(Thread IKs:
fatherboxx)
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this emergency package and the recent 800k shell purchase brokered by the czechs are probably in response to intel assessments like this one https://www.voanews.com/a/us-intelligence-chiefs-deliver-grim-warning-for-ukraine/7523825.html quote:The frozen military conflict between Ukraine and Russia is starting to thaw and will likely tilt in Moscow’s favor if the United States fails to quickly come through with additional military aid, according to top U.S. intelligence officials, in a grim assessment delivered to U.S. lawmakers. an incredibly frustrating situation. for the entire war the western response has been too little, too late, and now we're not even managing that
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Mar 12, 2024 20:54
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:this emergency package and the recent 800k shell purchase brokered by the czechs are probably in response to intel assessments like this one "But the lawmakers in the House of Representatives have refused to bring the bill up for a vote, leaving other Western nations scrambling to provide Ukraine with enough weapons and ammunition to hold off a renewed Russian offensive." This kind of reporting makes me furious. It's not "lawmakers" blocking the funding. It's REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS. And more specifically, the speaker of the house. I don't know why they don't call them out.
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Mar 12, 2024 23:25
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Charliegrs posted:"But the lawmakers in the House of Representatives have refused to bring the bill up for a vote, leaving other Western nations scrambling to provide Ukraine with enough weapons and ammunition to hold off a renewed Russian offensive." With another surprise retirement the GOP House majority is down to a literal single seat margin for a short while. If there is any string that can be pulled to get that 1 seat for 1 vote the time is now. Ukraine waiting until November, or never, to get US ammo again is not going to work.
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Mar 13, 2024 00:08
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Charliegrs posted:"But the lawmakers in the House of Representatives have refused to bring the bill up for a vote, leaving other Western nations scrambling to provide Ukraine with enough weapons and ammunition to hold off a renewed Russian offensive." Yeah I completely agree with this sentiment. It’s a complete betrayal of journalistic principles to see a stark contrast that goes to the root of a problem, but then cover that up because stating that fact might jeopardize your budget. The writer might tell themselves they’re being “objective”, but it’s nothing more than misleading their audience in order to get clicks. It’s like referring to a reckless and drunken car crash as “a two-vehicle collision”.
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Mar 13, 2024 02:27
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"this car's two people are so useless" i say, watching one person desperately try to drive and the other keep spitting in his face and grabbing for the emergency brake
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Mar 13, 2024 02:29
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Dirt5o8 posted:https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/12/politics/us-announces-weapons-package-ukraine/index.html Is this the one weird trick to supply Ukraine? I though even giving them existing stock had to be budgeted and payed for prior? If that is the case the US should be emptying out its storage. Even it does not function, place it in some field and force the Russians to use their ordnance on it.
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Mar 13, 2024 08:54
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Kaal posted:It’s like referring to a reckless and drunken car crash as “a two-vehicle collision”. This is a great analogy.
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Mar 13, 2024 12:09
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Ynglaur posted:This is a great analogy. 
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Mar 13, 2024 12:46
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fatherboxx posted:It is cute when two opposing sides try to spin the same psyop into gold I begin to suspect it was all to distract everyone from attacks on fuel refineries. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/12/russia-ukraine-war-fuel-refinery-fire-drone-strike-attack More refineries were struck today, too. Meanwhile, the Freedom of Russia Legion have now issued a warning to civilians in Belgorod and Kursk urging them to evacuate in advance of attacks on more military targets in the area. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/03/13/pro-kyiv-militias-urge-russians-in-border-regions-to-evacuate-a84448 The selective media blackout isn't working as intended either. For whatever reason, the above article is not available in Russian anymore but is still up in English (the reason is a poo poo CMS, I'm sure). https://tass.com/politics/1758713 quote:BELGOROD, March 13. /TASS/. Ukraine’s armed forces conducted a drone attack on the regional headquarters of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in Belgorod, local emergency officials told TASS.
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Mar 13, 2024 12:57
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I just finished reading "Our Enemies Will Vanish" by Yaroslav Trofimov and was struck by these two passages:quote:Foreign Minister Kuleba complained to me that Western decision-making on weapons supplies was based on a perverse logic: no help forthcoming when Ukraine had momentum, but a move to step in when the situation became critical and the Ukrainian military faced collapse. "This is how it worked in the beginning of the war with 155mm artillery, this is how it worked with Himars", he said. "We need to completely change the optics. Instead of waiting for a crisis in order for them to make a decision, they need to make decisions now in order to avoid a crisis." quote:All in all, the United States and NATO allies started training and equipping nine brand-new Ukrainian brigades. With more than 200 tanks, nearly 900 fighting vehicles, and 150 artillery pieces, these brigades would be the core force of the planned offensive. In Kyiv, satisfaction with this breakthrough was tinged with sadness. These numbers weren't too far from what the Ukrainians had asked for in May, a request rejected at the time as unrealistic. If these weapons had been supplied in August, when Russia's military was stretched thin, they could have ensured a strategic Ukrainian victory and possibly ended the war. But Russia had since mobilized hundreds of thousands of soldiers and erected a system of fortifications and minefields all along the front line. The cost of any Ukrainian advance would now be exceptionally higher - in equipment, and in lives lost. Because of Western prevarication, a strategic opportunity had slipped away. Seems like things have only gotten worse since.
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Mar 13, 2024 14:25
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beer_war posted:I just finished reading "Our Enemies Will Vanish" by Yaroslav Trofimov and was struck by these two passages: Really seems like the US is maximizing on making the conflict last as long as possible and be as damaging as possible.
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Mar 13, 2024 14:32
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That implies a level of planning that I don't exactly see in the House Republicans
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Mar 13, 2024 14:44
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What I don't get is the west only worry about lack of shells after they ran out of shells. Shouldn't they worry about it in year one during Bakhmut? How hard is it to add up all the spare shells from 30 NATO countries and see how many month they can last on an excel? Did they not plan any logistic after the great counteroffensive? Do they not need shells even if Ukraine is pushing the battle line toward Crimea? stephenthinkpad fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Mar 13, 2024 |
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Mar 13, 2024 14:47
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stephenthinkpad posted:What I don't get is the west only worry about lack of shells after they ran out of shells. Shouldn't they worry about it in year one during Bakhmut? How hard is it to add up all the spare shells from 30 NATO countries and see how many month they can last on an excel? FF could have done it on his phone in his lunch break! At the time I think people figured the handful of openly pro-Putin Republicans would not be able to completely shut down US military aid, they were not expecting the rest of the party to jump on board.
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Mar 13, 2024 14:51
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the holy poopacy posted:At the time I think people figured the handful of openly pro-Putin Republicans would not be able to completely shut down US military aid, they were not expecting the rest of the party to jump on board. It probably wouldn't have if not for two things. Trump personally getting involved, and batshit crazy Johnson getting the speakership.
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Mar 13, 2024 14:56
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Dick Ripple posted:Is this the one weird trick to supply Ukraine? I though even giving them existing stock had to be budgeted and payed for prior? If that is the case the US should be emptying out its storage. Even it does not function, place it in some field and force the Russians to use their ordnance on it. Apparently the one weird trick is that they found some projects that came in under budget for the military, and took the savings from those to spend on this. stephenthinkpad posted:How hard is it to add up all the spare shells from 30 NATO countries and see how many month they can last on an excel? Seeing as how non-US NATO nations are now realizing that Putin may in fact be a real threat, and that they cannot actually depend on the US remaining rational or friendly, their military shortfalls are suddenly becoming glaringly obvious. It's good for Ukraine that these countries actually, finally realized this, and started ramping up military equipment production, but I suspect that those shells are going to get a lot more precious to their home countries.
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Mar 13, 2024 15:35
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Volmarias posted:they found some projects that came in under budget for the military
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Mar 13, 2024 16:03
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Bel Shazar posted:Really seems like the US is maximizing on making the conflict last as long as possible and be as damaging as possible. AmeriKKKa isn't a monolith. Its pretty patently obvious the government and military institutions very much want to send more arms now - their public and private messaging and actions have all amply demonstrated this. The bottleneck is the political opposition bringing everything to a crashing halt in the legislature. Their aim isn't to pursue what they see as America's interests - they don't care about that or Ukraine - only their own party political interests - they want to use what political leverage they have to to manufacture a crisis before the election to hurt the incumbent government and score points with their political base by owning the libs. Its not a calculated act to achieve a foreign policy interests, but America's domestic political dysfunction impacting its foreign policy.
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Mar 13, 2024 16:12
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Right winger politics works same everywhere. Even here our "obviously everyone but the voters pro kreml party" has managed to waste all the money in last 4 years when they got the majority, so now the government had to find the money by raising and adding taxes, making them hugely unpopular Especially amongst the idiots who would rather us be russian oblast if it meant not having to see black people or same sex couples.
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Mar 13, 2024 18:21
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stephenthinkpad posted:What I don't get is the west only worry about lack of shells after they ran out of shells. Shouldn't they worry about it in year one during Bakhmut? How hard is it to add up all the spare shells from 30 NATO countries and see how many month they can last on an excel? For some reason gunpowder has to cure for six months, which eats up a lot of time when creating new shell factories. Europe will be able to ramp up production at the end of the year as a result of the new capacity to the point of enabling a new Ukrainian offensive. However Ukraine is in a very vulnerable position until then since Russia already had their shell factories ready to go.
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Mar 13, 2024 18:24
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So Putin's new threat on ap news is more of the same sabre rattling, but directed against macron, since he thinks Biden is reasonable to work with - right?
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Mar 13, 2024 18:28
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SaTaMaS posted:For some reason gunpowder has to cure for six months, which eats up a lot of time when creating new shell factories. Europe will be able to ramp up production at the end of the year as a result of the new capacity to the point of enabling a new Ukrainian offensive. However Ukraine is in a very vulnerable position until then since Russia already had their shell factories ready to go. This article was posted a week ago Europe battles powder shortage to supply shells for Ukraine www.france24.com - Sat, 02 Mar 2024 posted:Paris (AFP) – Hard-to-find gunpowder is hindering Europe's scramble to provide hundreds of thousands of shells for Ukraine's defensive effort against Russian invaders, with solutions only starting to emerge. Have these companies been announced? What is the substitute?
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Mar 13, 2024 18:31
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They are still making nitrocellulose from actual cotton as they did in 19th century? That seems almost quaint
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Mar 13, 2024 18:36
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steinrokkan posted:They are still making nitrocellulose from actual cotton as they did in 19th century? That seems almost quaint
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Mar 13, 2024 18:38
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mawarannahr posted:This article was posted a week ago Probably trees. Nordic countries have spent a lot of money recently looking for new and more lucrative uses for all their timber. Here's an example, by Russian researchers ironically. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10692-020-10180-z#Bib1
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Mar 13, 2024 18:45
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ought ten posted:Probably trees. Nordic countries have spent a lot of money recently looking for new and more lucrative uses for all their timber. Here's an example, by Russian researchers ironically. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10692-020-10180-z#Bib1 Probably not ironically. Russia needs guncotton too and it gets most of their needs from a couple of central Asian countries. It would stand to reason that these countries supply might be at risk of intervention so need to shore up alternative supplies themselves.
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Mar 13, 2024 18:49
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It's not coincidental, no. It would be ironic if Nordic companies/researchers borrowed an idea from Russian scientists to make ordinance to fire at Russian soldiers. I don't know if that's the case.
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Mar 13, 2024 18:55
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I appreciate their ammo acts abbreviation being ASAP. I'm sure the committee that came up with it congratulated themselves heartily.
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Mar 13, 2024 19:05
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the holy poopacy posted:At the time I think people figured the handful of openly pro-Putin Republicans would not be able to completely shut down US military aid, they were not expecting the rest of the party to jump on board. I think it’s misguided to look at this through some “pro-Putin obstruction” lens. First, even in years without a renewed Ukraine conflict, the US has been miserable at passing a budget. Here’s a graph from 2018 shlwing CR usage: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/20-years-of-congresss-budget-procrastination-in-one-chart/ Pretty abysmal! Second, when we do look at the supplemental bills passed, a significant portion of the spending was on US defense industrial base to replenish donations or to build greater future capacity. That makes room to donate, but it also means large portions of those bills did not go directly to Ukraine as aid. In the future, it might, but that requires additional appropriations and depends on the future situation. I’ve long held that while Russia has underperformed compared with their expectations, Ukraine is in a terribly unenviable position. That’s still true, and becoming more clear. Even if Russia falls short of its original objectives or pays more than it bargained for, you can’t hand wave a large country with a mature industrial base, its own natural resources, and substantial built in and strategically cultivated resiliency.
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Mar 13, 2024 19:51
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Russia does not really do anything to its resources and sells them raw, doesn't really produce anything advanced as they had ukraine do it or imports it and even despite its fearsome shell factories, most photos from the front feature poor north korean shells and it can't rebarrel its guns. Not to mention all the people who could do it have gotten the hell out of dodge, our border countries were full of russian plates before the borders were shut. There has been a new trend of bmps and btrs being replaced with chinese golf karts for front line assaults. Sure it's not certain victory for ukraine but russia continues its steady collapse Just to counter the doomposting
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Mar 13, 2024 20:08
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Hmmm yes, assaulting with "Chinese golf carts"
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Mar 13, 2024 20:17
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ought ten posted:It's not coincidental, no. It would be ironic if Nordic companies/researchers borrowed an idea from Russian scientists to make ordinance to fire at Russian soldiers. I don't know if that's the case. A big chunk of original research into behaviors of materials under electromagnetic radiation (ie stealth technology) was done by USSR researchers and published internationally. The US being absolute beasts at industrialization of technology was why the US has multiple generations of operational stealth planes (aimed at the USSR) and no one else did. E) Popete posted:Hmmm yes, assaulting with "Chinese golf carts" There has been a few \combatfootage posts of Russians in (reportedly) Chinese gold carts getting whacked by FPV drones. but yes, Russia is seemingly not overly dissuaded by taking heavy casualties and seems willing to spend more blood and treasure on securing Ukrainian land than the West is. Electric Wrigglies fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Mar 13, 2024 |
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Mar 13, 2024 20:22
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Meat production is the only thing in russia that is very concerning for both parties involved.
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Mar 13, 2024 21:59
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haddedam posted:Russia does not really do anything to its resources and sells them raw, doesn't really produce anything advanced as they had ukraine do it or imports it and even despite its fearsome shell factories, most photos from the front feature poor north korean shells and it can't rebarrel its guns. Do you actually know if the people that can re-barrel artillery cannons are leaving the country? It's not like some cutting edge tech. And yeah there's been a few videos of Russians using "golf carts" (I think they are more like ATVs) but I'm not sure that indicates a trend. From all the reporting I've seen Russia has been pretty actively restoring mothballed armored vehicles and that seems to be mostly what they are throwing at the front with a few newly manufactured vehicles every month.
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Mar 13, 2024 22:25
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Popete posted:Hmmm yes, assaulting with "Chinese golf carts" They're DesertCross 1000-3 ATVs. Basically faster versions of those things you see groundskeepers at parks driving around in. A heavy duty golf cart, if you will.
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Mar 13, 2024 23:49
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Electric Wrigglies posted:A big chunk of original research into behaviors of materials under electromagnetic radiation (ie stealth technology) was done by USSR researchers and published internationally. The US being absolute beasts at industrialization of technology was why the US has multiple generations of operational stealth planes (aimed at the USSR) and no one else did. IIRC, the Soviets allowed it to be published because they didn't think that there would be military applications for it, otherwise they would absolutely have prohibited distribution. In fact, no one in the US thought it had military applications either when it was published. Someone just happened across it later on, looking for very specific material behaviors, and had a lightbulb go off about applicability with current technologies
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Mar 14, 2024 00:07
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I would honestly not be surprised if Russia sends convoys of rebuilt Ladas and Trabants.
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Mar 14, 2024 05:29
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They just use whatever they can get their hands on, including fleets of commandeered civilian vehicles, yes.
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Mar 14, 2024 10:36
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Charliegrs posted:Do you actually know if the people that can re-barrel artillery cannons are leaving the country? It's not like some cutting edge tech. And yeah there's been a few videos of Russians using "golf carts" (I think they are more like ATVs) but I'm not sure that indicates a trend. From all the reporting I've seen Russia has been pretty actively restoring mothballed armored vehicles and that seems to be mostly what they are throwing at the front with a few newly manufactured vehicles every month. Frontal assaults with chinese golf karts, MTLB, ww2 tanks and downgraded electronics on """""""newly manufactured""""" tanks does not scream "russia is an industrial powerhouse that is ontop of the ball and is ready and capable of easily wiping ukraine and baltics"
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Mar 14, 2024 11:11
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Mortality rate among Lukoil higher-ups keeps climbing. I would guess it's related to recent attacks on their refineries. As much as half of their refining capacities may be offline now. https://twitter.com/officejjsmart/status/1768208783438713007 Worse chances of survival than on some parts of the front, if my maths is right.
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Mar 14, 2024 12:11
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