Ah, Wait. We Heard Different ...

 ... all the time from all "military experts". 

Britain’s nuclear submarine fleet ‘no longer fit for purpose’. Former Navy chief calls for ‘radical’ action to revive programme after catastrophic failures.

And if anyone thinks that this could be fixed--I have bad news, not gonna happen. Obviously, for people who still remember halcyon days of the Royal Navy it is a torturous admission. But it is not about just submarine fleet. Get a load this:

By now I do not even bother with "argumentation" of "why"--it is self-evident, as frontline embarrassing failures of Leopards, Challengers, Abrams, what have you demonstrated--one needs a design school based on fighting off the best of the best. NATO became complacent with easy victories over inept Arab militaries operating "monkey models" of Soviet tanks and ignored tactical and operational reality in favor of narratives. Well, there is a reason why Challengers have been withdrawn from the line of combat contact in 404--if not, they all would have been destroyed. Chobham armor--grossly talked up and "admired"--is no contest for modern UAVs, ARGMs and tanks, even T-72 earlier models. This is what happens when people skip lectures on tactics, operations and operational research. Well, you get this clown)) 

I’m a veteran tank soldier, and I believe there is a way to fix the struggling Ajax

LOL. Let me show a REAL veteran tank commander who also happened to have an engineering degree (not degree in agriculture) and who commanded all of it and won the war against NATO.

Well, I wrote so much about Russia's military education.

Why The Interrogation Of This ...

 ... 404 POW is important in operational sense. 

It is obviously in Russian, but if anyone wants to listen to the whole thing you can follow this link to Russian MoD TG channel. But why it is interesting. It is interesting due to this and many other 404 POWs testimonies of the dominance of Russian artillery on the battlefield. This is for those who still continue to masturbate to UAVs not understanding that Fire and Strike impact on the battlefield is called "complex" because of its heterogeneous nature, meaning the use of a variety of means and artillery (both "barrel" and rocket, aka MLRS) remains a decisive factor on the battlefield providing proper fire productivity. 

Here is one of many videos of Russians tankers (this one is T-80BM) explaining how they work from both ZOP (Enclosed Firing Positions) and directly. 

Here the guys explain how they finished off one of the Leopards which was "de-tracked" by Russian infantry using Kornet and then T-80BM crew destroyed it through UAV's fire correction at the distance of 9.5 kilometers. Everything works as a system, and this is just the part, in this particular case, of ROK--Recon Fire Complex. To those who still don't get it--a reminder from Colonel Jacques Baud. 

And then there is a lot to be said about Joint Force, a REAL one. 

Some Friday Business.

Starting from Pepe, who brilliantly observed from Moscow:

In Moscow, their toxic ghosts are always lurking in the background. Yet one cannot but feel sorry for the psycho Straussian neocons and neoliberal-cons who now barely qualify as Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski’s puny orphans. In the late 1990s, Brzezinski pontificated that, “Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical center because its very existence as an independent state helps transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.” With or without a demilitarized and denazified Ukraine, Russia has already changed the narrative. This is not about becoming a Eurasian empire again. This is about leading the long, complex process of Eurasia integration – already in effect – in parallel to supporting true, sovereign independence across the Global South.

Speaking of which. I do not particularly care about Trump the person, or as POTUS, for that matter--he was and remains an empty suite who never was equipped for dealing with the swamp he so proudly declared he would drain. But his indictment, indeed, opened the can of worms which this country, which goes to hell with a tremendous acceleration, may not survive. As James Kunstler, ever eloquent, notes:

It’s a little early to assess the knock-on effects of the Left’s ecstatic Trumpgasm. A common theme flying across the Web is that Alvin Bragg’s jerry-rigged case will only make a martyr of Mr. Trump, neatly illustrating and personifying the government’s apparent war against its own citizens — making it clear that they will stop at nothing and no one to enforce the corrupt bureaucracy’s will against the public — and that the net result will be to ensure Mr. Trump’s reelection in 2024.

I, of course, am interested in sociopolitical impact of the indictment, but after I researched the "artistic" career of Stormy Daniels, I would say that Trump's taste in women, despite being married to a beautiful woman, is rather an extension of his political tastes--kitsch and low brow. In the end, there are way more attractive pornstars, not to speak of very high level prostitutes, laboring as high end escorts, he could have easily afforded. But that's just me, what do I know. 

Now about EU "peacekeepers" in 404. Sure--more coffins for EU. The whole idea is risible and Russia will wipe them out. As for Lukashenko's attempts to stay relevant against the background of inevitable unification of Russia and Belarus, his "peace gesture"(c) was met, as expected, with this:

Belarusian proposals for a suspension of hostilities in Ukraine can be discussed but they don’t change Moscow’s analysis of the conflict, the Kremlin spokesman has stated. Dmitry Peskov noted that the initiative formulated by the key Russian ally could not be directly compared to the roadmap for peace in Ukraine set out by China. The latest proposals for a truce, which were outlined by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday, involve a ban on the movement of troops and weapons, so neither Russia nor Ukraine could use the armistice to regather their forces.

So, it is same ol', same ol' with Lukashenko, who never abandons his pathological habit of occupying two, or better three, chairs simultaneously, whilst sensing that the logic of the geopolitical events leads him into the irrelevance. Meanwhile in interview to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 404's Deputy Foreign Minister Melnik admitted:

"Мы не хотим начинать контрнаступление, которое не подготовлено. У нас сейчас приблизительно 50-60 танков с Запада, но русские как сейчас, так и прежде способны ежедневно производить или приводить в боеспособность до десяти танков. А это означает, что мы еще долгое время будем неспособны добиться решающего преимущества на поле боя", — сообщил дипломат.

Translation: "We don't want to start a counter-offensive that is not prepared. We now have about 50-60 tanks from the West, but the Russians, as now and in the past, are capable of producing or bringing combat capability up to ten tanks a day. And this means that we will still have a long time we will be unable to achieve a decisive advantage on the battlefield," the diplomat said.

No shit, geniuses (not Melnik, he understands nothing in the matter), finally someone in Pentagon and London did calculate a required force. Well, I guess attending Army War College and Command and General Staff College finally paid off. Somebody finally got a hold of a real economic capability of Russia--yes, 10 tanks a day x 365 days = 3, 650 tanks a year--and finally calculated that whopping 2 tank battalions of Western tanks is about a week or so of work for Russian tank and anti-tank crews and those pesky Ka-52s and Mi-28s. Ah, yes--the reality is a bitch. But sure, Russians are waiting for the last hope dash of the remnants of VSU and its NATO "allies" and then... well, only Kremlin and General Staff know what's then. Unleash your imagination.

This And That.

 First about this:

Russian tactical nuclear weapons might arrive in Belarus as early as this summer, Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed on Saturday. Moscow is completing the construction of a specialized storage facility for such arms, amid repeated calls by Minsk to deploy them on its soil, he added. The site in Belarus will be ready by July 1, Putin told Russia 24 TV. The president also said that Moscow does not plan to hand over control of any tactical nuclear weapons to Minsk and that it would only deploy its own arms to Belarus. He did not specify when exactly the weapons would be transported to the new site.

There is absolutely nothing sensational about it and this message is primarily for Poland, just in case. Good ol' Iskander's range is 500 kilometers (it doesn't mean that longer range Iskanders will not appear soon) and when placed slightly West of Minsk it covers exactly half of Poland and also "improves" behavior of Baltic states. Moscow and Minsk are parties to union state of Russia and Belarus and it is only natural to do militarily whatever allied countries decide to do within their borders. 

Now about real economy, Putin is not bluffing:

"Поджигатели планируют направить на Украину 400 с лишним танков. Все то же самое, что и по боеприпасам. За это время мы произведем новых, и модернизируются имеющиеся тоже, свыше 1600, а общее количество танков РФ будет превышать в три раза количество танков ВСУ, даже более, чем в три раза", - добавил Путин.

Translation: "The arsonists plan to send more than 400 tanks to Ukraine. The same goes for ammunition. During this time, we will produce new ones, and the existing ones will also be modernized, over 1,600, and the total number of tanks of the Russian Federation will exceed three times the number of tanks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, even more than three times,” Putin added.

I know, some people in Pentagon scratch their heads but, as I mentioned in my video too, the actual number of produced and modernized tanks in Russia this year may reach 3,000, with majority of them the tanks of new types, primarily of T-90M Proryv type. For T-14 Armata, nobody knows the actual number, what is known that there are now more than a hundred of them and at least couple of battalions (around 60 tanks, give and take) are training for the deployment to the front line. I am on record for years about "revelation mode". Meanwhile the fossil of Henry Kissinger also had a revelation recently when concluded that the new Cold War is much more dangerous than the old one. No shit, genius--in related news: water is wet, sky is blue and Western establishment is ignorant. 

I speak about it here:

And while at it, you might as well pay attention to this decent video about British carriers, granted that some facts there are somewhat debatable, but in general it is a worthy one. Per "third" and "fourth" rules of thumb, they are tied to a business known in Russia as "Coefficient of Operational Tension" (КОН--Коэффициэнт Оперативного Напряжения) and it is the science onto itself and staffs of formations deal with that. 

But there is no doubt that HMS Prince of Wales so far is an embarrassment, even when allowed for the issues of being a new design. 

In related news, Ukies begin to evacuate Avdeevka, whose "position" looked like this yesterday:

There were some convulsions by VSU on Kupyansk axis, naturally, they ended bad for VSU and when people ask me (this was the question from one of the viewers on YT) what war Russia is getting ready for producing these monstrous quantities of war materiel from shells and missiles to tanks, my answer is very simple--Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum. Russia is preparing for facing down any threat emanating from the combined West with such military advantage that even psychopaths need to think twice. But then again, the narrative did change, noticeably. Somebody in Pentagon must know that Russian reserves have not been deployed yet. They will when and if needed. This is your primer for Sunday. 

 

P.S. Ah, yes. Comrade Xi still didn't call Mr. Ze as Western media assured us was his intention. What could have possibly go wrong, wink, wink? 

They Still Don't Understand.

I mean those who planned this shit for Kiev regime. 

Washington CNN  — US and Western officials are urging Ukraine to shift its focus from the brutal, months-long fight in the eastern city of Bakhmut and prioritize instead a potential offensive in the south, using a different style of fighting that takes advantage of the billions of dollars in new military hardware recently committed by Western allies, US and Ukrainian officials tell CNN.For nearly six months, Ukrainian forces have been going toe-to-toe with the Russians over roughly 36 miles of territory in Bakhmut, which lies between the separatist-held cities of Donetsk and Luhansk. Heavy shelling has left the city almost completely destroyed.“It is a brutal and grinding fight,” a senior Western intelligence official said last week, with each side exchanging anywhere from 100-400 meters of land per day and exchanging several thousands of artillery rounds almost daily. “[Bakhmut] is less attractive militarily, in terms of any sort of infrastructure, than it might have been if it had not been this destroyed.” Now, ahead of what is widely expected to be a brutal spring of fighting, there is a tactical opening, US and Western officials say. In recent weeks they have begun suggesting that Ukrainian forces cut their losses in Bakhmut, which they argue has little strategic significance for Ukraine, and focus instead on planning an offensive in the south.That was part of a message delivered by three top Biden officials who traveled to Kyiv last week. 

Generally speaking, the Kiev and London-Washington axis is a binary system of mutual BS, which, in layman's lingo, is known as an echo-chamber. One side BSes another that it is doing great on the battlefield, another side believes it because it has so much riding on other side's "success". The first giveaway, of course, is that London military "advisers", are even more incompetent than US generals from Washington think-tanks, and they can spell the word "strategy", but do not know what it is. They simply do not know what modern combined arms operations of scale are. A huge portion of what they teach in the elite military institutions in the West is simply a pseudo military academic fodder, designed to spin utter military failures into success.  

 

Now, that the smell of hundreds of thousands corpses of VSU cannot be spun into operational level use of air-freshener, the tension grows and they need "to do something". I spoke with my friends yesterday and we concluded that Germany, naturally, will be put into the pose of a running deer and will start sending Leopard tanks to 404. Upon elimination and capture of those by Russian forces, the US will enter German weapons market based on a single premise that German technology sucks (actually, there is a certain grain of truth in this) and it is about time Germany started buying US Abrams tanks (and whatever follows them), even despite the fact that Russians salivate anticipating 10 promised Abrams appearing on the battlefield. Nothing personal, folks, just business. 

 

Irina Alksnis wrote today an excellent piece for Ria (in Russian): Germany Made Her Choice, And We Have No Pity For Her. Difficult to disagree with her main point and, I am sure, Russian historic memory has something to do with that. You know, German tanks in Russia. Reminds me something. I just cannot put my finger on exactly what it reminds me of. Nah, I am screwing with you. Alksnis is correct that Germany's elites across the board are Russophobic and still cannot forgive Russia for those two T-34 monuments in Berlin Red Army left there just as a reminder. Meanwhile, Russian MoD reports advancements along the whole front line and, of course, people in General Staff read in amusement those "suggestions" from the US media and their military "advisers", who lost every war they ever fought, for 404 to get ready for "offensive". But I repeat myself, they do not know what modern combined arms operations are.