The Russian air defences face a double problem; they are stretched thin and they don't get sufficient support by the flying air force, especially not by AEW aircraft (colloquially a.k.a. AWACS). Being stretched thin means that there is no redundancy; a radar forced to shut down out of caution by an incoming anti-radar missile means that there's a temporary gap in the area air defences. It also means that the area air defences have insufficient coverage of the front line against very low-flying targets. Cruise missiles can slip through such gaps, and mission planning of cruise missile mission ..read more

I studied warfare for a very long time, and it's self-evident to me how much of an industrial effort both world wars, the Korean War and the Vietnam War were. I looked at tables showing how many rifles, pistols, light field guns, light howitzers, heavy howitzers, lorries, cars, tanks of various types were produced in 1942, 1943, 1944 for the German armed forces. The weapons counted by the thousands, munitions counted by the millions. I know of the ammunition crisis 1915 in UK, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia - and how Russia suffered from being unable to produce enough artillery for ..read more

I believe that the ability to end a RUS-NATO war with a RUS threat of using 'tactical' nukes against attempts of reconquest (and against airbases) is an essential requirement for Russia to dare attack any NATO member for real. They could not win in a conventional war.   Exactly this nuclear threat has been eroded by the inflationary bluffing with nukes since 2022.*     Thus IMO Russia wouldn't dare now to attack NATO anytime soon even if a fairy gave them back all troops and material they spent against Ukraine and all of Ukraine surrendered, handing over all its equipment ..read more

Major wars usually show the very same thing; insufficient (quantity) training of reserve leaders pre-war leads to too short training of leaders in wartime. Well-known examples include the American Civil War, First World War, Second World War and the current Russo-Ukrainian War. The result is amateurish military actions leading to avoidable casualties, failures in offence and failures in defence against skilful attacks. It takes as a (very rough) rule of thumb three months for a decent basic training to turn a civilian into a soldier, (I say) about three more months for a specialisation trai ..read more

Warships are peculiar; you do not need to commission them in a port. Prize ships were commissioned as warships at sea during both World Wars. This means that the Ukraine could take possession of a merchant ship (ideally a small container ship), load and equip it at sea, commission it as a Ukrainian warship and start raiding Russian maritime trade in the Mediterranean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean and maybe even the Pacific Ocean. German WW1 merchant raider "Wolf" (first raider with aircraft onboard, 451 days patrol) Some additional fuel tanks, some containers and a helicopter for a ..read more

"Escalatory" This word has been used a lot recently, typically by people who oppose aiding Ukraine to defend itself against the Russian aggression. The fear of escalation guides the thoroughly idiotic American National Security advisor, for example.  To appease or to paralyse out of fear in face of aggressors is a path of failure: It prevents downsides to the aggressor, who can attack and steal from the weak without costs exceeding the (perceived) benefits. The costs of economic sanctions are near-irrelevant to an aggressive leader who thinks in centuries-spanning nationalistic-imperial ..read more

The French were keen to reconquer Alsace-Lothringia after 1871. They conscripted to the maximum (about 75% of young men were deemed fit and pressed into service), trained many officers, introduced the revolutionary Soixante-Quinze field gun and produced it in the thousands before WWI. Germany enjoyed a larger population base and kept the peace with a less extreme conscription (a bit over 50%). The defensive outlook of Germany in 1871-1913 was based on the consensus that German borders were satisfactory with no need for expansion. The alliance situation did put the gargantuan Russian army on ..read more

Back in the 1930's the Nazi government of Germany sent troops and vehicles to assist Franco's Nationalist-Fascist coup (later civil war) effort in Spain. The only tanks available for employment (testing) in Spain were Pzkpfw I, bulletproof tankettes with two normal calibre machineguns. They did of course encounter bulletproofed vehicles of Soviet manufacture and even thier steel core bullets proved to be useless against those. Germany got ahead of that problem by using 20 mm autocannons in the successor and later 37 mm cannons (and 75 mm stub guns) in the last pre-WW2 tank models. The tech t ..read more

The article "Floating mausoleums to political vanity: Our two new aircraft carriers cost almost £8 billion to build but, with the Middle East on fire, they're languishing in Portsmouth. We'd be better off selling them, says DAVID PATRIKARAKOS" https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13011743/aircraft-carriers-8-billion-middle-east-portsmouth.html creates a bit of a stir. Some online responses claim that it's error-ridden while agreeing somewhat.  I would certainly have edited the part about the missile threat to carriers; the anti-ship cruise missile threat appears to be in check IF th ..read more

It appears that playing the victim card to get a carte blanche to commit offences yourself doesn't work so well for Israel any more. They're so much used to it that they don't seem to be able to follow a different approach, though. The death toll of the October 7th attacks by Hamas appears to be roughly 1/3 combatants (I'm not sure whether this includes deaths among those who were taken prisoner by Hamas fighters and other Gaza Strip inhabitants). https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231215-israel-social-security-data-reveals-true-picture-of-oct-7-deaths This compares very unfavourably ..read more