Русский корабль - иди нахуй

[Schulz2.0 29011]

 

[Schulz2.0 29011]

 

[Schulz2.0 29011]

I've posted Ms Berlin before. She's a geopolitical analyst and has helped with crowdfunding for stuff like drones. They recently did one to donate an APC to the Ukrainian army.

 

[SL Xpress 7518]

33 minutes ago, Schulz2.0 said:

I've posted Ms Berlin before. She's a geopolitical analyst and has helped with crowdfunding for stuff like drones. They recently did one to donate an APC to the Ukrainian army.

 

I want to marry her.

 

[SL Xpress 7518]

Here's a 5m feature on the helicopter pilots who flew 11 missions to supply the Azovstal steel plant after Mariupol had been surrounded.

The end of the video hit me pretty hard. Brave men.

Of course, the helicopter pilots weren't the only brave ones. Volunteers went in there as reinforcements. I've seen them mentioned in another interview with one of the Azov battalion commanders. They were part of the Azov regiment that refused to allow their brothers to die alone. They wanted to be there with them in this completely encircled fortress with no hope of anyone breaking the siege. 

 

[GoPokes83 2240]

Question. How large are the bombs dropped on the personnel from those drones? They don’t seem all that big, in many videos you see guys just a very few yards away that seem unscathed. From my limited experience if you threw a regular M67 grenade into a small foxhole as in the video, there wouldn’t be a whole lot left of the guy to shoot himself.

[Schulz2.0 29011]

 

[atomheartbevo 89799]

2 hours ago, SL Xpress said:

I want to marry her.

Her twitter banner is nice.

[atomheartbevo 89799]

Girkin openly mocking Putin.

Wagner PMC threatening to kill the administrators of a Russian town and calling them Nazis and saying they are worse than the Ukrainians trying to kill them.

[MissingInAction 25187]

44 minutes ago, GoPokes83 said:

Question. How large are the bombs dropped on the personnel from those drones? They don’t seem all that big, in many videos you see guys just a very few yards away that seem unscathed. From my limited experience if you threw a regular M67 grenade into a small foxhole as in the video, there wouldn’t be a whole lot left of the guy to shoot himself.

What they are dropping are light anti personnel ordnance that turn into high velocity shrapnel when they go off. Unless you take a piece to the head they shred but won't kill you at at first. 

Dude prolly got shrapnel to the nuts and decided to end it.

Edited March 19, 2023 by MissingInAction

[BamaATL 16593]

Another high altitude recon view of an artillery strike (I presume Excalibur)  This kind of methodical destruction will pay huge long term benefits

 

[GoPokes83 2240]

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from all these Ukraine propaganda videos, it’s that Eastern European rock music is really shitty!

[956 Worldwide 34772]

Russia has escalated to making open threats from its Embassy in Slovakia. It’s honestly time to kick these assholes out of everywhere until they’re ready to act normal. 

“Bratislava must clearly understand that increasingly active participation in military support for the Kyiv regime can have as a consequence an unpredictable and dangerous escalation of the conflict, for which the initiators of the decision will bear full responsibility.”

 

 

[Trey3216 15356]

On 3/17/2023 at 4:29 PM, RDCanecutter said:

Woulda loved to be in the pub the day the British soldiers heard that.

[BamaATL 16593]

I just want to fly....

 

[Nivek 16986]

Ukraine should request Russian Turret Tossing as the next new Olympic Sport.    

[BamaATL 16593]

This might be related

 

 

[SL Xpress 7518]

Usually I watch the whole video before I post it up. This one is 19m long. No music in the background. Very little editing.

The reason I'm posting it, other than what I've watched gives an unfiltered view of what it's like on the front lines, "Tell them I completed two stairs today. That's what we accomplished. Two stairs," is at 4:51 mark a guy in the trench receives a phone call. It's from the office of military mobilization. HIs buddy jokes that he's hiding from mobilization in a trench at Bakhmut!

 

[KYHorn 17159]

Surely this guy has some kind of kill switch that exposes all of Putin's secrets.

[SL Xpress 7518]

44 minutes ago, KYHorn said:

Surely this guy has some kind of kill switch that exposes all of Putin's secrets.

When is the last time you saw him in a video near a window? 

I don't have even remotely a clue what this guy's end game is. He obviously likes attention. That much is clear. He obviously views himself as a truthsayer, a person my Dad liked to say was "willing to put the turd on the table." But how do you make a living doing what this guy is doing? What does the rest of your life look like, however short that may be? Nobody in the west is going to align with the guy because of his past. He has to have made himself persona non grata in Russian ranks. As much control as Russia has over their people and their communications, I'm flabbergasted this guy still has a means to express his view. 

[Schulz2.0 29011]

 

1 hour ago, KYHorn said:

Surely this guy has some kind of kill switch that exposes all of Putin's secrets.

 

[Auto Driller 2506]

20 minutes ago, SL Xpress said:

When is the last time you saw him in a video near a window? 

I don't have even remotely a clue what this guy's end game is. He obviously likes attention. That much is clear. He obviously views himself as a truthsayer, a person my Dad liked to say was "willing to put the turd on the table." But how do you make a living doing what this guy is doing? What does the rest of your life look like, however short that may be? Nobody in the west is going to align with the guy because of his past. He has to have made himself persona non grata in Russian ranks. As much control as Russia has over their people and their communications, I'm flabbergasted this guy still has a means to express his view. 

My understanding is that he is still very popular in the nationalist and “milblogger” community due to his role in the initial formation of the L/DPR and Crimean annexation. Putin may worry that eliminating him may alienate his biggest source of domestic support. But I agree - I would have assumed that he would have jumped out of a window a long time ago.

[Schulz2.0 29011]

 

[RDCanecutter 26473]

1 hour ago, Schulz2.0 said:

 

Time to fire up the M60A1s.

[SquishMitten 10435]

22 hours ago, SL Xpress said:

At the risk of being a propagandist, this is some compelling helmet cam footage from the Russian side, from an assault group on Vulhedar. 

I wanted it to be found footage Blair Witch Project style, but alas, it is not. 

This is the 155th Separate Marine Brigade. They look well equipped and well trained, unlike a lot of the footage we see of Russians from the Ukraine side. Not invincible by any means. UAF is giving them whatfor with their artillery attacks, that's for sure. 

Some sadness in how nice the house seems like it might have been before the war, and when he looks through the photo album it hits me in the feels. I hope all the Russians in that video died or are wounded with no possibility of rejoining the fight. Nonetheless, a good, unedited, unfiltered video.

 

Can you imagine how surreal it would be to see this video if it was your house? Looks pretty nice and apparently going through some sort of renovation. Not really different than any of our homes, except it’s being used as shelter by an invading army.

[SL Xpress 7518]

11 minutes ago, SquishMitten said:

Can you imagine how surreal it would be to see this video if it was your house? Looks pretty nice and apparently going through some sort of renovation. Not really different than any of our homes, except it’s being used as shelter by an invading army.

Those were a lot of my exact thoughts. And yes, I agree it would be surreal, but to be honest, everything about this war would be surreal to me if I had lived in that house at one time. Towns and villages you used to visit turned to rubble. Children abducted to Russia. Civilians shot in the back of the head by occupying forces. Some of your friends and neighbors preferring Russian occupation. It's all so crazy. But yes, seeing my house on a Russian helmet cam video as he looks through my photo album while artillery shells from my army destroy my house. Yes, that would be the cherry on top for sure. 

[atomheartbevo 89799]

3 hours ago, KYHorn said:

Surely this guy has some kind of kill switch that exposes all of Putin's secrets.

It's odd.  Some speculate that he's allowed to function as some kind of devil's advocate, as kind of an outlet for others to blow off steam, but given how personal his attacks are, I'm surprised he's alive.  I'm wondering if it's a matter of he's not a threat to Putin directly, as in a coup threat, there's no threat of the opposition gathering around him kind of thing.

[SL Xpress 7518]

So here's the newest video (46m long) from my favorite journalist, Nastya Stanko. I have such mixed feelings for how she covers the war. Sometimes she seems like a parody of herself. She seems like a bit of a girlie girl, heading to the front lines to cover the war. Some of her questions even border on Philomena Cunk style, if you know who that is (and if you don't, and you like history, you should check it out). But her authenticity gets real answers from the guys on the front lines she covers. She's willing to go into very dangerous places with relatively little regard for herself. The way she covers the war is so different from anyone else I watch. It's compelling.

In this one there are a bunch of really interesting conversations. 108th separate mountain assault and the 10th mountain assault has been in Bakhmut for 8 months, with one 8 day break. They're constantly conducting counter assault attacks on Russian trench positions to prevent Russian troops from making consistent advances. I won't go into everything in the video. But one of the most fascinating parts was her covering a deputy commander running a 3d print shop in his spare time to manufacture the release devices for the grenades dropped by drones on Russian troops. Starts at the 38:02 mark.

But the whole thing is worth watching.

 

[Parliament 14296]

1 hour ago, RDCanecutter said:

Time to fire up the M60A1s.

*up-armored Shermans

[RDCanecutter 26473]

11 minutes ago, Parliament said:

*up-armored Shermans

I wanted to keep the 1961 theme.

 

Edited March 19, 2023 by RDCanecutter

[SL Xpress 7518]

Here's a Financial Times article about the impossibility of increasing 155mm artillery shell production in the near term due to a lack of explosives. 

It's the same theme over and over again. Europe's military industrial base is horrid after 3 decades of atrophy from politicians who considered defense spending a dirty word.

And frankly, the US military industrial base isn't in great shape. It's built for peacetime and asynchronous wars. But that's not what this article is about.

https://www.ft.com/content/aee0e1a1-c464-4af9-a1c8-73fcbc46ed17

 

Spoiler

Explosives shortage threatens EU drive to arm Ukraine

Scarce gunpowder and TNT supplies delay shift to ‘large-scale war production’, defence industry and officials warn

 

 

Ukrainian servicemen fire with a Caesar self-propelled howitzer towards Russian positions in eastern Ukraine © Samer Al-Doumy/AFP/Getty Images

 

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Henry Foy in Brussels, Barney Jopson in Madrid and Guy Chazan in Berlin

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Europe’s push to make arms for Ukraine has been hobbled by a shortage of explosives, which industry insiders fear will delay efforts to boost shell production by as much as three years.

Scarce supplies of gunpowder, plastic explosives and TNT have left industry unable to rapidly meet expected EU orders for Ukraine, regardless of how much money is thrown at the problem, according to officials and producers.

 

The supply chain constraints underline how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has badly exposed Europe’s inadequate arms stocks and weak domestic production capacity, run down by decades of under-investment.

“The fundamental problem is that the European defence industry is not in good shape for large-scale war production,” said one German official.

Europe is trying to meet Kyiv’s war fighting needs by pumping cash into the defence sector, particularly to encourage expansion of 155mm artillery production. There is dire need for shells, both to restock national armouries and maintain supplies to Ukrainian forces.

But producers, industry executives and EU officials warn increased demand may only push up prices that have already jumped a fifth over the past year.

 

“It’s very difficult to increase production of artillery ammunition, especially the heavy, large-calibre ammunition, in a short time,” said Jiří Hynek, chair of the Defence and Security Industry Association of the Czech Republic. “A new artillery factory is very easy, but how to produce more artillery projectiles without raw materials?”

The comments come ahead of a meeting of EU foreign and defence ministers in Brussels on Monday to discuss a package of two €1bn proposals to speed up immediate 155mm shipments to Ukraine and incentivise countries to form joint artillery purchase contracts.

 

Ukrainian servicemen prepare to fire towards Russian positions with a 155mm M777 Howitzer artillery weapon near the city of Bakhmut © Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images

Defence industry officials say Europe has a limited supply of explosives such as gunpowder, TNT and nitrocellulose which are necessary to produce shells. “The bottlenecks for our capacity are mainly [explosive] powders, which are in short supply all over Europe,” said one.

“It’s not possible to increase, in a short time, nitrocellulose [production] . . . In Europe there are no important producers of the raw materials we need,” said Hynek, referring to a main ingredient of gunpowder. “If I want to increase production of gunpowder I need probably three years.”

 

Explosia, a Czech state-owned manufacturer that is one of Europe’s largest suppliers of explosives to ammunition factories, told the FT that its production of propellants used in 155mm artillery is “running at full capacity” and would not be increased until 2026.

“Investments are under way to further increase our production capacity, but this is a three-year project, not a few months’ job,” said Martin Vencl, the company’s spokesperson.

This week Romania’s government said it was in talks with US and South Korean companies to build a gunpowder factory in the country. Its last such plant was shut down in 2004.

Even EU officials who have championed the financial incentive packages privately admit that European artillery producers have made clear to them that scaling up output will not be an easy task.

 

“We’re in favour of strengthening the defence industry. But if the result of this EU initiative is that you have a second bidder for the same scarce resource, that will have an impact on price,” said one German official. “And the arms companies are getting rich enough already.”

“We have to tread with care . . . No one wants to subsidise companies that are already coining it in,” he added.

Fábrica Municiones de Granada (FMG), one of Spain’s two 155mm artillery producers, has been operating at full capacity since last October, producing shells for a trading company that sells them on to Ukraine. But Antonio Caro, FMG’s director-general, said it had taken four-to-five months to scale up because of the difficulty of obtaining basic materials and components.

“Our main problem is primary materials,” Caro said. “Supplies for ammunition are very strained around the world because all the factories, like us, are at 100 per cent.”

“There aren’t too many factories [producing materials like TNT and nitrocellulose] in Europe and they’re at 100 per cent too, so we have to start looking in India, in Korea, in other countries further away,” he said.

Gianclaudio Torlizzi, an adviser to Italy’s defence ministry, agreed, saying: “We need to find new sources of supply . . . from countries we had not traditionally approached,” he said. “Each European country wants to protect its availability of raw materials.”

The cost of basic materials had “doubled and in some cases tripled”, Caro said. Those increases and the surge in demand had led to higher prices for munitions, although the rise has been less pronounced. A typical shell today costs €850, roughly 20 per cent more than before the Russian invasion, he said.

For now FMG, which is owned by Slovak group MSM, has no plans to increase capacity further. “Hopefully the war will be over soon,” Caro said.

MSM also produces 155mm shells in Slovakia and said it “plans to build a new production hall” to increase artillery output, but declined to provide a timeline.

Additional reporting by Raphael Minder in Warsaw and Amy Kazmin in Rome

 

[BamaATL 16593]

Well, I don't think they can crash into this one, it's service ceilin

g is listed at 60,000 feet.  Meet the Global Hawk drone system.

https://interestingengineering.com/culture/us-global-hawk-black-sea-recon

 

[BamaATL 16593]

3 hours ago, Schulz2.0 said:

 

This is really interesting about the Bayraktar's getting an anti air version, because in my mind, how much of a leap is it to get an anti-ship missile on it?  I can't imagine it's huge.  Also, I didn't know they were operating these out the Black Sea, so maybe Orville Wrightchenko (yes I stole that from one of you) is already one step ahead of me?

Edited March 19, 2023 by BamaATL

[Paper_jam 831]

31 minutes ago, BamaATL said:

This is really interesting about the Bayraktar's getting an anti air version, because in my mind, how much of a leap is it to get an anti-ship missile on it?  I can't imagine it's huge.  Also, I didn't know they were operating these out the Black Sea, so maybe Oliver Wrightchenko (yes I stole that from one of you) is already one step ahead of me?

MANPAD missiles like the Stinger, are relatively small and light (22 lb for a Stinger.)

Antiship missiles vary, but something like a Harpoon is 10+ feet long and weighs over 1,000 lbs.  I don't think a Bayraktar has that kind of capacity.

 

 

 

[BamaATL 16593]

3 minutes ago, Paper_jam said:

MANPAD missiles like the Stinger, are relatively small and light (22 lb for a Stinger.)

Antiship missiles vary, but something like a Harpoon is 10+ feet long and weighs over 1,000 lbs.  I don't think a Bayraktar has that kind of capacity.

 

 

 

Certainly not a Neptune, but I wonder if you could drop ordinance of some sort into a ships magazine area and it would be enough.  We have many levels of safety on our munitions, but they don't.  Or could you hit the bridge with a stinger and kill the officers and render the ship adrift?  

[Schulz2.0 29011]

 

[Viper 12112]

On 3/18/2023 at 11:49 AM, MillerEP said:

 

 

[atomheartbevo 89799]

 

[Schulz2.0 29011]

 

[Schulz2.0 29011]

 

[MillerEP 30500]

 

[MillerEP 30500]

 

[956 Worldwide 34772]

A dickhead took a trip to Mariupol and had a brief chat with people.

As usual, most of the crowd consisted of confirmed members of the FSB. Surprised? 

 

[Bevo 13601]

6 hours ago, MillerEP said:

 

Did half of those people who were walking away from the blast die?

[956 Worldwide 34772]

7 hours ago, MillerEP said:

 

Not to get off track but elections in Kazakhstan are completely stage managed and the other parties besides the ruling one have all announced their loyalty to the president. 
 

This is an exercise to cement Tokayev’s control and not to choose political leaders. 

Edited March 20, 2023 by 956 Worldwide

[Viper 12112]

54 minutes ago, Bevo said:

Did half of those people who were walking away from the blast die?

Looks like. Gotta think there's a ton of shrapnel that close to a building exploding. 

[Bevo 13601]

27 minutes ago, Viper said:

Looks like. Gotta think there's a ton of shrapnel that close to a building exploding. 

I guess so - It was kind of interesting because they looked relatively safe initially.

[KYHorn 17159]

 

 

 

 

[KYHorn 17159]

 

 

 

 

[KYHorn 17159]