The two key railway marshalling yards for the Russian Army in occupied Ukraine are in Belgorod and Rostov on Don.
And Belgorod railway marshalling yard just got cut off from the north.
Rerouting train traffic like this hasn't happened in Russia since 1941.
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This Reddit map of AFU advances indicates the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), upper right, may soon be isolated from the Russian power grid to points south.
Given the Rostov on Don NPP lost one of two reactors to a maintenance casualty.
Given the number of confirmed AFU brigades involved in the Kursk operation, and the complete lack of a Russian strategic ground forces reserve anywhere.
It is looking far more like @secretsqrl123 idea strategic envelopment of Belgorod than mine of a strategic raid.
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The much reported AFU woes in the Donbas were the result of mostly 2nd line units being put into the front lines behind a "Ghost Army" strategic deception while the elite units were being quietly prepared for the Kursk/Belgorod axis envelopment.
Meanwhile, AFU ground forces are making amphibious raid demonstrations at the Kinburn Spit to try and freeze RuAF ground units in Kherson from redeployment.
400 Houthi aerial drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles were fired at/near USN ships since Oct 2023
120 SM-2 & 80 SM-6 missiles, 160 five-inch main guns rounds, plus a combined 20 Evolved Sea Sparrow and SM-3 missiles engaged them.
Drone War Cost Trades 🧵 1/
Tyler Rogoway has reported the following missile costs:
SM-2 Block IIIC - $2,530,000 per missile.
SM-6 - $4,270,000 per missile.
Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) RIM-162 Block II - $1,490,000 per missile.
SM-3 -$12,510,000 for the Block IB, and $28,700,000 for the Block IIA 2/
So:
120 SM-2 * $2.53 million = $303.6 million
80 SM-6 * $4.27 million = $341.6 million
12 ESSM (guess) = $17.88 million
6 SM-3 IB (guess) * $12.51 million = $75 million
2 SM-3 IIA (guess) * $28.7 million = $57.4 million
The fire and forget millimeter wave (MMW) radar guidance AGM-114L "Hellfire Longbow" being referred in the War Zone post as "a new anti-drone armament" for the LCS actually ceased production in 2005 and reaches end of life in 2025.
One of the reasons the AGM-114L was dropped from the US Army M-Shorad is the US Army didn't want to pay money to recertify the AGM-114L inventory...
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...with the AGM-179 Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) equipped with dual-mode Semi-Active Laser (SAL) and millimeter wave (MMW) radar seeker just entering production.
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The process was invented by a Russian, Via wikipedia:
"The Russian chemist Sergei Vasilyevich Lebedev was the first to polymerize butadiene in 1910....
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...In 1926 he invented a process for manufacturing butadiene from ethanol, and in 1928, developed a method for producing polybutadiene using sodium as a catalyst.
The government of the Soviet Union strove to use polybutadiene as an alternative to natural rubber ...
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