I am in awe at the quality and quantity of your analysis. What do you make of the Karabakh situation? Complicated conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan with Russia, America, Turkey, Iran, and Israel all jostling for control. Sadly many civilians are suffering like Ukraine.
THank you sir. I may do a piece on the Armenia situation soon since it's heating up. But you're right it's a very tangled web of intrigues and motivations that's difficult to parse correctly because there are so many vying/competing interests as you've pointed out.
there is also the end of the road for the delusion of 'weak multi-polarity' многовекторность that many weak, small post-USSR republics went on proclaiming where they have illusions that forever threating to switch side and playing various greater powers against each other is somehow beneficial. Take money from USA to open a base in Kyrgyzstan, then take money from China (or Russia) to close it, then repeat, etc. All weak republics played that game, Ukraine played it like crazy, Belarus, and all 'stans' tried. That time has ended as China, Russia, etc grew up and told such countries that relationships have to be mutually beneficial. If you have something to offer , do so -just constantly extorting someone MUCH stronger and bigger than you will result in them shrugging and walking off . Armenia is trying to do exactly that 'give us, give us, give us' or we 'will , will, will' (leave collective security treaty, make some deal with whoever ,etc). It does not work and could not work
Sure but will they take into account the votes of Azeris who were kicked out of there during the first war? Otherwise doesn't seem very fair to those folks.
And it's not fair to the (Armenian) folks who were kicked out of Azeri territory.
There were two small territories in this region - one was politically part of Azerbaijan but majority Armenian, the other was politically part of Armenia, but majority Azerbaijani. Azerbaijan now claims that both territories belong to Azerbaijan.
Similar to what NATO did in Yugoslavia - rip apart an area where the people tolerated each other and turned them into bitter warring countries. Or similar to what the US Deep State is attempting in Ukraine and Georgia. And elsewhere. The uninvited 3rd party stirring things up.
Armenia feels Russia isn't prioritizing Armenia's interests as much as desired because Russia also maintains relations with Azerbaijan - the latter because the Azeris are exporting a lot of oil and natural gas to the West. Russia wants the Azeris in the future NGOPEC.
Plus Azerbaijan is significantly being assisted by Erdogan/Turkiye.
So Pashinian's "stroke of genius" is to replace Russia with the West. LOL what a dumbfuck. As if the West won't ALSO favor Azerbaijan because the Azeris are one of the few major sources of natural gas available to continental Europe now.
The curse of Armenia is that it is of divided mind. Very small land with massive diasporas in three main centers (Russia, EU/France, US) that have little reason to agree on anything. it is not a country; it is an office - don't remember which Armenian leader said that.
That may be so, and the Armenian lobby in the US does exist though of course nowhere remotely as large/effective as the Israeli one.
Nonetheless the notion that the US/West can be of any material assistance to Armenia in its losing fight with Azerbaijan is idiotic to an amazing degree.
Armenia is 2500 km from the Mediterranean; the Persian Gulf and Red Sea are basically BRICS lakes now.
By land, it is even worse: Armenia is "only" 2000 km from Greece but has pretty much all of Turkey in between - which I've already noted is actively helping Azerbaijan.
All Pashinian is doing is ensuring an even worse deal than what Russia is attempting to mediate - because clearly Putin and Lavrov understand Armenia's situation a lot better than that moron Pashinian does.
Given Russia has more armenians living in it (for hundreds of years) than Armenia itself, it is a puzzle for them why Soros boy Pashinian is doing that. Overall, Armenia is learning that (in russian), 'it is hard to be partially pregnant' , you either are or you arent.
If Karabah is indeed Armenian land , then why in 30 years (!!) Armenia itself did not recognized it as such?
If Karabah is an independent entity , then again why in 30 years Armenia did not recognize it as legitimate entity?
Having done neither, and also not declaring war on Azeri, and holding back troops not allowing them to fight for Karabah, what moral/legal/ethic ground does Armenia has to demand same from its allies?
As an ally of Russia , has Armenia recognized Crimea and new territories as part of Russia? No? Why? And again, why are you demanding of Russia to break ties with Baku when millions of Azeri are similarly good russian citizens? Russia has tens of millions of muslims and happily integrated multicultural society, thinking it would has to go die for you when you are busy proclaiming your 'european aspirations' , 'euro-centric choice' is stupid..
My view is that Pashinian thinks he can do an Erdogan or pre-Orange-Revolution-attempt Lukashenko, but without understanding that Armenia simply is not in the physical, political or economic position to do so.
As for "war on Azerbaijan": my understanding is that Armenia was conclusively defeated by Azerbaijan in the last round of fighting, and that ongoing Azeri arms purchases funded by their energy windfall is only making the relative military situation worse - and this discounts the already 3to1 population difference between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
If the above and previous statements are correct - then the only explanation for Armenia's behavior is that Armenia has managed to get incompetent European leadership without any accompanying actual benefit.
Sorry , when talking about declaring war - I meant during the actual events of fighting. Do you know that Armeria never did declare war during the fighting? Never annexed Karabah. Never even admitted it exists as independent entity , not once. This is how children behave while screaming 'our alias abandoned us'. FAFO is what happen to the regime in Yerevan.
Compare it to RU, they made the decision that recognizing and then assisting Donbass republics would lead to war, they knew the price, they took the action, and paid the price in blood, sweat, and tears. Tens of thousands died (30k at this count). This is how adults behave.
And right now, Ukraine is another example of passive aggressive psychopath that simultaneously :
- happily collects transit fees for everything from gas to oil
Armenia did almost no fighting in the last war, which was almost exclusively between the Republic of Artsakh and Azerbaijan. Some volunteers were allowed to go join them, but others were not. Only near the end, when the fighting reached Armenia's own borders and the Azeri victory seemed certain did they conduct some half-hearted minor operations using their own forces.
This wasn't a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan at all, but a selling out of the Armenians living in Artsakh. This has further split apart and polarised Armenian society, many of which now see Pashinian and his supporters as traitors.
From a somewhat objective standpoint, Armenia appears to be slowly self-destructing.
To compliment Simplicius’s detailed analysis, in “Ukraine: Biden's Sacrificial Lamb Cast into the Volcano," I zoom out and examine the Ukrainian tragedy in the context of the U.S. Empire's malevolent actions and its old, decrepit man at the helm of a sham presidency leading us towards World War III.
Sorry, NATO/USA and the majority of Asia are ALREADY engaged in the next "lukewarm" world war. Perception managers do still bravely try to submerge public awareness of that fact in USA for now.
We are someplace analogous to the "phony war" stage of 1939 (before the infamous German ur blitzkrieg end run around the Maginot line), when Poland was freshly dismembered, Hitler & Stalin were officially still BFFs and Britain had an army on the continent largely sitting on their hands- About the time le French bravely half arsed an assault into Germany.
The next couple of phases (where people YOU personally knew get killed & war news is "above the fold" in NY Times EVERY day) will be here soon enough.
Shortly followed by the phases where trying to stay warm and scavengeing non radioactive food are more important than the crater where they used to publish the NYT.
Hitler and Stalin were never officially or in reality BFFs, any more than Churchill and Stalin were ever BFFs just because they were allies eventually. Stalin concluded a treaty with Hitler only after being rebuffed by both France and Britain when trying to form an anti-Hitler alliance with them. It is ironic that only after facing Hitler on their own were they willing to ally with USSR, and then only for the duration of the war!
Have yet to read the article but it seems that it is not really a matter of tactics; the sheer disparity in forces and means is the central problem. Ukraine simply lacks the means to win in offensive combat no matter what tactics are applied.
This explains the fetishization of western equipment as some kind of difference maker. It takes a licking, but keeps on ticking, like the old Timex watch ads proclaimed. I’ve seen a lot of articles about how the ability to recover the crew and the vehicle and repair one or the other is a huge force multiplier.
People love a good underdog story, but in the real world God is on the side of the big battalions.
I've read stuff like that since childhood. I remember all the Leopards Turkey lost in their adventure in Syria and remember reading, "well, the crews mostly survived." Well, kind of... the crews abandoned their tanks pretty immediately if anything went wrong or any damage happened. Just like we are seeing in Ukraine. So, yeah, that is a type of survivability... kind of...
Panther/Tiger tank crews learned to ditch ASAP when they experienced a "mobility kill" or mechanical breakdown last time they went on a road trip to the Ukraine- Since AT weapon operators even then had a distressing habit of firing until the target changed shape or caught fire, you know.
Plus side, a fair number of lightly used late war German tanks with fairly easily repairable damages left unrecovered on the field during 1944/45 for us to collect & display- Or keep in the basement!
Russians do the same thing. Without mobility a tank is toast. The Russians appear to be able to recover most of theirs while the hohols don't, even when they're behind their own lines. NATO appears to have given them virtually no spare parts or recovery equipment.
Precisely. Anyone looking at the military balance between Russia and Ukraine displayed by most western MSM before the war started could easily see that Ukraine could not possibly win. It was a delusional fantasy from the start.
I'm not sure where you are getting "more weapons" from, and the idea that the West is out of supplies has been tossed around for over a year now to little effect.
it is in the news that come out, double munitions production in 2022, double it again in early 2023 and on the trend to increase it now. That is RU we are talking about and artillery shells. Tank production is thousands per year, four shifts (well paid) in the factories, ads recruiting personnel (we will train you and pay you) - this is not like it is a secret.. Shipbuilding 30+ vessels a year now, 300+ combat helis a year. again, this is just RU and just things that could not be hidden (hard to hide laying dozens of new ships and then publicly releasing them to the navy), I have no idea on what China is doing . If you do not see 'significantly more weapons' that RU is building and increasing in building , I do not know where you are looking
Well, Russia has put all their weapons in practice. They have observed the lacking points and corrected. Many weapons are receiving now updates or new versions.
They have launched many recoinessance satellites, improve their drone production, get a super crazy update Lancet…
On the other hand the west probably has learn something, but as the war is fought by ukriane their lessons are far less effective.
About western munitions, the effect has been already notice.
US now send cluster munition because they don’t have any more high explosión munition.
Cluster munition is good to kill some poor civilian in Donbass but pretty ineffective against armoured vehicles.
So the effect is there.
Additionally for the West the toll is tremendous.
Their weapons were always far more expensive than Russians, but at the moment of truth they are performing the same.
However the luck of tje Wsst is that there is few “neutral” countries that can really decide to whom buy stuff.
I wouldn't worry about the age of the F-16 airframes. They won't last long enough for metal fatigue to become a problem. That's not me being snarky it's something I picked up from Senor Millenium7*
It's an excellent channel well worth your time. 2 months ago he predicted that the F-16s would be in Ukraine by the autumn. He maybe off on that but it's a political decision and Millenium7* has always been much stronger on the technology than the politics.
I do watch his channel from time to time already, you're right it's pretty good stuff and he seems to be knowledgeable particularly on fighter jet radar physics, more so than any other mainstream blogger at least. And even though he's pro-Ukraine he still does a fairly impartial job compared to most
Slovak MiG-29s sent to Ukraine were ALL beyond airframe service life. Most Polish ones were even worse as Poles were even keeping them in service with seemingly unsafe flight hours on record.
None of them crashed because of being worn out. They were mostly fine.
None of these Belgian F-16s would crash in Ukraine for this reason. Life expectancy of airframes is a very conservative estimate. Unless there's some serious flaw, something that would be known if F-16s were suffering from.
Belgian F-16s have a problem that they're crap because of crap maintenance and they "barely work", at best. Also, it's politics. It's quite hard to explain you're sending an expensive asset paid for by your voters, to another country (that's not even your ally de jure or de facto, and is highly unpopular). For free.
I read a paper from RUSI a while back on Russian tactics that did the same thing. Supposedly sourced from frontline Uke officers but most of the cited quotes came from the upper echelons of the Defense Ministry and SBU; both have been sources of massive lies from day one. Anyhow, the report would find some small valid critique of Russian tactics (like occasional lack of coordination between units) that is cited by an actual Uke combat officer and then list of a whole line of blind assertions Russian units are all just untrained conscripts, officers steal their men's money, etc. etc. Propaganda from the 1990s basically. The one actually provable assertion is mixed in with a bunch of BS lies to try and conflate them all.
Yeah that's the problem with most of these Western reports. They take one small *truth* but then deliberately spin it up out of proportion and disingenuously apply it as a generality.
Yeah there are endless problems in the Russian forces which I'm not shy to talk about, but one of the reasons why I don't often delve deeply into them or dwell on them at length is because they are often very isolated things that do not apply to the whole as in the case of the AFU.
AFU's aren't *completely* uniform either. There are tons of strengths they have and good units, etc., but the problems are far *more* pervasive throughout their armed forces than Russia's are through theirs is what I'm saying.
It is interesting that you mention that "think tanks" would spin "truths" out of proportion considering that they are vital for policy/decision making and incorrect assessments can lead to errors.
I understand journalists spinning things, but I do not get why think tanks would do such a think? I imagine they'd need to provide the most objective analysis possible. Can you explain please, Simplicus?
In their war against their own populations, the western elite classes have introduced ideologies and propaganda to weaken and demoralize those populations. The danger in any sort of attack vector like that (just like poison gas or germ warfare) is getting a whiff of it yourself. Very large portions of the various strata of the western elite have been captured by their own black ideologies and propaganda. It will be their undoing.
A corollary of your point: modern elites control the media, and consequently public opinion, so completely that they come to think they control reality itself.
99% of people everywhere are looking out for numero uno. Once an organization goes far enough down the wrong path, the safe thing is usually prepare a parachute while continuing to publicly support the wrong path. I think this explains the west better than craziness. In other words, they know the group is wrong but it's dangerous for any individual to be the first to say that. And remember, there is no long term accountability in the west. As long as you make it to retirement age, you get a pension, no matter how bad your performance.
Once you start down that road, you have to start making choices. If the society and system that we live under does so much evil, how much will I compromise with it?
These choices can have very real personal and professional consequences. Try not paying taxes and see what happens. "Bartelby the Scrivener" it ain't.
Even if you do compromise, you are left with a guilty conscience.
By contrast, if you go along with the crowd, you can avoid those tough choices and face no consequences, and your conscience stays relatively untroubled, for the time being at least. Even in the worst case, you can say to yourself that you did what every other Good German did under the circumstances.
"Think tanks" are funded by private organizations. The most prolific funders of think tanks are arms manufacturers and the various "security companies" that now proliferate throughout Western society producing everything from cell-phone apps to gunlocks. They fund studies and people who promote their agenda, which is to sell arms. Those the think tanks, who exchange personnel monthly with the U.S. State Department and the various intelligence agencies, produce an endless series of studies promoting the great value of Raytheon and Lockhead weapons and provide an endless list of "threats" around the world against which these weapons must be deployed. It is as simple as everyone says. The arms manufacturers produce war to make money, and the "think tanks" are nothing more than glorified advertising agencies, selling the need for war and weapons.
Even more important than the individual arms manufacturers are the "multinationals" and the investment firms that have made a imperialism their business model. The original Neo-cons were funded and led by the CEO of Halliburton, and sure enough, they found every possible reason to go to war in every oil-producing region of the world. All the contracts for the "reconstruction" of these oil-producing countries went to Halliburton, It really is as simple as that. The original neo-con think tanks acted as advertising agencies for Halliburton. Now we have Blackrock and Vanguard, who fund multiple think tanks that promote the Ukraine war, and who has making the deals to finance the "reconstruction" of Ukraine. In word of Joe Biden... well son of bitch if it isn't Blackrock and Vanguard. There is nothing more to it.
In most cases, even these close-to-frontline-analysts do not speak Russian (or Ukrainian, sometimes they may find one speaking it), so you got another filter by interviewing only soldiers/officers that speak English or by introducing a translator. Sometimes the best information may be obtained by just listening to people talking, not by getting answers to questions from the uncle from UK.
What disruptions of training are you referring to? I'm not aware of any off the top of my head even insofar as claims--fake or not--from the Ukraine side. Only thing I can think of is claims to poor/disrupted/accelerated training for mobilized troops called up last September, but not sure if that's what you were referring to.
Or do you mean the 1 or 2 claimed "strikes" they did on Russian training centers, like the recent one near Crimea, or something to that effect? There's literally been like 2 of those total and they appeared to barely cause any casualties at all so it's not very disruptive in the grand scheme.
If you re-read the screenshot you posted from the RUSI report, they mention disruptions to training of Russian infantry. It is without context, I think that is what he means.
ScipioAfricanus correctly guessed that I had meant that out of context throwaway line that just happened to be part of the screenshot you posted, sorry for not being clear about that.
But you happened to answer my question, confirming it to be the BS I assumed it was, anyway, so thanks again.
"It is also important to recognise that Russian forces are fighting more competently and with reasonable tenacity in the defence." I love this quote from RUSI. "Reasonable tenacity?" LOL, the Russians have barely budged from their OUTPOST line and conducted endless counterattacks for each minor hohol advance. The defense has been ferocious. Savage.
The fact that the Russians have fought tooth and nail for each inch of ground tells me two things:
1. The Russians expected to suffer much higher casualties and instead are suffering extremely light casualties. The outpost line is a tripwire and nothing more; if Russia was taking even moderate casualties they'd have abandoned the outpost line long ago and moved into their actual defenses.
2. Russian morale is sky-high. You don't get units fighting like this with low morale. There would have been breakthrough somewhere if Russian units even had moderate morale because endless fighting against even dunderheads like the hohol "Nafo trained" units will take its toll and cause units to crack apart.
One of the reasons morale is so high is because a Russian soldier gets QUITE a nice bonus for every piece of equipment they destroy - that guy who used a Kornet to kill the Challenger basically just won a free seaside vacation for his family, for instance. But for Ukrainians, they're lucky just to get their base salary paid on time.
Even without bonuses the minimal salary of Russian soldiers is at least 3x higher than average salary in Russia. A significant part of the Russian population would never be able to earn so much money.
Smoke on the Water. LOL! Finally some music I can relate to for a war porn video.
"They said the NATO officers don't understand the reality on the ground." I get the impression this is often a problem in most every war. Officers not understanding the reality on the ground. (and politicians)
The Russians do not mess around. Pretty interesting the changing out of the tank barrels. I have never seen that before. I am still impressed at how quickly they change out the chopper blades.
I remember an episode from the original Star Trek, some planet in a galaxy far, far away would put people in a cylinder tube when their number came up and they would get vaporized, peacefully, painlessly. The ways of old war was just too nasty so the countries had reached a compromise as a way of killing each other. Of course Captain James T. Kirk saved the day, changed their thinking, and brought peace to the two warring fractions. At this point I think that modality would be better for the Ukrainians. This war needs to end, yesterday, but the Swamp keeps sending in the cash, it makes me sick. It is all so twisted on so many levels.
The Russians certainly don't mess around. Not in Syria and not in Ukraine.Whilst schizo NATO press proclaim a different story, the Russian forces systematically (almost boring) forge ahead and create reality. Regrettably this comes at the cost of many fine lives. The one good thing about all of this, is the reigning in of NATO arrogance. Where there might have been a chance of them getting involved in this conflict, I think they now fully realise that they are just not up to the task of fighting a world power. China anyone? Goodness, don't make me cry.
I had heard that Ukraine was firing most of their M777s at the max charge so they could be farther to the rear. And that this would mean the barrels wearing out even faster. I didn't think they had as many as 150 but probably have at most half of them left.
I had also wondered about the alledged benefit of NATO kit or training.
I guess future tank designers will focus mostly on protection for new designs. Probably cutting mobility as I doubt they would reduce firepower. Heavy armour on all 6 sides, ERA and other protection systems mounted. Some sort of large gun to fire HE to destroy bunkers and buildings on the assault. And maybe a fire control system, FCS, that will also enable the crew to also fire indirectly; to be used as type of artillery. On our Leopard C1s we had gun laying instruments - a traverse indicator and clinometer to adust for elevation. We could only fire HE out to 4000 metres with out FCS, anything farther would be engaged with our gun laying instruments. But the Leopard 2 and M1 doesn't have these. I suppose a tank with an ability to carry Infantry, like Merkava, would get some consideration. Definitely a diesel engine. With an auxiliry generator to run systems while static.
Of course it would also need to have an on-board microwave, toaster oven, and hot gravy dispenser!
Interesting take on the MI's replacement. The army wants its current 79 ton vehicle to be replaced by a 45 ton one. Hmmm...? What is the betting on that?
My take is that if it happens, it will inevitably become another Bradley. They will start with a 45 ton vehicle, but the usual mission creep will add another 20 tons of scrap on it, while the underlying base will only be fit for 45 tons.
Therefore it will be only worse than the M1 in every aspect it was supposed to improve over the M1.
The problem is that it was designed with a turbine. Converting it to diesel would require a completely new transmission too. And all of that needs to fit in the same space as the old turbine engine.
For example MTU MB 873 (Leo 2 engine) would fit inside the same space (it's a bit smaller in every dimension than AGT1500, the M1's turbine), but it would be oriented in a wrong way.
Also, the original Allison gearbox in M1 has absolutely no chance of surviving the torque and HSWL 354 from Leo wouldn't fit.
In the end, they'd need to commit themselves into designing a completely new power pack that would be constrained by turbine engine dimensions and end up with a weird design (this happened to T-80UD), or they'd need to substantially re-engineer half of the tank.
Note just to illustrate how out of place the T-80UD's 6TD engine was:
It was designed in early 1980's.
It had displacement of just 16.3 litres (less than half of T-72's almost 39L and much less than Leo 2 24.7L) and is a 2-stroke. But, unlike contemporary tank engines, it had only 6 cylinders with 2 opposed pistons per cylinder . So they were quite big (2.7L per cylinder in comparison to 2L in Leo 2).
But, it produced 1,000HP at 2,800 RPM (it revved very high for a big diesel engine) and had 2 crankshafts (they are both connected to the gearbox, which has 2 input shafts) . That meant much higher specific output than contemporary tank engines (well, it's half the specific output of Bugatti Veyron - yikes) except for Leo 2's MTU which was considered to be superhigh performance diesel engine (6TD had roughly 20% higher specific power). To compare it to more familiar numbers - at 2,800 RPM, it produced 62BHP per liter of displacement. That's the same as mid-2000s 140BHP 2.0TDi in VW Group cars (in a much older Soviet tank engine!). With 2.7L per single cylinder and crappy diesel fuel or not even diesel fuel but anything that burned.
And as you would expect, it was all accompanied by gargantuan turbo-lag, as it was turbocharged.
They just recently cancelled the SEP v4 upgrade for Abrams and are going for some "larger upgrade" that's not yet specified.
But funny that we're here.
The Abrams X tech demonstrator unveiled last year (a very ambitious vision for Abrams upgrade) used Cummins ACE (Advanced Combat Engine). It's a newly developed engine (government financed the development). And there's something interesting.
It's a 6 cylinder opposed piston turbocharged diesel engine, exactly like the 6TD in T-80UD. It's supposed to be a part of a modular family of engines (3,4 and 6 cylinder) ... Again like the 6TD (OK, it also has 5 cylinder version).
Excellent and thorough piece! Clearly, once Russia started adapting to this new kind of hybrid war, the end was pretty certain given Russia's (with some help from its allies) superior production capabilities, better weapons and manpower advantage....Putin's gradualist strategy of attritting Ukraine's forces has also yielded big political benefits...
How we all laughed at Bagdad Bob with his prognostications of imminent victory. And yet, here we have the entire MSM as the new Kiev Ken, making the same absurd claims that defy all logic and common sense, yet this time we believe. I suppose when it finally ends in Ukrainian defeat it too will be sold as a great NATO victory for freedom and democracy, two abstract notions we no longer even comprehend.
Regardless of the outcome of this historic conflict, the hegemony of the west will be forever altered. If we are able to avoid nuclear annihilation, then a new world order will come to be. Hopefully the west will acquiesce and accept a more humble and enlightened future with it's own well being foremost as it's ideology.
Awesome love reading these. Thanks simplicius.
I am in awe at the quality and quantity of your analysis. What do you make of the Karabakh situation? Complicated conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan with Russia, America, Turkey, Iran, and Israel all jostling for control. Sadly many civilians are suffering like Ukraine.
THank you sir. I may do a piece on the Armenia situation soon since it's heating up. But you're right it's a very tangled web of intrigues and motivations that's difficult to parse correctly because there are so many vying/competing interests as you've pointed out.
there is also the end of the road for the delusion of 'weak multi-polarity' многовекторность that many weak, small post-USSR republics went on proclaiming where they have illusions that forever threating to switch side and playing various greater powers against each other is somehow beneficial. Take money from USA to open a base in Kyrgyzstan, then take money from China (or Russia) to close it, then repeat, etc. All weak republics played that game, Ukraine played it like crazy, Belarus, and all 'stans' tried. That time has ended as China, Russia, etc grew up and told such countries that relationships have to be mutually beneficial. If you have something to offer , do so -just constantly extorting someone MUCH stronger and bigger than you will result in them shrugging and walking off . Armenia is trying to do exactly that 'give us, give us, give us' or we 'will , will, will' (leave collective security treaty, make some deal with whoever ,etc). It does not work and could not work
Simple solution - have a referendum. Like in Crimea in 2014. But Azerbaijan dictator will continue to suppress Human Rights of Self-Determination.
Sure but will they take into account the votes of Azeris who were kicked out of there during the first war? Otherwise doesn't seem very fair to those folks.
And it's not fair to the (Armenian) folks who were kicked out of Azeri territory.
There were two small territories in this region - one was politically part of Azerbaijan but majority Armenian, the other was politically part of Armenia, but majority Azerbaijani. Azerbaijan now claims that both territories belong to Azerbaijan.
Similar to what NATO did in Yugoslavia - rip apart an area where the people tolerated each other and turned them into bitter warring countries. Or similar to what the US Deep State is attempting in Ukraine and Georgia. And elsewhere. The uninvited 3rd party stirring things up.
This isn't rocket science.
Armenia feels Russia isn't prioritizing Armenia's interests as much as desired because Russia also maintains relations with Azerbaijan - the latter because the Azeris are exporting a lot of oil and natural gas to the West. Russia wants the Azeris in the future NGOPEC.
Plus Azerbaijan is significantly being assisted by Erdogan/Turkiye.
So Pashinian's "stroke of genius" is to replace Russia with the West. LOL what a dumbfuck. As if the West won't ALSO favor Azerbaijan because the Azeris are one of the few major sources of natural gas available to continental Europe now.
The curse of Armenia is that it is of divided mind. Very small land with massive diasporas in three main centers (Russia, EU/France, US) that have little reason to agree on anything. it is not a country; it is an office - don't remember which Armenian leader said that.
That may be so, and the Armenian lobby in the US does exist though of course nowhere remotely as large/effective as the Israeli one.
Nonetheless the notion that the US/West can be of any material assistance to Armenia in its losing fight with Azerbaijan is idiotic to an amazing degree.
Armenia is 2500 km from the Mediterranean; the Persian Gulf and Red Sea are basically BRICS lakes now.
By land, it is even worse: Armenia is "only" 2000 km from Greece but has pretty much all of Turkey in between - which I've already noted is actively helping Azerbaijan.
All Pashinian is doing is ensuring an even worse deal than what Russia is attempting to mediate - because clearly Putin and Lavrov understand Armenia's situation a lot better than that moron Pashinian does.
Given Russia has more armenians living in it (for hundreds of years) than Armenia itself, it is a puzzle for them why Soros boy Pashinian is doing that. Overall, Armenia is learning that (in russian), 'it is hard to be partially pregnant' , you either are or you arent.
If Karabah is indeed Armenian land , then why in 30 years (!!) Armenia itself did not recognized it as such?
If Karabah is an independent entity , then again why in 30 years Armenia did not recognize it as legitimate entity?
Having done neither, and also not declaring war on Azeri, and holding back troops not allowing them to fight for Karabah, what moral/legal/ethic ground does Armenia has to demand same from its allies?
As an ally of Russia , has Armenia recognized Crimea and new territories as part of Russia? No? Why? And again, why are you demanding of Russia to break ties with Baku when millions of Azeri are similarly good russian citizens? Russia has tens of millions of muslims and happily integrated multicultural society, thinking it would has to go die for you when you are busy proclaiming your 'european aspirations' , 'euro-centric choice' is stupid..
My view is that Pashinian thinks he can do an Erdogan or pre-Orange-Revolution-attempt Lukashenko, but without understanding that Armenia simply is not in the physical, political or economic position to do so.
As for "war on Azerbaijan": my understanding is that Armenia was conclusively defeated by Azerbaijan in the last round of fighting, and that ongoing Azeri arms purchases funded by their energy windfall is only making the relative military situation worse - and this discounts the already 3to1 population difference between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
If the above and previous statements are correct - then the only explanation for Armenia's behavior is that Armenia has managed to get incompetent European leadership without any accompanying actual benefit.
Sorry , when talking about declaring war - I meant during the actual events of fighting. Do you know that Armeria never did declare war during the fighting? Never annexed Karabah. Never even admitted it exists as independent entity , not once. This is how children behave while screaming 'our alias abandoned us'. FAFO is what happen to the regime in Yerevan.
Compare it to RU, they made the decision that recognizing and then assisting Donbass republics would lead to war, they knew the price, they took the action, and paid the price in blood, sweat, and tears. Tens of thousands died (30k at this count). This is how adults behave.
And right now, Ukraine is another example of passive aggressive psychopath that simultaneously :
- happily collects transit fees for everything from gas to oil
- does not declare war on Russia
- screams to the world we are at war with Russia.
which one is it?
Armenia did almost no fighting in the last war, which was almost exclusively between the Republic of Artsakh and Azerbaijan. Some volunteers were allowed to go join them, but others were not. Only near the end, when the fighting reached Armenia's own borders and the Azeri victory seemed certain did they conduct some half-hearted minor operations using their own forces.
This wasn't a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan at all, but a selling out of the Armenians living in Artsakh. This has further split apart and polarised Armenian society, many of which now see Pashinian and his supporters as traitors.
From a somewhat objective standpoint, Armenia appears to be slowly self-destructing.
(Greek) Cyprus and France are also playing an outsized role in this as well.
Thanks for your great work! I'm sharing it in tomorrows ASkeptic Report.
https://askeptic.substack.com/
Thanks for your great work a skeptic...!!!!
To compliment Simplicius’s detailed analysis, in “Ukraine: Biden's Sacrificial Lamb Cast into the Volcano," I zoom out and examine the Ukrainian tragedy in the context of the U.S. Empire's malevolent actions and its old, decrepit man at the helm of a sham presidency leading us towards World War III.
https://trygvewighdal.substack.com/p/ukraine-the-bidens-sacrificial-lamb
@Trygve E. Wighdal
LEADING us to WWII?
Sorry, NATO/USA and the majority of Asia are ALREADY engaged in the next "lukewarm" world war. Perception managers do still bravely try to submerge public awareness of that fact in USA for now.
We are someplace analogous to the "phony war" stage of 1939 (before the infamous German ur blitzkrieg end run around the Maginot line), when Poland was freshly dismembered, Hitler & Stalin were officially still BFFs and Britain had an army on the continent largely sitting on their hands- About the time le French bravely half arsed an assault into Germany.
The next couple of phases (where people YOU personally knew get killed & war news is "above the fold" in NY Times EVERY day) will be here soon enough.
Shortly followed by the phases where trying to stay warm and scavengeing non radioactive food are more important than the crater where they used to publish the NYT.
Hitler and Stalin were never officially or in reality BFFs, any more than Churchill and Stalin were ever BFFs just because they were allies eventually. Stalin concluded a treaty with Hitler only after being rebuffed by both France and Britain when trying to form an anti-Hitler alliance with them. It is ironic that only after facing Hitler on their own were they willing to ally with USSR, and then only for the duration of the war!
Have yet to read the article but it seems that it is not really a matter of tactics; the sheer disparity in forces and means is the central problem. Ukraine simply lacks the means to win in offensive combat no matter what tactics are applied.
This explains the fetishization of western equipment as some kind of difference maker. It takes a licking, but keeps on ticking, like the old Timex watch ads proclaimed. I’ve seen a lot of articles about how the ability to recover the crew and the vehicle and repair one or the other is a huge force multiplier.
People love a good underdog story, but in the real world God is on the side of the big battalions.
I've read stuff like that since childhood. I remember all the Leopards Turkey lost in their adventure in Syria and remember reading, "well, the crews mostly survived." Well, kind of... the crews abandoned their tanks pretty immediately if anything went wrong or any damage happened. Just like we are seeing in Ukraine. So, yeah, that is a type of survivability... kind of...
@Dichotomos
Panther/Tiger tank crews learned to ditch ASAP when they experienced a "mobility kill" or mechanical breakdown last time they went on a road trip to the Ukraine- Since AT weapon operators even then had a distressing habit of firing until the target changed shape or caught fire, you know.
Plus side, a fair number of lightly used late war German tanks with fairly easily repairable damages left unrecovered on the field during 1944/45 for us to collect & display- Or keep in the basement!
https://www.dw.com/en/german-authorities-seize-wwii-heavy-weapons-collection/a-18559383
Brevette Pfc. That is a masterful bit of humour in that appellation. Well done.
@ A lurker
One must laugh, or one will surely cry.
Russians do the same thing. Without mobility a tank is toast. The Russians appear to be able to recover most of theirs while the hohols don't, even when they're behind their own lines. NATO appears to have given them virtually no spare parts or recovery equipment.
But... but .. but... What about all those videos of thrifty Uranian farmers easily towing abandoned Russian armored vehicles behind their tractors?!
Precisely. Anyone looking at the military balance between Russia and Ukraine displayed by most western MSM before the war started could easily see that Ukraine could not possibly win. It was a delusional fantasy from the start.
If Ukrainians soak up munitions that could be used to kill NATO troops NATO sees that as a win.
Except Russia now has more and better weapons than they started with and nafo has run it's stocks dry.
I'm not sure where you are getting "more weapons" from, and the idea that the West is out of supplies has been tossed around for over a year now to little effect.
it is in the news that come out, double munitions production in 2022, double it again in early 2023 and on the trend to increase it now. That is RU we are talking about and artillery shells. Tank production is thousands per year, four shifts (well paid) in the factories, ads recruiting personnel (we will train you and pay you) - this is not like it is a secret.. Shipbuilding 30+ vessels a year now, 300+ combat helis a year. again, this is just RU and just things that could not be hidden (hard to hide laying dozens of new ships and then publicly releasing them to the navy), I have no idea on what China is doing . If you do not see 'significantly more weapons' that RU is building and increasing in building , I do not know where you are looking
Weapons and munitions also are being used up.
Well, Russia has put all their weapons in practice. They have observed the lacking points and corrected. Many weapons are receiving now updates or new versions.
They have launched many recoinessance satellites, improve their drone production, get a super crazy update Lancet…
On the other hand the west probably has learn something, but as the war is fought by ukriane their lessons are far less effective.
About western munitions, the effect has been already notice.
US now send cluster munition because they don’t have any more high explosión munition.
Cluster munition is good to kill some poor civilian in Donbass but pretty ineffective against armoured vehicles.
So the effect is there.
Additionally for the West the toll is tremendous.
Their weapons were always far more expensive than Russians, but at the moment of truth they are performing the same.
However the luck of tje Wsst is that there is few “neutral” countries that can really decide to whom buy stuff.
Europe basically slit its own throat at America's order.
Not only that, they have ended freedom of speech, association and the press for anyone who dissents, not to mention property rights.
That is impressive lackeying. But as I said, Europeans like being slaves.
I wouldn't worry about the age of the F-16 airframes. They won't last long enough for metal fatigue to become a problem. That's not me being snarky it's something I picked up from Senor Millenium7*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgHud7Z5vaE
It's an excellent channel well worth your time. 2 months ago he predicted that the F-16s would be in Ukraine by the autumn. He maybe off on that but it's a political decision and Millenium7* has always been much stronger on the technology than the politics.
I do watch his channel from time to time already, you're right it's pretty good stuff and he seems to be knowledgeable particularly on fighter jet radar physics, more so than any other mainstream blogger at least. And even though he's pro-Ukraine he still does a fairly impartial job compared to most
Slovak MiG-29s sent to Ukraine were ALL beyond airframe service life. Most Polish ones were even worse as Poles were even keeping them in service with seemingly unsafe flight hours on record.
None of them crashed because of being worn out. They were mostly fine.
None of these Belgian F-16s would crash in Ukraine for this reason. Life expectancy of airframes is a very conservative estimate. Unless there's some serious flaw, something that would be known if F-16s were suffering from.
Belgian F-16s have a problem that they're crap because of crap maintenance and they "barely work", at best. Also, it's politics. It's quite hard to explain you're sending an expensive asset paid for by your voters, to another country (that's not even your ally de jure or de facto, and is highly unpopular). For free.
It's a thinly-plausible excuse to get out of the obligation without signalling that Belgium is betraying its 'commitments', not a real problem.
If the F-16s serve as perception tokens and survive long enough to soak up Russian SAMs, then they have done exactly what they were intended to do.
Excellent, thanks a bunch from a big long time "lurking" fan.
I'm curious though.
What about those supposed disruptions of collective training they claim hamper russian infantry?
Sounds very much like one of those drive by assertions they hope people won't think about too much, even while it gets stuck in their subconscious.
And the way they are shocked, shocked about the fact the training for russian tank crews continues to function.
What's their actual argument for why we SHOULD find any of that surprising?
Okay, that's a semi rhetorical one.
I read a paper from RUSI a while back on Russian tactics that did the same thing. Supposedly sourced from frontline Uke officers but most of the cited quotes came from the upper echelons of the Defense Ministry and SBU; both have been sources of massive lies from day one. Anyhow, the report would find some small valid critique of Russian tactics (like occasional lack of coordination between units) that is cited by an actual Uke combat officer and then list of a whole line of blind assertions Russian units are all just untrained conscripts, officers steal their men's money, etc. etc. Propaganda from the 1990s basically. The one actually provable assertion is mixed in with a bunch of BS lies to try and conflate them all.
Yeah that's the problem with most of these Western reports. They take one small *truth* but then deliberately spin it up out of proportion and disingenuously apply it as a generality.
Yeah there are endless problems in the Russian forces which I'm not shy to talk about, but one of the reasons why I don't often delve deeply into them or dwell on them at length is because they are often very isolated things that do not apply to the whole as in the case of the AFU.
AFU's aren't *completely* uniform either. There are tons of strengths they have and good units, etc., but the problems are far *more* pervasive throughout their armed forces than Russia's are through theirs is what I'm saying.
It is interesting that you mention that "think tanks" would spin "truths" out of proportion considering that they are vital for policy/decision making and incorrect assessments can lead to errors.
I understand journalists spinning things, but I do not get why think tanks would do such a think? I imagine they'd need to provide the most objective analysis possible. Can you explain please, Simplicus?
In their war against their own populations, the western elite classes have introduced ideologies and propaganda to weaken and demoralize those populations. The danger in any sort of attack vector like that (just like poison gas or germ warfare) is getting a whiff of it yourself. Very large portions of the various strata of the western elite have been captured by their own black ideologies and propaganda. It will be their undoing.
A corollary of your point: modern elites control the media, and consequently public opinion, so completely that they come to think they control reality itself.
99% of people everywhere are looking out for numero uno. Once an organization goes far enough down the wrong path, the safe thing is usually prepare a parachute while continuing to publicly support the wrong path. I think this explains the west better than craziness. In other words, they know the group is wrong but it's dangerous for any individual to be the first to say that. And remember, there is no long term accountability in the west. As long as you make it to retirement age, you get a pension, no matter how bad your performance.
Once you start down that road, you have to start making choices. If the society and system that we live under does so much evil, how much will I compromise with it?
These choices can have very real personal and professional consequences. Try not paying taxes and see what happens. "Bartelby the Scrivener" it ain't.
Even if you do compromise, you are left with a guilty conscience.
By contrast, if you go along with the crowd, you can avoid those tough choices and face no consequences, and your conscience stays relatively untroubled, for the time being at least. Even in the worst case, you can say to yourself that you did what every other Good German did under the circumstances.
"Think tanks" are funded by private organizations. The most prolific funders of think tanks are arms manufacturers and the various "security companies" that now proliferate throughout Western society producing everything from cell-phone apps to gunlocks. They fund studies and people who promote their agenda, which is to sell arms. Those the think tanks, who exchange personnel monthly with the U.S. State Department and the various intelligence agencies, produce an endless series of studies promoting the great value of Raytheon and Lockhead weapons and provide an endless list of "threats" around the world against which these weapons must be deployed. It is as simple as everyone says. The arms manufacturers produce war to make money, and the "think tanks" are nothing more than glorified advertising agencies, selling the need for war and weapons.
Even more important than the individual arms manufacturers are the "multinationals" and the investment firms that have made a imperialism their business model. The original Neo-cons were funded and led by the CEO of Halliburton, and sure enough, they found every possible reason to go to war in every oil-producing region of the world. All the contracts for the "reconstruction" of these oil-producing countries went to Halliburton, It really is as simple as that. The original neo-con think tanks acted as advertising agencies for Halliburton. Now we have Blackrock and Vanguard, who fund multiple think tanks that promote the Ukraine war, and who has making the deals to finance the "reconstruction" of Ukraine. In word of Joe Biden... well son of bitch if it isn't Blackrock and Vanguard. There is nothing more to it.
There is a good quote from the novel "Red Army" by Ralph Peters that I always liked.
"Wars aren't won by the most competent army, they are won by the least incompetent army."
In most cases, even these close-to-frontline-analysts do not speak Russian (or Ukrainian, sometimes they may find one speaking it), so you got another filter by interviewing only soldiers/officers that speak English or by introducing a translator. Sometimes the best information may be obtained by just listening to people talking, not by getting answers to questions from the uncle from UK.
What disruptions of training are you referring to? I'm not aware of any off the top of my head even insofar as claims--fake or not--from the Ukraine side. Only thing I can think of is claims to poor/disrupted/accelerated training for mobilized troops called up last September, but not sure if that's what you were referring to.
Or do you mean the 1 or 2 claimed "strikes" they did on Russian training centers, like the recent one near Crimea, or something to that effect? There's literally been like 2 of those total and they appeared to barely cause any casualties at all so it's not very disruptive in the grand scheme.
If you re-read the screenshot you posted from the RUSI report, they mention disruptions to training of Russian infantry. It is without context, I think that is what he means.
Yeah, that's exactly what I meant, should have been clearer about it.
Apologies to Master Simplicius and everyone for creating any confusion.
And of course he despite my lack of clarity did confirm that it's indeed the complete BS I assumed it was.
ScipioAfricanus correctly guessed that I had meant that out of context throwaway line that just happened to be part of the screenshot you posted, sorry for not being clear about that.
But you happened to answer my question, confirming it to be the BS I assumed it was, anyway, so thanks again.
Didn't sckamela state that Russia is already defeated. And Mitch gave his glue to Biden to sniffles
It's always Up is Down and Down is Up with those people.
"It is also important to recognise that Russian forces are fighting more competently and with reasonable tenacity in the defence." I love this quote from RUSI. "Reasonable tenacity?" LOL, the Russians have barely budged from their OUTPOST line and conducted endless counterattacks for each minor hohol advance. The defense has been ferocious. Savage.
The fact that the Russians have fought tooth and nail for each inch of ground tells me two things:
1. The Russians expected to suffer much higher casualties and instead are suffering extremely light casualties. The outpost line is a tripwire and nothing more; if Russia was taking even moderate casualties they'd have abandoned the outpost line long ago and moved into their actual defenses.
2. Russian morale is sky-high. You don't get units fighting like this with low morale. There would have been breakthrough somewhere if Russian units even had moderate morale because endless fighting against even dunderheads like the hohol "Nafo trained" units will take its toll and cause units to crack apart.
It's more or less a turkey shoot for the Russians. Re: Rybar video on Intel Slava, Sept 7. Gruesome.
One of the reasons morale is so high is because a Russian soldier gets QUITE a nice bonus for every piece of equipment they destroy - that guy who used a Kornet to kill the Challenger basically just won a free seaside vacation for his family, for instance. But for Ukrainians, they're lucky just to get their base salary paid on time.
Even without bonuses the minimal salary of Russian soldiers is at least 3x higher than average salary in Russia. A significant part of the Russian population would never be able to earn so much money.
Thanks again. You rock!! (not as much as bombing raid on Ukraine though :)
So many thorough reality checks 🏆
Smoke on the Water. LOL! Finally some music I can relate to for a war porn video.
"They said the NATO officers don't understand the reality on the ground." I get the impression this is often a problem in most every war. Officers not understanding the reality on the ground. (and politicians)
The Russians do not mess around. Pretty interesting the changing out of the tank barrels. I have never seen that before. I am still impressed at how quickly they change out the chopper blades.
I remember an episode from the original Star Trek, some planet in a galaxy far, far away would put people in a cylinder tube when their number came up and they would get vaporized, peacefully, painlessly. The ways of old war was just too nasty so the countries had reached a compromise as a way of killing each other. Of course Captain James T. Kirk saved the day, changed their thinking, and brought peace to the two warring fractions. At this point I think that modality would be better for the Ukrainians. This war needs to end, yesterday, but the Swamp keeps sending in the cash, it makes me sick. It is all so twisted on so many levels.
The Russians certainly don't mess around. Not in Syria and not in Ukraine.Whilst schizo NATO press proclaim a different story, the Russian forces systematically (almost boring) forge ahead and create reality. Regrettably this comes at the cost of many fine lives. The one good thing about all of this, is the reigning in of NATO arrogance. Where there might have been a chance of them getting involved in this conflict, I think they now fully realise that they are just not up to the task of fighting a world power. China anyone? Goodness, don't make me cry.
NATO is a tool that needs to be broken.
Great analysis.
I had heard that Ukraine was firing most of their M777s at the max charge so they could be farther to the rear. And that this would mean the barrels wearing out even faster. I didn't think they had as many as 150 but probably have at most half of them left.
I had also wondered about the alledged benefit of NATO kit or training.
I guess future tank designers will focus mostly on protection for new designs. Probably cutting mobility as I doubt they would reduce firepower. Heavy armour on all 6 sides, ERA and other protection systems mounted. Some sort of large gun to fire HE to destroy bunkers and buildings on the assault. And maybe a fire control system, FCS, that will also enable the crew to also fire indirectly; to be used as type of artillery. On our Leopard C1s we had gun laying instruments - a traverse indicator and clinometer to adust for elevation. We could only fire HE out to 4000 metres with out FCS, anything farther would be engaged with our gun laying instruments. But the Leopard 2 and M1 doesn't have these. I suppose a tank with an ability to carry Infantry, like Merkava, would get some consideration. Definitely a diesel engine. With an auxiliry generator to run systems while static.
Of course it would also need to have an on-board microwave, toaster oven, and hot gravy dispenser!
https://weapons.substack.com/p/abrams-tank-upgrade-is-cancelled
Interesting take on the MI's replacement. The army wants its current 79 ton vehicle to be replaced by a 45 ton one. Hmmm...? What is the betting on that?
My take is that if it happens, it will inevitably become another Bradley. They will start with a 45 ton vehicle, but the usual mission creep will add another 20 tons of scrap on it, while the underlying base will only be fit for 45 tons.
Therefore it will be only worse than the M1 in every aspect it was supposed to improve over the M1.
Just getting a diesel engine would greatly benefit the M1 series.
The problem is that it was designed with a turbine. Converting it to diesel would require a completely new transmission too. And all of that needs to fit in the same space as the old turbine engine.
For example MTU MB 873 (Leo 2 engine) would fit inside the same space (it's a bit smaller in every dimension than AGT1500, the M1's turbine), but it would be oriented in a wrong way.
Also, the original Allison gearbox in M1 has absolutely no chance of surviving the torque and HSWL 354 from Leo wouldn't fit.
In the end, they'd need to commit themselves into designing a completely new power pack that would be constrained by turbine engine dimensions and end up with a weird design (this happened to T-80UD), or they'd need to substantially re-engineer half of the tank.
Note just to illustrate how out of place the T-80UD's 6TD engine was:
It was designed in early 1980's.
It had displacement of just 16.3 litres (less than half of T-72's almost 39L and much less than Leo 2 24.7L) and is a 2-stroke. But, unlike contemporary tank engines, it had only 6 cylinders with 2 opposed pistons per cylinder . So they were quite big (2.7L per cylinder in comparison to 2L in Leo 2).
But, it produced 1,000HP at 2,800 RPM (it revved very high for a big diesel engine) and had 2 crankshafts (they are both connected to the gearbox, which has 2 input shafts) . That meant much higher specific output than contemporary tank engines (well, it's half the specific output of Bugatti Veyron - yikes) except for Leo 2's MTU which was considered to be superhigh performance diesel engine (6TD had roughly 20% higher specific power). To compare it to more familiar numbers - at 2,800 RPM, it produced 62BHP per liter of displacement. That's the same as mid-2000s 140BHP 2.0TDi in VW Group cars (in a much older Soviet tank engine!). With 2.7L per single cylinder and crappy diesel fuel or not even diesel fuel but anything that burned.
And as you would expect, it was all accompanied by gargantuan turbo-lag, as it was turbocharged.
Thanks for the info!
I think they may design a whole new tank with a diesel engine.
They just recently cancelled the SEP v4 upgrade for Abrams and are going for some "larger upgrade" that's not yet specified.
But funny that we're here.
The Abrams X tech demonstrator unveiled last year (a very ambitious vision for Abrams upgrade) used Cummins ACE (Advanced Combat Engine). It's a newly developed engine (government financed the development). And there's something interesting.
It's a 6 cylinder opposed piston turbocharged diesel engine, exactly like the 6TD in T-80UD. It's supposed to be a part of a modular family of engines (3,4 and 6 cylinder) ... Again like the 6TD (OK, it also has 5 cylinder version).
Well, as long as it brews coffee, the elixir of life...
Excellent and thorough piece! Clearly, once Russia started adapting to this new kind of hybrid war, the end was pretty certain given Russia's (with some help from its allies) superior production capabilities, better weapons and manpower advantage....Putin's gradualist strategy of attritting Ukraine's forces has also yielded big political benefits...
How we all laughed at Bagdad Bob with his prognostications of imminent victory. And yet, here we have the entire MSM as the new Kiev Ken, making the same absurd claims that defy all logic and common sense, yet this time we believe. I suppose when it finally ends in Ukrainian defeat it too will be sold as a great NATO victory for freedom and democracy, two abstract notions we no longer even comprehend.
Regardless of the outcome of this historic conflict, the hegemony of the west will be forever altered. If we are able to avoid nuclear annihilation, then a new world order will come to be. Hopefully the west will acquiesce and accept a more humble and enlightened future with it's own well being foremost as it's ideology.