|
Morrow posted:The Russian Army was probably approaching its breaking point before mobilization, they just didn't have enough troops to cover all of the front. Nows it's a question of how much time 300k men will buy them.
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2022 19:42
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 02:39 |
|
|
Rad Russian posted:Maybe something even a step further. The "will to fight" if we can call it that for Russians is unlikely to break anytime soon. The propaganda has been ingrained for two decades + lots of the mobiks have the defeated "gently caress it gonna die anyway" attitude and just march to the trenches even if they don't get a rifle or food or clothing. They don't have a will to fight but still go to the trench to get bombed. Can you expand upon this? I have a hard time rationalizing how someone can be ordered to die or suffer without like, revolting against their superiors. Like the story about the officer ordering the guy to take his troops back to the front at gunpoint, what keeps them from flipping the table? Disregarding orders or at most extreme mutiny can’t be worse than starving frozen in a trench under fire?
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2022 19:50
|
|
|
Things absolutely can be worse than dying in a trench, both for you and for people you care about. There's a lot more going into why people don't just all mutiny than that, but even in hosed up situations people still tend to have hope that maybe they'll get lucky and make it out in one piece or they feel some obligation to not abandon others around them. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Nov 8, 2022 |
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2022 19:57
|
|
|
I suppose the concept is, "Once we get them into the fight they'll fight to survive or maybe they'll grow to hate the enemy and fight because of that"
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2022 19:59
|
|
|
Disargeria posted:Disregarding orders or at most extreme mutiny can’t be worse than starving frozen in a trench under fire? On the other hand, we have the entirety of World War 1 that says otherwise. This isn't meant to be flippant, humans really do have a profound capacity to adapt to awful situations, and enough "social mammalness" that we seem to have a serious aversion to turning on authority figures. People won't just go to the trench to get bombed, they'll go to the trench and live there for months or years while surrounded by gigantic craters full of poisonous water and the decaying bodies of their comrades - while getting bombed by more volume of artillery than anyone here can readily conceive of. I'd also like to hear more from Rad Russian and others on this subject, especially Eastern Europeans, since it would be interesting to get a more nuanced take on than the shallow (?) stereotype of Russian fatalism I grew up with.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2022 20:02
|
|
|
Kestral posted:On the other hand, we have the entirety of World War 1 that says otherwise. This isn't meant to be flippant, humans really do have a profound capacity to adapt to awful situations, and enough "social mammalness" that we seem to have a serious aversion to turning on authority figures. People won't just go to the trench to get bombed, they'll go to the trench and live there for months or years while surrounded by gigantic craters full of poisonous water and the decaying bodies of their comrades - while getting bombed by more volume of artillery than anyone here can readily conceive of. worth noting that a big part of the answer to 'why don't they mutiny/desert/refuse/flee the country' is that a lot of them do (albeit particularly the latter 3). That's pretty common in nearly every war.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2022 20:08
|
|
|
Disargeria posted:Can you expand upon this? I have a hard time rationalizing how someone can be ordered to die or suffer without like, revolting against their superiors. Like the story about the officer ordering the guy to take his troops back to the front at gunpoint, what keeps them from flipping the table? Disregarding orders or at most extreme mutiny can’t be worse than starving frozen in a trench under fire? Just watching the various videos from Russia on telegram from mobilization centers. Mobiks post videos complaining of sleeping on the ground, getting no food, no clothing, rotten weapons, etc. Several big fights already happened inside these centers. However, I have yet to see actual mass refusal or rebelling. The only significant incident resulting in the shooting was a dumb officer insulting Allah. Outside of that nothing. They're openly complaining, have 0 morale, have no decent equipment, say "this is bullshit, we're just cannon fodder" openly on videos and social media, and then still end up in Ukraine trenches in the end. I get that a certain percentage of them have 0 clue what's going on or where they're going, however, most actually have a good idea they're being sent to Ukraine to fight. I always was dumbfounded at how people in WW1 went into the trenches after seeing the previous 100K+ of their mates die there without doing anything beneficial. I always said, "I'd just refuse or hide or go to jail instead, what's up with going to certain death?" Well, apparently large groups of people are OK with that still, even now. Rad Russian fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Nov 8, 2022 |
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2022 20:09
|
|
|
It's very easy to say "well I would just shoot the officer ordering me to certain death" but you have to consider that your attempted mutiny could very easily fail and the punishment for that failure would likely not just fall on you but on anyone associated with you - friends, family, loved ones. There is usually a lot more at stake than just your own personal safety. Mutinies don't tend to happen, and more importantly don't tend to succeed, without very obvious cracks in a governments wider social control.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2022 20:31
|
|
|
Random Integer posted:It's very easy to say "well I would just shoot the officer ordering me to certain death" but you have to consider that your attempted mutiny could very easily fail and the punishment for that failure would likely not just fall on you but on anyone associated with you - friends, family, loved ones. There is usually a lot more at stake than just your own personal safety. Mutinies don't tend to happen, and more importantly don't tend to succeed, without very obvious cracks in a governments wider social control. I mean you can probably easily shoot the officer it's just that the mutiny might not kick off.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2022 20:34
|
|
|
Random Integer posted:It's very easy to say "well I would just shoot the officer ordering me to certain death" but you have to consider that your attempted mutiny could very easily fail and the punishment for that failure would likely not just fall on you but on anyone associated with you - friends, family, loved ones. There is usually a lot more at stake than just your own personal safety. Mutinies don't tend to happen, and more importantly don't tend to succeed, without very obvious cracks in a governments wider social control. Not to mention that a lot of people just straight up don't want to shoot and kill another human being. No matter how much they might hate that person.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2022 20:34
|
|
|
Russian commanders in Ukraine are also reportedly imprisoning refusniks in basements. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/11/07/lena-i-might-be-executed-by-our-own-today excerpt from the article posted:21 Russian conscripts, who were mobilized this fall and are refusing to fight in Ukraine, are held captive in Zavitne Bazhannia, a village in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. The Insider, a Russian media project, has reported this, citing a letter from the wives and mothers of the unlawfully detained servicemen. Might make another conscript think twice
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2022 20:47
|
|
|
Yeah, that’s an important point about revolution: if you kick THAT off your end goal is successfully storming the Kremlin or death. Are you prepared to go that far, and do you think you can manage it or even want to manage it? Like purely on a practical level, are you prepared to figure out how to supply your revolutionaries on the road to Moscow after having rebelled against the logistical chain that was keeping you fed in Ukraine, however badly? Are you ready to figure out how to manage and coordinate army-sized forces after having shot or dismissed half of the high command who were trained to do so, however badly? Granted a revolution kicking off often has sparks in some emotional event that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but rationally a revolution is always a high risk, high stakes gamble that people don’t enter lightly into. That being said, mutinying in the sense of “We won’t rise up against our officers, but we’re also not going to attack until our demands are met” is relatively lower-stake and might even successfully win local concessions as regional officers decide it’s cheaper to give in than to face their forces becoming inert blocks of wood or making a bigger, more public fuss. You’re more likely to see that kind of mutiny than a full-scale revolution and it doesn’t necessarily presage the complete collapse of the army - keep in mind the French army mutinied in much this way during WW1 but still went on to victory in the end. But if such incidents start becoming more and more frequent that could be a general danger sign.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2022 20:59
|
|
|
Kestral posted:I'd also like to hear more from Rad Russian and others on this subject, especially Eastern Europeans, since it would be interesting to get a more nuanced take on than the shallow (?) stereotype of Russian fatalism I grew up with. “Russian fatalism” is “it’s not socially required to smile” + “a country with real winter and fictional economy”. The only fatalism Russian expats experience in, e.g., France is the same that the locals experience when reading rent prices in the 5th Arrondissement. On the material side of things, you just have the Soviet habit of being guarded with your thoughts and the 90s habit of not telling strangers anything about your possessions or lifestyle. cinci zoo sniper fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Nov 8, 2022 |
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2022 21:02
|
|
|
Wars wouldn't happen if we hadn't figured out how to control thousands and millions of people to the point where they are willing to get killed even though no one wants to die.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2022 21:20
|
|
|
Rad Russian posted:I always was dumbfounded at how people in WW1 went into the trenches after seeing the previous 100K+ of their mates die there without doing anything beneficial. I always said, "I'd just refuse or hide or go to jail instead, what's up with going to certain death?" Well, apparently large groups of people are OK with that still, even now. Consider that mobiks are the people who bothered to answer the draft summons in the first place, which tells a lot already (unless they were ratted out by their employers if they work at state-owned businesses). It is very Russian to willingly get into the poo poo to the shoulder deep and then start loudly complaining that you are owed equipment, training and proper leadership.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2022 21:38
|
|
|
Random Integer posted:It's very easy to say "well I would just shoot the officer ordering me to certain death" but you have to consider that your attempted mutiny could very easily fail and the punishment for that failure would likely not just fall on you but on anyone associated with you - friends, family, loved ones. There is usually a lot more at stake than just your own personal safety. Mutinies don't tend to happen, and more importantly don't tend to succeed, without very obvious cracks in a governments wider social control. The very famous and arguably effective soldier mutinies at scale are the French Army mutinies in '17. The "mutinous" divisions, which were about half of those on the Western front, merely refused to attack. But the divisions still obeyed orders and kept all of the same military discipline, conducting the same patrol activities, and fought the Germans. They just wouldn't go over the top in a mass offensive. The end result was change in material conditions (including rotation and leave policy) and a reduction in offensives, and only about 25 poilius were shot. I think that kind of organized but passive resistance is possible; mass desertion is difficult logistically and actively shooting your officers is a very much "and then what" moment and neither is likely.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2022 22:00
|
|
|
fatherboxx posted:It is very Russian to willingly get into the poo poo to the shoulder deep and then start loudly complaining that you are owed equipment, training and proper leadership. I mean, if you believed the propaganda you might have expected to receive that.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2022 22:21
|
|
|
Sky News report that Russia ships captured Western weapons, including tanks, to Iran. https://news.sky.com/story/russia-gave-eur140m-and-captured-western-weapons-to-iran-in-return-for-deadly-drones-source-claims-12741742 Not sure how credible this is, but kind of makes sense with how much Russia was pushing the narrative that Western military aid meant for Ukraine is sold to terrorists on dark net because there is no accountability.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2022 23:05
|
|
|
Paladinus posted:Sky News report that Russia ships captured Western weapons, including tanks, to Iran. IIRC the captured weapons are largely from early in the war, so things like NLAWs and Javelins. It's not like they can't get similar things from China and the Israeli Spikes they've run across in Syria tend to be more advanced than both of them. poo poo, Russia makes a top-down Konkurs equivalent to the Javelin, but without integrated circuit chips, it's almost useless to reverse engineering.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2022 23:15
|
|
|
Young Freud posted:IIRC the captured weapons are largely from early in the war, so things like NLAWs and Javelins. It's not like they can't get similar things from China and the Israeli Spikes they've run across in Syria tend to be more advanced than both of them. I think what this implies is that Russia doesn't have enough to justify dedicating resources to train their soldiers to use those weapons, so the only thing they can do is sell everything (or in this case, I guess, barter for Iranian drones).
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 00:01
|
|
|
Paladinus posted:I think what this implies is that Russia doesn't have enough to justify dedicating resources to train their soldiers to use those weapons, so the only thing they can do is sell everything (or in this case, I guess, barter for Iranian drones). Likely it's Iran interested in obtaining the technology and reverse-engineering them for their own benefit, since they have historically done so and produced domestic versions of western gear. Pretty hard to get your hands on top of the line western gear otherwise. So it's worth more to Iran intact than to Russia for use on the battlefield.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 00:12
|
|
|
Rad Russian posted:Just watching the various videos from Russia on telegram from mobilization centers. Mobiks post videos complaining of sleeping on the ground, getting no food, no clothing, rotten weapons, etc. Several big fights already happened inside these centers. However, I have yet to see actual mass refusal or rebelling. The only significant incident resulting in the shooting was a dumb officer insulting Allah. Outside of that nothing. They're openly complaining, have 0 morale, have no decent equipment, say "this is bullshit, we're just cannon fodder" openly on videos and social media, and then still end up in Ukraine trenches in the end. I get that a certain percentage of them have 0 clue what's going on or where they're going, however, most actually have a good idea they're being sent to Ukraine to fight.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 00:37
|
|
|
Charlz Guybon posted:The soldiers in WWI on both sides were generally ideologically committed to the war due to nationalism. The situation in this war is different because the Ukranians have that and the Russians generally don't. Nationalism is just another form of political ideology, and while it is the one ideology that is superficially allowed in Russia, Putin’s regime enforced apathy undermines that along with everything else. The Russian mobik is very deliberately never going to be led by a charismatic officer who could march them across the Rubicon either. Apathy and the suppression of the military in favor of security and intelligence forces is a hell of a combo for keeping people shuffling into the meat grinder.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 00:43
|
|
|
Why is “mobik” a term and who coined the term?
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 01:30
|
|
|
mlmp08 posted:Why is “mobik” a term and who coined the term? I would guess it's a portmanteau of "mobilized" and "vatnik" but I don't know the actual origin
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 01:32
|
|
|
KitConstantine posted:I would guess it's a portmanteau of "mobilized" and "vatnik" but I don't know the actual origin Huh. I've heard it as mobilized gopnik but you're probably more correct.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 01:33
|
|
|
KitConstantine posted:I would guess it's a portmanteau of "mobilized" and "vatnik" but I don't know the actual origin Hate it
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 01:36
|
|
|
mlmp08 posted:Why is “mobik” a term and who coined the term? KitConstantine posted:I would guess it's a portmanteau of "mobilized" and "vatnik" but I don't know the actual origin RoyKeen posted:Huh. I've heard it as mobilized gopnik but you're probably more correct. It’s just a diminutive of the word ”mobilised person”. The actual noun-adjective is 14 letters in Russian, no one has got time for that. cinci zoo sniper fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Nov 9, 2022 |
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 01:47
|
|
|
cinci zoo sniper posted:It’s just a diminutive of the word ”mobilised person”. The actual noun-adjective is 14 letters in Russian, no one has got time for that. That makes much more sense. Shame on me for my western chauvinism
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 01:55
|
|
|
nik just means person or entity having something to do with the original noun. I believe its relatively equivalent with the english -er suffix and actually a true cognate with the english -en ending for nouns
FishBulbia fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Nov 9, 2022 |
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 03:05
|
|
|
cinci zoo sniper posted:It’s just a diminutive of the word ”mobilised person”. The actual noun-adjective is 14 letters in Russian, no one has got time for that. This kind of efficiency is counter to what I'd expect from the Russian army.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 03:05
|
|
|
Charlz Guybon posted:The soldiers in WWI on both sides were generally ideologically committed to the war due to nationalism. The situation in this war is different because the Ukranians have that and the Russians generally don't. Nationalism is just another form of political ideology, and while it is the one ideology that is superficially allowed in Russia, Putin’s regime enforced apathy undermines that along with everything else. The idea that the Russian forces aren't generally nationalist is wild to me. Yeah a lot of the mobilized guys will be pulled from a broader spectrum but Russia is an extremely nationalist country, particularly among its armed forces and adjacent hangers-on.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 03:08
|
|
|
KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:The very famous and arguably effective soldier mutinies at scale are the French Army mutinies in '17. The "mutinous" divisions, which were about half of those on the Western front, merely refused to attack. But the divisions still obeyed orders and kept all of the same military discipline, conducting the same patrol activities, and fought the Germans. They just wouldn't go over the top in a mass offensive. The end result was change in material conditions (including rotation and leave policy) and a reduction in offensives, and only about 25 poilius were shot. The German experience is also instructive, where soldiers became gradually more disillusioned and attrition disproportionately killed off the people who still believed in the cause. The army never mutinied, but just sort of breaks down during the Hundred Days Offensive and you suddenly have thousands of soldiers surrendering rather than go on with the war. Everything looked fine until the line got hit, then it came undone really quickly and really unexpectedly (to both sides). We saw a miniature version of that with the especially depleted units around Izyum, where everyone melted away rather than fight. If things continue as they are I think eventually broader parts of the Russian line start to look like that.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 03:08
|
|
|
Charlz Guybon posted:The soldiers in WWI on both sides were generally ideologically committed to the war due to nationalism. The situation in this war is different because the Ukranians have that and the Russians generally don't. Nationalism is just another form of political ideology, and while it is the one ideology that is superficially allowed in Russia, Putin’s regime enforced apathy undermines that along with everything else. I dunno that describing the soldiers of WW1 as “ideologically committed due to nationalism” is really accurate. Maybe in the first flush of enthusiasm but most of the particularly enthusiastic ones got themselves killed early on and many of the rest ended up disillusioned. This is to say nothing of multiethnic empires where nationalism could even potentially be an anti-motivator - and even then they still managed to drag things out for years before collapsing. In general my understanding of combat morale is that while big picture issues like ideology and nationalism can be a factor, usually the considerably bigger factor is “My buddies are relying on me to do my bit, and if I don’t they’ll die.” Command can be hosed, supplies may be scarce, your cause may be unjust and your situation hopeless but if you give a poo poo about the guys around you and they give a poo poo about you, units have been known to hold out a surprisingly long time. Of course that kind of cohesion is easier to build in a well-run military that actually makes a point of encouraging such cohesion but it can still pop up sporadically in a badly run one if there are inspirational lower level officers or NCOs or even enlisted. Point is, I wouldn’t really put a huge amount of stock in the ideological superiority of the Ukrainian soldier. It can help, but by itself it’s not usually the deciding factor - and in any event morale is mostly helpful for ensuring that you continue to stand and fight even when getting ripped to pieces. It doesn’t help as much with the “getting ripped to pieces” bit.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 04:06
|
|
|
Sax Mortar posted:This kind of efficiency is counter to what I'd expect from the Russian army. As a native English speaker, Russian always felt particularly modular of a language, making it particularly suited to generating ad hoc terms and chopping things down to diminutives.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 05:40
|
|
|
I do not think comparing the mobilised of WW1 to those Russians being mobilised today is appropriate, at least not until they arrive at the front and see the realities of combat. Even with the current amounts of censorship by the Russian government, the availability of information outside of the official channels is something that makes those comparisons not so apt. Despite that, I can see how young men in these rural areas of Russia with not much going on (and living in conditions not much worse than some dugout in the Donbass), a chance for a good paycheck and some adventure in Ukraine would give it a go.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 07:32
|
|
|
mutata posted:As a native English speaker, Russian always felt particularly modular of a language, making it particularly suited to generating ad hoc terms and chopping things down to diminutives. Yeah, but also there’s like 10 ways to say “this”, “thing”, “stuff”, and so on, which all are used liberally and can produce sentences nonsensical enough that Russians have written plenty of jokes about it
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 07:49
|
|
|
I'd guess that the way the US midterms went, there's not much threat to US arms supplies to Ukraine now. Feels kinda like Putin gambled with a GOP wave election and lost
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 09:05
|
|
|
CAT INTERCEPTOR posted:I'd guess that the way the US midterms went, there's not much threat to US arms supplies to Ukraine now. Feels kinda like Putin gambled with a GOP wave election and lost Arm supplies were never in danger thanks to lend lease act granting authority to the President (and MIC lobbying power), it is financial/humanitarian aid that may be cut.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 09:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 02:39 |
|
|
fatherboxx posted:Arm supplies were never in danger thanks to lend lease act granting authority to the President (and MIC lobbying power), it is financial/humanitarian aid that may be cut. Well, not anymore lol
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2022 10:08
|
|
