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RockWhisperer posted:There is a substantial political element to the loss of life. It sounds clique, but the mothers of the soldiers are the one's with the most power in an authoritarian regime like Russia (I would point toward USSR in Afghanistan and Argentina as examples). The loss of sons mobilized in the war can pierce through the propaganda and rally anti-war opposition. My hope is that these mothers will protest sooner rather than later. There was an interview somewhere in the old thread of one of the chief organizers of one of those organizations - I think the "The Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia," but I'm not sure. As I recall she was pretty pessimistic about things - the way she put it, back in her day all the mothers got together, protested, got out and put pressure on the government, but now the young mothers come to her and say "My son has been mobilized, what can I do, what can I say?" and she tells them "Refuse to serve, argue, protest, like we did!" and they say "Oh, but I couldn't do that, I couldn't do that." A general sense that the young mothers of this generation feel helpless, powerless, unable to resist no matter how much they dislike what's happening - something that was clearly depressing the old lady who kept trying to light a fire under their asses and getting little joy. Her contacts in government weren't bearing as much fruit as they did in the past as well, apparently. The impression I got was that Putin was very much aware of the power of the mothers of soldiers in the past and may have specifically acted to try and undermine them prior to this point. That doesn't mean they don't have influence or that their influence can't grow in time as casualties mount but it is something he's tried to prepare for at least.
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Jan 3, 2023 05:03
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Kraftwerk posted:Is there any merit to Ukraine engaging in military strategies where they try to inflict massive losses on the Russians? For this sort of thing, you really do having to remember that Russia started this war, is continuing this war, and could end this war at any time by just simply leaving. Within that basic context, there does seem seem to be room for a strategy where you create a horribly inhospitable situation where holding territory eventually is no longer worth it.
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Jan 3, 2023 05:04
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I doubt Putin is worried about Russian mothers, he'll just put the state security apparatus on them just like he's done with everyone else, and persecute others daring to complain about it.
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Jan 3, 2023 06:01
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The last time a Russian mother got angry at Putin she was forcibly injected with sedatives on live TV. I don't think the regime cares.
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Jan 3, 2023 06:37
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I mean, there's also this to consider.  Care has been taken to avoid the sons of mothers "who matter" dying.
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Jan 3, 2023 13:40
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Randarkman posted:I mean, there's also this to consider. RIP to the Buryats if this goes on. Are they particularly undesirable under Russian politics (compared to other ethnic minorities), or do they just have the misfortune of having a particularly zealous governor or something?
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Jan 3, 2023 15:30
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Gepard ammunition is being produced in Norway, it's a solved problem.
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Jan 3, 2023 15:33
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Deltasquid posted:RIP to the Buryats if this goes on. Are they particularly undesirable under Russian politics (compared to other ethnic minorities), or do they just have the misfortune of having a particularly zealous governor or something? Dwesa fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Jan 3, 2023 |
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Jan 3, 2023 15:36
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Dwesa posted:That map is from before the mobilization, so it's probably due to poverty and people enlisting to army to earn some money. The post-mobilization map is likely similar though. I wouldn't be surprised if ethnic minorities are considered more 'expendable' by Russian commanders due to racism. Weren't people being press-ganged way before official mobilization though?
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Jan 3, 2023 15:41
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Griefor posted:Weren't people being press-ganged way before official mobilization though? You may be thinking of “mobilisation” in “LDNR”.
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Jan 3, 2023 15:44
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Deltasquid posted:RIP to the Buryats if this goes on. Are they particularly undesirable under Russian politics (compared to other ethnic minorities), or do they just have the misfortune of having a particularly zealous governor or something? It's a very poor undeveloped region where there aren't that many prospects for young men. It makes sense that the army's payroll was attractive there. Shoigu is from Tuva btw. Also lol that Jewish autonomous oblast still exists, the bolshevik alternative to zionism. The original plan was actually to establish it in Crimea 
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Jan 3, 2023 15:44
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Nenonen posted:Also lol that Jewish autonomous oblast still exists, the bolshevik alternative to zionism. The original plan was actually to establish it in Crimea wiki posted:The 2010 Census reported the largest group to be the 160,185 ethnic Russians (93%), followed by 4,871 ethnic Ukrainians (3%), and 1,628 ethnic Jews (1%). The "Jewish Autonomous Oblast" is 1% Jewish. Why even bother to call it that anymore?
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Jan 3, 2023 16:16
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December 31 - January 3 round-up Deep dives: FT has a piece on energy security in Europe for the winter. https://www.ft.com/content/6e08003e-5de0-4707-93c3-43b64480443e Regular news: EU-Ukraine summit in Kyiv on February 3. https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/ukraine-eu-to-hold-summit-on-3-february-in-kyiv/ Germany signals openness to seizing Russian assets. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...=premium-europe New dispatch in the “how many rockets does Russia really have” rubric. Budanov claims that time to produce one mass airstrike (60-80 cruise missiles, it seems) is 1.5-2 months, and Russia cannot do more than 1–2 waves (as of January 1, and the January 1 attack was just drones). He also claims that Russia is preparing to restrict border crossings (directly and through Belarus) for Russians under 55, as early as the 5th of January. https://t.me/DIUkraine/1822 Long-distance strike on the occupied Makiivka, on a barrack co-located with an ammo dump, with casualty numbers from 60 to 400 dead, depending on whom you listen to. Z-bloggers are not taking it too well. https://www.ft.com/content/075cf243-eae5-48ab-9e8c-bf1f108d299d Stoltenberg says that Russia's mobilization forces are primarily still being trained, and new fronts are could very well open. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64140403 85% of Ukrainians consider territorial concessions, for ending the war, unacceptable. https://kiis.com.ua/?lang=ukr&cat=reports&id=1167&page=1 Putin has kindly allowed “unfriendly nations” to pay their gas debt in a foreign currency. http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/0001202212300102 AFU reports 40% of newly occupied territories liberated, in their end-of-the-year statement. https://censor.net/ru/news/3390544/vsu_osvobodili_uje_40_okkupirovannyh_posle_24_fevralya_territoriyi_genshtab A mildly  account of the last hours of Russian presence in Bucha. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/31/world/europe/bucha-ukraine-killings.htmlWanted posters for 6 fleeing Wagner prisoner recruits in Rostov-on-Don. https://donday.ru/orientirovki-na-rozysk-vooruzhennyh-zakljuchennyh-iz-chvk-vagner-razveshivajut-po-zavedenijam-rostova-na-donu.html 140 prisoner swap (presumably, Russians are not being mentioned, but I'd be surprised if they just let them go). https://censor.net/ru/video_news/3390578/osvobojdenie_ukrainskih_plennyh_31_dekabrya_2022_goda_kadry_sbu_video Ukrainian government claims that the next mobilization wave will also target people from the newly occupied territories of Ukraine. https://sprotyv.mod.gov.ua/2023/01/02/rosiyany-gotuyut-mobilizacziyu-na-pivdni/ Two guys who smashed a light-up Z sign in Cheboksary have been banned from visiting establishments serving beer on tap. https://zona.media/news/2023/01/02/cheb-z With December 31 and January 1 strikes, it looks like Russia ran a 4-day bombing campaign over the New Year's, but a much more Shahed-weighted one. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/01/world/europe/ukraine-russia-air-attacks.html French Caesar artillery's barrels, due to the rate of fire, apparently wore out rapidly, and need all to be replaced. https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/guerre-en-ukraine-sebastien-lecornu-en-visite-a-kiev-20221228 A custom-built Ukrainian drone fell on the Russian side, without detonation. https://t.me/cit_backup/1286 https://twitter.com/nicholadrummond/status/1609161490707128322 Bradleys are being considered for supply to Ukraine. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-29/us-weighs-sending-bradley-fighting-vehicles-to-bolster-ukraine Highly video of what seems to be Wagner troops using Ukrainian PoWs as human shields. https://t.me/csources/172362Wagner's mercenaries are now entitled to the same benefits as official RuAF service members. https://regulation.gov.ru/projects#npa=134800 Other summaries: https://notes.citeam.org/dispatch-dec-31-jan-2 https://notes.citeam.org/dispatch-dec-29-30 https://zona.media/chronicle/314 https://zona.media/chronicle/313 https://zona.media/chronicle/312 https://zona.media/chronicle/311 https://notes.citeam.org/mobi-dec-29-30 https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-2-2023 https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-31 https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-30 cinci zoo sniper fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Jan 3, 2023 |
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Jan 3, 2023 16:23
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Deltasquid posted:RIP to the Buryats if this goes on. Are they particularly undesirable under Russian politics (compared to other ethnic minorities), or do they just have the misfortune of having a particularly zealous governor or something? They're far away from the centers of power (Moscow and St. Pete's), not critical to the oil and gas extraction industry and their governors probably want to curry favour with the Kremlin by supplying lots of troops. 
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Jan 3, 2023 16:32
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Scratch Monkey posted:The "Jewish Autonomous Oblast" is 1% Jewish. Why even bother to call it that anymore? History, mostly. The area (Birobidzhan) is a miserable and mostly uninhabitable swampland on the Chinese border. There's a pretty good book on the subject: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0190HP7GK/ quote:Where the Jews Aren't: The Sad and Absurd Story of Birobidzhan, Russia's Jewish Autonomous Region It's only 1% Jewish because the place is so ghastly (huge mosquitos being paramount) that anyone who could leave does. Lum_ fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Jan 3, 2023 |
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Jan 3, 2023 16:56
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Jasper Tin Neck posted:They're far away from the centers of power (Moscow and St. Pete's), not critical to the oil and gas extraction industry and their governors probably want to curry favour with the Kremlin by supplying lots of troops. Whats the region with a significantly higher average monthly income than Moscow or St. Petersburg?
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Jan 3, 2023 17:02
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Blut posted:Whats the region with a significantly higher average monthly income than Moscow or St. Petersburg? Probably a mostly uninhabited Siberian region where the only people there are working in resource extraction of some sort. Wikipedia implies as such, the top three regions by income per person being Kamchatka, Chukotka and Nenets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_federal_subjects_by_average_wage
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Jan 3, 2023 17:08
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cinci zoo sniper posted:A custom-built Ukrainian drone fell on the Russian side, without detonation. https://t.me/cit_backup/1286 Do we need to put a sign in every classroom that says not to handle unexploded ordnance or things that might be unexploded ordanice? Because you should definitely not be handling anything the other side tried to use on you.
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Jan 3, 2023 17:10
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Tomn posted:I feel like movies and other fictional media have kind of conditioned people to expect cunning, clever plans with huge payoffs in warfare. In general, though, and especially in the era of industrialized warfare a straightforward, well-executed plan is usually better than elaborate 4D chess plays where one thing going wrong can send everything spiraling off into the sun. In this case deliberately giving ground carries a lot of risks - feigned retreats have an unfortunate tendency to become actual retreats if something goes wrong, and even if you deliberately give up ground with the intention of causing attrition there's no guarantee you can take it back without taking enough casualties to make the trade not terribly worth it, along with the risk of actually losing the ground in the first place and worsening your position. You might have a policy of letting your forces retreat before too much pressure comes down to avoid taking excessive casualties, but that's not the same thing as a deliberate feigned retreat to lure enemies into a trap. To give an historical example, Japan during WW2, and specifically Yamamoto loved their too clever by half cunning plans to win the war that were beyond their abilities to execute or coordinate; in particular iirc they loved to split the fleet and so on. I think people see things like the breakthrough through the Ardennes in 1940 and the second attempt at it in 1944, and then the landings at Incheon and the flanking attacking through the Desert during Storm' and I think that's where the idea comes from, that there's one weird trick to win wars and professional generals hate it (Pearl Harbour didn't work out in the long run but maybe it belongs here). Because sometimes there is, but in pretty much all of the (successful) cases the side that pulled it off did so through a massive amount of expert planning, and thanks to having a strong hand to execute the plan. I think Ukraine has the problem that being in the underdog position it has a lot less to use for executing such plans and a massive front on which it all has to be spread out on, with Known Unknowns like the Belarus border.
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Jan 3, 2023 17:24
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Lum_ posted:Probably a mostly uninhabited Siberian region where the only people there are working in resource extraction of some sort. Ah, interesting, makes sense. Thanks.
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Jan 3, 2023 17:34
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Haven't seen this yet in the thread: There was another Ukrainian strike against the Russian army, this time in Kherson (region, at Tschulakiwka). Again, probably several hundred (Ukrainian sources say 500) dead soldiers.
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Jan 3, 2023 23:43
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https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1610413721502842892
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Jan 4, 2023 01:10
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Raenir Salazar posted:To give an historical example, Japan during WW2, and specifically Yamamoto loved their too clever by half cunning plans to win the war that were beyond their abilities to execute or coordinate; in particular iirc they loved to split the fleet and so on. To be fair, the reasons that Incheon (over-extension by NK, unprotected supply lines, overconfidence in the defense of Seoul) and the Air Assault in Desert Storm (lack of air defense, aircraft for support, Iraq being a shitshow after the Iran War) worked isn't because they were solely 'super daring', but that they exploited weaknesses with newer technology and proper doctrine to work against an enemy that couldn't keep up. They are exceptional military achievements but all of them were thoroughly planned, prepared for and supported before the first ship landed or the first helicopter went up. People get the popular myth of the super-competent leader who makes up a plan in two minutes and Sherlock's their way to complete victory, but military operations don't work like that. Especially larger ones like beachhead landings or flanking maneuvers. They get planned out well in advance, and even get war-gamed during exercises where they may never actually happen in real life but are still prepared for in case of a contingency. On the ground, though, the calculus changes a lot. It's why the best plans are those that have clear stated goals (take and hold this area in order to block off a supply line) with as much intel as you can get, then gives freedom to the leaders on ground to work out the approach with what they have. 80% of strategic planning these days is logistics, the shooting stuff is decided at the squad level with what you have access to, even if that means strapping some grenades to a Sharper Image drone, flushing out an entrenched position and opening fire as soon as they pop cover.
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Jan 4, 2023 07:38
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This is beyond parody, claiming that they destroyed 4 HIMARS, 800 missiles and other stuff, killing 200 UA soldiers as a revenge for Makeevka, while in reality it seems they managed to destroy only some charity foundation/humanitarian warehouse. Meanwhile another Russian base was allegedly destroyed in Tokmak and number of casualties in Makeevka is reportedly still growing. https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1610208306638819329 Dwesa fucked around with this message at 12:33 on Jan 4, 2023 |
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Jan 4, 2023 12:29
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Has Russian been able to confirm the kill of *any* HIMARS?
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Jan 4, 2023 14:56
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cr0y posted:Has Russian been able to confirm the kill of *any* HIMARS? Don’t think so. Most likely cause of any busted HIMARS at this point is just generic maintenance or a traffic accident.
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Jan 4, 2023 14:59
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cr0y posted:Has Russian been able to confirm the kill of *any* HIMARS? They’ve gotten a few decoys iirc, which they immediately claimed as the real thing (despite the rain of rockets never slowing down).
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Jan 4, 2023 15:40
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Icon Of Sin posted:They’ve gotten a few decoys iirc, which they immediately claimed as the real thing (despite the rain of rockets never slowing down). I can't find the article but it turned out those 'decoys' were russian stock that they stole during 2014 land grab, didn't change the camo, got confused and blew them up.
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Jan 4, 2023 15:52
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Salisbury Snape posted:I can't find the article but it turned out those 'decoys' were russian stock that they stole during 2014 land grab, didn't change the camo, got confused and blew them up. I think those were some S-300s they claimed they destroyed, not HIMARS.
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Jan 4, 2023 16:34
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I didn't know they were using decoys, that's awesome, please tell me they are the inflatable kind from.....WW2? E: now that I think about it I'm assuming the decoys need to emit some sort of signature whether that be heat or EM or whatever.
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Jan 4, 2023 16:36
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cr0y posted:I didn't know they were using decoys, that's awesome, please tell me they are the inflatable kind from.....WW2? Even better, made of wood! https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a41043604/ukraine-himars-decoys/
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Jan 4, 2023 16:41
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Salisbury Snape posted:I can't find the article but it turned out those 'decoys' were russian stock that they stole during 2014 land grab, didn't change the camo, got confused and blew them up. What do you mean?
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Jan 4, 2023 17:14
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cinci zoo sniper posted:What do you mean? As Mr Luxury Yacht said, those were old S-300 vehicles that Russia captured in 2014, then towed them to Kherson to act as decoys, then reportedly hit them with missiles after pulling from Kherson. https://eurasiantimes.com/russian-military-destroy-its-own-s-300-engagement/
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Jan 4, 2023 17:24
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Nenonen posted:As Mr Luxury Yacht said, those were old S-300 vehicles that Russia captured in 2014, then towed them to Kherson to act as decoys, then reportedly hit them with missiles after pulling from Kherson.  I see, looks like I missed some fun stuff when my work decided to have end of year bollocks.
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Jan 4, 2023 17:39
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Turn about is fair play: https://twitter.com/pipia_gigi/status/1610373931344478208
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Jan 4, 2023 18:36
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Some more equipment for Ukraine: This little bit of news just dropped. Macron promised France will deliver "light" tanks to Ukraine, though there is some confusion about what he could possibly talk about. Leclercs with part of the armor removed? Isn't a "light" tank not just an IFV like Marder or Puma?
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Jan 4, 2023 18:47
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Ukraine can have a little tanks, as a treat.
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Jan 4, 2023 18:49
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Found some more details. The tank in question is a light recon tank with wheels, the AMX-10 RC. Edit: France wants to replace their 247 AMX-10 RCs with a newer tank, the Jaguar. So there's a good chance a lot of those 247 light tanks will end up getting dumped into Ukraine. Also I think this means more political pressure on Chancellor Scholz to also start sending at least more lighter armored vehicles. Since his official line always was "others first, please". Libluini fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Jan 4, 2023 |
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Jan 4, 2023 18:54
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Huh, wonder how well they fit doctrinally, though they may fulfill strategic goal of pressuring Scholz.
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Jan 4, 2023 18:57
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Libluini posted:Found some more details. How good are these things for indirect fire?
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