Russia Invades Ukraine. Volume 4
Discussion
Castrol for a knave said:
Puggit said:
Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden agree to act as one airforce
https://twitter.com/The_Lookout_N/status/163888470...
Just had 2 Finnish F18s over the house. Apparently on exercise with the RAF. https://twitter.com/The_Lookout_N/status/163888470...
Digga said:
Castrol for a knave said:
Puggit said:
Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden agree to act as one airforce
https://twitter.com/The_Lookout_N/status/163888470...
Just had 2 Finnish F18s over the house. Apparently on exercise with the RAF. https://twitter.com/The_Lookout_N/status/163888470...
New Ukranian Shark UAV to enter the War https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/wave-of-shark...
vaud said:
Would they present any threat to a modern battle tank? Or more just useful against infantry (without anti tank weapons)
What use are they? Decoys to draw fire and attention / consume enemy ammo?
This conflict has established that there are 2 sorts of armoured vehicles: those with IR Optics and those without.What use are they? Decoys to draw fire and attention / consume enemy ammo?
Those without are of ever diminishing use on a battlefield and are experiencing increasingly short survival durations.
AlexIT said:
4 Slovakian MiG-29 have been safely handed over to Ukraine, while other 9 -for a total of 13- will be delivered in the coming weeks.
In the meantime 6 Spanish Leopard A2 will be ready for use by the end of next week and will be delivered to Ukraine, 4 more will shortly follow.
I do hope someone’s teaching Ukraine about the importance of mine clearance, because it doesn’t matter how advanced your tank is if they drive them into mine fields they are going to go up in smoke. And that won’t be good for ‘optics’….. In the meantime 6 Spanish Leopard A2 will be ready for use by the end of next week and will be delivered to Ukraine, 4 more will shortly follow.
TTmonkey said:
I do hope someone’s teaching Ukraine about the importance of mine clearance, because it doesn’t matter how advanced your tank is if they drive them into mine fields they are going to go up in smoke. And that won’t be good for ‘optics’…..
Given how cleverly Ukraine has been using mines to date I'm gonna predict they fully understand the problem of mines.Whether they have a solution, we'll find out over the summer. Let's hope so.
Edited by BikeBikeBIke on Thursday 23 March 15:34
BikeBikeBIke said:
TTmonkey said:
I do hope someone’s teaching Ukraine about the importance of mine clearance, because it doesn’t matter how advanced your tank is if they drive them into mine fields they are going to go up in smoke. And that won’t be good for ‘optics’…..
Given how cleverly Ukraine has been using mines to date I'm gonna predict they fully understand the problem of mines.Whether they have a solution, we'll find out over the summer. Let's hope so.
Edited by BikeBikeBIke on Thursday 23 March 15:34
Puggit said:
Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden agree to act as one airforce
https://twitter.com/The_Lookout_N/status/163888470...
I just noticed JAKE11 (NATO Surveillance) has been over Finland all afternoon. That seems like a fairly momentous change.https://twitter.com/The_Lookout_N/status/163888470...
Castrol for a knave said:
Puggit said:
Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden agree to act as one airforce
https://twitter.com/The_Lookout_N/status/163888470...
Just had 2 Finnish F18s over the house. Apparently on exercise with the RAF. https://twitter.com/The_Lookout_N/status/163888470...
There are also Belgian AF F-16's and Indian AF Mirage 2000's taking part.
BikeBikeBIke said:
Jhonno said:
BikeBikeBIke said:
Talksteer said:
The KIA rate for the British Army was ~10% over the 4 years of WWI. The Red Army lost about 8 million out of 34 million who served in WWII which again was a much longer conflict and the numbers are skewed by the Germans killing most of the POWs.
There is also a sampling bias in that the Wagner soldiers we hear about are the ones doing recon by force missions in Bakhmut which have met heavy resistance.
We don't hear about the people manning sections of the defensive lines, doing force protection for other support units. We don't see videos of the attacks which were successful because the Ukrainians didn't deploy a drone and get artillery down (no videos). We don't see the guys who weren't in the open when the shooting started who returned fired and then slipped away to fight another day.
I've got no doubt that Wagner convicts suffer high casualty rates but we do have to question certain elements of the story about them being used as cannon fodder.
They are still people, they are crims and they are equipped with guns. Ergo you can get them to do dangerous things but you still have to use the same physiological tricks (group cohesion, "fair" sharing of the risks, some hope of getting out alive) that get regular soldiers to fighter. Otherwise the non convict Wagner personnel are going to be living day to day with armed desperados with poor impulse control.
If you actually are going to send people on pure suicide missions then you need to supervise them at max security prison staff to prisoner ratios which will again actually limit how many of them you can send to their deaths at any one time.
No quarrel with any of that. I got the impression the prisoners were used as disposable assault troops while the safer support jobs went to others. I guess we don't know that as a fact.There is also a sampling bias in that the Wagner soldiers we hear about are the ones doing recon by force missions in Bakhmut which have met heavy resistance.
We don't hear about the people manning sections of the defensive lines, doing force protection for other support units. We don't see videos of the attacks which were successful because the Ukrainians didn't deploy a drone and get artillery down (no videos). We don't see the guys who weren't in the open when the shooting started who returned fired and then slipped away to fight another day.
I've got no doubt that Wagner convicts suffer high casualty rates but we do have to question certain elements of the story about them being used as cannon fodder.
They are still people, they are crims and they are equipped with guns. Ergo you can get them to do dangerous things but you still have to use the same physiological tricks (group cohesion, "fair" sharing of the risks, some hope of getting out alive) that get regular soldiers to fighter. Otherwise the non convict Wagner personnel are going to be living day to day with armed desperados with poor impulse control.
If you actually are going to send people on pure suicide missions then you need to supervise them at max security prison staff to prisoner ratios which will again actually limit how many of them you can send to their deaths at any one time.
A quick Google suggests less than 50pc casualties within prisoners within Wagner, so seems you're likely right. Large numbers of violent nutters have been turbo charged and then released onto the streets of Russia.
Looks like overall it's actually much lower. (All estimated, obvs.)
Looking at the stuff from captured plans and analysis of what they are doing; the conclusions is that they are using more manpower as they have proportionally less artillery than they previously had.
With minimally trained men there is limit to how much autonomy and flexibility you can give to them. So what they are doing is having the more experienced and trained Wagner NCO/Officers do is send them forward with a pre-planned route which they follow until they reach either the end point or somebody triggers a Ukrainian response.
The Ukrainians also know that this is what they are doing, the intent is to allow the Russians to either follow up somewhere where the line is poorly held or to call down artillery on identified positions. There are a bunch of measures the Ukrainians can take to stop that happening. One is to come forward themselves (fighting patrols), fire on the recon, withdraw and call down artillery. The other is to hold relatively light forward positions, withdraw if assaulted and then shell those positions or just in front of them to stop the Russians taking them then re-occupy them having caused disproportionate casualties. Bare in mind that with trenches one can also withdraw laterally.
The key points are that these "human wave" attacks actually have reasonably sophisticated plans behind them and the follow up Wagner volunteers are just as vulnerable to artillery so they probably want to have timetables that reduce the ability of artillery to strike them (in fact as there are no true secret tactics in war it is often likely possible to work out where someone observing an assault would be located that might be where you have some of your pre-surveyed artillery go). By attacking on multiple routes they also mean that while the group that triggers the initial contact might suffer high casualties the ones who aren't in the group will get away with it.
Finally more prosaically let's say you have been assigned some Wagner convict dogs bodies, are you going to want to use them on suicide missions that can potentially get you killed as well. Or are you going to use them for the minimum amount of attacking you can get away with, and then mainly use them to help dig you some better positions, something that might actually save your life (and is also reasonably dangerous when you are on the absolute front line)?
TTmonkey said:
BikeBikeBIke said:
Listened to the Telegraph Podcast on my lunchtime run, always excellent the first 20 minutes of this were superb.
A really interesting point was made, perhaps obvious but we never acknowledge it.
Western Democracies are pretty stable. We are going to be here for a long time. If we do collapse, we'll likely go down gradually with warning, because that's typically how democracies die. In contrast Dictatorships collapse suddenly, with little warning.
Putin is a 70yo man. He could die tomorrow of natural causes. He will be frail or dead within 10 years or so. He could be deposed at any moment. Russia's economy is going down the toilet. (See also Xi. China and Xi are both on the decline. Xi's decline will be natural, China's decline may be slow, but due to demographics it's inevitable.)
If (as seems likely) this war becomes a frozen conflict and a waiting game, the west likely won't lose. The West's resolve might weaken, but it won't collapse. Putin literally will collapse over the next 20 years or perhaps tomorrow. Ditto Xi. The West are much better placed for a waiting game.
Another thought of my own. If Ukraine attacked Russia as Russia claim, why didn't the CSTO all get stuck in? the contradictions in Russia's case are obvious and many, and Russians know that.
Democracies don’t need to die for support to suddenly be withdrawn for this conflict. The electorate just needs to vote for a candidate that says “we will stop supporting/escalating this conflict and let Putin get away with it if you vote for ME”. A really interesting point was made, perhaps obvious but we never acknowledge it.
Western Democracies are pretty stable. We are going to be here for a long time. If we do collapse, we'll likely go down gradually with warning, because that's typically how democracies die. In contrast Dictatorships collapse suddenly, with little warning.
Putin is a 70yo man. He could die tomorrow of natural causes. He will be frail or dead within 10 years or so. He could be deposed at any moment. Russia's economy is going down the toilet. (See also Xi. China and Xi are both on the decline. Xi's decline will be natural, China's decline may be slow, but due to demographics it's inevitable.)
If (as seems likely) this war becomes a frozen conflict and a waiting game, the west likely won't lose. The West's resolve might weaken, but it won't collapse. Putin literally will collapse over the next 20 years or perhaps tomorrow. Ditto Xi. The West are much better placed for a waiting game.
Another thought of my own. If Ukraine attacked Russia as Russia claim, why didn't the CSTO all get stuck in? the contradictions in Russia's case are obvious and many, and Russians know that.
As such, I’d say democracies are very much less stable than a dictatorship, and I’ve not seen many dictatorships fall and democracy immediately take its place without violent insurrection and civil wars. It generally takes years and years for functioning democracies to replace dictatorships.
I hope Putin dies tomorrow. But I can only see him being replaced by yet another hard man that rules as a dictator even if there is ‘elections’. Could even be more dangerous.
The actual % of our economies which is going in aid is tiny and in most countries getting Putin/Russians is still pretty popular. The secondary consequences around inflation and energy are beginning to sort themselves out. I don't see why we would tire of seeing the Ukrainians hammer the Russians with our weapons. This is likely only to change if the Ukrainians start committing widespread war crimes or having been given the means to carry out a military operation they start failing.
Short of full scale nuclear war I don't see what consequences the Russians can effectively aim at the West. They have already thrown their best punches economically and their conventional capability has already been deployed and been shown to be lacking.
Puggit said:
BikeBikeBIke said:
Rumours on Russian Telegram that Russians are withdrawing from Kakhovka.
Looks to be the Russian side of the River. So why?
Because they were getting pounded accurately. Looks to be the Russian side of the River. So why?
Putin's election fixer Vladimir Churov has died suddenly of a heart attack only 5 days after coming out of hiding to give an interview.
https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/163855578...
No windows were harmed in this news.
https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/163855578...
No windows were harmed in this news.
BikeBikeBIke said:
Puggit said:
BikeBikeBIke said:
Rumours on Russian Telegram that Russians are withdrawing from Kakhovka.
Looks to be the Russian side of the River. So why?
Because they were getting pounded accurately. Looks to be the Russian side of the River. So why?
FourWheelDrift said:
Putin's election fixer Vladimir Churov has died suddenly of a heart attack only 5 days after coming out of hiding to give an interview.
https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/163855578...
No windows were harmed in this news.
Was it a bullet, that attacked his heart, we wonder?https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/163855578...
No windows were harmed in this news.
king arthur said:
FourWheelDrift said:
Putin's election fixer Vladimir Churov has died suddenly of a heart attack only 5 days after coming out of hiding to give an interview.
https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/163855578...
No windows were harmed in this news.
Was it a bullet, that attacked his heart, we wonder?https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/163855578...
No windows were harmed in this news.
So possibly an exploding bullet.
Also "and reportedly had plans to write a book"
BikeBikeBIke said:
Listened to the Telegraph Podcast on my lunchtime run, always excellent the first 20 minutes of this were superb.
A really interesting point was made, perhaps obvious but we never acknowledge it.
Western Democracies are pretty stable. We are going to be here for a long time. If we do collapse, we'll likely go down gradually with warning, because that's typically how democracies die. In contrast Dictatorships collapse suddenly, with little warning.
Putin is a 70yo man. He could die tomorrow of natural causes. He will be frail or dead within 10 years or so. He could be deposed at any moment. Russia's economy is going down the toilet. (See also Xi. China and Xi are both on the decline. Xi's decline will be natural, China's decline may be slow, but due to demographics it's inevitable.)
If (as seems likely) this war becomes a frozen conflict and a waiting game, the west likely won't lose. The West's resolve might weaken, but it won't collapse. Putin literally will collapse over the next 20 years or perhaps tomorrow. Ditto Xi. The West are much better placed for a waiting game.
Another thought of my own. If Ukraine attacked Russia as Russia claim, why didn't the CSTO all get stuck in? the contradictions in Russia's case are obvious and many, and Russians know that.
Did you listen to the episode a few days ago where they interview an ex Republican political strategist ? If a Republican wins the election at the end of next year it is currently not a given that the current level of support continues. Hopefully political posturing but worrying…especially if D Trump esq manages to pull it off. A really interesting point was made, perhaps obvious but we never acknowledge it.
Western Democracies are pretty stable. We are going to be here for a long time. If we do collapse, we'll likely go down gradually with warning, because that's typically how democracies die. In contrast Dictatorships collapse suddenly, with little warning.
Putin is a 70yo man. He could die tomorrow of natural causes. He will be frail or dead within 10 years or so. He could be deposed at any moment. Russia's economy is going down the toilet. (See also Xi. China and Xi are both on the decline. Xi's decline will be natural, China's decline may be slow, but due to demographics it's inevitable.)
If (as seems likely) this war becomes a frozen conflict and a waiting game, the west likely won't lose. The West's resolve might weaken, but it won't collapse. Putin literally will collapse over the next 20 years or perhaps tomorrow. Ditto Xi. The West are much better placed for a waiting game.
Another thought of my own. If Ukraine attacked Russia as Russia claim, why didn't the CSTO all get stuck in? the contradictions in Russia's case are obvious and many, and Russians know that.
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