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It is an open secret that any nuclear warhead should contain fissile material. For bombs, they take uranium 235 or plutonium 239. To make them work, the warhead made with the use of these metals should weigh more than one kilogram. In other words, the warhead should have a critical mass. When transuranic element was discovered - californium - or rather, its isotope with an atomic weight of 252, it was found that its critical mass was only 1.8 grams. In addition, the decay of the element would produce 5-8 neutrons at once. This is very effective fission, given the fact that uranium and plutonium produce only 2-3 neutrons. In a nutshell, it was enough to squeeze a tiny "pea" of the substance to cause a nuclear explosion. This led scientists to the idea of using californium in atomic bullets. //
A bullet with a californium core would produce about 5 watts of heat. The heat in the bullet would change characteristics of the explosive and the detonator. Too much heat was dangerous, because the bullet could get stuck in the chamber or in the barrel of a gun or spontaneously explode when fired.
To store such bullets, a special refrigerator was required. The cooling device looked like a copper 15-cm thick plate with slots for 30 rounds. Between the slots, there were channels made, through which pressurized cooling liquid would circulate - liquid ammonia. The latter would create the temperature of about -15C° for the bullets. //
it was possible to use "frozen" atomic bullets during only 30 minutes after they would be removed from a refrigerator. Within this short period of time, one had to load the bullet, take a firing position, find the target and fire the gun. If it was impossible to make a shot, the bullet would have to be returned to the fridge to be cooled and frozen again. If a bullet would be left outside the fridge for over an hour, it was strongly forbidden to use it. To crown it all, the unused bullet would have to be disposed on special equipment. //
Understandably, 700 and even 100 kilos of chemical explosives is a lot. Yet, the shock wave from the explosion of an atomic bullet was a lot weaker, but radiation, in contrast, was strong. Therefore, a nuclear bullet could only be fired at a maximum distance, but still, a shooter could be exposed to a significant dose of radiation. One could fire the maximum of three nuclear bullets.
Nevertheless, one bullet was still enough to destroy a tank. Modern tanks have strong armour, but the amount of thermal energy would be enough to melt tank armour: the track and the tower would be welded with the body together. When hitting a brick wall, a nuclear bullet would evaporate about a cubic meter of bricks. Three bullets were enough for a building to collapse.
However, it was noticed during the tests that if the bullet would hit a tank filled with water, a nuclear explosion would not take place, as water slows down and reflects neutrons. It turned out that a bucket of water could be most reliable armour against an atomic bullet.
Lest one of my trolls accuse me of a "victory is just around the corner" mentality, I can assure you that is not the case. As Clausewitz observed, war is a continuation of "political intercourse" by other means. Ending the war is a political, not a military, problem. Victory is defined in world capitals, not on the battlefield. What the Ukrainian Armed Forces are showing is that in planning, leadership, and execution, they are overmatching the Russians. Whether that leads to victory and what that victory looks like remains to be seen. //
Shashank Joshi
@shashj
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I thought figure was over 600. Didn’t realise it was over 700. That suggests there have been many non-public expulsions of suspected Russian intelligence officers from Europe.
Christopher Miller
@ChristopherJM
“At least 705 diplomats suspected of spying have been expelled from Russian embassies across the world since 2022 – almost twice as many as the whole of the previous 20 years.”
9:05 AM · Aug 25, 2023 //
Russia went into this war a second-tier power. It's going to come out of it with the political and military clout of Burkina Faso...with nukes. //
Yevgeny Prigozhin did not have long to work out who had killed him. But he had long enough. He must have twigged.
It can’t have been more than a few seconds between the explosion aboard the otherwise reliable Embraer Legacy 600 executive jet, and the moment the Russian thug blacked out in his vertiginous acceleration to earth; and yet in that instant I am certain that he knew with perfect clarity what had happened.
He knew whose hidden hand was sending him 28,000 ft down, to be immolated with the rest of his Wagner group companions in a fireball in the countryside of the Tver region north of Moscow — and then on downwards, of course, for the shade of Prigozhin: down, down to Hades and the Tartarean pit below.
CJ @CasualArtyFan
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ICYMI: US Army just dropped a massive update to our C-UAS doctrine, and clearly took quite a few drone-related lessons from Ukraine to heart.
https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/atp3-01-81.pdf
8:30 PM · Aug 25, 2023 //
The latest drone strikes using cardboard planes is just adding insult to injury.
Dieter Schultz SupplyGuy
a day ago edited
Had we provided air superiority this war would have been over shortly after it began... Did we choose not do so out of incompetence?... Fear of escalation (I'm so sick of that yellow bellied excuse)?
Laocoon, arguably our best, and a much better than average, source of information and tactics with respect to air power, has made it fairly clear, air superiority is not something that will occur with the snap of our fingers or, for that matter, with the delivery of air-superiority fighters like the F-16.
Air superiority occurs when the totality of the equipment, ground support, training, and air doctrine is aligned in something resembling what the US air force has developed and implemented.
Because of that, giving Ukraine F-16 fighters, or for that matter Abrams tanks, regardless of their capabilities, without adopting the totality of the war doctrine, training, and infrastructure that supports and expecting what the US gets is just... dreaming.
Air superiority, or even superiority on the ground, comes about not because we have great fighter jets like the F-16s or tanks like the M-1, but because of all of the other things that our air and armed forces have put in place to go along with the equipment.
I'm all for giving Ukraine what it needs and, I'm even in favor of giving it more than it can use as long as it is a net-positive in the war, but I'm not in favor of arguing that just giving them 'stuff' will win them the war.
If the Ukrainians do... good enough... and eject Russia from their territory... then I'm OK with that even if we might have been able to do it with less. But, right now, I'm not convinced that giving them just the air-superiority tools that they, and you, say they need will result in them winning the war. //
Dieter Schultz Laocoon
a day ago edited
Thankfully, I'm not omniscient and, regardless of what equipment they have or don't have, I don't know whether the Ukrainians will win or not win but if it were just 'hardware' that mattered the Russians would have won a year or so ago.
In fact, if it were just those factors then Afghanistan wouldn't have fallen when we left because we left more than enough equipment to allow the Afghani government to continue operating without falling to ISIS.
I realize this may seem a bit blasphemous but there's an awful lot of what's missing in these discussion that closely resembles what is missing in the area of religions... there's something more than just 'bread' that people need and, similarly, there's more than these 'things' that people want to talk about that matters in these discussions.
It is the 'other' things... that shadow our spiritual world... that matters and we fail Him if we don't realize that the spiritual... the abstract... that comes into play and powerfully affects the outcomes. //
Laocoon Dieter Schultz
a day ago
Completely right. There is a spiritual componant to alot of this that we often just gloss over. Otto Von Bismarck once said:
“God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.”
I actually think that the old Prussian got alot of that right.
AFP News Agency @AFP
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VIDEO: A Czech company producing inflatable weapon decoys including Himars rocket launchers and Abrams tanks has seen its profits soar as the Russian invasion in Ukraine continues.
0:37 / 1:47
7:00 AM · Mar 7, 2023
Good ideas, it seems, are forever. //
Poland has decided to send 29 MiG-29 fighters, and Slovakia will send 11; this will make up for about half the losses the Ukrainian Air Force has suffered over the last year. //
I think it is safe to say that whatever offensive operation the Russians had planned is floundering. Ukrainian troops will complete their training on the Challenger 2 and Leopard 2 tanks, and the Bradley and Marder (among other) modern infantry fighting vehicles, in the next 3-4 weeks. Staff training should be finished by that time. In addition, the introduction of the JDAM places previously secure areas within the range of Ukrainian attacks. Then the question will be if the Ukrainians can put together an offensive that can breach Russian defenses and achieve a breakout at the operational level. If they can, we will see Russia forced to abandon nearly all of Ukraine except Donbas. If not, we’re in for a long grind.
As I’ve said before, no historical evidence indicates targeting a civilian population does anything but unify the targeted civilians against their attackers. Practically, this kind of operation will inevitably result in Ukraine targeting the Russian power grid and other targets inside of Russia //
Anton Gerashchenko
@Gerashchenko_en
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Engels airbase in Russia was attacked by a drone again last night.
It's a second attack on this airfield in a month. Airfield is located about 700km from 🇺🇦 border.
This means 🇷🇺 air defense systems are not that good - no radars picked up the drone and it wasn't shot down. //
For obvious reasons, the Russians aren’t talking about damage to aircraft and facilities. I think there is one metric we can rely upon. The Russian missile attacks on the Ukrainian power grid have been, for the most part, happening on Monday nights. This attack on Engels was on Sunday, and the next Russian missile attack took place Thursday. The same pattern followed the last strike on Engels airbase. //
Since then, real and imagined experts have had vigorous discussions. This is way outside my area of expertise, but I will make three observations. First, they are effective. Second, the Ukrainians are building or modifying them one at a time. Third, Russian air traffic control really stinks. //
Russia is acquiring suicide drones from Iran, and there have been reports, covered in these updates, that Iran is transferring short-range ballistic missiles to Russia. So the question of how Iran is getting paid has now been answered.
Viktor Kovalenko
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Dec 25, 2022
@MrKovalenko
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Soon Russia will transfer a squadron of 24 newest fighter jets Su-35 to Iran as payment for thousands of loitering munitions, drones used to attack #Ukraine, reports Israeli 12 TV channel quoting sources in western intelligence. https://news.israelinfo.co.il/107863
Yngvar
@UXMarksTheSpot
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What the hell have russians been buying? Cost of a Su-35 is around $43m (Google tells me). 24 of them are worth $1 Billion. A Shahed-136 drone costs $20K. From what I've read, the biggest number of drones purchased was quoted as about 1500 which is $30m. What's the discrepancy??
6:23 PM · Dec 25, 2022
The Iranians received these aircraft before frontline Russian Air Force units did. That, in my opinion, tells you what you need to know about how short Russia is in cash and how much they need Iran’s weapons. //
Outside of the long-occupied areas of Luhansk and Donetsk, the areas are riddled with informers and special operations elements. Ukraine not only has a formidable electronic warfare capability, it has access to resources from all of NATO to track cell phone locations. As attrition reduces institutional knowledge, expect to see more reports of headquarters targeted by rockets and artillery.
Protection of the civilian population is the responsibility of the armed forces controlling them. Comingling civilian evacuees with military traffic is a war crime because the military traffic is fair game. Using a ferry/bridge for civilian evacuations that are also used for military traffic is irresponsible and could rise to the level of a war crime. There are accepted protocols for civilian evacuation, like a negotiated evacuation corridor monitored by neutral observers. Russia has not attempted to arrange such a corridor, and it is Russia’s responsibility to initiate the action; see my first point. In short, Russia can’t send civilians across the same river crossings used for military operations without negotiating a temporary, supervised cease-fire. Of course, the optics of this would be horrible, and so Russia will continue to risk civilians if not outright use them as human shields.
Though Zelensky frames the question in terms of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the IAEA demand that Russia cease all actions directed at the plant, the larger point is Putin and his allies threatening to nuke someone several times a week Putin’s Spokesman Won’t Rule out Using Nukes if Russia’s Existence Is Threatened; Putin Orders Russian Nuclear Forces on Alert Status as His Ukrainian Adventure Stalls). You must always plan based on the enemy’s capabilities, not their intentions. If you don’t, you end up mired in a seven-month-long war with no end in sight when you thought the enemy’s army would defect (Putin Shows Signs of Panic, as He Calls on Ukraine Military to Mutiny) and an adoring populace would welcome you.
The West is faced with two rather stark choices. It can reward Putin’s use of nuclear blackmail and choose to live with Putin’s aggressive version of Russian imperialism that guarantees we will fight wars like this again in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland. Or it can acknowledge that Russia has nuclear weapons and, as we did successfully for the half-century of the Cold War, use diplomacy to deter Putin from pulling the trigger.
I don’t think anyone should want to live in a world where a rogue actor gets what he wants just because he threatens to nuke someone. That’s just me. //
Well over two million Ukrainians from the illegally occupied areas of Ukraine have been forcibly deported to remote regions of Russia. In June, the Russian wire service Interfax quoted Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the National Defence Management Centre of the Russian Federation, saying 1,936,911 Ukrainians have been deported to Russia since the beginning of the war; 307,423 of whom are children. The UN has warned Russia about placing Ukrainian children for adoption in Russian homes and, as early as March, raised concerns about some 91,000 Ukrainian children who had been deported and separated from their parents and placed in boarding schools and Russian homes.
Zelensky characterizes the deportations as a form of genocide (the forcible adoption of Ukrainian children inside Russia is a clear violation of Article II of the 1949 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide) but says it is currently impossible to know the scope of the deportations. //
MARGARET BRENNAN: Can there be stability in Europe if Vladimir Putin remains in power?
PRESIDENT ZELENSKYY: No.
I agree. I’m also coming to agree with the opinion of the former Commander, US Army Europe, and one-time guest in my house, retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges.
Angela Walters @AngelaW07792262
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Replying to @Gerashchenko_en
Lt-General (Retired) Ben Hodges former commander USArmy Europe @Telegraph
"Prepare for #Russia itself to disintegrate. The #Kremlin's disastrous losses in #Ukraine could result in the collapse of the #RussianFederation"
#Putin #RussianArmy #BlackSeaFleet
5:49 AM · Sep 14, 2022
On the road south from Los Angeles, two-thirds of the way to San Diego, one will drive past Camp Pendleton. Each time I pass it, I can’t help but think of my dad and brother who both went through boot camp and training at Pendleton. In my father’s case, as a combat Marine, he later witnessed many of his mates die in combat. My brother, serving as a corpsman, held the hand of many a Marine as they took their last breath. My family members returned. Too many did not.
Before one passes Pendleton, you’ll see a road at the north end of the base called “Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone Memorial Highway.” It’s named after a WWII Marine who earned the Medal of Honor for bravery on Guadalcanal. After Guadalcanal, the Marines pulled him out of combat to raise money for the war effort. Basilone could not shake a deep feeling of guilt that his mates were still fighting a war while he was not. He begged to be returned to active duty. The Marine Corps acquiesced. On 19, February 1945, Basilone was killed on Iwo Jima. He was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for heroism, being the only enlisted man to earn both the Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross.
Last year, I repeated a story that my father wrote in his war memoir about how death affected him. Here it is:
“Over the side, down the Life Net and into the landing craft. Once full, our boat headed to the rally point. Signal given, then to Engibi. The landing craft hit the sand at the south end of the island. The ramp went down and we ran for whatever cover we could find. Rounds were zipping past us. I hit the sand, looked for where the fire was coming from and got up and moved for cover. I was running for a better spot when a Marine in my company, who was in my landing craft took a round in the chest. Thump. The bullet seemed to hit him dead center. He went down like a sack of potatoes. I stopped and yelled for a Corpsman. Eventually a corpsman took over, and I headed for a hole or something to get behind. I rolled into a shell hole.
“The grim reaper was about to say hello again. Although it seemed like an eternity, we had been on the beach for just moments. Guys were hopping shell hole to shell hole. Our company captain, Captain Blood (yes, his real name) was next to me, when we were raked by machine gun fire. Captain Blood took a direct hit, and was killed instantly.
“Later, when the battle was over and the graves detail was preparing Captain Blood’s body to be taken back to the ship or buried I asked the Marine removing his personal effects if I could look at his wallet. Captain Blood took his last breath right next to me, and I wanted to know more about him. In his wallet was a photograph. Staring back at me was his beautiful wife and two children. I was crushed. What was running through my mind was – A wife would never see her husband again. Children would never again feel their father’s touch. That photograph was burned into my memory. It remains there still.”
Each man or woman lost in combat had a family. Each Soldier, Sailor, Marine, or Airman had a loved one who never saw them return. Over a million Americans have given the last full measure and each one had a story.
Will this gambit work? Can you cut a deal to rid yourself of sanctions imposed because you started a war of aggression if you promise not to starve a few million people to death? Even when there is no guarantee those people still won’t starve if sanctions are removed? Never lose sight of the fact that Putin is a strategic genius in the same way that “in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” He’s dealing with self-serving idiots incapable of resolve, so don’t count out the EU shouting “Leeeeeroy Jenkins,” and coming to Putin’s rescue.
As I’ve mentioned before, my gut feeling is that Putin sees himself as the smartest guy he knows and has unshakable faith in his ability to maneuver. You can easily imagine Putin, rather than Barack Obama, saying, “I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.” That kind of hubris and a realization that one’s political life, or real life, might depend upon a successful military outcome could easily lure a politician into deciding that he’s a better general than his generals.
What began as a straightforward U.S. policy of arming the Ukrainians has expanded into a dangerous and rapid escalation. //
Now, instead of simply helping Ukraine stave off invasion and conquest, U.S. policy seems to have shifted into something else entirely: the permanent weakening of Russia at any cost. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said so explicitly after a clandestine visit to Ukraine with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken last month. //
All of this amounts to a major policy shift on the part of the United States, writes Stevenson: “Whereas once the primary Western objective was to defend against the invasion, it has become the permanent strategic attrition of Russia.” This shift, he adds, has “coincided with the abandonment of diplomatic efforts.”
So what possible strategic gain does bleeding Russia in Ukraine hold for the United States? The risks of pursuing such a policy are immense, including the possibility of nuclear war between the world’s top two nuclear powers. If the Biden administration has some overarching goal in mind, it has not bothered to tell the American people. Instead, we are trundling along the road to war as if every decision we make is simply a reaction to Russian aggression.
But in fact, the war itself has shifted dramatically since late February, and conditions now are arguably more favorable to a cease-fire and a negotiated political settlement than they were even a month ago.
Captured Russian soldiers have accused their commanders of killing their own wounded troops rather than recovering them from the battlefield and sending them for treatment.
In a harrowing account to Ukrainian journalist Volodymyr Zolkin, the young intelligence soldiers described how one lieutenant colonel asked a wounded comrade if he could walk, the Mirror reported.
When the badly injured soldier replied that he could not, the high-ranking officer reportedly shot him – as well as several others — dead.
Another soldier told Zolkin, who has reported about Russian prisoners for Open Media Ukraine, that officers have “finished off their wounded.”
When the journalist asked him to elaborate, the soldier answered: “Just like that … a wounded soldier is lying on the ground, and a battalion commander shoots him dead from a gun,” according to the outlet.
“It was a young man, he was wounded,” he added. “He was on the ground. He was asked if he could walk, so he was shot dead with a gun.”
Finland formally declared its intent to join NATO Sunday as the historically neutral nation seeks to bolster its security amid Russia’s ongoing incursion into Ukraine.
The nation of roughly 5 million people shares a long border with Russia and the move is likely to escalate already searing regional tensions. //
Finland has been independent since 1917 and entered neutral status after a 1948 treaty with the Soviet Union.
The Nordic nation has a more than 800-mile border with Russia.
The second possibility is more interesting. Snake Island is about 170 miles from the Black Sea Fleet’s homeport of Sebastopol. The maximum range of the Neptune anti-ship missile is also 170 miles.
If the second option is on the table, then what we are looking at here is a shaping attack that is removing the ability of the Russians on Snake Island to resist a Ukrainian air assault operation in preparation for a deep attack neutralize the Black Sea Fleet.
A mixture of Neptune and British Brimstone missiles on Snake Island could neutralize the Russian Navy in the Black Sea. With suitable supporting air defense units on Snake Island and the Ukrainian coast, It would also open the area to Ukrainian air force operations. Assuming that the Ukrainians can sustain the garrison, it could become an unsinkable defensive position that could put paid to any attempt by Russia to conduct an amphibious operation or exercise naval power in the war in Ukraine.
The reason for my literary prelude is that many people are making a big deal about supplying Ukraine with high-performance aircraft and modern tanks. Of course, those would all be nice and will, I’m sure, happen in time. But, for the battle Ukraine is fighting right now, the right weapons are being supplied: modern artillery and lots of ammunition.
Ukraine started the war with about 1,800 Soviet-era artillery pieces. Many were in disrepair, and most did not have a trained gun crew assigned; they were missing meteorological equipment, gun chronographs, counterbattery radar, reliable ammunition, and a host of other things that makes the artillery the King of Battle and the God of War.
Nearly 200 modern artillery tubes have been pledged, and about half delivered. A third of those are self-propelled guns; the remainder is towed. Most are the excellent M-777 howitzer. Over 40 top-shelf multiple launchers are pledged, and about half are in Ukraine. Over thirty modern counterbattery radar units have been committed; about half have arrived. About 180,000 rounds of modern 155mm ammunition have been provided. //
A study of the early days of Putin’s War by the Royal United Services Institute has a very enlightening quote from an in-the-field interview. This quote is from page 3 of the study:
As a senior adviser to General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, noted, ‘anti-tank missiles slowed the Russians down, but what killed them was our artillery. That was what broke their units’. //
I’m an infantryman, but despite the inter-branch rivalry, I’ve never met an infantry leader who had any desire to go into combat without his artillery forward observer within arm’s reach. From its earliest days, artillery has been THE killer. As much as we infantrymen have a romance with the bayonet, artillery accounted for 70% of casualties in the European Theater in World War II (both sides, both fronts) and 60% of American casualties during the Korean War. Putin’s War in Ukraine gives us data points that nothing has changed. //
The artillery support Ukraine’s partners are assisting with is much more than delivering guns. Instead, Ukraine is getting top-quality guns plus the training, ammunition, and ISR support needed to turn it into a ferocious weapon to drive the Russians out of where they don’t belong and back to where they do.
uplateagain
13 hours ago edited
The problem the Russians are having all stem from their military being fundamentally structurally flawed. Their officer corps is over-rated, because it is in truth not a meritocracy. Promotion is achieved there through political connections to a far greater degree even than is common in the West..... and we can get quite political in our military associations and advancements. They are ridiculous about it.... especially at the higher ranks. That ends up meaning their senior military is rife with incompetence and corruption. Instead of identifying problems, assuming responsibility, and dealing with them, it's all about keeping problems hidden and passing blame when they are exposed. There was a time near the end of the Soviet Union when as much as 40% of the Russian interceptor force of MiG-25 jets was functionally inoperable, because the engines used pure grain alcohol as a coolant, and once the troops discovered that, it was routinely drained out of the jets and consumed or sold on the black market. The problem persisted for years, because nobody would take responsibility for admitting there was a problem and do something about it.
Russian Army tactical doctrine is sound in theory for the kinds of forces they have developed. But there seem to be relatively few officers who actually know how to execute it.... at least while dealing with the other (unforeseen) problems they suddenly find themselves overcome-by. They don't seem to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. And more importantly, they don't seem to know what leadership is, and it is not uncommon for Russian soldiers to be brutalized by their own officers. General Mikhail Mezentsev was recorded on a non-secure phone call demanding one of his troops... a private... be mutilated (he demanded an ear be cut off) because the general saw him improperly wearing a piece of uniform. Nobody seems to know anything about battlefield management or combined arms operations and they routinely violate operational security with predictable results. They can't seem to be able to set up a simple and secure supply train, and fail to adequately assess future logistical requirements. They don't trust and can't count on their troops and their troops can't count on them. And that brings up the second structural problem.
The second (and in my opinion even bigger problem... because if they didn't have it they could likely overcome the first) is the total lack of a competent NCO corps. Good NCOs can generally make up for bad officers. Because they lack competent NCOs, their troops are inadequately trained... and even more poorly motivated. The junior officers have to do everything that's required to keep individual troops functioning, much less begin the development of unit cohesion or concern themselves with learning how to lead a small unit in combat and deal with unforeseen contingencies. Put green Russian troops in a suddenly hot situation and it instantly becomes a complete fustercluck, with nobody seeming to have any idea how to assess or respond to threat. Equipment is poorly maintained, and troops have no confidence that anyone supposedly in leadership has any idea what they are doing..... because in truth, they don't. Not by Western standards anyway. NCOs are the folks that keep the total disarray from happening, train and focus the unit, develop unit cohesion, handle all the daily falderall, and develop leadership and initiative. The Russians don't have them. And no amount of experience and guidance from the top is ever going to make up for that. Not in a modern military conducting operations at the speed and with the lethality of the modern battlefield.
Because of these structural flaws, I really don't think it is going to make a whole lot of difference which multi-star is giving out the orders from the top. For as long as historians can remember, the Russian way of making war has been to put together huge masses of men and machines and march them right into the teeth of the enemy's best, eventually overcoming them essentially by force of sheer numbers... and without regard to casualties. It was sort of thought that with the development of modern weaponry and tactics, they'd become rather a force based not only capable of massive firepower, but additionally of competency and finesse. That doesn't seem to be the case, and the modern Russian army simply doesn't have enough bulk to it to be readily successful even in Ukraine because of the lack of that competency and finesse. After WWII, it was reported in several places that senior German officers hated fighting Americans because they could never be counted-on to do what they were supposed to do, and instead seemed all too often to operate on individual initiative rather than follow a comprehensive and predictable plan. The head of the German Kriegsmarine, was once quoted, "The reason that the American Navy does so well in wartime is that war is chaos, and the Americans practice chaos on a daily basis." ― Karl Dönitz
It's an idea nobody would ever even consider applying to the Russians.
Will they ultimately win in Ukraine? Likely yes. If they want-to badly enough. They have enough ultimate resources that they should be able to outlast the Ukrainians, even while getting their butts kicked all too often by Ukrainian forces deployed in inferior numbers in individual skirmishes. But it's clearly not 100% guaranteed.
And when you start talking about Putin taking personal responsibility for overall operational control.... the image that immediate popped into my head was that of Hitler in the Fuererbunker, commanding fine German infantry to disastrous results.
When the Russian Black Sea flagship, the guided-missile cruiser Moskva, sank in a non-existent storm (BREAKING. Russian Flagship Sinks While Being Towed to Port) after being hit by two Neptune anti-ship missiles (BREAKING. Flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Hit by Ukrainian Missiles, Dead in the Water, Crew Evacuated), one unanswered question remained: was the Moskva carrying nuclear weapons? //
Chuck Pfarrer
@ChuckPfarrer
BROKEN ARROW: The Russian navy has deployed a deep diving submersible to the wreck of the cruiser Moskva. The unusual move of conducting a salvage operation in an active war zone adds credence to reports that Moskva carried nuclear weapons.
7:36 PM · Apr 22, 2022 //
The idea that conventional munitions or missile tubes would be worth this level of effort strikes me as ludicrous. Just as silly is the theory that the Russians are trying to recover bodies from the wreckage. The Black Sea is a closed environment; ships entering have to pass through The Straits, and Moskva’s wreck is a very short distance from the major Russian naval base at Sebastopol. Physical monitoring of vessels entering the Black Sea and the wreck site could provide eternal security. There is no danger of a repeat of the Glomar Explorer going after the wreck of the K-129 in the open Pacific.
While one can never rule out bureaucratic stupidity, my opinion is that the totality of the facts and circumstances indicate that one or more nuclear warheads are entombed in the Moskva. BBC has documented how the Soviets have at least two nuclear-powered and armed submarines sunk in Arctic waters. There is the K-27 in the Kara Sea and the K-159 in the Barents Sea. Neither show any sign of radioactive leakage. //
If nuclear weapons are on the bottom of the Black Sea, Russia could be trying to avoid a PR nightmare in case the Moskva is salvaged in the future, but the risks of that, as I outlined above, seem small. The other logical reason is that something about the warhead(s) makes them easier for a third party to arm than one would imagine.
All of this, of course, is speculation except for one thing. There is a marine salvage vessel with a submersible at the site of the Moskva, and there are no logical reasons that don’t involve nuclear weapons.
My professional opinion is that it should take at least six weeks for the units to rebuild, but I don’t think Russian President Vladimir Putin will be up for that (Intelligence Claims Putin Wants a Big Victory in Ukraine Before May 9). Likewise, I’d recommend the Russians try to mass their forces and focus on one objective, but it seems as though units are being fed into the fight as soon as they arrive, and, in my opinion, Russia is trying to do too much with too few forces.
As I see it, the upcoming campaign has three battles that Russia must win to achieve its territorial objectives. I would contend that Putin’s political objectives of deposing the Zelensky government, disbanding the Ukrainian army, and preventing Ukraine from having military alliances with the West are, barring some deus ex machina, out of reach. //
In my view, the Russians are in a very difficult position. The terrain they have to attack across in the north strongly favors the defenders. Their lines of supply will be hard-pressed to support the 70-80 BTGs they are staging there. There is also a race against time. More Ukrainian units are created and move into the battle area every day, and more heavy weapons arrive. Russia has to find that sweet spot where their units have rebuilt back to combat effectiveness, and the Ukrainians haven’t yet begun to field the weaponry sent to them. They also, in my view, have to win all three of these battles–holding Kherson, sealing off Mariupol, and taking positive control of Donbas–to have a chance of gaining their territorial objectives. Ukraine only has one must-win battle: Donbas.
In Poland, which boasts both by far the largest military and economy of the surveyed states, almost two-thirds of the public openly declared their support for a national nuclear weapons program.
The change in attitudes is striking. When Poles were asked the same question in 2018, 83.6% favored abolishing nuclear weapons. However, the newfound realization that a non-nuclear country can be rather helpless in a confrontation with a nuclear-armed enemy has led Poland to request the US to base nuclear weapons in Poland; see Poland Says That if the U.S. Has Some Spare Nukes They’d Be Happy to Take Care of Them. //
Even when Russia loses this war with Ukraine, you can bet Putin will still use threats of using nuclear weapons to try and intimidate anyone who offends him. He will also believe that his possession of these weapons will prevent NATO from taking action under Article 5.
The strategic question is how do we live in a world in which the collapsing Third World kleptocracy that is Russia possesses nuclear weapons but can’t use them to bully other nations or drag us into a nuclear conflict. //
The only way we break the cycle of cringing in fear every time Putin has bad borscht and decides to threaten someone with nukes is to place Russian cities at risk. We can do this by either walking away from the non-proliferation regime that has limited the ownership of nuclear weapons or by providing some allies with nuclear-capable delivery systems and holding the weapons until that nation requests their release. It’s not a wonderful thought to contemplate, but it is better than endless wars in Eastern Europe brought on by Russia’s ability to threaten nuclear attack unless appeased.
Last night we covered the initial reports in BREAKING. The flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Hit by Ukrainian Missiles, Dead in the Water, Crew Evacuated. The Moskva came under fire from a Ukrainian Neptune missile launcher that fired two missiles. At least one of the missiles penetrated the missile/gun defensive system, and when it detonated set off explosions of weapons loaded in their firing tubes and ignited propellant. The fire and explosions overwhelmed the damage control effort, evacuating the crew. At some point, the fires were either extinguished or under sufficient control to permit Moskva to be taken into tow. While in transit, Moskva sank.
Some stray thoughts.
Today is the 110th anniversary of the RMS Titanic striking an iceberg.
This is the first loss of a Russian flagship since the Battle of Tsushima Straits.
This is the biggest warship lost since World War II.
The Argentines are able to share the ignominy of being one of the two nations that lost a capital ship since World War II.
The Russians are still blaming Russian incompetence for the loss rather than giving Ukraine credit for the missile strikes. Placing the responsibility for the loss on a non-specific “explosion” is rather lame as the evolutions a cruiser would carry out don’t have the same risk factors as those aboard aircraft carriers (see USS Oriskany and USS Forrestal; the loss of the USS Bonhomme Richard is in a class of its own). //
Michael Weiss 🌻🇺🇸🇮🇪
@michaeldweiss
Strange for an “accident” aboard one ship, as per Russia’s MoD, to cause all the others to sail farther away from shore unless the accident was being hit by Ukrainian missiles.
Raf Sanchez
@rafsanchez
NEW: US defence official says Russian warships have moved away from Ukraine’s southern coast after explosion on the Moskva. They’re now 80 nautical miles or more from the shore.
Possible sign they’re trying to get out of missile range.
11:44 AM · Apr 14, 2022 //
The Moskva figured prominently in an event in the early days of the war when it demanded that Ukrainian troops defending Snake Island surrender. The incident is commemorated in a Ukraine postage stamp. The sinking of that ship will create a huge morale boost. //
the permanent loss of Moskva’s impressive array of missile launchers to the Black Sea Fleet. According to the provisions of the Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits, warships of belligerent nations can’t enter the Black Sea unless they are homeported there. Turkey has said that for the purposed of the Convention, the special military operation Russia is flogging away at in Ukraine is a war, and it has turned down requests by three Russian warships to pass through the Straits. The remaining Russian surface combatants are much less capable in a land-attack mode, and they will act, as my old man would say, like a long-tailed tomcat in a room full of rocking chairs. //
She was fatally struck by two homegrown Ukrainian cruise missiles, neither of which, according to any simulation, should have been able to make it through Moskva‘s defenses. The prestige damage to Russia is huge, and it may, in retrospect, be seen as the decisive moment of the whole war.