(Thread IKs:
fatherboxx)
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FlamingLiberal posted:The problem is that these propagandists are never going to be prepared to respond to a strange situation like this one, and on top of that there has not been a clear message from Moscow on what the line is supposed to be It also helps with straddling the line when you're not sure who's going to come out on top.
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Jun 27, 2023 18:57
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Charliegrs posted:Everyone's always talking about how bad Russia has performed in this war but honestly are they really doing that bad? Sure the blitzkrieg into Kyiv was a total failure but they seem to be holding their own against a military that has gotten a ton of high end western hardware and training. In addition to what others have said, "high end Western hardware" is over stating things. They're ultimately still getting (iirc) export versions of things, stockpiles of supplies and weapons that are still usable but are obsolete compared to currently deployed equipment, and dribs and drabs of other things like F-16s. And they're still beating the pants off of what was supposed to be the second best military in the world. Using Nato's leftovers. Not even the really good stuff. Russia has gone from second best in the world, to second best in Ukraine, and is potentially going to be second best in Russia. They're recruiting from prisons and drafting old men. There are constantly widely publicized examples of Russians surrendering, or trying to surrender, with Ukraine using entirely novel methods to help them. A large chunk of the army just marched on Moscow, and only stopped because they were getting embarrassingly close and didn't actually WANT to reach it. After this performance, I would actually be surprised if NATO members didn't actually decrease their military budgets.
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Jun 28, 2023 03:24
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Didn't Putin also go to the CSTO for help only to be told "this sounds like a YOU problem"? Magnificent if true
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Jun 28, 2023 06:14
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Cpt_Obvious posted:a seemingly bottomless supply of shells. Haven't they actually burned through most of their stockpiles already, though? Leading to bizarre circumstances like buying artillery shells they sold to North Korea back, units only being able to do one or two fire missions per day, pulling ancient equipment out not to replace losses, but because they can fire some other kind of shell that is still stocked that newer artillery can't fire, etc?
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Jun 28, 2023 20:41
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ChubbyChecker posted:i wonder what the average russian thinks about the prigozhin quasirevolt "I definitely do not publicly believe anything that may cause me to disappear if a stranger were to ask me about it"
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Jun 28, 2023 20:49
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Charlz Guybon posted:This can't be true can it? This has been said enough times over the last year that I simply cannot discount even the absurd now
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Jun 29, 2023 05:44
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Ynglaur posted:Even in an offensive, there are lots of times people and vehicles aren't moving. And camouflage helps even with moving targets, albeit less. It's all about skewing the odds in your favor for relatively little investment. If your tank is painted traffic cone orange, maybe a person without optics could spot it 2000m away in the forest. If it's dark green, you're down to 800m. That's an extreme example, but meters and seconds matter. Traffic cone orange doesn't seem like a good choice for camouflage, I hope they change that soon!
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Jun 29, 2023 15:33
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Paladinus posted:- Dick pills and magnetic dick healing devices are prominently advertised on every channel now. Apparently, Viagra is no longer available in Russia, so maybe this has something to do with that. Definitely a huge uptick in those. "magnetic dick healing device" is a fantastic name for a band.
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Jul 5, 2023 06:57
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Cpt_Obvious posted:Having bullets and having a mobile supply chain capable of arming and equipping an army are two very different things. If video games have taught me anything, he's actually been speeding around in a jeep personally resupplying each logistics point, and occasionally getting ambushed by inept partisans.
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Jul 6, 2023 17:54
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saratoga posted:Five years isn't much time, but if the war ends quickly and oil goes back over $120 a barrel then they'd have something like a trillion dollars worth of cash from oil exports with which to rearm. You can replace a lot of mediocre but cheap to produce Soviet junk with that kind of money. How much of that money do you think is actually going to end up in the budget, and of that how much goes to the military, and of that how much is marked for equipment, after which how much equipment is actually purchased?
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Jul 21, 2023 02:06
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cant cook creole bream posted:The problem is, that the Kerch bridge is too visible and keeps breaking down for some reason. They should have dug a Kerch tunnel instead. Of course that wouldn't disruption shipping routes though. The Kerch Tunnel would have been far too vulnerable to the NATO mole-men 
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Aug 12, 2023 19:44
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Charliegrs posted:If you're a defender and you plant a billion mines to keep an attacker from reaching you, then doesn't that also mean that you've prevented yourself from advancing on them in the future because now you'd have to try to get through the same minefield? Or would you leave lanes through the minefield free of mines just for that very reason? But wouldn't that also make a chokepoint that the enemy could easily target? Assuming they even want to attack further instead of suing for "peace," at this point I figure they could just have a penal battalion march through it.
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Aug 15, 2023 16:50
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Not So Fast posted:Why is explanation of why a conflict has occurred considered as justification or endorsement for the aggressor? Do you think Russia would have invaded regardless of what Ukraine did in regards to NATO or EU membership? It's true, they could have just been a wildly corrupt puppet nation. Ah, if only they'd known!
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Aug 16, 2023 18:51
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Kith posted:i'm sorry people these mass graves full of obviously executed civilians and mobile crematoriums used to obfuscate bodycounts and highly documented organized kidnapping of children do not fully constitute a genocide, they are merely on the level of sparkling slaughter But have you considered that it is not genocide because I really do not want it to be?
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Aug 16, 2023 19:33
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Lol couldn't even get Sacred Band of Thebes right
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Aug 22, 2023 03:31
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fatherboxx posted:This is a very interesting talk but please return the drone discussion back to Ukraine from future US navy doctrine. We're seeing 12 cardboard box drones able to surprise and damage airframes on Russian airfields, partly due to a lack of significant radar signature (maybe?), partly due to volume. We're seeing single drone boats making semi effective attacks or attack attempts on the Kerch bridge. I think a lot of defense is predicted on having to defend against relatively small numbers of somewhat expensive equipment (airframes, precision munitions, remote semi-guided torpedoes). What happens when a fleet of 1000 drones (say the first 700 are ablative armor and fly a preprogrammed path via INS) flies towards an S-400? There are only so many missiles it can fire, and for a cost of single digit millions you are very likely able to, if not mission kill, then at least damage a modern SAM emplacement. Similarly, current ASM defenses like AEGIS assume that a "saturation" attack is a number on the tens range of high velocity missiles that require a fast response time and a massive, immediate expenditure of munitions. What happens when Angry R2D2 vomits its entire belt of ammunition on the first wave of cheap propellor driven flying bombs, and leaves the ship scrambling to reload before the next wave? I think this response is actually somewhat more aware than it should be, but for different reasons: ethanol posted:3 more phalanxes per ship then. how many of these drones moving at 50 mph do you think we could shoot down or sink with one phalanx? it's like sending a fleet of ww2 propeller planes at the carrier and saying well its defenses are calibrated for fast moving objects so it can't hit them I don't think it will be a problem for existing ship defense weapons hitting slower vehicles, but I think maintaining a continuous ability to fire will be THE problem. The US Navy has been experimenting with laser based defense platforms, and has briefly fielded some of them. Drone swarms and boat swarms are specifically problems anticipated to be handled by them, so it's not like the Navy is asleep to this threat. However, AIUI laser weapons require using the ship generators to power capacitors to provide sufficient continuous high energy amounts to fire destructive levels of power, and one of the problems with the existing laser weapons is the reload time and capacity, if not the cost. So, while it can handle problems cheaply, it's unclear whether it can handle all of them fast enough. While I have to jokingly assume that a Russian anti drone platform is going to be an increasingly elaborate cope cage built around a ship, I also have to wonder whether Ukraine will attempt to overwhelm any Russian Navy assets, Kerch bridge defenses, etc, by using a swarm of aerial drones against ships that probably have questionable air defense power in the first place. Even if it just results in superficial damage, I would expect that sufficient damage to exposed components on a ship could at least require a return to base for repairs and replacing damaged equipment. The Kerch bridge is unlikely to have any real damage done by payloads that drones can carry, but they could damage defenses around it to allow for a gap for stronger conventional munitions. I know this is almost Clancy Chat but I'm honestly surprised that we haven't actually seen massive drone swarm attacks attempted, given the price.
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Sep 5, 2023 21:20
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Rugz posted:I feel like this may be an instance where comedy accurately represents the actual understanding of the masses on a subject. I meant more that if you can add a large number of even more inexpensive flying decoys, you don't actually have to give them sensors or explosives; it doesn't matter if they survive if their only job is to eat an AA munition instead of a drone that's got explosives, a camera, and the ability to recognize "that's an airplane" or "that's a boat" in the general vicinity of where you send it. All it needs to do is be able to travel in roughly the same direction at the same speed and be difficult enough to distinguish from the actual munition drones that it can contribute to overwhelming AA.
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Sep 6, 2023 06:16
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Antigravitas posted:I seem to have posted this in the wrong thread, so I'm copying it here. The war is a real dog and pony show for them, you might say. 
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Sep 12, 2023 23:19
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The SAM hit caused the grenade in his luggage (very lucky dud, failed to explode!) to go off at the same time. Clearly, the fault here lies with NATO because
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Oct 5, 2023 19:39
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small butter posted:I'm reading up on the Minsk-2 agreement from 2015... and am I reading this right? Russia and Ukraine were two of the signing parties, then the rebel Republic's leaders were added later, and Russia then claimed not to be a "party" to the agreement because they were still pretending that they were not participants in the war? In what world could it ever have been legitimate? The "gently caress you, try and stop us lol" world
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Oct 7, 2023 06:37
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Nenonen posted:build a Blacklantis in the middle of the Black Sea! ... go on?
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Oct 8, 2023 05:55
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Electric Wrigglies posted:China is creating artificial islands in the South China Sea and putting quite substantial bases on them with runways, ports, repair infrastructure, etc. Yeah, I got what you meant by China, it was more the title of Blacklantis that caught my eye. Absolutely sounds like a film from the 70s.
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Oct 8, 2023 15:48
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PainterofCrap posted:I was wondering if it’s this ^^^ and also that “globalists” control the media. I just assumed it was the usual "Jews control the media" nonsense.
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Oct 9, 2023 16:18
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Xlorp posted:Now I wonder exactly what kind of barbarian-themed TTRPG allows improvised armored personnel carriers. Conan / Lost Worlds x/over? The A-Team bursts out of a barn in an uparmored Ford van
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Oct 12, 2023 12:12
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:apparently the us is working on cobbling together spare parts to build new sam launchers, revamp obsolete nato equipment, and allow soviet launchers to use nato missiles. just another demonstration of how unprepared every country in the world was for a sustained modern peer conflict. i'm interested to see that there is still sustained efforts to make the hawks system relevant. i don't recall ever seeing any evidence of its deployment, much less a successful kill. i'm sure it's an all out scramble to try to avoid a repeat of the pain inflicted last winter To be fair, I don't think a peer conflict quite like this one was expected. You have a nuclear power running a clown show offensive against a regional power. No one can tell the nuclear power to just Knock It Off Or Else, but the regional power is pretty marginal relative to other major nations and not already allied with them militarily, so while they're getting aid it's somewhat slap dash and incompatible with equipment and doctrine they already have. You're right that no one was prepared for a peer conflict, but nominally this should not be a peer conflict. I think, ultimately, the other major powers are ok with letting Russia bleed itself on the razor wire of Ukraine, whether or not it dies, as long as it stays occupied and bleeds. Volmarias fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Oct 13, 2023 |
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Oct 13, 2023 02:54
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Fuschia tude posted:Wasn't Bush's "Axis of Evil" Iran-Iraq-NK? IIRC NK was surprised and indignant they were even on that list. I thought it was Iran, since they were actively helping us in Afghanistan (allowing border incursions, rescuing pilots, etc). John Bolton will never have enough Iranian blood to oil his mustache.
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Oct 13, 2023 23:00
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:didn't that one have radioactive material in the exhaust so fallout would rain down from its flight path? Yeah, I remember hearing this recent Russian one being announced and thinking "wait, isn't this just project Pluto?"
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Oct 17, 2023 07:03
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fatherboxx posted:They done a grim and gritty Katamari reboot huh Royal rainbow! 
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Oct 17, 2023 17:50
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OddObserver posted:Russia will not run out of ammunition because they have reliable backers like Iran and North Korea (unlike Ukraine relying on US, which will have noticeable quantities of ammunition ready by 2025), not because the front line is short. It might be ready, but president-for-life trump may also decide that it's no longer going.
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Oct 23, 2023 21:18
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So, what's the goal to entice hungary? I have to assume that Putin is willing to pay a monstrously large bribe to Orban to prevent this, at the very least.
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Oct 23, 2023 22:24
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Der Kyhe posted:It is what it is, but Orban cannot just turn back on EU and NATO as a whole, so it will be interesting to see what the balancing act will be. Can Hungary actually be kicked out of the EU? Or NATO?
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Oct 24, 2023 04:43
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Don't worry, I'm sure they haven't learned their lesson from Chernobyl and will begin digging in.
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Oct 24, 2023 19:26
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saratoga posted:https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1716922861338947963#m Look there's no reason to have a submarine here, so why have submariners?
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Oct 25, 2023 03:52
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SamuraiFoochs posted:FWIW if anyone thinks me just a gullible doofus, the main reason I'm convinced Putin's unwell somehow is I find it super weird how infrequently he appears, and I just find it weird that there could be SO many reports and have them be all 100% bullshit. By this metric, the Kim dynasty of North Korea are some of the healthiest people possible.
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Oct 29, 2023 04:12
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:Now that perspective I can understand and I could see Putin waiting at least until the 2024 US Elections but that's like... a less than 1% of happening. Granted, if I was him I'd still wait it out and maybe he can still get some kind of partial victory. Since at least 2016 posted:Ah, nevertheless, Hieronymous Alloy posted:It's his best available tactic, but "despot defeating alliance of democratic nations" doesn't exactly have a great historical track record of success. It's not so much an alliance of democratic nations as much as it is a number of democratic nations who have a phenomenal way to gently caress with Putin with minimal chance of actual direct repercussions. What happens when the DoD is instructed to no longer pay for starlink, various organizations are told not to provide intelligence information, and post-soviet weaponry is no longer forthcoming? Volmarias fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Nov 4, 2023 |
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Nov 4, 2023 16:04
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Herstory Begins Now posted:at the current rate things are going supporting Israel's war on Gaza may well be be as politically toxic as supporting KSA against Yemen was by 2018, except Israel is on pace to accomplish that in far less time In that we'll be very very sad about it but ultimately continue to support them?
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Nov 4, 2023 19:33
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Ynglaur posted:I think people itt are overestimating how much this war is Putin's war vs Russia's. If Putin died or was deposed tomorrow, I think it's likely his successor would continue the war. Mike Koffman has pointed out that this type of revanchist war, historically, results in several wars. 2014 to 2022 showed this a bit, but even if there's a ceasefire in 2024 or 2025, if the underlying reasons are neither addressed not utterly invalidated, it's likely to go hot again. Long-term ceasefire such as the Korean peninsula are uncommon. If the underlying cause is "this country exists" I'm not sure what you think can be done. I'll accept that staying at war as a way to not allow Ukraine NATO membership would affect their future "Ukraine should not exist" problems down the line, but I suspect whoever inherited the throne from Putin is going to have a lot of other priorities. Being let back into trading relationships and getting funds unfrozen would probably be a very, very tasty carrot to dangle to get other oligarchs on board, and without priggo there likely aren't any credible, direct military specific threats (as they already purged anyone the military might like).
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Nov 4, 2023 22:44
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Herstory Begins Now posted:No, after the bipartisan congressional condemnation of the Saudis an immense amount of assistance was stopped and weapon sales stopped or put on multi-year pauses, for a while it became forbidden to fulfill maintenance contracts on Saudi aircraft to the extent that the Saudi war effort stalled out completely and the Houthis started running wild over the saudi border and they started drone bombing major pieces of Saudi infrastructure, and after a lot of pleading from Saudi Arabia the US relented on maintenance for defensive systems. I'd wondered at the time if that was defensive systems or just 'defensive systems', but KSA did not apparently regain any particular combat power. it was a complete loving debacle for KSA and indeed you can trace, on the Saudi side, much of the souring of the last 6 or 7 years of US-Saudi relations back to precisely that (on the US side, Khashoggi's killing features prominently, too) Hum. Consider me better informed then, thanks!
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Nov 5, 2023 07:19
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Defenestrategy posted:Also why would Europeans and Americans want Ukraine to settle for a peace agreement when they're still willing to fight? Horrors of war aside, "western" powers get to test all their fancy gizmos against people that can actually hit back, every piece of supply sent out is basically just money the respective countries are paying their own people, and icing on the cake petty revenge for Russia continually playing spy games in Western Europe/America and supporting the opposing side in places like Africa and the Middle East. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought we were specifically NOT giving them the shiniest new toys, and everything they're using to hold back the Russians are the junk the US military was going to decommission or sell off anyway? At least in the form of visible forms of aid, I have to imagine that we're committing a significant amount of non public intelligence resources.
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Nov 6, 2023 01:04
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 06:00 |
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Vietnom nom nom posted:The Financial Times Europe editor had a nice piece on this in September:  (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 7, 2023 07:42
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