Laser Shark

Much better looking.
http://liberty-omfv.com/

Michael Kofman's thread from yesterday is worth a read IMO:
 
 

The trials should be over by now. No info other than that I'm afraid, well, apart from the fact that around the 19th they had to bring a couple of the tanks to Steinkjer in Central Norway due to too little snow at Rena...
 

 

Michael Kofman's thread from yesterday is worth a read IMO:
 
 

The trials should be over by now. No info other than that I'm afraid, well, apart from the fact that around the 19th they had to bring a couple of the tanks to Steinkjer in Central Norway due to too little snow at Rena...
 

 

Michael Kofman's thread from yesterday is worth a read IMO:
 
 

Wanted to do this post 2 days ago after digesting new events, but was too exhausted after workshifts to do effortposting, i was coming back to home during night time. My thoughts on this war, noise surrounding it, strategical implications and expectations, for those who care.
 
 
What i think.
   After 2017 it was obvious Ukraine will not do anything from Minsk agreements as Ukr politicians were publicly shitting on them and were doing nothing to make it real. DPR and LPR fate became obvious - they are not wanted in Ukraine. Putin's decision to recognize republics was constatations of situation. I expected thing to go slowly but deliberatly towards something i will describe later. But events went in very different way from what i thought would happen. Now, i'm not going to spit in the back of our soldiers executing orders, as Army should be this way, but politicians and other higher ups are free game im my eyes.
 
   Decision to start a full scale war in my opinion was stupidiest thing our political leadership have done in past 22 years. I'm not sure why or what triggered it, but looks like a plan was being worked on for long time, probably even before last year. Putin usually was carefull, but this is rackless decision.
   Our PR can scream about this operation being against nazis and nationalists, but the fact is this war is against Ukraine and everyone inside of it, as effects of war are going to touch nearly everyone who lives inside directly or indirectly.
 
   I don't have hard feelings about it, as i "burned down" during 2015, but this was wrong call. Not because war is bad, but because net result is not going to be what i would like to see.
 
 
   Good vs Evil
   Now, in medias narrative is that Good Democratical Ukraine is fighting Evil Russian dictatorship, in my view both states are dogshit.
 
   Ukraine is highly corrupted country that was run by oligarchs before coup in 2014 and now sort of run by oligarchs together by nationalists with piece of sovereignty outsorced to US foreigh policy makers, a country that effectively suppressed opposition in 2015-16 and where you have less rights than even in Russia, if you are not following "main course". One time per few years population needs to go to specific places where they instal another politicain as a leader who will became highly unpopular by the end of his term.
 
   Russia is highly corrupted country that was run by oligarchs before Putin and now sort of run by oligarchs together with Putin and his "clan", a country that sort of suppressed opposition in 2000s and where you have some rights, but there are workarounds, if you really want to. One time per few years population needs to go to specific places where we approve prolongation of power of our leader.
 
   Personally, i fail to see who is here an actual good guy. Both, in grand scheme of things, are kind of assholes. Maybe reason for people far away to see this conflict differently than war between Azerbaijan and Armenia is mix of agressor vs defender and Goliath vs David situation, and the fact that what they see on videos is a country and people more relatable than some Middle Eastern Arabs that are getting democracy delivered to their homes. But that is how i see it.
 
 
   Why this war is in such way it is (copy pasted from Discord): 
 
   I think we started this war with soft boxing gloves on, for some fucking reason. Maybe they expected less resistance, which may show how much attention they gave to situation on Donbass and how well they took into account 8 years of nationalistic propaganda and having armed conflict in 2.5 regions.
 
   Note absolutely no videos coming from our MoD, nothing about combat. Also note how for several days we used no artillery, very limited cruise missile strikes and no airstrikes (like in Syria with 100+ sorties per day from small base in Hmeimym). All this led to major units not being destroyed, equipment partially left in working condition. Internet was not turned off, mobile phones working. They did jack shit on this front. They did half measures and got half results.
 
   Thanks to that UAF was not destroyed. Convoy routes left undefended. No use of CAS, no proper AA coverage. Big units in bypassed cities left without serious blocking formations. They can orginise by using just mobiles phones. Thanks to ability to film and upload videos to the internet, net is now flooded with videos of Russian equipment destroyed and soldiers killed. Uplifting material for other side. All this instead of getting moral collapse of enemy faster and destruction and murder to minimun turned 180. Ukrainians are fighting back harder that what was anticipated is my expectation.
 
   Another boggus decision was using such small number of forces for operation. I saw claims of ~50k in initial phase. 100k is possibly going to be total number of forces. Ukraine is 40+ mln country. Not sure how they will hold it. Even with Rosgvardia there is not enough people to hold whole country.
 
   In the end results will be same on grand scale, but path to that result will be bloodier and longer. I guess thats why Putin fired that big star commander. But i guess they had plan B for bloodier route, which is why we now see MRLS used to bombard enemy.
 
   You can't "half-fight" the war, trying to look friendly on tv. What was supposed to be public flogging of Ukraine starts to be 1939 Soviet war with Finland, where USSR technically won, but Germans, looking at how it was won, thought Red Army was umm.. "incompetent" and decision to invade USSR was taken with taking into account poor results of that war. 
 
 
   Expectations, future
   After declaration of recognition of republics i thought we will start to help rebels in taking back 2 oblast', and this will be the end of hot-ish phase of conflict in Donbass region after quick strike against main forces of UAF in this region (which are most of their forces) and enforcing some sort of political comma in a conflict and moving to next phase.
 
   Reality went in different direction.
   I suspect this war will continue for a week (optimistically), 2-3 weeks if Russian command will not unfuck their plans, or turn into strange military stalment for a month or 2 when most of Ukraine is going to be technically captured, but vast territories and many towns/villages will not have any occupation forces to keep an order, so motivated people will have space to continue strategically unorginised conflict until we will pump necessary amount of internal troops to put it down enough for law enforcements to handle situation.  
 
   After that expect new government, neutral status and Russian troops leaving, with scars of stupidity of leadership. And after some time - nationalists will rise, again, maybe even at bigger scale. Reason - they were screaming about Russian invasion for 8 years and now it is a reality. Their voice was heard by people in Ukraine before, but and now it have big and firm foundation to stand on thanks to this war happening.
 

Not me, I'm afraid. Russia and its peoples deserve better.

Not me, I'm afraid. Russia and its peoples deserve better.

These previous western endeavours were ill thought out and costly mistakes, even if they got rid of some truly despicable people in the process (and whose faith was way less than they deserved). This move by Russia, however, could easily turn out to be an even greater mistake than all of them put together.

In mechanized units that already field the Lynx family, sure, it wouldn’t be too much of a burden, but there’s still the question of what's its role is going to be. It doesn't have the protection required to replace MBTs in tank units. There’s also cavalry units, but even these would be better off with MBTs imo (if you’re in a tank on a recce by force mission you’d want the better protection). That leaves tank destroyer units, where they actually make some sense even if they are on the heavier side, but this is also the sort of niche role that most countries won’t be able to afford. In other words, I doubt the Lynx 120 will be any more successful than the CV90120 before it.
 

A neat promotional video was released by Hanwha on the K9. Majority of the video shows the export success of the K9 but at 2:25 in on the video we finally get some footage of the K9A2 prototype along with some more updated information on the K9A3 as well.
 
 

I too am confused as to what the point of a 50+ tonne TFV tonk is supposed to be. They're not achieving a meaningful increase in any strategic mobility, are there bridges they think they'll be able to cross that a proper MBT wouldn't?

Yeah, I never quite understood the hype surrounding light tanks based on IFV hulls. if you want a tank in the 40-50 tonnes range, there are modernized T-72s, and the Type-10 looks like the better Western option. If you want an actual proper light tank, there is BAE’s MPF proposal and Sprut-SD/SDM1. If you want your tanks and IFVs to be on the same chassis, you either go heavy or you go home imo. The medium weight concept is not going to work out very well (this concept was looked at by the Norwegian Army a few years ago, and ultimately rejected in favour of acquiring new MBTs).

I’d say “less efficient protection”, not less protection. Common to all IFV-based light tanks/tank destroyers/insert your semantic preference here, Lynx 120 has protected volume it doesn’t need for its role. 
As the volume to be protected is high, relative to that needed by a purpose designed tank or light tank. the overall level of protection is lower.

Here’s another source with a bit more info. I can't read Korean so please correct me if the following info is incorrect, but from the google translation, it seems the SK MoD was informed about the status of the ongoing tank trials, and also got to observe one of the firepower tests where multiple targets had to be identified and engaged at the same time. Here the K2 was able to hit all of its targets with the minimal amount of shots fired. It also says that the K2 has shown excellent performance during the mobility and firepower tests that have been carried out so far (60% done).

Here’s another source with a bit more info. I can't read Korean so please correct me if the following info is incorrect, but from the google translation, it seems the SK MoD was informed about the status of the ongoing tank trials, and also got to observe one of the firepower tests where multiple targets had to be identified and engaged at the same time. Here the K2 was able to hit all of its targets with the minimal amount of shots fired. It also says that the K2 has shown excellent performance during the mobility and firepower tests that have been carried out so far (60% done).

Here’s another source with a bit more info. I can't read Korean so please correct me if the following info is incorrect, but from the google translation, it seems the SK MoD was informed about the status of the ongoing tank trials, and also got to observe one of the firepower tests where multiple targets had to be identified and engaged at the same time. Here the K2 was able to hit all of its targets with the minimal amount of shots fired. It also says that the K2 has shown excellent performance during the mobility and firepower tests that have been carried out so far (60% done).

Here’s another source with a bit more info. I can't read Korean so please correct me if the following info is incorrect, but from the google translation, it seems the SK MoD was informed about the status of the ongoing tank trials, and also got to observe one of the firepower tests where multiple targets had to be identified and engaged at the same time. Here the K2 was able to hit all of its targets with the minimal amount of shots fired. It also says that the K2 has shown excellent performance during the mobility and firepower tests that have been carried out so far (60% done).

The South Korean Minister of Defense, Suh Wook, visited Camp Rena recently and observed the K2NO and it's crew during a live fire exercise.
(https://www.mnd.go.kr/user/newsInUserRecord.action?command=view&newsId=I_669&siteId=mnd&page=1&id=mnd_020500000000&newsSeq=I_12785)
 

Just to keep it simple with the base K1 and K1A1 the whole family is:
K1: Base model, 105mm KM68A1 
K1A1: Base model, 120mm KM256, improved commander's sight the KCPS
K1E1: Upgraded K1, retains the KM68A1, "digital battlefield control system", improved IFF system with an IFF interrogator above the gun (though not always mounted), driver's front and rear cameras, driver's thermal camera (though not always mounted), GPS
K1A2: Upgraded K1A1, retains the KM256, "digital battlefield control system", improved IFF system with an IFF interrogator above the gun (though not always mounted), driver's front and rear cameras, driver's thermal camera (though not always mounted), GPS
 
There might be more I am missing but most of these features are visually identifiable. 
(https://kookbang.dema.mil.kr/newsWeb/20190104/1/BBSMSTR_000000010263/view.do 
https://post.naver.com/viewer/postView.nhn?volumeNo=17495759)

(https://kookbang.dema.mil.kr/newsWeb/20190201/2/BBSMSTR_000000010263/view.do
https://www.hyundai-rotem.co.kr/Eng/Business/Machine/Business_Record_View.asp?brid=33)

Engine used?: