Russia Invades Ukraine. Volume 4

[Cheib]

TheJimi said:

PRTVR said:

The UK might supply Ukraine with it's latest laser weapon , Dragonfly.

https://youtu.be/FMR9vebM1d0?si=pkE49I8aXW4AbfUP

Pros and cons.

Pros - excellent beta testing.

Cons - less than ideal if it ended up in Russian hands.

Hard to believe a better way to test it.

Fair fks if it does get sent.

[Cheib]

Byker28i said:

Claims that the USA have approved the transfer of 12 Norwegian F-16 Fighters to Ukraine and 10 more F-16s that could be used for spare parts

65 F-16s have been approved for transfer by USA: 24 from Netherlands, 19 from Denmark, and 22 from Norway

https://twitter.com/ukraine_map/status/17785618674...

Good news but I think the biggest issue is pilots and having the right kind of infrastructure to operate them. Who knows if anyone s going to supply them with the the right kind of armaments too ?!?!

[TheJimi]

hidetheelephants said:

Actual honest-to-god pew-pew-lasers. Nice!

[isaldiri]

off_again said:

I was reading an article about the US drones supplied to Ukraine and that they have been utterly disastrous. From being easily defeated by electronic warfare to poor field reliability - this has shown that they are unsuitable for real-world situations. Excellent beta testing of course, but we might not want to find out the results.

Well, it's obviously better to find out the results when failure means it's not 'your' people doing the unpleasant bit of dying when that happens so why on earth would we not want to see what the results are....? That would be the whole point of said beta testing after all.

[borcy]

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/31017

Women being recruited for front line units.

[Sheets Tabuer]

Women everywhere: Yeah about that equality thing.

[stevesingo]

PRTVR said:

The UK might supply Ukraine with it's latest laser weapon , Dragonfly.

https://youtu.be/FMR9vebM1d0?si=pkE49I8aXW4AbfUP

Not much good if there is no electricity to power it.

[Talksteer]

Cheib said:

TheJimi said:

PRTVR said:

The UK might supply Ukraine with it's latest laser weapon , Dragonfly.

https://youtu.be/FMR9vebM1d0?si=pkE49I8aXW4AbfUP

Pros and cons.

Pros - excellent beta testing.

Cons - less than ideal if it ended up in Russian hands.

Hard to believe a better way to test it.

Fair fks if it does get sent.

If it gets deployed I would imagine that it would go to a fixed site a long way from a front line given that portability is likely to be a compromise to get early variants of it out and therefore you wouldn't want it to be in artillery range of the Russians.

It doesn't need a substantial power source to operate it it will use batteries.

[sherbertdip]

stevesingo said:

PRTVR said:

The UK might supply Ukraine with it's latest laser weapon , Dragonfly.

https://youtu.be/FMR9vebM1d0?si=pkE49I8aXW4AbfUP

Not much good if there is no electricity to power it.

Thankfully you don't need to plug them into a 13 amp socket, a generator will do the job.

[Gecko1978]

BBC new talking about Ukraine being defeated in 2024. If this does happen we in the West have let it by delayed supply of weapons. To let a European nation be over run by an aggressor is a shame on us all.

[Prolex-UK]

Gecko1978 said:

BBC new talking about Ukraine being defeated in 2024. If this does happen we in the West have let it by delayed supply of weapons. To let a European nation be over run by an aggressor is a shame on us all.

Americans are main cause.

Unforgivable what they are doing.

But yes pretty st all in all

[CrgT16]

It would be such a shame but not a shock to me if that happens. I am not pro Russian but from an early onset of the conflict I could see the way both parties are fighting it would be very difficult for Ukraine to win.

The Russians just play with different rules, have a huge amount of manpower and probably just win due to that not any fancy weapons, nuclear, etc. they will send thousands and thousands of man into it and Putin doesn’t care about lives lost. There are a lot of poor Russians that will be dragged into the war regardless of choice.

I sincerely hope I am wrong and it’s just me being a pessimist but I don’t think Ukraine has a chance with the current meagre commitment from the West.

[GT03ROB]

Gecko1978 said:

BBC new talking about Ukraine being defeated in 2024. If this does happen we in the West have let it by delayed supply of weapons. To let a European nation be over run by an aggressor is a shame on us all.

It's telling that there is very little by way of good news coming out about Ukraine. There are no Ukrainian advance being reported, yet Russia does seem to gain minimal ground albeit at a high cost. Western tanks are not game changers, it's probably questionable if F16s will make a discernable difference.

Demographically Russia just has too much meat to chuck at the problem.

[blueST]

Yesterday’s Telegraph podcast was pretty down beat about the whole situation too. Probably the most negative I’ve heard to date. An excellent podcast nonetheless.

They ended with an interview with a Ukrainian commander who was discussing tactics amongst other things. They can’t use soviet doctrine because that requires too many men and has less regard for life, but they can’t fully adopt NATO doctrine because that is based on having huge amounts of kit which they also don’t have. His comments about the parlous state of the Bradleys they were sent was not good either.

I’m really hoping they can hang on until after election season when hopefully the political winds will change and western politicians might wake up from sleepwalking into this disaster.

[W12GT]

Prolex-UK said:

Gecko1978 said:

BBC new talking about Ukraine being defeated in 2024. If this does happen we in the West have let it by delayed supply of weapons. To let a European nation be over run by an aggressor is a shame on us all.

Americans are main cause.

Unforgivable what they are doing.

But yes pretty st all in all

I’ve said it before about Trump being as bad as Putin. His crazy followers are culpable for USA inaction to provide further support to Ukraine. As a nation they should be ashamed of themselves. Trump is a disgrace and history will not look kindly on him.

I cannot believe that ‘the civilised West’ are not supporting Ukraine sufficiently. The loser will always be the one who runs out of weapons / munitions / soldiers first.

Deeply saddened by this news for all Ukrainians but also for what will happen next, because Russia won’t stop, next it will be Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and I don’t believe NATO will do anything. Anyone in the UK with sons that are 8-45years old now could see them being sent off to fight in 10years time - assuming that would be the timeline for Russia to migrate far enough that we decide to do anything. Alternatively if
5years time then those that 13-50years old now.

Didn’t think I’d even be thinking that in my lifetime let alone typing it. I personally will never go to America again and spend my money there; additionally considering that I read an article this week that should Trump fail to win then there is a very distant chance it could descend into civil war; seems like they are already at that point politically so who knows if it could manifest into physical. If that happened, I’m pretty sure the Republicans would win because they are the nutters with all the guns!

Edited to add - All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to stand by and do nothing.

Edited by W12GT on Saturday 13th April 07:51

[RichFN2]

It's been nearly a year since Ukraine's big summer offensive, which was generally a failure and unfortunately Ukraine have been forced into defence mode with a few retreats on the frontline. Although you could argue this is more to do with the lack of equipment allies have sent to Ukraine rather than Russian superiority.

It's also been about 6 weeks since I posted about the fall of Avdiivka, and Russia have 'only' advanced about 15 miles deeper into Ukraine since then (in that area) Russia are also advancing in other areas of the frontline but some haven't changed in a while.

The problem for Russia is the staggering losses they have encountered, it's reported Russia has enough tanks etc for another 2 years and I really don't see them capturing all of Ukraine in that timeframe.

[Abbott]

There are a lot of if / could / should s in that BBC report.
It may be just a bit of politicing to wake up the supporting nations into more action.

It aint over till its over.

[BikeBikeBIke]

Sheets Tabuer said:

Women everywhere: Yeah about that equality thing.

[stevesingo]

W12GT said:

I’ve said it before about Trump being as bad as Putin. His crazy followers are culpable for USA inaction to provide further support to Ukraine. As a nation they should be ashamed of themselves. Trump is a disgrace and history will not look kindly on him.

I cannot believe that ‘the civilised West’ are not supporting Ukraine sufficiently. The loser will always be the one who runs out of weapons / munitions / soldiers first.

Deeply saddened by this news for all Ukrainians but also for what will happen next, because Russia won’t stop, next it will be Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and I don’t believe NATO will do anything. Anyone in the UK with sons that are 8-45years old now could see them being sent off to fight in 10years time - assuming that would be the timeline for Russia to migrate far enough that we decide to do anything. Alternatively if
5years time then those that 13-50years old now.

Didn’t think I’d even be thinking that in my lifetime let alone typing it. I personally will never go to America again and spend my money there; additionally considering that I read an article this week that should Trump fail to win then there is a very distant chance it could descend into civil war; seems like they are already at that point politically so who knows if it could manifest into physical. If that happened, I’m pretty sure the Republicans would win because they are the nutters with all the guns!

Edited to add - All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to stand by and do nothing.

Agreed

[Alias218]

loafer123 said:

Given the beam is invisible, detecting it may be a challenge.

A small number of Special Forces with a deadman’s switch should protect the tech.

It’s only invisible in the visible light spectrum, i.e., to eyeballs. Any number of sensors could be deployed to detect the beam depending on what wavelength it operates at. The MoD have have released pictures of the beam in operation so it can be imaged.

Admittedly, the Russians would have to be looking in the right direction at the time to see what I assume is a relatively short impulse.