 by Huba 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_MonkeyKing Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1531920140165689344?s=20&t=qilwZBwD_BX530Ft9UWXTQ clearly Norwegian M109A3GN in Ukraine 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butschi Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, Huba said: So I also have no problem with renewables in general, they have place in the present energy mix, but one has to acknowledge some drawbacks/ limitations - volatility of supply being the chief one, the proposed large scale energy storage solutions that fix that seem way less mature then next gen nukes. The impact on environment is also there, not only of hydro - from my neck of the woods , mass windmills are a threat to birds and are hard to recycle. And absolutely ruin the landscape In case of Germany, substantial (and growing) part of the "green" energy in the mix is burning bio-mass, which is not really scalable and poses a host of other problems with sourcing the material. Other thing is that renewables (well, apart from geothermal) do not solve is district heating/ cogeneration which is a huge thing at least in Eastern Europe - SMRs are just a solution to that, allowing to keep the whole existing infrastructure apart from parts of plants itself. Last comment on the topic, sorry for derailing the thread but I guess the question where we get our energy from is of some interest w.r.t. to Russia. If you like your birds, start by killing your cats, then remove glass windows. https://www.statista.com/chart/15195/wind-turbines-are-not-killing-fields-for-birds/ Very good video where Prof. Harald Lesch explains why the math for SMRs doesn't work out, neither w.r.t. climate change, nor for risk mitigation (compared to 'conventional' nuclear power plants), nor even economically. Sorry, in German but decent automatic translation to English. Edited June 1, 2022 by Butschi 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monty's Mighty Moustache Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 Seems it’s been officially announced Ukraine war: US to send longer-range rockets in latest aid package https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61655577 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_MonkeyKing Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 11 minutes ago, Monty's Mighty Moustache said: Seems it’s been officially announced Ukraine war: US to send longer-range rockets in latest aid package https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61655577 indeed. Missile type(s) seem to be M30 and/or M31. Meaning the most modern smart ammo US is currently using. The extended range variants of these are left out (for now). The DPICM variant is possible but I think highly doubtful because of politics of these weapons. some references for details on the systems (only caveat being he is too critical of the Russian comparable systems): 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huba Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 (edited) 32 minutes ago, Monty's Mighty Moustache said: Seems it’s been officially announced Ukraine war: US to send longer-range rockets in latest aid package https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61655577 Poland bought a battalion of HIMARS 2 years ago that consisted of: - 20 launchers ( 18 for the unit, 2 for artillery school) - transport trucks, command vehicles, all the usual support train - 277 GMLRS - 30 ATACMS And it costed us about $350M. Given that the new support package is to be worth $700M ( but includes other equipment as well), I think we can expect a battalion worth of launchers too - no ATACMS, but considerably more M30/31s. Not too shabby in itself, enough to cover entire Donbas with potent counter-battery fire. Maybe a few launchers to spare for Snake Island too. Hopefully Ukrainians won't proceed to hit Belgorod with those anytime soon, and as was the case of M777s, more will follow to support offensives in the south and elsewhere. What I wonder is if the training is already done, or will it just start now. Edited June 1, 2022 by Huba 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_MonkeyKing Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 Three week training for Flakpanzer Gepard is raising some eyebrows. I hope and presume the training has been ongoing starting from the announcement week and this is just some sort of final live fire field exercise period. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_MonkeyKing Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 21 minutes ago, Huba said: Poland bought a battalion of HIMARS 2 years ago that consisted of: - 20 launchers ( 18 for the unit, 2 for artillery school) - transport trucks, command vehicles, all the usual support train - 277 GMLRS - 30 ATACMS And it costed us about $350M. Given that the new support package is to be worth $700M ( but includes other equipment as well), I think we can expect a battalion worth of launchers too - no ATACMS, but considerably more M30/31s. Not too shabby in itself, enough to cover entire Donbas with potent counter-battery fire. Maybe a few launchers to spare for Snake Island too. Hopefully Ukrainians won't proceed to hit Belgorod with those anytime soon, and as was the case of M777s, more will follow to support offensives in the south and elsewhere. What I wonder is if the training is already done, or will it just start now. Official announcement with details should come out today with more details I believe. I am also waiting for M109 from the US any day now... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_MonkeyKing Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 Interesting, according to Oryx it is M270 and Germany is giving 4 as well. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huba Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 (edited) 17 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said: Interesting, according to Oryx it is M270 and Germany is giving 4 as well. Oryx got this wrong I'm afraid - Biden was specific about HIMARS AFAIK, and for the German part I only saw Scholz saying that "Germany will help with MLRS deliveries according to it's ability" or something along those lines. Also, 4 launchers is really a homeopathic number, I wonder when we'll see fractions in these declarations Edit: OK, number for M270 comes from Spiegel article. Still with GMLRS it might make sense, if they really follow through with that. Edited June 1, 2022 by Huba 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongLeftFlank Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 40 minutes ago, Huba said: I only saw Scholz saying that "Germany will help with MLRS deliveries according to it's ability" or something along those lines. If that happens to be a literal quote, it is epic trolling of Putin by die Reichskänzler! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fireship4 Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 (edited) 'The War in Ukraine' live map has been corrected it seems (see here for how it was previously), as the push along the river to Mykhailivka is no longer shown: [EDIT: Who needs to mess with road signs when you have so many towns and villages with the same names!] Edited June 1, 2022 by fireship4 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huba Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 (edited) Another situation assessment by Girkin. What caught my attention is the remark that UA counterattacks are expected to be thwarted by RU aviation mostly, as was apparently the case in Kherson counterattack. According to him, UA lacks medium-range AD able to accompany the attacking forces - now I wonder to what degree that is true, they should have at least some Tunguska, Osa, Strela-10 etc. and quite a number of Buk batteries. This is something West is not really able to help much with I think, as there are really no systems in our service that would fit the bill for mobile AD bubble for attacking forces. Also, more drone-bomber goodness. Guy in the truck in the first attack is really, really lucky: Edited June 1, 2022 by Huba 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huba Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 (edited) Sorry for spamming, but that one is also interesting. I can't imagine what would be the reason for putting MORE highly valuable assets on the Snake Island in light of GMLRS arriving to Ukraine - if anything, they should be hastily evacuating, this place will become even bigger death trap very soon. Edited June 1, 2022 by Huba 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongLeftFlank Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 (edited) 3 hours ago, Huba said: Also, more drone-bomber goodness. Guy in the truck in the first attack is really, really lucky: I've posted a few of these too, so not judging at all, but the intimate horror of watching human beings die on camera in these videos is something I hope I never become indifferent to, still less regard as entertainment. And I say that as a hunter. 2. Speaking of horror.... The positive news is that, having blown up this plant, the Russians will be unable to use it to manufacture munitions (explosives being kissing cousins to bulk chemicals of course) in the event this war goes 'long'. (note also that this footage may be quite dated, based on the absence of foliage, as pointed out by other Tweeters. But the point remans) 3. 10 days of fighting and the Russians have only just cleared Yarova, maybe. It's in the flatlands. The UA can fight a vicious Monte Cassino defence (low tech, grenade throwers and 81mm mortars) in the rocky wooded massif above Sviatohirsk for weeks if it so chooses before withdrawing across the river. A whole regiment of VDV could bleed out taking this area from a reinforced company of bloody minded Ukrainians. It isn't mech friendly and Katyushas won't pave the way; if you haven't visited Cassino (well worth it!) think Ardennes. Or the Gettysburg 'Devil's Den' Edited June 1, 2022 by LongLeftFlank 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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