[Goose]

Do any of you watch "Joe Blogs" on YouTube?

His latest video about the bottom falling out of Russian oil and gas revenues demonstrates Russia is being put in quite a vice economically, with fundamental realities set to crush its economy in a way you'd think would make it impossible to wage war.

The EU ban on Russian oil imports starts Dec. 5 and the G7 is close to setting a cap on Russian oil to be shipped in insured vessels to $63/barrel. This would give Russia enough profit to keep producing, but not enough to do much else, like fund war activities. Russia will claim it will shut down all oil production - yet another bluff and lie - to try scaring the world into loosening the vice Russia is in. The reality is they must continue finding places to send the oil or it will be backed up with inventory it might not be able to store, and they don't want to shut wells down because the cost of capping and starting them up is prohibitive. So Russia can whine all it wants, but it will have no choice but to sell at subsistence prices.

It sucks to see the west and NATO not step up efforts to go after Russia in Ukraine, but it seems the calculus from these governments is to slowly starve Russia of its ability to fund war or function domestically by significantly limiting its oil and gas revenue potential, given Ukraine is willing to fight like it is. It seems on the precipice of working very soon, like 2023 is going to be a really, really painful for Russians. Hard to imagine Putin surviving after losing a war that kills tens of thousands, sends the best minds out of the country, ages the population, and completely obliterates the Russian economy to the degree he will have done.

Unfortunately dictatorships do not function under what most of us would consider rational rules. They often manage to continue under conditions that are intolerable in the mind of "rational" people. It is never wise to assume they will simply crumble, because they usually don't. They need to be "pushed". Let's hope this is an exception, but given that the Russian state has basically never been anything but authoritarian, there isn't a lot of historical support for the idea it will change on it's own.

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My point was simply that a small boat the size of the Ukrainian USV perhaps could carry a larger warhead than the 100-200 lbs you stated. Still curious to see any other sources or analysis of the USV and its payload.

Yes, it is probable the USV can carry a warhead larger than 100-200 lbs. However, the problem becomes weight and balance, like on an airplane. If you put say 400 lbs right up front in the bow, the analysis I was reading (which unfortunately I can't find again :-()  pointed out it would bury the bow in the water. If you moved it further aft, you could probably carry a larger payload. However, it appears that the engine was moved toward the middle of the USV for the same balance reasons. Realistically, this is all somewhat conjectural. We can't know, and since we don't actually know what kind of warhead it carried we can't know if direct contact with the target's side was important. If it was a shaped charge or EFP, it is, although such (normally missile) warheads are usually rammed into the target with much more force than the USV could probably generate. This is something that we may never find out.

We need to follow the trail of the Russian frigates. Unfortunately, it is rare to see them all in one place at the same time, so some combination of sightings that reveals their whereabouts (with transit speeds evaluated to eliminate ambiguities) will be necessary for us "mortals" to know where they all are. I suspect the US powers that be do actually know this, but they aren't saying.

[Goose]

Do any of you watch "Joe Blogs" on YouTube?

His latest video about the bottom falling out of Russian oil and gas revenues demonstrates Russia is being put in quite a vice economically, with fundamental realities set to crush its economy in a way you'd think would make it impossible to wage war.

The EU ban on Russian oil imports starts Dec. 5 and the G7 is close to setting a cap on Russian oil to be shipped in insured vessels to $63/barrel. This would give Russia enough profit to keep producing, but not enough to do much else, like fund war activities. Russia will claim it will shut down all oil production - yet another bluff and lie - to try scaring the world into loosening the vice Russia is in. The reality is they must continue finding places to send the oil or it will be backed up with inventory it might not be able to store, and they don't want to shut wells down because the cost of capping and starting them up is prohibitive. So Russia can whine all it wants, but it will have no choice but to sell at subsistence prices.

It sucks to see the west and NATO not step up efforts to go after Russia in Ukraine, but it seems the calculus from these governments is to slowly starve Russia of its ability to fund war or function domestically by significantly limiting its oil and gas revenue potential, given Ukraine is willing to fight like it is. It seems on the precipice of working very soon, like 2023 is going to be a really, really painful for Russians. Hard to imagine Putin surviving after losing a war that kills tens of thousands, sends the best minds out of the country, ages the population, and completely obliterates the Russian economy to the degree he will have done.

Unfortunately dictatorships do not function under what most of us would consider rational rules. They often manage to continue under conditions that are intolerable in the mind of "rational" people. It is never wise to assume they will simply crumble, because they usually don't. They need to be "pushed". Let's hope this is an exception, but given that the Russian state has basically never been anything but authoritarian, there isn't a lot of historical support for the idea it will change on it's own.

---

My point was simply that a small boat the size of the Ukrainian USV perhaps could carry a larger warhead than the 100-200 lbs you stated. Still curious to see any other sources or analysis of the USV and its payload.

Yes, it is probable the USV can carry a warhead larger than 100-200 lbs. However, the problem becomes weight and balance, like on an airplane. If you put say 400 lbs right up front in the bow, the analysis I was reading (which unfortunately I can't find again :-()  pointed out it would bury the bow in the water. If you moved it further aft, you could probably carry a larger payload. However, it appears that the engine was moved toward the middle of the USV for the same balance reasons. Realistically, this is all somewhat conjectural. We can't know, and since we don't actually know what kind of warhead it carried we can't know if direct contact with the target's side was important. If it was a shaped charge or EFP, it is, although such (normally missile) warheads are usually rammed into the target with much more force than the USV could probably generate. This is something that we may never find out.

We need to follow the trail of the Russian frigates. Unfortunately, it is rare to see them all in one place at the same time, so some combination of sightings that reveals their whereabouts (with transit speeds evaluated to eliminate ambiguities) will be necessary for us "mortals" to know where they all are. I suspect the US powers that be do actually know this, but they aren't saying.