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Freezer posted:Isn't it pretty dangerous to do these airborne occupations of airfields behind the battle lines? Is controlling these airfields worth the risk? Looks like they lost a few choppers taking them. It is the primary doctrinal purpose of airborne forces in modern warfare. Drop on airfield behind enemy lines, establish airhead, hold until they can fly the heavies in to reinforce you.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:26
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Randarkman posted:Denmark and Norway's militaries are pretty much entirely useless. Finland and Sweden are the only ones probably worth a drat in that region. But aren't their just a whole bunch of vikings in long boats stashed away somewhere that region! They always win, unless movies lied to me again. 
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Feb 24, 2022 15:26
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I am sadly watching Odessa cam feeds as I sit here knowing my Odessa coworkers are unlikely to show up for meetings today, and fearing for them. Spotted these guys walking around, they look armed and had the look of a group doing an observation sweep, I couldn't get a better shot of the writing but I am curious who they are.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:27
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My stomach sunk watching the videos of the VDV in Kyiv. To see the enemy that close to their capitol city is scary.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:28
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Framboise posted:Is there somewhere I can read an unbiased timeline on what led up to this monstrosity? I've been trying to educate myself but media is so heavily skewed and I want to be able to understand why this is all happening as someone completely clueless on the nuances of foreign affairs. Don't know if 90 minute long academic lectures are your thing, but I found these two videos pretty perceptive and relevant if you want a deeper understanding, even though, or maybe especially because, they're years old. The first is by John Mearsheimer with a heavy realpolitics focus that discounts European and Ukrainian agency, but is useful for understanding the Russian point of view. The second is by EE historian Timothy Snyder, and complements the first one very well, pointing out how conflict between the EU and Putin's authoritarian Russia was inevitable, and NATO doesn't have much to do with it. https://youtu.be/JrMiSQAGOS4 https://youtu.be/_Glhke6e2Io
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Feb 24, 2022 15:28
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If Ukraine actually manages to recapture the airport it'll make the whole thing look like a stupid overly ambitious stunt by Russia, but obviously failing to recapture it would be devastating. https://twitter.com/NotWoofers/status/1496852965826732037
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Feb 24, 2022 15:29
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dr_rat posted:But aren't their just a whole bunch of vikings in long boats stashed away somewhere that region! There's also the EU mutual defence clause, as relatively toothless as it might be. From https://ecfr.eu/publication/ambiguous-alliance-neutrality-opt-outs-and-european-defence/ eucfr posted:None of these defence efforts or stages of European integration prompted Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Malta, or Sweden to leave the EU or avoid joining it in the first place. Most importantly, the countries remained EU members when, in 2009, the bloc introduced its mutual defence clause, Article 42.7 of the Lisbon Treaty.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:29
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https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world...post_type=sharequote:While there is lots of genuine footage, some viral clips racking up hundreds of thousands of views show events from past conflicts or old military exercises. Many of these seem to coming from users posting content without checking.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:30
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Nenonen posted:That's still too early to say. We don't have a reliable understanding of casualties so far, nor do we know what Putin was expecting. I have to wonder what you are basing this on? I am basing this on what Russia has experienced in Syria, Georgia, and Crimea. I am also basing this on what seems to be Putin’s pretty transparent goal to weaken NATO—he achieved the opposite even prior to this invasion. I am also basing this on things like: This, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:30
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projecthalaxy posted:Which the USA will frown at but not actually resist. Well I mean sometimes frown at, if the conflict isn't too difficult to easily understand what's actually going on. See also African conflicts.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:30
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Sinteres posted:If Ukraine actually manages to recapture the airport it'll make the whole thing look like a stupid overly ambitious stunt by Russia, but obviously failing to recapture it would be devastating. I'm not confident going up against entrenched VDV with air support is a feasible idea
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Feb 24, 2022 15:31
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:If Europe blows up lofty disinterest won't save you. True enough, and I'm not saying I condone hanging out in the false safety of neutrality – just stating the facts of how Finland has acted thus far. I don't think "lofty disinterest" is an accurate characterization of Finnish foreign politics vis-à-vis Russia, and I do expect support for a NATO membership to rise sharply with this invasion.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:32
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Randarkman posted:Denmark and Norway's militaries are pretty much entirely useless. Finland and Sweden are the only ones probably worth a drat in that region. I wouldn’t say that. While small , the Royal Danish Army was pretty heavily engaged in Afghanistan and handled themselves incredibly well.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:32
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Sinteres posted:If Ukraine actually manages to recapture the airport it'll make the whole thing look like a stupid overly ambitious stunt by Russia, but obviously failing to recapture it would be devastating. I'm not on the ground, but it seems insane to take an airfield 100's of miles away from the front when your only path to resupply is flying over an unoccupied enemy who still possesses anti-air weapons. And it's not like Ukraine needs to preserve the airport's usefulness, with no Ukrainians present they can just shell it indiscriminately and bring immense force to re-take it. Just seems like overly ambitious PR, but again, I'm a non-military moron thousands of miles away.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:33
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I have become convinced that C-Spam has essentially become infiltrated by fascists who use left wing talking points and ideology to push people towards fascism. The invasion of the Ukraine by Russia has no excuse under any leftist frame of thought. Putin’s Russia is not a leftist state in any way or form. It functions as a far-right Oligarchic Kleptocracy where the power of the capitalist Oligarchic corporations are protected completely by the state and by all rule of law. It is in no way an effective Democracy, and opposing party members are poisoned or arrested on trumped up charges. Within the school of leftist thought you may claim that functionally the United States is the same, I believe there are quite big differences in terms of having somewhat more open elections and allowing freedom of opposing party members. Eitherway, leftists all agree that nothing about the United States political and economical system is “Good.” How you could point to a foreign economic and political system, which is much more unequal, and extremely worse for the proletariat masses as somehow being better because it opposes Westernism is the height of hypocrisy. The invasion of Iraq was extremely illegal and wrong, but for all it’s bad, at the core of it’s government Sadam Hussein was a dictator that ruled without any elections and without the will of the masses. The only person that directed the nation's policy was him. Alternatively, Ukraine is a nation with an elected president, who represents at least marginally the will of people. The majority of Ukranians want to ally themselves with the west and NATO. Their right to self-determination means they should have every right to do so, just as much as Mexico should have every right to ally itself with China and Russia if its people so desired and elected politicians who would enact such a policy. Beyond that the justification for war is grossly wrong. There may be Neonazi’s active in Ukraine. There are also Neonazi’s active in Russia, in the US, in nearly every country in Europe, in pretty much every country on the globe. The ideology of Russia is not far from the Neonazi, Putin and the Russian Military differ little from Hitler in their overarching ideology, and only in how willing he is to voice his beliefs publicly. Their concepts come directly from fascist books such as The Foundation of Geopolitics. Fascist politicians are extremely influential in Russian politics. Their main goal has been to push fascism throughout the world. On the world stage there can be no doubt. Beyond the Bourgeoisie, Russia represents the old system - From Monarchism to Imperialism to Feudalism. They are not a friend of the working class in any way or form, and the goal of Russia is to retrench the world back towards reactionary ideologies and nationalism by creating an alliance of fascist nationalist states similar to their own. Saying you are invading Ukraine to denazify it is like saying you are invading Chile to decommunize it. Recent elections there did involve a coalition with communist parties, for example. Russians activity in Syria leaves little imagination or justification to the effect that they represent the entrenched upper classes. The Syrian war was essentially a class conflict, brought on by a famine in the countryside that pushed the poor impoverished agricultors into the cities who were summarily ignored by the Syrian Dictator Bashar-Al Assad. The war started due to class conflict between the poor impoverished masses and the capitalist Dictatorship rulers. Russia could have supported left-leaning groups such as the YPG and other organizations focused on improving the conditions of the poor in Syria via socialism. They did not because they do not represent leftism nor are friends of leftists in any way or form. Russia will always side with the bourgeoisie and ruling classes and if you continue to support them and they win they will be happy to enact fascist dictatorships throughout the world. When you defend the invasion of Ukraine you are essentially defending fascism. You are defending a reactionary response to democracy. You are defending Russian Imperialism, Russian Oligarchy, Nationalism and Fascism. There is no way around it. For as much as you may hate NATO and the US or the West there is no defense for Russia and their actions here. There is nothing leftist about this and if members of C-Spam are defending the Russian invasion of the Ukraine they are defending fascism and inviting its spread through Europe, the US and the rest of the world. I have serious doubts that any of the posters who defend these things are actual leftists, if anything I believe they are fascists who have infiltrated the forums long ago and use left-wing talking points to push fascism. We can see that throughout the internet this has been a common tactic used by Fascists on other social media networks and forums. In the days pre-internet, when thought was printed, the spread of news took forever - and the quantity of opinions was limited. Freedom of speech was essential. Just as with guns, we have evolved, in the past we had invented simple revolvers, and they may be acceptable for some self defense use. But as technology has advanced so have weapons, instead of revolvers we have AR-15s and semi-automatic weapons in the hands of common people who use them in ways that are irresponsible and dangerous. These weapons of mass war don’t belong in the hands of common people. As weapons technology has advanced so has the internet and social media. In this day and age freedom of mass speech and spread of misinformation from groups with very little actual power is as dangerous as a machine-gun. I call on Jeffrey and the rest of SA to either shut down C-SPAM or investigate and ban potentially subversive fascist posters in that forum. They are not doing anyone any good and they are in fact potentially pushing people down a pigeonhole that radicalizes them towards far-right ideologies. I say this from personal experience. This is dangerous. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) (USER WAS PERMABANNED FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 24, 2022 15:34
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Gort posted:Well, think the video through. The helicopter's in a field, not on an airfield. It didn't make it back. It's a helicopter that survived enough to land. I don't think Russia expected zero casualties or equipment losses.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:34
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FishBulbia posted:I'm not confident going up against entrenched VDV with air support is a feasible idea Airfields are very large, open spaces and airborne forces usually have limited equipment because you can only get so much on an air transport, but the force can likely hold or sabotage the airfield long enough to render it unusable for some time so even if they get wiped out to a man it could constitute an operational success, unfortunately. Of course, allowing the russians access to it uncontested would also be very ill advised so they are likely better off counterattacking it than letting them just have it.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:34
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FishBulbia posted:I'm not confident going up against entrenched VDV with air support is a feasible idea You should probably call the Ukrainian general staff to let them know. But seriously - for all the chaos of day one if the Ukrainians are developing a counter attack then the mere fact of that tells us a few things about how intact their command and control is and how confident they feel about the situation to risk offensive action rather than concede the ground.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:34
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It’s a minor detail in all this, but goodbye Mriya
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Feb 24, 2022 15:34
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ZombieLenin posted:I wouldn’t say that. While small , the Royal Danish Army was pretty heavily engaged in Afghanistan and handled themselves incredibly well. If Russia decides to field goat herders or weddings, we know who to send.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:34
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Pook Good Mook posted:I'm not on the ground, but it seems insane to take an airfield 100's of miles away from the front when your only path to resupply is flying over an unoccupied enemy who still possesses anti-air weapons. And it's not like Ukraine needs to preserve the airport's usefulness, with no Ukrainians present they can just shell it indiscriminately and bring immense force to re-take it. The hope was likely to link up with Russian armor coming down from Belarus, it was unlikely they'd allow heavy lift come in until the airport was fully secured. But yeah, the Ukrainians seem to have the right idea: Either deny the airport to the Russians or take it back.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:35
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StopFascism posted:I have become convinced that C-Spam has essentially become infiltrated by fascists who use left wing talking points and ideology to push people towards fascism. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 24, 2022 15:36
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ZombieLenin posted:I wouldn’t say that. While small , the Royal Danish Army was pretty heavily engaged in Afghanistan and handled themselves incredibly well. Denmark's value to NATO has always been its control and recon abilities over the Oresund strait and access to the Baltic. The entire country might as well be one big microphone and sonar array.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:36
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Pook Good Mook posted:I'm not on the ground, but it seems insane to take an airfield 100's of miles away from the front when your only path to resupply is flying over an unoccupied enemy who still possesses anti-air weapons. And it's not like Ukraine needs to preserve the airport's usefulness, with no Ukrainians present they can just shell it indiscriminately and bring immense force to re-take it. I concur. They are very far behind enemy lines and the Ukrainian Army has heavy indirect fire assets in the area. This is scorched earth territory. “Air support”under the thickest Ukrainian integrates air defense network does nothing to protect VDV forces from shells and rocket artillery and the Ukrainians can just reduce the airport to body filled ruble.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:37
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Cabbages and Kings posted:I am sadly watching Odessa cam feeds as I sit here knowing my Odessa coworkers are unlikely to show up for meetings today, and fearing for them. Looks like Ukrainian police, regular kind.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:37
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dr_rat posted:With Finland and Sweden, wouldn't at least the Nordic countries and probably a few other Western European countries like France, Germany, and Britain step in even if there wasn't a NATO treaty signed and they were invaded? I'm no expert and maybe all the Western European secretly hate each other, but I feel like there would be open outrage on the streets by the population of some of those countries if Sweden or Finland were invaded and their goverments did nothing.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:37
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Ola posted:If Russia decides to field goat herders or weddings, we know who to send. That’s pretty drat dismissive of the Taliban. Let me remind you the Taliban defeated the United States, whose armed forces are considerably more capable than Russia’s, and the Afghans defeated the Soviet Union.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:39
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Pook Good Mook posted:I'm not on the ground, but it seems insane to take an airfield 100's of miles away from the front when your only path to resupply is flying over an unoccupied enemy who still possesses anti-air weapons. And it's not like Ukraine needs to preserve the airport's usefulness, with no Ukrainians present they can just shell it indiscriminately and bring immense force to re-take it. The Kyiv airport is only about 100 km from the Belarusian border and about 300 km from the Russian border, so it isn't as defensible as you might think. There's a good air route to it along the Dnieper river, which is quite wide and runs directly south from the Russian staging areas in Belarus.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:39
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FishBulbia posted:I'm not confident going up against entrenched VDV with air support is a feasible idea It depends on what's "bombardment" here. If they're hitting Antonov with Tochka-U, it's going to be a glass field that's a little bit hard to hold, and Ukrainians aren't really short on MRLS or howitzer artillery either.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:40
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Pook Good Mook posted:Denmark's value to NATO has always been its control and recon abilities over the Oresund strait and access to the Baltic. The entire country might as well be one big microphone and sonar array. And Greenland, which has only been growing in importance. And yes, the danish army is useless, but our navy is decent and our air force has pilots with a ton of experience from Afghanistan and Syria (And possibly Serbia).
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Feb 24, 2022 15:41
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https://twitter.com/JulianRoepcke/status/1496854817767145478?s=20&t=L36Q3x6AvPS2yAwTNVF_LA also what https://twitter.com/RichardEngel/status/1496856147336495112
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Feb 24, 2022 15:41
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If NATO has to choose between letting Finland burn and starting WW3, they will choose the former 100% the time. Let there be no doubt about that. Finland's advantage is that it is not nearly as important politically, economically, or strategically to Russia as Ukraine is.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:41
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brugroffil posted:It's a helicopter that survived enough to land. I don't think Russia expected zero casualties or equipment losses. A lot of helicopters can survive a hit. But its a helicopter that isn't going to go back into service. That's called a vehicle kill and it counts.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:41
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Kaal posted:The Kyiv airport is only about 100 km from the Belarusian border and about 300 km from the Russian border, so it isn't as defensible as you might think. There's a good air route to it along the Dnieper river, which is quite wide and runs directly south from the Russian staging areas in Belarus. Only the most ambitious Russians could cross 100km in a few days and by that point the Ukrainians could make the entire field worthless. Also the quickest path is through the Chernobyl exclusion zone...
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Feb 24, 2022 15:42
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Pook Good Mook posted:Only the most ambitious Russians could cross 100km in a few days and by that point the Ukrainians could make the entire field worthless. There is rumors of units in the Chernobyl zone, and I know artillery was reported near there.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:43
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Pook Good Mook posted:Only the most ambitious Russians could cross 100km in a few days and by that point the Ukrainians could make the entire field worthless. Nothing wrong with walking/driving through the exclusion zone, just dont eat the berries
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Feb 24, 2022 15:43
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brugroffil posted:I don't think a helicopter surviving a stinger hit is a sign of things going poorly for Russian military forces so far. It didn’t “survive.” That’s a mission killed helicopter that was forced to land and captured behind enemy lines. Aircraft forced to land immediately due to battle damage count as being shot down.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:44
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The last thing we need is Russian forces gaining control of the Wish Granter.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:44
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FishBulbia posted:I'm not confident going up against entrenched VDV with air support is a feasible idea Rockets aren't just launched from planes or helicopters. They are used all the time as artillery.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:44
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BoldFace posted:If NATO has to choose between letting Finland burn and starting WW3, they will choose the former 100% the time. Let there be no doubt about that. Finland's advantage is that it is not nearly as important politically, economically, or strategically to Russia as Ukraine is. Some have said that about the baltic states as well. The scenario is so far fetched that it's hard to say, but I imagine the other EU countries would send their armed forces to help even if they avoid directly attacking Russian territory or threatening a nuclear response. It would definitely be much more dangerous than Ukraine for everyone involved.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:44
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