I think that was Rand Paul who voted ‘Present’ (And Josh Hawley voted ‘No’).
This is a strange position to me. It seems like adding more countries to NATO would add more resources. Hawley seems to think that we’re just adding more territory for the US to defend. Also, adding Sweden and Finland solidifies NATO and removes potential cracks in our defensive façade.
Of course that’s what he thinks, just like Trump. They’re convinced that the US is the only one spending any money on defending Europe, that the Europeans are just lazing about sucking on the NATO money teat. If they admitted that other countries do things, they risk realizing that American Exceptionalism is nonsense, which is anathema to their mindset and politics.
And it just occurred to me just how tightly the Baltic sea is tied up with Sweden and Finland on our side.
You are of course correct. Sweden and Finland have modern, well-trained, and well-equipped military forces that have long experience of operating alongside NATO militaries in joint exercises, and their joining NATO increases the forces NATO can line up against the Russian military. Now this does add a lengthy land border with Russia, but given that the Baltic States are already in, adding Finland to NATO territory should do more to strengthen NATO’s strategic position than it does to weaken it by adding territory. Because if Russia moves against say Estonia, NATO would be able to threaten St. Petersburg from the north by staging attacks out of Finland, rather than being limited to operating out of Latvia. Most of the very long Finnish border is very remote and not conducive to moving large military forces to say the least, so it’s not a huge concern as a vulnerability.
Political bit hidden by What Exit?
Hawley is just reflexively against everything the Dems are for, and comes up with BS to try to justify his vote. Rand Paul at least has the excuse of being consistently in favour of a more isolationist foreign policy. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of isolationist libertarianism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.
Reminder, let’s not get political in this breaking news thread. It is time for Hawley & Rand Paul talk to be dropped or moved to another thread.
So what are the odds that Russia will develop a work-around on their vulnerability to HIMARS attacks? They’ve discovered that Ukraine can hit their big warehouses and depots accurately so will they start dispersing and better hiding their stock of shells? Or maybe just keep them on the Russian side of the border? Both of these are more labor intensive and less efficient. But I think the Russian may just muscle through it. Driving artillery shells to the front is something even new recruits can do.
I don’t see a way they can possibly cope. If they split up their depots and ammo dumps, big targets, etc. into multiple smaller sites, not only are they complicating their logistics, but Ukraine will presumably have enough GMLRS rockets to go after even the smaller targets, too. Essentially, Russia would have to divide itself up into such smaller and smaller units to the point where they become almost useless.
With enough GMLRS rockets, it would be worth Ukraine’s while to go after even a small ammo depot of 500 shells, or a small unit of 10 Russian troops, rather than 50,000 or 100.
According to them, they’ve been taking out the HIMARS systems at a fairly decent rate, relative to their arrival in the country. According to the US, all of them are still functioning and firing.
I don’t know that we have any way of knowing the truth on that but, in theory, the answer to every problem is to bomb the hell out of it. They can probably figure out with some amount of confidence the general area that the launcher is in. Drop enough missiles in that general region and eventually the HIMARS is going to stop firing. Precision is nice and all but “quantity has a quality all its own”.
How mobile is the HIMARS system? I would expect that which side wins comes largely down to the production capacities between the US and Russia - with the one making high-precision munitions and equipment, and the other producing dumb missiles and running basic projectile flight paths using simple formula, a paper, and pencil.
It’s right in the name. I don’t think the Russians have hit shit with their counter-battery fire, or if they have it was by blind luck.
Dispersal of Russian ammo dumps is going to both aggravate their refueling woes and make it a lot slower to resupply their troops. Take out key roads and you can force them onto well mapped out and vulnerable routes that HIMARS has dialed in.
The larger problem is that HIMARS outranges their artillery. The only way to hit it is with airstrikes or cruise missiles, and the Russian air force has been rather lackluster in the war.
I’d be upset too, if you kept blowing me and my supplies up 
Yeah, it will be a real grind, but I think the Russians will still try it. That’s the way it has happened up to now. They tried the blitzkrieg and maneuver warfare and got spanked. So they switched to a grinding system of shelling and slow advance, even though it is way harder. And now HIMARS is making that harder too. So back to even more basic tactics and logistics. I think they’ll grind it out. I don’t think it will help them, though. All it will do is make the inevitable take much longer.
russia also claims to have shot down 250 of ukraine’s 90 fighters …
Strictly on range, it is currently pretty close. The ATACMS (tactical missile ammo) with ~300 km range outranges any conventional Russian artillery. But so far only GMLRS (guided rocket ammo) have been provided to Ukraine, with a purported ~90+ km range. At least on paper (and that should always be a qualifier to keep in mind) the newest Russian rocket artillery, the Tornado S, has a roughly comparable listed range.
But that’s an entirely different question from whether it can engage in long-range suppression against the HIMARS with any degree of success. If the HIMARS ‘shoots and scoots’ quickly enough it’s going to be really hard to hit with any kind of counter-battery fire. For one thing Russia doesn’t yet have a ton of the relatively modern Tornado-S launchers. Then they’d have to be close enough in the vicinity to respond, quickly figure out where the HIMARS launched from and then zero in and fire before it left that immediate area. Odds aren’t great that would happen often - we’re talking more luck than skill to pull that off.
Does Russia have the electronics capability to churn out high-quality missiles for it, though?
https://nitter.it/TheDeadDistrict/status/1554711278135959553
One doubts it . At least in any significant numbers. It depends on their stockpile of components pre-war, how much they can scrounge through illicit sources and how much they’re willing to scavenge from other material. But considering that even relatively early in the war they were already reports of them being short of precision munitions, I’d imagine this is another area where sanctions are likely really biting them hard.
Is the truck constrained to roads or it can pretty well go anywhere?
Russian artillery precision:
https://nitter.it/pic/orig/enc/bWVkaWEvRlpWb0ZWZlh3QUVxS2s2LmpwZw==
See this post.