🇺🇦 must launch a counteroffensive. There is no question of yes or no, but rather when. Billions are invested, thousands trained so that must yield results. When it happens, and when the first 🇺🇦 troops roll over the first 🇷🇺 line, the media will be jubilant...

/1 In the first days and weeks, retired generals turned into military experts will explain with arrows and circles on the major TV Media progress, presidents will speak with a smile on their faces, and glasses will be raised with salutes to glory and victory...

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AA short thread on what may happen to the 🇷🇺 planes and helicopters:
It is better to wait and see the official version (and more private information) but it is a hot subject that by all means is a punch to the RuAF.
1st option: A well-executed ambush:

/1 4 targets within 50 km of the border during the return flight. Crews likely relaxed and off-guard after the mission. What can engage it? For that distance (add 5+ km just for safety (not launching from the border line). It is well within the S-300PS/S-300V engagement zone.

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Storm Shadow - a long waited "game changer" (edition nth+) will be used shortly. A missile as a missile is well known. 🇬🇧🇫🇷🇵🇱 team works with 🇺🇦 team to make an adapter it can be carried by the remaining 🇺🇦 planes such as Su-24.

/1 Target coordinates will be entered in advance, on the ground and the plane needs to get to the launching distance. The problem is that it may be intercepted either by Su-35, MiG-31, or AD. Ideally, the launch shall be at a high altitudes but that is also high risk.

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A quick thread mentioning hypervelocity dynamics:
What a tiny 3,18 mm steel ball can do to the Ni plate moving 3.4 km/s (10 Mach) (vice versa is also applicable):

/1 ...or projectile rod (crystal rod) impacting RHA target (let say similar to SABOT)...
... or tungsten rod (78 mm) moving 1.5 km/s (4.37 Mach)
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There are few specialized bombs to destroy hardened surfaces such as as runways, caponiers, bunkers or underground structures such as BetAB-500 and BetAB-500ShP. The second one is with a parachute. The one that Klitchko presented is very similar to BetAB-500 body.

/1 Now, let's play with some designs: BetAB-500 diameter is 452 mm so theoretically can be put into Kh-47M and voila - Kinzhal with a concrete piercing warhead. For the delivery - speed is there, explosive is there, weight is there...

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78 years ago, the Nazi army was defeated but the Nazi idea didn't. It left the ruins of Berlin, and through the ratlines and the "paperclip" spread through the world. Some went "below the blanket" and a few years later resurfaced through the democratic institutions.

/1 Some of those who stayed became respectful citizens and even kept the Reich positions such as "administrators", some went to the new army modeled by allies, some went to politics... (past forgotten??)... some simply hide to pop up half-century after (especially in the east)

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Ballistic missile defense's main purpose is to engage and destroy ballistic missiles in a way that the warhead (which can be of significant size) is not able to activate. That can be with the direct hit or with the blast & fragmentation process...

/1 Russian 9M82 and 9M83 missiles are optimized to engage incoming missiles in a specific way. Ukraine doesn't have (except a few questionably working old S-300V systems with missiles fabricated during the Soviet time) abilities to do that...

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27/03/1999 - A day in aviation history:
USAF F-117A (AF 82-0806) took off from Aviano base; route: over Slovenia, Hungary, Yugoslavian-Romanian border; target communication & command center Strazevica, near Belgrade; pilot - Lt.Col. Dale Zelko

/1 While approaching the target, it was steadily tracked with the old P-18 radar; two bombs dropped, zero effect (the target is deep underground); after "clearing the target" (the way home to Aviano) it was approaching the 3/250 combat zone...

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On the evening of 24 March 1999, the first missiles launched by NATO hit Yugoslavia. The big bully performed was on the path to imposing complete domination. A few neighbors bent and allowed their airspace to be used... Europe sank into the mud...

/1 Yugoslavia was just a testbed for the plans whose fulfillment would be complete world domination including the destruction of Russia and China on the proven concept. Tiny Yugoslavia was a "micro model in the wind tunnel of the power"...

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Spring offensive is a much-discussed subject. For that 🇺🇦 needs a troop concentration (2-3 combined arms corpses), thousands of tons of ammo and fuel, etc. It is possible but one direction is the main the other can be a diversion. (maps for information only)

/1 /1
In the south, topography doesn't favor the side which do not have at least a 3:1 advantage and full air supremacy. Topography is "gentle" providing the defender great opportunities to engage the attacker with artillery & AF before they are fully developed.

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Besides the army's second or third-hand hardware (Leopards and M777 i.e.) 🇨🇦 (at least) sending some new armored vehicles to 🇺🇦. Roshel from Mississauga (former 🇮🇱 IDF member is a CEO) has a lucrative contracts (90M CAD and growing) to supply 🇺🇦 with their vehicles...

/1 Those trucks are LARP (light armored patrol vehicles) based on a proven F550 chassis. The role is auxiliary - security vehicles, rear battlefield taxies bringing ammo or evacuating injured not directly at the front line but in the rear, etc. They are NOT combat vehicles!

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Transnistria is a small enclave that is very vulnerable. Small 🇷🇺 garrison and local militia can't hold for long in the case of a 🇺🇦 attack. What is interesting for 🇺🇦 is the large quantities of Soviet ammunition in Cobasna (120, 125, 122 and 152) needed for their artillery.

/1 Even the plans exist, 🇺🇦 will not attack if not ordered by the "allies". The new 🇲🇩 PM is bragging about the preventive 🇷🇺 seizure of the Chisinau airport. Can 🇲🇩 and 🇺🇦 take the enclave? Yes by all means, very fast but the consequences will be catastrophic for both countries

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An armored vehicle is hard to destroy. Not every hit, no matter how spectacular it looks, is "destruction". Typically, there are mission kill, operation kill, and irrevocable kill. The third one is when the vehicle is blown to pieces so the case is closed.

/1 If the vehicle is hit behind its lines or where it can be evacuated, there is a chance to be recovered. Field technical units are in charge of that. Broken tracks and damaged wheels (i.e. after the mine explosions) can be fixed on the spot (sample of the mission kill)...
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Thread about 🇨🇦 large-caliber ammunition production:
🇨🇦 has one company, General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical System (Quebec), that can produce medium (57 and 81 mm) and large (105, 120, and 155 mm) munition.

/1 It is 100% privately owned. It was a 🇨🇦 company (belonged to the SNC Lavalin group) but 16+ years ago it was sold to General Dynamics and now is 🇺🇸 property. The question is how much critical ammo for 🇺🇦 this company can produce...

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If the 🇺🇦 armored brigade is modeled as per 🇺🇸 armored brigade combat team it will have 87 Abrams, 152 Bradley, 18 M109s, and 45 M113 vehicles (in theory). It can be mixed as well, combining Leo2s and Challengers, Marders, etc... respective strength BUT...

/1 ...if they get Abrams, it will be nightmarish to operate it because these "toys" are extremely demanding. Without strong logistics, the brigade tank component may be rendered "very weak" in the case of intensive operations...

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The idea of using RIM-7 on the 9A310 TELAR is not without merit, however, there is something available and made in Czech Republic: 2k12 Kub is modified to use Aspide 2000 missile containers installed on the 2P25 launcher. Ukraine can get a few batteries very fast...

/1 Poland (WZU) modernized 1S91 and Hungary (Arzenal) worked on 2P25. Few units can be supplied as well. In any case, it may be a mix-match of "give us whatever you have" equipment. Trained crews are questionable. Some staff can be pulled from retirement.

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A history page: Mustafa Golubic-a fierce guerilla fighter in the Balkan war, nationalists, Mlada Bosna and Black Hand organization member, a communist revolutionary, intelligence agent, worldwide Stalin's executioner, NKVD general...

/1 Born in 1889 or 1891 in a Bosnian Muslim family he always stated that he is a Serb by nationality... as a young man, he joined the major Tankosic chetniks and became an elite guerilla fighter during the 1st Balkan War and in the WWI, especially during 1914 battles...

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Where the war may go:
Crippling the power grid is just beginning; destroying fuel supplies; cutting infrastructure in the western parts (bridges, tunnels etc) as well as power lines to the level that the capacity is just a fraction (not destroying, just making very limited)

/1 The flood of refugees to the west will irritate the EU citizens (no matter how on paper and in media they love/support/stand with Ukraine) combined with domestic recession/inflation will add additional fuel to the fire; selfishness and "who cares for them" will blossom;

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The Ukrainian power grid is built during the Soviet time. Some very minor modifications/repairs and improvements were made since 1991. The system as it can be taken out without much effort and much destruction. The problem is that repairs i.e. to the substations take time.
/1 The cost is not an issue because that will be financed by the EU/US citizens but the manufacturing time, transport, and installation may take all winter. Even after hypothetical repairs, all it takes is a new attack and everything shall start from scratch/scrap.
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The attack on the Kerch bridge was carefully planned and timely executed: the explosion happened at the moment when the freight train with fuel passed on the railway's section. The suicide truck on the vehicle section is initially considered the perpetrator but...

/1 to inflict serious damage, the pillar(s) must be attacked, meaning sufficient explosives to cause structural damage which will collapse the road section (decking and girders). Explosive can be delivered underwater with a drone and triggered remotely when the train passed by...
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F-117A, without any doubt, is an excellent airplane, a technical marvel of its time, which proved combat effectiveness in the previous wars, but the whole concept of stealth as a magic weapon is exaggerated by the media and some experts.

/1 It is a brainchild of prominent and brilliant Lockheed Martin "Skunk Works" leaders such as Kelly Johnson, Ben Rich and Denys Overholser and their teams.

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