Ukraine Conflict - conflict continues

[Zoraptor]

Plenty of pictures of lancets hitting targets with cope cages, doesn't seem to do them much good (though see below). A couple of examples of them snagging rather than detonating I can think of, but that was on large flexible camouflage netting/ non taut chicken wire over artillery, not the classic rigid cope cages over a tank turret. Perhaps the best example though are of lancets hitting obstacles like tree branches well before their target yet still taking out armoured vehicles. On the big lancets with HEAT the copper jet is long enough to cope with even that amount of displacement.

Definitely would be confirmation bias there as the Russians are unlikely to release footage where cope cages work- but at the same time you'd think more Ukrainian vehicles would have the cages if they did work. They did for a time back when lancets only had HE/frag warheads but don't seem popular any more. Presumably the negatives to usability/ visibility doesn't work out against increased survivability any more.

8 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

Cope cage would have probably saved that UR-77.

That's a pretty specific example though, in normal circumstances evidence is that they do very little to nothing for either side.

[Malcador]

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/first-ship-use-ukraines-corridor-arrives-istanbul-reuters-witness-2023-08-18/

Well, that bodes well ?

[Zoraptor]

Since there was some debate a while back: SBU chief reveals details of 1st attack on Kerch Bridge per PravdaUA.

Summary: 21 tons of explosive in a homicide truck bombing. Not 65kg of TNT in a rinky dinky boat, not a false flag and not any of the other pie in the sky theories media were banding about to make it not a suicide bombing. Though to be fair, remote trigger, "we used so many people without their knowledge" so obviously right about it not being a suicide bombing, just plain old murder. Next item on list Nova Kahkovka dam...

Note for pro Russian types though, that doesn't actually make them worse than ISIS. ISIS used plenty of drugged up and unwitting 'suicide' bombers too.

[bugarup]

Danes and the Dutch are about to commit some flying machines to Ukraine, so hopefully they will have to do less murder in their justified defense against russian rapists, marauders and habitual bombers of civilians.

Also speaking of bombers -- here's one (though homicide, not suicide) going down in flames. Supposed to be Ту-22М3, blown up by a drone yesterday, not yet confirmed by Mordor, but still beautiful sight so I gotta share:

 

 

 

[Malcador]

Via craptastic translation of https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2023/08/20/oekraineblog-20-augutus-a4172323

"Ukraine has been explicitly asking the West for months for modern fighter planes, and found in the Netherlands a great advocate of that move. According to Rutte, the Netherlands has 42 F-16s that had to be replaced by F-35s next year. They will largely go to Ukraine, now that the US has given permission for it.

The date of delivery has not yet been determined. Almost half of the F-16s are not yet operational, according to the Ministry of Defense. Ukrainian pilots also have to learn how to control the modern fighter plane. In all probability, the announcement of Rutte will not have any consequences on the battleground until 2024 in the early 2024."

I read some things saying 18 are not operational. 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-f16-fighter-jets-netherlands-denmark-1.6941863

Ah. 19, over time too.

19 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Though to be fair, remote trigger, "we used so many people without their knowledge" so obviously right about it not being a suicide bombing, just plain old murder. Next item on list Nova Kahkovka dam...

 Luckily for them they can trot out :  they're fighting an existential war then Russia did it first then lastly, it wasn't as bad as what Russia did. 

Edited August 20, 2023 by Malcador

[bugarup]

54 minutes ago, Malcador said:

 Luckily for them they can trot out :  they're fighting an existential war then Russia did it first then lastly, it wasn't as bad as what Russia did. 

Yep. And know why? Because that's all true.

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, bugarup said:

Also speaking of bombers -- here's one (though homicide, not suicide) going down in flames.

What would a non-homicidal bomber be, exactly, I wonder ? Interesting it was a quadcopter strike, I guess Ukrainian special forces at play. 

30 minutes ago, bugarup said:

Yep. And know why? Because that's all true.

As Bernard would say, it's one of those irregular verbs. I have collateral damage, you murder, he's a war criminal. 

[BruceVC]

14 hours ago, bugarup said:

Danes and the Dutch are about to commit some flying machines to Ukraine, so hopefully they will have to do less murder in their justified defense against russian rapists, marauders and habitual bombers of civilians.

Also speaking of bombers -- here's one (though homicide, not suicide) going down in flames. Supposed to be Ту-22М3, blown up by a drone yesterday, not yet confirmed by Mordor, but still beautiful sight so I gotta share:

 

 

 

I welcome all  continued military aid to Ukraine and particularly F-16s but how are they going to help with clearing of minefields which are a reality and a continuous obstacle to the offensive?

CNN currently has some excellent frontline reporting going on with Nick Paton Walsh and he is embedded with Ukrainians in parts of  the frontline and the minefields are slowing down the offensive even though  you see progress

 

 

 

[Mamoulian War]

12 hours ago, BruceVC said:

I welcome all  continued military aid to Ukraine and particularly F-16s but how are they going to help with clearing of minefields which are a reality and a continuous obstacle to the offensive?

CNN currently has some excellent frontline reporting going on with Nick Paton Walsh and he is embedded with Ukrainians in parts of  the frontline and the minefields are slowing down the offensive even though  you see progress

 

 

 

As one of the soldiers on the frontline said:

 

The effectiveness of minefields, fortifications, anti-tank trenches, and similar engineering obstacles becomes significant only when they are adequately manned and remain under fire control.

[Malcador]

19 hours ago, BruceVC said:

I welcome all  continued military aid to Ukraine and particularly F-16s but how are they going to help with clearing of minefields which are a reality and a continuous obstacle to the offensive?

They are getting a mine clearing equipment in the gifts, no ?

[xzar_monty]

Not a fan of this channel at all and the "headlines" on the links are just terrible, but every once in a while there's someone interesting on. This time, a psychologist makes some interesting observations concerning Russian culture. This snippet is a brief but informative summary.  (Btw, I'd like to know how the Middle East fares in this discussion.)

 

 

[Keyrock]

Does Ukraine have fighter pilots? I'm no expert but I'm operating on the assumption that flying a modern fighter jet is not a trivial matter. I imagine that it takes months to train someone how to fly a fighter jet. You can cut that time down some if the person you are training has flown some kind of fighter jet before.

[Gfted1]

^I think so. They are using old Russian gear prior to the invasion.

[Keyrock]

1 hour ago, Gfted1 said:

^I think so. They are using old Russian gear prior to the invasion.

If it's the case that they have pilots that flew MiGs before then I would presume that would significantly reduce the necessary training to fly a F-16.

[Malcador]

Probably could also get foreign volunteers if needed.  Ground crew, not so much I guess.

[BruceVC]

 

Here is a really good video about what ordinary Russians think about the question " are we winning the war ". No Russian media propaganda or Vatnik grandstanding made by people living in Western, Capitalist countries with no skin in the game

I like the guy that makes these videos, Daniil Orain, because he  gets feedback from people on the streets in Russia

[Sarex]

3 hours ago, Malcador said:

Probably could also get foreign volunteers if needed.  Ground crew, not so much I guess.

If anything, I think it's this. Like with the patriots, they will use western crews for those f-16. Even if the Ukrainian pilots can fly and land the planes that is a far cry from using them efficiently or at all in any sort of mission. It's not even just about learning to fly a new plane, but also unlearning a lot of things that were second nature to them on the Migs and Sukhois.

[xzar_monty]

For work-related reasons, I am currently going through an extremely interesting as-yet unpublished text concerning Ukraine's recent political history. I find it extremely heartening that the Ukrainians actually began to demonstrate in late November 2013 after Yanukovych refused to sign the deal with EU, made a volte-face and decided to throw his lot with Putin. The heartening thing was that it was the young people of Ukraine who felt the most betrayed: the president's decision meant that they would likely spend their most productive years in the same Ukraine that their parents had known, a Ukraine full of sovok, as they termed it: a country of lumbering economy, corrupt bureaucracy, doltish complacency and stagnation, all the negative vestiges of Soviet Union.

So they went to protest. And it grew. And Moscow got angry. And then, eventually, we got to where we are now.

But it was the young people of Ukraine who decided that they'd had enough.

The enormously disheartening thing about this is that the young people of Russia could do the same, could have done for so many years: they could also want to get rid of the lumbering economy, corrupt bureaucracy, doltish complacency and stagnation, all the negative vestiges of Soviet Union. But they don't.

[BruceVC]

4 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

For work-related reasons, I am currently going through an extremely interesting as-yet unpublished text concerning Ukraine's recent political history. I find it extremely heartening that the Ukrainians actually began to demonstrate in late November 2013 after Yanukovych refused to sign the deal with EU, made a volte-face and decided to throw his lot with Putin. The heartening thing was that it was the young people of Ukraine who felt the most betrayed: the president's decision meant that they would likely spend their most productive years in the same Ukraine that their parents had known, a Ukraine full of sovok, as they termed it: a country of lumbering economy, corrupt bureaucracy, doltish complacency and stagnation, all the negative vestiges of Soviet Union.

So they went to protest. And it grew. And Moscow got angry. And then, eventually, we got to where we are now.

But it was the young people of Ukraine who decided that they'd had enough.

The enormously disheartening thing about this is that the young people of Russia could do the same, could have done for so many years: they could also want to get rid of the lumbering economy, corrupt bureaucracy, doltish complacency and stagnation, all the negative vestiges of Soviet Union. But they don't.

Post the link when  you can, it sounds interesting?

Vatniks on Codex will argue that the US was responsible for the "coup " in 2013 and it wasnt what the people of Ukraine wanted because it was the imperialist US and CIA that was behind the 2013 protests

They will conveniently ignore the agency of the  Ukrainians as if they cant possibly decide for themselves and how  the majority of Ukrainians want to align with the EU and West and not be part of the Russian orbit 

[xzar_monty]

18 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Vatniks on Codex will argue that the US was responsible for the "coup " in 2013 and it wasnt what the people of Ukraine wanted because it was the imperialist US and CIA that was behind the 2013 protests

There are, interestingly enough, levels to this self-deception, and a Russian journalist pointed out some of them in an interesting piece he wrote some months ago (won't go looking for the link now, sorry). In essence, he posed some counter-questions to people who tend to think in these terms and found that some of them can be persuaded or at least made to reconsider their position with well-posed questions, sometimes as simple as "So why are we killing Ukrainians, then?".

But for some, no reasoning can work. It's exactly the same as with full-blown conspiracy theorists or clinically paranoid people: they are out of reach. It's very sad. (I think this is a genuinely difficult problem for concerned fellow humans and even psychiatrists: how to reach someone who's gone down the rabbit hole.)

As for the text in question, there's a book coming out in January 2024, so it'll take some time.

[Malcador]

4 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Post the link when  you can, it sounds interesting?

Vatniks on Codex will argue that the US was responsible for the "coup " in 2013 and it wasnt what the people of Ukraine wanted because it was the imperialist US and CIA that was behind the 2013 protests

They will conveniently ignore the agency of the  Ukrainians as if they cant possibly decide for themselves and how  the majority of Ukrainians want to align with the EU and West and not be part of the Russian orbit 

US has a strong history of doing that sort of thing though, so wouldn't fault people for at least having some US involvement cross their mind. Although I guess the fact it wasn't a total failure is a sign of little US involvement.

 

[Malcador]

Prigozhin killed in an air crash, jet apparently shot down ?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66599733

Hm

Edited August 23, 2023 by Malcador

[Sarex]

Who dun it?

[Malcador]

9 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Who dun it?

Suge Knight

[Sarex]

1 minute ago, Malcador said:

Suge Knight

Does that mean we will get a holograph Prigozhin?