|
brugroffil posted:I don't think a helicopter surviving a stinger hit is a sign of things going poorly for Russian military forces so far. Yeah I don't think anyone except the military commanders know what's actually happening and with the speed of modern warfare, even they probably don't have a full picture. This isn't command and conquer we're not going to get real time information as civilians. Random videos of a chopper being shot down don't matter much to the overall strategic picture which in my opinion points to the Ukrainian resistance disintegrating within a week. Remember: in 1999 the United States lost an F-117 over Yugoslavia thanks to some luck with some old 1960s era short range SAMs. In the grand scheme of things the regime was still overthrown and the NATO bombings did their work. Russia could probably lose 50 helicopters and still win this war. The real question is how much resistance Ukranian regulars can put up to make this a costly conflict for Russia. Do they fight the full brunt of their assault or do they break off into a Taliban style resistance? Do they have the will to fight? From the limited footage I've seen of their territorial defense militias its basically a bunch of rank amateurs playing at war. It's like expecting the British Home Army in WW2 to blunt the main advance of Germany through France. Most of them have real life jobs, families and their military adventures are part time. Some of them are professions like cyber security experts and while their hearts are in the right place it seems to make more sense to use them in their original jobs rather than having them out on patrols in the snow against Russian regulars. Anyway I know nothing- I'm not a soldier or a military commander. But my gut tells me Ukraine is toast and its just a question of how long and how costly it'll be for the Russians. EDIT: Personally I hope this war costs the Russians dearly in blood and treasure so they think twice about Finland or one of the Baltic states. Kraftwerk fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Feb 24, 2022 |
#
¿
Feb 24, 2022 15:57
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 11, 2024 16:12 |
|
|
Shes Not Impressed posted:Thanks for thinking of Ukrainians as just "people" with "jobs". What was the point of this The point is they are woefully unprepared to fight a war with Russia who's been training and preparing for one the entire time with battle tested troops who've seen action in Syria. So what I'm saying is I'm not sure all these volunteer militias the Ukranians have been raising who are using their own money from a middle class lifestyle will be much use in a serious war as this is turning out to be.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 24, 2022 16:08
|
|
|
cinci zoo sniper posted:Territorial defence forces are national guard-style, and supposedly deployed primarily as a crowd control measure against saboteurs in urban context, from what we’ve heard of what they’re going to do so far. Ukrainian military are not psychos, to send civilians with basic training against the 1st Tank Army. That's better. Lots of misinformation out there. Despite what I've said I really hope Ukraine can put up more resistance. Do we even know if they've had a chance to use any of those weapons NATO countries sent them?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 24, 2022 16:27
|
|
|
A lot of European economies seem to depend on Russia for energy and to unload a lot of their luxury goods so they can't put up meaningful and serious resistance without crashing their economies. If this is how the world is behaving about Ukraine, I can only imagine how much worse it will be if China finally decides to annex Taiwan. Anyway- have the Ukrainian forces had a chance to use the javelins yet? I was just wondering if the missiles actually work as intended since this is exactly the sort of conflict that they'd have textbook applications for.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 24, 2022 17:55
|
|
|
The guy on the left looks like he’s seen some poo poo. That’s definitely the 1000 yard stare.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 24, 2022 23:56
|
|
|
Regarding Serbia and the former Yugoslavia it’s important to note that while there are historical ties associated with Russia and Serbia the situation now is much more complicated. Serbia bears a terrible grudge against the west for what it feels is unfair treatment when Yugoslavia broke up. But there’s younger people like myself who realize the old nationalist ways are pointless and don’t do much for the country. Tito knew the best way for the country’s survival was to take no sides and run an independent non alignment movement where he could play USA and Russia to gain the best advantage for Yugoslavia. When he died his successors had no idea or will to manage that delicate balancing act and thus you got the Yugoslav and Kosovo wars. Serbia as a country is fiercely independent in that they don’t like outside forces telling them how to run their affairs. At least that’s the attitude of people inside the country. More broadly the politics there are hosed up but are still in my opinion a lot more rational and an improvement over how it was in the 1990s. Serbia has been working towards greater integration with the EU over the protests of its old guard and boomer population who still bears a grudge for Kosovo. Like before it’s a balancing act. The leaders however corrupt they are know that if they lean too far to NATO or Russia they will face consequences so they try to ride the middle. Having said that if you look at Serbian arms procurement you’ll see they’re standardizing stuff like making their service rifles work with NATO ammunition so you can see which side they’re choosing even if they aren’t outright saying it. Serbia has a problem in that it’s major networks behave like Fox News and have a pro Trump bias and the simmering nationalism over their perceived losses means the president has to cater to nationalists by pretending he’s going to reoccupy Kosovo. I believe such things will never happen as he’s already got business interests there and people are making tons of money on various business interests there. From a purely material perspective there’s no need to annex Kosovo. It’s all just pandering and red meat to keep the nationalists on side. TL;DR: Serbia has had a long history of trying to go its own way between two superpowers and will align with whomever best benefits their own interests. Kraftwerk fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Feb 25, 2022 |
|
#
¿
Feb 25, 2022 15:54
|
|
|
Big Slammu posted:Also on the Milosevic apologetics being used to justify Russias aggression, as someone with a ton of Serbian/Croatian/Macedonian family and who studied Eastern European history very seriously as an undergrad, can’t recommend the BBC six part documentary on the fall of Yugoslavia enough as a jumping off point to educate yourself more on the topic. It’s old but still holds up great. You should be able to find all six parts online https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3q5rku As a Serbian i can confirm there’s a shitload of Cetniks that ruined it for everyone. Milosevic was a loving disaster. And what’s weird was we all knew it. They used to say “Glasaj te za Slobu i biće te u grobu” It turned out to be prophetic. Milan Panic should’ve led Serbia instead.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 25, 2022 23:49
|
|
|
How does US and Polish support help Ukraine now? Like how do you even distribute and move all those NLAWS and Javelin missiles to the front without getting your supply lines bombed to poo poo. The Russians surely know about the Lviv corridor and plan to interdict it somehow? Then there’s the other question, how do any of these new enlisted troops in Ukraine stand a chance if there’s zero time to train them? I’m just trying to understand if any of this material support can actually help. Like don’t you need a lot of training to fire a javelin or a stinger missile?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 26, 2022 07:06
|
|
|
Are there unofficial volunteer brigades showing up in Ukraine? Like American, British and French nationals fought in the Spanish civil war and in WW1 Americans fought on behalf of the French as pilots. Technically since it’s private citizens it doesn’t count as the Americans being directly involved.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 26, 2022 20:28
|
|
|
Answers Me posted:https://twitter.com/iaponomarenko/status/1497681804983164938?s=21 I hope that hidden Ukrainian AA comes out now and fast. Do the Russians have a fully developed SEAD/Wild Weasels type operation?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 26, 2022 22:19
|
|
|
Do the Ukrainian armed forces have anything left to hold or resist against a full thermobaric rocket barrage against the city? It sounds like the Russians are gonna burn them out along with any missiles they might have to resist the armoured columns.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 26, 2022 22:34
|
|
|
Could the Ukrainians retreat tactically to Lviv and continue the war?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2022 03:55
|
|
|
Do we have any information on whether this attack has swayed people away from right wing Putin friendly groups in the US/Western Europe? I feel like there’s a slow moving unity coming through where everyone’s waking up from their collective neo civil war mentality and realizing that what Putin is doing is crazy and needs to be resisted.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2022 17:49
|
|
|
How do the Ukrainians even manage to keep their people consistently supplied? I mean it looks like the troops have a random mishmash of NATO kit (good because it’s interchangeable) But you also have them carrying RPG-7s, captured Russian gear, AKs and AR pattern rifles.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2022 18:37
|
|
|
Majorian posted:Jesus. In WW1 the French lost like 250,000 people in two weeks in like august 1914. In the invasion of Belgium the Belgian forces initially held out valiantly against the Germans to the point that there were so many bodies that successive assaults were able to use them as cover to assault their forts. I’m not sure what Russias tolerance for casualties is but it may take a lot more killing before they give up.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2022 20:41
|
|
I was skeptical of the numbers I was seeing, but I figured hey, important to keep up Ukrainian morale and all that.
|
Dapper_Swindler posted:I suspect some of these fucks will die to drones and etc. having long lines of fuel/logistics in hostile territory rarely ends well. They look super vulnerable here. It’s just a question of how well guarded they are against air attack.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2022 20:56
|
|
|
biglads posted:Can't have some sort of european aggro without the balkans, it wouldn't be right. I took a quick scan of several Serbian media sources after seeing this and it’s loving bad. They’re going into full overdrive about how western media is painting Russia as the bad guy and how this is a western imperialist plot. Looks like Russia has completely co-opted everything.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2022 21:27
|
|
|
I don’t understand how much more in the way of supplies Ukraine can actually field in combat before the noose tightens completely around Kyiv. At some point isn’t NATO just handing sophisticated arms over to Russia to be captured, studied and countered? Like where are all these new mig 29s going to land, fuel and arm out of? How are you going to get stinger missiles and AT missiles to the front? Looking at the strategic situation unless a another army intervenes were in deep poo poo.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 28, 2022 00:07
|
|
|
I can totally imagine Ukranian pilots taking delivery of these planes and joking amongst themselves about the various idiosyncrasies of the Romanian, Polish and East German pilots that had them before them.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 28, 2022 00:39
|
|
|
I was talking to my mom who’s currently on vacation in Europe about this conflict and it’s worse than I thought. The Serbian people have been hopeless brainwashed by a pro Russian bias. They think they were dealt a bad hand in 1999 and they can’t get over it and move on with their lives so clearly what’s happening in Ukraine is some imperialist plot. I am so ashamed. I wish people were better than this.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 28, 2022 02:56
|
|
|
ferroque posted:I think people actually living in Serbia have a better idea of what happened in their country than you do. Telling them to "get over it and move on" seems ignorant. The bombings were terrible there’s no doubt. But what’s the point in continuing to bear a grudge about it to the point that they’d unconditionally support a country doing something similar if not worse to Ukraine? The least they can do is recognize that this is an unprovoked conflict. Instead the entire Serbian media ecosystem is doubling down on how this is all some western plot to weaken Russia. Russia weakened itself with the rampant corruption, tycoons and this bullshit invasion. The west didn’t need to do anything.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 28, 2022 03:03
|
|
|
I'm assuming if the US wanted to help Ukraine with special forces, the Green Berets would be the ones to use here? They'd be deployed to train the locals as insurgents or soldiers that can fight?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 28, 2022 18:30
|
|
|
Thales' stock just shot up like 20 bucks in the last week. I hate to bring this up, but it seems like the missiles are doing the work, or at least they'll be really busy making a shitload more.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 28, 2022 20:48
|
|
|
Vahakyla posted:Conventional war is very very very different from the type of asymmetric/peacekeeping/peace enforcement/police action-wars we are used to seeing Americans partake in. Conventional war is a meat grinder for both sides, unlike Afghanistan where you patrol the hills for the weekly contact and one wounded. Yeah, this is a real and big war against a country capable of putting up resistance at slightly below parity shot for shot. There are many many more Russians than there are Ukranians in this fight and the Ukranians are forced to leverage every imaginable advantage to hold out as long as possible. I think the strategy here is to completely destroy the Russian economy to foment internal unrest within Russia while delivering as many possible casualties in sufficient enough time that people decide they don't want to fight anymore. If the war drags on for about a month or longer it's very likely Ukraine will be annexed and there will be a slow burning insurgency that will produce the gradual sort of death toll we're accustomed to in a US led occupation. We are right in the middle of a war getting snippets and random shots in the fog of war with extraordinarily good OPSEC at least on the part of the Ukrainians. If we were sitting in London or New York right now in September 1939 we would be hearing about stuff like the Battle of Wizna and how small amounts of Polish soldiers are holding against an enormous group of Germans. There is no question the individual bravery and elan of Ukranian troops is helping contribute to their successes in the battle but the strategic situation will gradually degrade and 40 years from now people will be looking at these events through the same time-compressed lens as the German blitzkrieg over Poland. The German blitzkrieg feels fast because we already know what is going to happen from start to finish and can read about it in 2 paragraphs. For lack of better language- we are witnessing day by day how the sausage is made and the time that passes feels much longer to our direct experience than what we can imagine was like being in Warsaw or London back in WW2.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 28, 2022 21:44
|
|
|
Randarkman posted:Again no, that's very likely not true. Not at this point, not with the limited size of the Russian invasion force. I mean to say the currently committed troops outnumber the Ukranian ones and appear to be able to maintain a wide front while the Ukranians have to pick their fights.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 28, 2022 22:03
|
|
|
dominoeffect posted:Wow, cool info. If it indeed did come from dead/captured Russian SF, I'm surprised that they were rolling around with long expired rations. I'd imagine those are the forces you'd really not want to skimp out on Russia as a society has a weird attitude towards creature comforts. Consider the Sochi Olympics. The Olympic village was badly built and it wasn't exactly a nice time for the athletes and that's Russia making an effort at being generous and welcoming towards guests. Their soldiers are basically operating under the same sort of historical problems they've always had since the Russians first joined in WW1. Historically Russia/USSR gets involved in a military conflict they are ill equipped to fight, have disastrous performance in the early stages before they have an "oh poo poo" moment and they get their poo poo together and start steamrolling. This is history repeating itself (sort of). As long as the Russian people don't feel like they're facing an existential threat it's easier to fight them off from various invasions if you have an at-par army. Also there is widespread corruption in Russian military forces. Conscripts are often poor and working class kids who had no connections to get out of their obligations. Anyone rich or connected doesn't have to serve. When they actually go for training its pretty crappy, basically like a Russian prison with that dedushka system and they barely get enough bullets to do fire training with. They use conscripts not so much as combatants but as cheap labour. The corruption is so deep some people can call a general to send some conscripts to basically clean up their driveway or something if they have the connections. Everyone is a victim in Putin's war. Kraftwerk fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Feb 28, 2022 |
|
#
¿
Feb 28, 2022 23:27
|
|
|
KitConstantine posted:Have some more Ukrainian legends joyriding in a stolen tank So sometimes I can understand Ukranian because there's words that contextually resemble Serbian. He said "I don't believe it! We stole a BTR, blyat!" So the civilians are as shocked as we are. Also every Eastern European car theft meme/stereotype just got turbocharged.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2022 01:22
|
|
|
I've just spoken with a Russian friend of mine and he's deeply upset by the events here. He used to be a major Putin stan but after this he straight up told me "gently caress Putin". He feels the Ukrainians are brethren and the Russians should never have taken up arms against their own people. "Might as well invade my hometown then! Same thing!" He's also terribly upset because the Russian army has been betrayed by Putin. He told them this was just an exercise, a country drive back and forth. That's it. None of these conscripts thought they were going to go to war nor were they prepared for that possibility. They didn't even think they would ever start shooting at Ukrainians, which again they thought were just one of them and that it wasn't something worth going to war over. In other words a lot of people feel that Putin has betrayed Russian soldiers and is getting a lot of 18 year olds killed. Says this is stone cold Stalinist poo poo and in classic style they're being used as meat to be thrown into the grinder with zero remorse. He also says that after this basically any Russian independence or influence on the global stage is over. Their economy, intellectual property and industry will be subsumed and "rescued" by China and he thinks they might even have to hand over Vladivostok. From a global perspective giving China free reign over Russia is very bad loving news for the rest of us.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2022 01:35
|
|
|
This is idle speculation on my part but it looks like the Russians are dusting off the Soviet Era equipment and using it to soak up the javelins and drone attacks in the hopes that Ukraine runs out of those munitions when the "good stuff" gets there. Really worried about this long rear end column and the fact that nothing seems to be able to intercept it. I think the knockout punch is coming.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2022 04:39
|
|
|
Play posted:it's almost like we live in an imperfect world where tradeoffs and hard decisions have to be made sometimes! if there was a good way to save the lives of Ukrainians without hurting the Russian economy I'd be all for it. But concerns about people's lives, freedoms and right to self-determination trumps my concern over Russian pocketbooks, I will freely admit that. Now I see why Trump's hands are so small, Putin deflated them to make his bigger.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2022 05:23
|
|
|
cant cook creole bream posted:I really kinda wonder if China will stick with Russia, or will eventually speak out against it. On the one hand, they apply a lot of similar tactics, on the other hand, their government is a lot less hot headed and more analytical, to a scary degree. They must realize that this was a stupid decision for Putin, right? I think China is doing what China does and patiently waiting for an opportunity to exercise their soft power and expand belt and road into Russia via debt traps and intellectual property capture. A lot of Russian defense contractors, resource companies and other details are ripe for the pickings should their economy collapse and isolation persists. From a strategic perspective I think if Russia loses this conflict it'll be a net loss for the west anyway because China will gain access to all the goodies/resources in Russia and have a stronger position from which they can consolidate whatever power they want to establish in the Pacific.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2022 16:18
|
|
|
FishBulbia posted:The TV tower most likely, Like in a coup, in an invasion media control is important. NATO bombed almost every radio and tv tower in Serbia back in 1999. My grandparents lived near one and saw it blow up during the campaign. It's a common practice both to try and gently caress with state media and to eliminate any possible tools used for command and control.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2022 19:00
|
|
|
Pookah posted:Irish. Do you have a read on what Sinn Fein and former IRA types might think about this conflict?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2022 19:41
|
|
|
Do we have any information about how some of the older, cheaper anti-tank weapons work against T-80s and BTRs? I'm talking about the Panzerfaust IIIs, Carl Gustavs and RPG-27 unguided rockets.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2022 20:04
|
|
|
I want to know how quickly Ukraine can field all these new weapons and deploy all these new troops. With all this artillery pouring into Ukraine and news reports of airstrikes its sounding like the Ukranians are starting to take losses or are getting suppressed and can't hold the line anymore.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 2, 2022 09:00
|
|
|
Alchenar posted:Doesn't really matter at this point, it's clear that Putin has chosen the dictatorship siege-state path and is locking Russia down for the long haul. Time to send more guns to Ukraine. They can't be allowed to have it. Putin is trying to rebuild the iron curtain.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 2, 2022 16:05
|
|
|
Could the US start delivering some Patriot missiles to to the Ukrainians? Would there be enough time to quickly train them in their use? Apparently these are great for denying entire zones to hostile aviation as well as being very useful for shooting down cruise missiles.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 2, 2022 17:12
|
|
|
sean10mm posted:Obviously they get the new tanks first. The US has been churning out thousands of M1s because it keeps the money and political donations going to the senators/house reps of the districts they're built in. The US Army has testified before congress begging them not to make anymore tanks and it's fallen on blind ears. I'm not a military expert, but if Ukrainian civilians can quickly figure out how to steal a BTR or a T-80U I see no reason why we can't dump all these extra M1s the US Army doesn't even need on Ukraine and let them figure it out. These tanks would be a massive morale boost for the Ukranians and would probably do serious damage against armored columns the Russians are sending in. Like how hard can it possibly be? The only thing issues I can see would be spares, maintenance and training Ukranian servicemen how to load the gun since Russian tanks use auto-loaders. The engine runs on loving bunker fuel if you need it to so it's not like Ukraine is a hostile environment to this kind of stuff.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 2, 2022 17:36
|
|
|
cinci zoo sniper posted:The reason for this is that the same factories that make tractors for farmers do also make tanks, for the same farmers to drive during war time. American tanks could easily have completely alien design language, as far as controls go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-aT2Bf5UhM Find a guy who can speak Ukranian and I give it a week before they can drive the things. But yeah I overlooked MX and Spares and top secret info. So its not tenable.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 2, 2022 17:43
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 11, 2024 16:12 |
|
|
CommieGIR posted:You can be a Warrant Officer, which is easier to get from Enlisted without going through Officer Candidate School. I have a relative going through this process. Basically Warrant Officers are a niche in the army where you're specialized in a particular subject and you don't have as many extra duties as a full Officer would or an enlisted member. Army bullshit still applies but there's less of it compared to what you'd otherwise face in other ranks. It goes without saying that you are joining with the intent to be an Army Warrant Officer FIRST and a helicopter pilot second. You will be subject to a board interview, you need impeccable references and you need to have a decent head on your shoulders. If you weren't already college material, chances are you probably wouldn't make it in. A lot of people with college degrees are going this route because as mentioned above WO is less extra work compared to an O who will eventually be taken off the helicopters and given staff assignments and other duties. So while technically the program will take high school kids you will see people from all walks of life sign up if they wanna be helo pilots. So the process of getting this job is lengthy, you need references, your recruiter will sandbag you to take something "easier" because the packet is difficult to put together etc etc. The caveat here is you have a mandatory commitment of 10 years to the army if you pass training and get assigned the WO rank. Many people do not want to live a decade of their lives in a strict army environment. You're giving up a lot to *maybe* fly a helo. You could hypothetically wash out and get reassigned on a needs of the army basis to cook, laundry or infantry if you're a gently caress up as well in which case I think you get shoved with standard enlistment contract and you'll be stuck trimming grass with scissors like everyone else. Having said that, last I checked the Army his really hurting for pilots and has lost a lot of people to retirements and commercial airlines etc (hence the 10 year commitment). At one point this program was extremely competitive to get into, but these days even if you fail your classes at Rucker you might be able to stay in the program and try again as the big wide broom pushes you through. The WO rank was set up to make the role more attractive, to justify direct recruiting so they can train and retain chopper pilots because they don't have enough of them and so that these guys can fly more rather than being forced to do other staff duties a normal officer would have to do. So you may risk your life in a combat zone every once in a while but flying helos is what you'll be doing for the majority of your career in the army with less of the delegated poo poo-tasks you'd normally have to put up with as an O-1/O-2.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 2, 2022 18:58
|
|