willedoo

Almost as bad as driving a Phantom into a concrete wall.

U

Meanwhile on Thursday night, Russia attacked the Dnipro hydroelectric grid with 60 Shahed drones and almost 90 missiles and not a peep from the US.

Is this more American appeasement? It's been reported that the US is urging Ukraine to cease attacks on Russian oil refineries in fear of global oil prices rising. https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-wont-stop-targeting-russias-oil-refineries-will-defy-us-2024-3

I know the actor; I just can't think of his name.

My guess is that it probably is ISIS-K, the group that has claimed it. The US and UK intelligence has been warning of it for a couple of weeks but putin has been publicly rejecting and mocking the warnings as 'Western blackmail'. There would be no shortage of home grown ISIS cells in Russia. Unconfirmed reports mentioned the terrorists speaking Russian. They have plenty of scope for it with about 15% of Russians being Muslim. Moscow has the largest Muslim population of any city in Europe. The US intelligence warnings to the Kremlin even specified concert venues. The trick for putler now is to spin it so he doesn't appear to have egg on his face. That shouldn't be too hard as he's a cult just like Trump in the US. All he has to do is point the finger at Ukraine or the US or both and the sheep will believe him.

really, really sure doesn't sound as flash as beyond reasonable doubt.

A screen grab of Russian defence minister Shoigu visiting a munitions factory. Russia now has their growing economy firmly on a war footing and is ramping up arms production. I guess this is stage two of putin's 'outlast the West strategy'. So far, he's in with a chance helped by weak western political will combined with sanction dodging western companies and arms supplies from allied countries like Iran and North Korea. The U.S. and a lot of European countries are asleep at the wheel; they think if they stick their head in the sand, putler will go away. They just don't get it. If nobody crosses the nuclear line, whoever has the most bombs, men and shells will win.

One big issue in the Russian/Ukrainian war has been the sustainability of artillery. It's been very much an artillery war and it's been decades since anyone has seen this sustained rate and volume of fire. One big problem has been barrel wear. Even if manufacturers could keep up with demand, artillery pieces still have to be taken off line for servicing and barrel changes. One example is the Panzerhaubitze 2000 self propelled howitzer the Ukrainians are using. The barrels are wearing quicker than expected due to the combination of a long 52 calibre gun firing at long range targets up to 55 kilometres away. A lot of equipment has never before been used at the intensity seen in Ukraine, so it's been educational for western militaries. Budget documents released this month scrapped U.S. plans to double the range of the M109 self propelled howitzer by developing the new M1299 howitzer, with the problem being an unacceptably low barrel life. The M1299 has a 58 calibre barrel firing 155mm rounds out to 98 kilometres in tests. Before scrapping it, they delivered a battalion of 18 prototypes last year for testing, but the barrel wear problem hadn't been solved. The wear in artillery barrels is caused by rate of fire (causing overheating) and in this case, long-range shots using maximum charges which causes excessive kinetic stress on the barrel. Two shell types were developed for the M1299; a ramjet version from Boeing and a sabot design from BAE Systems. A simple fix would be to increase barrel thickness, but the long 58 calibre barrel on the M1299 has enough balance problems with the current barrel thickness as evidenced by the added autoloader having to be redesigned down from 31 shells to 23. Photo below is a M1299 prototype.

Russian defence minister Shoigu has announced they will be creating two new ground armies. As a comparison of numbers involved, the new armies will be larger than the combined armies of of France, the U.K., Germany, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands. putler will no doubt have to order another round of mobilisation now that his election is over.

Plan A - Japanese subs, Plan B- French subs, Plan C - American subs, Plan D-?.

Bullbar is a bit sexist. Nobody ever talks about a cowbar or a heifer bar.

The Queensland local government elections on the weekend saw a record number of female mayors elected. Approximately one third of all council mayors will be women for the next term of local government.

The Ukrainians now have a couple of operational Blackhawks.

This graphic shows locations and some distances of refineries that have been damaged. Currently 14 out of Russia's 30 largest refineries have suffered drone attacks.

He did even better in the Donetsk People's Republic polling 95%. I wonder if the election officials door knocking with two accompanying armed soldiers could have influenced the vote there.

Gee, what a surprise. putler must be really, really popular. Every election he has polled higher and higher figures. He's saving the 90's percentage points for the next one.

The encouraging thing about the latest rounds of drone attacks on Russian refineries is that the Ukrainians seem to be getting a high degree of accuracy and are hitting high value targets within the refinery complexes. In a lot of the recorded video of the strikes, it looks like the distillation and cracking towers are burning. Video of one refinery being hit a couple of days ago showed the drones on descent, then turning in a U turn dive to hit specific targets. It's the tall things they need to hit:

There's 4 cats there. It took me a few minutes to see the fourth one.

4 cats.

The putin propaganda billboard in the foreground of this photo has the slogan 'Stability!' written on it. The backdrop is another one of Russia's oil refineries burning after Ukrainian drone attacks.

Every day for the last two weeks, long range Ukrainian drones have been striking Russian oil refineries. Some estimates put the figure at 20% to 25% of Russia's oil refining capacity currently off-line until repaired. The challenge is to identify and be able to knock out critical parts of the refining infrastructure to cause longer term loss of production. A lot of strikes in the past have hit storage tanks which is not such a big deal. Damaged storage can easily be isolated and worked around. The latest strikes seem to indicate that the Ukrainians are getting more accurate and going for the higher priority components in the refineries. It also highlights another problem for Russia. They know these attacks are occurring almost daily and yet they can do nothing to stop them. I've read some opinions that the Russians have had to move a lot of air defence systems to Ukraine to replace losses there which consequently leaves Russia relatively undefended. It looks like the attrition of Russian air defence systems at the front is starting to bite.

With the two by-election seats, Labor looks like losing Ipswich West after copping a 15% swing against them. They've retained Annastacia Palaszczuk's old seat but suffered a large swing there as well. The new Labor candidate's primary vote was 30.9% lower than the former premier's vote at the last election. In Ipswich West the LNP is likely to win on One Nation preferences. ON polled around 10%, which should be enough to push the LNP over the line. The Legalise Cannabis candidate received 14.4%, most of which would flow to Labor, but Labor's primary vote was behind that of the LNP.

Some things you just can't unsee.