Posts by boldotter2

slyfox43 said:I find it a bit hard to swallow the idea that Ukrainians are burning through Javelins at such an astronomical rate. I’m not one to lean into conspiracy theories, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were quietly stockpiling a portion of those supplies for a rainy day—perhaps as leverage in case Western pressure forces them into a peace deal that doesn't sit right with their interests.

If the situation were mine, I’d likely be doing the exact same thing if I had the means.

As for ramping up Javelin production, it’s entirely possible to accelerate the process if we actually make it a priority. The Defense Production Act is a powerful tool when it's used correctly.

I think they just count Javelins (and all other gear) as "used up" the moment they get delivered to a unit, rather than waiting until they're actually fired. Because, honestly, thousands of Javelins being fired would mean hundreds, maybe even thousands, of destroyed tanks, and you'd definitely notice that. Even if they were firing them off wildly like the Chechens, you'd see it on TikTok or something.

It seems like they're trying to avoid the same mess they had before the war when they couldn't arm everyone equally. Right now, a huge chunk of equipment is probably tied up along the Belarusian border and the northeast. There isn't direct fighting there yet, but they still need a strong defense.
So, when they say they've "used up" their supplies, maybe it really just means "we haven't fully equipped everyone we need to yet" or "our reserves aren't quite where they should be."

wiredseal7 said:Looks like America might be shipping some of these helicopters over to Ukraine:
https://www.militaryaerospace.com/co...of-afghanistan

They’re actually pretty recent—manufactured around 2013.
The whole move feels a bit shady, though—likely a blatant breach of contract with the Russians, who were the original buyers.

Do we even have any Mi-8s left in our inventory? Not that I'm pushing for it—sending aircraft like this is a massive escalation waiting to happen.

Right, so maybe we just send over our civilian ones then? You know, those medical helicopters. Since the Rus delivered them to us originally, I guess we can just hand them right over to Ukraine.

Kate Lewis3 said:They say history is our greatest teacher. Just look at February 1941.

I totally agree. I just think we should escalate things slowly, kind of like the boiling frog method. Maybe start with anti-tank gear, then move to artillery, armor, anti-ship, aircraft, Predators... That way, Ukraine gets everything they need, and Russia's grumbling just becomes an annoying nuisance.

Though, honestly, after the Buzz and all those sanctions hitting home, even that grumbling has quieted down a bit...

George Robinson43 said:That provides a formidable foundation for the mass destruction of equipment and personnel. It will be intense watching Reaper and Predator footage as they dismantle convoy after convoy.
Furthermore, those monsters responsible for over 20,000 deaths in Mariupol should be wiped out from the sky using Excalibur.

I guess using Reaper/Predator drones would actually be a bigger escalation than just sending F-16s. With them, American operators from the USA could basically be operating under the Ukrainian flag inside Russia. And even if you shoot down a Predator, there's no way to know where that "signal" actually originated. I mean, sure, it comes via satellite, but where it went *to* the satellite is a total mystery.

I mean, maybe the Americans should just send them—screw the Russians—but yeah, it is an escalation. For example, Ukraine could use Hellfires to hit moving trains directly in Russia. You blow up a locomotive right as it hits a bridge and boom, huge damage for a long time. Man, in that scenario, even Moscow is within reach. 😵

So, I think it's such a huge game changer that if they do send them, they might be restricted to operating only within Ukraine's borders, totally unarmed or something...

Anyway, enough about Ukraine, let's talk a bit about how Russia is arming up...

It looks like the world's second strongest Army!!! has to smuggle in missiles, firecrackers, and all sorts of pyrotechnics through Georgia and Iran.
I guess what kind of 353452453D strategy is that? They sit on all those high-end hypersonic Kinzhals just so they can test out cheap Iranian copies instead. We'll probably never wrap our heads around it. Such an art form, I suppose.

Carl Lee27 said:Man, maybe the Slovaks will actually step up and send over some of their Mig's. If they pull that off, you have to wonder if the Poles might follow suit too, right?

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/statu...paCyFD6qA&s=19

Yeah. Like they said themselves, keeping those Migs running is basically impossible now, and the new F-16s aren't arriving for another three years.

Donating a bunch of 29s would probably be the most ridiculous, nonsensical thing ever seen in aviation history. Honestly, it’d be a joke for the Mig-29, the Mikoyan-Gurevich Bureau, and even Russia—if there was anything left worth saving there...

Roger Fowler said:I guess I momentarily blanked on that Zastava license for the SKS—you know, the old "papovka." But honestly, even back then, it was already outdated gear, wasn't it? Looking at the imagery I've come across, most of what's visible is clearly the AK-74, even if a few rifles have an AK-47 style magazine; you can tell by the way the 5.45mm mags aren't nearly as curved as those iconic AK-47 "banana clips."

http://blog.mountsplus.com/ak-rifles...k-74-vs-ak-12/

They’re definitely using plenty of AK-47s over there too. I think I even saw footage of some M-70s. They probably have local ammo production going on, too.

When Volodymyr Zelenskyy was visiting Bucha, I noticed a few of his security detail were carrying actual AK-47s. In those kinds of bodyguard situations, I guess 7.62 caliber might have a slight edge over 5.45—the rounds are heavier and maybe offer better penetration through stuff like wood or metal.
https://thehill.com/wp-content/uploa...2ap.jpg?w=1280

And check this out: https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/.../v1/800x-1.jpg
That looks like some kind of beefed-up local modification!

goldenowl73 said:Looks like those Baryaktars are about to get some serious upgrades with some fresh ordnance.

The US is actually shipping out laser-guided rockets 🚀 specifically to boost the punch of those Turkish made drones. https://t.co/nFo4plqtnG

The real issue with these 70mm rockets is that the backblast is just incredibly intense and obvious. It practically leaves a massive scorch mark right on the sky where you launched them!
Since those Bayraktars are mostly flying at night, I guess they'll be pretty easy to spot. They might just end up getting picked off by AA guns way too easily... maybe.

Maybe we should think about modifying the MQ-9 Reaper to carry some different gear? I guess it could work! The GBU-39 is such a cool piece of tech! It’s one of those precision-guided bombs that just gets the job done. I guess it’s pretty impressive how much impact it packs for its size. Maybe that's why everyone is talking about it lately!Theoretically, we're looking at the payload capacity of the Bayraktar (about 240 lbs). If they can really nail the training on those, they could pretty much reach any part of Crimea or the Donbas! Just imagine being able to "drop off" 130 lbs of explosives anywhere deep behind Russian lines. That would be huge!

velvetbadger11 said:Is providing them with drones, Javelins, and Starstreak truly enough to halt the Russian advance at the Donbas?

Yeah, if you use them precisely and pick your targets carefully—like hitting command staff or anything that creates those massive fireballs—it changes everything. You basically snap their chain of command and mess up their fuel supplies. Before you know it, they can't keep an offensive going like nothing happened. It forces them straight into defensive mode, whether they want to or not, I guess!

Joshua Myers432 said:1. What kind of "black" list of existing suppliers are we talking about?
2. Minimal to nonexistent.
3. You can't source nearly enough, and we don't even have the LNG terminals ready.
4. Nice idea, but where are the actual power plants?
5. I'll give you this: it's the best point. Turn everything off and you won't need gas. 🙏
6. You can't replace traditional fuels with that garbage, nor can you build new infrastructure in any realistic timeframe.
7. Where are you getting millions of EVs and thousands of heat pumps from? And better yet, where's the electricity to power that whole scam?
8. Everyone should do it, sure, but that’s a process that takes years. We lack the skilled labor, likely the materials, and honestly, it probably won't move the needle much on national energy consumption anyway.
9. They'll have to do it, though there will be plenty of issues there too.

It's impossible. Not even close. We should have thought ahead instead of being this dependent on Russian gas. It's a total utopia to think you can replace that amount of energy immediately—it's a utopia even if you look two or three years down the road.

The Germans are probably going to be freezing this winter and part of next, but they'll figure it out. That's just how Germans are. They aren't like North American folks or Frenchmen. If you tell a German to freeze, they'll just freeze without making a huge scene about it. I mean, maybe.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if Mexicans and Russians living in Germany start driving trucks with flags through the streets. Everyone else? Well, they'll probably just grab some space heaters and thick socks.

David Torres2 said:So, they’re really going all the way on this one.

For anyone who wants a decent translation instead of just relying on Google Translate, you should grab imtranslator for your Firefox browser.
It gives you a really solid translation from English or German into American English.
Just highlight a sentence or a few of them, click the little button that pops up, and boom—you've got your translation.

OFF, but might be handy:

Personally, I use this translator on Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...r-paginas-web/

It's pretty great because it can automatically translate entire websites in certain languages (like Russian or Ukrainian, for example) without you even having to click anything. Plus, there’s an icon right by the address bar that lets you translate the whole page in just two clicks!

Carl Lee27 said:The Russian ambassador over in the UK is out here making all these big threats, saying they’re going to intercept and destroy those precision weapon shipments coming from the UK into Ukraine. Honestly, it feels like a massive bluff to me—I mean, do they even have the actual capability to pull something like that off? Unless they’re planning on sending their own planes and helicopters straight into a death trap, I just don't see how they could make it happen without losing everything.

https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/statu...qfHMm517g&s=19

I honestly have no clue how they'd even try. Maybe they think they can just randomly intercept civilian cars and trucks on the road and blow them up 24/7? Since this gear is constantly moving in individual vehicles, that seems impossible.

A totally different question is what they'd even use to do it. Even if they had air superiority—which they don't—planes and helicopters wouldn't be enough because they can't cover all of western Ukraine all the time. They'd basically need occupation troops and control over every single highway checkpoint. Good luck with that, I guess! 😁

Or to put it simply: Russia is bluffing. They'll probably just stick to those semi-random terrorist missile strikes.

Andrew Miller102 said:You might not have noticed,😁 but that’s mainly because Ukrainians don't broadcast their losses, and the Russians generally couldn't care less about showing off every single piece of enemy hardware they take out. The Russians disabled that unit down there a month ago, but the Ukrainians only just decided to show the world this expensive piece of air defense gear they lost.

https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status...91605432741888

I'm not blind, but from everything I can see and everything that's public knowledge, the Ukrainian air force practically doesn't exist right now. You really only have two possibilities: either they are hiding, or most of them have been wiped out. Realistically, they can't hide for long, given that all the airbases and aircraft locations are well-documented.

Take today's Ukrainian strike using two AH-64 Apaches against a fuel depot in Russia. It’s textbook tactics—flying extremely low and praying you don't run into a MANPAD. If there aren't any MANPADS nearby, you end up with a situation like in Syria where the AH-64 Apaches can just fly in and get the job done without much trouble.

People are still fighting, so you would think a fuel depot—especially one sitting so close to the Ukrainian border—would be somewhat protected.The Russians completely slept on this one; instead of being proactive, they should have at least stationed a couple of soldiers with shoulder-fired MANPADS around the perimeter.A fool learns from his mistakes, but if that's how they want to play it, then there isn't much else to say.☕

What's the deal with these MANPADS? And where on earth are the Pantsir and Buk systems? I guess they just don't exist in the Russian military anymore? Or maybe they drove them through too much mud and lost their tires and tracks! 🤣

Fuel supplies right next to the front lines? Totally unprotected. Man, I guess you have to wonder how someone could be that reckless to order and approve that! 🤦

Man, it’s a tough call now. I guess you can try to frame this whole disaster as some massive blunder, or maybe act like it was some genius 4D chess move... geez, what a mess!🙂

Timothy Nelson5 said:The Ukrainians have hundreds of those 152 mm self-propelled howitzers at their disposal now... I suppose. It’s a significant amount of heavy hardware, though I wonder how much of it actually stays operational given the circumstances. Maybe.
They've got upwards of a hundred pieces of other artillery sitting there. I guess... maybe it's significant, though I can't be entirely sure how much that actually shifts the needle on the ground. It's just more hardware in the mix, I suppose.
They've got hundreds of those VBR-ov units out there. I guess... maybe they actually have the numbers to back it up this time. Or perhaps not. It’s hard to say for sure, really.
They've got those Tochka ballistic missiles. I suppose they really do. It’s one of those things you just have to account for, though, I guess. Just another variable in an already messy equation.

I mean, honestly... a few batteries of 155mm howitzers—maybe with a slightly better range, if we're being optimistic—or even some MLRS units probably wouldn't shift the needle much right now. It’s hard to say. I guess what would actually matter more... more significant, maybe... would be just sending them enough ammunition and those old Soviet-era supplies they're already using. Just getting them the shells they need seems more vital than adding more heavy hardware to the mix.

I suppose if you look at the math... I mean, just consider this. For the price of maybe two decent batteries of AS-90s or PzH2000s—assuming they come fully rigged with all the gear and a healthy stockpile of ammo—the Ukrainian Armed Forces could probably score something like 1,000 Switchblade 600s and maybe 3,000 Switchblade 300 drones. It’s a strange thought, really. They could potentially deploy that kind of tech as a total game changer during an offensive... or maybe not. It depends on how things play out on the ground, I guess.

I guess there's logic to that. We haven't really seen their artillery getting wiped out yet. And since they managed to save their air force, the artillery just needs to find its voice...

As for the drones, I think the only real bottleneck is how fast they can make them. From what I gather, it's a small company that isn't quite used to massive wartime production levels yet.
They'll need some time to ramp up, but I mean, who will do it if the Americans won't? In a few months, it'll probably be raining Switchblade drones.

boldotter2 said:Whoa. That would be intense. 😁
I guess Crimea is basically Russia's version of Mexico—just pure mythmaking. I don't really see them touching it until everything else is settled and Putin is either out of power or... well, gone. Plus, it's super hilly and packed with military bases. It’s like the perfect fortress for defending.
Maybe the Ukrainians will take Crimea back just like the Russians took it, but I doubt it'll happen anytime soon.

What's probably going to happen now is some kind of counter-terror strikes, American style. Instead of the massive destruction you see from Russia, they might just hit ten different spots in Donbas every night with Bayraktar missiles. Nothing will feel safe. The Russians are spread pretty thin near the coast, so everything is within range. Donetsk is right on the front line, after all.

We might even see more separatists surrendering. I mean, they don't seem to have much fight left in them anymore.

And then, just a few hours later, it turns out they didn't hit Donbas at all—they hit Russia! Oh boy, oh boy! 🤣

Kate Lewis3 said:Not if they don't have a Black Sea Fleet to begin with.

Whoa. That would be intense. 😁
I guess Crimea is basically Russia's version of Mexico—just pure mythmaking. I don't really see them touching it until everything else is settled and Putin is either out of power or... well, gone. Plus, it's super hilly and packed with military bases. It’s like the perfect fortress for defending.
Maybe the Ukrainians will take Crimea back just like the Russians took it, but I doubt it'll happen anytime soon.

What's probably going to happen now is some kind of counter-terror strikes, American style. Instead of the massive destruction you see from Russia, they might just hit ten different spots in Donbas every night with Bayraktar missiles. Nothing will feel safe. The Russians are spread pretty thin near the coast, so everything is within range. Donetsk is right on the front line, after all.

We might even see more separatists surrendering. I mean, they don't seem to have much fight left in them anymore.

Carl Lee27 said:Man, artillery... I’m just sitting here thinking how much we could really use some heavy-duty MLRS units right about now, though honestly, a fleet of those 155mm self-propelled guns would probably be even more likely to make an impact.

Britain and its allies have agreed to send more lethal weapons to Ukraine to help defend IT against Russia's invasion, British defence minister Ben Wallace said on Thursday. A number of countries have come forward either with new ideas or indeed more pledges of money," Wallace told reporters after hosting over 30 international partners AT a conference. He said the lethal aid included longer range artillery, ammunition, and more anti-aircraft weapons.

https://www.devdiscourse.com/article...fence-minister

This looks like prep work for future offensives. I mean, you just can't have a breakthrough without heavy artillery support.
It’s going to be tough defending Donbas with Donetsk right on the front line within range of heavy guns. I guess the same goes for all the other strongholds too.

The only place where Russia might actually hold onto control is Crimea, mostly because of Sevastopol and the Black Sea Fleet. Everything else? I bet it'll all just reintegrate voluntarily once things get a bit more intense on the battlefield. Honestly, the separatists seem totally checked out already. They probably realize pretty quickly that they're the ones who'll be on the chopping block first, not Putin, or anyone from Moscow or Chechnya.

rustynomad12 said:...I mean, Gojko was totally fine there, I don't see the issue at all...
Is it really impossible that this is just Putin's Take 2?
Not in my book!

Since invading Ukraine, Putin hasn't made a single rational move. He seems totally lost, just searching for some shortcut to grab any kind of win he can. And honestly, he's just tangling himself deeper into a web of his own making.

The weak guys surrounding him are finally starting to speak up.

Combining all that, I reckon it'll lead to the end of Putin and the end of Russia as we know it.

Andrew Miller102 said:Are you referring to the Ukrainian defense industry? If the reports are accurate, most of that capacity has been wiped out. It’s hardly surprising that those heavy Russian cruise missiles have been consistently hitting precisely selected strategic military targets from the start. Just because the Ukrainians aren't broadcasting every single hit—and we all know why—doesn't mean those missiles didn't find their marks.

https://twitter.com/thesiriusreport/...20714260307970

If you look at the broader picture, Twitter is constantly ablaze with footage of destroyed Russian tanks and armored vehicles. But at the end of the day, we both know who is actually absorbing the massive military losses here.☕

I'd say the Russian military has taken the biggest hit, and maybe even their defense industry is feeling the squeeze from those sanctions. They've either burned through half their gear in Ukraine, or they just won't be able to rebuild much of it since they can't get those high-tech Western parts they used to rely on.
They haven't really shown off much in the way of smart weapons or advanced tech so far, anyway. I guess things might get even tougher for them after this.

Ukraine doesn't have those issues, though. For them, this is almost like a fast-track cleanup of all that outdated Soviet equipment. In five years, they'll probably have a totally modernized defense industry built on Western tech. I bet the USA-Poland-Ukraine axis is going to be a major player in the defense world pretty soon!

Thomas Nelson25 said:(I'm reading that they're repairing tanks that aren't totally trashed, so they'd probably use any tank from that family—licenses, old T-series stuff from the USSR)

As for those wheeled guns... they call them self-propelled howitzers, if I remember right 🤔 though I never really knew the exact definition. I think it's just a general term.

They need something similar to an M1 Abrams
The main perk is mobility.

The Mexicans have a cheaper version.

There are plenty of American M109 self-propelled howitzers out there. Honestly, any version would help Ukraine, they just need to find some surplus somewhere.

The Germans used them until their own self-propelled howitzers arrived. I wonder where they all ended up.

It’s more like a first aid kit solution. They'll probably build their own stuff later anyway.

Morgan Wright5 said:P
The Ukrainians have everything from Forget-me-nots and Acacias to Msta, Pion, Nona, and Hyacinth-S systems

The real question is whether UA can even keep those systems running given the damage from the war. It feels like the Russians "denazified" everything possible by hitting the factories and service centers.
The main thing is that they hold onto that know-how so they can jump right into rebuilding their industry once things settle down.

Amanda Allen4 said:The truth is, Putin has the support of his people—and that is the fundamental difference between what happened when the USSR collapsed and the current state of Russian policy.

Every single opponent of the government in Russia is fleeing to neighboring countries! What remains? A monolithic core that stands firmly behind Putin.

Well, Maddox had public support too. At least at the start.
And Hitler had public support. In the beginning.
Even Ceaușescu had people backing him. Early on.

So yeah, maybe Putin has public support right now. For the moment.

Or, put another way: the Putin they’re cheering for isn't really the guy who’s going to be in charge forever. I bet that honeymoon phase will end once those "unbridgeable differences" finally pop up.