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What is the most powerful flying bug? This poll is closed. |
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| 🦋 |
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15 | 3.71% |
| 🦇 |
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115 | 28.47% |
| 🪰 |
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12 | 2.97% |
| 🐦 |
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67 | 16.58% |
| dragonfly |
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94 | 23.27% |
| 🦟 |
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14 | 3.47% |
| 🐝 |
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87 | 21.53% |
| Total: | 404 votes | ||
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OctaMurk posted:conscript hundreds of thousands of troops, disrupting society and reaping all the consequences of a draft “Hey let’s use reservists as a spooky threat to force negotiations, I am sure that will end the war!”
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Nov 11, 2022 15:28
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Also worth noting Ukrainian sources had been trying to convince "good Ukrainians" not to evacuate Kherson ahead of the potential fight, for uhh... some reason https://twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/status/1582737792085692416 https://twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/status/1581595631860076544
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Nov 11, 2022 15:30
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I’ve started actually learning how to read and write russian/Ukrainian because you can’t get half of these things on Twitter since they actively (who knows now with musk though) cracked down on paramilitary and russian accounts so the only way you can do it is via telegram. and even english facing telegram is mostly designed to play to an English speaking audience. searching азов or свабода gets you insane accounts on telegram and stuff that no one ever needs to see. but it’ll never make its way to their English speaking accounts because if people see 2 Ukranian paramilitaries raping a Russian soldier, or burning an old man they accused of being a Russian collaborator alive, the narrative becomes difficult to sustain
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Nov 11, 2022 15:31
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no thank you
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Nov 11, 2022 15:33
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Looks like some UAF troops starting to arrive in Kherson city proper https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1591072975478231041?s=46&t=HAtFjkVpyPjcHpFA3t_PGg
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Nov 11, 2022 15:35
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speng31b posted:no thank you
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Nov 11, 2022 15:37
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How far away from kherson are the russians retreating? That whole region looks like nothing but swamps and farms so it seems hard to defend. Are they just digging in along the east bank of the dneiper or are they pulling out of the whole province or just falling back to nova kakhova?
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Nov 11, 2022 15:38
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dk2m posted:I’ve started actually learning how to read and write russian/Ukrainian because you can’t get half of these things on Twitter since they actively (who knows now with musk though) cracked down on paramilitary and russian accounts so the only way you can do it is via telegram. and even english facing telegram is mostly designed to play to an English speaking audience. Your media / social media consumption habits are your business, but from one human to another, consider the psychological toll that seeing that poo poo does to your brain, even if you're doing it for good reasons. Not to go all Nietzsche and the abyss, but there's no way to see that stuff and not have it cause your brain to literally rewire itself to handle it, and I cannot imagine that there is anything of sufficient worth that you could gain from doing that.
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Nov 11, 2022 15:40
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Hatebag posted:How far away from kherson are the russians retreating? That whole region looks like nothing but swamps and farms so it seems hard to defend. Are they just digging in along the east bank of the dneiper or are they pulling out of the whole province or just falling back to nova kakhova? https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1591004160954359809?t=Xt_g23seldesC52vqaYuRQ&s=19
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Nov 11, 2022 15:40
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UN official admits to lack of Ukraine rape evidence in prank callquote:The UN special representative on sexual violence, Pramila Patten, admitted she possesses no solid evidence to substantiate earlier accusations against Russia, in a mock call with pranksters Vovan and Lexus. Last month, Patten claimed that Russian soldiers used mass sexual assault as part of a military strategy in Ukraine.
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Nov 11, 2022 15:40
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speng31b posted:no thank you agreed, the sooner peace is signed, the better. unfortunately, the time is now ripe for civilian reprisals and they’re gonna do it with the weapons we funded them with. seeing Kherson back in Ukrainian hands is good, atleast imo, because i have no love for the Russians but my family fled this kind of communal/sectarian reprisal violence and I know what it’s like. godspeed to the normal people living there with fascists now able to do what they want
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Nov 11, 2022 15:43
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dk2m posted:agreed, the sooner peace is signed, the better. unfortunately, the time is now ripe for civilian reprisals and they’re gonna do it with the weapons we funded them with. yeah, i mostly just mean "no thank you" to the tracking down atrocity video stuff. don't need that to know what's happening. if anyone itt was seriously arguing the Ukrainians, who constantly say in their own internal focused propaganda how they're going to murder collaborators like pigs, are not committing atrocities against those they consider collaborators, gently caress those people. but no need to ruin your brain to feel more confident in knowing hosed up stuff is happening
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Nov 11, 2022 15:50
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OctaMurk posted:https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1591004160954359809?t=Xt_g23seldesC52vqaYuRQ&s=19 Wow they seem pretty hosed. I guess if they can keep crimea supplied that could keep the ukrainians tied up in the south and stop them from sweeping through melitopol but i guess this is maneuvering to prepare for winter or try diplomacy. Seems like melitopol is going to be a bloodbath
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Nov 11, 2022 15:50
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https://twitter.com/IuliiaMendel/status/1590948652830576642
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Nov 11, 2022 15:53
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speng31b posted:yeah, i mostly just mean "no thank you" to the tracking down atrocity video stuff. don't need that to know what's happening. if anyone itt was seriously arguing the Ukrainians, who constantly say in their own internal focused propaganda how they're going to murder collaborators like pigs, are not committing atrocities against those they consider collaborators, gently caress those people. but no need to ruin your brain to feel more confident in knowing hosed up stuff is happening fair
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Nov 11, 2022 15:54
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learning a new language so i can understand what they're saying in my snuff ivdeos
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Nov 11, 2022 15:56
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Bigger minds are handling this, no need for further inspection.
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Nov 11, 2022 15:57
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Al-Saqr posted:It genuinely sucks when rightwing rear end kissing Nazi quislings like zelensky wins but eh what can you do. I think you'll find the likely answer is "become right wing and use superior military and industrial power to obliterate them" which is what eventually happened to Serbia, but there's an off chance of some other resolution. Ardennes explained the constraints, tying a hand behind their back militarily so they don't have to offer social change at home. The problem with this strategy is that it would have worked if Ukraine had a similar social organization. Georgia was a kleptocratic state with ho hum liberalism and a vague promise of stability and economic improvement. Tbilisi was threatened, it reasonably declined to sacrifice a hundred thousand Georgians, the economy, whatever else. We created in Ukraine a state that would pursue endsieg, and so... what is Russia supposed to do? Like genericnick said, kicking the can down the road, hitting the "apply more pressure" button and hoping to get "better settlement" out, that only works if Russia is willing to bear the cost of applying that pressure. The pressure they are willing to reply is clearly not what's required to get the settlement. In retrospect it explains a lot of their tinkering around with half-measures, single day strikes and so on, turning a big dial that says "war" on it and constantly looking back at the audience for approval like a contestant on the price is right. They don't realize, and I was banging my head against the wall on telegram trying to explain this to increasingly belligerent Russians, that no military has been defeated in a conventional war without being brought to battle. Suppose they got what they wanted and wore the Ukrainians down to the point where they had to go over to a static defence again. Russia would still not be willing to bear the losses of attacking them... so, what's the point of it all? The literal last Ukrainian soldier is not going to charge their position, and more importantly they don't need to since Russia has undercommitted to the point of not being able to shore up flanks so, there's some sort of remove here where whatever part of the Russian public telegram represents, that commentariat, they don't seem to grasp that this is entirely a failure of their politicians. My sense is that the cost of a "winter offensive" would still be too high, and while they are right that this winter Ukraine and Europe is going to have a bad time, and Russia could sit on the defensive, take few losses, that's not going to do it by itself. It's going to take a Hundred Days. Period. There is no way just having forces in Belarus will apply enough pressure to do anything. Or an attack that stalls out to avoid losses. They have to close with and destroy the enemy, or else don't bother leaving their jumping off points. At the 5:1 ratio, which I think seems about accurate from what I've read on the gunnery side, inflicting the fatal 50% casualties that typically leads to a decisive death of an army on the 750k Ukrainians under arms would cost 75k Russians. By any metric I can think of, that's a good trade off. Even for the air campaign, the US lost 16 B-52s during Linebacker II, 134 aircraft of all types in Linebacker I, about 1000 in Rolling Thunder. Damaging Ukraine enough to nudge it towards "better settlement" will cost Russian aircraft and aircrews. But that's what combat aircraft are for! The reason to train pilots, purchase aircraft, pay for training and maintenance, is so that they might risk their lives and if required die to bring about some result. Combat aircraft do not exist to loiter at leisure and drop PGMs on an enemy without air defence, though that's how we're accustomed to them being used. They are there to press home the attack, come what may, as long as the target is destroyed. Nearly half of Canada's casualties in WW2 were the 17k lost by the RCAF, just slightly fewer than the Army. The same thing at sea.Yes, losing a flagship is embarrassing, but this is what navies exist to do - be bloodied and fight the war. The point of warships is to go to sea. What is the purpose of the Black Sea Fleet if it is not out there every day in a close blockade, bombarding Ukraine? Why pay for the ships and sailors if not to risk them? For Christ's sake there is a war in the Black Sea! The Royal Navy suffered 67k casualties in WW2, lost 3 battleships, 2 battlecruisers, 8 aircraft carriers. Why? Because there was a war on, and the Navy's role is to go out and deal out and receive blows rather than be attacked at anchor by a nation with no navy to speak of. Launching cruise missiles is all well and good, but the only way to turn the "apply more pressure" button is to impose a blockade, threaten amphibious assaults, conduct raids, bombard targets. That will mean more ships and sailors lost, that's the price of victory. As Ardennes pointed out, no society can withstand 75k casualties without providing something to the citizenry. "Stability" is not going to cut it. Canada suffered 100k casualties in the Second World War out of a force of a million, by way of example. The major warships lost by the RN, for another example, led to post-war ships having far better enlisted accommodations, far better treatment of the Lower-Deck, better conditions of service all around. RAF maintainers and enlisted aircrews went from being treated as grooms and batmen in a cavalry regiment, and of course the RAF had actual soldier-servants as well, to respected members of the service. Every Commonwealth state underwent social transformations during the World Wars, and the fact that the British were not willing to get with the program and create the promised Greater Britain led to the end of Empire. The Tories refusal to understand the world they created led to Labour governments and the transformation of post-war British society. So, as I've said a thousand times, fight the war or lose it, but for God's sake don't get men killed for nothing.
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Nov 11, 2022 15:58
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Ardennes posted:“Hey let’s use reservists as a spooky threat to force negotiations, I am sure that will end the war!” yeah lets be clear here, this threads failing was not believing Russia could gently caress this up so much. It's now obvious that something is very wrong beyond just normal issues within dictatorships. This is different to certain groups who were always confident in Ukraine's victory because Ukraine is the new great white hope of Europe and full of politically tattooed ubermen.
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Nov 11, 2022 16:02
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Regarde Aduck posted:yeah lets be clear here, this threads failing was not believing Russia could gently caress this up so much. It's now obvious that something is very wrong beyond just normal issues within dictatorships. one of my first posts ITT was expecting the Russians to win and do it as stupidly as possible, and now the stupid has entirely won over. they squandered any chance they had by overestimating their own capabilities and underestimating both the Ukrainians and the willingness of nato to intervene. they literally put themselves in the US' old shoes in vietnam wherein a protracted conflict meant the soviets and chinese were able to continuously funnel support into the viet cong cause. Russia now is fighting a country utterly crawling with NATO spec ops dudes who have been slitting Afghani and Iraqi throats for 20 years and are very good at it, and just littered with donated war material.
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Nov 11, 2022 16:09
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russia killed hundreds of thousands of people, destroyed a country, hardened a nazi puppet state, and lost a bunch of their trading partners to occupy almost the same territory they had when they started the war except now the only bridge into crimea is destroyed.
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Nov 11, 2022 16:11
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hosed up of putin to arm ukraine and fund its government of course youre losing lol dont do that
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Nov 11, 2022 16:12
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Hatebag posted:russia killed hundreds of thousands of people, destroyed a country, hardened a nazi puppet state, and lost a bunch of their trading partners to occupy almost the same territory they had when they started the war except now the only bridge into crimea is destroyed. and they would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling americans
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Nov 11, 2022 16:14
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I wonder what the political effects on Russia will be once the populace realizes how utterly botched the war was
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Nov 11, 2022 16:18
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speng31b posted:and they would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling americans Yeah they probably coulda taken everything east of the dneiper which frankly would make for a much prettier map
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Nov 11, 2022 16:18
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Raskolnikov38 posted:I wonder what the political effects on Russia will be once the populace realizes how utterly botched the war was They're going to elect obama
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Nov 11, 2022 16:18
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OctaMurk posted:https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1591004160954359809?t=Xt_g23seldesC52vqaYuRQ&s=19 lol if they annexed Kherson and Zaporozhe just to be used as bargaining chips but now no one wants to sit down and negotiate with them
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Nov 11, 2022 16:19
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Admittedly, it is a bit difficult to get what is going in the Kremlin because while strongmen are often incompetent and fight pointless wars, this dysfunction going is on a different and rather odd level. I think it is pretty clear why the war is being fought but the strategies that the Russians are using are…for a very hard to believe history book. I don’t think anyone including the US predicted it would go this war and even more hardline Western liberals boosting Ukraine are mostly just focused on “killing orcs” not the bizarre decision making going on in the Kremlin. If the Russians would rather be pushed back to their pre-war borders than seek battle, I guess that is about it. Admittedly, I don’t think Putin will be thrown out immediately but I think there is going be slowly brewing anger at the government. They played their cards about as poor as humanly possible. Ardennes has issued a correction as of 16:24 on Nov 11, 2022 |
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Nov 11, 2022 16:22
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speng31b posted:and they would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling americans Russian plans officers working on a whiteboard and under "Political" for Ukraine putting a big question mark.
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Nov 11, 2022 16:22
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Regarde Aduck posted:yeah lets be clear here, this threads failing was not believing Russia could gently caress this up so much. It's now obvious that something is very wrong beyond just normal issues within dictatorships. Funnily enough, this is clearly not a problem of "dictatorships", at least as I suspect you're using the term. Dictatorships have a state that is willing to make demands of the population. I mean, the whole term is kind of bullshit because government "characterized by a leader or a group of leaders which holds governmental powers with few to no limitations on them" could just as easily include Odoacer, Pope Leo III, Maria Theresa, Napoleon and God knows who else. It means every country without a parliamentary democracy is conceived to operate under some common principle in wartime, when how North Vietnam encouraged soldiers to fight was very obviously different than Romania. Even how Romania conceived the relationship between soldiers and the state, and people and the state, was different in 1917, 1941, 45, 1968. In all of those Romania was, to varying degrees, not a parliamentary democracy, with the King, Prince, Prime Minister, Conducător, General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party exercising considerable authority, but did they have the same problems? Some were able to organize men and lead them into battle, others were not. In short, if "Dictatorship" is characterized by the state making undue demands without representation, democracy blah blah blah the people's voice, and Russia is at a strategic impasse because it is willing to make no demands, I hardly think this is a problem of Sulla ruling unchecked. This is your Levis and Bananas at work. e: Which makes the turn on Russian telegram to talking about the Tsar, Third Rome, Orthodoxy whatever strange, because while those are compelling visions of society people have been willing to fight and die for, that's not what's being offered. You can't just say, "we should support Putin because he's a defender of the Orthodox faith" when.. I mean, he's clearly not. He's not offering anything like that. By contrast Stalin was willing to make amends with the Orthodox Church because he realized that they offered people hope and a reason to sacrifice themselves in the war. It's funny that The Next Hitler turned out to be far, far more like Angela Merkel. Frosted Flake has issued a correction as of 16:29 on Nov 11, 2022 |
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Nov 11, 2022 16:22
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The Russians aren't so inscrutable and impossible to understand. They thought they could knock over the Kyiv regime in a few days and establish a friendly/puppet government, and they were proven very wrong within the first 30 days. They then thought they could then transition to a longer war over the summer/fall and presumed they had the logistical and military acumen to do so, and they were wrong again. Now if they switch to a slower, lower intensity war to stretch it out to next year, their odds of getting some sort of consolation prize compared to trying to sprint to a quick finish probably go up, but it's still looking bad for Russia (and for a lot of people/nations who aren't Russia) The funniest analysis so far are the people going all in on the Russian military having their back stabbed and hands tied by those damned civilian do-nothings!
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Nov 11, 2022 16:25
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It is why “liberal strongman” is a better term, while Putin and his party is dominant, his rule can only extent so far in a liberalized society. He can throw out edicts but he clearly lacks to coercive power to go fully through with them. The issue is a continual lack of a learning curve and after every setback there is no effort to address the ultimate failure of what is occurring. That is the bizarre part. Ardennes has issued a correction as of 16:30 on Nov 11, 2022 |
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Nov 11, 2022 16:27
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Frosted Flake posted:I keep hearing about Borodino and the withdrawal to Stalingrad during Case Blue being “the Russian Way”, but those are not things you do facing a smaller, weaker state with a Mickey Mouse army. Staying out of the reach of the Grand Armee or Wehrmacht made sense, giving ground because they couldn’t be beaten made sense. Two things here. The "Russians", at least the more historically minded one I am following, would describe this Russian way as "Well bureaucratic structure loving sucks and is failing to do its job again and we need to reshuffle and fix the whole thing on the fly again" As for the allergic to casualties, there's a bit of a nuance to it. Russia did take heavy loses, at least according to the turbopatriot Strelkov. During the first few months, the siege of Mariupol, the storming of various other villages and towns. Strelkov here again compared Wagner to totenkopf type storm troopers with no regard for life. So maybe Russia command is putting the load on auxiliaries and sparing the army, maybe it's something else. I obviously have no insight into this matter, but I would say the constant retreating has more to do with some kind of change in decision making during summer more than just simply refusing to spend blood.
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Nov 11, 2022 16:30
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mlmp08 posted:The Russians aren't so inscrutable and impossible to understand. They thought they could knock over the Kyiv regime in a few days and establish a friendly/puppet government, and they were proven very wrong within the first 30 days. They then thought they could then transition to a longer war over the summer/fall and presumed they had the logistical and military acumen to do so, and they were wrong again. You are describing having their back stabbed and hands tied by those damned civilian do-nothings in more words.
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Nov 11, 2022 16:30
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Frosted Flake posted:You are describing having their back stabbed and hands tied by those damned civilian do-nothings in more words. lmao
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Nov 11, 2022 16:31
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mlmp08 posted:lmao who controls russia, putin or shoigu?
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Nov 11, 2022 16:32
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I'm laying flowers on my icon of Saint George in the hopes that Russia may be granted an Arthur Currie.
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Nov 11, 2022 16:33
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Lostconfused posted:Two things here. The "Russians", at least the more historically minded one I am following, would describe this Russian way as "Well bureaucratic structure loving sucks and is failing to do its job again and we need to reshuffle and fix the whole thing on the fly again" Most of the causalities from that period seemed to be separatist conscripts that were being used as cannon fodder, the Russians have been taking losses but it is clear it isn’t that the Russian army cease to exist. Moreover, there were also new conscripts that were sitting on the sidelines as well as other forces. It is true the Russians would have had real costs for fully utilizing its military earlier but they have now kicked the bucket down the road to the point they are starting to run out of land to trade away. You could argue that the reservists would give them a second wind but it would require again political cost.
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Nov 11, 2022 16:34
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Zodium posted:learning a new language so i can understand what they're saying in my snuff ivdeos
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Nov 11, 2022 16:36
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Hot Take: The Russian military was not prepared to engage in this war, because their logistical support into other countries is really lacking and their targeting to shape operations is bad. This is true, even if they were allowed to make their own plan (though maybe the Russian military planner-pure plan would be "let's not go in there"). We already saw Russia struggle with sustaining even smaller forces in 2014 and combined arms maneuver above very small bespoke units, and it looks like it hasn't been improved nearly enough. Their ability to sustain land forces forward is subpar, and they have not been able to make up for that with their long-range fires and VKS. I think the Russian military would be a much, much more difficult foe and not such a failure if they were holding their own lines or defending, and I don't mean that from a force ratio perspective, I mean that from a targeting and supply lines and combined arms maneuver perspective. Presumably, if Russia had committed to raising some massive army ahead of time, well, that takes months/years to do, and people like Ukraine and Ukraine-supporting nations would see that occurring and take some kind of preparation. Arguably, Russia also could have tried this rapid regime change approach in 2017 or something and maybe done better, but counterfactuals are hard to analyze.
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Nov 11, 2022 16:39
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