you consider an opinion on a news site that differs from yours to be 'some wierd russian talking point shit' and that's the basis for deleting my post? if i remember correctly the article quotes a supporting comment by the nato commander saying much the same thing.

This is the second time you posted here some wierd russian talking points shit from Jeffrey sachs, last time I allowed it this time I'm deleting it.

Yea agreed, found it interesting to hear from some people in China about it tho

This contains some really embarrasing misconceptions but the spirit of the letter is in the right direction, so to speak

It's way cooler if it drops a little package with a bow and flies off before the package explodes.

I disagree, but I don't really have an interest in warfare anyway.

The Corvo PPDS is an expendable drone intended to deliver supplies and equipment into areas traditional logistics capabilities cannot reach.

I think "payload delivery" is suppose to refer to its logistics capacity.

It did trials in Australia in 2019. I think it predates the idea that cheap retrofitted drones are effective in battlefield environments. Before it was either a small scale purpose built devices used by special forces, the switchblade being the only one I know of, or paramilitary groups using off the shelf drones for airborne IEDs.

well it doesn't necessarily imply being kamikaze-d

The Corvo PPDS is an expendable drone intended to deliver supplies and equipment into areas traditional logistics capabilities cannot reach. Following feedback from the Ukrainian military, the system has also been adapted for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions.

Precision Payload Delivery System (PPDS)

The "kamikaze mode" is in their name.

In recent days a Russian war propaganda channel also complained about these drones being used in an attack on a Russian airbase and were loaded with explosives in "kamikaze mode" (unlike in the report above which underlines their usage for reconnaisance)

well a flipside of this is drone warfare also gives asymmetric advantages to non-state groups because it's very cheap, though it will take some time before it's used in full. There're already signs of it among Myanmar rebels for example

This has made warfare even worse. Before, you hid in a trench to escape the flying steel above. Besides a lucky shell or a trench raid you were largely safe. That's no longer the case. There's no such thing as a relatively safe area within 100KM of the front lines, either HIMARS or MLRS or these nasty drone dropped grenades that almost always seriously maim but don't kill.

Won't be long til China and US have fully fleshed out their drone swarm programs. Terrifying stuff.

I don't think technicals will ever go away. Whenever the need for having a weapon system now out weights the need for armor, reliability and standardization someone with a hacksaw and welder will appear and make it happen.

Motor/tube artillery seems like the natural first place to see this. The lack of armor isn't a big detractor, an infantry motor team is already in armored, and a simple bubble level to assist with aiming will probably make it accurate enough for use. And honestly the Grad isn't much more than a glorified heavy truck with rockets strapped to it anyways.

Here's another good report from the town, though a few months ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ3MnhyGtN0

I agree with you. My largest concern on a former battlefield would be unexploded high explosives. The dangers of those eclipses pretty much anything else.

Like, I'm not sure that limited usage of depleted uranium in tank-on-tank battles is even a bigger concern (if a concern at all) wrt the environment compared to, say, mining. Feels like some people are overpanicking over this, no?

It's strange that people so rarely mention that Russia is the 2nd largest user of depleted uranium in military use after USA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium

Health effects seem understudied, judging from this page (at least given the fact that there're polarizing opinions as to whether the effects are negligible and mostly affect the military or not)

Yes I agree that people of course have a right not to fight and they should be able to leave if they want to, if they feel they can be useful in other ways, whatever. I've actually seen officers say more than once that they don't need drafted people if they're unmotivated and that the government should rather lift restrictions. The scale of evasion is much lower than in Russia though, not even close.

Hey am also interested in the issue of the draft if Ukraine and, desertions and resistance to the war efforts on both sides. Because I think it's fair enough obviously if the Ukrainians want to not get invaded/taken over/imperialised by Russia, but am also definitely not in favour of a draft and I think it's shit that the Ukrainian govt doesn't let military aged men flee the country. But yea agree the Assembly article is Def reaching when it talks about desertions based on the Spiegel article. Also thanks for the bitter thread below didn't know about the critique of Assembly

Thanks for the info will respond more fully later

Some critical thread about "Assembly" https://nitter.net/bad_immigrant/status/1621523716814536705#m

It's Kyiv, not "Kiev", and Kharkiv, not "Kharkov". Russians are using Russified names of settlements in war propaganda intentionally (see Bakhmut which they call "Artemovsk" and many others) and repeating that is bad.

The continuous both-siding attempts from "assembly" are strange as well. Their (some folks say that "Assembly" is just run by a few people who mostly aggregate content rather than produce their own) summary of Der Spiegel article is very incomplete and somewhat dishonest as well.

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/on-the-front-in-ukraine-going-into-battle-in-a-leopard-2-tank-a-9baffb53-1e5b-4a18-8ec5-173d067721af

First of all, it never mentions the amount of those who "try to get out of it", can be just a handful of people (and sure, if you don't want to fight the best thing is to never even start, because the further down the line, the harder it is to get out, both practically, and because it can be problematic for your comrades whom you abandon, though as the interviewee here says he doesn't hold it against such people; but some might). And somehow equates this tidbit with a much more massive problems in the Russian army with prisons for refusers, which are well-documented. The counteroffensive barely just started, but such people are already jumping in the front to claim how it's not an uber-successful blietzkrieg in 3 days liberating the entire occupied territory like they expected from their deluded expectations, when that same Der Spiegel article mentions that the battle against the main defensive positions of the occupiers are still yet to be seen, and most Ukrainian forces prepared for the counteroffensive are yet to enter the fight. The opsec requirements for the coverage of frontline advances also means that a lot of western "analytics" about the counteroffensive is mere speculation without any knowledge of the classified info.

And jeez, talking about "fraternization of soldiers" in a genocidal invasion is absolutely ridiculous peak "pacifism". Had these people lived in WWII, they'd be wondering when Soviet soldiers will finally start "fraternizing" with the Nazis.

fair point! Maybe I would have framed it differently then?

Putin interrupted opening remarks by African leaders seeking to mediate in the Ukraine conflict to deliver a list of reasons why he believed many of their proposals were misguided.

He's so interested in peace that he interrupted the "peacemakers" right away

Also I'm so sick of this "neutral" nonsense with wordings like "conflict".

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/south-africas-ramaphosa-reveals-10-point-peace-initiative-on

to see the points of Ramaphosa's plan