Russia - threadbanned users in OP

The Red Army is likely to be marching in the next 2 weeks so it will be unlikely that enough of the heavy stuff will be in play

But the Ukrainans are better prepared and better equipped than 12 months ago, while they might not have the new tanks and IFVs they do have modern artillery,100,000 anti tank weapons and vehicles they didn't have at the start of the invasion,

They may well loose more territory in the very short term,but they can still do a hell of a lot of damage,it seems they have a plan in place and are sticking to it ,they haven't sent thousands of reenforcements to soledar or bakhmut to push the Russians back,they have sent more equipment to bakhmut they aren't throwing the kitchen sink at it

Some of the news stories say Russia has 500,000 troops ready for an attack, but that seems to be a translation error. What the Ukrainian defense minister said was that Russia claimed to have mobilised 300,000 additional troops, but actually mobilised 500,000. That doesn't mean they can attack with 500k - not all of them are combat ready right now.

What numbers have Ukraine left?

Russia lost a load of prisoners of little use the last month while slowly killing proper Ukrainian soldiers.

Next up, 500,000 soldiers.

What have Ukraine left?

Plenty

A couple of hundred thousand,and multiple millions willing to defend their country and lives

Doping - no problem

War crimes - no problem

Do you know how a HIMARS system works? I don't. The most logical thing to me would seem to be to load the ordnance and have a control station feed all the mission profile, targeting and launcher location data to the ordnance én mass. In which case the launchers may well not have HIMOS7.2 rev 14c installed, that is necessary for them to talk to a new class of munition that didn't exist when they shipped. If the system requires every individual munition to be programmed, and the launcher is just a dumb rack then sure, the existing launchers would probably work.

I don't think wishful thinking is sufficient to trump the Bloomberg report.

UN still have countries who behead people in the United Nations Human Rights Council so why are you surprised?

There are millions of people still living in Ukraine that don't want to be part of russia. When the russians had troops closing in on the capitol of Ukraine there were mass movements to produce bottles of Molotov cocktails to slow down the advance of russian armor.

What do these 500,000 "soldiers" have that the conscripted convicts of Wagner did not have last month when they expended over 22,000 and lots of military equipment to gain 0.1% of the territory of Ukraine? If they proceed at the same rate the 500,000 may gain about 2.5% of Ukraine before becoming fertiliser and the battle hardened Ukrainian troops take their country back.

Maybe the Reuters report trumps the Bloomberg report?

Bloomberg states 9 months, Reuters by Spring. Different reports, different sources etc....

Looks like you're right on the different launchers. Well either additional HIMARS compatible with them or a completely different launch platform (I think it was tested via a truck launch system)

Let's face it, both reports have as much a clue as we all do on here.

With the exception of the Abrams, the US hasn't announced a weapons package so far in advance. The Bradley's being the biggest behind HIMARS and are due to land in the UK on the 7th Feb.

I just wish they would announce them and the next day we hear reports of ammo dumps going boom well out of standard HIMARS range.

Just on the topic of this 300,000 Russian conscripts that have been training 'in secret' in Belarus, as other posters have mentioned the Russians have burnt their instructor corps in the initial invasion and their subsequent retreat under fire means that the training cupboard is bare (as is the equipment cupboard but that's a corruption issue).

I assume that you've all watched Putin vs the West on BBC?

One of the interesting things (for me) was former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko discussing the Minsk agreement where he went in and bluffed Putin that the Ukrainian army was preparing to launch a massive counter attack on the DPR / LPR forces and with this bold faced lie he forced Putin to call for a ceasefire. This bought the Ukrainian army, which at the time was pretty much at the current level of the Irish Defence Force (and no - this isn't a compliment) to take a breather and subsequently re-organise, re-arm and re-train.

If Putin had pressed home his armies advantage at the 'full of the tide' he would probably have taken Ukraine in a couple of weeks, and this timidity is, I believe what weighed on his mind during his prolonged Covid lockdown. i.e "Why didn't I press home the advantage when I had the chance and opportunity?"

But, as we all know you only get 'one bite of the cherry'! When Putin did go back to 'visit Kyiv' the Ukrainian army his invasion forces met on the city outskirts weren't the same rabble they'd trounced eight years previously in Luhansk / Donetsk and the Ukrainian defenders were more than a match to the elite troops Russia would throw into the cauldron

Looks like it does require new launchers. The Reuters article claiming spring was back in Nov 2022. The Bloomberg one was 14hrs ago. Since its said to be in the latest package, you'd think it should be Spring. Let's hope it is.

Veering hopelessly off-topic: My first car was an Austin Maxi and I well remember having to replace the hydraulic clutch outside at the kerbside ... in the snow!

Loved that car *sniff*

I often wonder the same. I assume that there is a lot happening that is kept very secret and there is , again I assume, a lot of information put out there that is for reasons of deflection - misinformation, disinformation, etc , etc. . For example , the Americans might say that it is going to supply one type of weapons system and the Ru will react accordingly but might then not supply that but a totally different system. Timelines could be also significantly different