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Why is everyone in Europe so drat terrified of Russia when an underequipped Ukraine that has like 1/4th Russia's population is able to tie up 85% of Russia's current active duty forces? Like what do they think Russia is going to do if Germany or others start sending the weapons that can really turn the tide of this war?
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Jun 10, 2022 16:18
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Kraftwerk posted:Why is everyone in Europe so drat terrified of Russia when an underequipped Ukraine that has like 1/4th Russia's population is able to tie up 85% of Russia's current active duty forces? If your Germany? Close the pipes.
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Jun 10, 2022 16:21
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Molotov Ribbentrop is Alive and well. Don't forget that.
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Jun 10, 2022 16:26
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cinci zoo sniper posted:As a proud member state of Eurovision, Australia is merely doing its part. Is Germany being hesitant because they didn't get any points at eurovision?
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Jun 10, 2022 16:34
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KitConstantine posted:Well I guess we know what the new line is It was always a fake fig leaf.
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Jun 10, 2022 16:46
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CommieGIR posted:To be fair: Russia is chewing through artillery without achieving massive results worth it, so while its bad I don't think its gonna work for them in the long run. The Russians are already almost out of 122mm artillery shells. After they decided to streamline their tube artillery logistics around 152mm, the Russians dumped all the 122mm stuff on the LNR/DNR, to the point where almost all the LNR/DNR artillery units are using 122mm guns. There are reports that they are being forced to retrain and reequip LNR/DNR artillery units in 152mm because they have no more 122mm ammo. On a different note, here's a reminder of how much casual brutality is a part of the normal SOP of the Russian military, even towards themselves. https://www.proekt.media/en/investigation-en/names-of-the-russian-military-officers/ quote:“Mlechnik” is considered a hellish place among conscripts. Parents of soldiers who served in the 64th Brigade in 2017-2019 say that the food in the unit is poor , it is cold in the barracks, and the uniforms issued are old and out of size. “Before some inspections, some of the soldiers are hidden in the baths, forests and other places for some reason. Maybe they don’t want to frighten the inspectors with the soldiers’ appearance since their uniforms, boots and physical condition leave much to be desired, » says the mother of one of the conscripts.
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Jun 10, 2022 16:54
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golden bubble posted:The Russians are already almost out of 122mm artillery shells. After they decided to streamline their tube artillery logistics around 152mm, the Russians dumped all the 122mm stuff on the LNR/DNR, to the point where almost all the LNR/DNR artillery units are using 122mm guns. There are reports that they are being forced to retrain and reequip LNR/DNR artillery units in 152mm because they have no more 122mm ammo. Conditions like this are enough to make soldiers turn their guns against their own people. How come not much of this is happening right now?
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Jun 10, 2022 16:57
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Kraftwerk posted:Conditions like this are enough to make soldiers turn their guns against their own people. How come not much of this is happening right now? We don’t have information to reliable prove or disprove such things happening.
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Jun 10, 2022 17:00
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The most ironic thing about it is that there's a battalion in DNR who based their logo on one of the Metro factions. 
Somebody fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Jun 10, 2022 |
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Jun 10, 2022 17:40
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https://twitter.com/CovertShores/status/1535291865129418752?s=20&t=VP2I9OBqMsHOh67eDDZ1bQ
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Jun 10, 2022 18:00
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 Ukraine still has a navy??
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Jun 10, 2022 18:16
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OAquinas posted:
This is one of the reasons this war has to have a decisive end and can't just go on an indefinite "pause" like after 2014. Ukraine will have an extremely difficult time having any future economy if their only port left is Odessa, which can easily be blockaded by Russia if hostilities pop off again. They have to get back more of their coastal cities, their flag might be of the wheat fields but their coat of arms is an anchor for very good reason.
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Jun 10, 2022 18:22
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OAquinas posted:
The Ukrainians just keep impressing with their ballsy refusal to lay down and die when they're supposed to. Given my experiences with Polish sailors, I imagine these guys are probably stupid skilled and live for this Pirates of the Caribbean poo poo. (And also drink an insane amount).
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Jun 10, 2022 18:24
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Oracle posted:The Ukrainians just keep impressing with their ballsy refusal to lay down and die when they're supposed to. Given my experiences with Polish sailors, I imagine these guys are probably stupid skilled and live for this Pirates of the Caribbean poo poo. (And also drink an insane amount). They're topping off a bottle as the arty shells are landing within feet of the ship
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Jun 10, 2022 18:26
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https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1535271617928081409?s=20&t=VP2I9OBqMsHOh67eDDZ1bQ
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Jun 10, 2022 18:44
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Not as good as a kill, but it'll probably take the airframe offline for a while. Decent chance that plane gets scrapped for parts.
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Jun 10, 2022 18:49
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GABA ghoul posted:B) Doubt that we can affect the situation in a positive way. Thinking that 200 NATO artillery pieces that Ukraine can't even keep operational mid-term won't help against the 6k Russia can field and we are just prolonging the conflict and the inevitable outcome A self-fulfilling prophecy in a way. Ukraine will eventually fall, or large portions of it, so to send aid to prevent that outcome is irrational and reactionary. A second component might be that the amount of aid needed, both money and materiel, combined with the aid that will be needed to rebuild, is not worth the possible German/EU economic harm: "We have experience rebuilding our own East, and it's a sinkhole of cost." I really hope there isn't a "and they are Slavs" component and expect to be pilloried by Germans for even wondering. Of course, the self-fulling prophecy danger is very true. If the "West" does not continue to aid Ukraine, and in greater amounts, they will fall.
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Jun 10, 2022 18:56
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Orthanc6 posted:This is one of the reasons this war has to have a decisive end and can't just go on an indefinite "pause" like after 2014. Ukraine will have an extremely difficult time having any future economy if their only port left is Odessa, which can easily be blockaded by Russia if hostilities pop off again. They have to get back more of their coastal cities, their flag might be of the wheat fields but their coat of arms is an anchor for very good reason. Trident, actually. I read that it originally was a symbol of Holy Trinity, and also a stylized falcon. I on the other hand see a swan  (or an X-Wing)
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Jun 10, 2022 18:57
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Nenonen posted:Trident, actually. I read that it originally was a symbol of Holy Trinity, and also a stylized falcon. I on the other hand see a swan My mistake, but not helped by the Trident also being a common nautical symbol. Regardless, they need their ports back and they'll need a navy to protect their shipping after this.
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Jun 10, 2022 19:04
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Oracle posted:Given my experiences with Polish sailors, I imagine these guys are probably stupid skilled and live for this Pirates of the Caribbean poo poo. (And also drink an insane amount).
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Jun 10, 2022 19:06
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the popes toes posted:A second component might be that the amount of aid needed, both money and materiel, combined with the aid that will be needed to rebuild, is not worth the possible German/EU economic harm: "We have experience rebuilding our own East, and it's a sinkhole of cost." I really hope there isn't a "and they are Slavs" component and expect to be pilloried by Germans for even wondering. Ultimately the cost of standing up to tyranny is lower than the cost of appeasing it.
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Jun 10, 2022 19:08
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One thing we’re forgetting here is that Ukraine is fighting solo a diminished version of a former superpower that for a time the entirety of NATO plus the full might of the US military had serious doubts about defeating without the use of nuclear weapons. The kind of material requirements now required by the Ukrainian army are probably equivalent to at least 50% or more of the current active duty US armed forces equipment and logistics. This is not a cheap war. It requires some massive financial investment on the part of the US. I hate to say it but if we had an America at the level it was at during the Clinton or Bush administrations we might have way more money, energy and political will to really arm the Ukrainians. As things stand now it seems like this war is costly and politically controversial stateside. Especially with inflation and high gas prices keeping people from really becoming invested in backing Ukraine.
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Jun 10, 2022 19:09
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I mean people wonder why Russia is doing this now but it’s no coincidence they decided to do this during Biden’s admin. They did Crimea under Obama and probably figured on a similar response. Even if that wasn’t the case they know it’s not exactly a govt with a strong mandate and in the 21st century isolationist republicans would be preferable Like Biden sucks but I think he’s been ok on Ukraine and I appreciate him being honest about Putin
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Jun 10, 2022 19:17
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Kraftwerk posted:One thing we’re forgetting here is that Ukraine is fighting solo a diminished version of a former superpower that for a time the entirety of NATO plus the full might of the US military had serious doubts about defeating without the use of nuclear weapons. Unless the price of oil starts going down soon, the inflation fears in the West are going to start affecting how much those nations are willing to support Ukraine. Putin's big advantage is that he doesn't have to worry about votes to stay in power. A recession looks imminent due to the inability of the global market to fix supply chain and delivery issues and once that actually happens and people all over the world start losing their jobs, supporting Ukraine becomes much more politically risky. Hopefully things on the ground can go in Ukraine's favor until then.
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Jun 10, 2022 19:19
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Kraftwerk posted:As things stand now it seems like this war is costly and politically controversial stateside. Especially with inflation and high gas prices keeping people from really becoming invested in backing Ukraine. The war is not even a little bit controversial in the US. There is strong support even from most Republicans. Despite Biden's desire to blame Putin for inflation, US voters are not linking the two at all. They see Ukraine as a separate thing they support, unrelated to inflation which they don't like. The GOP is certainly not going to try to link the two, since they are pointing at stimulus and domestic spending as the culprit.
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Jun 10, 2022 19:25
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Paladinus posted:The most ironic thing about it is that there's a battalion in DNR who based their logo on one of the Metro factions. Yeah it loving sucks. Fascists appropriating poo poo. Missed a big point of the book too, "oh this is about how war is good and a good use of human energy!" Literally all about how humans don't understand their world and waste all their resources with killing even as they're going extinct.
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Jun 10, 2022 19:26
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Yeah, the biggest threat to Ukraine might be a second Trump term in which he tries to extort Ukraine for further support. This is why I was hopeful that Germany would actually be a leader in Europe. Alas.
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Jun 10, 2022 19:28
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Kraftwerk posted:One thing we’re forgetting here is that Ukraine is fighting solo a diminished version of a former superpower that for a time the entirety of NATO plus the full might of the US military had serious doubts about defeating without the use of nuclear weapons. The 40B and lend-lease seems like should be a good start but the question is when all the good stuff coming? Ukraine needs hundreds of SAM, artillery and MLRS pieces ASAP and not when russia captures everything east of Dnipro, ideally.
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Jun 10, 2022 19:37
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Kraftwerk posted:I hate to say it but if we had an America at the level it was at during the Clinton or Bush administrations we might have way more money, energy and political will to really arm the Ukrainians. As things stand now it seems like this war is costly and politically controversial stateside. Especially with inflation and high gas prices keeping people from really becoming invested in backing Ukraine. lol what evidence do you have of this war being politically controversial stateside
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Jun 10, 2022 19:39
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The thing I see in the US is that the public is already getting bored of war coverage and are moving onto other hot issues like gun control and abortion. The less central this is to public consciousness the easier it is for politicians to slowly ease off the tap when it arguably needs to be turned on even higher. I've seen commentators argue that you would expect that the total funding for this war to be at least equal to the war in Afghanistan before a hope for victory and we're kinda still really far off at this point. Afghanistan/Iraq are roughly in the order of $2 trillion each Using figures here Total Aid to Ukraine: ~$70 billion I don't believe its really an apples to apples comparison but this is orders of magnitude away at this point in scope. I believe we'll see some more short term Russian success until the Ukrainians can rearm to NATO standard and get resupplied en mass, but that's probably some early next year stuff. But I can easily see political figures balking at the upfront cost if the economy falters.
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Jun 10, 2022 19:42
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WarpedLichen posted:The thing I see in the US is that the public is already getting bored of war coverage and are moving onto other hot issues like gun control and abortion. The less central this is to public consciousness the easier it is for politicians to slowly ease off the tap when it arguably needs to be turned on even higher. I've seen commentators argue that you would expect that the total funding for this war to be at least equal to the war in Afghanistan before a hope for victory and we're kinda still really far off at this point. Historically the US gives more weapons the less scrutiny there is on weapons transfers. Also worth noting that the public was bored of afghanistan within like 3 years. It went on for another 18 years
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Jun 10, 2022 19:44
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Ynglaur posted:This is why I was hopeful that Germany would actually be a leader in Europe. Alas. For the length of roughly one speech it seemed like it might finally happen.
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Jun 10, 2022 19:48
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Nenonen posted:Trident, actually. I read that it originally was a symbol of Holy Trinity, and also a stylized falcon. I on the other hand see a swan I was always told it was a stylized version of the word воля
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Jun 10, 2022 19:54
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CommieGIR posted:Yeah, he was never going to have nukes. The Nazi nuclear program was basically derailed from the start because, ironically, they couldn't get their reactor to work well. They didn't achieve criticality till the very end of the war, which was four years after the Chicago Pile had gone Critical and two years after X-10 was regularly going critical daily. It was a loose knit project with little to no funding and little to no resources compared to the Manhattan project which was not only well funded, but also benefitted from a huge amount of talent that the Nazis specifically chased off for being Jews or practicing "Jewish Science". Another reason was a lot of up and coming Physics students were sent to the East or West front and killed/captured. The Allies did believe the Nazis could build one, but Operation Alsos proved that the Nazi were far behind the US program wise. What's funny is Japan was quite a bit closer than Germany - although still quite a ways away - but that never comes up in fiction. They took the idea a lot more seriously than Germany but were still not taking it Manhattan Project seriously and were slowed down by some false starts regarding enrichment processes. The also were hampered by all the usual things that screwed up most things Japan tried to do: lack of respect for civilian science and fierce inter-service rivalry meaning there were two different weapons programs that were ignoring useful civilian research and not sharing findings, and later in the war, strategic bombing and lack of access to natural resources. I don't think they would have had a weapon before the war was over even if the US suffered more setbacks and the war dragged on longer, but if they somehow had unlimited time they definitely would have had one way before the Nazis.
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Jun 10, 2022 20:22
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WarpedLichen posted:The thing I see in the US is that the public is already getting bored of war coverage and are moving onto other hot issues like gun control and abortion. The less central this is to public consciousness the easier it is for politicians to slowly ease off the tap when it arguably needs to be turned on even higher. I've seen commentators argue that you would expect that the total funding for this war to be at least equal to the war in Afghanistan before a hope for victory and we're kinda still really far off at this point. There is no power or lobbying group in the USA, not corporations, not the NRA, nothing you can think of that is more powerful than the MIC. Ukraine is by far the greatest thing that has ever happened for them since.... God I don't know, I'd argue perhaps in generations given the increased demand across the world. This is even better for them than our desert folly. Mere voter apathy (which we don't have, but perhaps maybe later this year) is not going to derail the Ukraine money train. You would need intense disapproval and strong anti-Ukraine sentiment from the voters for the politicians to notice. The only thing that could conceivably stop this is probably Trump, and this thing should be wrapped up one way or the other by the end of 2024.
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Jun 10, 2022 20:23
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BattleMaster posted:What's funny is Japan was quite a bit closer than Germany - although still quite a ways away - but that never comes up in fiction. It seriously cannot be understated how many up and coming young physicists got slaughtered on the Eastern Front as infantry. And yeah Japan had a more interesting take on Nuclear and may have gotten closer given their ability to overlook things the Germans were blinded by with anti-Semitism. The Japanese openly embraced the scientific advances that Germany threw out. For the most part the Japanese never got enough Uranium to even consider a reactor, though and were event behind the Germans in that regard. The Germans actually sent the Japanese a significant amount of Uranium at the end of the war, but the U-boat carrying it surrendered to the Americans. Most of the major work the Japanese did was done with Cyclotrons. The Japanese also massively underestimated the United State's ability to harness nuclear science. Like many of the things they underestimated. The Japanese actually fully accepted that both nuclear energy and nuclear weapons were possible, but came to the conclusion that there was no way the US could harness it before the wars expected end. To that end the Navy focused on radar instead. Oops. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Jun 10, 2022 |
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Jun 10, 2022 20:30
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Rigel posted:There is no power or lobbying group in the USA, not corporations, not the NRA, nothing you can think of that is more powerful than the MIC. Ukraine is by far the greatest thing that has ever happened for them since.... God I don't know, I'd argue perhaps in generations given the increased demand across the world. This is even better for them than our desert folly. I don't think the MIC much cares about who wins the war, just that tensions are increased and conflict is ongoing. Cynically, a Ukrainian rump state that receives aid with a highly militarized border is probably preferable than a victorious Ukraine.
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Jun 10, 2022 20:41
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"This is an artillery war now...and in terms of artillery we are losing," Ukraine's deputy head of military intel Vadym Skibitsky ahead of June 15 meeting with NATO allies. https://twitter.com/mattia_n/status/1535199991601451011?cxt=HHwWhsCy6cWQkM4qAAAA
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Jun 10, 2022 20:43
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the popes toes posted:"This is an artillery war now...and in terms of artillery we are losing," Ukraine's deputy head of military intel Vadym Skibitsky ahead of June 15 meeting with NATO allies. While the West should do more to support Ukraine, this is not really a shocking analysis. Russia - and before it the Soviet Union - has a doctrine build around artillery and prepared itself for a conflict with either NATO or, to a lesser degree, China. Their artillery reserves are - just going by the numbers - the largest in the world and it was this numerical superiority in terms of kit that made a lot of analysts predict a quick Russian victory and it was their lack of manpower and staggeringly stupid planning/execution that allowed Ukraine to take them on. In the current stage of the conflict the Russian battleplan is far easier and the geography plays into their hands as it's hard for Ukraine to place AA or artillery inside the salient.
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Jun 10, 2022 20:54
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fatherboxx posted:Do you seriously consider "a three month war" (that already caused thousands of civilian deaths) a minor event that shouldn't make the invader a pariah state? Have all nations that started a war equivalent to or longer than three months which have caused the death equal or over four thousand civilians turned into "worldwide" pariahs? DTurtle posted:The last twenty or so years have been the rest of the EU and Europe/the West futilely hoping that Germany would actually step up and take up the role of being an active leader. The only people who have been hoping that Germany steps up and becomes the leader of Europe are the people who don't live in the periphery of the EU (which the Germans and Dutch lovingly called GIPSI), who haven't seen the material reality of what the Germans, Dutch and French did to us during the austerity days. People being horrified at Germany thinking about the well being of Germans and their economy before anything else while at the same time wanting them to become proactive leaders haven't really paid attention to the last twenty years.
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Jun 10, 2022 20:55
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