US/ NATO v. Russia - Misperceptions.

[panzermartin]

11 minutes ago, Machor said:

If you can link me to a reliable source that states ISIS has begun working together with other groups, I'd appreciate. Such a development would change the entire dynamic of the war.

No, some were quick to write that ISIS was taking part. Reportedly its just your everyday, vanilla jihadists of Fateh al-Sham with suicide vehicles. 

 

13 minutes ago, Machor said:

Yes, and since we're all tactical wargamers here, I suggest we focus on this. The tactical dilemma with not arming the rebels is that if conventional weapons are withheld from them, they have to switch to asymmetrical means, and both the know-how and (in the case of suicide bombers) personnel for those means are supplied by Jihadists:

"Outgunned Syria rebels make shift to bombs"

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-bombs-idUSBRE83T04U20120430

"Since the army routed them from their strongholds in cities, some rebels said they realized that even in guerrilla street battles they could not beat Assad's tanks or artillery.

The Syrian Liberation Army's spokesman Qdemati said his group's fighters were now focusing most of their attention on "manufacturing facilities" for bombs.

"You are going to start seeing an escalation as we improve our techniques of bomb-making and delivery.""

Great. Another precision weapon thrown in the mix.

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

Re: TOW 

If a weapon was made in the US, it's going to have a US serial number.  There wasn't a magic production line for US vs all other TOW-2A missiles.  You'll find that data plate on all sorts of made in USA equipment regardless of the end user (I imagine if you crawled into World War Two era stuff sent via lend-lease in your museums you would find a similar data plate).  Same deal with the NSN, it's just a number used for ordering replacements, and would be printed on anything made in the US.

There is a ton of TOW users in the region, some of whom were much more enthusiastic about arming the Syrian rebels of all stripes than the US.  The article you sent to me is pretty straight forward that it's almost certainly an American made system, but one that could have come from 40+ different countries that have TOW missiles.

Re: Precision weapons

Didn't have them in a host of other urban fights, and didn't have to resort to carpet bombing blocks either. In the case of Syria it also doesn't excuse indiscriminate employment of weapons without legitimate targets either.

re: Iraq

You're reading the graphs wrong.  Or at the least, need to read them beside the deaths caused by the insurgents.  Then also take into account most of the "unknown" deaths are likely attributable to the insurgents.  Right now with a high degree of certainty the most lethal thing in Syria to civilians is the Syrian government and allies.  While the Iraq war left a massive toll in collateral type damage, only in 2003 did deaths from the US/allies exceed deaths from insurgents, and there's some pretty funky math that goes on to get to that point.

Re: SVP-24

Here's the disturbing thing about your assertion on it's accuracy:

Option 1: The bombsight works as advertised, is very accurate.  This means unambiguously the Russians are hitting civilian targets on purpose because there's little room for missing with how good the sight is.

Option 2: The bombsight is not very accurate.  Russia is knowingly dropping bombs more or less at random into areas full of women and children.

Russia uses a lot of precision, or semi-precision type weapons, ranging from ATGMs which work wonders against point targets like insurgent strongpoints, to your various guided bombs.  Russia is using none of these, instead dropping bombs into populated centers using something no more complex than an electronic slide rule.

This does not speak to a concern for the human toll.  You country has the tools to do this right.  Why has it not done so?  It can't be cost, you're sending half your navy on what amounts to a dick waving exercise.

So why not all these wonderful weapons you are supposed to have?

 

Re: Syrian government

They've shot Scud missiles into people's homes.  There's a lot of people who've been "disappeared."  The Syrian government is just as intentional in what it's doing, and at best it's knowingly ignoring the pain and suffering it's bringing, and worst, it's using it as a tactic to ensure people never challenge Assad again.

Re: Barrel bombs

It matters a lot actually, given the sort of weapons barrel bombs have been dropped on.  They're almost exclusively used against areas that can't shoot back because of the relative danger in kicking such a thing out the back of a low flying helicopter, and how ineffective they are against entrenched enemies.

They're a terror weapon, pure and simple.   

 

[HerrTom]

49 minutes ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

Option 1: The bombsight works as advertised, is very accurate.  This means unambiguously the Russians are hitting civilian targets on purpose because there's little room for missing with how good the sight is.

My piloting experience is limited to Cessnas, but is it possible that the pilots don't necessarily know that that one brown building is a hospital or an apartment block versus the other one next to it which may have some rebels in it?  Combine this with an CEP of 25 meters, and it's possible to hit the building next to it if you're unlucky.

Beyond that, comparing Coalition-caused deaths to what's going on here is also a little off, seeing as the situation on the ground is very different, perhaps more is in common with Stalingrad than Fallujah.

55 minutes ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

This does not speak to a concern for the human toll.  You country has the tools to do this right.  Why has it not done so?  It can't be cost, you're sending half your navy on what amounts to a dick waving exercise.

Not to defend their methods in earnest, though.  The Russians and Syrians definitely are revisiting Grozny on Eastern Aleppo, though in the second war, as far as I know, it did work, to an extent.  I agree, the Russians probably don't really care too much about what they hit, as long as it causes some kind of military benefit, be it concrete or denting the enemy's morale.  The Russian military is equipped to fight a total war, just like the Red Army.  I really doubt they would care much about German citizens during Seven Days to the Rhein, and the apparatus hasn't really changed to significantly.

[VladimirTarasov]

1 hour ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

If a weapon was made in the US, it's going to have a US serial number.  There wasn't a magic production line for US vs all other TOW-2A missiles.  You'll find that data plate on all sorts of made in USA equipment regardless of the end user (I imagine if you crawled into World War Two era stuff sent via lend-lease in your museums you would find a similar data plate).  Same deal with the NSN, it's just a number used for ordering replacements, and would be printed on anything made in the US.

There is a ton of TOW users in the region, some of whom were much more enthusiastic about arming the Syrian rebels of all stripes than the US.  The article you sent to me is pretty straight forward that it's almost certainly an American made system, but one that could have come from 40+ different countries that have TOW missiles.

Fair enough about the serial numbers, since Saudi Arabia is in the equation it would indeed be impossible to figure out if the US gave it to them or Saudis, even though both supply rebels with these weapons of course. Really a messed up situation... 

1 hour ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

Didn't have them in a host of other urban fights, and didn't have to resort to carpet bombing blocks either. In the case of Syria it also doesn't excuse indiscriminate employment of weapons without legitimate targets either.

Carpet bombing is a very effective weapon but of course you're right they lead to heavy collateral damage if civilians are in the equation. Can't argue against that.

1 hour ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

You're reading the graphs wrong.  Or at the least, need to read them beside the deaths caused by the insurgents.  Then also take into account most of the "unknown" deaths are likely attributable to the insurgents.  Right now with a high degree of certainty the most lethal thing in Syria to civilians is the Syrian government and allies.  While the Iraq war left a massive toll in collateral type damage, only in 2003 did deaths from the US/allies exceed deaths from insurgents, and there's some pretty funky math that goes on to get to that point.

There's a special toolbar where you can select the casualty caused by various factions, I set it to US coalition and that's where I gave the numbers. I'm not demonizing US forces in Iraq, I'm just saying it happened even when US forces were equipped with superior everything so to speak.

1 hour ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

Option 1: The bombsight works as advertised, is very accurate.  This means unambiguously the Russians are hitting civilian targets on purpose because there's little room for missing with how good the sight is.

Which gets us to my point that there are many cases of rebels operating in civilian positions which is against international law. Which is the point I've been trying to get too. The last time Russia deliberately killed civilians was the Chechen wars, which I condemned (not the war but the way we fought it) to think Russia in this day and age with a different leadership and way better force would deliberately hit innocents' homes where everyone has a camera is wrong to assume. Same goes for all the other people who believe the US purposely killed many innocents in the Iraq and Afghan war systematically. 

Problem one faced with such high intensity urban warfare is positions are located in civilian or near civilian areas. Ammunition storage, militant medical facilities, barracks, trenches, ect. ect. strongholds are usually in high civilian density. You drop a bomb on it and the poor families which are literally in the designated operation zone are going to be killed precision weaponry or not. Which gets me to my other point that these rebel groups do not allow civilians to get through the humanitarian corridors Russia and the Syrian government opened during the last 3 major ceasefires. 

1 hour ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

Russia uses a lot of precision, or semi-precision type weapons, ranging from ATGMs which work wonders against point targets like insurgent strongpoints, to your various guided bombs.  Russia is using none of these, instead dropping bombs into populated centers using something no more complex than an electronic slide rule.

Panzer all these that you've mentioned have been supplied: Kornet ATGMs, T-90s, precision artillery equipment. It just isn't cutting it. The Russian airforce doesn't use cluster bomb loadouts only. KABs are used, other precision bombs are used as well, but majority wise SVP-24s are used. It's horrible man truth be it. Not fair to the civilians that the war is brought to them without their say.

 

 

[Machor]

3 hours ago, HerrTom said:

though in the second war, as far as I know, it did work, to an extent

In the second war, residents of Grozny were given three days to evacuate the city through humanitarian corridors, and AFAIK, most did and it saved many lives. However, there was a huge strategic difference with Aleppo:

Residents of Grozny, even if they were pro-independence, were not concerned about the borders of Chechnya, as they were at any rate defined as an autonomous republic within Russia. Therefore, they had nothing to gain by staying in Grozny. Likewise, the battle plan of the rebels was to hold out in Grozny as long as possible, and then to break out to the mountains to wage guerrilla warfare. Indeed, Russians scored a great coup by luring the rebels led by Basayev into a kill-zone through false intelligence about a breakout route that Basayev believed he was getting from a corrupt Russian officer.

In contrast, the civilians and rebels in Aleppo are fighting for the very borders of their future Syria, as I think it's clear by now that the best they can count on is the partitioning of Syria. The regime offers them safe passage to the Idlib province, which is already over-populated with all the other rebels who have taken up the offer in other besieged areas. Therefore, they have every reason to try to hold on in Aleppo and hope for at least a partial Western intervention like a no-fly zone.

[JUAN DEAG]

12 hours ago, VladimirTarasov said:

No man now that's just messed up, you can't categorize a whole people over what some barbarians do, I have many Muslim friends which I come to respect.

Apologies. I get passionate about this sometimes. I too have Muslim classmates and don't want to call them something they are not.

I'm not criticizing the people themselves but rather the scripture that can justify such atrocities. They are categorically sadistic people but can still be considered good Muslims that follow the Koran to every comma; higher calling trumps human instinct every time.  Assad may be a monster but at the very least he kept the extremists in line, even if it was for the sake of control.

 

[JUAN DEAG]

In other news, Putin is F***ed.

 

[panzermartin]

Concrete proof of West aiding ISIS in Syria

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-12-15/how-texas-plumbers-truck-wound-isis-hands

[Machor]

Just dropping this here as evidence that evil Western news do report stuff against the rebels:

"Aleppo siege: UN envoy Mistura 'appalled' by rebel attacks"

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37816938

"The UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, says he is "appalled and shocked" that rebels in Aleppo are targeting civilians in the city.
The "relentless and indiscriminate" rocket attacks had killed scores of civilians in western Aleppo in the past 48 hours, Mr de Mistura said.

...

More than 40 civilians are reported to have been killed in western Aleppo since the rebel attacks began, activists say.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 16 were children. It added that 55 soldiers had also died - as well as 64 rebels."

[sburke]

14 hours ago, JUAN DEAG said:

Assad may be a monster but at the very least he kept the extremists in line, even if it was for the sake of control.

Almost a direct quote from Donald Trump.  You certain you want to be in that company?

"He was a bad guy -- really bad guy. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn't read them the rights. They didn't talk. They were terrorists. Over. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism,"

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

19 hours ago, HerrTom said:

My piloting experience is limited to Cessnas, but is it possible that the pilots don't necessarily know that that one brown building is a hospital or an apartment block versus the other one next to it which may have some rebels in it?  Combine this with an CEP of 25 meters, and it's possible to hit the building next to it if you're unlucky.

Beyond that, comparing Coalition-caused deaths to what's going on here is also a little off, seeing as the situation on the ground is very different, perhaps more is in common with Stalingrad than Fallujah.

Not to defend their methods in earnest, though.  The Russians and Syrians definitely are revisiting Grozny on Eastern Aleppo, though in the second war, as far as I know, it did work, to an extent.  I agree, the Russians probably don't really care too much about what they hit, as long as it causes some kind of military benefit, be it concrete or denting the enemy's morale.  The Russian military is equipped to fight a total war, just like the Red Army.  I really doubt they would care much about German citizens during Seven Days to the Rhein, and the apparatus hasn't really changed to significantly.

Re: Warheads on foreheads

Hypothetical, in your yard somewhere is an anthill.  You hate ants.  You value your yard.  You're not quite sure where the anthill is, but you've hypothetically got a pile of explosives.  

Do you chuck explosives at the yard until you stop seeing ants?  Because that's pretty much what Russia and Syria are doing, only it's not a yard, it's people's homes, hospitals, and the like.  There's other tools, and as I keep saying, there isn't a shortage of them, and yet, here we are dropping bombs on markets with the "Good" guys accounting for 95% of dead medical workers in Syria.

Re: Stalingrad

It's Stalingrad because the Syrian government made it Stalingrad. It's like getting mauled by a wild animal, you only really risk it when you put it into a corner and keep prodding it.  The Syrian government decided it was going to kill its way out of civil disorder, and it backfired dramatically.

As far as "working" it works against an organized enemy that will surrender at some point.  We didn't have the Germans go underground and come back later as an insurgency because the organized government they were following was effectively dismantled, and unable to continue the war, along with a total lack of external support.

The various factions in Syria are not going to be defeated by battlefield success.  There is a place to retaking Aleppo, and even if it was bloody tooth and nail (see how Fallujah emerged post US attack, although Aleppo is way worse on the collateral/civilian damage scale), but it has to be in a wider spectrum of counter-insurgent activities, delegitimizing the narrative of the insurgent, and winning the populace over.

What's happening now is the Syrian government and the Russians are just killing enough Syrians until the overt fighting stops.  To use the yard analogy, they've burned it down, there's nothing left alive, it's all dirt, but somewhere underneath it all is still a boatload of ants.

Again, let's look on back to Hama in 1982, and ask ourselves, did the Syrians solve that problem, or just table it until 2011?  In a multipolar world, do you think it'll stay tabled now, or with a resurgent Turkey, and continued Sunni meddling?

It is doubtful to say the least.  Until the actual problem is addressed, Syria is always going to be just a little ways away from another civil war.

19 hours ago, VladimirTarasov said:

snip

Re: Carpet bombing 

Nope.  Historically carpet bombing has worked when the enemy is concentrated enough, and there's high enough value targets to merit the collateral damage that comes with it.

The sort of carpet bombing the Syrian/Russian air force is doing is killing a handful of dudes with small arms at the expense of the future of the Syrian people, and dozens of innocents.  Not a great tool

Re: Iraq

Again, go back to the website.  Turn on the insurgent filter, and then the unknown options. and compare the numbers with the Coalition.  Now compare the fact Russian air strikes alone over the last 12 months have killed more civilians (again not even including Syrian government actions) than the US/Iraqi Government did through all activities in any year except for 2003.  

Dig a little deeper before drawing conclusions.  The Coalition was the lesser killer of a massive inter-tribal/religion/whatever blood bath.  In Syria far and away the government and your air force is the most dangerous thing to civilians.

Re: Weapons

Again, your military has a massive stockpile of weapons much more suited to the fight at hand.  And you're dumping unguided weapons into places where civilians live.  Well, lived considering the outcome.

Why is Russia deliberately choosing to use weapons that will ensure massive civilian causalities?  Why is it making "safe passage" windows that are impossibly short?  Why did it bomb, or fail to stop the Syrians from bombing aid convoys?

[panzermartin]

20 minutes ago, sburke said:

Almost a direct quote from Donald Trump.  You certain you want to be in that company?

"He was a bad guy -- really bad guy. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn't read them the rights. They didn't talk. They were terrorists. Over. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism,"

Haha, I think Harvard of terrorism was a good one:) Most of the time he talks nonsense but he isnt very far from the truth here. What wording though for a presidential candidate.  

[A Canadian Cat]

Except Assad did not kill terrorists in the past. His regime was accused of  sponsoring terrorists while he and his father before him were in power. Now that he has an armed resistance to fight he just labeled them terrorists since the was convenient. The fact that other sponsors of terrorists sent some guys to mess around in Syria just made his labeling almost believable. 

Assad is not a terrorist killer he is a terrorist sponsor. 

[sburke]

17 minutes ago, IanL said:

Except Assad did not kill terrorists in the past. His regime was accused of  sponsoring terrorists while he and his father before him were in power. Now that he has an armed resistance to fight he just labeled them terrorists since the was convenient. The fact that other sponsors of terrorists sent some guys to mess around in Syria just made his labeling almost believable. 

Assad is not a terrorist killer he is a terrorist sponsor. 

Exactly.  and neither did Saddam.  The only "terrorists" in Iraq were folks who opposed the Baathist police state.  I honestly haven't the slightest idea what alternate reality Trump was referring to.

Edited October 30, 2016 by sburke

[Sublime]

"Whaaat a drag it is gettnnnnn ollld...."

(Stuck in my head. nothing changes does it )

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

I don't think Trump occupies any reality, ours or alternate, he's like some sort of Lovecraftian void of nonsense that to stare too deeply into is to embrace madness.

There is some irony though in that Syria is rather on the receiving end of the sort of practices it carried out throughout the cold war.  Comfort to no one really, just hadn't thought about it until now.  

[panzermartin]

2 hours ago, IanL said:

Assad is not a terrorist killer he is a terrorist sponsor. 

You suggest he is playing 1P hotseat in Syria right now?

 

[VladimirTarasov]

2 hours ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

Nope.  Historically carpet bombing has worked when the enemy is concentrated enough, and there's high enough value targets to merit the collateral damage that comes with it.

The sort of carpet bombing the Syrian/Russian air force is doing is killing a handful of dudes with small arms at the expense of the future of the Syrian people, and dozens of innocents.  Not a great tool

Yes a great tool because there are a few footage pieces of cluster bombs catching whole rebel positions and ripping them into shreds out in the open be it in the city center, or be it out on rough terrain. If rebels would follow the countless Syrian government requests of letting civilians out we wouldn't have half the amount of collateral damage that has happened. 

2 hours ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

Again, go back to the website.  Turn on the insurgent filter, and then the unknown options. and compare the numbers with the Coalition.  Now compare the fact Russian air strikes alone over the last 12 months have killed more civilians (again not even including Syrian government actions) than the US/Iraqi Government did through all activities in any year except for 2003.  

Okay I did that, but it still exceeds Russia's claimed civilian kill count. 2003 is a part of the war, I can't exclude that. 

2 hours ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

Again, your military has a massive stockpile of weapons much more suited to the fight at hand.  And you're dumping unguided weapons into places where civilians live.  Well, lived considering the outcome.

Why is Russia deliberately choosing to use weapons that will ensure massive civilian causalities?  Why is it making "safe passage" windows that are impossibly short?  Why did it bomb, or fail to stop the Syrians from bombing aid convoys?

I know you're busy and no one can tell you what to read or do but have you been following up on the arms and weapons delivered to the Syrian army? You're still assuming Russia isn't using accurate weaponry but litterally just flinging bombs into the city in hopes of hitting something. This isn't the Vietnam war, there's accurate targeting systems even if a bomb is a dumb bomb. The biggest factor of civilian deaths is caused by rebel groups not letting civilians through corridors, and the worse part building their positions right next to them. In the recent attacks in SW Aleppo, rebel factions have attacked a district causing thousands of people to flee in terror. But no reporting from Western journalists because apparently Assad's forces are the only guys doing bad things.

[Machor]

25 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

2 hours ago, IanL said:

Assad is not a terrorist killer he is a terrorist sponsor. 

You suggest he is playing 1P hotseat in Syria right now?

For much of the Cold War, Syria had de facto control over the Beqaa Valley, which was the Harvard, Yale, and Stanford combined of world terrorism.

11 minutes ago, VladimirTarasov said:

But no reporting from Western journalists because apparently Assad's forces are the only guys doing bad things.

Did you see my link from BBC?

[VladimirTarasov]

10 minutes ago, Machor said:

For much of the Cold War, Syria had de facto control over the Beqaa Valley, which was the Harvard, Yale, and Stanford combined of world terrorism.

Did you see my link from BBC?

It's an exaggeration, but that's barely any of the reportings. I'm following Syrian news and I see alot of atrocities that I haven't come across in say CNN or Fox News. 

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

Re: Cluster bombs

Look.  ISIS/Syrian rebels aren't setting up barracks, motorpools, or large targets for the most part (well, except for ISIS, but they're less of a factor).  Generally you're talking about fairly small numbers of people with infantry weapons.  In a vacuum, like Afghanistan where it's just another rocky hole dropping a 500 lbs bomb on three guys makes sense, especially if you're dealing with something like a mortar team that'll be gone in sixty seconds.

But the whole basic concept "just war" is contingent on proportionality, it's not enough to kill someone with a 2000 lbs cluster human seeker missile from space, you have to ask if the weapon used, and the effects achieved are proportional to the damage done.

And I'd contend it's not.  Aleppo in terms of enemy is pretty much down into the hundreds of insurgents at best.  It's not something that merits the kind of massive bombardment that is ongoing, and it's debatable what there is left to reasonably destroy with the sort of force being applied.  The only thing that really makes sense is if someone is using Aleppo as an example just like Hama was oh wait we've been down this road before.

Re: 2003

The way the Iraqi Body Count does numbers is it attributes virtually everyone killed in the initial invasion to Coalition forces.  It doesn't separate them into deaths caused by Iraqi armed forces under Saddam, (indeed, did you see a tick mark for them?) and it includes reporting as done by the old Iraqi government which was the same one claiming the US Army was cut off and about to surrender in downtown Baghdad/DU was giving all babies in Iraq cancer, and the British have dropped in murderous badgers to keep farmers away from watering holes for livestock (both the cancer and badger claims are real ones that Iraqi government made)

Could be they changed reporting criteria, but that's one of the issues I seem to recall about the 2003 numbers.

Re: Bombing accuracy

Look, our resident fighter pilot didn't buy off on your claims of accuracy.  There's really no reason for the US CCIP to be more, or less accurate than the Russian version (it's fairly basic what it's doing).

Basically if the PVS-24 was as accurate as you claim, there'd be almost no reason for precision weapons, especially no to the degree the west fields them.  A lot happens to bombs when they leave a plane, and there's a lot of variables inherent to the bomb itself that can lend to changes in impact point.  

Also frankly there's only really two options, the Russian Air Force is bombing hospitals and aid convoys on purpose, or it's hitting them because it cannot accurately hit targets.  I'm giving you guys the benefit of the doubt here.

And no.  The biggest contributor of civilian deaths is the unrestricted use of heavy weapons in residential areas by the Syrian government and Russian military.  It's as simple as that, by all accounting and all but certain people's news sources.  

Finally I heard about the counter offensive Friday on yankee imperialist news sources.  It was not favorably discussed. 

[JUAN DEAG]

4 hours ago, sburke said:

Almost a direct quote from Donald Trump.  You certain you want to be in that company?

"He was a bad guy -- really bad guy. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn't read them the rights. They didn't talk. They were terrorists. Over. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism,"

He kept all people in line. Some of those people were extremists. I never said that was a good thing. Don't mistake me for a Trump supporter.

[VladimirTarasov]

47 minutes ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

Look.  ISIS/Syrian rebels aren't setting up barracks, motorpools, or large targets for the most part (well, except for ISIS, but they're less of a factor).  Generally you're talking about fairly small numbers of people with infantry weapons.  In a vacuum, like Afghanistan where it's just another rocky hole dropping a 500 lbs bomb on three guys makes sense, especially if you're dealing with something like a mortar team that'll be gone in sixty seconds.

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/kurdish-ypg-storms-islamist-rebel-positions-aleppo-city/

It's not uncommon to have ammunition loads like these stored in urban environments with civilians still around in the area. This is just ammunition depot, you can do further research and see command points. Their numbers are anything but small, and in most cases they have IFVs, and tanks captured from the regime in support. Just like in the recent offensive in SW Aleppo where ATGMs took out a dozen or so armor that belonged to the rebels in their new offensive. Those guys have conventional power as well, it's not just infantry.

47 minutes ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

And I'd contend it's not.  Aleppo in terms of enemy is pretty much down into the hundreds of insurgents at best.  It's not something that merits the kind of massive bombardment that is ongoing, and it's debatable what there is left to reasonably destroy with the sort of force being applied.  The only thing that really makes sense is if someone is using Aleppo as an example just like Hama was oh wait we've been down this road before.

Bombardment in East Aleppo has ceased for 11 days now on the part of the RuAF, to allow civilians to pass through corridors, and just a general humanitarian pause. Anyways the rebel force in East Aleppo is anything but a few hundred, Syrian intelligence estimates atleast 2K. Plus they have been conscripting the local populace as well, usually forcefully. If the rebel numbers in East Aleppo were a few hundred, the 10-15K SAA force in and around Aleppo would be pushing through it with relative ease. What should bother you more than Russian and Syrian bombs accidentally hitting civilian positions while targeting militants should be this: 

https://southfront.org/syrian-moderate-rebels-use-children-as-human-shield-for-mortar-emplacement/

literally children 10 meters away from the mortar piece.... What kind of results were you waiting for? I'm deeply sorry for the civilian population, but everyone knows that these radical groups must be eradicated. In this case, if Russia used a KH-25SM precision missile those children would be dead anyways. Let alone that, if a drone lazed the mortar sight and precision artillery was called in those kids were dead. I understand where you are coming from, but we can't just pretend Russia and Syria are at blame for these casualties, if the rebels aren't allowing these people into the safe zones the government offers. 

47 minutes ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

The way the Iraqi Body Count does numbers is it attributes virtually everyone killed in the initial invasion to Coalition forces.  It doesn't separate them into deaths caused by Iraqi armed forces under Saddam, (indeed, did you see a tick mark for them?) and it includes reporting as done by the old Iraqi government which was the same one claiming the US Army was cut off and about to surrender in downtown Baghdad/DU was giving all babies in Iraq cancer, and the British have dropped in murderous badgers to keep farmers away from watering holes for livestock (both the cancer and badger claims are real ones that Iraqi government made)

Could be they changed reporting criteria, but that's one of the issues I seem to recall about the 2003 numbers.

Oh no of course Iraqis made some really dumb claims, but the website's options seems to show one for US coalition ONLY from 2003. Anyways I wasn't comparing anything other than the fact that even with superior equipment, precision, prowess, training. Collateral damage happened. And I was only saying that to give you an idea on why there is so much collateral damage on the government's side. Since the best airplanes they had until Russian intervention were SU-24s from the 80s. 

47 minutes ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

Look, our resident fighter pilot didn't buy off on your claims of accuracy.  There's really no reason for the US CCIP to be more, or less accurate than the Russian version (it's fairly basic what it's doing).

I agree, SVP-24 has GPS, and all the other calculations for bombs, the pilot just sets the coordinates and flies through to the determined way-points, and it releases automatically (no human error) based on those calculations. At 5-6 kilometer altitude these bombs have 10-20 meter CEPs, not precision by any standards of course, but still accurate to hit strongholds,  and formations. 

47 minutes ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

Finally I heard about the counter offensive Friday on yankee imperialist news sources.  It was not favorably discussed

Yeah, rebels succeeded in advancing through into a Christian district Al-Assad I believe, and today their whole offensive collapsed with the Syrian army already controlling 30% of the district again. I see one thing the rebels have is they don't fear death, and that get's them far in their offensives because they can keep the initiative even with heavy casualties. 

Edited October 30, 2016 by VladimirTarasov

[Wicky]

https://southfront.org/

Interesting that Southfront that touts itself as :

"a public analytical project maintained by an independent  team of experts from the four corners of the Earth focusing on international relations issues and crises and working through a number of media platforms with a special emphasis on social networks. We focus on analysis and intelligence of the ongoing crises and the biggest stories from around the world.

Happens to be based in Moscow > https://whois.domaintools.com/southfront.org 

Mmmmm....  Putin Bot central?

 

[VladimirTarasov]

6 minutes ago, Wicky said:

https://southfront.org/

Interesting that Southfront that touts itself as :

"a public analytical project maintained by an independent  team of experts from the four corners of the Earth focusing on international relations issues and crises and working through a number of media platforms with a special emphasis on social networks. We focus on analysis and intelligence of the ongoing crises and the biggest stories from around the world.

Happens to be based in Moscow > https://whois.domaintools.com/southfront.org 

Mmmmm....  Putin Bot central?

 

I don't care if it was in Pyonyang, it provides evidence in that link I shared.