All things Russia and Ukraine...

He's not too far from the front lines; that mortar shell - my guess 120mm - is ready for firing.

 

Agree…A ‘combat armourer’…
But older people can drive trucks, cook, sigs Corp (radios/communications) etc etc…Would be foolish not to use them, especially if they are willing. iMO

 

These are the Western weapons making a difference in Ukraine (msn.com)

 

I'm interested to see how this counter-offensive of the Ukranians works out. I get the feeling that the current state of weapons technology means that the defense is now ascendant.

 

Yeah, we probably cannot expect any big maneuver successes a la 1940 Fall of France or 1990s Desert Storm and Storm 95.

 

One less evident advantage/capability most of the new or upgraded NATO armored gear the Ukrainians are getting is the targeting/acquisition suite they come with. Most NATO armored vehicles/tanks have a suite of sensors that include night vision, infra-red and thermal imaging.
For instance, it is very hard to pick up drones with the naked eye or by optically scanning the skies, however, thermal imaging turned way up and used to scan the sky can quickly and easily pick up, the sometimes minimal, heat signature of a drone. Once detected it is easier to acquire, target and destroy. Most Russian armored equipment doesn't have the newer, full spectrum, western type sensor suites. A good percentage of their equipment that did have the upgraded stuff was lost in the early part of the war and western sanctions have greatly curtailed their ability to produce or procure abroad these type systems. For example, much of the newer Russian equipment used night vision equipment produced by Thales, a French defense supplier, before the Ukraine invasion. Now that can't be acquired openly anymore. Newer electronic equipment, to include night vision, infra-red and thermal imaging devices, rely on semi-conductors/microchips to provide functionality. Of the big producers, Taiwan, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, South Korea, Singapore and US will have severely restricted Russian access to these components. I'm sure China is supplying them to Russia back channel, but will avoid doing so openly, which restricts the volume that can be sent, same-same with India.

 

As I said a while back in a previous post somewhere here, the Soviet Union/Russia's weaknesses and deficiencies are well known and have been for decades. I know when we participated in NATO exercises, as far back as the late 70's-early 80's, the intelligence briefings related the same deficiencies in Soviet/Russian military capabilities and performance that are being exhibited in Ukraine. The one strength they had back then, that no longer exists, is they had the mass afforded by the satellite Warsaw Pact countries.
The political/military leadership in the US has always over-hyped the "Russia/Soviet Threat" in order to maintain our technological edge and ensure sufficient weapons stockpiles to stop an initial invasion. We also invested in better training and leadership development. I think this is wrong but unfortunately necessary or today we'd be looking at a military like Germany that is lacking in quantity, and quality. Their government saw the opportunity to divest in their military, they have insufficient weapons systems and allowed their personnel to dwindle losing experience and proficiency. Great Britain is in pretty much the same boat, while they have maintained a proficient, well-trained force, they've allowed their numbers to dwindle to almost the point of irrelevancy. The US Marine Corps is miniscule compared to our Army, Navy and Airforce, yet they have more personnel, aircraft, helicopters, armored vehicles and until recently, when the current idiot Commandant decided to divest them, tanks, than the British Army, the Royal Navy, Royal Airforce and Reserves combined! For instance, Great Britain (Britannia Rules the Waves) only has 10 submarines! Six Fleet boats and four ballistic submarines (the only nuclear weapon capable platform in the British Military). Of the four ballistic, only one is on patrol as a deterrent, and while capable of carrying 16 Trident missiles, by policy only carry eight. If the Russian's can reliably track or neutralize that one boat with eight missiles, Britain's nuclear deterrant evaporates, Russia is in position to nuclear blackmail them.
The Royal Navy has only six destroyers, the US has four permanently based in Rota, Spain alone! How do you protect your shipping worldwide? You rely primarily on the US in the Med, Persian Gulf, Straits of Hormuz, African Coast, Westen Pacific, and on and on.
The Ukraine has benefitted from being on the defensive during the early stages of the war. Now, that the fronts have stabilized, the war has devolved into a fairly static war of attrition (such as around Bakhmut). Long term that favors the Russian's. The defense has inherent advantages, and despite increased western weapons systems, the Ukrainians are suffering significant casualties trying to transition to the offensive.
Putin and Russia are definitely the bad guys in this war, but does the Ukraine have the population to prevail in a war of attrition? Despite robust US defense expenditures, we did not have sufficient weapons and munitions stockpiles to support a protracted, high intensity conflict without mobilizing our production capabilities, as we would have, were we directly involved in such a war. As it is, our continued support of Ukraine has emptied our stockpiles and leaves us vulnerable if we were to go to war. It also reduces the number of munitions available for our troops for use in training, diminishing our proficiency.
I'd love to see Ukraine push Russia out of all the territories seized during the February 2022 invasion and to retake the Crimea. Unless Putin is de-stabilized at home and decides to withdraw or he's removed from power, it is looking increasingly unlikely the Ukrainians can achieve those goals on their own.

 

I'll mark that on my calendar.

 

Isn't that the truth. I watched a video of a Russian soldier surrendering to a drone. While I would have liked to believe it, I had to remain somewhat skeptical. I would really like to follow the progress of the war, but I can't fully trust information that originates from either side. Even worse, you can't be sure, sometimes what side the info originated from. Maybe 20 years from now we will have a good handle on it. Mr. Churchill warned us that "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."

 

Serious Explosion...Russian Tank filled with 6 tonnes of explosives hits a mine, then gets RPG'd

 

When you understand that the military/intelligence/political leaders have known the weaknesses of the Soviet Union/Russia military all along, it is easier to see how European militaries have been allowed to shrink/atrophy. Money that had previously gone into defense, was slowly siphoned off to support other social programs, bit by bit the militaries/military budgets shrank over time. They knew the truth about Russia's capabilities, and they had the US to fall back on for protection, so they could redirect funds without any real danger. The one real advantage the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact would possess in a war with Europe was mass. The sheer weight of men and material could possibly overwhelm the NATO countries before the US could sufficiently reinforce NATO. We knew that if the initial Soviet/Warsaw Pact thrust could be blunted or stopped in certain areas, we could reinforce and our superior weapons, personnel quality, tactical proficiency, and operational flexibility would allow us to soundly defeat them. When the Soviet Union broke up and the Warsaw Pact countries (East Germany, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Romania, Hungary) started westernizing, that mass no longer existed, and money could be redirected from defense expenditures. Germany (in my opinion, rightfully) redirected money into rebuilding a re-united (1990) East Germany. Over time the previous Warsaw Pact countries and some of the former Soviet Republics have joined NATO, further reducing Russia's potential vs Western Europe.

The US might whine and cry over western Europe not doing their fair share with regards to NATO military forces/expenditures, but everyone knew the US would step in and make up the difference if it came to war. The size of our economy and population, even if everyone was contributing equal amounts/personnel per GDP/Population size would make us the DeFacto military leader amongst our European allies. While China has gained in recent decades, we still have the world's largest economy. However, China's economic (#2) and population (#2) size, make it our most serious potential threat. While they don't threaten us directly, they do threaten our allies/economic partners in the pacific. Their greatest weaknesses are their economy, which is largely dependent on trade with the US, and they are unable to feed their population without massive importation of food, much of it from the US. A straight up conflict with the US would cripple their economy and lead to starvation, and therefore dissent in their population.

Top Eleven Economies-2023
1.-US-26.85 trillion (California 3.6 trillion, Texas 2.35 trillion)
2.-China-19.37 trillion
3.-Japan-4.40 trillion
4.-Germany-NATO 4.30 trillion
5.-India-3.73 trillion
6.-UK-NATO 3.15 trillion
7.-France-NATO 2.93 trillion
8.-Italy-NATO 2.16 trillion
9.-Canada-NATO 2.08 trillion
10.-Brazil-2.08 trillion
11.-Russia-2.06 trillion
Total Top NATO GDP's 14.62 trillion

Population NATO Countries (Top Ten)
1.-US-338 million (#3 in world)
2.-Turkey-85 million
3.-Germany-83 million
4.-UK-67 million
5.-France-64 million
6.-Italy-59 million
7.-Spain-47 million
8.-Poland-39 million (former Warsaw Pact)
9.-Canada-38 million
10.-Romania-19 million (former Warsaw Pact)
Russia has a population of 144 million (#9 in world) the Ukraine 39 million (#38 in world)

The UK may be a nuclear power, but a fairly impotent one as far as deterrence is concerned. They only have one platform capable of delivering nuclear weapons, ballistic missile submarines. Only four of those, only one of which is at sea as a deterrent at any one time. It carries only eight of its 16 missile capacity. I'd hate to depend on one boat deterring the Russian's from nuclear attack. If its position were compromised by a spy or intelligence work or it was detected and shadowed by a Russian submarine, deterrence goes to zero. Again, they're lucky to have the US to back them up with its nuclear triad.

 

The war in Ukraine is a good test for western weapons systems, tactics and doctrine. The only reason the Ukraine was able to stop the initial Russian invasion was they were transitioning to western weapons systems, and their armed forces have been being trained by western militaries since at least 2016. The Ukrainian military had been (and still partially is) armed, equipped and trained to fight as a Soviet/Russian style force. Transforming leadership, structure and warfare style takes time. Additionally, Soviet era weapons systems, primarily armor, mechanized and aircraft limit the degree that the force can be transformed. Tactical doctrine is to a large degree limited by the strengths and weaknesses of the weapon systems involved. Some degree of the old Soviet/Russian doctrine had to be retained because the legacy weapons systems required it.

We have maintained weapons stockpiles to provide adequate munitions in the event of war. If we go to war, the stockpiles were intended sustain us until production could be restarted. During the GWOT, we weren't fighting near peer forces so stockpiles of certain assets weren't heavily utilized, or even used at all. MANPADS for instance, we achieved air superiority early on and our opponents never fielded a viable aviation threat. In Ukraine there has been heavy usage of MANPADS to counter Russian air supremacy. These weapons have been expended from our stockpiles and no significant new production has been brought online. TOW's, Javelin's, AT-4's, after what armor Iraq possessed in 2003 was quickly destroyed, our opponents have had no serious armored threat, unlike Russia that relies heavily on tanks and mechanized vehicles. We used them sporadically during the GWOT against fortified positions, but nowhere near the quantity necessitated by anti-armored warfare. Again, pulled from stockpiles, minimal production capacity in place to replenish. Anti-radiation missiles for aircraft, not heavily needed since Gulf War I. Our enemies for the last three decades have not had significant anti-air systems. Those Saddam had were pretty much eliminated during the 1990 Gulf War.
In the GWOT there was only limited use of artillery, no massive bombardments against enemy artillery positions, huge troop concentrations or extensive fortifications. When it was used it was sporadic, more often precision fires against point targets, and targets of opportunity. We haven't expended artillery at near peer rates since Vietnam and even then, it wasn't of such a protracted nature. We have our munitions factories pumping our 155 rounds, but not enough to replenish what is being used. We won't spend money to restart additional production lines when we are not directly involved in a war. There are other spending priorities for the politicians. So, we deplete our stockpiles. I have read that there have been a couple of new 155mm production lines opened in Europe, which will help meet the Ukraine's needs. I don't however see it relieving pressure on our supply, our production will continue to go to the Ukraine instead of replenishing stockpiles. New European production will go to Ukraine and allow them to increase their artillery usage, which is limited by supply at present, and is nowhere near the rate of expenditure by Russian artillery.
Then anti-ship missiles. When is the last time we faced a serious naval threat. The Ukraine has used them to neutralize the Russian navy.
All these things have been stockpiled and maintained, only limited production is maintained to support training and the limited usage in whatever conflicts we have going on. When we do get into a war, we do ramp up production, such as small arms ammunition, grenades, etc. during our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We should do so with what we're sending to Ukraine, but we won't because the politicians aren't willing to sacrifice expenditures elsewhere to fund the effort. Defense industries have no incentive to invest capital and manpower to increase production that may not be needed long term and that the government will not underwrite. European countries will need to step in and fill the production void.

 

Russia has the reputation of being a World power but seems to be having one Hell of a time trying to take over what some (Russia) would call a push over Country.

Could be...

The USA has the reputation of being a World power but seems to be having one Hell of a time trying to take over what some (Vietnam) would call a push over Country.