Exactly, and in addition to artillery support, we see in Ukraine today that massive amounts of breaching equipment (mine clearing vehicles, portable armoured bridges, etc.) are required. A mine field is capable of stopping pretty much any armoured assault if they lack mine clearing equipment (as we’ve repeatedly seen). However, it was clearly shown in Iraq what a large number of armoured vehicles with explosive mine clearing charges can do.

It’s not enough to give Ukraine tanks. If they’re going to succeed with an armoured push of the kind they tried through Robotyne, they need dozens of mine clearing vehicles, man-portable mine clearing equipment, and mobile frontline AA as well.

One major hurdle that needs to be overcome is a way to defend such armour against drones. I’m guessing that some kind of light and cheap AA is already pretty far along in development.

I think its important, as you point out very well, to remember that what is most effective in Ukraine today doesn’t need to be what “would have been” most effective if Ukraine had access to it.

You point this out for artillery, where FPV drones appear to have largely replaced heavy artillery. However, can partly be explained from lack of guns/shells.

I think the same may be true for heavy tanks. Neither Ukraine or russia seem to be using a lot of heavy tanks, however I think that may in part be explained by lacks in breaching equipment, and lacks in mobile frontline air defence. I don’t think “armoured fist” assaults led by dozens of heavy MBT’s are necessarily outdated, but I think Ukraine lacks the equipment to pull them off.

The guy on the left has a hand on his shoulder. It can’t be the guy in the middle’s hand, so it appears the guy on the right has a very long arm. Or it’s a hovering “extra hand”.

Here you can donate directly to Ukraine.

If you prefer to donate “generally”, just click “donate now”. If you prefer a specific project, just select one from the list. There are two projects for air defence systems now that are close to reaching their goal!

It’s crazy to see how the other soldiers that aren’t being targeted are just walking calmly by, waiting for their turn.

Might have had a gun that he dropped when getting off the bike. Then again, it would make most sense to have it on a strap, so it looks like he might actually not have had any gun at all. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Oh, absolutely. The best option is of course to have enough of everything. However, the past 20 years we’ve seen a bunch of western militaries phase out a bunch of their older, simpler equipment in favour of a few high-tech systems.

I think my point is that it may be a mistake to discard large volumes of older systems and replace them with a few new systems. If/when a war happens, we’re going to need large volumes of simpler gear as well as the few specialised and modern systems we’ve developed the past 20 years.

I do believe most western armies have gone a bit too far into “a few advanced” over “many simple”.

If I’m going to war I would prefer to have 200 Leopard 2A4 with me over having 20 Leopard 2A8. Same goes for aircraft: I would rather have 100 F16 than 10 F35. If only because a realistic war has a long front, and those few pieces of advanced equipment can’t be everywhere at once.

We shouldn’t forget that during WWII, the allies typically had the technologically inferior armour, but won out because it was easier to build and maintain, and they had more of it.

This looks like a turning point in European defence production. When civilian manufacturers begin directly contributing to the defence industry we may be on the verge of massive increases in military production.

What drove western production to obscene highs during WWII was exactly this shift.

I wish they didn’t, but they most likely do.

The statistics from the past 1-1.5 years has shown that russia has done a decent job at protecting the most experienced/specialised soldiers, while using fresh, unspecialised troops for the meat waves.

While I obviously would like to hope that there’s a bunch more down there, I have a hard time seeing a situation where it would be preferable to alert your enemy to their presence rather than detonate them all at once.

I rather think he’s alluding to the possibility that there are more to make russians spend more resources looking or alluding to that this can/will happen again.

While this is an amazing operation, and has definitely permanently crippled the russian strategic air force, it’s probably not a turning point.

Russia needs 1-2 of these planes operational to deliver its strike packages (at least the ones we’ve seen until now). That likely means 4-6 planes total to account for down-time.

This war will end when russia runs out of heavy equipment (we’re getting closer every day), burns through its forces even faster than now (has been accelerating the past years due to shortages of armour), sees further drops in recruitment (it is dropping due to massive casualty rates), and unarmored russians on the frontline without heavy weapons begin to break and flee under Ukrainian assaults.

Ukraine is working very hard to preserve its forces and materiel, while russia is burning through both at an amazingly unsustainable rate. European military production is increasing by the day, so sooner or later the scales will tip in Ukraines favour, and when they do, the russians won’t have much to fight back with.

Still waiting for a Taurus missile or something to knock down some pillars so we can see a whole span in the strait.

Until then, let’s hope this damage takes a long time to repair, and that they do the thing where they say it’s “repaired” but then a truck goes into the water a week later.

Just read I the Norwegian news that two air bases in Murmansk (near the Norwegian border) were hit. If anything, this kind of strike hammers home how our support for Ukraine directly makes us safer as well.

These are planes that likely would have been used against Norway in the event of a war. Support for Ukraine is directly helping destroy equipment that otherwise could be used to attack us. We just need more people to understand this so we can get popular support for increasing our support a hundredfold.

The “router” would need to be fairly close to the operator in order to maintain a connection though, and if you keep it under observation you would be able to catch the operators when they’re packing to move.

Absolutely! My point was only that they can, in the right conditions, be very easy to spot. I’ve seen a video where the lines were also easy to follow along the treetops. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to follow the lines for many kilometres to their origin, but it does mean that if you have a rough idea of where to look for a drone team, the lines could reveal where they are.

putin: “NATO and the EU are threatening us, we need to attack a country that is not a member of either to deter them.”

NATO/EU: …

putin: “If those pesky Ukrainians just stopped defending themselves this would all be over!”

NATO: Receives applications from historically anti-NATO Sweden and Finland.

putin: “Just give up already! Our war economy can keep going for years! I promise…”

EU: Funds massive investments in weaponry.

russia, by acting completely irrationally, has succeeded in solidifying NATO control of the far northern Atlantic, making historically neutral Sweden a NATO member, and militarising the EU. Jesus fuck they’re so stupid it hurts…

I’ve seen some videos that show clearly how the cables reflect sunlight and become easy to see. You can see it in this video as well if you watch around 7 seconds and look towards the sun: You’ll see a bunch of strands in the background that are only visible due to the reflected sunlight.

My impression from watching a couple similar videos is that the Ukrainians will land drones outside the russian bunkers in order to force them to get out to get rid of them. Once an orc gets close, they remote-detonate the drone.

Apparently this is more efficient than trying to hit the bunkers. If you know they’re in there, you can just keep the drone lying in wait. As long as the russians stay inside fearing the drone, they’re effective put out of action, and once they try to leave you can send them home.

Exactly this. The armoured russian meat wave that went for Kyiv in 2022 ended like the rest of their meat waves. All the armour in the world still doesn’t help much when your tactic is to throw a bunch of unsupported people through exposed terrain that’s under complete fire control.