Unless this bold idea championing maneuver warfare is about maneuvering into Belgorod/Kursk/Bryansk oblasts, this is pretty much hoping that the conditions for Kharkov are present again (i.e. too few Russian forces to stop Ukrainian mobile groups constantly outflanking and threatening encirclements).

Anything else and it’s just elaborate suicide schemes by Russian artillery.

Think tank couldn’t find open source information on GMLRS rocket production. Compared to unguided 155mm the stated rates of GMLRS rocket production are unimpressive but they are more than the Excalibur 155mm production rates.

What a good day for trains.

Passively cooled thermal power plants are something I only just learned from this documentary. They seem to be interesting ngl.

From Masno’s TG:

[Forwarded from Masno] From a Ukrainian soldier:

What can you say about the current situation? This is what we have been waiting for so long - a successful and clear offensive. In fact, there is no miracle here, everything is done according to the basics of military science - hidden concentration + choosing the right direction for a strike + more than threefold superiority + suddenness = Success. Although there is still an element of a miracle here - the epic pohuizm of the enemy command. So epic that it was hard to believe that this was not some hidden agenda. Looks like no. However, I will express my concerns. Calling what is happening a victory is wrong. Now success, victory will be only when the last enemy soldier leaves our land. Therefore, I will not stop spoiling the super-possible mood of many. So here are the concerns. Compare the battle for Izyum and Liman, when we defended them. And compare with what was now. And this is what happened: we defended these cities to bloody snot, although it was clear that we could not hold them. And then the Command declared them not so important at all. The Russians, at the first threat of destruction of their forces, quickly sacrifice the captured city. Thus, although we are advancing, we do not physically destroy the enemy, and at the same time we suffer losses from his bombs and artillery. And this means that the enemy is ALIVE. And he did not lose his strength. And the further we get closer to the state border, the more difficult it will be. And at one point we will have to fight actually on the threshold of his house, from where he will receive waves of reinforcements. And also, if the enemy does not run through the fields-gardens, namely, he evacuates in advance, then he follows this plan. Therefore, at the next occupation of the city without a fight - before celebrating, recount with what enemy forces the battle was postponed to tomorrow. Relax early - the war continues!

TL;DR Ukrainian operational success gave the Russians a choice of risky fights or withdrawal. The Russians chose withdrawal.

Not just Carl Gs:

https://twitter.com/snekotron/status/1562777283001167875

https://twitter.com/snekotron/status/1562829655580688386

it’s 777s, HIMARS, MREs, ammunition, batteries, etc. coming out of active units.

They couldn’t even leave Vietnam alone what the fuck.

Dyson Sphere Program is pretty cool even though I’m just winging it and creating a spaghetti mess that’s continuously patched up with temporary band-aids.

https://www.defensenews.com/congress/budget/2022/06/08/the-us-is-heavily-reliant-on-china-and-russia-for-its-ammo-supply-chain-congress-wants-to-fix-that/

Can’t forget the banger in that Russia, China, and Tajikistan are the only major suppliers of antimony.

Or to summarize the article, a mineral that is critical in producing ammunition and that the United States has zero production of.

The mineral antimony is critical to the defense-industrial supply chain and is needed to produce everything from armor-piercing bullets and explosives to nuclear weapons as well as sundry other military equipment, such as night vision goggles.

After Japan cut off the U.S. supply of antimony from China during World War II, the United States began procuring the mineral from ore in an Idaho goldmine. However, that mine ceased production in 1997.

“There is no domestic mine for antimony,” according to a 2020 report from the U.S. Geological Survey, a government agency. “China is the largest producer of mined and refined antimony and a major source of imports for the United States.”

The report noted that China is “losing market share with Russia, the world’s second-ranked producer,” with Tajikistan gaining ground in the global market as the world’s third-largest supplier of antimony.

Alas he’s alive.

But that’s also because he ran away from the war when the going got tough.

https://foreigncombatants.ru/en/index.php?title=Olivier_LaVigne-Ortiz

finland lost twice to the same guy within living memory lol

UAF advanced into territory abandoned by RuAF. The units up there were most likely shifted to the Donbass front or taken off the line for rest and refit. This leaves a relatively small force to hold the line and it has contracted in the face of UAF advances to where it is now:

However, this has only resulted in the UAF taking territory north towards the border and stopping for the most part on the Siverskiy Donets river. In other words, the most that was accomplished was definitively securing most of Kharkiv from RuAF artillery fire. In exchange, now the UAF must defend territory that does not offer them the benefit of hiding in cities (cover and human shields).

Here’s a railroad map of Ukraine as to why taking territory the RuAF did not fight for was useless:

See that blue line east of Kharkiv and far away from UAF front lines? That’s a railroad line that operates free of UAF fires. There is that green line from Belgorod but most likely it’s something that’s nice to have from the RuAF perspective but not necessary compared to the thick blue line heading down towards Kupyansk from Valuyki. It does show the weakness of the RuAF in that it has less mass in general compared to the UAF and that choosing to preserve military force will by necessity mean abandoning people now.

Speaking of railroads, there’s that mass of railroad lines in Donbass. It’s something that’s just as, if nor more, valuable as the UAF forces holed up there along with the people and land of the LDPR. This infrastructure can easily fuel the RuAF advance across the rest of Ukraine east of the Dneiper if/when it is captured.

There’s ten of thousands of high end gear like Javelins/Stingers/NLAWS etc. along with various kinds of UAVS from commercial quads to Switchblades to Bayraktars delivered to Ukraine. And of course plenty of tacticool small arms attachments and body armor and NVGs etc too. In that sense Ukraine is already receiving modern gear from its backers!

However, Ukraine is fighting a conventional war against Russia and not a guerrilla war. In other words it’s about being able to fly a flag over people, land, and property. This means that Ukraine’s forces must expose itself to Russian firepower in order to maintain control over the aforementioned items instead of being able to fade away into a friendly populace willing to shelter their fighters.

Thus it’s not just Javelins and Bayraktars and MRAPs and whatnot that is being asked of NATO. It’s air defense, artillery, tanks, jets, and thousands of the utility and logistical vehicles to maintain, supply, and enable such mechanized forces in the field. There are of course some difficulties in that regard.

First is training, doctrinal, and logistical differences. Ukraine operates and uses Soviet and Warsaw Pact equipment and consumables. American/NATO heavy equipment will have different manpower (4-man tank vs 3-man tank), design philosophies, and consumables (i.e. 155mm vs 152mm), etc. requirements that such equipment will practically only be relevant in defense of Lviv or the postwar era because it is only being considered to be delivered in recent weeks. To be delivered in a relevant time frame the delivery of heavy equipment has to be Soviet and Warsaw Pact equipment and consumables.

Second is that that NATO countries with Soviet/WP equipment and consumables will also be having security concerns of their own since they are closer to Russia/Belarus. While the Czech Republic and Slovakia can be assured of distance, Poland and the Baltics are too close to Russia for comfort. They may not want to effectively disarm themselves especially with the popular perception that Russia is an aggressive nation that may invade any time now. Thus Soviet/WP equipment sent are leaning towards the obsolescent side especially if the US MIC is not in a position to rapidly replace the stockpiled equipment any time soon.

Finally there are the difficulties imposed by the Russian forces in effective delivery of heavy equipment and consumables to the front. Airplanes can be interdicted by the Russian air force and air defense network (as a cargo plane near Odessa discovered) which means it can’t be delivered directly to Ukraine that way. And with the Black Sea effectively blockaded it rules out using cargo ships to deliver equipment and consumables that way. This leaves only land routes as the only way of delivering lethal aid into Ukrainian borders. Once it’s in Ukrainian borders however, it can be attacked by Russian cruise missiles which have stuck as far west as Lviv. Then as the equipment gets closer to the front it must survive the Russian air force and artillery interdicting it and then finally it may be used at the front. Of course said equipment will require regular intakes of consumables such as fuel and ammunition in order to be effective so the aforementioned imposed difficulties still take an indirect toll on the equipment.

In conclusion it would be the difficulties that come from supplying and training the Ukrainian with non-Soviet/WP heavy equipment and consumables that hamper the creation of Ukranian armored divisions replete with Leopard 2s/M1 Abrams more than the possibility of capture and technology transfer.