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Willo567 posted:I'm assuming today's strikes were already planned and not a result of the explosions at the Russian Air bases right We've seen evidence of preparation last week didn't we? I recall seeing news about long range bombers being armed but this is the first attack since then, so I assumed they patiently waited for the word "go".
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Dec 5, 2022 15:04
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mllaneza posted:A fuel truck at the Ryazan airbase exploded, 3 dead. They're going to have to keep cracking down on smoking on military bases. This looks like an  video, in the second tweet, but luckily for you it was deleted before I saw this. In any event, I’d like the thread to drop the smoking meme, it’s getting gauche.Jasper Tin Neck posted:They have been hinting at something with a 1000 km range and 75 kg payload for a while now. If this is a real confirmation of that, even though I agree with people saying that an accident is equally probable, then it’s quite the development. fatherboxx posted:Explosions the same morning in Engels and under Ryazan rule out the possibility of an accident unless there is a smoking timed challenge on tiktok Not really. fatherboxx posted:Remember that talk about Engels airfield with strategic bombers? Well... Is there geolocation on this? Small White Dragon posted:Aren't we assuming that Ukraine will probably eventually join the EU? Is their common defense pact not worth much? The EU pact is “an obligation to aid and assist by all means in their power”, which would boil down to France’s mood on pulling out the other n-word. It’s also wholly untested, and there’s no robust equivalent to NATO’s European command, to prove the pact’s de facto ability to deliver. Slashrat posted:Does anyone have knowledge of what internal security in Russia with regard to movement between regions is like these days? If you can get inside the country in the first place, how easy or hard would it in theory be to move about? I could imagine a couple of saboteurs getting across the border (probably not the Russia-Ukraine one) with a truck full of explosives-laden cheap drones and then driving in the direction of a Russian airfield of their choosing, but I've no idea if that's the only hurdle to clear. Regions around Ukraine are under increased surveillance, and some other regions have their own travel restrictions, mainly for mobilisation reasons. If you’re a Russian woman living somewhere a region away from Ukraine, you can travel pretty much however you wish. I guess, if I were a clandestine NATO “operator”, I’d try to make it in through Kazakhstan, but there’s no telling, as yet, to what specifically happened at the Engels base. PederP posted:Macron never mentioned 'security guarantees' - he mentioned guarantees, and in a larger context. Everyone is getting their undies in a twist over a something he never said. A security guarantee is a very specific thing, and I don't think it was coincidence that a more generic and vague term was used. The entire conversation was focused on making sure Russia was not a position of feeling, or being able to claim being, threatened by NATO. Reuters did a hackjob of a paraphrase where they made it sound like he said something rather different. Just ignore that article - it's dumb and yet another example of words being taken out of context, twisted and the resulting headline being boosted to cause controversy. Forgot to reply to an earlier post of yours but yeah, I agree with your overall take on the episode. This seems to be a case of a fast and loose translation making the already broad platitude from Macron vague enough to insert some of the more common contexts into it.
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Dec 5, 2022 15:07
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Rinkles posted:Could you or Rappaport elaborate on the “historical reasons we were shy about NATO membership”? Also, to put it mildly, after the Iraq Wars 1 and 2, getting allied with the United States would have been somewhat unpopular.
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Dec 5, 2022 15:13
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Not Poland this time, but Moldova. https://www.mai.gov.md/ro/node/7367
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Dec 5, 2022 15:29
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Charlotte Hornets posted:Not Poland this time, but Moldova. Looks like its an AD booster. https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1599762991905648640 There is no water in Odesa as some of the pumps have gone out
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Dec 5, 2022 15:34
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PederP posted:Did you read or hear the full interview? Reuters (and others misrepresenting what was said) is doing the weasel work here, not me. And yes, Macron has made plenty of bad calls and said plenty of dumb things. But I really don't see the controversy of this interview when it isn't butchered into a misleading headline by various media - it is very close to what many in Ukraine are saying. Having a non-hostile Russia is essential to future prospects for peace in Europe. Macrons is much closer to flat out saying that Russia needs to get over their irrational fears than he is to saying the West should give Russia concessions to placate them. https://www.tf1info.fr/politique/vi...on-2240681.html “Il a ajouté à ce propos que l'étendue de l'Otan serait "un des sujets pour la paix", disant souhaiter fournir une "garantie pour sa propre sécurité à la Russie quand elle reviendra autour de la table" des négociations. "C'est au peuple ukrainien de disposer de lui-même et de décider à quelles conditions, comment, quand, pas à nous", a-t-il toutefois insisté.” Translation: “He added in this connection that the extent of NATO would be "one of the subjects for peace", saying that he wished to provide a "guarantee for Russia's own security when it returns to the table" of negotiations. "It is up to the Ukrainian people to decide for themselves and to decide under what conditions, how, when, not up to us," he insisted, however.” The interview was conducted by TF1 and they also posted the summary with the quotes. Translation by Google translate looks okay to me. So…
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Dec 5, 2022 15:42
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Mr. Smile Face Hat posted:https://www.tf1info.fr/politique/vi...on-2240681.html And if you watch the full interview, you will come away with a different impression than those quotes taken in isolation - and especially the way they're twisted for maximum controversy. It is also an interview where he talks about the fearful people in the rest of the world having no right to tell Ukraine what to do or to concede anything. He even draws parallels to France's own history. Watch the full interview, with auto-generated translations if needed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZfDwWm4YFA
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Dec 5, 2022 16:13
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https://twitter.com/ElbridgeColby/status/1599778801965211649?t=nt6NUrCWVTpwNeKthsB4sw&s=19 Some current projections for US ammo production in this article.
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Dec 5, 2022 17:05
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Hannibal Rex posted:https://twitter.com/ElbridgeColby/status/1599778801965211649?t=nt6NUrCWVTpwNeKthsB4sw&s=19 For anyone too lazy to click it, it says it will soon be 20,000 artillery shells/month, but not increasing much after - only to 40,000 month by 2025. So I guess Ukraine will have to figure out how to manufacture more, unless Europe starts doing something. What’s the current rate of use anyway? 20k shells is like 10 days supply at average usage, or what?
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Dec 5, 2022 17:20
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https://twitter.com/CinC_AFU/status/1599801498296528899?t=reh7EbBOldrbzw0Nytc94A&s=19 Hopefully more preemptive hits on airfields and more AA systems would help making future strikes even less effective
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Dec 5, 2022 17:50
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Gepard in action allegedly. https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1599810159236112406?cxt=HHwWrICjlaO31bMsAAAA
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Dec 5, 2022 18:05
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Saladman posted:For anyone too lazy to click it, it says it will soon be 20,000 artillery shells/month, but not increasing much after - only to 40,000 month by 2025. So I guess Ukraine will have to figure out how to manufacture more, unless Europe starts doing something. I'm not sure what they are now, besides all accounts saying usage on both sides have fallen from the peak as supplies get used up. This NY Times article throws out 2k-4k a day: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/25/us/ukraine-artillery-breakdown.html but that's a mix of the 155mm the US is producing and the 152mm Ukraine is producing domestically now.
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Dec 5, 2022 18:05
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Charlotte Hornets posted:Gepard in action allegedly. It's tremendously funny to me that the Bundeswehr doesn't even have Gepards anymore since 2012. All those Gepards now serving in Ukraine were the left-overs still standing around in the vehicle parks of our arms industry. Currently, our government has to go through more and more antics to get more of them for Ukraine, like thinking of a buy-back from the Gepards sold to Quatar. Also currently, one of our arms manufacturers is refurbishing seven more, they'll be combat-ready and delivered by Spring 2023. Hopefully by then the government has actually ordered some ammunition and signed some long-term contracts, or our government will need to switch to whatever the US-equivalent of the Gepard is and start buying that one. The reason for that entire shitshow with Switzerland taking our ammunition hostage is that factories in Switzerland can still make the Gepard-ammunition, ours can't anymore. Without our allies supplying more of their own PzH 2000s, the situation on that front would be even more dire. Trying to reverse a decades-long neglect is not pretty, and our industry doesn't really believe in doing things for free.
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Dec 5, 2022 18:17
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Hannibal Rex posted:https://twitter.com/ElbridgeColby/status/1599778801965211649?t=nt6NUrCWVTpwNeKthsB4sw&s=19 While that's not great, I wonder how Russian production is doing? Part of the problems the article mentions is that the US defense industry isn't currently really geared to easily kick into mass production mode. Is Russian production better capable of doing so? And can they still manage to do so with the effects, direct and indirect, of sanctions? I know Russian ammo usage has dropped off since the early days of the war, presumably in response to shell shortages - how many of their stocks are still left, and how well are they matching the usage rate? The West may not necessarily need WW2 levels of production to help Ukraine win this if Russia isn't capable of matching that either. Aside, this whole thing might be viewed as a blessing in disguise from the US defense perspective - it's allowing them to stress test their war economy preparations without the danger or threat of an actual full-scale war directly involving the US. Issues like the article is pointing out isn't great, but it's a lot better than having to find out about it over, say, a shooting war with China over Taiwan or something. Given a few years to reform based on lessons learned the US might come out of this better prepared than ever for a hot war against a peer adversary. Whether that's a good thing or not for the world is very much open to debate but it is a likely effect regardless.
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Dec 5, 2022 18:22
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Tomn posted:While that's not great, I wonder how Russian production is doing? Part of the problems the article mentions is that the US defense industry isn't currently really geared to easily kick into mass production mode. Is Russian production better capable of doing so? And can they still manage to do so with the effects, direct and indirect, of sanctions? I know Russian ammo usage has dropped off since the early days of the war, presumably in response to shell shortages - how many of their stocks are still left, and how well are they matching the usage rate? The West may not necessarily need WW2 levels of production to help Ukraine win this if Russia isn't capable of matching that either. I doubt we'll ever know, to be honest. Also the US could definitely gear up from 20k shells a month to 40k shells a month in less than the 2.5 years its currently going to take them... they'd just have to want to actually do it. Investing in tooling factories for mass production of artillery shells is not a great investment if they think the war will be over or frozen in a year. For Ukraine it makes more sense to go all-in on production, and hopefully they can do it faster, since the US is only going to maybe supply a quarter of what they need, and the EU is likely to not do anything significant given that the production rate in Germany is like 500 shells/month (certainly an exaggeration - but whether I am exaggerating high or low, that I'm less sure about).
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Dec 5, 2022 18:37
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I don't think there is a US equivalent of the Gepard? IIRC, the closest thing is the avenger? which is missiles only?
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Dec 5, 2022 18:40
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Anti air cannons were considered a bit of a technological dead end, missiles being far more effective. That was before the advent of cheap drones like in this war, and possibly the Nagorno-Karabach war before it, where the enemy can deplete your resources with a massive cost difference.
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Dec 5, 2022 18:49
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Saladman posted:I doubt we'll ever know, to be honest. Also the US could definitely gear up from 20k shells a month to 40k shells a month in less than the 2.5 years its currently going to take them... they'd just have to want to actually do it. Investing in tooling factories for mass production of artillery shells is not a great investment if they think the war will be over or frozen in a year. For Ukraine it makes more sense to go all-in on production, and hopefully they can do it faster, since the US is only going to maybe supply a quarter of what they need, and the EU is likely to not do anything significant given that the production rate in Germany is like 500 shells/month (certainly an exaggeration - but whether I am exaggerating high or low, that I'm less sure about). I'm uncertain if it DOES actually make sense for Ukraine to go all-in on production - mostly because of Russian bombing. I found a Foreign Policy article noting that Ukraine's defense industry has actually been doing surprisingly well through a combination of offshoring production and small workshops, but the article also quotes Volodymyr Omelyan, a former Ukrainian minister of infrastructure, as saying “We are still able to produce many types of weapons, but definitely under permanent threat of bombing, you cannot make a real production line.” Not to mention that going "all-in" on production is kinda tricky with the Ukrainian economy and tax base shredded as it is - who's to pay for it? Also found a Foreign Policy Research Institute article analyzing the same thing - their conclusion so far seems to be that the Ukrainian domestic arms industry is likely to be more important as a source of repairs and maintenance for existing equipment rather than new production, as a combination of bombed factories and cash-poor government means the resources for major production aren't really there.
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Dec 5, 2022 19:02
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spankmeister posted:Anti air cannons were considered a bit of a technological dead end, missiles being far more effective. And lasers being a few years away from becoming a real thing for the last 20 years.
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Dec 5, 2022 19:08
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Using the conflict in Ukraine as a stress test on United States manufacturing isn't really a good test. The primary reason for that being in a hypothetical future conflict where the United States is directly involved we are not going to be relying on artillery/etc because step one is going to be overwhelming air superiority. I don't think anyone really predicted that this war was going to turn into a battle of artillery shells? Granted the AA expendables is much more understandable.
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Dec 5, 2022 19:10
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Saint Celestine posted:I don't think there is a US equivalent of the Gepard? IIRC, the closest thing is the avenger? which is missiles only? The Avenger would be the equivalent to the Roland. Which we, deepest sigh, also don't use anymore. If the next big conflict shows how dumb that was too, the farce will be complete. Saladman posted:the production rate in Germany is like 500 shells/month (certainly an exaggeration - but whether I am exaggerating high or low, that I'm less sure about). Depends on the type of artillery shell. The famous smart ammunition for the PzH 2000, the one which can give the thing a range comparable to HIMARS, isn't in production at all. The last factory line was closed years ago because the government just never ordered more, and you can't just let a factory stand around not doing anything, that's not how capitalism rolls.
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Dec 5, 2022 19:15
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cr0y posted:Using the conflict in Ukraine as a stress test on United States manufacturing isn't really a good test. The primary reason for that being in a hypothetical future conflict where the United States is directly involved we are not going to be relying on artillery/etc because step one is going to be overwhelming air superiority. Except it's foolish not to have a plan B, especially when it's likely to be way cheaper than plan A.
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Dec 5, 2022 19:15
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OddObserver posted:Except it's foolish not to have a plan B, especially when it's likely to be way cheaper than plan A. The plan was "eh Russia probably won't get froggy, and anyway if things get hot the US will supply us with what we need... probably"
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Dec 5, 2022 19:28
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Saint Celestine posted:I don't think there is a US equivalent of the Gepard? IIRC, the closest thing is the avenger? which is missiles only? Closest I can think is the Sergeant York/DIVAD program, which was cancelled because of technical issues (including a rumored incident where the tracking radar locked in the exhaust fan of the officers' latrine instead of a drone during a demonstration).
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Dec 5, 2022 19:28
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The most likely Gepard-alike of the future will be something like the Skyranger 30 HEL, which basically reads like a Battletech loadout (30mm gun, laser, missiles on a boxer chassis). The Gepard was axed because it's a very complicated and expensive machine on a battlefield that was going to be dominated by PGM from jets outside of its engagement envelope.
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Dec 5, 2022 19:44
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Young Freud posted:Closest I can think is the Sergeant York/DIVAD program, which was cancelled because of technical issues (including a rumored incident where the tracking radar locked in the exhaust fan of the officers' latrine instead of a drone during a demonstration). Maybe that trailer mounted CWIS platform, but that aint exactly long range nor the most mobile.
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Dec 5, 2022 19:45
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Is a larger caliber autocannon on a tank chassis necessary to gently caress up the average low flying drone? Would a smaller, perhaps even man-portable, anti-drone system based around something like a HMG that could track and saturate the area where a drone is flying be a feasible (and less expensive) way to provide a measure of security against drones?
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Dec 5, 2022 19:49
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Scratch Monkey posted:Is a larger caliber autocannon on a tank chassis necessary to gently caress up the average low flying drone? Would a smaller, perhaps even man-portable, anti-drone system based around something like a HMG that could track and saturate the area where a drone is flying be a feasible (and less expensive) way to provide a measure of security against drones? Tank chassis no. That's mostly just the easiest way to build these things so they can keep up with tank formations and have the same mobility in the same terrain. However the larger caliber is desirable because it has longer range. That lets it kills more types of drones, and protect a longer ground area against lower-flying targets.
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Dec 5, 2022 19:55
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cr0y posted:Using the conflict in Ukraine as a stress test on United States manufacturing isn't really a good test. The primary reason for that being in a hypothetical future conflict where the United States is directly involved we are not going to be relying on artillery/etc because step one is going to be overwhelming air superiority. Problem is in a future NATO-wide conflict the US is going to have act as an arsenal and munitions plant not just for its own armed forces but for other NATO militaries as well. The Ukraine conflict might not be a good stress test, but it's likely the only one we'll get.
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Dec 5, 2022 20:08
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OddObserver posted:Except it's foolish not to have a plan B, especially when it's likely to be way cheaper than plan A. It is actually the opposite. Almost all lessons learned since WW2 is that modern wars between high tech adversaries are decisive within a few weeks. You typically have to expect to fight with what you have given the lethality of modern systems. Assembly lines need to be kept running for contractors to be financially viae and you can't spin them up quickly as everyone know now so it would be cost prohibitive to run massive production lines for ammo and equipment for a war that might never come. The reason why this war is dragging on for months is because this isn't a peer conflict. Russia would have won without Western assistance to Ukraine and if it was NATO vs Russia, NATO (US) would have already crushed the RuAF.
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Dec 5, 2022 20:09
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OddObserver posted:Except it's foolish not to have a plan B, especially when it's likely to be way cheaper than plan A. Nations usually design their defence doctrines and what equipment they need for it based on their own needs and commitmets. Nobody expected that they'd have to be providing material aid to a neutral nation being invaded by the full might of Russia, certainly not that such conflict would last for long enough that it'd matter.
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Dec 5, 2022 20:14
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MikeC posted:Russia would have won without Western assistance to Ukraine This is a big question mark. Yes, a flow of intelligence and javelins (and prewar support) did a lot to boost Ukraine, but mostly Russia was completely unprepared for the demands of the war once Ukraine decided to fight. They didn't have enough troops to secure their supply lines, occupy the countryside, etc against a hostile pppulation or an intact military. We might be talking about a different front line or more of a back and forth, but this is absolutely a peer war.
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Dec 5, 2022 20:16
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Tomn posted:I know Russian ammo usage has dropped off since the early days of the war, presumably in response to shell shortages - how many of their stocks are still left, and how well are they matching the usage rate?
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Dec 5, 2022 20:20
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Saladman posted:For anyone too lazy to click it, it says it will soon be 20,000 artillery shells/month, but not increasing much after - only to 40,000 month by 2025. So I guess Ukraine will have to figure out how to manufacture more, unless Europe starts doing something. Everyone in the article says it's normal to take 3 years to increase production of shells. Hilarious how accustomed we've become to industry being ossified to the point of being 90% dead in the US. Even the MIC is little more than a shambling zombie from which rent can be sucked at the maximum possible margin. Maybe China can ship us some!
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Dec 5, 2022 20:27
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MikeC posted:It is actually the opposite. Almost all lessons learned since WW2 is that modern wars between high tech adversaries are decisive within a few weeks. You typically have to expect to fight with what you have given the lethality of modern systems. list those post ww2 wars between high tech adversaries that lasted a few weeks
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Dec 5, 2022 20:35
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ChubbyChecker posted:list those post ww2 wars between high tech adversaries that lasted a few weeks Arab Israeli wars are foundational for understanding how western militaries view conflicts. In all 3 wars since Israel's foundation, wars were decisive well before any kind of expectation for industry to meaningfully contribute to war stocks. Morrow posted:This is a big question mark. Yes, a flow of intelligence and javelins (and prewar support) did a lot to boost Ukraine, but mostly Russia was completely unprepared for the demands of the war once Ukraine decided to fight. They didn't have enough troops to secure their supply lines, occupy the countryside, etc against a hostile pppulation or an intact military. We might be talking about a different front line or more of a back and forth, but this is absolutely a peer war. The recent report posted here made it clear that by the 6 week mark, the Ukrainians had expended the vast majority of their ammunition, especially their artillery and that the introduction of NATO precision artillery and drones for target location were critical to blunting the RuAFs numerical superiority and the Donbas offensive.
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Dec 5, 2022 20:44
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MikeC posted:Arab Israeli wars are foundational for understanding how western militaries view conflicts. In all 3 wars since Israel's foundation, wars were decisive well before any kind of expectation for industry to meaningfully contribute to war stocks. syria and egypt haven't been high tech countries since the middle ages
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Dec 5, 2022 20:48
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Never mind
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Dec 5, 2022 21:04
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MikeC posted:The reason why this war is dragging on for months is because this isn't a peer conflict. Russia would have won without Western assistance to Ukraine and if it was NATO vs Russia, NATO (US) would have already crushed the RuAF. I agree that this isn't really a war that anybody really expected to fight (though Russia really should've planned for this as the aggressor), but how exactly are you defining "peer conflict" in this case?
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Dec 5, 2022 21:07
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ChubbyChecker posted:syria and egypt haven't been high tech countries since the middle ages Thanks to the Russians, they had gear that was on par with the Israelis.
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Dec 5, 2022 21:08
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