Alzoc

They will already be running two different types of MBT (plus the T-72s in reseve) soon enough anyway. That is already madness enough. At least with the Leopard 2 they have the German industry right at the border for logistical support if needed. With the M1 they'll have to create all the logistical support that goes with it (plus maybe have to deal with some shenanigans with imperials units...). They may be able to rely on existing US army infrastructure in Europe for a while but they'll have to create their own at some point, and that will probably cost them an arm. The biggest problem will probably be the M1's weight (especially if they are taking the latest version), a lot of their infrastructures probably can't handle it and there is also the question of whether they'll have to replace their bridging equipment (there are a lot of rivers in Poland). It's definitively a capable MBT but switching the logistics will be a nightmare and will be insanely expensive. I understand that it is mainly a political purchase to have a guarantee against Russia, but IMO they should have stuck with their Leopard 2 (maybe keep modernizing them) and replace all of their MBTs at once in the future (K2 PL or any indigenous design) to keep only one type of MBT in service.

The EU is planning to send military aid to Moldavia within this year, in case it become a case of Ukraine invasion 2.0 The question is with what stock, given that almost everybody is already scrapping the bottom of the drawers to find stuff for Ukraine. Heck apparently even the US already gave about 25% of their Stingers stock (and 1/3rd of their Javelins) to Ukraine and they can't manufacture more immediately since the production lines have either stopped or need time to ramp up to full scale production. For the Stinger some components aren't even produced anymore and replacement will have to be found.

That may be the German interpretation on it but that's certainly not how France see it. As I said earlier : In essence the scenario you have described can be correct (It probably is even the honest point of view of some German politicians). But every single weapons sales imply political ties and implications, and those political ties are often even more important than the raw performances of the weapon in question. Once again wait and see...

That's exactly what it is. The question is if everybody in Europe buy the F-35 what will happen when the need to replace the F-35 arrive in a few decades? Technically even France could buy the F-35 as well since there is a proper CATOBAR version (F-35C) (though there is the problem of our airborne nuclear dissuasion). By the time the life cycle of the F-35 is at its end, indigenous aircraft manufacturer (Dassault, Airbus and Saab) will have completely lost all know how regarding fighter design because they haven't worked on anything similar for decades. Choosing the F-35 and killing the FCAS is as good as destroying the capability of designing a high performance fighter in Europe for a long time, making us even more dependent on the US. Germany may be ok with that but their decision has an impact on the rest of us too :/

True that nothing has been signed yet, but same as these announcements were caused partly by an emotional response in Germany they also caused an emotional response in France which is becoming increasingly disillusioned with Germany (and I'm part of the pro cooperation with Germany and Europe crowd to give you an indication). As I said I perfectly understand the choice of the CH-47 as there is virtually no alternative to it (and especially no European one), it fill a needed role and if our forces could have a heavy helicopter as well they would take it. The main problem was the political signal it sent. Not just the fact that Germany bought the CH-47 or the F-35, they are not the only one in Europe as you said. It is more that the first thing they did when unlocking emergency funds was to look toward America and not even considering accelerating some European programs instead (the MGCS and the FCAS are behind schedule partly because of the German's parliament tergiversations and because Airbus is trying to get Dassault's intellectual property for free). The French government also proposed to lend modernized ATL-2 to Germany to plug the gap until the MAWS was developed. Be real, once Germany bought the Poseidon they would had no need for another true maritime patrol aircraft and France would have just wasted money on a minimalist version that wouldn't have suited our needs. True that the Tiger (like the NH-90) has major availability issues. But only Germany has it that bad consistently across their entire fleet (2018 was a prime example of that). Lack of availability is an issue that has been plaguing German forces across the board for a long time, partly because of a lack of funding and investment resulting in poor maintenance. Regarding military aid that's a fair point. The French government barely communicated on what they were sending to Ukraine and for all we know the aid sent was minimal. Some said it was in order to keep the door open for Russia if they wanted to negotiate (whether that's true or not I don't know). Though this position has changed recently when Macron announced that France will be sending Caesars SPG. Regarding sanctions however, given that we have much less to lose if Russia cut of the gas supply our government was among the first to announce it's intention on freezing Russian assets (1 day after the invasion) or to agree to exclude Russia from the SWIFT system (4 days after the invasion). And now that Germany has started buying F-35, there is nothing preventing them from buying more, making the need for the FCAS much less pressing for them while it will become increasingly urgent for us. It leave all latitude for Germany to let negotiations drag on and extract as much concessions from France as possible even though we are the one with all the know how for once. Again, it was a terrible political signal. Not really, NK nuclear weapons are taken somewhat seriously because they can actually reach their intended targets (SK, Japan and now even the US west Coast). Nuclear weapons are only useful as a deterrent if they are coupled with a robust and credible delivery system. The B61 is a gravity bomb that only just recently gained a guidance kit for final targeting, meaning the plane delivering it has to be right on top of it's target to drop it. Even a stealth plane will have been spotted by enemy defenses long before reaching that point. And even as a tactical weapon, the only use would be against a large concentration of relatively soft targets, nothing you can't achieve with conventional weapon systems (thermobaric, MLRS or artillery saturation attack, etc). Using a tactical nuke mean spending a lot less ammo true, but needing it would mean that we are already at a point where our ammo stocks are critically low meaning that we are in deep troubles anyway. The F-18 was offered for a time and then in December 2021 the US removed it from the list of planes qualified to carry the B61, leaving the F-35 the only choice. Qualifying the B61 on the Eurofighter would have never happened anyway since, as you said, it would have meant releasing every single information about the plane to the US (same reason a qualification of the B61 on the Rafale would have never happened). It was an evidence from the start. Anyway we are way of topic, and I apologize if I came a bit too strongly. I am pissed off because of the recent German choices, as are a lot of other people in France. Frankly speaking those choices were short-sighted and threaten long term interests and the security of not only Germany but of the rest of Europe as well (at the very least from a French point of view). Situation is what it is and we will see how it develop from there...

True that no one need a brand new MBT to fight older generations ones, but all of the third gen MBTs are nearing the end of their life cycle and upgrade potential. Developing a new weapon system take time and you can't just wait for your adversary to put one in production to start the development of a new generation of your own. As for the F-35, the only operational need forcing Germany to buy it was the capability to launch the B61, which is nearly worthless as far nuclear weapons goes (both for dissuasion purposes and as a tactical weapon). And even then only because the US refused to qualify the Eurofighter to launch the bomb (which is understandable) or the F-18 (which was done to force countries to buy F-35 if they wanted to keep their B-61). Killing the European defence industry to curry political favor from the US is a terrible decision in the long run. Yes the US are friendly toward Europe now, but their priority nowadays is China, not whatever is happening in Europe. There is no guarantee that European interests will always align with Americans ones in the future so we ought to be as self reliant as possible. A world with three major powers is inherently more stable than one with only two. Gouverner, c’est prévoir ; et ne rien prévoir, c’est courir à sa perte Emile de Girardin – La politique universelle ( 1852 )

Well on one hand now that elections period are over both in France and Germany, there is now enough political stability to continue negotiations. On the other hand the war in Ukraine kinda validated France position on the need of an effective European defense and Germany woke up noticing that their army is basically naked and that they can't do much to help their neighbour in case of an invasion. Cue emotional response and German politicians put 100 billions euros on the table ... and the first thing they buy are F-35, CH-47 and the THAAD system. Now I perfectly understand that those 100 billions are meant to plug in the holes with material that is available now, and on a lot of niches the American were the only one that could provide the material quickly. But frankly it sent a terrible political signal that at the first sign of trouble, Germany turned around and went toward the US. Add on top of that the fact that even before the invasion of Ukraine Germany screwed up two major European program by buying PE-8 naval patrol aircraft instead of going forward with the MAWS program and then refusing to participate to the Tiger MkIII standard (Forcing France and Spain to downscale the number of helicopters that will be upgraded) and making noises that they would be interested by Boeing's AH-64 instead. Between all of that, their dependency to Russian gas and the fact that their partners had to convince them (at least in the beginning of the conflict) to take meaningful sanctions against Russia and help Ukraine ... Short answer, nobody in Europe have any kind of trust left in Germany regarding defence and military matters. Sadly it is likely that all cooperation programs with Germany will be re-examined.

Russia trying to manufacture a casus beli in Transinistria? https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220426-moldova-security-talks-on-blasts-in-russia-backed-region On top of that Russian forces just struck the bridge which is the only route allowing to go from Odessa to the region of Zakota (maps) without going through Moldavia. Russia has some troops in Transinistria guarding a stockpile of some 20 000 tons of old soviet ammunitions and equipment. No idea if the troops there are numerous enough and have enough equipment to invade the now cut-off south-west Ukrainian coast or if the objective is to land in the south-west and then invade Transinistria with the reinforcements. Either way I didn't believed it when I saw some rumours that Russia wanted to invade the entire Ukrainian coast and cut them off from the sea completely. But given the recent events it may be a possibility. The question is of course can Russia even afford to open another front that could only be resupplied by the sea (and probably with difficulty since there is no heavy port infrastructure in the region). They previously struggled with too many fronts open at the same time and had to withdraw and regroup in the Donbass and now they want to extend the frontline and open a new front?

The SIMS are dangerous Nazi propaganda comrade https://nypost.com/2022/04/25/russia-appears-to-confuse-the-sims-for-sim-cards-in-possible-staged-assassination-attempt/

The bins are placed on top of the armor modules :

France may have delivered (or will deliver) Caesar SPG to Ukraine according to this interview of Macron : The interview is of course strongly coloured by the second turn of the presidential election coming up on Sunday, but it is actually one of the first official confirmation about what kind of weapons we are actually sending. So far everything about military aid was kept deliberately vague, some says it was in order to avoid further inflaming Russia and keep the possibility of negotiations open. It may have been true in the first week or two of the conflict but right now I don't see the conflict ending until either one side has suffered unsustainable attrition or Russia has managed to secure a token victory in the Donbass. Another theory is that we don't really have any spare heavy military equipment in good enough shape to send (Old stuff that the Ukrainian army doesn't know how to operate and can't maintain because there are no spare parts has only limited value as I was saying in another topic). Back to the Caesar, cynicism aside it will be a good test of how a wheeled SPG with only light armor handle high intensity warfare. It won't necessary be an accurate one since I don't know how much training the Ukrainians received on the system and I don't know if the Caesar can plug into the Ukrainian artillery network (or if it will have to go without anything at all) but results will still be interesting to watch. I think the Cezch Republic also sent Danna wheeled SPG but I don't know if there has been any report on how they performed yet.

Leclerc XLR mockup :

First payment for 80 Rafale for the UAE has been received : http://www.opex360.com/2022/04/20/dassault-aviation-a-recu-un-premier-acompte-pour-la-livraison-de-80-rafale-f4-aux-emirats-arabes-unis/ With this much planes on order there are talks to ramp up production from 3 to 4 planes per month, given that several recent sales (Greece and Croatia) were (or will be) transfers of used planes from the French air force to various country and that we already have barely enough planes for ourselves. On December 31st of 2021 there was 86 planes on the backlog (among those 31 from Egypt, 6 for Greece and the rest for the French air force). Add to that the 80 for the UAE as well as the expected 42 for Indonesia (pending contract signature), 6 more units for Greece and 42 to be ordered in 2023 for the French air force (among those 12 to replace those sold to Croatia from our stocks). Talks are also ongoing for 12 units for Serbia. This bring out a total expected production of 570 planes (+9 and 36 on option for France and Qatar respectively) out of which only 242 have already been produced. Right now first delivery for the UAE is expected in 2027 and last in 2031.

Map of NATO (+Sweden) recon flights around Ukraine from April 1st to the 14th : Combine that with satellite informations, and apart from the ones in North-East of Ukraine (Which is probably out of sensor range) most Russian battle groups must be pretty much tracked in real time...

Some of you probably already saw the images but the fire (or at least the smoke generated) on the Moskva was visible from orbit : Pictures were taken from an environment monitoring satellite from the Sentinel-1 constellation. Same satellite took pictures of two Russian ships formations leaving from Sevastopol two days later : https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/04/satellite-image-pinpoints-russian-cruiser-moskva-as-she-burned/

Russian MoD report that the ship ended up sinking once towed back to port because of previous damages and rough sea. https://t.me/rian_ru/158794

Whether the Ukrainians had to do something with it or not is pretty irrelevant. In the words of the Russian MoD the ship had to be "completely evacuated". Meaning it is either sinking or is irrecoverable because the fire is out of control and will need a lengthy time in a dry dock. That was the flagship of the Black sea Navy, its loss is mainly symbolic both for its lengthy history (it was launched back in 1979) and it's status as the flagship. From an operational point of view it was first an AA platform and an anti ship one second. Its capability against ground target was limited to it's twin 130 mm. At best Ukraine could exploit a temporary hole in the Russian AA bubble, but that's about it. Update : According to the Russian MoD the fire is now under control : The ship has retained it's buoyancy, main missile armament (which one?) wasn't damaged in the fire Crew has been evacuated toward other ships of the fleet Disposition are being taken to tow the ship back to port Cause of the fire is being investigated Source : https://t.me/rian_ru/158715 We will probably know more about the extent of the damages once it has been towed back to port, but an ammunition fire that was violent enough to warrant a full evacuation of the ship will have left traces. Either way it's out of the war for the time being, remain to see if it can be repaired.

Animated render of the PA-Ng by the navy : No new informations but still gives a nice view from different angles. Original tweet here :

A small nuance on that point. Recent AFV sale contracts often include maintenance support by the manufacturer for a set number of years. Some older contracts simply included a stock of spare parts delivered at the same time as the vehicles and the clients was responsible for maintenance. So that a vehicle is still in service doesn't mean that spare parts are still being produced, it could be simply using stock or a cannibalization of existing vehicle. If I take France for example, we could technically give the Ukrainians VAB or even AMX-10P. The first is being phased out and replaced by the Griffon and the Serval and the second is in reserve and only used by the OPFOR for training purposes. There is no spare parts production for the 10P anymore and as for the VAB (which is technically still in service) only some of the parts are still being produced, not all of them. On top of that those vehicle haven't any operational potential left and so are in very poor shape.

I'm more concerned about when those ammo were manufactured. Most (if not all) explosives have a limited shelf life, and if the ammo were in storage for too long or stored in poor conditions it would increase the risk of duds and misfire. If it's to have the same problem than with some old ATGM and manpads coming from a forgotten stock and donated to Ukraine to get rid of it, I'm not sure it is really worth it. On top of it, if we are speaking about donating old vehicles, there is the problem of spare parts to consider. If they aren't produced anymore the vehicles are almost worthless since they will last a very limited time or you will be forced to cannibalize others. I don't know if spare parts are still produced for the Marder 1A3 or Leo 1 (possibly). Not even talking about the necessary training time on vehicles that Ukrainian forces never used. For now I think it's best to stick with old soviets vehicles that the Ukrainian know how to operate and maintain.

By that do you mean that it could give ideas to nationalists from various districts federal subjects (if this is the proper terminology?) which may lead up to a fragmentation of the Russian Federation ?

Depends on what both sides are willing to accept. Russia is still sticking to the "special operation" narrative, meaning the political cost of mobilization or sending conscript into Ukraine would be high. It would mean admitting to the Russian population that the scale of the invasion was much bigger than initially reported and that they took not insignificant losses. Russian ground forces have about 280 000 soldiers about which a bit over 100 000 are tied up in Ukraine. Keep in mind that Russia still have to keep it's other borders secure (especially the border with China) and that the country is huge. So without access to conscripts or forces from other theatre they can't easily replenish their losses. All of this is compounded by the poor state of Russian logistics in Ukraine. Ukrainian know this and are targetting their supplies. They recently blown up an oil depot in Belgorod (Russia), which supply the forces in Kharkiv, using attack helicopter. Even if the Ukrainian deny it was them, the Russian have no reasons at all to blow up their own badly needed supplies, even for a false flag operation. On top of it force the local Russian population to see that the war came back right at their doorstep contradicting the narrative of the Kremlin. As for Ukraine they are fighting on their own soil, so as you said the longer the fight goes on the higher civilian casualties will be. It all depends on what losses the Ukrainian population are willing to accept, but for now their moral is likely high (Russian troops stepped back from Kiev and they are fighting a defensive war to keep their independence). On the other hand Ukrainian forces so far denied engagement on open terrain to the Russian forces. They know that in open combat they will likely be defeated by Russian forces which have the edge in the air and in the overall quality of their material. So far they preserved some of their manoeuvrer capability by forcing the Russian in urban combat and being on the defensive, but now that they are going on the offensive their losses will be much higher and they could lose most of their remaining assets and be forced back into a passive defensive position. It's a big gamble. The fight in the Donbass will most likely determine the future borders of the separatist republics and how much terrain will Ukraine lose during negotiations. A slightly different matter is the worrying radicalization of both sides. We know that exactions against POW occurred on both sides and that both of them already partially disregard international law regarding POW (Publishing images of captured soldiers is normally forbidden for example). The massacre in Bucha will rile up the Ukrainians even more, possibly leading to even more exactions against Russian POW creating a negative feedback loop. This was aggravated when Russia, instead of denying their responsibility in Bucha and saying that they would investigate anyway (which would have been the smart choice) went and immediately claimed at the UN that all of it was a fabrication from Ukraine using ridiculous arguments (like corpses being living actors, Ukrainian forces planting the bodies in the town, or Ukrainians killing their own for a false flag) which was very quickly debunked using satellite imagery proving the chronology of Russian claims was impossible. We may never know what really happened in Bucha (at least before a few years to decades after the end of the war), but it remain that Russia will have to deal with the image of a war criminal for at least the rest of the war, which won't help them either on the international stage or on dealing with the population in occupied territory. On the Russian side we also have seen a few public personality using a vocabulary which is frankly worrying and would have been better left in the gutter of History. Like the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church claiming that the very existence of the Russian people is on the line and borderline making it a Holy war against a "decadent" Occident or in another register the diatribe of Timofeï Sergueïtsev : I can only hope that those are isolated cases and that they do not reflect the public opinion, but that kind of discourse can only lead to a no-matter the cost and a no-compromises attitude which will lead to an escalation of the atrocity on both sides.

Did you check your account security? I had once somebody just casually playing on my account for I don't know how long, despite securing it with two different email adress and a phone number. I only noticed because he changed my default line-up on the US tree. Guy didn't even bothered trying to change my password to lock me out. Managed to get him kicked out and had to add another layer of security on my account. Whole thing ended up being rather benign but it shouldn't have happened anyway. Gajin account security is quite frankly utter shite.

Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul yesterday are encouraging : Russia promised to "drastically" reduce it's activity toward Kiev and Tchernihiv Ukraine will accept a neutral and non-nuclear status : No adhesion to NATO or the EU but Kiev asked guarantees for their neutrality to be backed by western nations. Status of Crimea and Donbass republics are to be discussed separately at a later date. https://www.lemonde.fr/international/live/2022/03/29/guerre-en-ukraine-decathlon-suspend-ses-activites-en-russie-macron-s-entretiendra-avec-poutine-cet-apres-midi-le-point-sur-la-situation_6119575_3210.html?#id-319506 Hopefully that will leave an acceptable way out for both party and lead to the end of the war. Russia will have achieved some of it's objectives (Likely future independence of Donbass republics, Neutrality of Ukraine), and Ukraine will save most of it's territory and most importantly it's independence. I think it's possible that we may see increased Russian activity in separatist regions in order to push out the Ukrainian units that may still be there at least until a cease-fire is signed. The main questions in the future are how Putin will spin this for the Russian public (probably that they liberated the separatist regions and leave it at that)? Will the Ukrainian population accept to definitively lose a part of their territory (may be managed by touting that they pushed out the "evil" Russian out of their territory and focus on that)? Most important long term consequence will be, IMHO, that the dollar (and the euro to a lesser extent) will lose confidence as reference money for international trade and that the Yuan will profit from it. This have the potential to severely reduce the ability of the US to enforce it's extraterritorial laws without directly using it's armed forces and in the short term will cause severe inflation (same in the Eurozone). As for Russian resources (mainly natural gas, aluminium, nickel and titanium ore), either they will be definitively lost to Europe and the continent will have to invest in a proper navy to secure it's supply lines (or reopen mines on the continent), or Russia will reopen the gas valves against a lift of the sanctions and Europe (Germany) will go back to sleeping.

Russian MoD accuse Azerbaijan to violate cease-fire agreement in High-Karabakh: https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2022/03/27/la-russie-accuse-l-azerbaidjan-de-violer-l-accord-de-cessez-le-feu-avec-l-armenie-dans-le-haut-karabakh_6119306_3210.html According to Russian MoD, the Azeri sneaked in the Russian buffer zone between the 24th and the 25th, installed an observation post and conducted 4 strikes using TB-2 UAV on Karabakh forces in the Farukh village. Karabakh local authority claim that a drone strike caused 3 dead and 15 injured and that 2 soldiers were killed (maybe not caused by the strike).