Posted on 01/18/2023 9:30:14 PM PST by Zhang Fei
The Biden administration is preparing to announce a roughly $2.5 billion military aid package for Ukraine that is expected to include dozens of Bradley and Stryker armored vehicles, according to two people familiar with the decision, as the Pentagon intensifies its support ahead of an expected counteroffensive against entrenched Russian forces.
The war has entered a phase, U.S. officials have said, that will require Ukrainian units to attack enemy forces in a concerted way, using tanks, armored vehicles, artillery and aviation in what is known as combined arms warfare. Bradleys and Strykers would significantly bolster their firepower and allow soldiers to move quickly around the battlefield.
The coming transfer could contain nearly 100 Strykers, one of these people said. It would mark the first time the Pentagon has supplied Ukraine with such vehicles. Those familiar with the plan spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it ahead of a formal announcement.
The Bradley fighting vehicles included in this transfer will be in addition to those announced earlier this month in a separate $3 billion arms package, the people said. The next tranche of aid also will include a substantial restock of ammunition for howitzers and rocket artillery, they said, and more mine-resistant vehicles.
The new vehicles are intended to complement the large-scale, combined arms training that several hundred Ukrainian soldiers are receiving at a U.S. military facility in Germany to help them change the dynamics of the battlefield, U.S. officials have said. As winter has taken hold, the fighting has concentrated in the south and east, degrading into a violent slugfest where both sides are suffering steep losses for modest gains.
“The Russians are really digging in. … They’re digging trenches, they’re putting in these dragon’s teeth, laying mines. They’re really trying to fortify that forward line of troops,”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Ukraine ping
Pace the excitable WaPo columnists’ verbiage, this instalment of the aid package authorized last year is by no means “massive”, but certainly better than nothing. According to The Drive, the total vehicles delivered from the US inventory so far include “1,300 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs) or Humvees, 300 M113 Armored Personnel Carriers and 527 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAPs)”. That’s the reason for the increasing # of Humvee and M113 videos from the front lines. Not the latest gear, but warms the heart to see them put to good use.
One Stryker variant includes a turreted 105mm main gun similar to the AMX-10, although it’s not clear whether this model will be sent to Ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1128_Mobile_Gun_System
Don’t forget the fabric softener.
The only massive package in DC these days is meant to screw over the American citizen.
If we had artillery, we could have combined arms. If we had airplanes.
How long before Russia just attacks us directly. We are at war with them. I don’t give a S*** what anyone else says.
This is why they found TS documents in Biden’s garage and every other place he has. Leverage to pump in more money to the WAR MACHINE.
That's what war is - the flushing of cash down the toilet. Unfortunately, as long as Russia stays inside Ukraine, we'll have to keep up with Russia's burning of moderate piles of cash. Given the 20 to 1 disparity in economic heft between the combined EU and US economies, It's likely the Western powers supplying Ukraine can keep it up long enough to see the last of the Russian presence in Ukraine. The US spent $1T in Afghanistan over 20 years to chase a ragtag bunch of guerrillas around the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan. If that amount of money sends Russia back to its corner for a couple of decades, it will have been money well-spent. After all, Russian imperialism, formerly wrapped up in a red costume, is why NATO came into being in the first place.
Screw ‘em! We’re broke, and in hock up to our eyeballs.
Let the Euroweenies fund “Hollywood” Zzzelllinskkyyy’s kleptocrat state, if they want it.
All the vehicles mentioned are surplus to requirements.
All are out of service or are headed out.
The $ in this package are mostly the nominal value of leftover inventory. I guess the US Army could sell them as surplus, but I dont see a market that will value them at anything close to the nominal value.
[How long before Russia just attacks us directly. We are at war with them. I don’t give a S*** what anyone else says.]
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/seventy-years-ago-soviet-mig-15s-attacked-american-pilots-180977440/
https://www.rbth.com/history/332396-how-soviets-fought-against-americans
I doubt the Russians want to expand to expand the conflict outside of Ukraine. They’ve got their hands full as it is. Even if US troops intervened in Ukraine the way the Russians intervened in Korea and Vietnam, the Russians would likely keep the war *inside* Ukraine. The principal lesson of history is that if you encounter difficulties on a given battlefield, it almost never pays to add to the number of opponents you’re fighting.
They found those documents because they are getting set to replace Biden.
Emmanuel Todd begs to differ:
https://unherd.com/thepost/emmanuel-todd-world-war-iii-has-already-begun/
The neoclowns in DC have blundered into an existential La Brea tar pit in the Ukraine.
The US has vast numbers of airplanes, by anyone’s measure.
The USAF is the primary battlefield weapon in the US system.
It is meant to deprive the enemy of its firepower, supplies, air support, and air defenses.
Artillery is supposed to help break open defenses for the mass of maneuver to exploit, not to bombard them for months. The US does not fight the way both sides are obliged to do in Ukraine. And the US has 4000+ artillery pieces, tube and rocket, including Active, NG, and reserve stocks.
Where's that "no-fly zone", Spaniard?
Aircraft over the battlefield are old news - just like battleships at the end of World War II...
Todd is just another of the wishful thinkers. Versions of that guy have been around for 50+ years. Maybe one day one of them will be correct, but not for a while. China is in no position to replace the US$, probably ever, as they seem to have hit their demographic-economic limit.
>> Unfortunately, as long as Russia stays inside Ukraine, we’ll have to keep up with Russia’s burning of moderate piles of cash.
“Unfortunately”...??? What the fresh hell is that horse crap. WHY? Why is it OUR problem? There are four hundred and fifty million Euroweenies. Their GDP is seventeen trillion to our twenty-three trillion. (Wherever the hell did you get that asinine “20 to 1 disparity in economic heft” nonsense? Pull it out of your ass, did you? More like one-to-one.)
Those sorry, greedy euro SOBs have done nothing but TAKE, TAKE and TAKE SOME MORE, ever since we bailed their sorry asses out in WWII. Do they want to “free Ukraine” so it can get back to making porn, and business deals with Biden? THEN LET THEM PAY.
We’re broke. And out of HIMARS, too.
I thought a “no fly zone” was an act of war?
And it seems that the Ukrainians are doing a fine job with keeping up a no fly zone on their own.
But if the US mobilized for this war, it would not be a “no fly zone”, it would be a hundred “highways of death”.
Aircraft over the battlefield is the point of having aircraft. There is no substitute. The USAF has been designing these things for just that, to this day.
https://mises.org/library/living-reality-military-economic-fascism
Can’t wait for Yaweah to stop this.
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