shhughes1116

The leadership of NATO is shifting. The NATO of past years was led by the United States and Germany and France. The pain of WW2 was recent for leaders and citizens of these countries. The leaders of those countries, and the citizens, had experienced that pain first-hand, and believed that the Soviets were ready to bring a similar level of pain to Western Europe, engendering strong support for NATO. Those citizens and leaders are now dead. They have been replaced by leaders and citizens who lack that direct experience to the pain and destruction of WW2, and the understanding that bullies must be confronted rather than appeased. Without first-hand experience of that pain and destruction, there is little motivation or appetite for the sacrifice necessary to support a military alliance like NATO. But, I believe we are seeing the leadership of NATO transition before our eyes. I believe the torch of NATO will be carried forward by the former Warsaw Bloc countries. For them, the pain of the USSR is recent, and the pain of Ukraine is right on their doorstep. Their leaders and citizens have a direct connection to this pain, and understand that bullies must be confronted rather than appeased. NATO will not disappear into the ether, rather it will be re-invigorated. Leadership will come from a coalition of former Warsaw Bloc countries like Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.

Main thrust towards Polohy. Bridgehead over the Dnipro around Kherson keeps Russian troops fixed on the river, and keeps Ukrainian options open for a quick thunder run to the Crimean isthmus if Russian troops along the river head east towards Melitpol. I actually think Ukraine has not made the decision on the location of the counteroffensive. I think an attack through Polohy is Ukraine’s Plan A. And I think a blitz through Bahkmut is Plan B if things look more promising in the East. With short interior supply lines, they can easily make a game time decision and have mechanized units at the contact line in a few hours.

I think that timing aligns with the expected arrival of the Patriot systems and the Samp/t from Italy and France. The long lead time for the Patriot systems and samp/t systems - lots of training i guess - suggests that NATO has been planning for this eventuality for quite some time, so maybe that suggests there is a kernel of truth in the leaked documents. Part of me wonders if the leaked documents are a misdirection from the U.S. A little bit of truth, and a little bit of BS, intended to confuse the Russians in advance of the counter-offensive.

The package of arms announced today by the U.S. for Ukraine includes another 61 heavy fuel tankers. The last package also included heavy fuel tankers, although I don't think they said how many. Assuming we are giving the M969A1 - capacity of 5,000 gallons of fuel - 61 tankers is a field refueling capacity of ~300,000 gallons. An armored brigade combat team - essentially the pointy end of a stick for a U.S Army Division - needs about 80,000 gallons of fuel to go 200 miles, and more if engaged in combat. The 90 Abrams in the ABCT consume just over half the fuel, with the ~150 Bradleys, ~dozen Paladins, and ~50 M113s consuming the rest. I believe the US just provided the field refueling capacity needed to support the Western tanks (Leopards, Challengers) and IFVs (CV90s, Bradleys, Marders, AMXRC-10s) and Strykers during the counter-offensive. . Given the number of heavy fuel tankers and engineering vehicles that have been provided/committed over the last few months, along with the number of Western tanks and IFVs committed/delivered, I think we will see three separate corps-level units in the Ukrainian counter-offensive. My guess is still Polohy for the main thrust/breakthrough, with one corps heading towards the Mauripol-Vuhledar axis, another heading to Berdyansk, and another to Melitpol.

For those of you that still follow this war closely, there have been some interesting actions recently, which lead me to believe the Ukrainian counter-offensive is coming soon, maybe late Spring. 1. A handful of Russian mil-bloggers have been reporting Ukrainian attacks near Polohy. From what is described, the Ukrainians are conducting reconnaissance in force. 2. The most recent aid package from the United States contained fuel trucks designed to support heavy tanks and mechanized infantry in the field. 3. Recent aid packages have included a lot of bridging and engineering equipment. 4. Over the past few months, it looks like the Ukrainians have been reinforcing Bahkmut with Territorial Defense Forces and existing Brigrades (i.e. 80th, 92nd, 93rd). Clearly things are tough in Bahkmut, but it doesn't look like they've been sending new units that have been recently trained by the West. And I don't see any of the new vehicles they've been getting from the West (i.e. AMX-RC10s, Leopard 2s, Marder IFVs, Bradley IFVs). 5. Ukraine is forming 28,000 volunteers into Assault Brigades - that's about 10 brigades. By my estimation, Ukraine has another 5-6 undeployed brigades and support units trained by the West that have not been deployed yet. Add in the Assault Brigades and you get a force of 15-16 Brigades. The Challenger II and Leopard II tanks that they get this Spring, along with the Strykers, Bradleys, and Marders, will enable Ukraine to create from these brigades two armored brigades and a handful of mechanized brigades. This is a pretty formidable force, especially with the Leopard IIs and Challenger IIs in the van. I continue to think the main thrust happens through Polohy, with subsequent thrusts to Berdyansk and Melitpol. I think there will be a Dnipro River crossing - maybe a feint - to keep Russian forces fixed along the river. If the Russians remain fixed to the river, I'll bet we see a thunder run by the ex-French AMX-RC10s towards the Crimean Isthmus to prevent Russian forces from retreating into Crimea, which might cause a rout amongst the Russian forces that are currently along the Dnipro River. I think Ukraine gets one chance at a counter-offensive. If this fails, I think they are pushed by the West to sue for peace.

We can get a good sense from the battlefield. What markings do we see on the cases? How many fires do we see on FIRMS? What types of artillery do we see on the battlefield? Reported shelling. And so on. You are painting the munitions industry with a broad stroke, instead of acknowledging that different munitions have different lead times and different complexities of production. It is easy to produce small arms ammunition. It is not easy to produce artillery shells. The Soviet Union produced VAST quantities of 152 and 122 artillery munitions in the Cold War. After the Cold War, most of those munition operations were shut down - they couldn’t justify producing more when they had huge stockpiles. To paint a picture, they had so much that they literally had to store rows and rows of 155 and 122 artillery shells outside, exposed to the elements, for years. This is a big part of why they’ve had multiple catastrophic explosions at munition depots in the last decade. When they closed those munition operations, they lost the skillset also. Making artillery shells is not menial labor - it actually requires some skill, in addition to the infrastructure and machinery. We are having a similar problem in the United States with ramping up 155mm production. But we have more existing facilities that do this work, and other Western countries also have similar facilities.

you are suggesting that Russia is out-producing conventional munitions? As in, they are producing more than the West? Please provide a source for that statement, because it contradicts what is and has been widely known about the Russian munitions industry. At this point, most Russian munition production is “re-processing” of existing munitions that have reached the end of their usable life. Their ability to produce new munitions is pretty limited, especially 152mm and 122mm shells. Producing artillery shells is deceivingly hard.

You hit the nail on the head. The deep drone attacks force Russia to re-deploy scarce air defense assets away from Ukraine, or acknowledge to their people that they are vulnerable to attack.

set aside radars and detection range for a moment. You essentially have four types of air defense. 1. close-in shorad. Something like the Gephard or dudes with an HMG on a truck. 2. Shorad. Something like the NASAMS or Hawk or Aspide. Range is maybe 15-20 miles. 3. medium range air defense. Something like the patriot with a range of 15-100 miles. 4. Long range / theater air defense. Something like the THADD, with a range of maybe 150 miles. the Russians use different equipment but the concept is essentially the same. With that in mind, think about the large landmass of Russia. In order to create an impenetrable air defense curtain, you’d need a huge number of medium range and long-range air defense systems. Russia doesn’t have this. Neither does the West or China. This equipment is expensive, hard to maintain, and hard to operate. So you make a best guess about possible targets and attack vectors and place your equipment accordingly. Ukraine’s attacks deep in Russia are an important strategic move. It is causing Russia to devote air defense assets towards the protection of targets in Russia. This leaves Russian troops in Ukraine more exposed to drone attacks, missile attacks, and attacks by rotary and fixed wing aircraft. same concept was used by the British in 1941. Bombing Germany caused a massive reallocation of resources (planes, AA, and personnel) from the front-lines to the inner parts of Germany. In the long-run, this exposed/weakened German troops at the front.

North Korea does not have 500k well-trained troops. Not even close.

I think it is a toss-up between Gripens and F-16s. The Gripens were designed to operate in austere conditions by conscripted support staff, similar to the current conditions in Ukraine. But there is a large bolus of F-16s about to be retired in the US, and sending these to Ukraine would enable sourcing munitions from a larger group of countries that operate the f-16. Both planes are vulnerable to shorad. I disagree with your point about getting longer-range weapons than HIMARs. To make this happen, the US or NATO would have to give Ukraine tomahawk missiles, or storm shadow missiles. Even if the tomahawk is a fairly old weapon, I don’t think we are likely to give Ukraine a 1000+ mile range weapon, and certainly not newer cruise missiles. The quickest way to end the war in Ukraine would be to hand over the soon-to-be-retired bolus or f-16s and ~250 M1A1s sitting in the boneyards. Hell, give them the M-60s from the Gulf War also - they worked quite well for the Marines in the first gulf war. We don’t need the old M-60s and we have more than enough old M1A1s sitting in storage for future conversion to M1A2 if needed. This equipment helps Ukraine fight, and limits the impact of western weapons to the occupied areas of Ukraine.

Manstein was an impressive tactician and strategist, and his most notable successes were when the odds were stacked against him. His work to execute a fighting withdrawal after Operation Uranus while at the same time extricating Army Group A from the Caucasus region was genius. Bubblegum and some string to hold the German lines together. I follow the events in Ukraine closely. I have a handful of Russian and Ukrainian sources that aren’t well-followed but have been reliable. But the bulk of my analysis is based on an understanding of the geography, an understanding of each country’s system of warfare and logistics, an understanding of their underlying capabilities for generating and maintaining an army in the field, etc. Pattern recognition.

I don’t think NATO’s approach to this conflict will change on the basis of two missiles that landed in Poland. They’ll continue to provide arms for Ukraine, and maybe they’ll expedite some air defense equipment. Poland, Slovakia, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia will likely argue for an air defense “umbrella” covering the western portion of Ukraine, using units based in Poland. I don’t think other NATO countries will be interested in doing this since it will appear to escalate the conflict.

A while back, the Germans gave Ukraine some bridging equipment. Around 20 systems if my recollection is accurate. This is in addition to some bridging equipment captured by the Ukrainians outside of Kyiv and Krakiv. I've been wondering where this bridging equipment would show up on the battlefield. Now I'm starting to see a handful of the Russian sources I follow suggest that the Ukrainians have moved across the Dnipro in a handful of places directly across from Kherson - not mechanized units, just some small infantry units that could cross a river with inflatables. Controlling both sides of a river make a river crossing much easier, and the HIMARS have the range to sit on the other side of the Dnipro and hit Russian artillery positions that might be used to attack a river crossing. The Russian units that retreated from Kherson are likely demoralized and disorganized, short of heavy equipment, and not expecting that the Ukrainians would do something foolish like cross the Dnipro in the Winter. I'll make a wager that most of the Russian line along the Dnipro is manned by mobiks since no sane military commander would force a crossing of the Dnipro in the Winter. Which makes me wonder if we are going to see an attack across the Dnipro towards Crimea. The Russians south of Kherson would have to choose between staying to fight (and possibly getting trapped in a salient without access to Crimea and Melitopol),or withdrawing towards Crimea where they can use the topography - the narrow isthmus - to their advantage. (The Germans paid heavily for this area during the lead-up to Manstein's attack on Crimea and the siege of Sevastopol.) Either choice would make the Russian line stretching from Zaporizhzhia to Polohy unstable. This line has been heavily fortified by the Russians and I'm sure the Ukrainians would appreciate the Russians withdrawing from this line, rather than having to dislodge the Russians by force.

I’m not so sure about this. The various stuff that I follow suggests that they had been feeding the new conscripts into the Kherson defensive line and pulling out the VDV troops. My suspicion is that most of the VDV and their equipment is already out of Kherson, and the mobiks were left holding the bag. By withdrawing from Kherson, Russian has allowed Ukraine to shorten their line and re-deploy troops. ukraine has/had about 50k combat troops along the Kherson line. With Russians on the other side of the Dnipro now, Ukraine only needs about half that number to defend the river, and maybe less given the Russians ability to cross rivers and the width of the Dnipro. I continue to think Polohy is the next focal point for Ukraine, and onwards to Mariupol and Melitpol.

Let’s see how Kherson unfolds before we start commenting about seasoned troops retreating in proper order as opposed to being routed. The stuff I’m seeing on telegram suggests things are falling apart in Kherson.

I don't think this was shady. That said, I don't think they considered how it would look from the outside. In order to release all the data through the FOIA process, they would have needed to redirect the entire Agency's FOIA staff (across multiple product centers) to do this work, and it still would have taken multiple years to do this. And in the interim, all other FOIA activities across the other FDA product centers (CTP, CDRH, CDER, CVM, CFSAN) would come to a halt. I think FDA would have been better served to ask Congress for authority to release the data outside of the FOIA process (i.e. special exception to dump it all in the public domain), or ask for temporary staffing resources to expedite the FOIA process for this specific request. You missed my point. it is easy to do stupid things. The bar is very low for this given the decentralization of authority/power across different Departments and Agencies. And we see political appointees do this routinely, as well as SGE's. When these shenanigans happen, why does the public always ultimately find out about it? Because there are people in the civil service that expose this garbage. Nefarious activity is always possible, but my point is that cover-ups are literally not possible. People might try, but the result is the same, it ends up being exposed by the others in the organization. When Congress starts subpoenaing people, or when they start asking Departments and Agencies very pointed questions about wrongdoing and waste of resources, where do you think they are getting these names and these questions?

Cytokines. COVID stimulates an extreme pro-inflammatory response in the body, which could lead to organ damage. The response has been called “cytokine storm” in the past. a quick clarification / edit. I think the cytokine storm only occurs in about 20% of patients. Not all of these patients die immediately, so maybe this explains some of the excess deaths.

Your comment makes me chuckle. I keep hearing this type of comment suggesting a cover-up, and it is often from the same people who bash government for being incapable and incompetent. On one hand, the government is unable to tie its own shoes and is utterly and completely incompetent. On the other hand, the government is able to run a multi-agency and multi-department cover-up of data across 1,000s of employees, contractors, and third-parties (I.e. hospital operators, state government). Which is it? Can’t be both.

It appears that the Ukrainians are still holding back about 10k-15k fresh troops, more if you include the 10k troops finishing up training in the UK. This likely explains Ukraine's recent decision to cancel their upcoming autumn conscription. Reading between the lines, I think they are looking at the map and expecting that by Winter, they will only be fighting on the Donbas / Zaporizhzhia front.

There is not enough room on this thread to debunk the garbage in that Zero Hedge article. This forum is filled with people that can see clearly see through the bullshit on balance sheets and cash flow statements, and yet seem to lack any corresponding ability for critical thinking about this conflict. Go back to my original post in the early Summer about how force generation would play out in Ukraine versus Russia, and the expected Fourth Battle of Krakiv.

Looks like the Ukrainians are starting to receive M30A1 rockets. Instead of a unitary warhead, these rockets have the successor to cluster bombs - they have 160k tungsten balls. Effective when you are targeting dispersed soft targets like a truck depot or infantry positions. Maybe the West is running short on GMLRS rockets with a unitary warhead. Or maybe the Ukrainians want to provide a warm welcome to the hordes of Russian conscripts that are disembarking from trains and trucks. Could be confirmation bias, but this is another data point that suggests to me that the Ukrainians are getting ready for another big push. My bet is still towards Polohy, and beyond that to Mauriupul and Melitpol.

If sabotaging the Baltic Pipe to Poland is considered an act of war against NATO, what would you do to cause panic and fearmongering in the EU about natural gas supplies without actually blowing up the Baltic Pipe? Maybe you would blow up your own pipe - a stranded asset that will never be used - at a location near where the Baltic Pipe passes over the Nordstream pipes? You avoid an act of war, cause NATO to re-deploy assets to the Baltic Sea to protect energy infrastructure, and create even more fear in the EU about an apocalyptic winter without sufficient nat gas. it was clearly the Russians that did this. The problem Russia faces is that this action may bolster the case to isolate Kalinagrad. If the Baltic states block all land transport to Kalinagrad, and a maybe a drunk ship captain accidentally ran his ship aground near the channel entrance to the port, Kalinagrad would be completely isolated with the fleet stuck in the port. NATO and the EU could literally starve Kalinagrad into submission.

Putin doesn’t give a shit about Russians dying in Ukraine. He only cares about power, and ensuring that his people perceive him as the modern-day equivalent of Peter the Great.

Care to provide a source for that? More than 50% of the aid provided to Ukraine is in the form of weapons and weapons systems, or money that goes right back to the domestic manufacturer to produce the weapons or weapon systems for Ukraine. It is hard for a lot of this stuff to just go poof. I tried to purchase some things on the dark web and it is pretty clear that most of it is bogus, even for the stuff that is easy to steal and move like small arms ammunition and automatic weapons. People just advertising fake shit and waiting for dummies to send them the money first. I mean, when you are trying to sell a Panzerhaubitze 2000 but the only pictures you can share are the inside of a T72 and the road wheels of a museum-era SU-150 SPG, it is pretty apparent that people are just running scams and don’t actually have the equipment to sell. Dont get me wrong, I’m sure there is some corruption in Ukraine. And k fully support the idea of providing oversight and audits of how our money and aid is being used. But the estimates I see bandied about are simply random percentages thrown around by people who are unencumbered by facts.