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Eric Cantonese posted:That sounds great for a while, but is there any way to get Russia out? Russia still has a lot of total equipment, but their supply lines suck, their morale is poo poo and their actually decent troops are running out (and new ones are bad because they're just hurling them into the front with barely any training), and they're apparently even running out of some kinds of ammo (hence trying to buy shells from North Korea). Russia's position is not good, and the longer it goes the harder it is for them to replenish whatever equipment/ammo/supplies they are running low on, due to western sanctions. At least the US doesn't seem to be tiring of handing over stuff to Ukraine; compared to the forever wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we're spending no blood and only a very modest amount of treasure, and Ukraine is a vastly better partner than the Iraqi or Afghani governments/militaries were, obviously. And the US has a LOT of stuff left to hand over. We gave them like 16 HIMARS and it made a huge difference, and we have hundreds of those. There's over 3000 Abrams tanks of different variants just sitting in storage, which is probably an order of magnitude more than Ukraine could handle supplying, even optimistically. The US might be running a bit low on things like javelins and stingers, but there's tons of other stuff we could hand over to Ukraine without even breaking a sweat.
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Sep 21, 2022 02:20
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Charlz Guybon posted:If the Russians even undergo partial mobilization, how are they going to equip them with anything heavier than small arms? To expand on this, Russia has a lot of metal *on paper*. For example, bunches of T-72/72A's got stuck into long term storage***. *These are the T-72's that were too out of date or in too poor condition to be modernized 2-3 decades ago **They were often kept in poor storage conditions for decades ***They were also looted for spare parts to maintain the fleets of T-72's in service around the world (and probably to sell for personal profit) Which is why you don't see hundreds of dusty T-72A's rolling in on trains. Instead, in addition to almost the entire modernized tank fleet you see a ragtag collection of T-72A's, T-62M's, and T-62's trickling in under varying states of disrepair. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Sep 21, 2022 |
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Sep 21, 2022 02:24
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Cicero posted:They just took 8000 sq km of territory back from Russia in like a 5-day offensive earlier this month. Also, at the same time the Ukrainians are running out of targets to shoot at within the performance envelope of the stinger. Meanwhile they have enough javelins now that I think they can equip any squad sized unit with at least 2 CLUs and 4 missiles not counting all the AT-4s and Gustavs that they are stacking up like matchsticks as some of the best stuff Russia has like the T-90, T80 and late variant T-72s are being lost due to abandonment or combat. Whatever tanks are coming now are going to be possible to destroy with AT-4s and gustavs so the javelins are going to be needed strictly for longer range engagements to avoid risking infantry. At this stage in the game the main weaknesses of the Ukrainian military are they have so many different types of weapons and equipment from multiple militaries that it's a loving nightmare trying to consolidate the flow of spare parts and ammunition for all of them. Relying on the local machinist to craft a replacement part for your fancy piece of NATO kit is some 1700s era level of fuckery for military equipment. Anyway, long story short, there's less javs but also less tanks to shoot at.
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Sep 21, 2022 02:32
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Eric Cantonese posted:That sounds great for a while, but is there any way to get Russia out? Between EU already working on a sanctions package to retaliate against possible “referenda”, as gas and oil price uncertainties are stabilising and domestic energy crisis mitigation policies are being rolled out, and US Land Lease being ~2 weeks away from coming into effect, while Ukraine has managed to put to a decent use a salad of, forgive me my sarcasm, 2 of every land vehicle made in NATO’s history, your entire second paragraph seems to be hailing out of an alternate reality. As for getting Russia out, time will tell. Not enough information to have more than speculation on the topic. Charlz Guybon posted:If the Russians even undergo partial mobilization, how are they going to equip them with anything heavier than small arms? Young Freud posted:That's fine and good. How many coats can you issue to them? How many boots? I don’t think that’s a problem, if we’re being serious. It’s unclear if they have functioning or well preserved armour to roll would-be mobilised troops in on in massive (>100k) quantities, but the currently invading Russian troops are exhausted and understaffed, according to people like Leviev, so “simply” sending a few tens of thousands rifleman to man trenches, watch forests, and restock battered units with fresh boots on the ground, with no vehicles more sophisticated than demothballed trucks or APCs, could be a reasonably optimal decision of the Russian command. cinci zoo sniper fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Sep 21, 2022 |
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Sep 21, 2022 02:39
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Also it doesn't even matter to much if Russia does still have a whole bunch of well maintained working tanks, and new recruits for them, if they don't even bother really training the new recruits on how to properly use and maintain them, and the new recruits run for the hills, leaving their tanks behind, first sign of a fight anyway.
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Sep 21, 2022 02:42
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cinci zoo sniper posted:
Okay, that works for skirmishes and beating off probing attacks, but a full mechanized offensive like the one in Khariv will still just roll over that and jack up the killed/captured numbers.
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Sep 21, 2022 02:46
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dr_rat posted:Also it doesn't even matter to much if Russia does still have a whole bunch of well maintained working tanks, and new recruits for them, if they don't even bother really training the new recruits on how to properly use and maintain them, and the new recruits run for the hills, leaving their tanks behind, first sign of a fight anyway. They did a massive law change just today, to make it significantly easier to persecute current or prospective soldiers refusing to get with the program. Obviously, a jailed soldier still won’t be fighting Ukrainian troops, but between this and them most likely taking training much more seriously nowadays (albeit at an open question of availability of instructors), I think the answer to this question will on become clear when stuff happens.
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Sep 21, 2022 02:47
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Warbadger posted:To expand on this, Russia has a lot of metal *on paper*. For example, bunches of T-72/72A's got stuck into long term storage***. This has been my general impression for a long time. Factories like Uralvagonzavod have been complaining about not being able to make basic diesel engines for armored vehicles for years, which is telling me that the stockpiles are being raided for spare parts.
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Sep 21, 2022 02:50
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cinci zoo sniper posted:your entire second paragraph seems to be hailing out of an alternate reality. Some people think we've arguably been in a recession for a while, but given all the angst on the US side about the Federal Reserve interest rates, America is likely facing a big economic downturn here. That's going to affect US voting dynamics. I also think all the talk about the EU having stored up sufficient gas stockpiles seems overly optimistic and the European nations are also going to have to fight inflation somehow (most probably through austerity) and that's going to result in a lot of voter discontent. I have no idea how Western Europe's resolve is going to hold up. To be fair, I guess any changes wouldn't really kick in until next year. And maybe you're right, I might just be overthinking stuff.
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Sep 21, 2022 02:51
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Charlz Guybon posted:Okay, that works for skirmishes and beating off probing attacks, but a full mechanized offensive like the one in Khariv will still just roll over that and jack up the killed/captured numbers. Depends on the area. If they just send footies at Kharkiv, that’s probably not going to enter the annals of history with a shield. If they go and reinforce forces currently in Kherson, which so far haven’t been too prone for folding on the spot, it’ll only become more of a problem for Ukrainians. I’m not sure we can discuss to any practical end scenarios outside Kherson area, right now, since we know squat all about the state of Russian forces elsewhere. We know that they’re slowly trying to pulverise Bakhamut, but that’s not much to go on. Even without any prospective reinforcements, pushing back straight through it at Donetsk would be stupid of Ukrainians, as they’d be charging heads on into 8-year build up of fortifications.
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Sep 21, 2022 02:53
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Speech will be nothing, celebration of anniversary of largest poo poo taken by peter the great, the GrosScheiße, which forms a center piece of SpB cultural life
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Sep 21, 2022 02:54
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FishBulbia posted:Speech will be nothing, celebration of anniversary of largest poo poo taken by peter the great, the GrosScheiße, which forms a center piece of SpB cultural life Don’t make me turn my computer on at 5am.
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Sep 21, 2022 02:55
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Eric Cantonese posted:Some people think we've arguably been in a recession for a while, but given all the angst on the US side about the Federal Reserve interest rates, America is likely facing a big economic downturn here. That's going to affect US voting dynamics. The amounts of money the US has been putting in are easily affordable, especially compared to the amount of damage the Ukrainians are doing to the Russians, it's the geopolitical investment of the century. Even if every European country throws in the towel they can't stop the US from arming Ukraine and that's enough. The US is also insulated from the gas price issues since we frack our own gas, though oil still tends to follow international prices and yet has been coming down lately.
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Sep 21, 2022 03:02
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cinci zoo sniper posted:I don’t think that’s a problem, if we’re being serious. It’s unclear if they have functioning or well preserved armour to roll would-be mobilised troops in on in massive (>100k) quantities, but the currently invading Russian troops are exhausted and understaffed, according to people like Leviev, so “simply” sending a few tens of thousands rifleman to man trenches, watch forests, and restock battered units with fresh boots on the ground, with no vehicles more sophisticated than demothballed trucks or APCs, could be a reasonably optimal decision of the Russian command. If there is a sudden rash of armory and base fires over the next two weeks across Russia, we may have the answer to the question of whether they have kit for a mobilization. Those pesky Ukrainian saboteurs.
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Sep 21, 2022 03:04
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cinci zoo sniper posted:They did a massive law change just today, to make it significantly easier to persecute current or prospective soldiers refusing to get with the program... I think the answer to this question will on become clear when stuff happens. I think this is definitely a we need to wait and see thing. It's possible it could have a huge impact on how many troops go AWOL, or it's possible it actually has very little, with a lot of troop figuring better to chance going to jail, rather than -as I see it now, with a bunch of dead troops around me and currently being shot at- stay and almost certainly die. And it could be anywhere in between. So yeah  I don't think we -or by the sounds of the Russians army- have any sort of remotely firm numbers on even current AWOL Russian troop numbers? So possibly at the moment it's could very well be happening lot more or less then is thought.
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Sep 21, 2022 03:07
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dr_rat posted:Also it doesn't even matter to much if Russia does still have a whole bunch of well maintained working tanks, and new recruits for them, if they don't even bother really training the new recruits on how to properly use and maintain them, and the new recruits run for the hills, leaving their tanks behind, first sign of a fight anyway. Would a partial mobilization actually be "new" recruits though? Russia has universal military service so it could be bringing back people who have recently aged out of the army. I do of course remember early in the war people were posting about how Russian obligatory military service is usually a joke and mainly you sweeping floors or standing watch outside an outpost in Siberia without even any civilians nearby while anything serious gets left to volunteers/PMC but I may be misremembering.
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Sep 21, 2022 03:13
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Eric Cantonese posted:Some people think we've arguably been in a recession for a while, but given all the angst on the US side about the Federal Reserve interest rates, America is likely facing a big economic downturn here. That's going to affect US voting dynamics. I agree with you that US voting dynamics will take a negative hit due to economic concerns, which are hardly done for good. I’m not currently following US affairs as much as I did before February, so my post on the economical perspective was primarily speaking of the EU. For US I cynically assume that MIC is going to just water board everyone with dissolved Red October tapes until the political consensus favours them, but with, e.g., McConnell supporting intensified weapons deliveries, anecdotally the support seems bipartisan enough to me to be a side dish for Midterms. EU is self-ware that the stockpiles are sufficient only with utilisation cuts, but those are happening already for both more and less charitable reasons, and the stocking goals were fulfilled a couple weeks ago, so almost 2 months ahead of schedule. While deliveries were substantially reduced with the shuttering of NS1, there’s still time to get more, and this is the exact kind of situation where a little bit can go a long way. Inflation is going to be hairier, but ECB rate hikes are much less politically sensitive than the Fed’s, and disbursements of COVID-19 relief fund of €800bn are ongoing, with a potential to offset some of the monetary woes. Now, this would suck in vacuum, but we also have millions of Ukrainian refugees remind us that the war is just down the hallway from us, so there’s no meaningful popular drive at cutting Ukraine off to ease economic pressure or some such. For all the cringe Scholz and Macron did, eating every Russian lie with the big spoon is going to pay dividends in this debacle, since it’s a legal way to make a platform out of “the loving Russians did this”. And yes, in Europe this shouldn’t get too heated before January-February, the peak heating season. (No pun intended.) cinci zoo sniper fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Sep 21, 2022 |
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Sep 21, 2022 03:15
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:Would a partial mobilization actually be "new" recruits though? Russia has universal military service so it could be bringing back people who have recently aged out of the army. I do of course remember early in the war people were posting about how Russian obligatory military service is usually a joke and mainly you sweeping floors or standing watch outside an outpost in Siberia without even any civilians nearby while anything serious gets left to volunteers/PMC but I may be misremembering. Yes, since it’s expected to be a partial mobilisation from peripheral regions. Chances are they simply don’t have tens of thousands of useful, seasoned soldiers lying around there, be it their training quality, recruitment earlier this year, or something else the problem. The same Leviev was speculating that Kremlin would recall a mix of veterans, reservists, and active combatants from Ukraine to form training staff for a juiced up basic trading, which would see Spring 2022 conscripts (July 15 deadline) deployed into Ukraine late December/early January - arguing that most pressing necessity for Russia is to replenish infantry forces of various flavours. I don’t doubt though that plenty of seasoned people would get redrafted, because Russia doesn’t have 5 years to train someone operate an EW platform or some such right now.
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Sep 21, 2022 03:26
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Yes, since it’s expected to be a partial mobilisation from peripheral regions.. Does this mean ethnic minorities or anywhere that isn’t Moscow and St. Petersburg
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Sep 21, 2022 03:30
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:Does this mean ethnic minorities or anywhere that isn’t Moscow and St. Petersburg This time it smells like anywhere that isn’t the central or western Russia yeah. I think there’s some expectation that every oblast’ bordering Ukraine will see martial law invoked, and then local mobilisation, since the m-word clearly remains to be a sensitive subject.
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Sep 21, 2022 03:32
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My understanding of the Lend-Lease act is that it empowers the President to continue to send military aid without requiring Congress to sign off on new supplies of equipment, ammunition, etc. The Republicans may take the house this November, might even take the Senate, but barring the removal of both President and Vice President and the placement of the Speaker of the House as President they can't do anything about aid to Ukraine until January 20th 2025 at the earliest. Unless the Republicans get a two thirds majority in the Senate to impeach Biden the US can continue to supply Ukraine for the next two years and four months; without further Congressional approval.
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Sep 21, 2022 03:38
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For those who were following the saga of the Iranian mortars, there's been an update: https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1565798823703740416 https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1565798841890242569 https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1572209383542603780 It appears that someone is getting a regular supply of Iranian munitions to Ukraine, though who and through what method seems to be unclear. Sir John Falstaff fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Sep 21, 2022 |
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Sep 21, 2022 03:42
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People ITT are seriously overestimating the size and influence of the "actually Russia is cool and good and we should let them do whatever they want" wing of the American right.
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Sep 21, 2022 03:47
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Moon Slayer posted:People ITT are seriously overestimating the size and influence of the "actually Russia is cool and good and we should let them do whatever they want" wing of the American right.
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Sep 21, 2022 04:05
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Another dawn is breaking in Kyiv, and it's still Ukrainian.   
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Sep 21, 2022 04:41
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Sir John Falstaff posted:For those who were following the saga of the Iranian mortars, there's been an update: That is kind of interesting. The cases aren't just clearly marked, they have little in the way of handling marks on them. The dividers don't even have any oil or grease soaked in. Brand spanking new, like they say. DIO, et al, probably wouldn't have any moral qualms selling these kind of things anywhere they could ship it. They are fully capable of churning out scads of the stuff, and not just Soviet designed arms. For the more plausible deniability-minded, there are copies of Western poo poo, too. I'd be interested to see where crates from the same lots end up around the world in the next few months. Yemen and Libya are the obvious answers, but who knows? The Turks seize poo poo like this fairly often and have no obvious use for them except to sell. I can't imagine the Central Asian republics want to stick their hands in that particular bee's nest but they definitely do need a reliable source outside of the RF for their own use. It seems like a lot of work and potential liability for anyone involved to move Iranian made arms anywhere close to Europe.
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Sep 21, 2022 04:54
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Crows Turn Off posted:It's easy to do because those people are very loud, in positions to be heard, and increasing in numbers in the government.  Just a lot less than a lot of other governments.
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Sep 21, 2022 04:58
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...Did all the NATO aircraft shadowing the region just turn off their transponders? https://www.flightradar24.com/44.99,33.1/7
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Sep 21, 2022 05:14
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KitConstantine posted:Hmmmm What's all that about looting? I can't imagine the Kremlin suddenly cares about Ukrainian washing machines being stolen out of principle. Is it something meant to take action against Russians stealing from the army, selling off the good parts of the tanks, etc? An effort to bring more discipline to the army?
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Sep 21, 2022 05:21
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Sir John Falstaff posted:For those who were following the saga of the Iranian mortars, there's been an update: Would Iran have any qualms selling poo poo to Ukraine if the money was good?
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Sep 21, 2022 05:45
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gay picnic defence posted:Would Iran have any qualms selling poo poo to Ukraine if the money was good? It's not as if there probably isn't both high and low level corruption in the Iranian military. Might be some of that going on. Or it could be someone selling off confiscated weapons shipments.
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Sep 21, 2022 05:48
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Crows Turn Off posted:It's easy to do because those people are very loud, in positions to be heard, and increasing in numbers in the government. no they are not at all what are you talking about
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Sep 21, 2022 05:58
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cinci zoo sniper posted:I agree with you that US voting dynamics will take a negative hit due to economic concerns, which are hardly done for good. I’m not currently following US affairs as much as I did before February, so my post on the economical perspective was primarily speaking of the EU. For US I cynically assume that MIC is going to just water board everyone with dissolved Red October tapes until the political consensus favours them, but with, e.g., McConnell supporting intensified weapons deliveries, anecdotally the support seems bipartisan enough to me to be a side dish for Midterms. The US perspective is very much shaded by local political concerns, which are two: - inflation - Donald Trump (abortion could be a #3, hard to say how it'll impact the polls at this point) Ukraine doesn't register - there's no Russia-induced natural gas shortage because America has plenty, and most people blame Biden for high prices, not the war. The McConnell wing of the Republican party is essentially on the way out; the Republicans running for election this cycle are far more extremist and Trump-friendly. Unfortunately, the Trump/Republican view of the Ukraine conflict is equal parts "so what?", "Putin is good, actually", and "stop endless war". Trump's personal view of Ukraine is "that country that I got impeached over" (everything Trump believes is in some way based on how it relates to him personally) so if he becomes a louder voice following the midterms it could be a problem. Basically, if the Republicans take control of both houses, continuing support for Ukraine could be in question. And if the war is still continuing in 2025 and Trump takes office again, US support for Ukraine will most likely end. Moon Slayer posted:People ITT are seriously overestimating the size and influence of the "actually Russia is cool and good and we should let them do whatever they want" wing of the American right. Tucker Carlson exists and is the voice of an increasing majority of Republican voters. Lum_ fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Sep 21, 2022 |
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Sep 21, 2022 06:13
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The anti Ukraine Republicans are like 10 people. There are right wing pundits trying to own Biden over it on social media, but even someone like Ted Cruz votes to send weapons.
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Sep 21, 2022 06:16
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The truly anti-Ukraine faction of the GOP is a very tiny and insignificant minority, that actually got tinier than it started with initially once they quickly discovered that Ukraine was actually popular. Unless literally Trump and Only Trump becomes president in 2024, there is no reasonable possibility of US support for Ukraine decreasing in the near future.
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Sep 21, 2022 06:21
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James Garfield posted:The anti Ukraine Republicans are like 10 people. There are right wing pundits trying to own Biden over it on social media, but even someone like Ted Cruz votes to send weapons. Again, this is the most popular news talk show in America today.  I mean, maybe you missed Viktor Orban giving a speech at the last CPAC but today's Republican party is not the one you're used to.
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Sep 21, 2022 06:21
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Lum_ posted:Again, this is the most popular news talk show in America today. His nightly audience is roughly 1% of the US population. He is also noteworthy on this issue for being (as far as I'm aware) utterly alone on TV networks that get any real ratings in his wacky pro-Russia views. It is not like Russia is able to run a long montage of several US popular personalities and politicians all supporting them. If it was actually a popular faction of the party, you'd get more than just his weird couple-times-a-month red-hot take (which is mostly just intended to oppose Biden), and some fascists at CPAC who the vast majority of GOP politicians don't want to be associated with. Support for Ukraine is *extremely* popular to the point where voters polled in surveys are at times even more hawkish than the DoD. (supporting no-fly zones for example) Supporting Russia is just a straight-up vote loser in the United States, it is not even a real issue in GOP primaries. We can't get the two parties to agree to almost any substantive issue right now because of polarization and reflexive "if you support X than I must oppose X" politics, but there is no real disagreement on this one. Rigel fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Sep 21, 2022 |
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Sep 21, 2022 06:36
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It'd be interesting to see how much of the pro-kremlin stuff remains on shows like his when the russian money spigot eventually dries up
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Sep 21, 2022 06:38
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Lum_ posted:Again, this is the most popular news talk show in America today. Sure but that's a bit of a misleading stat with everyone under 40 being avid cable cutters. Not that there aren't plenty of MAGA idiots following Tucks on Twitter, but "most popular on TV" doesn't mean what it used to. I think that US Senate vote on support for Ukraine that FishBulbia posted is the best metric we'll get for the real influence of idiots on current US policy. It's not a great metric, but it's the one that has the most direct effect.
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Sep 21, 2022 06:42
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When push comes to shove the Republicans won't say boo to the MIC and the MIC loves the war in Ukraine.
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Sep 21, 2022 06:44
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