Ukraine - Superthread

[Skysix]

View attachment 75243 CH-135 / UH-1N Twin Huey


View attachment 75244View attachment 75245 DHC-4 / CV-2 Caribou & DHC-5 / CV-7 Buffalo

Canadian Aircraft and Mods in US Service....

Forgot the Challenger 650, Dash 8, Otter, Twin Otter, Beaver, and the full Bell line. And this thing :

Avro Canada VZ-9 Avrocar - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[FormerHorseGuard]

Let’s be honest, the Arrow killed the Arrow. Dreaming big is great, but it wasn’t anything more than an airframe with no avionics.
When Canada shut it down, where did that industry and personnel go?
Down here…



GDLS being a US company…

Before it was GDLS it was part of GM Canada, it was a plant that built locomotives in Canada for CNR and CPR, plus a few short lines and regional carriers. It was done here to avoid an import and export tax on railroad equipment. Canadian locomotives could operate in the US and Vice Versa but import taxes made it more expensive.

Locomotives built in the London plant cost $191 712.00 in the 1950s, but importing the same locomotive from the New York plant cost an additional $115 000.00 in taxes.

They were cheaper and built a lot of Canadian operated locomotives, most railroads are international and cross provinces and state borders, all subject to taxes as they cross various lines.

They started to build construction equipment and buses in the excess space and line production, which lead to light armor vehicles being built.
Free Trade came along and they slowly moved the locomotive division out of Canada, to Mexico and the US. Cheaper wages and benefits, and unions.

They merged the company with GDLS then eventually sold it to GD.

GD also purchased the assets of the company that makes M1A1 tanks

Every times there is a protest of sales over seas there is talk of the plant closing, every time Canada looks new equipment or upgrades they talk about closing the plant unless they get the contract. It is like a hostage taking situation. Do this or we close.

The Arrow, great jet by all accounts, but it was going no where faster than it could fly. It would of been one of a kind jet in the NATO fleet, no spare parts any where, outside of Canada. The US aircraft market were going to use their cash and lobby groups to make the US government make sure no other country purchased the Arrow by under selling the price of the US jets already up and flying. The other countries considered air force equipment to be of National interest and little to no chance of buying from another country.

Where did the skilled labour and design pool end up, all over the US aircraft makers production lines, you can see arrow ideas in various US Aircraft.

If Canada ever got serious about the GDLS protests and sales it would see the company pulled out of London

 

[Kirkhill]

Hard day at the office - but safe home.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/zah7lc

 

[Kirkhill]

Are we starting to get somewhere?

Russia ready to abandon Zaporizhzhia NPP in exchange for transit of oil and gas through Ukraine

Russia is ready to leave the territory of the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in exchange for uninterrupted transit of oil and gas through Ukraine.

www.pravda.com.ua

 

[daftandbarmy]

Are we starting to get somewhere?

Russia ready to abandon Zaporizhzhia NPP in exchange for transit of oil and gas through Ukraine

Russia is ready to leave the territory of the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in exchange for uninterrupted transit of oil and gas through Ukraine.

www.pravda.com.ua

 

[Kirkhill]

Satellite images show Russia is making a big gamble on how it plans to defend territory near Crimea from Ukraine

Russian defensive positions have been constructed along ground lines of communication like roads but seem to ignore the open terrain in between.

www.businessinsider.com

• Russian forces have set up defensive lines and positions in territory leading toward Crimea.
• But their fortifications focus on roads and highways, rather than fields and open terrain.
• This is a gamble for Putin's troops and could make them vulnerable to Ukrainian offensives.

Russian defensive positions have been built along critical ground lines of communication like roads and highways and connect Russian forces at the Dnipro River with other occupied areas to the southeast, like Crimea and the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, according to an assessment this week from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank.

These positions exist in the form of trenches and dragon's teeth anti-tank defenses, the ISW assessment said, referring to a decades-old strategy consisting of hardened fortifications that are built to slow and stop heavy armor. But instead of connecting communication lines across the battlefield, the positions appear more like "elaborate roadblocks" that don't stray too far from the roads or into the fields.

 

[Kirkhill]

Hope springs eternal!

 

[KevinB]

Are we starting to get somewhere?

Russia ready to abandon Zaporizhzhia NPP in exchange for transit of oil and gas through Ukraine

Russia is ready to leave the territory of the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in exchange for uninterrupted transit of oil and gas through Ukraine.

www.pravda.com.ua

The only reason the RuAF will leave ENPP is if they are planning on blowing it up in a glass flag. ENPP provided power to a great portion of Ukraine, and more importantly due to being a Nuclear Power Plant, gives Russia an ace of a defensive position as UA won’t shell it. Meaning any Ukrainian efforts on retaking ENPP will be very costly in terms of personnel, especially SOF.

 

[Kirkhill]

I don't know. It seems to me that they are starting to put some usable chips in play. Borders are political and visible. Pipelines, oil, gas and Euros are invisible, as are sheĺl companies. Russian gas has been flowing through Ukraine to the EU through much of the current unpleasantness.

Which is more important to Vlad's oligarchs? The state of Vlad's borders or their bank accounts?

 

[Spencer100]

Which is more important to Vlad's oligarchs? The state of Vlad's borders or their bank accounts?
[/QUOTE]

I think at the oligarchs hope at this time is not tripping out a window or acidential suicide with three bullets in the back of the head.

I did think the 5 bullets from four guns suicide must be some kind of record.

 

[KevinB]

Lockheed gets HIMARS contract to replenish stock sent to Ukraine

Lockheed Martin is getting nearly $500 million from the U.S. Army to rapidly build more missiles launchers to replace those sent to Ukraine.

www.defensenews.com

 

[Kirkhill]

Which is more important to Vlad's oligarchs? The state of Vlad's borders or their bank accounts?

I think at the oligarchs hope at this time is not tripping out a window or acidential suicide with three bullets in the back of the head.

I did think the 5 bullets from four guns suicide must be some kind of record.
[/QUOTE]

Speaking of tripping down the stairs....

Vladimir Putin 'fell down stairs at his home and soiled himself'

Vladimir Putin fell down the stairs of his official residence on Wednesday night, bruised his coccyx and 'involuntarily defecated', the General SVR Telegram channel has claimed.

www.dailymail.co.uk

It's in the Daily Mail. It must be true.

 

[Skysix]

Are we starting to get somewhere?

Russia ready to abandon Zaporizhzhia NPP in exchange for transit of oil and gas through Ukraine

Russia is ready to leave the territory of the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in exchange for uninterrupted transit of oil and gas through Ukraine.

www.pravda.com.ua

Don't believe it is voluntary. They are trying to find a way to increase oil and gas revenue to support the war at the same time as stopping a fight they will lose militarily/ politically AND to sew the seeds of disagreement in the west to weaken support for Ukraine

Would be a win-win-win for Putin but I see no real upside for Ukraine so as much as the west might like to see it happen this way, I doubt it will. Time is on Ukraine's side as long as the west continues support. If it was my decision I would give a Snake Island reply, and I am 100% sure there are smarter people in the Ukrainian high command than I.

 

[Kirkhill]

From the Daily Kos



UPDATE: Friday, Dec 2, 2022 · 1:34:57 PM MST · Mark Sumner
What do you do if all of your soldiers just walk away from the base? This video reportedly shows conscripts in the city of Kazan just leaving the base en masse.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1598776855942860811

 

[Kirkhill]

A couple of other good Daily Kos summaries.

Ukraine update: Advances near Svatove and Kreminna show that Ukrainian forces are still on the move

UPDATE: Friday, Dec 2, 2022 · 8:41:01 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner On the “it’s all one front” front, here’s what’s happening down near Donetsk. Russian forces engaged in small scale assaults against Ukrainian troops in a number of towns, with the biggest...

www.dailykos.com

Ukraine update: Let's take stock of the current front lines

UPDATE: Saturday, Nov 26, 2022 · 3:26:54 PM +00:00 · kos What misery. As I noted yesterday, what was Russia’s five axes of attack at the start of the war has been gradually whittled down to a single front in The Donbas. Still, it’s a long front line,...

www.dailykos.com

 

[Kirkhill]

Judging from this video, via Daily Kos, the ground seems to be firming up again in the Svatove district. Possibly due to colder temps?
That may be helping the Ukrainians to manoeuver a bit better.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1598656873687035905

 

[daftandbarmy]

Don't believe it is voluntary. They are trying to find a way to increase oil and gas revenue to support the war at the same time as stopping a fight they will lose militarily/ politically AND to sew the seeds of disagreement in the west to weaken support for Ukraine

Would be a win-win-win for Putin but I see no real upside for Ukraine so as much as the west might like to see it happen this way, I doubt it will. Time is on Ukraine's side as long as the west continues support. If it was my decision I would give a Snake Island reply, and I am 100% sure there are smarter people in the Ukrainian high command than I.

This clip suggests they're pulling out because they're getting pounded by UA artillery....

US open to Ukraine peace talks

Stuart Ray from McKenzie Intelligence analyses President Joe Biden's comments regarding talks with Vladimir Putin about ending the war in Ukraine.

news.sky.com

 

[Kirkhill]

Meanwhile, moving on from Fantasians?

“interesting development that occurred over the course of the last 12 to 24 months in the NATO parlance is an acknowledgment that we need to focus on a real-world threat.

“And what I mean by that is there, for very important and for political reasons, there had been a practice, or still is, [that] we need to reassure political leaders within NATO that [exercises are] appropriate, safe to do and they need to give [their] blessing in order to do it,” she said. “But on the military side, there’s an acknowledgment that… if we’re going to be plans-based as we align our exercises, we need to be threat-informed as well, which is a very important, very powerful development that is going on right now.”

To deter Russia, EUCOM official stresses 'threat-informed' exercises - Breaking Defense

Maj. Gen. Jessica Meyeraan said an “interesting development that occurred over the course of the last 12 to 24 months in the NATO parlance is an acknowledgment that we need to focus on a real-world threat.”

breakingdefense.com

 

[Kirkhill]

From the Daily Kos



UPDATE: Friday, Dec 2, 2022 · 1:34:57 PM MST · Mark Sumner
What do you do if all of your soldiers just walk away from the base? This video reportedly shows conscripts in the city of Kazan just leaving the base en masse.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1598776855942860811

Defmon confirms hard ground

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1598776572290351104

 

[Maxman1]

Speaking of tripping down the stairs....

Vladimir Putin 'fell down stairs at his home and soiled himself'

Vladimir Putin fell down the stairs of his official residence on Wednesday night, bruised his coccyx and 'involuntarily defecated', the General SVR Telegram channel has claimed.

www.dailymail.co.uk

It's in the Daily Mail. It must be true.

I'm sure they'll have him on his feet in no time.