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U.S. readies another massive military package for Ukraine
Washington Post ^ | January 18, 2023 at 8:17 p.m. EST | Alex Horton and  John Hudson

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 ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Russia
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To: Nervous Tick; marcusmaximus; Paul R.; Bruce Campbells Chin; PIF; familyop; MercyFlush; tet68; ...

[>> Ultimately, the West makes the machine tools and designs the products that are then assembled by menial workers elsewhere.

You’re expressing a twenty year old world view. Things have changed a great deal.]


Fact is, the West has >20x Russia’s GDP, and that’s being kind to Russia - the numbers are before the sanctions that have led to serious problems with the Russian economy. How many Russian companies do you see internationally? The big players in the international markets are Procter and Gamble, Caterpillar, Google, Microsoft, Merck, Pfizer, Apple, Chase, Citibank, Tesla, UPS, etc, all of them American. What Russian or Chinese company comes close to these behemoths?


41 posted on 01/18/2023 10:56:34 PM PST by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room)
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To: buwaya

Demographic? Long ago.
Economic? Coming soon. US cultural rot is spreading and consuming the piled up cultural and human capital. The US is hanging on only because of the immense reserves of value accumulated by more virtuous generations. It takes time to burn through that.

*********

Good assessment of our current situation.

Thanks.


42 posted on 01/18/2023 10:56:49 PM PST by unclebankster (Globalism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.)
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To: FlyingEagle

Biden-Brandon is a petty grifter hired by his masters to serve as a puppet. He, himself, doesnt matter. He is a creature of wood and paint. His grifts are penny ante.

Attacking him is just rhetorical war, not substansive. Look to who runs things in NYC for the people pulling his strings. THEIR grifts are what you should care about.

One guy - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman

Though even he is likely to be a figurehead, or just one of a committee - Blackstone is just one private equity outfit, one that is particularly in the public eye. Also note that this fellow is nominally a Republican. This is bipartisan.


43 posted on 01/18/2023 10:59:14 PM PST by buwaya (Strategic imperatives )
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To: buwaya
Aircraft...The USAF has been designing these things for just that, to this day.
Yeah, and no doubt our military brass is just itching to use those planes. Lose a few pilots? Who cares, gotta break those eggs, right, for that omelette?
44 posted on 01/18/2023 10:59:27 PM PST by citizen (Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people - John Adams 1798)
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To: Zhang Fei

We don’t user the M-60 any more but we made 15,000 of them. Pull them off the used car lot and send them to Ukraine.


45 posted on 01/18/2023 11:07:45 PM PST by Lee Enfield (Candy Corn (nobody says anything sweet anymore))
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To: Zhang Fei

Addition to your comment #2.

US Plans to include 100 Stryker infantry carrier vehicles in new Ukraine aid package – Bloomberg
https://euromaidanpress.com/2023/01/19/us-plans-to-include-100-stryker-infantry-carrier-vehicles-in-new-ukraine-aid-package-bloomberg/


46 posted on 01/18/2023 11:08:29 PM PST by familyop ("For they that sleep with dogs, shall rise with fleas" (John Webster, "The White Devil" 1612).)
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To: Zhang Fei

And on the German Leopards...

Russo-Ukrainian War. Day 330: Leopard tanks for Ukraine on Germany’s new defense minister’s priority agenda
https://euromaidanpress.com/2023/01/18/russo-ukrainian-war-day-330-leopard-tanks-for-ukraine-on-gemanys-new-defense-ministers-priority-agenda/


47 posted on 01/18/2023 11:09:38 PM PST by familyop ("For they that sleep with dogs, shall rise with fleas" (John Webster, "The White Devil" 1612).)
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To: citizen

That is war. People die.

Ref - a great book I’m currently reading, “Poilu”, Louis Barthas. A memoir of a French soldier in the trenches of WWI. People die.

My point is you all need to consider the big picture of US power when looking at the situation in Ukraine. Its a bit hard to grasp the vast totality of US power without truly studying it. Ukraine is not modern war in all its forms. Its a peculiar situation due to the many constraints on both sides. Its a “little war”. A “big war”, when the US is truly involved, will look entirely different.


48 posted on 01/18/2023 11:09:59 PM PST by buwaya (Strategic imperatives )
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To: buwaya

There is also a talk about supplying Ukraine with GLSDB-s - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_Launched_Small_Diameter_Bomb

It reuses the M26 rocket engine and attaches a gliding bomb to it. M26-s have been in the process of being decommissioned (at the price of over $1000 a piece), but now there is a use for their engines.

The gliding bomb solves the problem of M26-s being very inaccurate.

Obama administration stupidly destroyed ~300,000 M26-s, but there should be about 200k left.


49 posted on 01/18/2023 11:12:24 PM PST by Krosan
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To: Lee Enfield

I think most M60 series were sold or scrapped.

US has @2500 M1 series assigned to the 20 divisions of the Active Army and the National Guard, or in prepositioned storage around the world. And another 3,700 in reserve. Unlike the M60, the M1 chassis was designed to be at least somewhat modular and upgradable, so the maintenance and upgrade potential is always there.

Thats an enormous number of first line tanks.


50 posted on 01/18/2023 11:17:32 PM PST by buwaya (Strategic imperatives )
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To: Zhang Fei
Looks like the previous military aid is put to good use.

Ukrainian Armed Forces killed 820 Russian soldiers and shot down 1 aircraft on 17 January

Ukrainian Armed Forces killed 760 Russian soldiers and destroyed 6 tanks and 1 helicopter on 18 January

51 posted on 01/18/2023 11:18:11 PM PST by familyop ("For they that sleep with dogs, shall rise with fleas" (John Webster, "The White Devil" 1612).)
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To: CFW; marcusmaximus; Paul R.; Bruce Campbells Chin; PIF; familyop; MercyFlush; tet68; BeauBo; ...

[How much unaccounted for money and weapons are we going to send to Ukraine? The list of some of the things we are funding for that nation reads like a list of funding usually given to democrat controlled cities in the U.S. We are funding their D.E.I. initiatives for goodness sakes!]


That seems more like an excuse to sabotage the aid than to rationally talk about how government inventory is accounted for. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Is Ukraine holding the Russian hordes back? Are Ukrainians getting enough to eat? If so, the aid is achieving its desired objective - warding off Russians and keeping Ukrainians alive and fed.

Kamil Galeev, a young Russian analyst from Kazan, attributes this kind of accusation to envy, on both sides of the fence, and I think he’s got a point:


[ Every theory has its limits of applicability. “Kremlin guys are crooks” theory, too. This narrative is so successful, because it appeals to the meanest humans instincts, in particular - to the envy. Envious people tend to overuse this idea far, far beyond any reasonable limits

https://twitter.com/mcminn_bill/status/1607055839763877888

Like, ok, I understand that you’re poor, constantly stressed about money and necessity to pay the bills. I also understand that you’re envious about yachts and villas. That doesn’t mean that “they’re crooks” theory is all explaining. If they were, this war just wouldn’t start

“They’re just crooks” narrative is not successful, because it is so true. It is so successful, because people are obsessed with their unreflected envy and cannot distance from it. If this war is going on, it means they’re not *just* crooks. They’re something else, too

This goes far beyond Russian problem though. Much of the moral fervour induced narratives (Crooks! Corruption!) draw their strengths from the meanest human instincts. Hence their success. People are so incredibly envious, that their critical thinking just turn off at some point

Honestly I’m just tired of this constant moral fervour. If the missiles 1) take off 2) hit the target, it means “they are all about stealing” theory is false. Or rather used far beyond its limits of applicability. If the stuff works, plenty of managers steal little to nothing

I would even say that if the missiles take off, that suggests there are (not so few) administrators who are not only not crooks, but who are absolutely selfless. Who identify with their work 100% and are ready for personal self-sacrifice. That’s why stuff works

Russian capacity to raise cities to the ground is not based on “crookery” (how did you come up with this insanity?). It is based on hard work, integrity and personal self-sacrifice of not so few people. Proof? Cities razed to the ground]


The Russians are breaking stuff and killing Ukrainians. Somehow, somewhere, equipment is getting through and soldiers are being supplied. Similarly, the Ukrainians are breaking stuff and killing Russians at a time when the economy is in shambles due to the war. Whatever the level of corruption in Ukraine, enough is getting through to the fighting men that the Russians have not only not gained much ground since the early days of the war, they have lost ground.

Even the UK ran out of cash to finance its war against Germany, and only the Channel Islands were ever occupied by Germany. And this was the empire upon which the sun never set, possessor of vast holdings in Asia and Africa mostly untouched by Axis occupation.


https://www.deseret.com/2016/1/21/20580771/this-week-in-history-lindbergh-testifies-in-congress-against-lend-lease
[Roosevelt stated repeatedly that the United States intended to remain neutral, even as the government began to prepare the nation militarily and economically for the possibility of war. He also made no bones about which side America favored. The British, with their strong democratic traditions and similar concepts of civil rights seemed like the underdog in the war against the racist and totalitarian Nazi state. The American government began to trade with Britain and supply it with the goods it needed to fight. For example, in September 1940, the Untied States traded 50 WWI-era destroyers in exchange for rights to use British naval bases around the world.

Before long, however, the British empire was bankrupt and could no longer afford to buy the American goods it needed, nor was there anything of value left to trade. Shortly after Roosevelt’s election to his third term in November 1940, he came up with a bold plan to help the British, Lend-Lease. Essentially, Lend-Lease stated that the United States would give Britain whatever it needed in order to fight the Nazis. Once Britain won the war, the the two countries would sit down and figure out exactly how much Britain owed the United States. Roosevelt used the analogy that if your neighbor’s house is on fire you wouldn’t stand around arguing about the price of your garden hose. Rather, you’d give him the hose and he could pay once the crisis was over.]


52 posted on 01/18/2023 11:18:12 PM PST by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room)
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To: Zhang Fei
Ongoing work with identifying supply chains behind the following (from earlier this month).

Ukraine finds components from at least 13 US companies in a single Iranian drone

53 posted on 01/18/2023 11:21:50 PM PST by familyop ("For they that sleep with dogs, shall rise with fleas" (John Webster, "The White Devil" 1612).)
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To: Lee Enfield

I have fond memories of training with the M60-A1-Rise main battle tanks. But one of the advantages of the Abrams is that it can continue operating after taking hits from weapons like RPG-7s and other HEAT rounds that would cause a catastrophic kill on an M60 . The Abrams has twice the cross country speed and is much more survivable. It out classes all common Russian tanks and thus provides a psychological advantage to its crew.

Many of our M60s were dumped offshore as part of an artificial reef program.


54 posted on 01/18/2023 11:23:36 PM PST by Monterrosa-24 (To the barricades !!!)
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To: Krosan

That is a good source of reserve equipment. If all are used that will quadruple US stocks of HIMARS/MLRS ammo.
And it has inherently greater range than the GMLRS.

Potentially a great hack. The biggest question is how fast can they deliver them.


55 posted on 01/18/2023 11:25:15 PM PST by buwaya (Strategic imperatives )
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To: buwaya

Trouble with the M-1 is the turbine engine. Bringing the Ukrainian engineers up to speed during wartime would be problematic. I am pretty sure a lot of the M-60’s are sitting in a pasture somewhere.


56 posted on 01/18/2023 11:30:46 PM PST by Lee Enfield (Candy Corn (nobody says anything sweet anymore))
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To: buwaya

MLRS should have been there eight months ago. It is time to stop pussy footing around and provide more decisive systems.


57 posted on 01/18/2023 11:32:55 PM PST by Monterrosa-24 (To the barricades !!!)
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To: Monterrosa-24

Ukraine has MLRS, maybe a dozen of them, delivered from European stocks. Plus those 20 HIMARS.

The issue is ammo. They are using those 30-odd launchers hard.


58 posted on 01/18/2023 11:38:40 PM PST by buwaya (Strategic imperatives )
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To: Lee Enfield

IIRC those engines were easy to swap?
The Ukes can probably send busted engines to Poland for higher level repair.

Anyway, the plan right now seems to be to give the M1’s to the Poles, who will ultimately then give the Ukes the remainder of their T-72 type tanks and their Leopard IIs. The Poles have been training on the M1s for at least 6 months.


59 posted on 01/18/2023 11:43:08 PM PST by buwaya (Strategic imperatives )
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To: Newbomb Turk

The USA is giving weapons to a country to defend itself from aggression.

The USA is not at war with Russia.


60 posted on 01/18/2023 11:47:12 PM PST by Cronos (.)
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