Otokar TULPAR with Aselsan KORHAN 35 turret. pic.twitter.com/s44OUvdxjS
— Junsupreme (@RyszardJonski) July 15, 2023
Sunday, July 16, 2023
Otokar TULPAR with Aselsan KORHAN 35 turret.
Australia's Amphibious Force @ work
In preparation for #TalismanSabre2023, @AustralianArmy & @Australian_Navy conducted a beach landing at Shoalwater Bay Training Area as part of #ExSeaRaider.
— Talisman Sabre (@TalismanSabre) July 15, 2023
Keep an eye out for some more epic shots over the next few weeks!
📸 CPL Dustin Anderson pic.twitter.com/LWmRBHKs0q
Not quite hillbilly armor but additional armor is being added to Leopard MBTs in Ukraine via Reddit
Soldiers/Marines on the battlefield will tell you where the threat is coming from which makes this so interesting.
Earlier we saw "cope cages" being used by both sides to combat the use of loitering drones.
Now?
Now the Ukrainians are adding extra armor to the turret front and sides of the Leopard MBTs.
That's telling.
Many, including several people I follow on Twitter that know armor have listed the Leopard MBT as the best tank in the world.
I always considered it European bias (they're mostly European) but it was held so widely that I thought I might have been missing something.
I wasn't.
The Leopard leaned too heavily toward mobility at the expense of protection.
That's another thing. The Abrams, Leopard and Challenger (to include the Leclerc) were all built during the cold war. The Abrams and Challenger can both be considered "multi-role" with the Abrams (IMO) being a jack of all and the Challenger (IMO) leaning more heavily towards being a "defensive tank" (heavy armor, limited mobility...it can take a beating but stay in the fight).
The French and the Leclerc always struck me as being more of an "expeditionary" tank with a nod towards ops in Africa/overseas.
But the Leopard? It was always a curiosity to me. The Germans built a tank that was built for a modern day blitzkrieg. Fast as hell, hard hitting but armor not the best.
The pyramid will get its pound of flesh. If you lean too heavily towards one side then it better be firepower (which includes sensors etc..) or armor (if you can't shoot first you better be able to take a punch). But mobility? That's so Desert Storm. Dead as disco.
Nearly a third of the Bradley armored vehicles the US provided Ukraine may have already been lost or damaged
via BI
Nearly a third of the Bradley armored vehicles that the United States has provided to Ukraine may have already been lost or damaged, according to open source data, demonstrating the extent to which Kyiv's counteroffensive against Russia is proving to be a hard and costly slog.
In January, the Biden administration announced it was sending Ukraine no fewer than 50 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, an armored personnel carrier that pairs heavy firepower with the ability to transport about 10 soldiers.
The New York Times reported Saturday that Ukraine's 47th Mechanized Brigade is the only unit known to have received the vehicles. And leaked Pentagon documents from February indicate the 47th Brigade was due to receive a total of 99 of them. But other reporting suggests the United States has delivered as many as 109 of the vehicles, which were first deployed on the battlefield in April.
Oryx, an open-source military research group, reports that 34 Bradleys have now been visually confirmed as having been abandoned, damaged, or destroyed. As Insider previously reported, more than a dozen were lost or disabled in a few days of fighting in June, when Ukraine formally announced its bid to retake territory conquered by Russia following last year's full-scale invasion.
That means nearly a third of the Bradley vehicles may have already been lost or damaged.
The losses are not unexpected and appear to have been concentrated in the first few days of the counteroffensive as Ukrainian soldiers sought to cross territory that was heavily mined by entrenched Russian forces.
After Suffering Heavy Losses, Ukrainians Paused to Rethink Strategy
via New York Times (behind paywall)
Early in the counteroffensive, Ukraine lost as much as 20 percent of its weapons and armor. The rate dropped as the campaign slowed and commanders shifted tactics.
A couple of things...
1. Ukraine has lost more than 20 percent of its weapons and armor. If they're giving you that number along with what we've seen thru open source along with the begging then you know the truth is much uglier.
2. Fuck the loss of armor and equipment. People are getting chewed up in this thing to include the Ukrainian Forces.
3. What's gone unsaid and I have no contacts (had only a few before) in the "contractor" community I would have to guess that this is no longer an attractive fight. The money might be good but money ain't no good if you're not alive to spend it.
4. I've been yelling that they needed to pause this thing. Looks like commonsense is about to be a common thing with the talking heads this weekend. Can't wait to hear all the military experts with stars on their shoulders from past lives try and spin this into good news.
5. Speaking of which. It amazes me how many on this blog so believe what they're told OR attempt to justify what they're seeing with their own eyes in comparison to what THEY WANT to believe. Its been obvious for over a month that this counteroffensive was a clusterfuck from the deepest darkest points of hell.
6. I've claimed that this was a political counteroffensive and that it made no sense militarily. This is the result. All that treasure basically wasted with the ability to reinforce it becoming more and more limited. The US can send over Abrams but they're gonna have our top line armor and the Chinese will have their metalurgalists all over it to get the mix right.
TLDR?
The Ukrainians fucked up by pushing a counteroffensive before they were ready. They chose politics over the military art and now Ukraine/NATO are paying the price.
Saturday, July 15, 2023
Marine Corps Reddit continues to slam Force Design 2030
Force Design 2030These fuckers can MEME!!!! BASED!!!!
by u/Battles_45 in USMC
Ill fated and heatbreaking Twitter thread on a British Special Forces Selection gone bad. MUST READ...
Read it all gents. The crazy thing is that its like most things. Complacency bias got people killed. It'll kill nations/societies too. READ IT ALL!!!
🧵
— David Turner (@GreatStrides65) July 13, 2023
1/#OnThisDay in 2013, a Special Forces selection test in the Brecon Beacons is on the point of turning into a disaster. In unusually hot and still conditions, one candidate has just been medically withdrawn having experienced diarrhoea and vomiting
To be continued ...
Just early morning musings....are drone operators the new snipers?
I know what you're thinking with the title of this post. Of course they're the new snipers. They can hit from further away and with high accuracy.
Not where I was going.
In terrible times, the enemy (or us) catch a sniper then its gonna be a very bad day for them. Have heard stories about snipers being caught in Vietnam and unspeakable things were done to them.
You go against US forces and if they can see you then an artillery or main gun from an MBT was going thru your window.
Watching the action in the Ukraine/Russia war I can't help but believe that drone operators will get the same treatment.
Unlike snipers alot of their stuff is posted online so they could also be subject to war crimes (depending on how the attack is done...which is ONE of the reasons why our drone operations usually happen inside the US and not overseas...the personnel would definitely be hunted at best or subject of foreign laws at worse).
The debate about why Ukraine's counteroffensive is faltering has begun in earnest...
I think I agree with the response on this one. Ukraine has been lavishly equipped. Not only financially and with war material but also with first rate intel. The only thing that has me spinning is this. Are the Ukrainians running this war, the US, NATO or is it a combination of us giving advice along with the rest of NATO with Ukraine having the final veto authority?"The counteroffensive is moving slowly because Ukraine's military, after borrowing a disturbingly large portion of NATO's war materiel and implementing North Korean levels of conscription, is about a third the size it would actually need to be to attack successfully." https://t.co/XajpfzRkIa
— Armchair Warlord (@ArmchairW) July 15, 2023
I'm 100% convinced that we're running the deep battle. No way the Ukrainians have the intel or surveillance assets to strike deep (relatively deep...deep for Ukraine ain't deep for the US Army).
BUT!
I think you have a few hawkish NATO members (looking at Poland and the UK) that probably are giving info on targets we'd prefer not be hit (politics).
Does anyone remember that we were all told that the Ukrainian offensive would be going full steam just in time for the NATO meeting?
Instead we got a belligerent Zelensky that was basically lashing out (acting like a 2 yr old) at the nations supporting him and demanding EVEN more weapons.
That needs to be talked about too.
Zelensky keep gyrating from one war winning weapon to another. He behaves as if he gets the one weapon he's denied that he can win the war (almost like Hitler in the bunker...no not calling him Hitler but he keeps searching for a war winning wunder weapon).
My last thing is this.
Weapons can't make up for tactics. Defense is always easier than offense. The lives of Ukrainian troops count and the suicidal assaults are doing anyone any good.
Turn the war off.
I don't think they're suppose to move like that from firing...
Geez man, who is teaching these guys. They can't even properly emplace their cannons. No wonder they're burning thru ammo. I bet they think they're bad ass taking a vid of that train wreck. Arty guys step up and correct me if I'm wrong.A Ukrainian artilleryman at work.
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) July 15, 2023
Location and date unknown.
🎥https://t.co/KhlB3jwS5C pic.twitter.com/XDzUYijAiA
Chemical plant explosion. This will affect a variety of goods...
Wow. We just dogged a big explosion in Lake Charles with (I believe) the Exxon plant getting hit by a series of lightning strikes on a massive fuel tank and now this. Hurricane season is just starting to hit good too. Lots of plants on the coast. This ain't good.Explosions reported at the Dow Chemical plant in Plaquemine, Louisiana; no injuries reported, shelter-in-place for nearby residents pic.twitter.com/U7cXXG28D5
— BNO News (@BNONews) July 15, 2023
Friday, July 14, 2023
The ACV's 30mm cannon will be the largest DIRECT fire weapon for the Marine Corps Ground Combat Element...
via Defense News.
The 30mm cannon variant should hit initial operational capability by the third quarter of FY26, according to Hough, meaning at least one unit will have enough vehicles and sufficient spare parts for a deployment overseas, as well as the training to operate and maintain these vehicles without outside help.
At that point, Brinkman said, “it will be the largest direct fire weapon system in the [ground combat element], since the Marine Corps has gotten rid of their tanks.”
Think about this shit.
The 30mm cannon on the ACV will be the largest direct fire weapon for the GCE.
Those boys are fucked and don't even realize it.
Berger fucked the GCE with a cactus and somehow made them like it.
Always knew the Marine Corps was full of freaks but I didn't think we were this damn freaky!
This is why I despise Pence. He is a creature of the swamp and a globalist. FUCK HIM!
Tucker: "I'm sorry, Mr. Vice President. You are distressed that the Ukrainians don't have enough American tanks? Every city in the United States has become much worse over the past three years. Drive around. There's not one city that's gotten better. And it's visible. Our… pic.twitter.com/6bJ8aKSPhs
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) July 14, 2023
Bet she can do more pullups than most of my audience...luv fitness chicks!
Damn that made me hit a double take pic.twitter.com/ayYoh4a00i
— Lance🇱🇨 (@Bornakang) July 13, 2023
Hungarian JAS-39C Gripen on a nature break in Austria [5293x3529] via Reddit Warplane Porn
 |
| I posted it full HD so just click the picture to get it full size! |
Utility, Cargo, Attack Helicopter pilots are so fucking cool. They'll get down into it...
If this don't increase blood pressure then all I can say is wow. Check yourself. The ground fight is tough. Trying to orient and get it done from the air seems tougher. Jumbled directions, confusing terrain, bad comms, stressed communicator on the ground and sometimes with bad guys all around, its a wonder it works as well as it does. Props to them.
This dude is recently divorced and has his priorities right...
Why yes. I am recently divorced. How can you tell?Well he either has his priorities straight NOW or his priorities led to his divorce. Who knows?
by u/roostersnuffed in tacticalgear
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)