Blyatskrieg

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by TopBadger » Mon Feb 20, 2023 9:43 am

EACLucifer wrote:
Thu Feb 16, 2023 9:13 pm

Some people, Americans more than Europeans it seems, seem to assume that Ukrainians are all sturdy peasant farmers or coal miners, ignoring that it is a large, modern country with universities, an engineering and defence industry, a radically revitalised military with competent and often quite young and dynamic officers and so on.
Quite... and whereas in a peacetime footing the majority of the "best and brightest" will be working in to R&D industries, software, financial services, IT, legal, whatever they're now on a wartime footing defending for their lives and those same educated people are now serving in the military.

I was a reservist for years and it always astounded the regulars I worked with that we could train to do their jobs to a similar standard on just 27 training days a year. In my reserve unit I'd say 90% of us were graduates, compared to a regular Sqn counterparts where >90% left education at 16 or perhaps 18 before joining up.
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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Tue Feb 21, 2023 1:42 pm

Image

They really don't get the concept of minefields, do they?

Mind you, various sources report that Russian tankers hate mine clearing devices and often discard them, and I've seen some pictures of discarded mine rollers to back that up over the last year. It could be that they make the tanks more awkward, but I suspect it is primarily because they don't want to be at the front, and tanks with mine rollers go at the front.

Meanwhile Ukraine have modified T-64s with no main gun but particularly impressive mine clearing devices, and they've got Wisents with mine plows pledged as military aid. In addition, at least some crews seem to prize mine clearing devices - the noted T-80 called "Bunny" has them.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by dyqik » Tue Feb 21, 2023 3:25 pm

It probably makes a difference if the mine clearing device is clearing mines from your home land.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Tue Feb 21, 2023 11:54 pm

US supplying ER-JDAMs rather than the bog-standard JDAMs.

What this actually means: JDAM = Joint Direct Attack Munition. It's a conversion kit that turns an existing bomb into a precision bomb with GPS guidance, which allows it to accurately hit targets. ER-JDAM = Extended Range Joint Direct Attack Munition. It's still a bolt on kit, but now it has wings to allow it to glide. This pushes the range up to as much as 80km. It is unlikely that range could be achieved in the Ukrainian context, but more modest ranges could be achieved by toss bombing, where the plan angles up a bit to loft the bomb as far as possible. Essentially it's a poor man's Small Diameter Bomb.

Why this is significant: JDAMs are cheap and bombs are widely available. It will take some of the strain off Guided Multiple Launch Rockets like the M31 and also off ground-launched guide bombs like the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb that is yet to enter service with Ukraine. It will also hit harder against infrastructure targets, so hopefully we won't see a repeat of the Antonivsky Bridge campaign where it took many, many hits to render the bridge impassable at considerable cost due to the lack of a hard enough hitting weapon with the range and accuracy. It will allow the Ukrainian airforce to rapidly apply the kind of firepower to level buildings to Russian lines of supply and known fixed targets like command posts. In support of offensives, JDAMS could be used to rapidly level buildings used for observation and antitank positions.


ETA: No idea if related or not, but there seem to be a lot of strikes on occupied parts of Ukraine right now, and Russian air defence has gone berserk.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by Woodchopper » Wed Feb 22, 2023 9:45 am

EACLucifer wrote:
Tue Feb 21, 2023 1:42 pm
Image

They really don't get the concept of minefields, do they?

Mind you, various sources report that Russian tankers hate mine clearing devices and often discard them, and I've seen some pictures of discarded mine rollers to back that up over the last year. It could be that they make the tanks more awkward, but I suspect it is primarily because they don't want to be at the front, and tanks with mine rollers go at the front.

Meanwhile Ukraine have modified T-64s with no main gun but particularly impressive mine clearing devices, and they've got Wisents with mine plows pledged as military aid. In addition, at least some crews seem to prize mine clearing devices - the noted T-80 called "Bunny" has them.
The Ukrainians have been using artillery delivered anti-tank mines to create minefields around Russian armoured vehicles as they advance.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Wed Feb 22, 2023 10:26 am

Woodchopper wrote:
Wed Feb 22, 2023 9:45 am
EACLucifer wrote:
Tue Feb 21, 2023 1:42 pm
Image

They really don't get the concept of minefields, do they?

Mind you, various sources report that Russian tankers hate mine clearing devices and often discard them, and I've seen some pictures of discarded mine rollers to back that up over the last year. It could be that they make the tanks more awkward, but I suspect it is primarily because they don't want to be at the front, and tanks with mine rollers go at the front.

Meanwhile Ukraine have modified T-64s with no main gun but particularly impressive mine clearing devices, and they've got Wisents with mine plows pledged as military aid. In addition, at least some crews seem to prize mine clearing devices - the noted T-80 called "Bunny" has them.
The Ukrainians have been using artillery delivered anti-tank mines to create minefields around Russian armoured vehicles as they advance.
According to the reports, they've not so much been creating them, but filling in the gaps Russian combat engineers created between those gaps being created and the vehicles advancing, meaning if they stay to the cleared path they risk running into artillery-delivered anti-tank mines, and if they moved off it, they run into the TM-62s of the original minefield. There's also some evidence of TM-62 anti-tank mines being delivered by drone.

It goes to show that breaching an obstacle must be done as fast as possible. They may not be an easy counter to the US-supplied Remote Anti-Armour Mine System, other than leading the way with a proper, dedicated armoured mine clearing vehicle, but leaving enough of a delay between clearing the minefield and the vehicles going in clearly leaves them very vulnerable to this sort of tactic. We saw similar with one of the battles near Vodyane, where the obstacle was not a minefield but a small river. The Russian combat engineers placed an assault bridge. Of course placing a bridge or clearing a minefield signals an attack is coming, and seeing it, the Ukrainians blew it up. Later, the Russian armoured vehicles attempted to cross the bridge, apparently unaware that the bridge placed for them had been destroyed. They reached the river and stopped, and that was when an old anti-tank gun hit the BMP that was at the back of the column. The rest was fairly obvious at that point.

Crossing an obstacle is one of the harder things to do in warfare. It requires very good coordination, planning and speed, all things the Russians particularly struggle with, but the various defence lines put up by the Russians within occupied Ukraine will require careful planning and coordination to defeat.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Wed Feb 22, 2023 10:40 am

EACLucifer wrote:
Tue Feb 21, 2023 11:54 pm
there seem to be a lot of strikes on occupied parts of Ukraine right now, and Russian air defence has gone berserk.
Russian sources are panicking about this being GL-SDBs, though without evidence. The strikes were mostly within artillery or HIMARS/M270 GMLRS range, the real standout being strikes round Mariupol, which is a bit over 80km from the nearest Ukrainian positions. On a hunch, I checked the weather for Donetsk oblast, and the wind is northerly, if that was still the case last night GMLRS rockets would have had a following wind, and we've seen GMLRS strikes that sort of distance behind the lines, too. If it were the arrival of GL-SDB, I'd have expected some of the targets in the 100-150km range zone to be hit so as to achieve surprise against things like Russian helicopter bases, command posts and logistics chokepoints.

There's also footage emerged of a lot of some kind of MLRS rocket fired at night, the launchers out of sight, and the rockets quickly climbing into the clouds. The sheer number and rate of fire leads me to think these were BM-21 Grads. There's also footage from near one of the places targetted where the sound is just a constant drum-roll of explosions, again pointing to things the the unguided 122mm Grad rockets. Mixing a few of the much more valuable and capable M30/31 guided rockets into a bombardment with BM-21s would have given Russian air defences a very difficult night in the occupied territories.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Wed Feb 22, 2023 4:17 pm

Prigozhin's manoeuvring against Shoigu getting more aggressive, and likely now more desperate. Now at the level of posing with piles of his own dead and saying that they'd have suffered far fewer losses if the MOD hadn't withheld artillery ammunition.

Given that Wagner assault teams frequently leave their dead, and even their wounded, where they fall, it also speaks for the high casualties they are suffering, if those in the video - probably about a hundred but I really didn't want to do a detailed count - are just the ones they recovered.

Meanwhile other Russian sources are saying they had to cut back on shelling in order to build up enough artillery ammo for the Vuhledar attack, which still wasn't enough. Other sources talk of shell hunger as well.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Thu Feb 23, 2023 3:29 pm

For those wondering about Russian equipment reserves, they've been spotted operating BTR-50s. BTR-50s were introduced in the mid fifties. They were retired in the seventies. They have a terrible power to weight ratio, and armour that can be defeated by a rifle or GPMG with the right ammunition on most facings. They also have poor ergonomics, and a very awkward arrangement for embarking/disembarking.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by jimbob » Thu Feb 23, 2023 7:13 pm

EACLucifer wrote:
Thu Feb 23, 2023 3:29 pm
For those wondering about Russian equipment reserves, they've been spotted operating BTR-50s. BTR-50s were introduced in the mid fifties. They were retired in the seventies. They have a terrible power to weight ratio, and armour that can be defeated by a rifle or GPMG with the right ammunition on most facings. They also have poor ergonomics, and a very awkward arrangement for embarking/disembarking.
Also see this thread for reported photos of the ammunition they are being supplied with

https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/ ... PaD0A&s=19
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Sat Feb 25, 2023 11:27 am

Footage of yet more failed attacks on Vuhledar is circulating. They came on in the same old way...

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Sat Feb 25, 2023 11:26 pm

Very hard to piece together what's going on, but it could be Ukrainian troops pull back out of most or all of Bakhmut quite soon, after holding on since the middle of last summer in a battle longer than the battle of Stalingrad. I know I said it a couple of weeks back, but the situation is getting more tenuous. Bakhmut itself is gone, there isn't an intact building, virtually everyone has left. The city's been a closed military zone for a little while. The reasons to hold on to the corpse of the city the Russians murdered were to deny them manouevre - which can be done at a line further back in the high ground to the west of the city - and to inflict upon them significant attrition, making them pay a disproportionate price for their gains, and that can be done in other places too. Best case scenario Bakhmut is to this spring's offensives as Severodonetsk was to last autumn's ones. Worst case scenario is another Mariupol with units encircled and captured, but given that Ukrainians have repeatedly shown they can temporarily push back the Russians at least a little way, I'd be surprised if it was so bad.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Sat Feb 25, 2023 11:29 pm

There's nothing particularly sensitive in this clip, but there are some explosions etc, so avoid if one prefers to avoid such things. Russians once again failing outside Vuhledar. They keep doing this. They have thrown vast quantities of personnel and materiel at the tiny coal mining town, and so far they've not really advanced, though they have devastated the town's housing with their bombardments.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Sun Feb 26, 2023 7:34 pm

Reports of explosions at airbase in Belarus used by Russians. Belarusian partisans claim to have blown up a Beriev A-50, a rare and exensive Russian AWACS. A-50s are used to track Ukrainian fighter jets as they intercept the drones and cruise missiles Russia launches against Ukraine and support Mig-31s in attacking them with long range missiles. Consequently, the fewer A-50s in the world the better.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Sun Feb 26, 2023 8:31 pm

Could be imagining things, but despite the allusion to HIMARS, I'm really not sure this is.

Twelve rockets, so not one HIMARS. Unlikely to be two as they seldom fire that evenly when there's two and it looks like all rockets come from same source. Could be M270, but the M31 GMLRS rockets used by M270 and HIMARS tend to leave smoke trails, these don't seem to. Rate of fire is almost exactly right for Ukraine's own Vilkha, as is rocket number. Vilkha can fire 300mm rockets as used in the Smerch MLRS, but it also uses Vilkha and Vilkha-M guided rockets, the latter of which, along with the in development Vilkha-M2, allegedly use different fuel, one of several factors giving them increased range. Vilkha-M is reportedly slightly less accurate than M31 GMLRS, but signicantly longer ranged and carries about twice as heavy a warhead. Ukrainian officials have alluded to the ability to strike deeper into occupied territory lately. Could Vilkha-M guided rockets be back in production? The launchers turn up from time to time.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Mon Feb 27, 2023 1:02 am

EACLucifer wrote:
Sun Feb 26, 2023 7:34 pm
Reports of explosions at airbase in Belarus used by Russians. Belarusian partisans claim to have blown up a Beriev A-50, a rare and exensive Russian AWACS. A-50s are used to track Ukrainian fighter jets as they intercept the drones and cruise missiles Russia launches against Ukraine and support Mig-31s in attacking them with long range missiles. Consequently, the fewer A-50s in the world the better.
Allegedly - please bear in mind we have no confirmation on this yet, though reports of locals hearing explosions do seen pretty credible - it was done with drones, and that the main radome was hit - the radome is an obvious target as it's expensive, hard to replace and fragile. It is also claimed that the partisans responsible have subsequently left Belarus. One wonders if it was perhaps an operation with some Ukrainian assistance, or perhaps even a lot of it - it would be Budanov's style to do so. Remember that these planes are used to coordinate attacks on the aircraft Ukraine uses to intercept Russian missiles aimed at Ukrainian civilians. It is both legal and moral to knock them out on the ground.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by Woodchopper » Mon Feb 27, 2023 5:51 am

Thread on a Russian attempt to reorganise its army for the war: https://twitter.com/tatarigami_ua/statu ... kWSRZw7OgA

Looks sensible in theory but I haven’t seen much which suggests they are improving on the ground.

In previous wars Russia was able to reform its army. But it took years of horrendous losses.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Mon Feb 27, 2023 8:44 pm

Bakhmut area, now that the snow has melted. The mud is thick. The vehicles in the video are coping, but they are Nona self propelled mortars, built on the aluminium hull of the BTR-D. It's amphibious, it's got wide tracks, and it weighs only nine tonnes. Anything much heavier, or with wheels, will struggle.

Don't expect much in the way of rapid advances for the next month or two. Bezdorizhzhia is here now in Donetsk oblast, will surely be present in Luhansk and Kharkiv oblasts too as well. Only the southern frontline, where there is not so much rain or snow melt, will be less affected.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Mon Feb 27, 2023 10:28 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Mon Feb 27, 2023 5:51 am
Thread on a Russian attempt to reorganise its army for the war: https://twitter.com/tatarigami_ua/statu ... kWSRZw7OgA

Looks sensible in theory but I haven’t seen much which suggests they are improving on the ground.

In previous wars Russia was able to reform its army. But it took years of horrendous losses.
Tatarigami_UA seems to be extremely well informed, and is clearly well respected at the reputable end of the OSINT community, and would suggest to anyone interested to follow them, as this thread, and a number of others, are very informative. It's arguable the main issue here is Russia's move from personnel light and equipment heavy at the start of the war to their current position where they have a lot of very poor quality infantry but are less well off when it comes to good quality military vehicles.

The principle issue in combat he's talking about here and in a notable previous thread is that of keeping the defenders suppressed and unable to fight back by means of firepower until the assault teams reach them. It used to be called the race to the parapet, and has been a feature of trench warfare since it first began to occur. It takes skill, timing and precision to keep the defenders heads down until the attackers are in striking range. In WWI, it was done with very carefully planned creeping barrages using shrapnel shell, with timed lifts so the infantry could follow behind the barrage. If they went too slow, the defenders would be able to man the parapet again before the assaulting forces arrived, and if they went too fast they would be killed by their own artillery - modern communications mean this approach isn't used any more, but it can be illustrative of the issues involved.

The thing that has stood out to me most lately is how slow the Russian attacks are. There are delays between phases. Near Vodyane they placed an assault bridge, but by the time the attacking column reached it, it had been destroyed and apparently destroyed without their knowledge. According to reports, there were hours between laying the bridge and attacking. South of Vuhledar, where Russian vehicles are now picking their way through the wrecks of the previous vehicles to enter the minefields until they too run into mines or get picked off by long range ATGMS, there's reports that Russian combat engineers did manage to clear routes through the mines, but the Ukrainians used artillery launched mines* to close the gaps in the minefield up again. Again, the Russians don't seem to be aware that their cleared corridors aren't clear. In both cases, but especially in Vuhledar where they are repeatedly attacking the same ground, there's a significant delay between the preparation work that indicates an attack is coming and the actual attack. Breaching obstacles like minefields is about speed an coordination, there shouldn't be delays that leave enough time to reestablish the minefields.



*and possibly drone placed mines as well, minelaying drones exist, but aren't mentioned in the reports

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Tue Feb 28, 2023 4:04 am

Woodchopper wrote:
Mon Feb 27, 2023 5:51 am
Thread on a Russian attempt to reorganise its army for the war: https://twitter.com/tatarigami_ua/statu ... kWSRZw7OgA

Looks sensible in theory but I haven’t seen much which suggests they are improving on the ground.

In previous wars Russia was able to reform its army. But it took years of horrendous losses.
One additional point to add to the Tatarigami_UA thread, but the reference to flamethrowers isn't to the classic WW1/WW2 style that shoots a jet of burning fuel, it's a reference to the RPO Shmel system, a disposable rocket launcher a bit like an M72 LAW - or a bit like a single use bazooka - but with a thermobaric or incendiary warhead.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by Woodchopper » Tue Feb 28, 2023 3:20 pm

Nearly a month after Berlin gave European allies permission to send German-made tanks to Ukraine, the flow of tanks so many leaders vowed would follow seems more like a trickle.

Some nations have discovered that the tanks in their armory don’t actually work or lack spare parts. Political leaders have encountered unanticipated resistance within their own coalitions, and even from their defense ministries. And some armies had to pull trainers out of retirement to teach Ukrainian soldiers how to use old-model tanks.

The struggle to provide Leopard tanks to an embattled Ukraine is just the most glaring manifestation of a reality Europe has long ignored: Believing that large-scale land war was a thing of the past and basking in the thaw of the Cold War, nations chronically underfunded their militaries. When Russia launched the largest land war on the continent since World War II, they were woefully unprepared.

Hints of the problem have surfaced repeatedly since Russia invaded Ukraine a year ago, through shortages of weapons and ammunition. But now, as Germany and its allies struggled for weeks to scrape together enough Leopard 2s to fill two battalions of tanks — 62 vehicles in total — the extent of their quandary has become even clearer.

[…]

It is not so much that nations are unwilling to make good on their promises but rather that they have faced a rude awakening as to just how difficult it is.

[…]

Finland, where many outspoken members of Parliament led the calls for Germany to allow Leopard deliveries, announced on Thursday that it would supply three Leopard mine-clearing vehicles — but none of its estimated 200 Leopard main battle tanks.

Some German officials expressed sympathy for Finland, which is not yet a NATO member and has Europe’s longest border with Russia, some 830 miles. It does not want to weaken its defenses now that Russia has shown a willingness to attack a sovereign neighbor.

But some European officials were hoping for a larger contribution from Finland, given promises from the United States and Britain to come to its defense if necessary, even before NATO accession.

Nordic countries such as Sweden, which had long pushed for Leopard deliveries but on Friday offered only “up to” 10, are facing another unexpected problem, several German officials said: While their politicians and members of the public appear keen to offer tanks to Ukraine, their militaries are not.

For decades, European countries enjoying a post-Cold War “peace dividend” had seen war as almost a thing of the past, regularly cutting military support. Now, the shrunken armies tend to be protective of what they still have. At NATO, European militaries are sometimes called “bonsai armies,” after the miniature trees.

[…]

In Germany, which for years clung to a foreign policy that emphasized aid and development more than hard power, some saw the problem as uniquely German. Yearly military reports to Parliament offered sometimes comical glimpses of the shortages. Commandos conducted water training at local public pools, because their own facilities were shut down. Planes could not fly. Soldiers trained with broomsticks instead of rifles. Even newer Puma infantry fighting vehicles recently broke down en masse.

But other European nations are now realizing their own militaries may have similar troubles.

[…]

Spain, which has 108 Leopard 2A4 tanks, early on sought German permission to offer some of its vehicles to Ukraine. Now it has discovered that many of them are in poor condition and need refurbishment that could take weeks or months.

[…]

Nevertheless, as Germany turned the pressure back on its allies for their shortcomings, Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, on Friday improved on his promise to send six Leopards and said Spain would now send 10.

Ulrike Franke, a defense analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the struggle to find tank numbers raises questions as to where else European militaries face similar shortages and maintenance problems.

“Is it just bad luck that Spain has an issue with their Leopard tanks, but everything else works?” she said. “Or do they have the same issues elsewhere?”

“Does 10 percent of their equipment not work, or is it 50 percent?” Ms. Franke asked. “It would be a good idea for Europeans to look at this more closely.”

Poland, which has difficult relations with Germany, was foremost in pressing Mr. Scholz and Berlin on the Leopards, and even threatened to send some to Ukraine without the necessary German permission. Like Berlin, Warsaw has some 200 Leopard 2 tanks — but it says it will provide just 14. It sent the first of the tanks to Ukraine on the anniversary of the invasion, Feb. 24, although Poland has yet to finish training Ukrainian soldiers how to use them.

Warsaw may be holding off on deliveries of Leopards until it receives new Hyundai-made K2 tanks from South Korea, meant to replace the German model, some analysts said. Poland has sent many upgraded Soviet-era T-72 tanks to Ukraine.

[…]

The Netherlands, Germany and Belgium have launched a joint initiative to refurbish and send 150 Leopard 1 models to Ukraine by the end of the year. But at a training session for Ukrainian soldiers in Germany earlier this week, one general said militaries had been forced to seek out retired Leopard 1 tank drivers to come back and help train Ukrainian forces. The old model is too unfamiliar to current militaries.

[…]

As politicized as the Leopard issue has become, Gustav Gressel, a security analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, argued that there were plenty of solutions if European nations worked together.

The Dutch, for instance, lease 18 Leopards from Germany. Officials are discussing whether it would be possible for Germany to take some of them to use in place of its own Leopards in Lithuania and then send those to Ukraine.

Switzerland, sticking to its constitutional neutrality, refuses to send any of its 134 Leopard tanks to Ukraine. But it is willing to give the tanks to European Union members, Mr. Gressel said. Countries like Finland or Poland, he said, could request the Swiss tanks and send their own to Ukraine.

Another option would be for countries to simply buy more Leopards, made by the German companies Rheinmetall and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, and send their current models to Ukraine. But European governments and the defense industry are currently in a standoff over production.

State leaders want industry to move first, while weapons makers want longer-term government orders before they step up production. If more government orders are made, analysts say, the more capacity may increase, thus speeding up production of weapons like tanks.

At current rates, militaries would face a serious tank shortage for the two to three years it would take the industry to make the new vehicles, security experts say — a long waiting period politicians across Europe are learning their armies are fiercely resistant to accept.

That is why Mr. Gressel argued the tanks should be sent now anyway.

“Yes,” he said, “Russia will reconstitute itself as a military threat to NATO after this war. But it will take years for them to come back as a military threat. They have to rebuild an army which is shattered and almost destroyed in Ukraine.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/28/worl ... tanks.html

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by Woodchopper » Tue Feb 28, 2023 4:53 pm

Bellingcat has some inconclusive satellite pictures of an A-50 aircraft in Belarus: https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1 ... -sPRcTuiOA

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Tue Feb 28, 2023 6:26 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Tue Feb 28, 2023 4:53 pm
Bellingcat has some inconclusive satellite pictures of an A-50 aircraft in Belarus: https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1 ... -sPRcTuiOA
Both after images have a dark area on the radome that is not present on the before image. It could be uneven snowmelt or superficial damage, but it does look quite a bit like a scorch. Not convinced by the discussion about the wings in that thread, though - look at the shadows; the dark patch on the left wing appears to be the shadow of the radome.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Tue Feb 28, 2023 6:55 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Tue Feb 28, 2023 4:53 pm
Bellingcat has some inconclusive satellite pictures of an A-50 aircraft in Belarus: https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1 ... -sPRcTuiOA
Belarusian Hajun project also has some analysis, and this handy before and after image. Sensibly they compare the A-50 with other large jets, which do not show changes in the time in question. Not conclusive, but could be some degree of scorching due to attack, but could be other things too. There's also clearer colour change on the wings that can't be radome shadow in this image.

Image

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Tue Feb 28, 2023 11:25 pm

Several strikes deep into Russia last night, including attacks on fuel infrastructure at Tuapse south of Novorossisk and likewise near Moscow(!). Reports, not yet confirmed, of further strikes tonight. Improvised munitions seem to be the method - the strike near Moscow failed, but it looks like it was with a long-endurance drone, while the Tuapse strike was carried out by something with a jet engine, probably an old Tupolev recon drone conversion. Tonight's reported attack is at Yeysk, just across the Taganrog Gulf from Mariupol.

Deeper and deeper, as General Budanov would say.

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