For Enthusiasts Of Tactical Minutiae ...

 ... as Russian tankers say--the main threat to tanks remains ... no, not drones--good ol' anti-tank mines. At least that's true for Russian tanks. Meanwhile, morons from Deutsche Welle decided to figure out, German Defense Ministry "ignored" their request for comments, on their own why self-proclaimed "best tanks in the world", you know those latest version of Leopards suck. 

You don't need to know German, but DW dumbasses went to 404 side (seems legit, these were 404 crews which burned in those tanks) to figure this out. Wrong choice, though. 404 is well known to be, together with CIA, MI6 and other orgs of this nature, the main sources of all kind of pseudo-military BS, the Kool Aid gladly consumed by those who still cannot accept the fact that NATO's weaponry is from 1990s and it failed miserably in supporting Nazi criminal 404 regime. 

Now, latest for payouts to Russian military personnel. You don't need to know Russian. 

The highest pay is for capturing (not destroying) intact MLRS and tanks. The rest is for destroying hardware. You may ask why such a downgrade for combat aircraft. Easy, every combat aircraft NATO provided to 404 is an easy target for Russia's VKS. Fact is, all of them, be that F-35, F-16, Eurofighter or F-15 are outranged and are not designed to fight over the battlefield of 2025. Simple as that. I speak about this in my latest video which should be up shortly. 

For Shits And Giggles. 2023.

No, I mean it. Get a load of this, LOL))

Germany’s Leopard-2 Tanks Will Help Crush Russia. The German decision to send tanks to Ukraine is a turning point. It is now clear that Vladimir Putin signed the death warrant of his regime in invading Ukraine.

This is from January 2023. They ARE that stupid and illiterate. I love internet--it documents and saves so much in terms of such a crap, which is an exhibit A of these people having no clue. 

The blunt fact is that Biden is becoming a war president. Putin reckoned he could roll over Biden. He miscalculated. He thought he could sweep over Ukraine in a week. He was wrong. He thought the Western alliance would crack up. Wrong again. No one has done more to revivify the Western alliance than Putin. As the West ramps up military production, he is mired in a conflict that threatens the continuation of his tyrannical rule over Russia. Now that he has inadvertently aroused America from its post-Cold War torpor and unified Ukrainians in their resolve to oppose him, Putin faces a fight to the finish—one that he cannot win. It is now clear that when Putin invaded Ukraine, he signed his death warrant.

Jacob Heilbrunn wrote this high school paper level drivel. I wish I could see his arrogant mug today. But then again, he may not even recognize what hit him due to pathetically low level of education and awareness of American journalism. I love the passage about ramping military production up. Yes, those Abrams tanks are rolling fresh from assembly lines... ah, wait, the US does not produce tanks anymore and, in fact, highly likely fell behind tank development dramatically. In related news (thanks Kazman):

The future of the U.S. Air Force's secretive Mayhem program is uncertain amid a funding issue that could at least lead to a major delay. Mayhem's stated focus has been on demonstrating an air-launched hypersonic air vehicle capable of performing strike and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions, but the apparent demand for this capability within the service at all is now unclear. There could still be interest going forward in certain components of the project, including research and development work on advanced high-speed jet engines. The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) awarded a contract with a $334 million ceiling for work on Mayhem, including "delivering a larger class air-breathing hypersonic system," to Leidos back in 2022. At that time, the company announced that Calspan, the Draper Laboratory, and Kratos Defense & Security Solutions. were also part of its team to design the Mayhem air vehicle, which it said would be powered by a scramjet engine. The first details about this project emerged publicly in 2020 and The War Zone has been following it closely since then. 

Yes, hypersonics are hard, really hard and this is even before you can manufacture them serially, let alone make them do what they are supposed to do.  

The picture though is cool... Another one bites the dust(c).

First Proof...

 ... of Leopards burning. From Russian MoD, no less. 

 

Forestalling murky streams of BS from all kinds of "bloggers" and TSIPSO, Russian MoD specifically pointed out that this is from yesterday. 

В ведомстве уточнили, что в ролике запечатлен момент поражения именно танков Leopard. 

Translation: MoD pointed out that video captures the moment of destruction of namely Leopard tanks.  

The silhouette in the video is definitely that of Leopard. Now, guess from three times why VSU blew up the dam? The butcher bill for VSU's attempted "counter-offensive" is horrifying, not least its 3,750 VSU KIAs in less than 48 hours. Pentagon really needs to review its Field Manuals, because obviously those need to be updated for the combat against serious enemy, wink, wink.