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Mulva posted:.....have you looked at a calendar lately? One way or another it's going to be over well before then. This isn't the type of fight where Ukraine decides to just take 4 months off in the middle of it and the Russians sit around with their dick in their hands. It's going to go relatively hard until one side breaks, and it's likely to happen in the next month. Two at the outside. 2023 might as well be 3033 for all the relevance it has. I'm not so sure about this take. Suppose the Russian offensive does takes Ukraine, I would imagine there would be a long period of underground resistance after similar to what happened in Afghanistan unless extreme Russian terror tactics can suppress the population, which would still take a prolonged period of time. On the contrary if Russian military does fail, I don't see Russia publicly backing off on this barring a regime collapse and a long period of no official peace is still on the table. Maybe it won't make daily news but I don't think it'll be over by a long shot.
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Apr 18, 2022 17:50
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Mulva posted:It's just a question of how much they are willing to spend to lose what they now hold. I think that's the key point there, I don't think there's a reasonable limit to this number until Putin gets forced out.
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Apr 18, 2022 17:58
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Aertuun posted:My poor summary of his analysis on the current situation: in a war of attrition, the eventual victor is uncertain. However, Russia needs to go to full mobilisation to win. It hasn't yet, and it may be getting too late for it to do so. What would factor into it being "too late" to fully mobilize? Is it based on economic or logistical factors? Sanctions hurting too much or ammo running low? I'm not aware of any ticking clock in Ukraine's favor at the moment.
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Apr 18, 2022 22:20
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the popes toes posted:Remember that the anti-tank Stugna-P and the Ukrainian missile that sunk the Moskva are Ukrainian made, technically complex, modern and effective. The Moskva was also built in Ukraine. They will certainly revive their industrial capacity for these and other arms. While they may indeed purchase other inventories, it would be surprising if Ukraine themselves don't find customers for their proven materiel as they rebuild their industry. To who though? I can't see any nation state basing their military supply chain on a 3rd party with unfriendly neighbors. Regarding mobilization, I don't think this war is close to ending until I see stuff like massive protests calling for regime change in Russia. I feel like there's no way out for Putin while saving face and my gut is telling me that his desire for prestige outweighs any number of damage to the Russian population. Even if the Russian military is diminished to the point where it can't mount any real offensives, they can keep up border skirmishes for a long time.
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Apr 18, 2022 23:05
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Rad Russian posted:Option 3 is Russia mobilizing more troops and trying to delay the war. My guess is the current offensives are to get the actual active army to capture the land areas Putin wants to defend (looks like all of Donbas + land bridge). Putin can then mobilize just the reservists, let's say 300K, to send there and dig them into trenches. All they need for that are rifles and basic AT weapons. The remaining active army will provide artillery support and air support. It will be hard to attack 300K entrenched troops and that can buy Russia 8 more years of protracted war just like it was since 2014 (although it was a smaller front). I think people are making a big mistake here assuming Russia has to keep the offense going to continue the war. It is likely in my eyes that even if Russia starts running out of resources to perpetuate an offensive war, they can keep Ukraine from recapturing the areas they've already taken. In fact, they might keep the war ongoing on a low burn to strengthen the dictatorship at home. Basically, the North Korea model on a larger scale. This will suck for the Russian people, but Putin and his supporters might take this option just to stay in power because they can keep the propaganda and rhetoric up. The recent videos of Putin being markedly unhealthy might mean that the powers that be in Russia looking to stabilize the country might prefer the war to focus attention on, stupid as it sounds. This also sucks for Ukraine because Russia might be able to put enough pressure on to make recovery impossible. If the situation gets normalized enough, parties in the EU might want to reestablish economic ties with Russia. If Ukraine does get armed enough to go on the offense, I think the calculus does change and it might be the only viable shot at reversing this situation.
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Apr 22, 2022 16:43
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:Putin wants to be a bulwark against communism I have literally never heard that before?
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Apr 22, 2022 16:55
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Thing is we have countless videos of Putin sitting, walking, flying with storks, riding bears, and doing other things. As far as everyone has been concerned up until now, he’s rather healthy for someone who is 69. I think this video calls for attention to it, something is definitely up. It looks like his leg fell asleep while standing. reddit link
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Apr 22, 2022 17:18
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saratoga posted:This is like saying the only way the NVA can win the Vietnam war is to drive the US army into the sea. Or that victory in Afghanistan is inevitable (either Soviet or US, take your pick). Yes you can win attritional warfare by overwhelming the enemy in conventional mobile warfare, but more often the side with more sustainability and more will to fight just exhausts the other side and gradually forces them to fall back into more and more isolated positions until the war becomes unsustainable. I think you're missing the context where I'm arguing against the war being over quickly. How long did Vietnam or Afghanistan last? Both of those were two decade long conflicts. It takes a long time to exhaust a nation's will to fight. I doubt Russia can sustain a two decade conflict like the US can but it won't end after this offensive in May. I feel like even the end of this year is rosy thinking.
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Apr 22, 2022 17:49
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Alchenar posted:I think it's worth noting though that in Transnistra, Georgia, and Ukraine 2014 Russia has gotten away with a pattern of frozen conflicts - it's been the up-till-now successful model of Putin's coercive diplomacy, aided by a West that has prioritised demanding immediate ceasefires and then pushing the victims of Russian aggression to accept concessions (ie. Minsk). I think that's another key point. On the invasion side, Russia is against Ukraine who have a ton of motivation never accept defeat. If Russia is on the "defensive", they might think they only need to hold out against the West's political will to give aid. It remains to be seen how successful a future Ukrainian offensive will be but I think that will be the key indicator to how long this conflict will last.
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Apr 22, 2022 18:04
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saratoga posted:The key point is that a long war enormously favors the defenders. Arguing that Ukraine needs to have some bold offensive to win while Russia can sit back and try to slow down the conflict is exactly backwards. Russia's goals are to end the conflict as soon as possible with a negotiated settlement that releases the hundreds of billions in frozen assets and crippling sanctions. Ukraine's are to deny them the ability to do that. This is why you see the Russians drip feeding in reinforcements and grinding down already depleted units just to push the front line a few kilometers forwards. They have to make big gains or they are eventually going to have to give up so there is no point in building up forces. I'm not saying that Ukraine has to win quick, I'm saying that big offensive gains would be the only way for the war to end quickly. The dreams of a quick Russian victory is a pipedream from the start and I agree that Ukraine would likely emerge the victor if the war becomes a quagmire with or without Western support. All I'm saying is that I don't believe the current Russian leadership would accept a ceasefire where they cede territory they took from Ukraine if their offensive stalls out. I don't think it's a controversial take to suggest that Putin would rather suffer economic sanctions than to surrender and lose face.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:12
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On the brimstone topic has anybody heard a confirmation about what platform it's going to be put on? Integrating a new weapon on a drone that hasn't had support for it before is kinda non-trivial even if a hot war makes it go faster.
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Apr 29, 2022 00:48
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FishBulbia posted:https://twitter.com/jackdetsch/status/1522287203304542209?s=21 That's the next phase of the propaganda machine huh, the West is now pushing for war and Ukraine is just along for the ride? What exactly are their goals in this case?
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May 5, 2022 22:50
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Every time I read something about how the Russians perspective on the world and how they operate I am horrified by the influence over thinking of the state media apparatus. It's like 1984 made real. Sure is some scary sobering stuff about the realities of the modern world. If there is a next generation of Russian leader, how will they make sense of the world as it is vs what they were taught. Unless of course like all elites, they got a western education first.
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May 16, 2022 17:48
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KitConstantine posted:And there are people from Russia that are on board. Russia has never experienced a reckoning with it's actions in both World Wars and during the Soviet purges, and maybe it's time they have. A good article came out from The Spectator on this topic - by a Russian, Sergey Radchenko, who I'm quite certain speaks Russian I think that's not quite being fair to the Russian people who have absolutely experienced a ton of reckonings but haven't been able to get better leadership out of it. Feel like that's been the case since WWI? I feel like maybe some sort of widespread intervention after the fall of the Soviet Union might have been able to turn things around but I don't think a humiliating defeat in Ukraine will do anything positive there.
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May 18, 2022 20:06
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KitConstantine posted:The problem is what are the other options? Letting Russia gain from their imperialist war? What good will that do the Russian people? Allowing them to stay in their current "at least it's not the 90's" bubble isn't doing Russians or Ukrainians any favors. I'm not saying that there's any alternative here. But Russia reminds me of an addict that keeps getting in trouble with the law. It's absolutely his fault and society should absolutely defend his victims but it also seems laughable to suggest that hitting rock bottom again will break the cycle. It absolutely depends on the Russian people but I remind that their loudest activist voices have been getting assassinated/imprisoned by the regime for generations at this point. I think ramping up anti Putin propaganda to isolate the leadership from the rank and file is probably the best thing the Western world can do instead of treating the entire country as the problem. Edit: remember with Garry Kasparov was running for Russian president? Is there an alternate history where clandestine Western support would've changed the current situation?
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May 18, 2022 20:37
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Paladinus posted:Russia is a country, not a person. Countries don't behave like people. Perhaps you can elaborate on this point instead of pointing out the obvious.
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May 18, 2022 21:14
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Rad Russian posted:Any organizations that require ALL members to agree on something before anything happens are dumb and unscalable by design. They work fine when it's a group of 5 friends doing stuff together, but when it gets to 15+ members it's a degenerate blackmail mill, with random nobodies who joined recently demanding payments, or else they grind everything to a halt. NATO should have always been 3/4th vote required for new members. I would agree in general but 3/4 vote for new members doesn't really work in the context of a defensive military alliance.
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May 18, 2022 23:32
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PederP posted:The whole 'dig in and the war freezes' thing doesn't make sense: I feel like your first point and your second point don't align. But that may differ depending on what a frozen war looks like to you. There technically isn't even a real war happening now, just a special military operation, so I'm not sure how much precedence applies. Do you consider the situation post 2014 a frozen war or not? The war will defacto "freeze" if: 1. Russia and Ukraine cannot come to a mutual understanding of what peace will look like and 2. Neither side is finding it advantageous to make serious offensives The economic war is another front on which the Russians are being attacked, but like all the other losses Russia has taken so far, it hasn't been enough to move for surrender yet. Especially if Russia expects that the ostracization to continue to some degree after the war anyway. It might be unlikely to freeze at the current lines, but I can easily imagine a future where no formal peace is declared because Putin is being stubborn and is still holding onto Crimea while leaving a stretch of scorched earth in eastern Ukraine nobody wants to rebuild or fight over. In fact, that is probably what is most palatable to Russia, a settlement with the EU/US to end the tougher sanctions with a peace agreement not recognized by Ukraine because of a cessation of its territories. WarpedLichen fucked around with this message at 00:24 on May 27, 2022 |
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May 27, 2022 00:19
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What role does a MBT even play in a conflict like this? There's been a lot of reports about armored columns getting destroyed in transit but relatively few reports on their efficacy in combat.
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Jun 5, 2022 18:40
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Cicero posted:That's weird, I thought the military at least used more metric units. It can be a real grab bag of units. Some things are in metric for NATO interoperability and then you get to aviation where it's mostly imperial. For tooling and assembly well, you work with what you got.
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Jun 7, 2022 08:19
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Is the situation similar in France and Italy? It does seem like the Europeans want a negotiated ceasefire but I'm not sure what their long term idea of the situation is. Just sacrifice Ukraine as a buffer state to keep the gas flowing? How will they get the US and Poland to stop giving support to the Ukrainians if the Ukrainians don't give up?
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Jun 9, 2022 21:26
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The thing I see in the US is that the public is already getting bored of war coverage and are moving onto other hot issues like gun control and abortion. The less central this is to public consciousness the easier it is for politicians to slowly ease off the tap when it arguably needs to be turned on even higher. I've seen commentators argue that you would expect that the total funding for this war to be at least equal to the war in Afghanistan before a hope for victory and we're kinda still really far off at this point. Afghanistan/Iraq are roughly in the order of $2 trillion each Using figures here Total Aid to Ukraine: ~$70 billion I don't believe its really an apples to apples comparison but this is orders of magnitude away at this point in scope. I believe we'll see some more short term Russian success until the Ukrainians can rearm to NATO standard and get resupplied en mass, but that's probably some early next year stuff. But I can easily see political figures balking at the upfront cost if the economy falters.
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Jun 10, 2022 19:42
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Rigel posted:There is no power or lobbying group in the USA, not corporations, not the NRA, nothing you can think of that is more powerful than the MIC. Ukraine is by far the greatest thing that has ever happened for them since.... God I don't know, I'd argue perhaps in generations given the increased demand across the world. This is even better for them than our desert folly. I don't think the MIC much cares about who wins the war, just that tensions are increased and conflict is ongoing. Cynically, a Ukrainian rump state that receives aid with a highly militarized border is probably preferable than a victorious Ukraine.
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Jun 10, 2022 20:41
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Vox Nihili posted:Drone warfare is the answer. Cheaper, less training required, and your "pilots" don't have to be replaced every time a sortie is shot down by the opposition's overwhelming anti-air capabilities. I don't think its as clear cut as this. Drones have far less capability in terms of speed, payload, and stealth compared to manned jets and are therefore far easier to shoot down. They are more easily replaced but more easily does not mean easy. Ukraine will definitely still want a manned airforce.
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Jun 10, 2022 22:34
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Telsa Cola posted:The point is that jungle environments or environments with extremely dense vegetation is like the exact opposite of the current environment in Ukraine and that a jungle environment would have had a tremendous impact on how things play out. I think the original point is about Ukraine getting an airforce like the Vietnamese did and I'm also not sure how jungles would matter in that context.
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Jun 11, 2022 00:23
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Electric Wrigglies posted:SEAD against SAMs hiding in hilly, misty and monsoonal jungles vs SEAD against SAMs hiding in the middle of flat, clear blue sky wheat fields... I'm not really sure what this statement is supposed to mean. The north vietnamese airforce flew defensive ambush sorties and not SEAD missions. If we're arguing that the Ukranian airforce can be built up in sufficient time to wrestle away control of the airspace and win the war, that seems far fetched. I don't think the airforce will be a decisive factor for this war anytime soon. But people talk about sending fighter jets to Ukraine because there is value in getting them working, which is more than I can say for tanks.
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Jun 11, 2022 01:43
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Paladinus posted:Just a reminder that the ban of those parties is not actually extended to Rada members themselves. They are still there as either the newly formed Platform for Life and Peace group, or simply as independents. Well, barring the ever controversial Ilia Kiva who used to be in Right Sector, but switched to Opposition Platform for, uh, reasons, and who is now a fixture on Russian propaganda talk shows. Maybe there are a couple of other ex-Rada members like this that I missed. E: Even Medvedchuk is still a Rada member. That's interesting, how are parties structured in the Ukraine? Is it just a name you get on a ballot or does it do more than that?
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Jun 12, 2022 05:50
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Mans posted:Two to three million Ukrainians spent eight years being shelled by Ukrainian artillery and seeing fanatics do horrifying things to their community (https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-tornado-battalion-rogue-paramilitaries-kyiv-trial-crimes/28205795.html), their civilian centers are being bombed as we speak even though Ukraine claims to have no spare artillery shells. All I can say is lol what quote:But even with the courtroom closed to observers, the latest Tornado trial has become a public spectacle. Authorities released video footage from a court session they said shows the defendants interrupting proceedings by shouting and hurling their own feces and urine at judges and prosecutors. One defendant is heard in the video recording threatening a judge, "I'll come after you, bitch, and I'll rape your corpse with a rubber cock." quote:One man came to Topolskov, he said, to tell him about Tornado fighters who forced him and another male detainee at gunpoint to rape a third man who was tied to a pommel horse.
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Jun 14, 2022 17:35
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sean10mm posted:I feel like there's a big element of people assuming stuff not discussed in public (because it shouldn't be discussed in public due to OPSEC) means it doesn't exist. I mean the specifics of shuttling Ukrainian soldiers around for training and when/where arms shipments will arrive will be OPSEC but ramping up production and setting up logistics are big operations of scale that would be hard to keep under wraps even if they don't get official press releases.
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Jun 15, 2022 20:41
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Ynglaur posted:Which part(s) of his post do you doubt? I think this is more of a framing issue. For instance on the artillery claim. He mentions that Ukraine requested 10 battalions and the west has delivered 12. As far as I know the US has delivered 90 artillery units whereas the twitter request from Mykhailo Podolyak was for 1000 units. So it can both be true that the figures proposed in these summits are being met while other political figures outside these discussions can be demanding much more. It makes sense in so much as nobody has a solid idea of exactly how much material is needed to win the war and even other Ukrainian figures are hesitant to comment on the Podolyak numbers, see this video. I think its clear that the west is still providing support, the results of this support will take time to show impacts in the field, and everybody involved understands that more funding will be needed in the future.
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Jun 16, 2022 19:27
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Herstory Begins Now posted:they've received (and fully trained crews for) 150+ pieces of artillery as of a week or two ago, which does come out to around that number of artillery battalions I'm not familiar with artillery battalion sizes, but I don't think you have 1000 guns in 10 battalions.
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Jun 16, 2022 19:43
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Herstory Begins Now posted:im saying 12 battalions (artillery battalions tending to be considerably smaller than infantry battalions) matches up to 150 guns and crews. I wasn't disputing the 12 battalion number at all so I agree with you there. I just wanted to say that his statement makes it seem like the west is meeting all the Ukrainian demands but that can both be true in the context of what is asked for in strategy meetings while being not true in the context of what's being asked for elsewhere.
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Jun 16, 2022 20:28
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The position might be nonsensical but at least its consistent. I'm surprised that Macron is saying that's the semi official NATO position though. Though maybe its a moot point because they've already shipped all the soviet tanks and planes that the Ukrainians know how to use and training and shipping NATO versions is not the priority right now.
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Jun 17, 2022 01:18
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I was very disappointed in the way the war has been used politically in the US but I have to imagine its some mixture of it not being popular enough to be utilized or people in the know were way more pessimistic about the long term outcome. What the NBC news report makes me think is that the official prognosis is eternal quagmire and they didn't want to to tie the view of the administration to a forever war. I don't think they believe Ukraine will lose, I think they believe the war will last through the election cycle and would rather fund it quietly over letting the costs become a talking point.
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Jun 17, 2022 16:49
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Kraftwerk posted:Is there any evidence to suggest Putin had backchannel discussions where he credibly promised anything that shifts the balance of power too heavily in favour of Ukraine would result in a state of war between Russia and NATO? That doesn't make any sense though, if Russia starts losing a war with Ukraine they'll start a fight with even more countries?
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Jun 17, 2022 17:04
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Flavahbeast posted:oh I'm not saying that's what I think *will* happen, I'm just saying I don't think Putin would survive politically if it did I'm not sure if this vision of the future is comforting. Having people more radical than Putin in charge of Russia would not be a good time.
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Jun 18, 2022 00:33
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Alchenar posted:My mistake, Good catch. The OP made that claim too so it seems like he's trying to publish his preconceived conclusions regardless of what the polls say. With the current economic conditions I wouldn't be surprised if most westerners are similarly pessimistic.
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Jun 18, 2022 19:07
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ZombieLenin posted:Well, from what I understand the Russian Army is now using shells left over from 1945 in some cases. I mean, that may be, but ultimately artillery shells aren't hard to make and the Russian army won't run out of shells to use so I don't think it really matters. Some factory will ramp up production because no matter what Russia will need to replenish its stockpiles anyway. But I don't think any of the recent developments are in any way surprising and I'm not worried about Ukraine suing for peace anytime soon.
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Jun 27, 2022 02:08
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khwarezm posted:They were actively accused of being treasonous, but if they were banned solely because of decommunisation that's even worse as a sign of Ukraine's commitment to democracy. Link is broken, you missed an l at the end. I don't think it is a surprise that a war time government gets less democratic. I'm not sure what context banning a political party in Ukraine has but it seems like you are pushing the narrative that a full on right wing coup is going on. Is the right wing surging in Ukraine, absolutely, the post war political sphere of Ukraine will bear the scars of war. WarpedLichen fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Jun 28, 2022 |
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Jun 28, 2022 17:03
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Is it weird to anybody else how relatively static this war has been after the initial thrust was repelled? It seems odd to me that every inch is so hard fought. I expected more movement of the lines based on capture of local superiority like the recent conflicts in the middle east where the lines shifted a lot once a town was taken. Certainly if not along the mainline of Russian advance, I would have expected more movement on the periphery where Ukrainians retake ground that isn't being actively defended. Is this a result of the terrain or just Ukrainian defensive doctrine being more conservative on taking offensives action when they can't be sure of holding the gains?
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Jul 6, 2022 17:50
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