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On January 26 2026 07:23 KwarK wrote: Do they have 35k confirmed kills in Dec? That’s a lot for one month.
That's what they stated. Supposedly they have it all on video etc. if the info is valid is anyone's guess with this fog of war and propaganda on both sides.
Who is they?
From what I found.
Zelensky said 35000
UA general staff said 1130 per day
Ukraine's Delta Battlefield Management System, an internal command-and-control platform, recorded 33,019 Russian soldiers eliminated based on verified reports
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte cited a figure of around 30,000 Russian soldiers who died in December
As mentioned who knows who is telling the truth but this seems much closer than 3000 given the reality of the multiple hot spots with daily Russian massive infantry attacks with not cover and occasionally motorbikes or atvs.
Also, a lot of the analysts have been predicting some sort of mobilization and stating current recruitment not meeting front needs. They are usually using some combination of total army size and recruitment to estimate losses. And noting the flaws of inflating recruitment numbers and awol troops.
Ok, few things going on here.
1. You're mixing up casualties and kills. Zelenskyy/Ukraine are talking about casualties, not kills. Ukraine asserted total Russian casualties on Dec 31 2025 of 1,207,910 and 1,172,860 on Nov 30. That's 35,050 for the month, it's probably where the 35k is coming from. We should treat this number as a ceiling and as a problematic one at that. It assumes that every claim is accurate, that there aren't accidental duplicate claims, and that there are no bad actors claiming to overperform in what is still a legacy Soviet military and culture.
2. You're using "confirmed kills" when you mean claimed casualties. I'm not saying that Ukraine substantially overclaims, I normally treat their numbers as reasonable because there are secondary sources that we can use as evidence to support them. For example we can infer the attrition of the Russian army by looking at recruitment rates and total army size. But confirmed has a specific meaning. There are open source intelligence projects devoted to confirmed kill analysis that look at probate records, obituaries, social media posts and so forth within Russia. Their work lags months behind Ukrainian claims. There are absolutely not 35,000 confirmed kills in December, confirmed December kills will be coming in for months.
3. Rutte's numbers don't make any sense. He is, without any source or reference, asserting substantially higher kill rates than Ukraine's own military in wartime.
I'm assuming nobody who has posted in this topic would mistake me for a pro Russian. But 35k dead Russians in a month is just not in line with what we know about the war, it would be a dramatic change from what has been a very consistent monthly trend. To me it smells like a classic example of the youtube information game that we all know and love from this war (like when any Russian killed becomes 200 dead Russians because Russia's military uses 200 as their internal code for KIA). The official Ukrainian military number for all casualties for December is 35,050. That goes through the youtube information game and comes out as 35k confirmed kills.
Rutte said 20k-25k deaths. Depending on the killed/wounded ratio that can be consistent with Ukraine's casualty numbers. Previously that ratio was estimated as 1.1 wounded for every death but obituaries have spiked since October. With 10k-12k obituaries in October to December.
On January 26 2026 07:23 KwarK wrote: Do they have 35k confirmed kills in Dec? That’s a lot for one month.
That's what they stated. Supposedly they have it all on video etc. if the info is valid is anyone's guess with this fog of war and propaganda on both sides.
Who is they?
From what I found.
Zelensky said 35000
UA general staff said 1130 per day
Ukraine's Delta Battlefield Management System, an internal command-and-control platform, recorded 33,019 Russian soldiers eliminated based on verified reports
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte cited a figure of around 30,000 Russian soldiers who died in December
As mentioned who knows who is telling the truth but this seems much closer than 3000 given the reality of the multiple hot spots with daily Russian massive infantry attacks with not cover and occasionally motorbikes or atvs.
Also, a lot of the analysts have been predicting some sort of mobilization and stating current recruitment not meeting front needs. They are usually using some combination of total army size and recruitment to estimate losses. And noting the flaws of inflating recruitment numbers and awol troops.
Ok, few things going on here.
1. You're mixing up casualties and kills. Zelenskyy/Ukraine are talking about casualties, not kills. Ukraine asserted total Russian casualties on Dec 31 2025 of 1,207,910 and 1,172,860 on Nov 30. That's 35,050 for the month, it's probably where the 35k is coming from. We should treat this number as a ceiling and as a problematic one at that. It assumes that every claim is accurate, that there aren't accidental duplicate claims, and that there are no bad actors claiming to overperform in what is still a legacy Soviet military and culture.
2. You're using "confirmed kills" when you mean claimed casualties. I'm not saying that Ukraine substantially overclaims, I normally treat their numbers as reasonable because there are secondary sources that we can use as evidence to support them. For example we can infer the attrition of the Russian army by looking at recruitment rates and total army size. But confirmed has a specific meaning. There are open source intelligence projects devoted to confirmed kill analysis that look at probate records, obituaries, social media posts and so forth within Russia. Their work lags months behind Ukrainian claims. There are absolutely not 35,000 confirmed kills in December, confirmed December kills will be coming in for months.
3. Rutte's numbers don't make any sense. He is, without any source or reference, asserting substantially higher kill rates than Ukraine's own military in wartime.
I'm assuming nobody who has posted in this topic would mistake me for a pro Russian. But 35k dead Russians in a month is just not in line with what we know about the war, it would be a dramatic change from what has been a very consistent monthly trend. To me it smells like a classic example of the youtube information game that we all know and love from this war (like when any Russian killed becomes 200 dead Russians because Russia's military uses 200 as their internal code for KIA). The official Ukrainian military number for all casualties for December is 35,050. That goes through the youtube information game and comes out as 35k confirmed kills.
Rutte said 20k-25k deaths. Depending on the killed/wounded ratio that can be consistent with Ukraine's casualty numbers. Previously that ratio was estimated as 1.1 wounded for every death but obituaries have spiked since October. With 10k-12k obituaries in October to December.
30k-35k is too high but 20k-25k is possible.
Yeah, they put it at 11,244 new obituaries in December. With some wiggle room for non reported deaths and some assumptions about steady increases with a lagging indicator I could see a world where there were 15-20k deaths in December. I think we're broadly aligned.
So, this guy, who is supposed to represent all 27 NATO countries recently, said to the EU parliament:
“If anyone thinks here ... that the European Union or Europe as a whole can defend itself without the U.S., keep on dreaming. You can't.”
He also spoke against an EU army:
“European pillar [of NATO] is a bit of an empty word,” Rutte said, arguing a European army would create “a lot of duplication” with the alliance. Moreover, Russian President Vladimir “Putin will love it,” he added.
He also went on to insist that the EU allow Ukraine to spend part of the bloc's upcoming €90 billion loan to Kyiv on weapons from the United States, despite a push by some member countries like France to spend the money on the bloc's own military suppliers.
He's also trying to discourage EU from having it's own Nuclear deterrant because replacing the US provided one would require 10 % GDP spend:
“For Europe, if you really want to go it alone … forget that you can ever get there with 5 percent,” Rutte said, referencing a pledge by NATO allies to ramp up their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP by 2035. “It will be 10 percent,” he argued, and cost “billions and billions of euros” to replace America’s nuclear deterrent.
I mean, does he not know that France is in EU, has nuclear capable subs and nuclear weapons?
To me, this guy is every day looking more and more like the agent of the USA actively working against the EU, as per the US National Security strategy, I have no idea why NATO countries are not aggressively trying to outs him from his position.
I wouldn't give too much on his opinion but what position do you expect the Nato chief to hold? What he's doing is pretty much part of the job description (I would imagine). You don't want to be the Nato chief during the time the US breaks off from it, no matter how much your to blame for it, some will go to you.
Some European countries can defend themselves. Europe understood as the European Union certainly can't defend those Europrean countries that can't defend themselves. France wouldn't nuke Russia if it invaded Latvia but it miiiight send some soldiers to protect it. Hungary certainly wouldn't send anyone and it would probably try to block attempts of forming EU-led reaction force, so calling such force European would be questionable. Could it liberate Latvia through a land operation, assuming 0 support from the US? Maybe, but that would probably take months if not years.
I think the whole thing is being blown out of proportion. Rutte's intentions shouldn't be hard to decipher and it's silly to call him a Trump zealot.
Let's say that Merz starts talking how it's vital for Germany's security to acquire Greenland because they want to extract minerals and build military bases there.
He also decides to stop giving weapons to Ukraine and decides to foot the rest of EU countries with the bill for the weapons transferred from Germany to Ukraine.
He also signals that he's not too sure if Article 5 was invoked Germany would be there to defend its allies.
As a response, the rest of the EU countries are angry, as they should be, so they send some troops to Greenland.
Mertz then says that Germany will impose economics tools to coerce countries who sent troops to Greenland into giving it to him.
Rutte, the EU leader, as a response, starts explaining how EU can't do anything nothing without Germany, how calls to sell Ukrainians French and Italian weapon systems is bad and so on.
I think we can all agree that EU would be very much fucked without Germany.
Does that mean that we, as EU citizens should be A-OK with Rutte being completely and unequivocally on their side and working, actively, to try to appease Germans at the expense of every other member.
Would you guys still be here explaining how this is just smart and this is how things should be done?
Would it still be silly to call Rutte an agent for a hostile power?
Is USA under Trump a hostile power to EU?
For this one, please, I implore you, read up on the US NSS, specifically parts about Europe, here's an excerpt from the summary of it for the EU parliament:
On Europe, the 2025 NSS lists, among the top security priorities for the US, reestablishing 'strategic stability' with Russia, enabling Europe to develop military capabilities to defend itself, preventing Europe from being dominated by an adversarial power, and ending the perception of NATO being a perpetually expanding alliance. The document's rhetoric on culture wars targets Europe unlike any other region mentioned in the NSS. Europe is criticised both for its economic decline and for its 'migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating ... loss of national identities', and for facing 'a real ... prospect of civilizational erasure'. The EU is only mentioned once, when it is associated with 'other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty'. At the same time, Europe is described as 'strategically and culturally vital' to the US, and the NSS proposes 'cultivating resistance to Europe's current trajectory within European nations', and supporting European nations operating 'as a group of aligned sovereign nations'.
2 Russian asks in the first few paragraphs.
Then: "cultivating resistance to Europe's current trajectory within European nations" - I find it very hard to read this as anything other then fomenting opposition (right wing) parties across EU to destabilize it.
Finally: "supporting European nations operating 'as a group of aligned sovereign nations'." - aka, end goal is to get rid of EU all together.
And this is the nation that Rutte wants us to be closer to, to cling to, please explain to me how this is strategic.
What does EU get from this relationship, except attempts to destabilize and humiliate her?
“European pillar [of NATO] is a bit of an empty word,” Rutte said, arguing a European army would create “a lot of duplication” with the alliance. Moreover, Russian President Vladimir “Putin will love it,” he added.
He also went on to insist that the EU allow Ukraine to spend part of the bloc's upcoming €90 billion loan to Kyiv on weapons from the United States, despite a push by some member countries like France to spend the money on the bloc's own military suppliers.
He's also trying to discourage EU from having it's own Nuclear deterrant because replacing the US provided one would require 10 % GDP spend:
“For Europe, if you really want to go it alone … forget that you can ever get there with 5 percent,” Rutte said, referencing a pledge by NATO allies to ramp up their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP by 2035. “It will be 10 percent,” he argued, and cost “billions and billions of euros” to replace America’s nuclear deterrent.
I mean, does he not know that France is in EU, has nuclear capable subs and nuclear weapons?
To me, this guy is every day looking more and more like the agent of the USA actively working against the EU, as per the US National Security strategy, I have no idea why NATO countries are not aggressively trying to outs him from his position.
He's not supposed to represent all 27 countries, he's supposed to represent the organisation they are a member of. And just like Spain can tell Rutte to go fuck himself when he says Spain should spend 5% of its GDP on defense, so also can Rutte tell Europe that they rely and should keep relying on the US for defense.
I don't see what the problem here is. The first is a statement of fact. If the US decides to invade Greenland realistically there's not much of anything Denmark can do about it (militarily), even with the help of the rest of the EU, unless France is willing to nuke Washington or so (which would obviously be world-endingly bad). The second is his opinion and should be taken as such. You can just disagree with it and move on with your life. So can Macron.
Or, alternately, I don't want my country to be a part of an organization that is a farce.
I laid out a very clear scenario in the above post, if a president of organization is there to represent not all of the members of it but the organization and his belief is that biggest priority of the organization is it's survival even at the price of putting priorities of the biggest member above anything else, then that organization should be disbanded.
What you are implying is simply that NATO is ruled by USA and for the USA and Rutte is working for them, to me, who voted in a referendum to join NATO this is a betrayal of the principles of the organization and I would like my country to either leave it or for the organization to change it's leader to someone who has interests of all members in mind.
The only problem with Rutte's statement is that he talks as if Europe could count on US forever. That pivot to China was always inevitable, even if it is taking decades.
Europe is lucky that US was unable to execute that Russia reset back when China could still have been contained.
Against a much-weakened Russia? I am pretty sure if Europe ever had the will to, Ukraine situation would have looked very different. Against the US? good luck. Against China and Russia without the US? good luck.
Europe isn't just lacking in an united army, it's all jumbled up in different interest of different nations. Hell, the "mother of all trade" is with India, which everyone knows they were a massive Russian oil trader.
People saying China is now more predictable than the US as a trade partner.
That's interesting because China literally placed an export ban to Nexperia that threatens the global automotive industry. Cancelled all domestic flight to Japan, and rare earth export to Japan. It's also now tightening silver export (good if you are an asset investor) etcetc
If EU wants to play the non-US centric non-China centric politics, it needs to learn from India, Singapore etc. And that also mean it needs to stop pretending it is some higher moral entity or something. Because for sure, India is far less lgbtq+ friendly, way more hardline sexism, heavier corruption etc than the US.
On January 28 2026 08:40 ETisME wrote: Defend against what and who?
Against a much-weakened Russia? I am pretty sure if Europe ever had the will to, Ukraine situation would have looked very different. Against the US? good luck. Against China and Russia without the US? good luck.
Europe isn't just lacking in an united army, it's all jumbled up in different interest of different nations. Hell, the "mother of all trade" is with India, which everyone knows they were a massive Russian oil trader.
People saying China is now more predictable than the US as a trade partner.
That's interesting because China literally placed an export ban to Nexperia that threatens the global automotive industry. Cancelled all domestic flight to Japan, and rare earth export to Japan. It's also now tightening silver export (good if you are an asset investor) etcetc
If EU wants to play the non-US centric non-China centric politics, it needs to learn from India, Singapore etc. And that also mean it needs to stop pretending it is some higher moral entity or something. Because for sure, India is far less lgbtq+ friendly, way more hardline sexism, heavier corruption etc than the US.
Wtf does Nexperia have to do with anything? The export ban was retaliation for the Dutch government nationalising the company (over supposed fears of sensitive tech being moved to China). It wasn't done out of the blue to fuck over European car manufacturing, but was an escalation over the Dutch actions. It wasn't exactly unpredictable that there would be consequences.
On January 28 2026 08:40 ETisME wrote: Defend against what and who?
Against a much-weakened Russia? I am pretty sure if Europe ever had the will to, Ukraine situation would have looked very different. Against the US? good luck. Against China and Russia without the US? good luck.
Europe isn't just lacking in an united army, it's all jumbled up in different interest of different nations. Hell, the "mother of all trade" is with India, which everyone knows they were a massive Russian oil trader.
People saying China is now more predictable than the US as a trade partner.
That's interesting because China literally placed an export ban to Nexperia that threatens the global automotive industry. Cancelled all domestic flight to Japan, and rare earth export to Japan. It's also now tightening silver export (good if you are an asset investor) etcetc
If EU wants to play the non-US centric non-China centric politics, it needs to learn from India, Singapore etc. And that also mean it needs to stop pretending it is some higher moral entity or something. Because for sure, India is far less lgbtq+ friendly, way more hardline sexism, heavier corruption etc than the US.
Wtf does Nexperia have to do with anything? The export ban was retaliation for the Dutch government nationalising the company (over supposed fears of sensitive tech being moved to China). It wasn't done out of the blue to fuck over European car manufacturing, but was an escalation over the Dutch actions. It wasn't exactly unpredictable that there would be consequences.
It's about lethality. You can work and negotiation out from unpredictability. You can't work around a chokehold with China. Europe's green energy policy will be another chokehold and leverage for China.
On January 28 2026 01:16 Jankisa wrote: Let's paint a picture.
Instead of Ursula, Rutte is the leader of EU.
Let's say that Merz starts talking how it's vital for Germany's security to acquire Greenland because they want to extract minerals and build military bases there.
He also decides to stop giving weapons to Ukraine and decides to foot the rest of EU countries with the bill for the weapons transferred from Germany to Ukraine.
He also signals that he's not too sure if Article 5 was invoked Germany would be there to defend its allies.
As a response, the rest of the EU countries are angry, as they should be, so they send some troops to Greenland.
Mertz then says that Germany will impose economics tools to coerce countries who sent troops to Greenland into giving it to him.
Rutte, the EU leader, as a response, starts explaining how EU can't do anything nothing without Germany, how calls to sell Ukrainians French and Italian weapon systems is bad and so on.
I think we can all agree that EU would be very much fucked without Germany.
Does that mean that we, as EU citizens should be A-OK with Rutte being completely and unequivocally on their side and working, actively, to try to appease Germans at the expense of every other member.
Would you guys still be here explaining how this is just smart and this is how things should be done?
Would it still be silly to call Rutte an agent for a hostile power?
Is USA under Trump a hostile power to EU?
For this one, please, I implore you, read up on the US NSS, specifically parts about Europe, here's an excerpt from the summary of it for the EU parliament:
On Europe, the 2025 NSS lists, among the top security priorities for the US, reestablishing 'strategic stability' with Russia, enabling Europe to develop military capabilities to defend itself, preventing Europe from being dominated by an adversarial power, and ending the perception of NATO being a perpetually expanding alliance. The document's rhetoric on culture wars targets Europe unlike any other region mentioned in the NSS. Europe is criticised both for its economic decline and for its 'migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating ... loss of national identities', and for facing 'a real ... prospect of civilizational erasure'. The EU is only mentioned once, when it is associated with 'other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty'. At the same time, Europe is described as 'strategically and culturally vital' to the US, and the NSS proposes 'cultivating resistance to Europe's current trajectory within European nations', and supporting European nations operating 'as a group of aligned sovereign nations'.
2 Russian asks in the first few paragraphs.
Then: "cultivating resistance to Europe's current trajectory within European nations" - I find it very hard to read this as anything other then fomenting opposition (right wing) parties across EU to destabilize it.
Finally: "supporting European nations operating 'as a group of aligned sovereign nations'." - aka, end goal is to get rid of EU all together.
And this is the nation that Rutte wants us to be closer to, to cling to, please explain to me how this is strategic.
What does EU get from this relationship, except attempts to destabilize and humiliate her?
He figures its better to tough it out until 2028 and hope the democrats win.Cutting a country with a trillion dollar military budget out of your military alliance may mean other countries in NATO having to cough up more.Hard when their economies are so weak.
On January 28 2026 01:16 Jankisa wrote: Let's paint a picture.
Instead of Ursula, Rutte is the leader of EU.
Let's say that Merz starts talking how it's vital for Germany's security to acquire Greenland because they want to extract minerals and build military bases there.
He also decides to stop giving weapons to Ukraine and decides to foot the rest of EU countries with the bill for the weapons transferred from Germany to Ukraine.
He also signals that he's not too sure if Article 5 was invoked Germany would be there to defend its allies.
As a response, the rest of the EU countries are angry, as they should be, so they send some troops to Greenland.
Mertz then says that Germany will impose economics tools to coerce countries who sent troops to Greenland into giving it to him.
Rutte, the EU leader, as a response, starts explaining how EU can't do anything nothing without Germany, how calls to sell Ukrainians French and Italian weapon systems is bad and so on.
I think we can all agree that EU would be very much fucked without Germany.
Does that mean that we, as EU citizens should be A-OK with Rutte being completely and unequivocally on their side and working, actively, to try to appease Germans at the expense of every other member.
Would you guys still be here explaining how this is just smart and this is how things should be done?
Would it still be silly to call Rutte an agent for a hostile power?
Is USA under Trump a hostile power to EU?
For this one, please, I implore you, read up on the US NSS, specifically parts about Europe, here's an excerpt from the summary of it for the EU parliament:
On Europe, the 2025 NSS lists, among the top security priorities for the US, reestablishing 'strategic stability' with Russia, enabling Europe to develop military capabilities to defend itself, preventing Europe from being dominated by an adversarial power, and ending the perception of NATO being a perpetually expanding alliance. The document's rhetoric on culture wars targets Europe unlike any other region mentioned in the NSS. Europe is criticised both for its economic decline and for its 'migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating ... loss of national identities', and for facing 'a real ... prospect of civilizational erasure'. The EU is only mentioned once, when it is associated with 'other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty'. At the same time, Europe is described as 'strategically and culturally vital' to the US, and the NSS proposes 'cultivating resistance to Europe's current trajectory within European nations', and supporting European nations operating 'as a group of aligned sovereign nations'.
2 Russian asks in the first few paragraphs.
Then: "cultivating resistance to Europe's current trajectory within European nations" - I find it very hard to read this as anything other then fomenting opposition (right wing) parties across EU to destabilize it.
Finally: "supporting European nations operating 'as a group of aligned sovereign nations'." - aka, end goal is to get rid of EU all together.
And this is the nation that Rutte wants us to be closer to, to cling to, please explain to me how this is strategic.
What does EU get from this relationship, except attempts to destabilize and humiliate her?
He figures its better to tough it out until 2028 and hope the democrats win.Cutting a country with a trillion dollar military budget out of your military alliance may mean other countries in NATO having to cough up more.Hard when their economies are so weak.
What do you mean "weak economies"? EU and Canada have pretty strong economies and EU is spending about half as much on military as the US so it's not like they'd be left with nothing. Still have carriers, nuclear submarines and current gen fighters.
Regarding the drone vs artillery discussion previously. Drones are better against small squads of units (since they can see them) while artillery is better against massed assaults (heavy AoE) or entrenched targets (penetration from other type of ammo). Is my understanding correct there?
Regarding Europe being weak and not able to spend on defense, that's just pretty dumb on the face of it, yeah, our GDP numbers are not USA ones massively inflated by the market, debt, speculation and big tech but people are still living well, we have jobs and social security, mobility and a well educated population.
Poland is an excellent example of a EU country spending above the NATO goal of 2 % while still being able to grow its economy, if Germany's industrial base gets shifted a bit in the direction of military production I betcha the EU militaries start looking much better in a record amount of time.
I'm not worried about European defense, I'm not worried about anyone actually attacking an EU country because that would be economically suicidal. We are the biggest market in the world, everyone loves coming here and doing business with Europe, well, except ghouls like Musk.
This is why I find Rutte so grating, he's not stupid but he keeps pretending like Europe is lost without USA and Trump, which is both insulting and dumb and makes him, a European seem like a traitor and someone who works for the USA.
Regarding the Artillery vs drones, yeah, Artillery, especially the bigger rounds are much better for covering an area, it's not as precise and it does way more AOE damage because the shells have way more kinetic energy from it's flight + they pack much more explosives then a Drone can carry, I mean, we are Starcraft players, we know what siege tanks do.
The problem in Ukraine is that within the first year big mechanized assaults were starting to get phased out, both sides learned painful lessons about this, with Ukraine's failed 2023 summer counter-offensive and Russia's many, many failed offensives, biggest and most famous one being the actual start of the war where the famous column to the capital got wrecked.
That, plus the attrition of both shells and artillery pieces meant that artillery was used much more sparingly, you'd get a column immobilized with drones (going after engines and tracks) and then they'd cover the area with artillery.
On January 29 2026 03:33 Yurie wrote: Regarding the drone vs artillery discussion previously. Drones are better against small squads of units (since they can see them) while artillery is better against massed assaults (heavy AoE) or entrenched targets (penetration from other type of ammo). Is my understanding correct there?
Not wrong, but the role of arty has changed especially because of long range drones. The way the front line, or rather zone, works now recalls the Western Front of 1917.
Instead of a front line there is a deep, porous, "grey" zone 10 of kilometers wide literally swarmed by drones from both sides. It's very hard to remain unnoticed there for individual soldiers and virtually impossible for vehicles. Which is why armoured assaults have mostly dissappered and it's down to smal unit infiltrations into the grey zone. The grey zone is lightly defended in terms of manpower and equipment, but absolutely saturated with drones.
Artillery is held way back out of reach of FPV drones, and targets your own side of the grey zone. It's role is to engage any fix point on your side that the enemy happens to infiltrate. Think individual shacks, basements, bunkers in the grey zone that small units manage to capture despite the FPV drones.
The tactic is to deny any foot hold in the grey zone which could be used as a new drone base. Which then would threaten the artillery, supply lines, etc all the way back. In turn the attacker has to make it through the drones, capture a shelterd location, set up a new drone launchpoint, and from there push the artillery and drone bases of the defender back before they themselves can bring their equipment, drones, and artillery forward.
So artillery currently is mainly a counter attacking tool used to destroy fix points on your side of the grey zone before the enemy can bite and hold, forcing them to abandon the forward position.
Are systems like Skynex any good at dealing with FPV drones? I'm wondering if having a few of those protecting a column could make it more or less immune to drones.
From what we know rhey are. But anything recognizable and only somwhat stationary (and expensive, think Pzh2k and similar) would attract heavier munitions including glide bombs and Iskanders against which Skynex is useless.
It's a big puzzle of rock paper scissor where the individual soldier gets wrecked by all three.
EPT
