Allegedly:
"Russian Deputy Vitaly Milonov proposes to introduce forced insemination for unmarried women over 24 years old. “Until the age of 24, they danced at discos, it’s time to take care of the state,” the deputy explained"
From:
Demographically Russia is looking at a big fall off a cliff in another decade or two. The birthrate, especially among ethnic Russians is one of the lowest in the world and it has been for 30 years. My partner has read that male infertility in Russia has become a severe problem. Long term heavy consumption of alcohol can lead to infertility in men.
In part they are fighting this war now because demographically they won't be able to in a few years. As it is they are drafting men who in past, total wars, were only drafted near the end of the war when the manpower pool became exhausted.
For example Germany started forming Volk Grenadier units in late 1944 which were older men and boys that were previously too young to get drafted. in the US Civil war young boys as young as 12 and old men were brought into the ranks near the end, especially in the South.
This is a desperation move to try and rebuild the population, I doubt it's going to work.
I have answers to three of those points:
1. Steel one meter thick? Eeeeekk!
2. Driver's cab: In fact, these CAT 797s are, along with certain ag-related heavy equipment, among the most FSD-advanced vehicles in existence. Programming one for 'dumb' work like going straight forward for 5km is a piece of cake. No driver needed.
3. Tires: Although these monstrous donuts are typically pneumatic, they can be made solid. Take a round and keep going 'round.
Dang, they're expensive. But so are Leopards and Bradleys.
To make solid tires for those beasts would require the molds to be made and they would have to be tested. It would probably take a year to do all the upgrades needed to turn those into mine plows.
The Ukrainians are doing what they need to do to free up the demining assets they have. Neutralize Russian artillery and make the local air environment too hostile to fly anything and the demining equipment can get to work. The Ukrainians reported taking out another 30 artillery yesterday.
Drones plus artillery make it very dangerous to clump assets together near the front. Long range precision missiles make it dangerous even well away from the front. The Cat 797F pictured is a large, high value target that costs $5M and cannot be easily hidden.
Zero percent would survive for more than a few hours within range of Russian artillery. Russia's primary means of defense is minefields to slow vehicles down combined with artillery. If the artillery is absent then the standard methods for clearing minefields are a piece of cake.
Heavy tanks went the way of battleships (no longer used) for mostly the same reason. They are large, high value targets that are still vulnerable to modern munitions.
Nicholas Moran who is, I believe a Lt Colonel, in the US Army has a YouTube channel called The Chieftain. He's an expert on everything tank related. I saw something where he had a discussion about why the heavy tank went away and essentially the medium tank evolved to take that niche. In WW II the medium tank was the mainstay tank in most armies with decent but not great armor, but good mobility and a decent gun. Heavy tanks sometimes had much larger guns, but they always had heavy armor and poor mobility.
After the war engine technology improved a fair bit and medium tanks got heavier and heavier armor as well as big guns. The MBT took the role of both the medium and heavy tank. A discussion among historians about what was the first real MBT concluded that the German Panther was probably the first tank that fit the abilities of an MBT.
In the USSR the T-34 evolved to take on more of the capabilities of the KV/IS series that those tanks became redundant and the descendant of the T-34 lived on.
The US evolved the M48 medium tank into an MBT (M60 and late M48s), but then started over with a blank sheet with the Abrams.
Too big and easy to kill. OK. Alternate random thought, let's have FSD Teslas drive across the mine fields. Good for TSLA, but of course that's still a bit pricey.
However, auto-driving or remote controlled full size cars is not even hard nowadays, so what if we build out some 80's caliber junkers with auto-driving hardware and a laptop, like the original Darpa challenge. Then drive them across the mine fields? $5K per car or something to create a known clear path. Lots of blown up cars in the way, but you only need one path. How about junker dirt bikes/motorcycles?
The UKR are seriously clever and smart, and I expect they have already considered this. That self-driving BMP might be part of that sort of thinking.
Probably this sort of idea does not work in practice because the battlefield is 100% transparent in this war. You can't move any vehicle anywhere on the front without being seen by drones and drawing artillery fire.
The problem is that when a car blows up, its wreck is sitting in the spot where you want to start the next car in line. If you go around that car, then the next car will blow up next to it. You'll end up with a line of cars along the front of the minefield and not get very deep.
MICLICs are probably the best tool, but it will take 10 lines to clear one channel in a minefield 1Km deep. They need a clear environment to do their job without enemy interference. As
@petit_bateau said yesterday, once the first line is shot, the enemy knows where you are and what you're doing. The only way to succeed is to ensure the enemy doesn't have the ability to stop you.
