Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Exactly

It was 1140 two days in a row and the last few days about 750 per day.

(Deleted)

There's nothing useful about him/her!

At that rate 20-23,000 dead by the end of the month,

In one month alone , meanwhile some posters are claiming that looses are massive on both sides but won't provide anything other than there opinion as evidence

Oh, no need to thank me MudSpud.....thank the Geneva Conventions on War, but I guess, being a Russian supporter, you like Putin, don't bother too much about the Conventions do you? Obviously not when your invasion of a sovereign independent state was illegal from day one.

OT, but back in the noughties we used to fly with Czech airlines a bit via Prague. On one of those trips I was trying to get something finished on the laptop when my wife came back from a walk and said there was a big plane out on the runway, I should come see it. This was before the days of A380 and assumed my wife was referring to a 747. So I went "Uhuh, that's nice" trying to keep my focus on the laptop. She said that even the ground crew had stopped to watch it and I should come see. Reluctantly I left my laptop and went to where I could see the runway. There, taxiing out was an An-225 or more correctly the An-225. I counted the engines on each wing just to make sure I wasn't mistaken and gave my wife a hug. Over the next 5 minutes it roared off down the runway. But the speed didn't match the sound, not for a long time. Gradually the wings lost their droopiness as its speed inexorably picked up. But still it was stuck the runway. Smaller and smaller it got until finally it lifted off, trailing a truly filthy black cloud behind it.

One of my top 3 warm fuzzy aviation moments. The others being an A10 flying low over the house in the 80s and a Spitfire flying in for the Gothenburg airshow in the 90s. Ah the sound of that Merlin.

Yes, but the big difference between the Russians and the US leaving Afghanistan was that the Russian's were kicked out by the Afghan's and told in no uncertain terms not to return, but when the Americans left, most of Afghanistan wanted to leave with them

Germany needed the courage and didn't have to ask permission of anyone. It wasn't until the UK offered the 12 challengers and then the US the 30 Abrams that things started moving. And you can stop being so condescending.

And talk of Russia's relatively large population becomes irrelevant in the face of those kinds of losses. People talk about Russian disregard for life in their military doctrine, but that remains mostly on the part commanders. The actual soldiers and their families aren't going to be that gung ho about getting slaughtered if they can help it, and it's telling that Wagner have apparently favoured the use of prisoners for this human wave offensive - fewer will miss that type of man. That becomes more and more of a problem as the prisoners diminish and Russian command is forced to pull more and more from the regular population for its zombie horde. And even the furthest flung villages will at some point notice that few, if any, of their sons are coming back. This is where 140 million really starts to look like a much smaller number.

Equally it could be the case that these things happen more often than we thought. And we're only being exposed to it now as a result of the relatively new mass drone footage from this war.

Hi folks.

I'm back, after my absence. What did I miss? I was in the "land of the free" doing in one week, what would take two months to do here in the Wesht!

Just noticed this big chap doing a 180, with transponder first off, then back on again, out over the sea. An airdrop over the water off the coast, maybe?

It's pretty quiet, but I've obviously heard about the relocation of air assets to the borders. In the States, the argument against sending jets is pretty strong, recommending an effective air-defence system instead. I would tend to agree. There is a lot, and I do mean a lot, of work involved in keeping combat aircraft flying, never mind the training involved. ( any Irish Aer Corps pilot will tell you this even with our humble PC'9s). An air-defence system across the country would be far, far more cost-effective and more damaging to the Russians.

Most Americans I spoke to :

1. Don't know where Ukraine is, on a map.

2. Expect Poland to be dragged into the fight. ( I fact, they're already in the fight). I'm certain Poland expects this too. Something about unfinished business...

3. Believe the US should be doing a lot more to help the Ukraine.

4. Think Europe is a Country.

5. Belive that there are many Ukranian personell being trained, on the QT, with certain skills, at bases in the US. I find this difficult to believe.

Anyway. Hope you're all well. Any regulars still here?

Here's that wandering C-17...

Balloons again...

UKRAINE HAS SAID its aerial defence units had detected half a dozen balloons, apparently launched by Russia, over the capital Kyiv and shot most of them down. Kyiv authorities said the balloons could carry reconnaissance equipment and were launched to “detect and exhaust our air defence forces.”

https://www.thejournal.ie/kyiv-russian-balloons-zelenskyy-troops-bakhmut-5996711-Feb2023/

A clever idea though. If they could launch hundreds of balloons over Ukraine it would use up a huge amount of Ukrainian resources shooting them down.

Thanks. I now have an image of Russian soldiers looting shops for gas tanks, party balloons and disposable cameras.