Jump to content

Russian Troops in Syria!!!


Recommended Posts

Threads like this are great for forcing you to find out neat stuff.

So, I was curious about how close Uyghur was to modern Turkish, and I was suspecting the difference would be huge. Wrongo, in fact there seems to be close to a one-to-one correspondence of basic root words, and what's more one might very well argue Uyghur and Uzbek are just dialects of the same language, as they are mutually intelligible the same way Azeri and Turkish is mutually intelligible. So had the Red Chinese access to Uyghur speakers, it would have been like having a bunch of people on your side that spoke say Spanish, and the task is to use them to brainwash POWs that speak Portuguese or maybe Italian. Yossarian is right, the language is very similar to Turkish.

However, that led me (thank you Wiki) to take a gander at the history of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Lo and behold and it seems like the first real Han attempt to assert sovereignty over the region was in the 18th century, as Russia and China began beating up on the local Emirs, and the borders roughly as we know them today only got settled in the late 19th century. After that there was the Chinese Republic, a warlord made the place a Moslem republic, then Nationalist Chinese destroyed that state, then the Soviets invaded, set up a puppet state, started making the place over into a Socialist satellite. However, World War Two intervened, and the general the Soviets set up to run the place decided to kick the Communists out (killing Mao Tse Dung's brother in the process), so once WW2 was over and Mao and Cho won the civil war the Soviets agreed the territory should be part of the PRC. The PLA marched in in 1949, shortly after they chased the Nationalists to Taiwan.

Given that kind of turmoil, I kind of suspect the PLA's ability to recruit Uyghur speakers a year later was probably pretty undeveloped. It must have been hell for people there to live through that chaos, but reading that kind of history from afar is just cool.

Of course, there was always the possibility the Soviets could have helped out by recruited their own Uyghur speakers (a/k/a Uzbeks); or even better Gagauz from Moldavia or the Meskhetians from Georgia, as the Gagauz language is even closer to Turkish than Uzbek/Uyghur, and, as nearly as I can tell, Meskhetian was simply Turkish spoken by ethnic Turks, just living on the Soviet side of the Caucasus.

Them Turks sure did get around.

;1357046']The Ujghurs from western China wouldn´t find turkish difficult. I don´t know of course if there were any Ujghurs in the Chinese Army in Korea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_language

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Slightly off topic, but addressing the Chinese expansionism in those days... a Serbo-Croat pal of mine tells me that Croatia is today being overrun by ethnic Chinese who are emigrating there en masse from China. Sounds weird, but she visits there often.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, the Turks were the last major wave of pre-Mongol nomadic tribes to migrate west across the Central Asian steppes (unless you count the Pechenegs or Bulgars or something). Although they embraced Islam instead of Christianity, they have at least as much in common with Slavs as they do with Arabs, Kurds or Armenians, if not more; they're definitely a lot less tribal for one thing. It's kind of hard to define. They just socialize, organize, problem-solve and form loyalties in a very.... Western way. On the other hand, I can say from personal experience that there is a great deal in the old saying "Cruel as a Turk".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In other New Cold War News, guess what, the Chinese and the Russians are doing a medium-sized naval exercise in the Yellow Sea, seven ships participating on the Russian side led by a cruiser. Live fire, air-sea ops, sub hunting, joint response to a maritime disaster, and of course the great catch all "anti-terrorism training." Starts on Sunday, runs two week sI think. These exercises don't happen so often, the last major (about a regiment on each side plus aircraft) joint training between the two countries took place in 2009, and ONLY naval exercise ever since the Soviet Union broke up took place in 2005, and that was like a frigate on each side.

So there's some fodder for those wanting the US taxpayer to cough up for a couple more aircraft carriers, see, our old Cold War enemies are planning something!

Also the ceasefire in Syria seems to holding more or less, at least today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As far as I know LongLeftFlank, Stingers have a usge by date. If you know what I mean.

On a sidenote I also reskinned everthing in CMSF to represent Russian forces but the repository is so **** it wouldnt let me upload it. This forum and the repository are archaic. If I can ever get hosting for the entire 100 something MB file ill put it up for use, but so far only I and PurpHeart have it.

Isn't there an alternative to put this up somewhere, Stagler? Dropbox perhaps? I sure would like to try it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

The Russians have decamped from Syria, taking some 100,000 fully equipped Cat 1 troops with them, to include T-90MSs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-90 with the scary Nakidka protective system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakidka , BMP-3s, Iskander TBMs,Tunguska, super advanced fighters, and--wait for it--the all-important vodka tanker! It's believed there may still be some advisors present, but a mere handful. This information is hot, current intel from extremely sensitive sources. The command staffs left earlier aboard a Russian warship.

Regards,

John Kettler

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's the truth right there! One thing that has made leaps and bounds as far as technique and doctrine these past two decades is insurgent warfare. Maybe not the ideas, but the tools to get them accomplished. IEDs have gone from crude to highly effective ways of area denial and shaping the battle field. It was AK47s and RPGs, now it's AK47s, RPGs, and IEDs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, sort of. I don't really disagree but I think it's a little bit more involved than insurgents just sitting down and concluding "Before we didn't like IEDs, but now we do."

The Viet Cong had a pretty good bombing campaign going against the regime us Americans were propping up, it was a pretty standard tactic to warn the head of the strategic hamlet cooperating with the Americans he better stop, and if he didn't some one might frag him.

If you look at the ongoing insurgency in the Caucasus, the rebels have been bombing the Russians for years. If the target is troops or paramilitary policy (which are pretty much the same thing) it seems like the approach is set off a bomb, wait for the authorities to show up and then set off a bigger one. Sometimes by remote, sometimes by suicide bomber. If the target is an official cooperating with the Russians, it seems like a bomb under his car that gets him when he's about to go to work is the standard. But they use drive-by shootings fairly often as well.

I think what's changed is the big rich countries have improved at moving troops in and out of disuputed areas, this being a function of big rich country combat capacity and a higher vehicles to troops ratio than in the past; these days no one lacks a ride. You might say that in the past the armies supressing insurgencies had to go out into the boonies to hunt down the rebels (well, they still do sometimes) but these days the number of vehicles zooming around the theater make it easier for the insurgents to make their kills just bombing the "invader" soldiers as they drive from "a" to "b".

I'd say it's sort of a toss up as to whether roadside bomb technology or soldier transport protection technology are driving the train. Point is when you have a high-tech military operating against an insurgency the soldiers of that military are relatively vulnerable when they're packed into a vehicle, moving, and can't use all their weapons.

One can debate whether supressing an insurgency by having soldiers drive around a lot and walk little is a better strategy than having soldiers walk a lot and drive little. The first approach probably makes for less soldier casualties overall but more spectacular attacks when it happens, and that ain't necessarily a good thing, because an insurgency isn't just about keeping soldier casualties down, it's about convincing the insurgents they can't "win".

A smashed expensive armored vehicle burning nice and hot and say four or five "invader" dead and wounded at a swoop, which the insurgents put into that condition by cleverness and timing, and can slap onto the internet, might very well do more for convincing the insurgents they're on the right track, than say a week of watching the soldiers patrol on foot through the sticks, and picking off say eight or nine of them with booby traps or sniping or something.

It's all down to psychology. The rich army pretty much always has the option of upping the tech ante and if it wants more force protection then more force protection it shall have. But the better-protected the rich army soldiers are, the more the insurgents and the populace will see the rich army soldiers to be failing against the insurgency, if the insurgents can kill and/or would the rich nation soldiers from time to time.

In the recent US/NATO wars, one might argue, the insurgents just have been given sufficient time to think of ways to overcome the US/NATO force protection technologies. Since the US/NATO strategy is pretty much always to prioritize force protection over (say) lots of dismounted infantry saturating a disputed district, it sort of naturally follows the insurgents have few options but to come up with better ways to crack armored vehicles.

Or, simply bypass the armored vehicles and convert a local supposedly helping out the foreign soldiers, to the insurgency, and get him to kill several foreign soldiers on their base before they kill him. That's also pretty spectacular, but it's time-consuming for the insurgents. If the war goes down that road some more then you'd expect the rich armies putting their local hires through lie detector tests or something, and then the insurgents would get better at recruiting people able to fox a lie detector, or even better corrupting the person administering the test.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I second what Kettler said! I couldn't agree with you more, and if I could, I would!!! One of the better write ups about the progress in the current wars that I have read, anywhere. If you aren't giving interviews on TV yet, you really should be. In fact, when people ask me about my thoughts on the current conflicts, I will send them here to read that. Really, fine analyses sir!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Guys, thanks for the support, just one guy's opinion. But bombing invaders is nothing new.

John,

I am surprised to hear that, first because the Russian installations are apparently almost permanent and they're busily pouring concrete to get rid of the almost, and second because Mr. Putin is not stupid and one organization in Russia that gets paid on time these days is any one with access to arms. The Army, FSB, police - it's been a good 8, maybe 10 years before those guys went any length of time without pay.

Where did you hear the Russians bailed on Syria?

In the region I work I encounter Russian soldiers and officers and police and so on now and again. Admittedly, this is probably the higher end I'm seeing, except for maybe provincial cops. I might call some of them maybe not overly educated or maybe way off the low-brow end of the PC scale, and definitely some of the police and officials are on the take, but the uniformed military from what I've seen of it I wouldn't call slovenly or unprofessional. And by and large they seem to be pretty well-fed and well-equipped.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bigduke6,

Contacts with clearances way higher than Obama's. I didn't say the Russians bailed on Syria, as in abandoned it altogether. What I meant to convey was that they pulled out the roughly 100,000 front line troops, introduced circa March, equipped with not just cutting edge weaponry but the kind you get from either UFO crash recoveries or active alliances with those who fly same. The SuMi-41s, for example, had energy cannon that dropped down from the wings to fire. This has been multiply confirmed, to include my contacts--of several sorts. Suggest you check my blog for further details.

This kind of weaponry is hellishly expensive to develop and produce, and Russia put 2/3 of the entire SuMi-41 force into Syria, which should tell you something about how serious they were in doing so. I'm of the opinion that Russia is suffering from a combination of extraordinary exotic weapon development costs, plus being a kleptocracy run by a Mafiya boss who's "ex-KGB." Given that, troops not getting paid seems wholly expected.

Regards,

John Kettler

Link to comment
Share on other sites

John,

100,000 troops make a pretty big footprint. I checked out your site but I couldn't really see where in Syria the Russians were at.

In any case, the Russian military I've come in contact with seems reasonably equipped and paid. But that certainly isn't all of them.

That SuMi-41 is a joint project between Sukhoi and Mikoyan, right? Well, at least the terran side of the aircraft I mean.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bigduke6,

The main contingent was at a hastily created base near Tardis, with the rest spread around the country at various Syrian military bases. As for the plane, yes it was a joint project. Think front end of a MiG-29 grafted onto a Sukhoi-47 Berkut http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-47 . The bird has two seats, rough field landing gear, closable intakes, with slots that open on top to keep out FOD, advanced missiles and those cannon. Sensors and cockpit displays are WAY better than on a MiG-29! HUD fitted.

Regards,

John Kettler

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Contacts with clearances way higher than Obama's. I didn't say the Russians bailed on Syria, as in abandoned it altogether. What I meant to convey was that they pulled out the roughly 100,000 front line troops, introduced circa March, equipped with not just cutting edge weaponry but the kind you get from either UFO crash recoveries or active alliances with those who fly same. The SuMi-41s, for example, had energy cannon that dropped down from the wings to fire. This has been multiply confirmed, to include my contacts--of several sorts. Suggest you check my blog for further details.

It's OK, we have an undersea city of non-Euclidean geometry that breeds enormous swarms of batlike creatures to absorb the blasts of the alien laser cannon if we make the requisite blood sacrifices to Cthulhu. Dick Cheney is his high priest on earth.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...