(Thread IKs:
fatherboxx)
|
Ok, so I'm sorry to be a bit of a downer, but it seems like a distinct possibility that the offensive probably won't gain the results that have been hoped. If it does stall out what kind of political effects could have on the war? A loss of interest from western parties in funding it? Putin trying to snatch a win of sorts if the war turns into a stalemate that can't be reasonably broken by either side at this point?
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 18:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 05:55 |
|
|
khwarezm posted:Ok, so I'm sorry to be a bit of a downer, but it seems like a distinct possibility that the offensive probably won't gain the results that have been hoped. If it does stall out what kind of political effects could have on the war? A loss of interest from western parties in funding it? Putin trying to snatch a win of sorts if the war turns into a stalemate that can't be reasonably broken by either side at this point? All that would depend entirely on how it failed and why. None of that could be answered now.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 18:23
|
|
|
I don’t think governments are going to stop being invested in this conflict because an offensive stalls out. The main objective is to stem imperialist aggression so even if Ukraine can’t effectively oust Russia from their lands, they’ve still done a good job of blunting the force and will need to be backed up with security guarantees and/or arms deals in the future to try and stymie the inevitable next attempt. Otherwise we have afghanistan 2: this time with genocide and no one reasonable would let that happen on their watch.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 18:32
|
|
|
khwarezm posted:Ok, so I'm sorry to be a bit of a downer, but it seems like a distinct possibility that the offensive probably won't gain the results that have been hoped. If it does stall out what kind of political effects could have on the war? A loss of interest from western parties in funding it? Putin trying to snatch a win of sorts if the war turns into a stalemate that can't be reasonably broken by either side at this point? "The amphibious assault on Dieppe was a failure. Thus it would be pointless for the Allies to continue attempting cross-Channel amphibious assaults into German-held France" We neither have the evidence to prove the assault is or is not stalling out, we have no clue what proportion of the forces set aside for the counter-offensive have been committed nor how many reserves Russia is holding back to respond to breaches in the lines, and there's a long line of military aid that's going to backfill the UAF's losses over the next two years and deep stocks of Soviet equipment that's being cobbled together to replenish the RuAF. All that being said to illustrate that you're being a little too hasty in your hand-wringing here. Good outcomes and bad outcomes are both very likely.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 18:34
|
|
|
It also depends on the expectations of the rather numerous actors. You or I may look at Twitter and decide the offensive failed, while NATO may view it as successful, except for a couple countries which had other victory criteria in mind, etc.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 18:35
|
|
|
fatherboxx posted:Weird, probably Kadyrov's idea of a joke post since a lot of Russian officials insist that Delimkhanov is alive Is there more to this joke other than the obvious "no we are not going to tell you poo poo"?
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 18:40
|
|
|
khwarezm posted:Ok, so I'm sorry to be a bit of a downer, but it seems like a distinct possibility that the offensive probably won't gain the results that have been hoped. If it does stall out what kind of political effects could have on the war? A loss of interest from western parties in funding it? Putin trying to snatch a win of sorts if the war turns into a stalemate that can't be reasonably broken by either side at this point? Unless there are very heavy losses, and the tanks are a loss but not a catastrophic one, I’m not sure why reverting to the status of a few weeks ago but probably a little bit better would destroy western morale. This seemed like an important operation but not an all or nothing push.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 18:44
|
|
|
khwarezm posted:Ok, so I'm sorry to be a bit of a downer, but it seems like a distinct possibility that the offensive probably won't gain the results that have been hoped. If it does stall out what kind of political effects could have on the war? A loss of interest from western parties in funding it? Putin trying to snatch a win of sorts if the war turns into a stalemate that can't be reasonably broken by either side at this point? Depends on what you were hoping for though right? If you were hoping for Zelensky to announce the offensive and watch Ukrainians sweep the Russians to the sea then your hopes or expectations were unrealistic to begin with. If you understood that while the Ukrainians got a lot of older Western surplus stuff and had a little bit of training with it, and that the Russians aren't totally incompetent and have used the time alloted to them to prepare then there is no reason to be a downer because slow and uneven progress was always expected from the start. I see no reason to be down on the Ukrainians so far. The Ukrainians are currently clearing out the forward areas that lie in front of the main Russian defensive line. The area is in question is located where visible Russian defensive works are the least imposing (Tomak is unlikely to be the immediate target given that 3 separate lines of fortifications protect it). See: https://twitter.com/Nrg8000/status/1668649688176955393?s=20 OSINT has identified elements of several of the new brigades but apparently a lot of the heavy lifting in this preliminary attack are from existing units. The pace is slow but is likely just prepatory work before trying to tackle the main fortification line itself. Ie clearing out Makarivka See https://twitter.com/DefMon3/status/1668693471194914819?s=20 There are no major claims by the Russians of destroying large Ukrainian formations in battle and Russian propaganda footage of destroyed Ukrainian vehicles remains scant. It is going to be a long summer so you can relax. Plenty worse can go wrong before you need to enter doomer mode.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 18:44
|
|
|
If blowing up 12 Ukrainian tanks and IFVs mean that Ukraine has lost the war what does blowing up thousands of Russian tanks mean?
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 19:04
|
|
|
mustard_tiger posted:If blowing up 12 Ukrainian tanks and IFVs mean that Ukraine has lost the war what does blowing up thousands of Russian tanks mean? Maskirovka.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 19:13
|
|
|
Deltasquid posted:Not sure about his source, but the Belgian ex-colonel Roger Housen and a professor at the Royal Military School, Kris Quanten, gave an interview and claim the UA currently deployed 15% of their manpower in probing attacks, keeping 85% in reserve Some of his greatest hits: "Russia will never do a full invasion of Ukraine." (february 2022) "The fighting will only continue for a couple more weeks or months." (april 2022) "Russia can take the Donbass in the summer." (may 2022) "Kremlin will never give up Kherson." (august 2022) "Ukraine is living on borrowed time, it's only a matter of months before it will be forcefd to cease the war." (september 2022) "Ukraine can only start a counteroffensive at the end of the summer." (february 2023)
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 19:15
|
|
|
mustard_tiger posted:If blowing up 12 Ukrainian tanks and IFVs mean that Ukraine has lost the war what does blowing up thousands of Russian tanks mean? Any moment now...
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 19:16
|
|
|
mustard_tiger posted:If blowing up 12 Ukrainian tanks and IFVs mean that Ukraine has lost the war what does blowing up thousands of Russian tanks mean? at that scale of difference, something like "Russia retroactively ceases to exist, Kievan Rus takes over Europe and Asia"
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 19:34
|
|
|
khwarezm posted:Ok, so I'm sorry to be a bit of a downer... This is a good article if you're wondering what's going on with the offensive: https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/ukraines-counteroffensive-begins-shall-leopards-break-free
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 19:37
|
|
|
I get the impression a lot of people were expecting the offensive to shape up like that shocking sweep around Kharkiv. That would have been amazing but there was no reason this would have been he case here unless the Russian military basically ceased to exist
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 20:08
|
|
|
Delthalaz posted:I get the impression a lot of people were expecting the offensive to shape up like that shocking sweep around Kharkiv. That would have been amazing but there was no reason this would have been he case here unless the Russian military basically ceased to exist And ignoring that Kharkiv happened when Russia's best forces were tied up in Kherson, where it seemed like the counter-attack was going nowhere. But in more important news  https://twitter.com/front_ukrainian/status/1668600506141356032 Unconfirmed, but technically not impossible.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 21:02
|
|
|
Like three mines at the same time or it hit one and the driver said oh poo poo and gunned it into another one or....
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 21:09
|
|
|
Defenestrategy posted:Like three mines at the same time or it hit one and the driver said oh poo poo and gunned it into another one or.... Once your 6x6 vehicle hits a mine the driver is not going to gun anywhere, but the vehicle still has momentum and points of ground contact that can hit mines! Three AT mines stacked on top of each others would have sent the APC on a trajectory.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 21:17
|
|
|
Nervous APC driver hits 17 mines in a row, proclaims "it's my first day"
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 21:20
|
|
|
Delthalaz posted:I get the impression a lot of people were expecting the offensive to shape up like that shocking sweep around Kharkiv. That would have been amazing but there was no reason this would have been he case here unless the Russian military basically ceased to exist I don't know if many people over HERE were expecting another Kharkiv. There'd been plenty of sober assessments of Russian defenses and slowly developing competence as well as people pointing out the differences in circumstances - if anyone was expecting Kharkiv 2.0 they would have to have been basically not reading the thread at all I think. People have been doing their best to temper expectations for a while, grand optimism over the offensive felt more like the exception rather than the norm. On the other hand I can readily imagine that Twitter might have lost its tiny collective mind at the prospect of a glorious unstoppable sweeping advance, but that's Twitter for you.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 21:23
|
|
|
As an engineer who worked on crew safety improvements for AFVs, this has been an affirming and emotional week.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 21:51
|
|
|
Economist article on air defense in Kyiv which is a good read: https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/06/13/how-kyiv-fended-off-a-russian-missile-blitz-in-may quote:The 30-year-old Patriot operator recalls a moment of applause, joy and expletives as the Ukrainian air-defence officers realised they had made history that night of May 4th. The Russians’ “unbeatable” Kh-47 Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missile was not only beatable; but it was actually travelling at “only” around approximately 1,240 metres per second, a third of what the Russians like to claim. “We understood that the Patriot worked. The next time, when we saw not one, but six Kinzhals on our monitors, it was just a matter of getting on with the job.” You know, what won't they lie about?
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 21:53
|
|
|
Well, if they go too fast it voids the warranty. In other news, Sweden is only getting into NATO over Erdogan's dead body. https://www.politico.eu/article/turkey-erdogan-plays-down-swedens-nato-hopes/
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 22:01
|
|
|
Seems to be a thing that the Russian military overstates capabilities, while Western militaries understate if anything. Reminds me of that one F-15 that managed to fly back to base with one wing torn off.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 22:02
|
|
|
Cicero posted:Seems to be a thing that the Russian military overstates capabilities, while Western militaries understate if anything. Def not a safe assumption to make
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 22:17
|
|
|
OAquinas posted:Well, if they go too fast it voids the warranty. Fine. Let the US unilaterally grant them a defense treaty. Coquito Ergo Sum posted:As an engineer who worked on crew safety improvements for AFVs, this has been an affirming and emotional week. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 22:38
|
|
|
WarpedLichen posted:Economist article on air defense in Kyiv which is a good read: the whole thing is an interesting read, but this part really caught my eye quote:Hesitant Western leaders explained their initial reluctance to supply Ukraine with powerful air-defence systems by citing the long training programmes they would require. The reality has been somewhat different. Vyacheslav trained on the Patriots in Oklahoma and Poland for three and a half months instead of the regular six. Denys Smazhny, a training co-ordinator for iris-t and nasams, suggests even that was too long. There was nothing exceptionally difficult in the largely automated Western systems, he contends. An iris-t system was “far less complicated” than the Buk system he used to operate: “It’s like switching from a calculator to a MacBook Pro. The Western batteries basically do the work for you.” this gibes with a lot of the stuff i saw when the moskva was sunk, user friendliness seems to generally be a higher priority in western platforms
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 23:13
|
|
|
mustard_tiger posted:what does blowing up thousands of Russian tanks mean?
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 23:52
|
|
|
Ukrainian drone carries supplies to a few families stranded on a flooded area in Kardashynka https://twitter.com/EjShahid/status/1669049383994679317 
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 23:56
|
|
|
It’s also important to note that we are very early in the counter offensive. If we have seen anything from the Russian military is when they collapse it is catastrophic. I have little doubt they will put up a decent defense but it is basically a question of when their front collapses not if.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2023 00:13
|
|
|
CSM posted:Housen is an idiot who doesn't know poo poo. lol no one is right all the time but man that is a helluva list of really major, core things to get wrong Coquito Ergo Sum posted:As an engineer who worked on crew safety improvements for AFVs, this has been an affirming and emotional week. I can only imagine
Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Jun 15, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2023 00:15
|
|
|
Small DOD update. Most of it was about stuff other than Ukraine. Press conference: https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3427251/deputy-pentagon-press-secretary-sabrina-singh-holds-a-press-briefing/ PDA: https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3426389/biden-administration-announces-additional-security-assistance-for-ukraine/ Highlights: -US is not replacing vehicles 1 for 1, nor planning to. PDAs are decided weeks out, not in a day or two turnaround. -US does not know who, if anyone, destroyed the dam. quote:DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY SABRINA SINGH: Hello everyone. Good afternoon. I have a few items to pass along at the top here -- I think I'm echoing a bit -- but I have a few items to pass off at the top here and then I'd be happy to take your questions.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2023 00:17
|
|
|
i'm not paying too much attention to russia moving tactical nukes in to belarus, but this seems like a wild messaging gap between the two partiesquote:The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, says he won’t hesitate to use Russian tactical nuclear weapons if faced with an act of aggression. your nukes, my nukes, what's the difference?
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2023 01:17
|
|
|
Pretend this offensive is a video with "with for it" written across the screen. I have great memories of trying to excitedly pronounce the names of Ukrainian towns being liberated to my partner. I'm confident that will happen again, but don't get gloomy because it isn't happening right now. War is hell and takes time.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2023 01:22
|
|
|
2022 european defense spending tops post-cold war eraquote:Defence spending in western and central Europe has surpassed that of the last year of the cold war, an annual report has found, as military expenditure across the world hit an all-time high of $2.24tn (Ł1.8tn) last year. calls to mind eisenhower's chance for peace speech, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." who knows how history will turn out, but boy if it doesn't seem like the early 21st century will go down as the era of missed opportunities
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2023 01:28
|
|
|
the stance from anonymous western officials on the current state of the offensive matches the general tone of the thread. so either folks here are good at analysis, or we're huffing the same fartsquote:Ukraine is taking significant casualties and making slow progress towards the Russian main line of defence, western officials have admitted in one of the west’s first assessments of the Ukrainian counteroffensive launched on 4 June.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2023 01:32
|
|
|
You know all those videos of Ukrainian drones dropping grenades on the heads of Russian soldiers in trenches? Well now there's a video game for that: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2300160/Death_From_Above/?rdt_cid=3827851941067696783 Not sure how I feel about that.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2023 02:30
|
|
|
It sounds like the Russians basically carpeted their defensive lines with mines in extensive depth. That's going to render huge swathes of land impassable for a long time, even if the offensive is successful. I also marvel at the bravery of armored recon. Recon troops are good at observation and not being seen, but between helicopter ambushes you never see, mines everywhere, and hidden gun and tank emplacements (granted, the latter for which they have infra-red), I don't know where they find the courage. I hate that that KA-52 can just pop off missiles from kilometers away. It just highlights how difficult armored recon without air superiority is. And I have to wonder how much depth, numbers, skill and morale there is in the actual crewed defensive lines. Hopefully once they get numbers through minefields, there are more breakthroughs.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2023 03:00
|
|
|
GhostofJohnMuir posted:i'm not paying too much attention to russia moving tactical nukes in to belarus, but this seems like a wild messaging gap between the two parties Isn't Lukashenko full of poo poo most of the time?
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2023 03:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 05:55 |
|
|
quote:Even though there was still a huge amount of confusion about exact Russian deployment, the officials said the vast majority of Russian forces are now committed to positions on the line partly due to the sheer size of the line that has to be defended. That gave Russia little room for further manoeuvre to deploy reinforcements if a point in the line became vulnerable. This is probably the key bit. If Ukraine is able to reach some breaking point and expand the line, Russia would not be able to easily plug a gap. The other key element is that Ukraine is probably able to replace losses easier than Russia, since it has the Western MIC backing it, and that the main effect of casualties is just bad publicity.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2023 03:28
|
|