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I recommend having a look at Jim Storr's books. He has nothing good to say about authoritarianism or low intelligence in senior officers. "Authoritarians tend to be bullies...the biggest problem, however, is that they are not good commanders and may well fail catastrophically in war...in major...

The rolling sheds do look ridiculous. I think with FPVs it depends on what the target is. They do seem to be good at chasing conscripts across the steppe, but the vehicle kills are usually on something that is either unarmored or already out of action.

Success rate for the drones or for the turtle tanks?

The point is that the troops on the ground can take positive action when they know a drone is overhead. They can, for example, fire on it. This alone has a major psychological impact on how the threat is perceived. There are no shortage of observations about this from WW2 - when air defences...

That is still much slower than a fixed wing CAS aircraft, which AD platforms are able to deal with. They won't get everything, but they introduce quite a bit of uncertainty and cause lots of drone losses. About this time last year, RUSI estimated that the Ukrainians were losing 10000 drones...

These are, broadly speaking, known commodities and have been for more than a century. If you want, you can look up the 1918 British staff estimates for how many rounds it took to knock out a German gun emplacement, or how many pounds per hour of HE is required to suppress a given area. The costs...

It's even worse than just the rear doors - those are auxiliary tanks which are intended to be used for longer road moves. Check out item 20 on the diagram below - the infantry sit with their backs on the primary fuel tank.

Machiavelli had a good observation about mercenaries: "I say, therefore, that the arms with which a prince defends his state are either his own, or they are mercenaries, auxiliaries, or mixed. Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms...

I am inclined to agree, at the Bde/Div level. At a minimum, offensive operations are possible at the tactical level provided they are well coordinated. I would add engineers to the list of things that are necessary - the two sides have placed vast minefields between their positions and lots of...

It very much depends where you live and what you do in civilian life. Some jobs are very military friendly, and are often full of other reservists. Some much less so. A high percentage of reservists are university students; I would be curious to see how many keep quiet about their military...

I am not sure that I understand; I was talking about T54s, not Shermans.

I have heard that complaint before. That's what I was getting at when I suggested that they aren't easy to dismount from. Some of the vehicles apparently have a bad habit of catching fire as a result of a mine strike.

You are correct, it's a response to some of the inherent limitations of the vehicle. They aren't particularly well protected against any sort of threat, and Russian vehicles are notorious for their ergonomics. Crew comfort was never a significant design consideration. I understand why they do...

This is a TTP that the Soviets/Russians have used for a long time, and was quite popular in Afghanistan. It's not the first time I've seen it used in Ukraine. The Russians are making a decision about what kind of risk they think is the most dangerous at any given moment. The decision to ride on...

Summary of the key points: 1. Blair makes promises, let's see if he can keep them. 2. CAF is short by tons of people, and it sucks at recruiting. "The forces' human resource department appears to have adopted a mindset of approving an application only after all opportunities to reject it have...

I finally got around to reading the G&M article. I thought it was a good summary of the issue. I agree with your comments about national service, it does not necessarily imply military service. It will for most countries, as the combat arms tend to be the most manpower intensive tasks facing...

No disagreement here.

I agree that we should be watching to prevent re-exporting of meaningful goods to Russia. But it looks to me like he is playing games with statistics here - yes, the value rose by more than 100%, but $2m in imports is still basically nothing by global economic standards. $2m in goods might only...

Am I reading the chart right? Exports have gone from $500K to $2m over two years?