gatnerd said:

Is your read on this that this is typical government incompetence (of which I'm quite familiar with here, as I'm sure we all are) or is the vibe that this is something more deliberate?

As far as I can tell its both. There are several things coming together.
Of course there is a deep reluctance of the current administration to give funds to the military. So in their eyes every day that passes without the military getting even a cent is a good day. So they don't really go out of their way to speed things up.
Which is pretty hard to begin with. The entire organisation of the DoD and the armed forces has been so starved of resources the last 30+ years they don't even know to handle such sums anymore. The organisational knowledge is gone. Furthermore the regulations have been changed so every penny is bitten trough first. Twice if possible. This means lots and lots of bureaucracy and paperwork to get funds released. The regulations and procedures have not been changed. So they handle a 100 billion budget in the same way as the meager millions they go befor.
So far no streamlining of processes or adjustment of regulations has even been talked about.
Then there is the problem of inflation and rising cost. This is pretty new for Germany. So again no procedures and regulations. The original plan for the 100 billion had to be canned allready because the prices have changed. This results in a technically wrong plan which means it is rejected. A new plan has to be made. Which means back to square one. Get new offers and prices. Evaluate. Formulate a new spending plan. Get it approved by the parilament... which in such a dynamic situations means prices have changed yet again... its a vicious circle. This results in the spending plan being in bureaucratic limbo. Until regulations are adjusted it is unlikely that it will get out any time soon.
In the mean time the world is not standing still. The industry doesn't wait. They simply move on.

gatnerd said:

I know the previous Defense lady got the boot. Any sign the new Defense head will be better?

Besides the "finally a male secretary of defense" I don't see how things should get significalntly better. After all he is a career politician from the same party as the lady befor. He also has never served or worked in the real economy.
He is allready trying to raise the morale though. He visited the troops in his first week. Even wore a standard issue camo jacket, which his predecessor refursed to to, and adressed all soldiers by their correct rank, something his predecessor also refused to do. He also is from the security and defense sector of his party. So maybe some things will change but so far it allways has been improve things, make it faster, leaner, cheaper but do not change anything. Which did not work. Unless this approach is thrown overboard there will be no real improvement.

U212NFS would be brilliant for the Black Sea

Diesel subs can't really stay at sea that long so how would this sub arm, fuel, and generally not get wrecked first time it at the base, I don't see any armored submarine pens in Ukraine.

In any case while we are at slicing a dicing Germany like kebab, Kriegsmarine has 6 subs but like most of the German military its all in a state of disrepair so only one sub is kinda in active duty rest is in docks undergoing repairs

Mr. T (MrT4) said:

I don't see any armored submarine pens in Ukraine.

Those can be built. I am talking post war.

Drone 'recovery'

Drone on drone action

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Drone tethered to a fishing line to prevent a hijacking by EW

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Dambiev

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Some less than spec Ukrainan body armor , welded up from 3 sprint steel plates and laminated over

Spectacular interactive article with text, images, and gifs of artillery shell manufacturing in the US, step by step.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/02/02/us/dc-ammunition.html

Related to the fishing line on the drone stories .

Drone snatchers are being used on both sides 

Footage of the new Russian "trench" defense system against small UAVs.

The principle of operation is simple: the detector of the system detects the drone and lets it get closer, where electronic warfare jammers are activated from an effective distance, preventing the enemy drone from escaping from the jammed zone of cca 2.5km.

wartime upgrades

As UVZ is refiting and upgrading tanks at considerable speed reportedly 3+ tanks (T72 and T80) per shift !!  , the backlog of the FCS and optics seems to be one of the main obstacles to upgrade speed and quality

The Sosna-U and similar are now reserved for T90 , so the wartime upgraded T72B and T80BV are getting whatever is left so the thermals with cca 25% shorter recognition range that Sosna U

As noted before some of the T90 that were supplied to Russian army and Wagner in last couple of months are obvious Indian contract models  distinguished buy somewhat specific reactive armor layout on the turret

Stickers with lettering on the day sight unit indicate it was taken from 'export' production run as they  all have engraved lettering.

1G46 sight is the same 1PN96MT-01, which is used instead of the more advanced Sosna-U sight on the current upgrades of the T-80BV and T-72B tanks.

First recorded ejection from helicopter in combat

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Slavyangrad

Russian pilots ejecting from Ka-52, February-March 2022. Unique footage: the video shows the ejection of the crew of a Ka-52 "Alligator" helicopter, which was shot down at the beginning of the war. At 0:15, we see the beginning of the operation of the attack helicopter's jet-ejection system. The crew survived and continues to fight. The Ka-52 is the world's only helicopter with an ejection...

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