Russia and Ukraine

[Thumpalumpacus]

Ukrainian forces employed light aircraft (think used cessna).... not as kamikaze drones.... but as bombers carrying fab250s to strike the ust-luga terminal outside St. Petersburg.  Massive fire, including two tankers.  Additionally, they nabbed themselves yet another navy bote at Vyborg shipyard.  Project23550 Patrol Icebreaker.

What air defense doing?

Smoking a cigarette, apparently.

[Fireball]

Not seeing much about Ukraine, what with all the other crap going on. More orcs meeting with their personal deities is good.

[The Grand Nudger]

They've crushed the initial spring-summer offensive with a terrifying array of air and ground drones, have been steadily retaking occupied territory, and managed to find time to help the rest of the world out with their recently contracted iranian drone problem.... between embarrassing nato militaries in training as the opposing force....as they rack up something like 1200 russian casualties a day for weeks on end.

Putin remains a master strategist.

(unfortunately, ukranian success does not sell as many papers or get as many clicks as ukranian failure - the lamestream media is still sore about getting scooped by civvies with iphones and then totally whiffing their projections - not to mention all those oligarch adjacent fucks buying up coverage and stanning for Mr. You Don't Have The Cards! The ukranian military has become absolutely monstrous, but the war drags on, and civilian support for seeing it to the end no matter what wavers.)

[Jackalope]

They've crushed the initial spring-summer offensive with a terrifying array of air and ground drones, have been steadily retaking occupied territory, and managed to find time to help the rest of the world out with their recently contracted iranian drone problem.... between embarrassing nato militaries in training as the opposing force....as they rack up something like 1200 russian casualties a day for weeks on end.

Putin remains a master strategist.

I tell you hwat, this Russian military is nothing compared to the Soviet military we trained against and expected to fight in the late 80s. What a bad joke.

[The Grand Nudger]

The russians seemed legit in the late 90's and very early 00's too. Putin, always yammering on about building russian military strength and national pride, had systematically hollowed out their forces long before the botched invasion of '22.

[Fireball]

They've crushed the initial spring-summer offensive with a terrifying array of air and ground drones, have been steadily retaking occupied territory, and managed to find time to help the rest of the world out with their recently contracted iranian drone problem.... between embarrassing nato militaries in training as the opposing force....as they rack up something like 1200 russian casualties a day for weeks on end.

Putin remains a master strategist.

I tell you hwat, this Russian military is nothing compared to the Soviet military we trained against and expected to fight in the late 80s.  What a bad joke.

Right? We built a massive satellite system to communicate around whatever they did (MILSTAR, and then Advanced EHF, both of which I worked on for many years, with a side excursion into Missile Defense). We were wetting our shorts over the capabilities of what has now turned into a paper tiger. My personal take is that we should have been there with the Ukrainians while the drone tech was being developed. We apparently weren't. Dafuq? Really!? Unless that effort was behind a "paywall", but I'm seeing where that appears not to be the case.

[The Grand Nudger]

We were leaders in drone tech....but then we had our own putin, hollowing out our own military in much the same way while bragging about rebuilding it.

[Thumpalumpacus]

They've crushed the initial spring-summer offensive with a terrifying array of air and ground drones, have been steadily retaking occupied territory, and managed to find time to help the rest of the world out with their recently contracted iranian drone problem.... between embarrassing nato militaries in training as the opposing force....as they rack up something like 1200 russian casualties a day for weeks on end.

Putin remains a master strategist.

I tell you hwat, this Russian military is nothing compared to the Soviet military we trained against and expected to fight in the late 80s.  What a bad joke.

When I was in, 89-93, we planned for a beast. Our first inkling that it wasn't all cracked-up to be was Desert Storm, but hey, those were Iraqis, we still figured Stavka (or whatever they called it then) would be more competent.

It turns out that the Russians retained their mental outlook of being a superpower, but couldn't afford to keep the sinews of their power strong. I was confident that we could deliver the goods, myself. But we got complacent.

I worry that we're in the same spiral vis-a-vis China, for that matter, because our recent administrations are spending money on appearances rather than actualities. Big, fat new nuclear carrier -- and 50% of the toilets aboard just don't work. Sentinel missile 30% over budget and already years delayed. Tanks designed fifty years ago expected to survive a modern battlefield. Drones? What are those?

Meanwhile we're refurbishing airfields on Tinian and Pelelieu, which suggests to me a retreat/back-foot mentality. And of course the current administration is busy shitting on the alliances we will need to confront the growing threat in the Western Pacific.

[Deesse23]

Smart move!
Historically Russia has a quite bad performance vs cessnas entering it's airspace!

[The Grand Nudger]

Well played, sir.