no, that's a different (and apparently rather bawdy) sketch

https://archive.ph/3pP4t

No time to waste: NATO chief urges rapid industrial mobilization

As the U.S. and its allies in Europe pledge to ramp up defense spending amid mounting global threats, the supreme allied commander of Europe is calling on industry to deliver real capabilities to the field in record time. “We can tell industry exactly what it is that we need for all the leaders that are out there. It’s our job, I think, to hold industry accountable to deliver quickly and to hold ourselves accountable for giving industry the ability to deliver quickly through our acquisition processes,” U.S. Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich said July 17 during his first public speech since taking command at the Association of the U.S. Army’s inaugural LandEuro conference in Wiesbaden, Germany.

"hold industry accountable"? Uh, yeah pal, it's called nationalization and economic planning, but I'm afraid that's all lost technology, even the Adeptus Mechanicus can't figure out what it was all about. We just don't know!

“We’ve got to do this fast. We need real capabilities and we need them delivered as soon as possible. We can’t afford to wait, future pledges are no longer enough,” he said. “To do this, the defense industrial base on both sides of the Atlantic is going to have to become fully activated.” Grynkewich stressed there’s plenty of work to go around, it’s not a matter of investing in one or the other. “It needs to be one seamless industrial base that can deliver capability and capacity for the alliance,” he said. Moving quicker is easier said than done. Every country will have to contend with their own budget approval process and work through red tape across borders.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth made a pledge earlier this year on a trip to NATO headquarters that the U.S. would conduct major foreign military sales reform. Even so, the U.S. military and NATO have developed solid regional plans beginning with a clear one focused on the Baltic States that will help guide government and industry in getting capabilities to units there. The U.S. Army Europe and Africa commander, speaking a day earlier at the conference, said the “Eastern Flank Deterrence Line” plan aims to enhance ground-based capabilities and drive military-industrial interoperability across the alliance.

As part of the plan to counter Russian threats and enable scalable, global deterrence, the Army and its NATO allies are urgently developing standardized, data-driven systems, common launchers and cloud-based coordination. The plan includes a system to share data. NATO has already procured that system – Palantir’s Maven Smart System – an artificial intelligence platform that takes a vast amount of data and rapidly analyzes information to help military commanders make decisions. U.S. Army Europe and Africa officials have also adopted Maven at headquarters, using it for mission command and visibility across the theater. The system has completely replaced PowerPoint briefings and offers information to commanders in real-time.

you know what's going to drag us out of our deindustrialization quagmire? that's right, THE CLOUD! AND AI!

On NATO’s wish list, according to Grynkewich, are capabilities that mirror a Ukrainian brigade. “How do we get our brigades to have the same level of capability where we can match what they’re able to do today?”

ah, so they're finally admitting that the Ukrainians are way ahead of them in terms of adaptation to the modern battlefield... but wait, aren't those guys, like, not doing too good? Uh oh!

Additionally, Grynkewich said he wants to focus on air defense. “There’s never enough air defense. You always want more, but it’s an acute requirement, whether it’s counter-[unmanned aircraft systems] or counter-ballistic missiles,” he said. And there will also be a continued focus on long-range fires, Grynkewich noted. “We need the capability to hold things at risk.”

Industry now has real incentives in place, Grynkewich said, with the new commitment made by NATO nations at the last summit to spend 5% of their gross domestic product on defense by 2035. “I would ask industry folks who are here and elsewhere to realize that sustained commitment should be a powerful signal to do the things you need to do, to expand production lines, to increase [research and development] spending, etc., so that we can get where we need to go,” he said.

"a signal to do the things you need to do" y'know, maybe you shouldn't need to fucking "signal" industry, like "oh pretty please expand your production lines, c'mon guys!", maybe you should be able to, I dunno, order them to do so?

Leadership is now moving to deliver new and emerging technology to the battlefield along with legacy technology that is still relevant and will work to make things interoperable. “I challenge each of the chiefs of defense, land forces commanders and every leader in here to hold themselves to account for that. There’s no time to waste,” Grynkewich said.

this guy really loves holding stuff accountable I guess

https://archive.ph/FyIgD whoops, MIC machine broke!

US diverts Patriot systems from Switzerland to Ukraine

U.S. officials have told the Swiss government that Patriot air defense systems in the production pipeline for the alpine country would be diverted to help defend Ukraine, according to a Swiss announcement. The July 17 statement by the Swiss, which said the notification from the United States arrived the prior day, illuminates some of the hasty mechanics behind Washington’s newfound emphasis on helping Ukraine repel near-constant Russian attacks with missiles and drones.

Switzerland ordered five Patriot systems, made by Ratheon, in 2022. Deliveries were set begin in 2026 and go through 2028. The U.S. foreign military process, which governs the sale, makes the diversion of defense goods possible, the Swiss announcement notes. No information was available about how many systems would be affected and what the new timing for future deliveries would be. Switzerland’s Patriot pick was part of a lengthy air-defense and air-policing review by the government that also led to an order of 36 U.S. F-35 fighter aircraft.

Last year, the United States told Switzerland that a batch of ordered PAC-3 MSE interceptors, the most advanced interceptors fireable with Patriot, would similarly be diverted to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Germany this week offered to buy two Patriot systems from the U.S. and give them to Ukraine. One Patriot setup costs roughly $1 billion, depending on the number of interceptors, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said during a visit to Washington on July 14. Details for the purchase are now under discussion with the U.S. administration, Pistorius said following talks with U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Outstanding questions surrounding the transaction are all “solvable,” he added.

Speaking at the LandEuro conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, on July 17, top NATO commander U.S. Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich signaled a new dynamic in supplying Kyiv with the defensive weapons. Grynkewich said he would bring European nations together to work on delivering Patriot and other capabilities to Ukraine. The idea is to “look at what’s the art of the possible” in orchestrating the flow of new production equipment to Ukraine’s defense, he said.

Unlike Russia with its weak economy having to delay deliveries of equipment, the Western MIC is going strong!

Syrian Year of 4 Emperors incoming?

(although more seriously, who would even take over at this point if HTS collapses?)

They took a gamble at ending the war immediately, while also engaging in the rest of Ukraine on the assumption that gamble would fail

Yes, this is the part that people keep missing. I really don't get it, why is the idea of "gamble that's not an all-in move, but actually involves a backup plan" apparently so difficult to grasp?

And this indeed reflects Soviet planning. A lot of people look at stuff like the 7 Days to the Rhine plans and assume that Soviet Cold War planning was all about blitzkrieg-style moves, which is an assumption that just falls apart upon the slightest further examination, given that everything else about the Soviets - the way they designed their equipment, the production rates, the massive stockpiles (so large that 30 years after the collapse of the Union, these old stockpiles made up a substantial portion of the equipment used in Ukraine), the massive bomb-resistant underground industrial complexes, the designing of civilian industry that could quickly convert to military production, etc. - indicates preparation for long attritional wars, not quick campaigns. Those WW3 plans are exactly such a style of move - a gamble to knock out the enemy quick, with the preparation for that gamble to not work and the conflict to shift into a conventional attritional phase (unlike the Nazi WW2 plans of "a gamble to knock out the enemy quick, and if that doesn't work... well, no need to worry, it is going to work!")

It took the lessons learnt from the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan/Global War on Terror, and applied them

I'm not sure this is really what the Armata was doing - in a lot of ways, it was a continuation of existing Russian (inherited from the Soviets) design philosophy.

There's two aspects to the Armata program - the tank itself, and the Armata Universal Combat Platform, which is meant to be a common chassis for many different systems - tanks, artillery, APCs, IFVs, etc.. The later is an obviously appealing idea and has already been practiced in a more limited sense for a long time by both the Soviets and the West (like using existing tank or APC chassis for recovery or engineering vehicles, or self-propelled artillery). There is however an ambition to extend it further (an American example is the Future Combat Systems program), but it keeps running into the same problem - that APCs/IFVs have fundamentally different needs for their chassis than tanks, so actually uniting them would mean you either get a tank that's too lightly armed-and-armored, or APCs that are way too heavy and expensive. In the Armata's case, the T-15 IFV seems to have been even less successful, the T-14 at least did do some actual combat trials in Ukraine and was eventually withdrawn, but I'm not sure if the T-15 has been seen anywhere outside of parades. So for now at least you're kind of stuck needing at least two main tracked chassis designs (or three, if your APCs and IFVs are separate, but some countries have recently shifted to a unified chassis at least for those two classes of vehicle, like the AMPV being essentially a turretless Bradley, or the still-ongoing (and rather troubled) British Ajax program which includes both an APC and an IFV variant).

For the tank itself - I'm not sure it really is that based on GWOT experiences, beyond the inclusion of active protection (which I feel like isn't informed so much by the GWOT but by Russia's own experiences with urban counter-insurgency in Chechnya, which naturally leads to trying out ways to protect oneself from a guy with an ATGM hiding out somewhere managing to take you out; these experiences also led to the BMPT Terminator and its concept of a "tank support" vehicle, something on a tank chassis but armed more-so to fight infantry, with good optics so it can spot and quickly respond to such threats much better than a tank can), but there's nothing about the APS concept that requires the development of a whole new vehicle (and most APS systems are indeed designed as add-on upgrades), aside from perhaps a new hull/turret being able to accommodate some of the sensors better than trying to kludge them onto an existing one.

I think part of the narrative around it has been that it's more "Western" in design, but it really isn't, beyond just being expensive (and contrary to the pop-history view, the Soviets were perfectly willing to spend more on fancier equipment in certain contexts that merited it, like aircraft or nuclear submarines, and even in ground forces - the widespread fielding of autoloaders is obviously quite a technological advancement, and while Soviet tanks are generally viewed as simpler compared to Western ones, the post-T-64 designs are quite a bit more complex compared to previous Soviet designs). This perception seems to come from the propagandistic narrative of those evil Soviets who just didn't care about crew survivability, and since the Armata makes improvements on that front, it represents the Russians shifting away from the Soviet philosophy to a Western one.

But the actual main part of the Armata (and seemingly where a lot of the issues stem from) is the idea of fully-remote turret, with the crew moved to a special armored capsule in the front - and this development comes from a Soviet program that started in '88, so it definitely precedes the GWOT era. This is where that "Western design" assumption comes in again - people assume the purpose of the capsule is purely crew protection, and thus it indicates the Russians moving from the (supposed) Soviet "eh, just let 'em blow up" philosophy to the Western "every tanker is sacred" one. But if we consider this in continuity with the history of Soviet tank design, it actually seems like the natural next step in their philosophy of minimizing the volume of the crew compartment, thus minimizing the surface area that has to be protected by thicker armor, allowing you to cut weight (and cost, since you're just spending less on materials). This philosophy informed the proliferation of the autoloader, and it's that design choice which allows Soviet tanks to be so much lighter compared to Western ones - by eliminating the loader (who's the crew member needing the most space to work in, due to the wider movements required for his role), you can substantially reduce the crew compartment, which in turns allows you to make a much smaller turret, one which will be lighter by simple geometry - there's just less of it that you need to cover with armor. For example, one of the only Western MBTs to also use an autoloader - the French Leclerc - is indeed a decent bit lighter compared to the Abrams and Leopard 2 (although still heavier than the T-90), and pretty comparable to the Chinese ZTZ-99A.

So where do you go from there? Well, what if you could remove the crew from the turret altogether, and stick them in the front of the hull somehow? That way, you'd have an armored "capsule" containing just the crew, which is where most of the armor would be focused, allowing the rest of the tank to be made much lighter. That's how the Armata can be so much bigger than the T-90 while being of comparable weight - the actually heavily-armored part of the Armata is much smaller.

But the obvious problem with this is - how does the crew actually command the turret from their little capsule? Well, you need a whole bunch of sophisticated electronics and optics to make that viable - and that makes the vehicle more complex, expensive, and fragile. The tech just isn't there yet.

because who wants to get into a war of attrition

Someone who wants to actually defeat their opponent for good.

What did American shock-and-awe campaigns actually accomplish? A decade-long counter-insurgency quagmire, and the Americans eventually just picking their bags up and fucking off? Conversely, why did post-WW2 Germany not see any notable insurgency, despite being a state with one of the most radicalized populations in history, complete with dedicated genocide squads and indoctrinated child soldiers? Because they were defeated not in a lightning-fast campaign, but in a brutal years-long war of attrition, which, in the end, left the majority of German men either dead, crippled, or captured - there was no-one left to fight (until a nascent NATO released a whole lot of those prisoners, so they could again be used against the Soviets).

A timeline where the initial Russian offensive works and Ukraine surrenders is a timeline where Russia gets its own Iraq, except it's not halfway across the world - it's on their doorstep. It's a timeline where Azov ghouls, not having been slaughtered in a long war, are driving vans into crowds in the Donbass and setting off car bombs, where schools are being shot up, where there's a dozen Crocus City Hall attacks, where there's a constant trickle of covert Western support (that, unlike the current shipments of tanks and planes and missiles, cannot be found and destroyed on the battlefield).

How often, in history, has an opponent actually been truly defeated, not set back for a couple of years, but thoroughly removed as a strategic threat, by a quick military campaign?

There's this bit from a Big Serge article which stuck with me

Much is always made of Russia’s propensity for “suffering”, with interpretations ranging from a romantic Russian-patriotic notion of sacrifice for the motherland to an anti-Russian criticism of the Russian tolerance for casualties. Perhaps it means both: the individual Russian soldier is more willing to sit in a freezing trench and trade shells than his adversary, and the Russian state and people are able to lose more and last longer in the aggregate.

I rather think, however, that Jünger’s metaphysical “titan of suffering” is not so metaphysical at all. It rather refers to a mundane power of the Russian state, namely its excellence and willingness across the centuries to mobilize huge numbers of men and material for war, at the expense of other social goals. War with Russia sucks. It means mass casualties, cold trenches, scarred earth, and long nights of shelling. The Ukrainians have coped with this as well as anyone (because they are themselves quasi-Russian, however much they deny it), but it is an awful thing to trade shells for years on end. The Russian power of suffering is to willingly fight wars that devolve into bat fights, knowing they have a bigger bat.

also who remembers the T-14 Armata? that was fun

Russia ditching a wunderwaffe and re-focusing on producing well-proven and reliable equipment is, if anything, a testament to them being smart, and adapting well to the conditions of the war. It's the "Germany should have just ditched the Tigers and made more Panzer IVs" hypothetical playing out in real time (although admittedly, Nazi Germany's case is a bit more nuanced, since even if they had made larger numbers of cheaper tanks, they wouldn't have actually had the manpower of fuel to use them - so making a smaller of amount of more capable vehicles was perhaps the right choice for them, or at least it would have been if said vehicles actually were capable and didn't tend to break down before even getting to the battlefield).

Conversely, Western militaries are just sticking their fingers in their ears about this whole war - they mocked "cope" cages for a couple years, until they started installing them themselves. They're still doing the "drones aren't a problem, we'll just knock them out of the sky with jamming/lasers/magic" cope, years on. They just whipped out a microwave cannon (which, well, hope you're one of the maybe 10 units that gets one of these, sucks to be all the other guys who have nothing and still get blown up since something like this would be exorbitantly expensive to field and deploy), and the batshit new Army manual about, uh... waving your hands frantically and shooting drones with tanks?! They're far behind on integration of drone teams, despite the fact that the Ukrainians are literally sitting right there doing it.

I think it's bakelite, but I'm not sure.

https://archive.ph/QLFo4 weapon line go down

France, Italy, Czech Republic, Hungary don’t plan to participate in NATO program to purchase weapons from USA for Ukraine

Denmark and Germany have so far agreed to participate in the new format of arms supplies to Kyiv, proposed by US President Donald Trump, while France, Italy, the Czech Republic and Hungary have refused, Western media reported on Wednesday. In addition, Bloomberg noted on Wednesday that Europe increasingly feels the need to end its dependence on American weapons.

"Europe relies heavily on the US defense industry. However, due to trade tariffs, President Trump's attitude toward NATO and his lack of commitment to defending the alliance's countries, European countries will increasingly prioritize investments in their own defense complexes," the agency's sources said.

According to the European portal Politico, France has refused to participate in the purchase of American weapons for Ukraine. The publication's sources reported that the country's government intends to focus instead on increasing its own defense budget, which last weekend the president of the republic, Emmanuel Macron, promised to increase by 2027 almost twice as much as the 2017 budget. In addition, Paris wants to support European manufacturers who previously supplied Ukraine with anti-missile systems and other weapons.

Italy also does not intend to purchase weapons from the USA for delivery to Ukraine, but will continue to provide military assistance to Kyiv. Unnamed representatives of the Ministry of Defense told the ezine La Stampa - the department has never discussed purchasing American weapons for Kyiv. The ezine also notes that Italy does not have the means to carry out such operations. According to the publications’ sources, this problem is so acute that the only purchase from the USA that Italy has planned for the next ten years is a batch of F-35 fighters for its own needs.

The Czech government, in turn, stated that military aid to Kyiv would continue, but through participation in other initiatives and purchases from Czech, not American, manufacturers.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said that Budapest does not intend to participate in the purchase of American weapons for Ukraine.

Official consent to purchase weapons from the USA has so far been given by Berlin and Copenhagen. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Rasmussen has declared his full readiness to join in the financing. The Dutch Foreign Ministry, in turn, said that it was considering the possibility of participating in the program. However, despite the government's positive assessment of the initiative, Amsterdam has not yet confirmed its commitment to direct participation in it. According to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, it is expected that Sweden and Norway, as well as the United Kingdom, may join in the funding.

On July 11, Trump announced that USA’s NATO allies would buy weapons from Washington that could later be transferred to Ukraine. Rutte, during a press conference with Trump on Monday, called it "logical" that European countries would pay for the supply of American weapons to Ukraine. The head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, said on Tuesday that EU countries would prefer Washington to provide some military aid to Ukraine free of charge. "If we pay for these weapons, it means that it is we, and not the United States, who provide this military aid," Kallas said at a press conference in Brussels. She stressed that Brussels "would like to see a distribution of these costs."

https://archive.ph/xZ6Kr

Second Israeli ultra-Orthodox party to quit government in blow to Netanyahu

The ultra-Orthodox Shas party says it will leave the government in response to dispute over mandatory military service. A key partner in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government says it is quitting, dealing a major blow to the Israeli prime minister that could leave him heading a minority coalition in parliament. The ultra-Orthodox Shas party said on Wednesday that it was leaving the cabinet in protest against lawmakers’ failure to guarantee future exemption from military conscription for religious students.

“Shas representatives … find with a heavy heart that they cannot stay in the government and be a part of it,” said the group in a statement. It was not immediately clear whether the decision would leave Netanyahu with a minority in parliament. Without Shas, Netanyahu’s coalition would have 50 seats in the 120-seat Knesset.

Shas, which has long served as a kingmaker in Israeli politics, said it would not work to undermine the government once outside it and could vote with it on some laws. It also said it would not support its collapse. The departure of Shas from the government comes one day after another ultra-Orthodox party, United Torah Judaism (UTJ), resigned from the government over the same issue, which has prompted an explosive debate in the country after more than 21 months of war with Hamas in Gaza.

While ultra-Orthodox seminary students have long been exempt from mandatory military service, many Israelis are angered by what they see as an unfair burden carried by other groups who serve. The moves by Shas and UTJ come just before the Israeli parliament starts a three-month recess on July 27, giving the prime minister several months of little to no legislative activity to bring the parties back into the fold.

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders say full-time devotion to holy scriptures study is sacrosanct and fear their young men will turn away from religious life if they are drafted into the military. Last year, the Supreme Court ordered an end to the exemption. The parliament has been trying to work out a new conscription bill, which has so far failed to meet the demands of both Shas and UTJ. Religious Services Minister Michael Malkieli, a member of Shas, said on Wednesday that rabbis were angered after Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein reneged on promises regarding the bill, according to a report in the Times of Israel. Malkieli, reading from a statement by the Council of Torah Sages, also hit out at actions taken by the Israeli military and attorney general to pursue draft dodgers, describing the move as “nothing less than cruel and criminal persecution against yeshiva students”.

I think that's a problem with the more recent P320. The P220 series (which all of these are members of - the 220 is a single-stack, the 226 a double-stack, and the 228/229 are the compact variants) is known to be pretty reliable and durable, and as good old-fashioned chunky hammer-fired pistols, there's not much that can go wrong. Apparently the 320's issues mostly come about from its particular implementation of a striker-fired design.

https://xcancel.com/johnkonrad/status/1945308143212249566

Massive shipbuilding changes in DC. None of them good. @gCaptain has confirmed from a White House source that Trump has closed the shipbuilding office at the NSC. Reuters reports that Ian Bennitt, the President’s Special Assistant for Shipbuilding at the White House, has been fired. Favored candidates for Provost and Superintendent positions at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy have received denial notices. At a recent USNI shipbuilding conference, it became clear: major shipbuilding primes are actively fighting plans to expand commercial shipbuilding.

Sources inside the Pentagon say Admirals and SES are digging in their heels on several key shipbuilding objectives. Some Jones Act companies now expressing fear that building new ships could devalue their current fleets.

lol. lmao

Congressional sources say progress on the SHIPS Act is stalling in committee. It’s also unlikely the new Commandant will be confirmed before the August break. We’ve confirmed that the French billionaire who offered to invest $20B in U.S. shipping sent a letter to Trump saying he’s not getting the support he needs to move forward. The U.S. Coast Guard is slashing cutter orders left and right.

Reports from my sources in Korea say the new far-left, pro-China president is chilling U.S.-Korean shipyard cooperation.

man, I love when Americans will label the most milquetoast of libs as communists for simply not being frothing-at-the-mouth psychos

Nobody has seen or heard from @SecDuffy’s new acting Maritime Administrator. The plan to centralize shipbuilding under the Department of Commerce is apparently stalled or stalling. I spoke with half a dozen senior sources in DC—every single one is frustrated. Yes, there’s still optimism around @SECNAV’s commitment to shipbuilding but his plate is full with emerging priorities. Not a single Admiral has publicly supported the SHIPS Act or the White House’s “Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance” plan.

Deadlines are being missed or pencil-whipped on the Maritime Executive Order, and with the NSC shipbuilding office closing, no one knows how the next deadline will be met. Zero follow-through on Trump’s State of the Union promise to open a dedicated White House shipbuilding office. New intel confirms more Navy shipbuilding delays, including further slippage in carrier programs. ... It’s been 252 days since the election, and not a single new ship has been ordered.

...

The Baltimore Bridge removal is delayed another 9 months, and retrofits to prevent future bridge strikes around the nation are postponed. Still zero word from @PeteHegseth on fixing the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency responsible for inland rivers and dredging. What am I missing? The number of panicked and/or depressed calls I’ve received from DC in the last few days is unreal. I’m struggling to find a silver lining.