Russia's War Against Ukraine

GDS_Starfury · February 20, 2023, 11:47:52 AM

not bad as Mondays go.

Windigo · February 20, 2023, 02:40:42 PM

If the UK is considering it... likely means they are already there.

Gusington · February 20, 2023, 03:24:42 PM

Definitely did not expect a Biden visit to Kyiv. Nicely done.

GDS_Starfury · February 20, 2023, 04:01:31 PM

this will make JH cringe.

JasonPratt · February 20, 2023, 04:03:40 PM

Quote from: Windigo on February 20, 2023, 02:40:42 PMIf the UK is considering it... likely means they are already there.

"considering" unpacking them. ;)

Wow, that barrel is sagging at the end! -- that thing will have to be replaced.

FarAway Sooner · February 20, 2023, 08:06:03 PM

Yup. You're only going to fire one more bullet out of that.

It might be your last.

FarAway Sooner · February 20, 2023, 08:18:12 PM

I wonder exactly what medium-range missiles they might be talking about. ATACMS would be the easiest to support logistically, I would think, with HIMARS launchers already in country and well-understood. But I don't even know what else might be in the NATO arsenal. It sounds like the US announced on 2/20/23 that they don't have enough ATACMS to make sending them to Ukraine useful, but I'm not sure how that works.

The ATACMS itself is getting long in the tooth (more than 30 years old now), but I have no idea what the status of its replacement program is. With a range of only a little under 200 miles, I have no idea if or how the ATACMS might be used in any Taiwan conflict. Going after Russian train depots 150 miles behind the front lines seems like a good use in Ukraine, even if we only commit 50 or 100 of them.

Jarhead0331 · February 20, 2023, 09:09:38 PM

Quote from: GDS_Starfury on February 20, 2023, 04:01:31 PMthis will make JH cringe.

Yeah. That's FUBAR.

GDS_Starfury · February 20, 2023, 09:25:28 PM

QuoteATACMS would be the easiest to support logistically, I would think, with HIMARS launchers already in country and well-understood. But I don't even know what else might be in the NATO arsenal

I would imagine that any NATO missile is going to be m270/Himars compatible because thats pretty much how NATO rolls.

FarAway Sooner · February 21, 2023, 12:09:25 AM

Yeah. The ATACMS is the next step up in terms of ordinance for the HIMARS. But it's unclear how many of them we have, much less how many we'd be willing to share with the Ukrainians.

The replacements for the ATACMS might be coming out sometime this year, or they might not. The glacial pace of weapons production in the US seems a little confounding to me. Not that it takes a while to ramp up manufacturing capacity, but that we only seemed to notice this problem starting a couple months ago...

GDS_Starfury · February 21, 2023, 12:22:23 AM

the military industrial complex isnt nearly as geared for mass production as many think it is.

Pete Dero · February 21, 2023, 08:03:13 AM

Quick summary of Putin's speech today :

We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Putin said that Russia has done "everything possible" to resolve the conflict peacefully, and accused the West of turning a blind eye to "terrorist activity" in eastern Ukraine.
Putin also repeated the unsubstantiated claim that Ukraine was pushing to be provided with nuclear weapons, and doubled down on his framing of the invasion as a pre-emptive, defensive action.
He went on to double down on blaming the West for the war in Ukraine.
"I want to repeat: it was they who unleashed the war," said Putin. "And we used and continue to use force to stop it."

Gusington · February 21, 2023, 09:53:29 AM

^He called it a war, eh...

bobarossa · February 21, 2023, 09:58:35 AM

Quote from: FarAway Sooner on February 21, 2023, 12:09:25 AMYeah. The ATACMS is the next step up in terms of ordinance for the HIMARS. But it's unclear how many of them we have, much less how many we'd be willing to share with the Ukrainians.

The replacements for the ATACMS might be coming out sometime this year, or they might not. The glacial pace of weapons production in the US seems a little confounding to me. Not that it takes a while to ramp up manufacturing capacity, but that we only seemed to notice this problem starting a couple months ago...

Actually there is one between standard HIMARS rocket and ATACMs. It's the GLSDB with a range of about 150 km (about double the standard HIMARS 80). It was supposedly included in latest shipments to Ukraine.

https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htart/articles/20230209.aspx

ArizonaTank · February 21, 2023, 11:33:35 AM

A "leaked" Kremlin strategy document sets out plans to annex Belarus no later than 2030.

Not certain if I believe that this document is real or not, but it "feels" right.

If true, that makes Lukashenko the proverbial snail crawling on a razors edge.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/revealed-leaked-document-shows-how-russia-plans-to-take-over-belarus/ar-AA17Jsik?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=454ded251abe426497e98a3f49bc256c