romad1

There are experts who are looking at Russian attrition and say they will be done by June. I won't make any bets. In the favor of these experts there is a point where the differential equations for modeling of combat (Lanchester) break. The point where the Regular Iraqi Army after being smashed by airpower for a month lose their ability to stand and fight and the Republican Guard do stand and fight at 73 Eastings and get destroyed by the US Army who are happy not to have to fight all those non-Republican Guard units to get to the RG. Another example is the German Army in Normandy after fighting hard in Normandy for a month+ in June/July 1944 finally broke and were nearly encircled. The difference besides our numbers was our firepower. I look at the situation in Ukraine and I don't know how the Ukrainians actually reconquer all of the lost territory unless they just keep killing Russians. Killing Russians requires accurate artillery or other long range fires (drones, missiles, airpower). Their ability to go on offense thus far as been driven by the Russians withdrawing from territory to consolidate their forces because of attrition. So, more US and western artillery systems will give them that ability to smash the Russians and win. Am I optimistic this happens by mid-summer...nah. Russia is a big place and it has a lot of resources. It might break but the most Ukraine can hope for is they cry uncle unless Putin dies.

Good god! That is the essence of Michigan chick boiled down to its perfected form of the Livonian

I'm a day late...sorry

Use those information warfare skills for good. The kompromat clearly exists on these dirtbags.

Events are dynamic. This thing in June might well be a big deal. The J6 committee has been setting it up like a festival.

good

Faedo is a revelation. I had him written off forever.

amusing and true

Vote these bums out! Putin caucus!

That would be an excellent combination.

I heard Alex Avila

Nice Area. Except it actually is if you are on the water there. Very nice harbor in St. Pete.

Magic

He's fantastic. He and Emily Watson were in one of those weird Lars Trier movies together apparently. My son does an almost pitch perfect Boris when you ask him where he's going he replies: "To get you 2000 tons of sand and boron!"

That is Boris from Chernobyl isn't it?

In my minds eye I read this in the voice of an East London gangster from a Guy Ritchie movie.

I'm tickled by the idea of the Ukrainians capturing Belgorad

Here it is in fact

This was fascinating. Go find this on youtube.

Just to be a compleatist: Macarthur's and his air force commander General Kenney in particular New Guinea to Philippines campaign was a brilliant exposition of the technical plus operational challenges overcome. Some huge errors but overall, so much effect with less stuff than other theaters.

well stated

Hmm

China certainly has all the ear marks of a country willing to sacrifice a generation to capturing Taiwan. And we don't want to underweight how hard China can hit Taiwan. Taiwan's poses a great logistics challenge of amphibious invasion for a non-expert country. D-Day in Normandy was a marvel that came at the end of a steep learning curve for the Allies that benefited from strong US and British naval traditions as well as institutional experience in the Pacific, North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Dieppe, various commando raids around the periphery of Europe and even the experiences of Dunkirk and Gallipoli. If China can overwhelm the Taiwanese, US, Australian, Japanese and maybe British air forces they will have done quite a bit of work. China's missile though probably won't have such terrible accuracy as the Russians have though. There are technical reasons for that. Another thing that will impact combat if the US and China are fighting over Taiwan's airspace is that both will be fighting globally over Space. You won't have as many channels on your cable when all the sats are blown up.

This is an interesting thread about the modeling of this by various smart observers. My general comment is that we don't know how this ends but the force-on-force conflict is really starting to slide in Ukraine's favor. That might not matter because Russia may just keep sending its kids into certain death until Putin dies.

Definitely not the end of the tank. The problem with the Russian tank forces are that they are not protected from UAVs by infantry with shoulder fired AA and vehicle AA weapons. The issue is their forces are dumb and unbalanced in favor of tanks.