DirkDiggler

Amen. All this stupid political horseshit in our country aside, there’s been a lot of Ukrainians in the last two days charging a steep price for their farms. So far their leaders are stepping up big time.

Caveat: Speculating. There’s only so many roads that support the Russian axis of advance. I haven’t seen any videos showing Russian BTGs charging across the steppes WWII style (maybe they’re doing so, just haven’t seen it personally). You can only cram so many units on to limited LOCs; further, a lot of the roads outside the major cities are in poor condition and armored vehicles tear the shit out of pavement. Perhaps more importantly, you can only push forward the combat power you can logistically sustain. Trucks need to use roads and are vulnerable to ambush/require security, helicopter sustainment is vulnerable to MANPADs and can’t move enough to keep large armored units in the fight. I don’t believe the Russian AF has a large tactical airlift (airdrop) capability. My guess is the Russians are overall limited by their ability to sustain their forward combat power.

Hope it’s true and I hope the Ukrainians continue putting as many of these Russian pigs into the dirt as they possibly can.

It’s pretty unusual for Russia. Russia’s security services are unfortunately brutally efficient in suppressing that sort of thing though so not holding out hope that it’ll force any course corrections on Putin’s part.

Could be this. Could be the Ukrainians are putting up a tougher fight than Russia expected. Unfortunately could also just be sequenced phases in the Russian operational plan. Interesting open source speculation about the motivation/morale or lack thereof of some Russian units involved in the attack. My Estonian buddy is sharing lots of videos of large anti-war protests in Russia; hopefully that continues.

Fuckin A, keep stacking ‘em up

We really gonna turn one of the more useful threads on Baseops into another fuckin’ political pissing contest?

I would agree with most of what you wrote above with the following exception. If the Russian Federation (really Putin) decides to go high order with an invasion of the Ukraine, I sincerely hope that the Ukrainians stack up as many Russian bodies as they possibly can before they're either overrun or are forced into some shitty settlement. And I don't care if some Russian private inhales radioactive dust and gets cancer 20 years from now due to a completely avoidable nuclear disaster and war of their own choosing.

https://breakingdefense.com/2022/02/russia-vs-ukraine-could-provide-invaluable-lessons-on-what-truly-works-in-modern-warfare/ The author asks some interesting questions regarding the future viability of some weapons and operational maneuver concepts based on what we could see in a Russian-Ukrainian War, carrying that forward to a US-Russia or US-China conflict.

Pretty interesting article, pilot's gotta land it via camera due to the length on the nose. That'd have to be weird doing the first couple times.

I'd like to give another shout out to Jon and the team at Trident. He got me a 2.25% lock outside of 60 days on a VA non-jumbo with only 5% down; the loan application and closing process was seamless, even with a remote signing and POA involved. Would highly recommend Trident to anyone in the market for a mortgage.

Lizards

Pretty soon they're gonna have to send in a bunch of lot lizards to distract them truckers......

Its not a US State Department requirement; the US (especially the US Ukrainian embassy) cannot dictate another country's COVID-19 entrance requirements. It's a Polish requirement for travelers arriving in Poland from other than the EU/Schengen area. See link below: https://www.gov.pl/web/coronavirus/outside-the-european-union-schengen-area Per the Polish website, a traveler (or in this case refugee ) wouldn't necessarily get denied entry to Poland without a negative COVID test, they'd be put in quarantine for 7 days.

Why any adult with critical thinking skills uses any talking head cable or network news show as a primary source of information and/or news is beyond me.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canada-braces-action-us-border-bridge-blocked-by-protesters-despite-court-order-2022-02-12/

It's from a totally legit website called avia-pro.net. Some of the other latest news stories on there include: 1. American mercenaries raised the US flag on the outskirts of Donetsk 2. Latvian AN-2 aircraft opened S-400 air defense areas, violating Belarusian border 3. Russian warships stationed in Syria sent NATO a serious warning Lots of Cyrillic on there. Honestly kinda aligns with the overall tilt of this thread.

Preach

Those were both very good reads, thanks for posting. It's interesting (in a sad sort of way) to see the long term impacts of what I view as a pretty relentless drive post WWII to tamp down German nationalism. Even considering Adenauer and Brandt's focus on German unity and anti-communist stances, the generational echoes of Germany's actions in WWII and the resulting rejection of any sense of national pride and/or pride in the military are seriously impacting Germany's current actions.

Didn't know that about no protests regarding OTA, learn something new everyday. That said, I'll stick with my $5 on the -145, not for any rationale reasons on AFSOC's part mind you, but really for the previous emotional reasons listed above. I'll be happy to be wrong about that if it gets our guys a more capable platform.

I'd put $5 on the MC-145 being the winner, at least initially (before what sounds like an inevitable dispute by another bidder). Has actual austere landing capability, cargo ramp/door if you want to carry things, AFSOC already has previous experience with the platform. And perhaps most importantly....drum roll....it's the platform that LOOKS closet to a -130, which unfortunately carries a lot of sway with important people on the third floor. Caveat: I'm in no way involved or associated with AO.

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/putins-ukraine-quagmire/ Interesting article arguing that Putin's calculus on Ukraine may be having effects opposite that which he intended.

Objective article that discusses Russia's role in the global oil industry and what a supply disruption in Russia could mean. Unfortunately it doesn't discuss natural gas, might be addressed in a future analysis. https://www.csis.org/analysis/oil-market-cannot-afford-lose-russian-supplies

https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-gamble-ukraine Long but well researched/reasoned article.