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Posted
5 hours ago, Parliament said:

What has been the turning point?  Is it as simple as Ukraine being able to doggedly wear down Russian infrastructure?  They've been barely able to take out assets barely faster than Russia can replace?  Do that for 2.5 years (!) and you achieve superiority?

Two things, first, their long-range weapons that are just coming online - we've been waiting to see them in action, and they aren't even at full production yet.  Second, it's the concentrated effort (and success) to bring down the Russian oil & gas infrastructure, and by proxy, their economy. The Russians appear to be powerless to stop them from doing it, which means Russian air defenses are absolutely strained. Seeing a reduction in exports and gas stations in Moscow being out of some fuels seems huge, and that is while they still have reserves sitting in tanks.

If Ukraine can keep up a steady pressure on oil & gas, even increase it, I don't see how Russia recovers, at least on the civilian side. If they do something like drop the Kerch Bridge, Russia will have to have fuel depots to supply vehicles going over the land bridge, which means static targets (and Ukraine doesn't even have to hit a depot, just the infrastructure supplying it).

 

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Posted
3 hours ago, Parliament said:

Atom/Inka: Pound for pound, what western European NATO member punches the hardest?  (Per capita) who has the most capable military?

I don't know about per-capita, but I'd say England, France, and Poland would be contenders - England and France have experienced leaders (NCOs and commissioned officers) thanks to recent combat experience (Poland does as well, they were with us in Afghanistan). France has a lot of recent experience in Africa. They all have very integrated militaries from a combined arms point of view - they engage in training exercises on a large scale with everything integrated so infantry know how to work with armor and artillery, etc..  England and France have solid navies. Their leadership is serious about Russia.  Poland might get the edge in the future, but they aren't done expanding so I'm not sure how big they are.

Germany would be in the mix because they are large, but their leadership position is kind of wonky.

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Posted
6 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

I don't know about per-capita, but I'd say England, France, and Poland would be contenders - England and France have experienced leaders (NCOs and commissioned officers) thanks to recent combat experience (Poland does as well, they were with us in Afghanistan). France has a lot of recent experience in Africa. They all have very integrated militaries from a combined arms point of view - they engage in training exercises on a large scale with everything integrated so infantry know how to work with armor and artillery, etc..  England and France have solid navies. Their leadership is serious about Russia.  Poland might get the edge in the future, but they aren't done expanding so I'm not sure how big they are.

Germany would be in the mix because they are large, but their leadership position is kind of wonky.

Finland says "combined arms?  We're good with iron sights."

W-Fal24-Profile-Ha%E2%95%A0eyha%E2%95%A0

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Posted

Russia is to Poland as ou is to us. With slightly less sister fucking in russia. 

Their hatred for the russkie cocksuckers cannot be over stated.

I think that gives them the edge because once they get started they ain't stopping for shit.

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Posted

 

 

Zelensky warned Ruzzia, "FAFO"

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned senior Russian officials to end the war in Ukraine or risk becoming a target.

In an interview on Thursday with Axios, Zelenskyy said that sites in Russia could be targeted, after range restrictions on weapons provided by Ukraine's allies were lifted.

"They have to know where their bomb shelters are. If they will not stop the war, they will need it," Zelenskyy said in an interview with The Axios Show in New York, where he is attending the United Nations General Assembly.

...

In the Axios interview, Zelenskyy explained he was hoping for the US to deliver an unspecified type of long-range weapon.

He insisted that Ukraine would not launch attacks on civilian targets, adding: "We are not terrorists."

https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-zelenskyy-threatens-attack-on-kremlin/a-74139720

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Posted

damn.... straight up telling Moscow " we know where you hide during airstrikes, we gonna blow your ass up if you dont quit"

 

he needs to send 1 more warning and then do a true decapitation strike against all the senior generals spots they know about.  (no chance getting Putin- hes hiding somewhere safe)

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Posted
23 minutes ago, AUS-97HORN said:

damn.... straight up telling Moscow " we know where you hide during airstrikes, we gonna blow your ass up if you dont quit"

he needs to send 1 more warning and then do a true decapitation strike against all the senior generals spots they know about.  (no chance getting Putin- hes hiding somewhere safe)

One of those fancy new missiles right into the Kremlin would be pretty sweet.

But probably more productive to hit some targets near Moscow and make them move their limited air defenses in closer, freeing up targets for Ukraine elsewhere.

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Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, Bevo said:

Update from the Guardian

  • Reconnaissance drones that violated Ukraine’s airspace could have flown from Hungary to check the industrial potential of western border areas, Zelenskyy said on Friday, prompting a mocking rebuke from Budapest. The Ukrainian president was citing a preliminary military assessment of the drone activity and did not say when those particular reconnaissance drones had been sighted over the border region.

 

Edited by Chopper
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Posted
2 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

No spares. No maintenance team. That fucker is gonna sink. Or. 

Animated GIF

How could it not? After all, that thing is ancient; it will soon be 12 years old.  I think that’s about how long the U.S. has had B-52s. 

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Posted
3 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

How could it not? After all, that thing is ancient; it will soon be 12 years old.  I think that’s about how long the U.S. has had B-52s. 

That’s 84 in Russian years.   The Kursk had only been  in service for 6 years when she sank in 2000.

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Posted (edited)

Another one for @PTINS this time on the other side of Moscow, affecting western Russia. If officials admit to “minor damage” and that pumping operations were suspended, that probably means it’s out of commission for a while.

G11v94gXIAAjVCJ?format=png&name=medium
 

^^^^ not my numbers, somebody else posted them

Edited by atomheartbevo
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Posted

Lavrov: The North Atlantic Alliance continues its expansion right up to our borders. We have repeatedly offered NATO capitals to respect their obligations and agree on legally binding security guarantees. Our proposals of 2008, and the next ones, including December 2021 [the one that preceded Russia's full-scale invasion into Ukraine - AG], have been ignored and continue being ignored up to this day. 

Moreover, threats of force against Russia are increasingly being made, with accusations that it is practically planning to attack the North Atlantic alliances and the European Union. Russia has never had and does not have such intentions, but any aggression against my country will be decisively rebuffed. 

There should be no doubt about this among those in NATO and the European Union who not only convince their voters of the inevitability of war with Russia and force them to tighten their belts, but also openly declare preparations for an attack on our Kaliningrad region and other Russian territories.

Lavrov: Russia is being accused of almost planning to attack the North Atlantic Alliance and the European Union countries. President Putin has repeatedly debunked these provocations. 

Russia has never had and does not have any such intentions. However, any aggression against my country will be met with a decisive response.
—————-

I don't think I need to remind anyone here how vehemently Russia denied its plans to invade Ukraine before the full-scale war.

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Posted


I've put together a timeline of incursions into the airspace of European countries in recent months. Honestly, when it's all in one place, that looks very worrying. Please let me know if I've missed any incursions.


Poland

  • August 20: a Russian drone exploded over Lublin Voevodeship
  • September 10: massive incursion of Russian drones into Poland's airspace; 19 drones detected.

Norway:

  • April 25: Northeast of Vardø;
  • July 24: Eastern part of Finnmark region;
  • August 18: Northeast of Vardø;
  • September 22: drone(s) over Gardermoen.

Latvia:

  • September 18: a tail part of a Gerbera-like drone found on the beach;
  • September 25: Five Russian aircraft close to Latvia's airspace; Hungarian aircraft rose into the air to take over.

Estonia:

  • September 19: Russian MiG-31 aircraft spent 12 minutes in Estonia's airspace.

Romania:

  • September 13: Russian drone in the country's airspace, tracked down by two F-16 jets.

Germany

  • September 26: several drones spotted over/near Schleswig-Holstein.

Denmark:

  • September 22: Copenhagen's airport closed due to drones;
  • September 25: Aalborg and Billund airports closed, drones were spotted at Esbjerg, Sonderborg and Skrydstrup.
  • September 26: airspace over Aalborg airport closed again due to drones.

Sweden:

  • September 26: drones spotted by Karlskrona Naval Base.

Lithuania:

  • September 26: Vilnius airport closed down twice due to alleged drones flying in the area.

Finland:

  • September 27: a drone spotting over Rovaniemi power plant became public knowledge. Allegedly, the incident took place several days earlier.

As Prime Minister Frederiksen explained today, these are hybrid attacks, there will most likely be more of them and the security threat is very, very real.

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Posted


https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1971489392729743480.html?utm_campaign=topunroll

 

2/ The Russian military correspondent Maxim Kalashnikov writes that he recently met air defence specialists who had been sent to fight in the infantry after spending the last two years crewing the Soviet-era Buk air defence system. 
3/ "Professional air defence specialists in the infantry. Not convicts, not drunks, not ‘Sochi boys’. In other words, not deserters from the army. But in the infantry! Someone has to serve in the infantry too. 
4/ "But not real air defence professionals who know the equipment inside out.

So why are they in the infantry? Simply because there just aren't enough missiles for the Buk missiles. Often, there are just one or two missiles for every six vehicles. 
5/ "Lately, they've been delivering missiles received from the navy. What this means, let the experts judge. And the General Staff strategists will be held accountable for the missiles and drones falling on Russian cities. That's how we fight." 
6/ Kalashnikov doesn't explain why missiles are in such short supply, but the most likely explanation is that Ukraine's nightly waves of drone attacks against refineries and other targets have severely depleted Russia's stockpiles of Buk missiles. /end 

 

 

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Posted
  • Ukraine is working on a deal to sell its drones to the US as well as a major arms purchase from Washington, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said. Kyiv has prepared a list of about $90bn worth of American weapons that it wants to buy, with Ukrainian officials set to visit the US this month or next for talks. Ukraine’s president said he had shared with US president Donald Trump “a certain vision of what could be done” to respond to Russia’s actions. “In addition to the large arms deal, which we call the ‘mega deal’, we also discussed the ‘drone deal’. Technical groups are already starting to work on this deal,” Zelenskyy told reporters on Saturday. “It concerns drones that the United States will purchase directly from Ukraine.”

  • Zelenskyy announced on Saturday that Israel had for the first time supplied Ukraine with a US-made Patriot anti-missile defence system. “The Israeli [Patriot] system is operating in Ukraine. It has been operating for a month. We will receive two Patriot systems in the fall,” Zelenskyy told reporters.

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Posted
1 hour ago, Bevo said:

Zelenskyy announced on Saturday that Israel had for the first time supplied Ukraine with a US-made Patriot anti-missile defence system. “The Israeli [Patriot] system is operating in Ukraine. It has been operating for a month. We will receive two Patriot systems in the fall,” Zelenskyy told reporters.

Russian milbloggers think this was what recently shot down the Su-34

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Posted

Turning Point in my opinions:

Logistics win Wars

Military Knowledge As Russia looses officers and NCO's, they are being replaced by even more sycophantic military leaders. Virtually every dictators downfall in a major war was because the Dictator chases the glamor rather than the actual victory.  

Compare that to Ukraine, as they replace military leaders, they are being trained heavily in the logistical side of warfare.

Civilian Knowledge : Russia successfully exported its most intelligent civilians at the beginning of the war. And then sent their replacements to the front lines to die.

Ukraine has imported intelligence. You can tell by their sophistication of drone and aerial warfare. 

Logistics win Wars.  One country is is using it's civilian and military knowledge to attack refineries, factories, and transportation hubs. The other is attacking apartments.

 

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Posted
23 minutes ago, Jameslaw121 said:

Turning Point in my opinions:

Logistics win Wars

Military Knowledge As Russia looses officers and NCO's, they are being replaced by even more sycophantic military leaders. Virtually every dictators downfall in a major war was because the Dictator chases the glamor rather than the actual victory.  

Compare that to Ukraine, as they replace military leaders, they are being trained heavily in the logistical side of warfare.

Civilian Knowledge : Russia successfully exported its most intelligent civilians at the beginning of the war. And then sent their replacements to the front lines to die.

Ukraine has imported intelligence. You can tell by their sophistication of drone and aerial warfare. 

Logistics win Wars.  One country is is using it's civilian and military knowledge to attack refineries, factories, and transportation hubs. The other is attacking apartments.

 

So obviously all we need do to solve the problem is decide which side deserves our support.  Should be simple, right?  Right?  Right?

Posted
2 minutes ago, Vertuzzi said:

Oh Dmitry, don’t write checks your fucking ass can’t cash. 

Yeah want special bombs they have that could target Ukrainian leadership, I feel like have already been used.  Or they couldn’t deploy because a lack of aircraft or not willing to risk said aircraft. 

Posted

The anti-air missile shortages are most likely tied to a mixture of a variety of attacks on the production facilities for rocket boosters and the development of solid fuel propellant and the continued use of trying to shoot down the various drone attacks throughout Russia.

The interesting part of this is that we are seeing continued uptick on attacks on the missile defense system in Crimea at the same time. So they are targeting the systems that still have missiles and continuing to force Russia to expend missiles shooting down attacks on various production facilities. And this is all happening before they have began using large amounts of their own home-grown ballistic missile systems. 

So we are either seeing an attempt to "own" the sky for finally using the F15s in an offensive capacity or allowing the new ballistic systems to have an even higher chance of being successful. Either way, it is interesting to see that the functional air defense systems of Russia slowly collapsing under the weight of Russian economy's inability to match sustained production. 

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Posted
33 minutes ago, Jameslaw121 said:

Turning Point in my opinions:

Logistics win Wars

Military Knowledge As Russia looses officers and NCO's, they are being replaced by even more sycophantic military leaders. Virtually every dictators downfall in a major war was because the Dictator chases the glamor rather than the actual victory.  

Compare that to Ukraine, as they replace military leaders, they are being trained heavily in the logistical side of warfare.

Civilian Knowledge : Russia successfully exported its most intelligent civilians at the beginning of the war. And then sent their replacements to the front lines to die.

Ukraine has imported intelligence. You can tell by their sophistication of drone and aerial warfare. 

Logistics win Wars.  One country is is using it's civilian and military knowledge to attack refineries, factories, and transportation hubs. The other is attacking apartments.

 

I enjoy watching military history documentaries, and I saw an interesting one comparing the Japanese zero and the Corsair.

 Once upon a time, Russia was the source of new technology on main battle tanks, just like Japan and it’s unprecedented zero conquered the skies for several years in the pacific.  No one could match its speed and turning radius in dog fights, and the kill ratio versus existing American fighters was obscenely in favor of the Japanese.  Consider the zero a microcosm of Russia’s military capabilities at the start of the war in 2022.

Fast forward just two years and you have Hellcats and Corsairs in the Pacific theater destroying Japanese aviation with the same kill ratios that Japan once had: 10 to one type kill ratios in favor of American pilots.  The new American fighters were 100 miles an hour faster than zeros even though they weighed twice as much, they had bulletproof canopies, heavy armor, much larger engines, and self sealing gas tanks if struck by Japanese machine gun fire.

The American fighters could climb faster, dive faster, operate at a higher ceiling, absorb more punishment, and their greater armaments could destroy a zero with a single burst.  The Americans could carry more ammunition, and with drop tanks could fly farther than their Japanese counterparts.  

American pilots destroyed so many zeros in such a surprising amount of time that the Japanese could not respond.  Their rigid training and industrial manufacturing systems (requiring approval at many levels with a Navy and army that were constantly fighting politically) there was no way to produce better Japanese fighters in such a short period of time in enough numbers to compete with America.  

America was dumping out thousands of new pilots with 600 to 700 hours airtime using loads of ammunition to hone their skills, while Japanese pilots had barely 100 hours of training. They  conserved scarce ammo to the extent that they totally lacked the skills of the prior elite pilots when they went up for the first time against experienced P-51, Corsair and Hellcat aces. 

And so, in just three years the fight with feared, elite, battle experienced Japanese pilots in their superior planes turned into a battle between experienced American pilots with vastly superior planes, to the point the uneven contest resulted in events like the great Marianas Turkey Shoot. 

Today, although Russia started out with vastly more and better equipment than Ukraine had, and a military that was universally recognized as being far better than Ukraine, in a little over three years Ukraine has mastered drone warfare and developed its own weapons like the flamingo and it’s long flight drones that are wrecking the Russian oil and gas economy.

tl;dr Japan hit a tipping point when no matter their fanatical ideology and thirst for war, their inability to replace battle hardened troops and officers with leadership experience - when coupled with an inability to build significant numbers of modern weapons equal to their opponents - doomed Japan.  

The timeframe here seems to be playing out in the same way.  Three years later, the Russian economy is incapable of sustaining this expensive large scale war.  Russia is so desperate for meat for the front lines that they threw in naval and other personnel with no infantry training to be fodder for useless assaults.   

In that situation, Japan went to kamikaze attacks when traditional aerial combat was no longer feasible.   I fear that tactical nuclear weapons might be the fallback for Russia.   I think the most dangerous time is right before Russia falls and loses.  like about right now.

Posted
1 hour ago, Jameslaw121 said:

One country is is using its civilian and military knowledge to attack refineries, factories, and transportation hubs. The other is attacking apartments.

Attacking apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, markets, that directly pisses people off.  It motivates people.  It does little to affect the military or the economy.

Attacking oil and gas infrastructure hurts future military operations, hurts the economy. Fuel rationing for a population that is constantly told by state TV that they are winning…doesn’t feel much like winning, and if fuel restrictions increase, it will erode whatever faith is left in Russian leadership.

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Posted
16 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

I fear that tactical nuclear weapons might be the fallback for Russia.

Putin knows the West will directly come gunning for him if he uses nukes, and China might smell blood in the water and act if they see him going down (it’ll be the best chance they have at reclaiming lost territories). Further, he will lose the ability to trade with any nation - nobody is going to trade with a nation using nukes to gain new territory, and risk the major economic powers embargoing them.

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Posted
34 minutes ago, Laxtonto said:

So we are either seeing an attempt to "own" the sky for finally using the F15s in an offensive capacity or allowing the new ballistic systems to have an even higher chance of being successful. Either way, it is interesting to see that the functional air defense systems of Russia slowly collapsing under the weight of Russian economy's inability to match sustained production. 

You don’t hear about their flamingo ICBM‘s being used that much.    You never know, but they predicted seven a day could be built by now.  No matter, at this point they should have enough to attack the four or five  largest on-line oil and gas distribution and refining centers with drone swarms  - - to be followed by 15 flamingos at each site.

That would be a lovely “get ready for winter” event.   I doubt they leave scarce air defense assets at the critical pumping stations once the refineries are no longer - ya know - pumping fuel.  Maybe that’s when you leisurely destroy them over winter.

The next 45 days seems to be critical in how well 2026 turns out.

 

 

 

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Posted
12 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Putin knows the West will directly come gunning for him if he uses nukes, and China might smell blood in the water and act if they see him going down (it’ll be the best chance they have at reclaiming lost territories). Further, he will lose the ability to trade with any nation - nobody is going to trade with a nation using nukes to gain new territory, and risk the major economic powers embargoing them.

That sounds all very reasonable and logical.  If only Putin were reasonable and logical and not desperate to save his own life and power In a stupid short term crisis decision…but your typing fingers to God’s eyes.

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