Some eastern European countries take far bigger hits to their defence than some further west do, who spend months debating red lines and being cowards, either because they're scared of Russia's reaction or because they don't want Russia to lose too quickly or because they're scared to take a slight hit to their own defence because either Russia might attack them (Lmfao) or China.

Then we spend months fucking around until someone finally grows some balls and makes a move, whether that be training Ukrainian troops or sending shit that they actually need, it was UK who had to make that move with tanks and I thought UK sending Storm Shadow would open the floodgates for long-range missiles, France sent some SCALP but we still have Germany and America f*cking around and stringing Ukraine along.

Ukraine isn't asking for the entire damn arsenal, lets imagine UK has sent 50 Storm Shadow's and France has sent 50 SCALPS. That is 100. So send 50 ATACMS and 50 Taurus and that's 200. 200 > 100. We likely have even less Storm Shadow's than America has ATACMS but we still sent some. None of us have a "huge" amount of these missiles and so that's why we should come together and combine our stocks.

But hey if it were up to me then UK would send the majority of its Storm Shadow arsenal to Ukraine, as it is being replaced by SPEAR 5 but Storm Shadow has shown so much efficiency in Ukraine that I wonder if we shouldn't produce some more! Seems like an amazing missile that doesn't even need replacing if our main enemy is struggling this much to intercept it. Unlock the 500km version too.

I'm not afraid of UK taking a hit to its defence and I'm unsure why so many in the West are. Ukraine is our chance to defeat Russia and remove them from the board for the next decade at minimum. Leaving only China as a viable threat and they only become a threat if they invade Taiwan and if they invade Taiwan, the battle will largely be fought via the sky and seas, China is NOT going to be coming to invade France, Germany, UK, America, etc.

Biden is pissing me off with the ATACMS nonsense.

Yes I know and it's frustrating, have said many times in the past how Canada isn't doing its fair share for instance, being able to unlock $300B on a whim to fight covid yet when it comes to helping Ukraine they can't even manage to contribute the amount that would even just fulfill the gap for NATO required 2% annual GDP spending.

Yet the reasons being advanced as to why they don't send more now are just so bogus that I feel the need to play devil’s advocate to have better actually logical ones. 

Like for ATACMS I fully agree, the ability of Ukrainians to strike Russian territory is bogus reasons, Ukraine can already strike Russia with storm shadows, and even Himars, but has shown no appetite to use those to strike Russia directly even so only for military targets. So is it the real reason or are there other more fitting undisclosed ones,

1. does Ukraine even have ATACMS-ready crews
2. are those crews ready to use ATACMS readily available or would they cannibalize Storm Shadows ones?
3. Is intel identifying enough targets in a short enough timeframe to even fully utilize the current tactical ballistic missile capacity in Ukraine to its full potential? 
4. France will send scalps over the coming months but to my knowledge Ukraine has yet to receive 1, is it because France is slow or Ukraine is simply not ready in either 1-2-3 above and their capacity must be risen at the same time which slows the process down? 

Let's say Ukraine has 10 Stormshadows and has the capacity to use 10 Stormshadows daily, would NATO sending 10 additional only to see every system only be used every other day actually help would it actually improve Ukraine's capacity in any way? In such a scenario, it sure would create a great PR package announcing $b additional equipment but they'll only create new targets for Russia without them actually being new threats to Russia.

But of course every time I see a new package I also wish it was way more substantial. 

Responding to the questions.

1. ATACMS is a missile for the M270 MLRS and the M142 HIMARS. Ukraine employs both of these in the battlefield already in significant numbers.

2. Yes, I would assume so, there are a lot of HIMARS and MLRS in the battlefield and they wouldn't cannibalize Storm Shadow as ATACMS is a ground launched only missile from the HIMARS/MLRS systems whilst Storm Shadow is a air launched missile only from a fighter jet. They're both long range missiles but completely different in how they're deployed (and work, Storm Shadow should be harder to intercept).

3. I would say yes, considering all the strikes Ukraine has been doing on key targets but with such a limited number they likely have to be extremely careful on picking their targets. In addition, they may be scenarios where using ATACMS may be preferable to using Storm Shadow and vice versa, such as taking into account the ability to intercept, Storm Shadow is harder so it may be saved for the most valuable targets.

Using Storm Shadow on places such as Crimea is also more dangerous as well as it has to be lobbed from a jet, which means a very valuable asset has to fly close to the frontlines for certain parts of Crimea, putting them at risk of Russia's anti-air defences. HIMARS hasn't really had this issue, they've been employed near the frontlines a lot because it's easy to "shoot and run" with them.

At current frontlines, Storm Shadow can't reach all of Crimea, ATACMS can.

4. Has France not sent SCALP? I don't know if that's true or not, as I've seen speculation in past strikes on Russia whether it was Storm Shadow or SCALP, it's hard to tell as they are exactly the same missile, the only difference is how they fit onto a jet. So honestly some of these Storm Shadow strikes could be SCALP.

-

Now I understand with other equipment the issue of training but it ain't even that, often these countries are spending months of debate over whether to send something and then they begin the training, instead of beginning the training from the very start, if we didn't spend months of stupid debating over sending Ukraine things like tanks and instead started the training ASAP then they would have had them far sooner.

I'm not saying that the west hasn't done a lot, because we have, there are things that pre-war I would have doubted the west would have cared enough about Ukraine to send but we could still be doing a lot better than we are and moving a lot quicker than we currently are, the west is often reacting to Russia instead of taking the lead.

Poland stops weapon deliveries to Ukraine...

Poland is the biggest receiver of EU funds and buying weaponry like crazy right now and they stop to support Ukraine..."awesome"

You could argue they sent a lot already but spending all that EU money from other countries for nice new tanks and completely stopping deliveries to Ukraine sucks

Apparently that is because they're having beef about grain exports from Ukraine to the EU, which threatens Poland's own exports to the rest of the EU and thereby their economy. This trade goes through Poland no less so they're facilitating their own competition. Long story short they don't want cheap Ukrainian grain flooding the EU. This back and forth argument has been going on for some time now though.

It's about time that the West shows some guts and tells Russia that any threats to Ukrainian grain exports across the Black Sea will be eliminated by NATO.

There's a clear distinction between entering full scale war with Russia and setting clear conditions under the mantle of preventing hunger in the world.

I don't disagree with this. I'm not exactly well versed in maritime law, but I don't see why Russia has a say, or at least, think they have a say, in who sails on the Black Sea, well outside their territorial waters.

It's not because of the grain situation although the grain situation is becoming an ugly public spat between Ukraine and Poland, in addition Poland's elections are coming up so PiS is doubling down on being shit and they were already pretty nationalistic shitheads so this argument between them and Ukraine is getting blown up.

The reason Poland claims that they've stopped deliveries, or in this case, Morawiecki claims, is because Poland have already given away most of their Soviet-era stuff to Ukraine and is now focusing on rearming itself by purchasing modern equipment and weapons from other countries such as the USA.

He made clear that the transit hub in Rzezsow will remain functional in consultation with the United States and NATO and all Western aid will still get into Ukraine through that on the same schedules. So basically, Poland simply doesn't have much else to give to Ukraine but the stop has happened amid this spat so now everyone is blaming it on the grain argument.

This grain situation isn't good though, Poland did say they wouldn't stop supporting Ukraine over something like grain but we'll see.

Agreed that the West should grow a pair and tell Russia to back off in the Black Sea and I doubt Russia would do shit about it if these ships were escorted by a warship. Having said that, I don't know how many Western ships are in the Black Sea, Turkey closed the straits so no military ship can enter. In which case, it would have to be Turkey to escort the ships.

Russia does not own the Black Sea and attacks on grain ships are an attack on the worlds food supply.

But does the West know how they could stop this shit or lessen it at least by not getting directly involved?

GIVING. UKRAINE. MORE. LONG. RANGE. MISSILES.

We literally just had Storm Shadow destroy a goddamn Submarine, a Russian ship and cause significant damage to Russia's largest drydock in the Black Sea. Sure, SS/SCALP/TAURUS/ATACMS won't be good for moving ships but at some point, a ship has to dock, for maintenance, for repairs, even for crew rotation and that is when the missiles can strike.

Moving ships can be taken out by drones or damaged by drones, then when they come in for repairs, you rain missiles down on them. We should help Ukraine build more of these naval drones as they're quite effective at overwhelming the enemy and slipping one past, all it takes is one direct hit to ruin a ship.

The more ships taken out, the less threat to the grain ships. The more drydocks destroyed, the further out Russia has to station their ships. The longer ranger missiles that Ukraine has, the bigger fear Russia has of entering certain waters. If you could destroy all of Russia's drydocks in the Black Sea then they'd have no choice but to eventually leave the Black Sea and perform maintenance elsewhere to damaged ships and if they did that, they wouldn't be allowed to re-enter by Turkey.

Zelenskyy reiterated Kyiv’s strong desire to acquire U.S.-made long-range missiles, emphasizing that any contrary decision would be a “loss” for Ukraine.

Ukraine, US Near Agreement on ATACMS Supply – News / The New Voice of Ukraine