(Thread IKs:
fatherboxx)
|
mustard_tiger posted:I really don't think that Russia has the economy to switch over to full war time production. It barely functions now as it is. I mean does Russia even need the more advanced weapons platforms like that to wage this war? I think if they get into a full scale war economy they will be building tons of the stuff that isn't cutting edge like T72s, BMP3s, etc. Also they could probably still drag a lot of old rear end cold war stuff out of storage and refurbish it.
|
# ? Sep 27, 2023 22:05 |
|
|
# ? Jun 8, 2024 08:30 |
|
Charliegrs posted:I mean does Russia even need the more advanced weapons platforms like that to wage this war? I think if they get into a full scale war economy they will be building tons of the stuff that isn't cutting edge like T72s, BMP3s, etc. Also they could probably still drag a lot of old rear end cold war stuff out of storage and refurbish it. They've been dragging a lot of old rear end cold war stuff out storage and refurbishing it for over a year now. It's not clear how much more they have available.
|
# ? Sep 27, 2023 22:26 |
|
Dick Ripple posted:From everything I have been reading and hearing Russia is already well underway into converting industries to war production. How well this will work with modern arms production remains to be seen. Russia is counting on a GOP win in 2024 (and helping with that) with the intention that this will end US support for Ukraine.
|
# ? Sep 27, 2023 22:33 |
|
Hannibal Rex posted:There's been a detailed rebuttal by a sociologist to that article that points out it has a lot of flaws. A good lesson on being too eager to jump on 'unvarnished' accounts of life in wartime Russia. quote:To be fair to the author, he does mention how it is the regime which stole all the cash, but to him, these lumpen don’t really care. I would say even that the piece veers pretty close to a racialized view of the subjects the author so obviously fears and loathes. For a person who seemingly studied Russian society for a long time he somehow missed how fatalistic, politically demobilized and cynical the people on periphery are, while it is an extremely common observation by any Russian sociologist or economist. Natalia Zubarevich has formulated the theory of "Four Russias" a decade ago and her conclusions ring true - https://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/articles/2011/12/30/chetyre_rossii https://polit.ru/article/2016/01/17/four_russians/ quote:"First Russia" are million-strong cities, i.e. the most modernized and economically developed territories. By this model, only "First Russia" provides the sufficient growth of middle class with usual middle class political demands, while other big grouping by regions are dominated by material needs and if affected by a major crisis, they respond accordingly. quote:- A tough scenario of "backinUSSR" shift to totalitarianism - transition to a "besieged fortress" regime and tightening of the political regime for a sufficiently long period of time. This scenario assumes control over big business under the threat of nationalization and its subordination to the political priorities of the authorities, a mobilized economy, ideological control over the main spheres of life, restrictions on travel abroad, large-scale repression of the opposition and the elimination of the last independent media, restriction of the Internet, and a sharp decline in the standard of living of the entire population, especially the large urban middle class, which is not part of the bureaucracy. quote:2. Interaction between the "first" and "second" Russia is unlikely in any development scenario, their interests in the short and medium term do not coincide: residents of the largest cities demand modernization of the state, while for the "second" Russia the most important thing is socio-economic stability, i.e. work and wages. Also fun to see "racialized" used by a western writer to explain it to a Russian talking about Russians. quote:The other tone of the piece is about soldiers embracing neoimperialism and militarism. The underclass prone to violence and crime are living their dreams. Where is the evidence? It is one thing to say the war selects the people with fewer social ties and those with little to lose. But this piece would be laughed out of town if it were suggested as explanatory of a ‘veteran mindset’ in any other societies with aggressive foreign policy. Let’s just say a piece like this could not, for good reasons, be written about US service-personnel. And need I remind, the vast majority of people in Russia fighting are from all walks of life, not from prisons. And they fight for many different reasons because they feel powerless, because of social sanctions, and, yes, to overcome a sense of powerlessness. I think there is more than enough studies of correlation between recruitment and class in the US. Last time that topic was discussed in this thread, this article was linked with evidence that currently US mostly recruits from middle class https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-the-u-s-military-became-the-exception-to-americas-wage-stagnation-problem/. Perhaps because US and Russia are different and their militaries are currently engaged in different kinds of activities. I believe "they fight for many reasons" is horseshit, material gains is all that matters for people who enlist, Russian MOD knows that which is why the poorer region or town you visit, the more recruitment ads with SALARY NUMBERS in bold and large fonts you see (I recently visited Kazan and Volgograd and it is honestly staggering how ridden with those is the latter and how in the former it is mostly limited to metro and other transport stations). This army is kept together by insane amounts spent on it daily to keep cannon fodder in trenches to hold what was conquered. Discounting massive direct injections of cash to people from depressed regions would be a mistake and if the war continues for more 4-5 years with steady rotations though recruit drives and mobilization waves (probably not this year, likely after presidential election 2024) it is going to have a visible effect there. --- Unrelated but from this author I liked the rebuttal to Timothy Snyder and one of the oft-repeated arguments https://postsocialism.org/2023/04/14/why-tim-snyder-is-wrong/ fatherboxx fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Sep 27, 2023 |
# ? Sep 27, 2023 23:26 |
|
Charliegrs posted:I mean does Russia even need the more advanced weapons platforms like that to wage this war? I think if they get into a full scale war economy they will be building tons of the stuff that isn't cutting edge like T72s, BMP3s, etc. Also they could probably still drag a lot of old rear end cold war stuff out of storage and refurbish it. It's still up in the air if they can shift enough resources around to pull that off. Shifting to full wartime production isn't an easy thing to pull off or do well. There's social factors to consider in addition to the resource ones, and I'm not really sure anyone knows how well that would go down. Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Sep 28, 2023 |
# ? Sep 27, 2023 23:54 |
Charliegrs posted:I mean does Russia even need the more advanced weapons platforms like that to wage this war? I think if they get into a full scale war economy they will be building tons of the stuff that isn't cutting edge like T72s, BMP3s, etc. Also they could probably still drag a lot of old rear end cold war stuff out of storage and refurbish it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctrtAwT2sgs From his look at the loss statistics, his conclusion is that it seems like Russia has a certain (lowish) amount of new built or modernized vehicles (T90M, T80BVM or BMP-3 for example), as well as a good (larger) number of refurbished (but not modernized) vehicles (T80B or BMP-1). So Russia is already pulling a lot of stuff out of depots and sending it directly to the front. How long they can keep that up is a good question, but some huge depots gave already seen 50% and more of the stored equipment disappearing. So a lot is gone, but a lot is still there, but also not infinite. Aircraft production in comparison is basically zero. Here is the video about Russian artillery in depots: https://youtu.be/EVqHY5hpzv8?si=vbf6yHJChPZvqF0r Always keep in mind that Russia isn’t the Soviet Union. Russia does not have the same capability of producing ludicrous amounts of armored fighting vehicles of every kind.
|
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 00:34 |
|
Ynglaur posted:Very fair points.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 01:31 |
|
Night fighting is very difficult even with the appropriate gear
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 01:40 |
Charlz Guybon posted:Why hasn't there been much more night fighting? Haven't the Ukrainians been shipped tons of night vision gear while the Russians sold all there stuff as "second hand" gear to collectors before the war? I expected it to be a much bigger factor than it has.
|
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 02:29 |
|
war is confusing and lovely even in the best circumstances, throwing darkness into the equation (even with night vision gear) makes it even worse
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 02:59 |
|
Charlz Guybon posted:Why hasn't there been much more night fighting? Haven't the Ukrainians been shipped tons of night vision gear while the Russians sold all there stuff as "second hand" gear to collectors before the war? I expected it to be a much bigger factor than it has. Maybe the battalion commanders can't see the battlefield over UAV so they won't order night assaults. Just like the smoke rumor. Real answer is that there's a bazillion more variables than night vision availability that we're not keen on that are factored into assaults. Russia's gear might have slightly improved over time too, I know there's been appeals to crowdsourcing for night vision gear, same as UAVs, in Russia. Even janky night vision is probably decent enough for defensive use.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 03:36 |
|
fatherboxx posted:...all the good stuff... Thanks for that.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 04:03 |
|
Night fighting practically has to be limited to smaller engagements because friend or foe designating is made extremely difficult. If your breakthrough elements charge too far past the front then they run the risk of being mistaken for enemy forces by the follow up elements. Night fighting does work really well with the Bite and Hold strategy that someone in this or the GBS topic mentioned.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 05:11 |
It probably doesn't help that both sides are fielding a lot of the same equipment (tanks, IFVs) making it difficult to tell whose who at night.
|
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 06:33 |
|
Charlz Guybon posted:Why hasn't there been much more night fighting? Haven't the Ukrainians been shipped tons of night vision gear while the Russians sold all there stuff as "second hand" gear to collectors before the war? I expected it to be a much bigger factor than it has. Flares are cheap.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 06:33 |
I’ll just quote this post:Moon Slayer posted:Speaking of night combat, here's a CNN piece with one of their reporters embedded with a Ukrainian drone unit: There have been numerous videos and news articles about how a lot of the fighting is taking place at night and has been shifting there more and more, because Ukraine has the advantage there. You can see it in this video, as the Russians need to use flares, while the Ukrainians use night vision equipment.
|
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 06:49 |
|
Having done night ops in training, there’s a very strong reasoning behind “you haven’t mastered your training until you’re doing it at night, with live rounds”. It’s a thing my platoon training officer at the US army infantry officer school wanted to all but beat into our think little skulls, and for good reason. The night vision gear is nice, don’t get me wrong; but it’s also another piece of gear that’s prone to malfunction or breaking outright, and it’s a piece of kit you don’t really have a substitute for (aside from light sources that work for everyone nearby, instead of just for you).
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 10:43 |
|
Everything also looks different. Doing things at night even with high quality night vision is really, really hard.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 11:41 |
|
It's also very dependent on moon phase and weather. A clear night with good lume and night vision makes it look like the middle of the day. A full overcast is like walking around in a cave.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 12:05 |
|
For the defender it gets a lot easier using thermals since you're not out crawling or walking around, and you can set up a nice cozy spot that is relatively obscured against opponent vision/thermals. If the Russians do not already have at least 1 expensive thermal scope per company, the corruption is just to deep to fix. Even with relatively cheap rifle mounted thermal scopes you can see someone smoking a cigarette from several kilometers away.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 12:46 |
|
Seeing that this topic was discussed some time ago, here is a great investigation from Russian media Verstka about drug usage and drug business in Russian army https://verstka.media/kak-rossiyskie-soldaty-upotrebliayut-narkotiki-na-voyne?tg_rhash=86cf5f61f61288 On the business following the troops and adapting to the needs on the fly: quote:According to the contractors, most of the banned substances are sold by local residents. "There are cab drivers who take them directly to the unit. The soldiers already know who to take what from. Just now my fellow soldier, who was caught red-handed, went with one of them to the store to buy food. On the way it turned out that the driver knew where to get it and could bring it to him. They hadn't even gotten to the store yet, but they'd already made a deal. Money in advance, a meeting is set for the transfer - at 18.00, for example, at the entrance to the unit. Mobilized as the primary customers, no surprise here: quote:"You just don't paint yourself a picture of us in the trenches doped up One of the most interesting parts – Russian feds when they came into occupied Kherson as first priority took local drug market under protection: quote:This information is also confirmed by a source of "Vyrstka", an officer of the Airborne Troops. "When we came to Kherson, in the first week a brigade of feds from Crimea came there," he says. - 'All sorts of drug sellers and stores they were actually less interested in. It's more of an ad hoc thing. But they had to bring all the criminals under their control, including these ones. They used to bring these devils to our basement. I don't know what they agreed on, but they all came out Under the counter medicine: quote:In Rostov-on-Don and Bataysk, near which there are large military garrisons and where many war-supporting volunteers work, pharmacists who sell Lyrica and Tropicamide without prescriptions are periodically detained. Drug users also call it "cartoons" - these are pharmacy eye drops that are used to enhance the effect of other psychoactive substances. After only a few uses, "cartoon" causes a strong dependence, which completely destroys the body in 7-8 months of regular use. Regarding the oft-mentioned “battle drugs” – no evidence of deliberately drugged soldiers or rationed stimulators, on the contrary – caught users tend to be sent into high-fatality storm units as punishment: quote:We also have promedol, a narcotic analgesic, a barbiturate, but they gently caress you hard for it. According to the manual, it's given to you when you're wounded, administered by your partner. But for every injection you have to write an explanatory note and report. Everything is very strict there. quote:One of such punishments, according to the "Verstka" interlocutor, was sending the military to the "Storm" assault units, where they, along with prisoners recruited for the war, are thrown to the first front line.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 13:25 |
|
The New York Times has a pretty good interactive today. Good reading for someone like myself that does not have the time to analyze every piece of news that comes out. The takeaways for me are 1: there has been minimal changes in the front lines this year and 2) the Russian strategy is to turn the conflict into a grinding forever war and hope the other side's supporters tire of the conflict. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/28/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war-map-front-line.html
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 13:26 |
|
There have been several experts/commentators who have recently said this war has now turned into a battle of wills. The Russian leadership/elite have it and Ukraine has, it probably will come down betweene Russian public/soldiers at the front and the western arms/aid for Ukraine. We will know a lot more once winter really sets in and whether the Russian leadership believes it is capable of launching a proper counter-offensive. I think if we do not see any major attempts by Russia to push back the Ukrainians it would confirm that they just intend on freezing the conflict as is and waiting out the West.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 13:39 |
|
This war is going to be decided on the Russian domestic front before it's decided on the battlefield.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 14:53 |
|
i was thinking about the russians trying to advance and I wonder, with so many mines planted if they even have a way to get through that themselves. maybe its a lot easier to drive through it if you know exactly where they are, or you leave hidden corridors open. i assume the former less than the later. I dunno
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 15:45 |
|
fatherboxx posted:In Rostov-on-Don and Bataysk, near which there are large military garrisons and where many war-supporting volunteers work, pharmacists who sell Lyrica and Tropicamide without prescriptions are periodically detained. Drug users also call it "cartoons" - these are pharmacy eye drops that are used to enhance the effect of other psychoactive substances. After only a few uses, "cartoon" causes a strong dependence, which completely destroys the body in 7-8 months of regular use. was curious wtf is with the eye drops, and I'm surprised to see this: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-heroin/special-report-in-russia-a-glut-of-heroin-and-denial-idUSTRE70O22X20110125 apparently russia has been using it as a more dangerous form of methadone for a long time now. I have heard of eye drops in the US being lethal if ingested orally, but they're a different drug that has a strong cardiac effect.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 15:59 |
|
ethanol posted:i was thinking about the russians trying to advance and I wonder, with so many mines planted if they even have a way to get through that themselves. maybe its a lot easier to drive through it if you know exactly where they are, or you leave hidden corridors open. i assume the former less than the later. I dunno Mines are a problem if they're defended, otherwise engineers can move up and remove them. For their own mines, they'd know which areas are mined, and unless they were seriously pushed back to the point that the enemy was now using them, they'd be able to remove any that were in the way.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 16:03 |
|
ethanol posted:i was thinking about the russians trying to advance and I wonder, with so many mines planted if they even have a way to get through that themselves. maybe its a lot easier to drive through it if you know exactly where they are, or you leave hidden corridors open. i assume the former less than the later. I dunno That's really the biggest operational problem with mines. You need enough engineer assets available to breach your minefield when you're ready to attack again. You don't want to leave a lane open once the enemy is there as it will likely be found and exploited. If you're planning on a forever war with no intention of going on the offense anytime soon, then you can go hog wild with artillery scattered mines. That's a future problem for someone else to deal with
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 16:04 |
|
saratoga posted:Mines are a problem if they're defended, otherwise engineers can move up and remove them. For their own mines, they'd know which areas are mined, and unless they were seriously pushed back to the point that the enemy was now using them, they'd be able to remove any that were in the way. I’d put a big asterisk on this assumption. Everyone knows where the mines are in a general sense, but they certainly weren’t laid in a pattern and there’s a good chance that most frontline Russian troops who would remember any specifics have already become casualties or demobilized. A hypothetical Russian offensive would have to pick their way through the minefields just like the Ukrainians, likely without as much training or equipment. Apart from in a few areas in the north where the minefields haven’t been planted in depth, there’s no way that Russians are going to be capable of conducting an opposed offensive.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 16:11 |
|
Dirt5o8 posted:That's really the biggest operational problem with mines. You need enough engineer assets available to breach your minefield when you're ready to attack again. You don't want to leave a lane open once the enemy is there as it will likely be found and exploited. Wasn't the current defenses masterminded by Surovikin? Even if Putin still has delusions of conquering all of Ukraine, Surovikin seemed to have a far better sense of what may actually be feasible. The achievable priority is maintaining hold of currently conquered territory, if that means sacrificing an already doomed future offense, then oh well.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 16:15 |
|
efb, but it's a good enough video to post twiceEasilyConfused posted:They've been dragging a lot of old rear end cold war stuff out storage and refurbishing it for over a year now. It's not clear how much more they have available. Available data on equipment losses suggests that they're running out of stockpiles. As usual, Perun has a video on the topic, and it's got recent data in it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctrtAwT2sgs mllaneza fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Sep 28, 2023 |
# ? Sep 28, 2023 16:23 |
|
saratoga posted:Mines are a problem if they're defended, otherwise engineers can move up and remove them. For their own mines, they'd know which areas are mined, and unless they were seriously pushed back to the point that the enemy was now using them, they'd be able to remove any that were in the way. In a general sense, yes, but so do the Ukrainians. The Russians will still have to go through the process of demining the fields before they can attack there, which seriously causes friction for your offensive even if they are your own mines
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 16:24 |
|
Claimed footage of Sokolov at an award ceremony on 9/27, but internet commentators are saying it took place on 9/18. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to fake something like this, I can't see you Weekend at Bernie's an admiral for long. Has there been video footage of Kadyrov since the coma thing? https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1707056671271399690#m WSJ has an interesting article about drones: https://www.wsj.com/world/drones-ev..._mobilewebshare Some quotes quote:“Today, a column of tanks or a column of advancing troops can be discovered in three to five minutes and hit in another three minutes. The survivability on the move is no more than 10 minutes,” said Maj. Gen. Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy commander of Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence service. “Surprises have become very difficult to achieve.” quote:Russian jamming of the GPS signal—increasingly a problem for Western-made weapons such as Himars missiles, precision shells and guided bombs—meant the pilot had to fly the drone visually, using a satellite map on his screen and comparing it with the camera feed. The target was a Russian 152mm self-propelled artillery piece southwest of Robotyne that was spotted earlier in the day and hit by artillery using cluster munitions that disabled its treads. It seems that Russians have improved the reaction speed of their artillery. If the Ukrainian offensive stalls out, I would imagine that some of their current gains would be ceded? I think I read somewhere a while back that the ground is being held right now because of constant offensive movements to push Russian counterattacks back, but I'm not sure if the ground they have is actually defensible. In any case, I see more articles saying that the war is likely going to be a long one, so I hope that reflects the current thinking of military planners and politicians.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 16:42 |
|
WarpedLichen posted:Has there been video footage of Kadyrov since the coma thing? Yes.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 16:44 |
|
LifeSunDeath posted:was curious wtf is with the eye drops, and I'm surprised to see this: And here was me just wondering what they were doing with the Lyrica i take daily for neuralgia.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 17:20 |
|
WarpedLichen posted:
Excuse me but I was assured by the top analysts on the Forums that Ukraine would only be using cluster munitions to injure and kill children years from now, not to actually fight the Russians! For actual content, Punchbowl's morning newsletter on Ukraine funding and the House clusterfuck. Bolding mine: quote:Despite overwhelming majorities, no clear path for Ukraine aid
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 17:23 |
|
Deltasquid posted:In a general sense, yes, but so do the Ukrainians. The Russians will still have to go through the process of demining the fields before they can attack there, which seriously causes friction for your offensive even if they are your own mines There is a cost of course, but it isn't like an undefended mine field is going to be an undefeatable barrier to an offensive. Compared to the (heavily defended) Ukrainian minefields on the far side of the lines, the Russians own mines are hardly a problem.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 17:42 |
|
saratoga posted:There is a cost of course, but it isn't like an undefended mine field is going to be an undefeatable barrier to an offensive. Compared to the (heavily defended) Ukrainian minefields on the far side of the lines, the Russians own mines are hardly a problem. No reason for it to be undefended. While it's not as hard as clearing someone elses minefield, the Ukrainians absolutely will take them under direct fire, shell them, everything that you would do with your own minefield. And if you do finally clear a lane they'll probably shell it with artillery-deployed mines. It also makes it incredibly obvious where you're going to mount counter offensives....
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 17:49 |
|
WarpedLichen posted:If the Ukrainian offensive stalls out, I would imagine that some of their current gains would be ceded? I think I read somewhere a while back that the ground is being held right now because of constant offensive movements to push Russian counterattacks back, but I'm not sure if the ground they have is actually defensible. Ceding the small gains that they have won will be disastrous PR wise. It is unlikely it will come to that though. The Russians have shown absolutely no ability to conduct counter attacks of the magnitude required to eject the Ukrainians from their new holdings. Neither the local counter attacks in the South or the vigorous efforts in the North where VDV units were committed early in the summer bore any fruit. In addition any attempt to move the significant numbers of troops and vehicles required for a major push to retake territory seized by the AFU is almost certainly going to be spotted well in advance by US intelligence allowing for the Ukrainians to react appropriately.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 19:13 |
|
|
# ? Jun 8, 2024 08:30 |
|
MikeC posted:Ceding the small gains that they have won will be disastrous PR wise. It is unlikely it will come to that though. The Russians have shown absolutely no ability to conduct counter attacks of the magnitude required to eject the Ukrainians from their new holdings. Neither the local counter attacks in the South or the vigorous efforts in the North where VDV units were committed early in the summer bore any fruit. See also the discussion earlier on the page about Russia trying to attack through their own minefields when Ukraine has guns trained on them.
|
# ? Sep 28, 2023 19:23 |