The transition

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PedalUma said:
A cruise missile can be over $2 Million each, when targeting a mud goat hut. I will bet a Ukrainian drone that blows up a warehouse with a hundred million in dual use products is closer to $3,000.
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That's the same reason it makes no sense to shoot down drones with missiles. Even the cheapest portable SAM costs around $100,000. And the fancy ones can cost as much as $5 million each.

Chances are we will have some kinds of computer-controlled mobile gun systems with 360 degree cameras. Or maybe lasers that to blind the drone cameras. Even really good smoke generators would probably make a big difference.
 
PedalUma said:
A cruise missile can be over $2 Million each, when targeting a mud goat hut. I will bet a Ukrainian drone that blows up a warehouse with a hundred million in dual use products is closer to $3,000.
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I was watching a YT about WWII in the pacific yesterday, a battle at Buna in New Guinea. Towards the end the allies had a lot of field guns in place and one officer was using his to take out individual Jap soldiers. Apparently the shells detonated on impact with no problems and essentially atomized them, and anyone unfortunate enough to be standing too near. War, it's... Glorious.
 
Manned jet fighters are limited to 10G turns , evading missiles is done by flares.
Tbh the future will be hacking the fluke out of production, theyve already hacked the drone control links, moved to optical, now autonomous.
Musks Starlink was pivitol in drone attack balance.
www.bbc.com

Musk cuts Starlink access for Russian forces, giving Ukraine an edge at the front

Ukrainian troops say Russian forces are suffering setbacks without access to Elon Musk's system.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
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One of the latest innovations the Ukrainians are doing is in their drone swarms some fraction of the drones are equipped with a Luneberg Lens. That makes the radar return from the drone much larger which causes it to soak up most of the air defense fire and let the drones not equipped proceed to their targets unmolested.

The Untied States equips its stealth aircraft with a similar gadget during normal operations to make it difficult for any adversary to figure out what the radar signature of the aircraft actually is.
 
Mr. Coffee said:
Well, everyone but millions of pissed-off Ukrainians...

Yes, the "Russia could win this war if they really went all-out" trope has been around since 2022, never made much sense, and hasn't improved over time.

In 2022 it was possible there was a strategy that Russia could have employed that would have permitted rapid victory. But we obviously do not live in that timeline. I am very much doubtful that there is any magic switch Russia could throw and win the war tomorrow. Or even in six months.
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Here's your magic switch. It could be flipped tomorrow.

Your Ukrainian flag is showing.
 
If Putin thought using nukes would have won him his special military operation, he would have used them years ago. Not losing the war he started is basically life or death for him; its hard to imagine a dictator surviving that sort of humiliation. He hasn't because a: he knows it would mean drawings various NATO countries into the conflict in a much more direct way (which would definitely be more than Russia could handle, since they can barely handle Ukraine), and b: after decades of corruption hes probably not sure how many nukes would even work.

Mr. Coffee said:
Yes, the "Russia could win this war if they really went all-out" trope has been around since 2022, never made much sense, and hasn't improved over time.

In 2022 it was possible there was a strategy that Russia could have employed that would have permitted rapid victory. But we obviously do not live in that timeline. I am very much doubtful that there is any magic switch Russia could throw and win the war tomorrow. Or even in six months.
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Maybe theres a theoretical world where Russia goes to a total war economy early on and does mass mobilization and manages to steamroll Ukraine, but there is a reason that didn't happen. Namely, it would have been political suicide. Russia has an amazing disinfo/propaganda machine (which is honestly where most of the "Russia could totally win, they just are choosing not to" comes from) but it takes time to convince the populace that the discomfort they are enduring is somehow worth it.
 
The problem with the "political suicide" argument is that it is viewing Russia through an American lens.

In America, every day, felons distribute illicit drugs, rob homes and stores, destroy private and public property, and maim and kill innocent people, and judges let them back out on the street the next day. The legacy media ignores it. Politicians cook the crime statistics which the media trumpets. A significant part of America believes that this is ok. Acceptable behavior.

Try that in Russia. You better call your family first, because you may never see them again. FAFO.

Putin hasn't used his arsenal because Ukraine is just a tick embedded in his neck. Yes, he has lost tens of thousands of soldiers and countrymen, but that is part of his calculus of war. There's more from where they came from. Ukraine has not done much to damage his regime. If they ever get long range missiles and start taking out the heart of their government, then he will do whatever he has to do to end this conflict as soon as he can, with or without nukes.
 
stompandgo said:
In America, every day, felons distribute illicit drugs, rob homes and stores, destroy private and public property, and maim and kill innocent people, and judges let them back out on the street the next day. The legacy media ignores it. Politicians cook the crime statistics which the media trumpets. A significant part of America believes that this is ok. Acceptable behavior.
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You've never visited Russia, obviously.

In Russia serious criminals do all of those things and more. And they get away with it as long as none of their victims are powerful and they keep up on their bribes. What's more, many of the worst criminals wear uniforms.

If you go to the doctor in Russia, you'll often have to pay a bribe to get them to see you, another bribe to get them to prescribe decent medications, and still another bribe to the pharmacist to not water down or substitute the medication prescribed.

I'd have to wonder how a society so dominated by bribery, extortion, and theft could manage to maintain any number of nuclear weapons over a period of three decades. That's one big reason Putin won't press that red button: he can't know how reliable his own arsenal is and he can't know which weapons are working and which ones are duds.
 
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Mr. Coffee said:
You've never visited Russia, obviously.

In Russia serious criminals do all of those things and more. And they get away with it as long as none of their victims are powerful and they keep up on their bribes. What's more, many of the worst criminals wear uniforms.

If you go to the doctor in Russia, you'll often have to pay a bribe to get them to see you, another bribe to get them to prescribe decent medications, and still another bribe to the pharmacist to not water down or substitute the medication prescribed.

I'd have to wonder how a society so dominated by bribery, extortion, and theft could manage to maintain any number of nuclear weapons over a period of three decades. That's one big reason Putin won't press that red button: he can't know how reliable his own arsenal is and he can't know which weapons are working and which ones are duds.
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Putin wants to put the band (USSR) back together.
That is not going to happen, and I do not think that nuking a potential "band member" gets him to the goal (in his mind).
 
stompandgo said:
In America, every day, felons distribute illicit drugs, rob homes and stores, destroy private and public property, and maim and kill innocent people, and judges let them back out on the street the next day. The legacy media ignores it. Politicians cook the crime statistics which the media trumpets. A significant part of America believes that this is ok. Acceptable behavior.

Try that in Russia. You better call your family first, because you may never see them again. FAFO.
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I think I'll take the crime rate and justice system here in the US to the one in Russia. But you do you.

stompandgo said:
Putin hasn't used his arsenal because Ukraine is just a tick embedded in his neck. Yes, he has lost tens of thousands of soldiers and countrymen, but that is part of his calculus of war. There's more from where they came from. Ukraine has not done much to damage his regime. If they ever get long range missiles and start taking out the heart of their government, then he will do whatever he has to do to end this conflict as soon as he can, with or without nukes.
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Lol. Ok. You're probably right that his regime hasn't been seriously damaged, but thats mainly because hes a dictator who is largely insulated from any consequences. But even dictators have political considerations. The idea that oh, they could swat this annoying tick whenever they want kinda flies in the face of observable reality. Russia has been expending tremendous effort to conclude the war for 4 years now. Its been incredibly costly. If they could do something they thought would hand them a win, they would have. They haven't started tossing nukes around because their calculus is that the first nuke that goes off would unite the western world against them and almost certainly draw very direct aid. The fact that lots of Russian hardware turned out to be in much poorer shape than it was on paper once it was put into use probably is on his and his military leaders minds as well. I'm sure they've spent to maintain their nuclear arsenal, but was that money actually used to maintain it? Or would they find that the commander of that base has a new dacha and a mistress and maybe that tactical nuke doesn't go off when its supposed to...
 
That is one of the side effects of Authoritarian regimes.
The people in power replace everyone in the decision chains with loyalists, people who will do what they are told by the power in place regarding of the consequences.
The thing with loyalists, is that they are often not the smartest or most capable persons (which smart competent person would accept to do stupid things just because it suits the person in power...), and so the competence level goes down.
And of course as corruption at the top runs free, corruption at the intermediate level occupied by conscienceless people goes up to....
And this is why you do not put narcissist megalomaniacs in power, regardless of the political opinions you think they may hold.

OH Well....
 
Putin surrounded Kyive in three days.
Everything now is Nato, hundreds of billions of dollars, worlds greatest intelligence network, UK Storm cruise missiles sent in by Biden, that changed everything.
Europe energy grids powering Ukraine which goes on my gas bill.
Patriot missile defence, which is now pretty well overun.
And the icing on the cake, all Ukranian opposition in jail, all critical media outlets shut down.
Zelensky is now a dictator and welcomed Goldman Sachs and Blackrock in to run Ukraine.


Thats the money shot there
 
Chargeride said:
Putin surrounded Kyive in three days.
Everything now is Nato, hundreds of billions of dollars, worlds greatest intelligence network, UK Storm cruise missiles sent in by Biden, that changed everything.
Europe energy grids powering Ukraine which goes on my gas bill.
Patriot missile defence, which is now pretty well overun.
And the icing on the cake, all Ukranian opposition in jail, all critical media outlets shut down.
Zelensky is now a dictator and welcomed Goldman Sachs and Blackrock in to run Ukraine.


Thats the money shot there
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Quite frankly, Ukraine needs to win, for all our sake.
 
stompandgo said:
View attachment 213292

Here's your magic switch. It could be flipped tomorrow.

Your Ukrainian flag is showing.
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lol. I really couldn't understand why everyone rushed out to buy those little flags when the EU itself had branded the country as the most corrupt in Europe, and the pedophilia capital of the Western world. But then I remembered the *Power of the TV* and it all made sense. Create an enemy and then shovel hundreds of billions into the pockets of the military industrial complex. Of course there was the Biden family business ventures over there, but I'm sure that had nothing to do with it :rolleyes:
 
DaveMatthews said:
Quite frankly, Ukraine needs to win, for all our sake.
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Are you talking about the looting of Russia for it's vast food mineral and energy reserves? That's been tried before, last time by the Germans. I'm no Russian apologist but what Stalin and his crew did after that war seems to me to be no different to what America did.

The Mexican–American War was a conflict fought from April 1846 to February 1848 between the United States and Mexico, sparked by the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas and border disputes. It ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in which Mexico ceded vast northern territories to the U.S
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In light of this I find it's hypocritical in the extreme to point fingers at what Russia has done, back then or Now. And we won't mention the kingdom of Hawaii, or the Philippines, etc etc etc.
 
So... Russia sends rockets, missiles, and drones to demolish residential buildings and kill innocent people, where Ukraine targets military, industrial, and oil/fuel infrastructure.
But Ukraine is just as bad or worse than Russia...
Um... No...
 
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