|
Popete posted:This war really puts into perspective how advanced and well oiled the U.S. war machine is that they can deploy a standing army in Iraq/Afghanistan within a month or two halfway across the world and sustain it. Russia is having huge problems even after months of build up invading a next door neighbor. Yeah, they seem to have very different philosophies: quote:The Russian army operates with fewer support soldiers than other militaries. About 150 of the 700 to 900 troops could be considered support, and because this formation would be an arm of a larger force in the area, they could also expect help from other logistics units. It's amazing what a $700-800 billion defense budget will get you.
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:30
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 05:39 |
|
|
cinci zoo sniper posted:He keeps internal politics of Chechnya under control - that’s the full utility of Kadyrov, except for I guess some token assassinations where FSB getting caught could constitute bad decorum. this. he is hosed if russia gets worse or putin falls/etc. either his rivals kill him (because they see he is a ticktok paper tiger) or the FSB/whoever kills him because putin loyalist.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:30
|
|
|
DekeThornton posted:Well, the fact that a True Finn representative is pro NATO is rather notable, since they, like most Euro far right parties, including our Swedish one, has been NATO sceptics. We start to see the same switch for the Swedish Democrats here, as they try and clean their pro Putin image off. Halla-Aho is a real weird fucker in Finnish politics, and he's actually been historically pretty open about his personal support for Finland joining Nato - rest of the party way less so. There are outright Putin fans in there as well that are now real quiet or hastily trying to pivot away from their old positions, like several of their people in the EU parliament. I think their current leader did say something in support of joining Nato recently, but I try to avoid reading or listening to True Finn leadership too much.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:30
|
|
|
Roadie posted:That entire backdrop is giving me some real "a poor person's idea of a rich person" vibes. It definitely seems to be a pattern 
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:30
|
|
|
Popete posted:This war really puts into perspective how advanced and well oiled the U.S. war machine is that they can deploy a standing army in Iraq/Afghanistan within a month or two halfway across the world and sustain it. Russia is having huge problems even after months of build up invading a next door neighbor. I think that undersells how much the US pre-deploys and how much it built up for the conflicts it had ahead of time.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:32
|
|
|
Electric Wrigglies posted:I think that undersells how much the US pre-deploys and how much it built up for the conflicts it had ahead of time. My understanding is that the Russians had plenty of time to prepare for this invasion as well, though.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:33
|
|
|
SpiritOfLenin posted:Halla-Aho is a real weird fucker in Finnish politics, and he's actually been historically pretty open about his personal support for Finland joining Nato - rest of the party way less so. There are outright Putin fans in there as well that are now real quiet or hastily trying to pivot away from their old positions, like several of their people in the EU parliament. I think their current leader did say something in support of joining Nato recently, but I try to avoid reading or listening to True Finn leadership too much. I'll definitely take your word that he's a wierd outlier but the twitter thread itself is pretty much the straightforward analysis of the case for why Finland sign up.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:33
|
|
|
Electric Wrigglies posted:I think that undersells how much the US pre-deploys and how much it built up for the conflicts it had ahead of time. Russia had a significant amount of time to stage supplies and units, then waited till the last minute to get the plans out. They also made a lot of really bad assumptions like: Ukraine will welcome us as liberators, so we won't need a lot of supplies since we can get them from Ukraine itself, no resistance, etc. Most good plans assume you will hit strong resistance and how to deal with it. They also took none of the lessons from Blitzkrieg and failed to plan for 2nd and 3rd echelons to secure their supply lines and keep flanks protected during thrusts.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:35
|
|
|
Electric Wrigglies posted:I think that undersells how much the US pre-deploys and how much it built up for the conflicts it had ahead of time. Well that's true too it wasn't like the U.S. materialized the military out of thin air in 2003 to invade Iraq but it's still an impressive feet to launch a sea/air borne invasion in a relatively short timeline. Russia was under no real time constraints and had been building up for months (maybe even a year?) prior.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:36
|
|
|
KitConstantine posted:Videos that make you go Earlier today I watched a jet from Moscow belonging to the "Ministry of Emergency Situations" depart Moscow for Rostov-on-Don but diverted to Grozny mid-flight. wonder if it's related. https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/ra-89067#2b51dc19
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:37
|
|
|
Popete posted:Well that's true too it wasn't like the U.S. materialized the military out of thin air in 2003 to invade Iraq but it's still an impressive feet to launch a sea/air borne invasion in a relatively short timeline. Russia was under no real time constraints and had been building up for months (maybe even a year?) prior. I'd say the only real time constraint was, imagine if they had given Ukraine another 2 years to train and build defenses.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:38
|
|
|
It's not like the US didn't have problems too. Lack of personal armor in Iraq/Afganistan (people where buying their own kit, or relatives were buying it from them), unarmored Humvees (literally welding scraps to the chassie), and who can forget Rumsfields, “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time." when confronted by these truths.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:39
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/YanniKouts/status/1509223484743995399 The Rubel play seems about as succesful as the VDV landings near Kiev.
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:42
|
|
|
Burning_Monk posted:It's not like the US didn't have problems too. Lack of personal armor in Iraq/Afganistan (people where buying their own kit, or relatives were buying it from them), unarmored Humvees (literally welding scraps to the chassie), and who can forget Rumsfields, “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time." when confronted by these truths. Sure, but the Russians have approximately the same problems plus a whole bunch of additional and much worse problems.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:43
|
|
|
Sir John Falstaff posted:It's amazing what a $700-800 billion defense budget will get you. Yeah when it's looked at financially I would say the US military is actually mildly disappointing in terms of the amount of money spent. There is SO much money wasted and legally/illegally embezzled there as well. A guy I know used to be an auditor for the US Army in Iraq. He's got some WILD stories. GaussianCopula posted:https://twitter.com/YanniKouts/status/1509223484743995399 Haha I called this a bluff the second I heard about it, did have some doubt when there were reports of that pipeline stopping flow but at the end of the day Russia needs those funds more even than the EU needs the gas. They lose this round, although I am a little disappointed they didn't go through with it as I think that would've been even better for Ukraine. Relatedly, does anyone know WHY Gazprombank isn't sanctioned? Just because it's part of gas flow that Europe needs?
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:50
|
|
|
Sir John Falstaff posted:It's amazing what a $700-800 billion defense budget will get you. Budgets can be so abstract, but it's cool to see how the material differences actually play out and matter when the rubber meets the road. 10 Support Soldiers : 1 Combat Soldier for the US 1 Support Soldier : 4-5 Combat Soldiers for Russia is a pretty big organizational difference. Imagine if you had that kind of budget for education and we had something crazy like 10 dedicated teachers per student.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:52
|
|
|
Play posted:Relatedly, does anyone know WHY Gazprombank isn't sanctioned? Just because it's part of gas flow that Europe needs? I imagine it's for this exact reason. I wonder why Putin decided to blink now instead of continuing to say stupid poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:54
|
|
|
cgeq posted:Budgets can be so abstract, but it's cool to see how the material differences actually play out and matter when the rubber meets the road. I don't really get how 1 support soldier for 4-5 combat soldiers works. Like that includes mechanics, truck drivers, cooks, various logistics people, etc, right? I guess that's why the Russian military is absolute poo poo at force projection? Or is it a question of how they are defined? Like would Russia consider every person on a destroyer to be "combat personnel" but the US would only consider people actually manning guns and planes and whatever to be combat personnel?
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:56
|
|
|
GaussianCopula posted:https://twitter.com/YanniKouts/status/1509223484743995399 
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:57
|
|
|
Chalks posted:I imagine it's for this exact reason. Probably because he realises that they desperatly need the money.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:57
|
|
|
kemikalkadet posted:Earlier today I watched a jet from Moscow belonging to the "Ministry of Emergency Situations" depart Moscow for Rostov-on-Don but diverted to Grozny mid-flight. wonder if it's related. That plane was most likely going to Grozny - Flight Radar approximates destinations based on past flight histories and is doing a poor job with unscheduled flights. Rostov and a huge gently caress off area around it has been completely closed on the Russian side, but the Flight Radar database still lists most flights as “scheduled” from that airport which further fucks with the algorithm.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:58
|
|
|
Saladman posted:I don't really get how 1 support soldier for 4-5 combat soldiers works. Like that includes mechanics, truck drivers, cooks, various logistics people, etc, right? I guess that's why the Russian military is absolute poo poo at force projection? Or is it a question of how they are defined? Like would Russia consider every person on a destroyer to be "combat personnel" but the US would only consider people actually manning guns and planes and whatever to be combat personnel? Yeah this is all very "eye of the beholder"-ish.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 18:59
|
|
|
CommieGIR posted:Russia had a significant amount of time to stage supplies and units, then waited till the last minute to get the plans out. Your thinking in terms of a surge. That rush of all the initial supplies to an area. US just has loaded multi purpose / RO RO ships waiting at sea all over the world ready to go for a good chunk of that. Russia sold all those off decades ago. Each of the service branches has PREPOs just waiting 0-30 days from where they need to be. Where they have heavy equipment, tanks, trucks, etc that stuff is tested maintained, and run onboard in a rotation perpetually. We are probably the only country that can do it anymore. Everybody else would be stuck with the intermodal systems everybody uses for international trade for supply. We use that too, but have the ability not to if needed.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 19:01
|
|
|
DekeThornton posted:Probably because he realises that they desperatly need the money. Yeah but that doesn't stop him from threatening to do it. Half the announcements from Russia since the start of the war has been threatening to do poo poo they're obviously never going to do - I wonder why in this particular instance they've backed down completely. Maybe they've realised the only effect it's having is making Europe reduce reliance on Russian gas even faster.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 19:02
|
|
|
Kraftwerk posted:Yeah I used to find myself wondering why there's so many people in the US army who all seem to randomly live in suburbs and go on deployments only to come back later like its a business trip. I kept thinking holy poo poo all these people are risking their lives on a regular basis... Then I realized many of them are not actually on the front lines, they're basic combat trained admin staff who are responsible for the intricate supply chain, accounting and transport dispatch related stuff that goes into planning a massive amount of supply and demand for front line combat units. One of my roommates in college joined the US Army after he got his bachelors and did basic at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. This was 2009. I always knew him to be really smart and ambitious. He HATED Missouri in the summer and was excited to be going different places after basic. After he graduated, he got snapped up by the office in charge of procurement and supplies for Fort Leonard Wood and never left Missouri for his entire contract.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 19:03
|
|
|
Bar Ran Dun posted:Your thinking in terms of a surge. That rush of all the initial supplies to an area. No they didn't? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ropucha-class_landing_ship The ships Ukraine attacked are RO RO ships.  But that's not relevant because they haven't attempted a major beach assault and these could have no impact on the Northern campaign. They've been used as just cargo carriers much like the US does. Also the ship destroyed, which is an Alligator class amphibious RO RO landing ship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alligator-class_landing_ship These are all beachable, multi-purpose LSTs CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Mar 30, 2022 |
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 19:04
|
|
|
cgeq posted:Budgets can be so abstract, but it's cool to see how the material differences actually play out and matter when the rubber meets the road. But at the level of a battalion tactical group, a us combined arms battalion would be some 550 troops w a attached forward support company w some 140 troops. Giving a ratio of 4 Combat troops to 1 support troop.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 19:04
|
|
|
cgeq posted:Budgets can be so abstract, but it's cool to see how the material differences actually play out and matter when the rubber meets the road.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 19:04
|
|
|
DekeThornton posted:Well, the fact that a True Finn representative is pro NATO is rather notable, since they, like most Euro far right parties, including our Swedish one, has been NATO sceptics. We start to see the same switch for the Swedish Democrats here, as they try and clean their pro Putin image off. Halla-Aho has (I think) always been for NATO membership, only up until recently that was a minority view both among the public and among politicos. To previous posts on this: parliamentary committees are not advisory, laws have to clear appropriate committees before they can be voted on by the parliament. Memberships and leads of the committees are distributed according to seats in parliament regardless who is in coalition and who is in opposition. Head of committee on defense is a key position when it comes to defense policy, though the role is different from minister of defense. As for Sweden joining if Finland does or vice versa, probably all the pro-NATO people in both countries would hope so, but it is not clear at this moment. While there's been a big pro-NATO membership swing in public opinion in Sweden too, the govt has not been very enthusiastic about it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 19:08
|
|
|
KitConstantine posted:Videos that make you go It's so weird to see a brutal, monstrous dictator whose look and style communicates that he'd be more at home doing donuts in his four wheeler in Centre County, PA than running a puppet nation.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 19:08
|
|
|
Grouchio posted:I now want that VDV video subtitled with the collapse of the russian economy In the absence of such a video this was the best I could do for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRgS6gpiMX0
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 19:08
|
|
|
PerilPastry posted:Have the Swedes weighed in recently? Last I heard was the Swedish PM saying this  quote:Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson (SocDem) "does not in any way exclude" a Swedish NATO membership.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 19:10
|
|
|
vuk83 posted:But at the level of a battalion tactical group, a us combined arms battalion would be some 550 troops w a attached forward support company w some 140 troops. That's just the organic support soldiers for a battalion, there are dedicated sustainment battalions and brigades that make up the bulk of the US Army's logistics.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 19:13
|
|
|
That makes sense. Sweden wants the defensive obligations without the pressure to be involved in whatever dumb project the US wants Nato to do every decade
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 19:14
|
|
|
Source levada.ru Sure, people might be increasingly wary of saying they oppose the president, but I still don't doubt that's the general direction of it
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 19:14
|
|
|
CommieGIR posted:Russia had a significant amount of time to stage supplies and units, then waited till the last minute to get the plans out. They also made a lot of really bad assumptions like: Ukraine will welcome us as liberators, so we won't need a lot of supplies since we can get them from Ukraine itself, no resistance, etc. The idea to prepare for a war of the scale that current gen russia has never seen is absurd. It goes against everything they lived with and trained until now. All they did is kickbacks and falsify inspections. Everyones job was not rock the boat and embezzle within some unofficial rules so everybody is happy. And make cool cgis for Putin.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 19:16
|
|
|
Ynglaur posted:It would not surprise me at all if Ukraine had a few dozen pilots training on F-16s someplace quietly just in case NATO ever agrees to lend-lease them. If they had the chance to do so, it may be worth doing as a form of reverse-insurance. That interview with a Ukrainian MIG-29 pilot and a retired US National Guard pilot that trained him said that the Ukrainian pilots had some training on US airframes. Be that F-16s or F-15s I don't know. The Ukrainian pilot basically came out and said that they needed to get a system in place to transition them to NATO aircraft sooner than later. The fact that it was disclosed that at least some Ukrainians have experience with US aircraft changes assessments on how fast it would take to get them qualified to fly them since you wouldn't be starting from scratch. Having a training pipeline for a 2-300 people training to fly, maintain and arm whatever would be a good investment right now like I have said. Same with other systems like Patriots and other US/NATO material. At a certain point Russian/Soviet stocks are going to run dry and you are going to have to backfill that with stuff that you can procure, which would be NATO.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 19:17
|
|
|
Nessus posted:Clearly this is proof of how lean, efficient, and mission-focused the Russian army is, as opposed to the effete and decadent American armed forces, who simply steal all the money they are given-- and speaking of being given things, I am being handed a note card: It's a fascinating blend of a "lean" army with no support, and at the same time an army composed entirely of nothing but the most support-hungry elements - tanks, mechanized infantry, motorized artillery, EW etc. The Japanese in WWII also ran a super lean army with no support o speak of, but they at least also didn't use heavy equipment in their organic units, so their armies didn't collapse the second they left their bases.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 19:18
|
|
|
Sekenr posted:The idea to prepare for a war of the scale that current gen russia has never seen is absurd. It goes against everything they lived with and trained until now. All they did is kickbacks and falsify inspections. Everyones job was not rock the boat and embezzle within some unofficial rules so everybody is happy. And make cool cgis for Putin. Yup. So when they actually had to prepare for a combat, all those cool cgis and the tank games didn't do anything for actual unit preparedness
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 19:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 05:39 |
|
|
Djarum posted:That interview with a Ukrainian MIG-29 pilot and a retired US National Guard pilot that trained him said that the Ukrainian pilots had some training on US airframes. Be that F-16s or F-15s I don't know. The Ukrainian pilot basically came out and said that they needed to get a system in place to transition them to NATO aircraft sooner than later. The F-16 seems to be a natural fit for that. It's one of the most produced of NATO aircraft, lots of spares lying around (even if you have to cannibalize old airframes), the US is actively retiring them to replace with f-35s. It's got one engine which I think is useful from a maintenance/fuel perspective. Most countries like Turkey even can handle them. I seriously hope the UKR AF smuggled out their pilots and they're currently somewhere in the US on a secret training trip and it's just a classified military secret. It seems stupid not to do this.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2022 19:20
|
|