"However, Ukraine has no effective options to counter a prolonged Russian artillery offensive. This should trouble those who want to see Ukraine prevail as Russia can rely upon an extensive supply of artillery platforms and munitions that it...
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... will likely use to lay waste to large swaths of eastern Ukraine and thwart a Ukrainian counter-offensive to retake the country."
The lack of Russian artillery ammunition in Russia's response to Ukraine's Izyum counter-attacks is a 'tell' this assumption isn't true.
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There are several different sources confirming these Ukrainian counter-offensives.
Izyum is the stated "schwerpunkt" of the Russian Donbas offensive.
If there is anywhere in Ukraine that should have megatons of Russian artillery ammunition. It is at Izyum.
Yet, nada versus the two Ukrainian bulges attempting to pocket Izyum.
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I think the unchallenged Western intelligence assumption that Russian has near inexhaustible reserves of artillery ammunition needs to be torn down to the foundation, frame studs, baseboards & reexamined with the eye that assumption is the same class as Putin would not invade
End
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Back in July 2024 the Russians had 250 km/h drones bodies for FPV work which has the power to weight performance to blast through a helicopter downwash.
This is another useful translation thread by @sambendett dealing with the Russian reaction to the downing of two Russian helicopters by boat-drone launched R-73 (NATO reporting name AA-11 Archer) missiles.
I've tried with an earlier thread to give this engagement both historical context and possible implications for Western naval helicopter operations in littoral waters going forward
Ukraine's use of boat-drones to shoot down a Russian crewed helicopter with a R-73 missile is as historically significant as Israeli destroyer Eilat (ex HMS Zealous) with a Styx missile by Egypt.
The era of the armed naval helicopter hunting submarines, small boats and spotting/screening for naval surface warships may be coming to a close.
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Small boat-drones as platforms for 20 km(+) range fiber optic guided FPV drones will become huge threat to merchant traffic in the littorals and will bedevil escorting warships denied low altitude helicopter cover.
The packaging for the FAB-500 is obviously made to be _rolled_on_the_ground_ by a mobik work gang or stacked in a gondola car of a Russian train by a crane.
The defence-blog -dot- com website reported a very important observation on the production quality of current Russian Shahed production.
It's individual quality is declining, _Hard_.
1/ Russian End Run Production 🧵
From the article:
“The Russians have adapted these drones to their needs, but due to a lack of components and efforts to reduce costs, their quality has declined,” Kulchytsky explained.
Earlier iterations of Shahed drones contained numerous foreign-made components,
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...including Japanese-manufactured bearings and precision-built servo drive rods.
However, recent versions have shown a transition to simplified bearings and direct rod assemblies, indicating a shortage of high-quality components."
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