LongLeftFlank

Excellent, many thanks! China is not at the end of its modernisation drive: it's in the middle. ...Lack of recent warfighting experience and the fact that China's best and brightest (with exceptions) do NOT choose a military career (in spite of recent PLA pay rises noted by Perun toward the end) are two key open questions of course. Dieu n’est pas pour les gros bataillons, mais pour ceux qui tirent le mieux

From Luttwak's twitter: Shanghai Media Group reporter uploaded a poem "To the Cicada" It’s only every five years* / That you emerge from the nether world / And all you can do is to use your ass / To sing a song of praise in the summer. * reference to the Party Congress

Whose grass mod are you using?

Dyslexia rules K.O.

Here's a new word for you, Steve: превентивный. The Praesidium of the Supreme Soviet has censured Comrade Grigorenko for his politically immature speech.... So whataboutism is mandatory on this thread now? ...i.e. we can't discuss the pressures facing Ukraine without also constantly chanting to ourselves 'but you should see the other guy!' We can read pages and pages and pages of confident stuff here every day about the myriad of ways Russia sux. Done to death, in fact. How do I count the ways? ....and with that, I'm standing down for a bit. The air has gotten a little thick in here.

Fair enough, thanks for elaborating, but I'm sure you agree we must cross index 'combat intensity' (e.g. bloodshed, extent and totality of destruction, consumption of materiel, etc.) with 'time'. Not all days count the same. ...And no, I don't doubt Ukrainian motivation or will/ability to continue. I'm just kind of challenging the complacency here, as I do from time to time, that victory or collapse or whatever is just a matter of time and patience. I enjoy reading the responses. In my view, it's a risky course for UA to just keep on gnawing away at RA with HIMARS, counterbattery fire and infantry probes, straight into the winter. The brave Ukrainian people pay an awful price for every day this drags on. I also continue to believe Ivan is frantically digging in already ('freezing his gains', or trying to) and the longer offensive action is put off, the bloodier and more fraught retaking those lands is going to be. ...So, again, my view is that they either need to take some risks and find a way to solve for larger offensive ops, or else materially ratchet up the Russian death rates to a level that forces their withdrawal, especially targeting the 'volunteer' forces @Grigb discussed. I am not seeing them achieving that with precision artillery alone; maybe I am wrong. The HIMARS stuff makes great press, but I don't see higher rates of Ivans killed on the line. So I floated the idea of waging unrestricted mine warfare within defined 'killing zones'. @The_Capt and others pointed out the downsides of that. Useful discussion, in my view. And here we are.

So you toss out a metric that is utterly useless in isolation: 'war duration, months'. And then proceed to cite completely irrelevant analogies. Followed by an empty statement that well, the French won, so who cares? Nothing to see here. Why did you even bother? Your comments are usually a lot more thoughtful than this.

Well noted mate, and I'm not trying to twist your tail here as some-rando-on-keyboard. (... and while I've never personally toted a rifle in anyone's service but my own, my personal life experience with conflict zones and landmines, and with their victims, is nonzero). You seem to be of the view though that the war of attrition is going for Ukraine militarily.... how? as well as can be expected? (I won't put words in your mouth). **** Let me flip a few of our fondly held ideas on their heads here, for argument.... 1. How long can Ukrainian society *really* keep this up? Yes, they have no choice and are putting a valiant face on it all, but war economies basically eat themselves over time. Some 10% of the people are DPs, internal and external, a net economic drag. Winter comes early. 2. Ukraine's true rear area -- unmobilised Western economies -- is slowing down, a secular trend. The Globalisation 2.0 asset auction is largely played out now (that's where I carry a rifle, metaphorically). Compassion fatigue, hard choices and 'cutting losses' lie ahead. 3. Russia is running way short on a lot of key inputs. But they show little sign yet of being unable (or unwilling) to hold their ill gotten gains to date: the Izyum bulge, the Azov shore and the shattered Lukhansk zone. With the exception of the Kherson salient, which he'll need to let go in the fall, Putin actually does appear to be 'freezing' the conflict, at least since June. Sure, that strategy is forced on him by RA's failure to advance, and is nothing close to what he wanted, but such a stalemate may be something a battered but stubborn Russia can drag out for years. Can Ukraine? 4. This thread has amply demonstrated the limitations of historical analogies, but Ukraine is in a France 1915 situation. Some 1/5 of its lands (1/4+ if we count 2014 losses) are under enemy control, disproportionately heavy industry. We've skipped the Marne (and thankfully, so far, the Somme) and have gone straight to Verdun. Also, as yet there is no BEF sharing the blood price, and unlikely to be. 5. How long can Ukraine's fighting pool of some 1.2 million brave, still mainly cheerful, Vikings remain effective and superior, even at a reduced 'stalemate' level of intensity? Again, there's a massive economic cost to having these guys and gals sitting in trenches. TL:DR A lot of major dynamics change as and when this war goes 'long' and by no means all of them swing against Russia.

Russia's own Rodrigo Duterte?

Yes, yes, well noted ahem, yes, well that advice is One Hundred Percent ESG and Equator Principles compliant. Not to mention Queensberry Rules. And no doubt the properly constituted authorities will take those boundaries fully into account in their audit processes. **** ...Meanwhile, Ukraine's "Western acting and appearing" army urgently needs to get the Russians (who still outnumber them 3.5 to 1) the f++k out of their lands. Because, make no mistake, Ukraine's best and brightest are paying a hellish blood price 6 months in. Their emerging economy is fully harnessed to the war effort, but that can't last forever. ...And I doubt they're betting the kolkhoz on Marshall Plan Part Deux. As you yourself have said (wisely), banking on the enduring gratitude of Team USA, still less the Euroweasels, is an "I'll totally call you in the morning" bet that only valiant but desperate historical have-nots like the Kurds, Hmong and Khampa make. ...So if I'm Ukraine, unleashing my inner Viking, I am going to adopt what works and is within my capabilities (and mine warfare sure as hell is!), and make my excuses to the pearl clutching set later. Also, as you know even better than I, a looooong list of Western proxies, most notably a certain Middle Eastern state beloved of Congress, have brazened their way through worse behaviour. ***** And as for mines, sure, of course they can be breached. Oh goody gumdrops, here's another square kilometer of pockmarked wasteland. That isn't the point. The point is to blow off a bunch of people's legs. If there's a better way to do that, go for it. Sorry about the snark. Actually, no I'm not.... Do you want to kill im, or not?

[MURZ] However,... I'm ****ing tired of arguing.... Now I just don't have time for these arguments anymore. You'll see for yourself. Yeah, well you're not the only one, boychik. Harking back to one of the very early comments from our esteemed host: ....Ukrainians merely have to keep killing Russians. If the UA can't solve for a combined arms offensive and encirclement, the next best option for them is to *sharply* step up the pace of killing and maiming of Russians. Until the invaders simply run out of bodies. And if the 'volunteers' are indeed the SS formations keeping Russia in this war, they need to be brought to their Cherkassy and Elsenborn Ridge, asap. Screw the vehicles, target men. Bleed them white. Don't depend on human wave attacks in the fall making it easy. Ukraine and its allies should begin prepping large purpose designed kill zones. Select places (to quote that old Chinese guy) the enemy is obliged to attack. I believe brother @Grigblately listed a few in Donbas. ...The Geneva Convention left this highway several exits ago. Keep the bunkers formidable looking but thinly manned. Fill them, along with every road, track, bush and house with millions of tiny mines and CBUs. Bombardment won't clear them. Let the Bayraktars and SoF teams prioritise killing their demining vehicles. Snipe and drone their pioneer troops, whatever renders them ineffective. Keep blowing the legs off their infantry in the hundreds, day after day. They will eventually go home. None of this gives me any pleasure or satisfaction personally. But it looks to me like the surest path to victory at present.

Hmm, I wonder what kind of flood could be induced without destroying the dam outright? And turning the entire south bank into muck and stranding two armies north of the river. Hmm.... P.S. that old WW2 photo is NOT the dam in question; it's the much bigger one upstream.

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2022/08/419_334960.html Samsung, SK, Hyundai Motor and LG have been called out for their failure to denounce Russia's invasion of Ukraine by a London-based corporate watchdog. The Moral Rating Agency (MRA), set up to urge global enterprises to cut their ties with Russia, said that it has measured corporate statements to release its "Courage Index." It put together a list of 88 companies that have been avoiding denouncing Russia, among the 122 largest companies that were active in trading or investment there at the time of its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. According to the agency, there were 34 denouncers among the 122 companies, although three of them have continued their operations in Russia. While most of the cowards among Western companies opted for 'mealy-mouthed' statements, East Asian companies ― Chinese, Korean and Japanese ― tended to opt either for silence, making excuses or even 'reverse boycotting.... [the source doesn't explain what this is]

There is only one Judge in the Cursed Earth, and He Is The Law!

Yeah, agreed, and hey, that's another potential plus for the Remote Lego Battle Buggies: Low ground pressure that makes Russia's Cold War stockpile of conventional AT mines useless, or at least in need of some rewiring.

Damned longhaired peacenik hippies! Oh, wait. Not sure about your 'minder' theory. Usually those guys are no-necks and either look deadpan, or else glower or sneer at the camera. Nor do they take the 'keener / teacher's pet' chair in the front row; they keep an eye on the crowd. This guy looks like kind of a dork and my first instinct (totally unconfirmable and doesn't mean he's a foreigner) is that he's non-Slavic. Journalist or LARPer? Rich kid who was the daughter's love interest, or wanted to be? Who knows....

... but thar wasn't quite as many as there wuz a while ago.

This was very thoroughly covered early in the thread; there was a whole controversy around the 'Giant Red Blob' maps showing Russia eating almost 1/4 of Ukraine. Then someone else came up with the 'spiderweb' map showing how other than in the south they in fact controlled only the roads. Russiabots yelled BS but then Strelkov/Girkin confirmed, yup, that was indeed the situation 1. most of the BTGs rolled into Ukraine at only around 40-60% total manpower and most of those were 'contract' specialists, crews and gunners; the bulk of their manpower shortage was in riflemen (conscripts). Putin didn't mobilise which was what was supposed to happen to fill out these units. So they couldn't execute proper infantry screening/sweeping tactics or combined arms, even if they wanted to.... 2. even elite 'infantry' formations (VDV) with a fuller establishment of grunts were (are!) doctrinally tied to their vehicles, relying on HW 'recon by fire' and calling in the guns instead of foot sweeps.

Crash bang smashemup! Put em back again.....

But to me, you've just made the case for the opposite: the purpose of trundling around all those tons of armour, using a huge finicky fuel guzzling engine and super heavy duty drivetrain, is to protect some squishies (crew), who in turn operate a large cannon (or whatever). ...So what if the crew instead hops out of their vehicle a couple of kms from the FEBA, takes cover with their gear (including drones) under some high tech ghillie suits and then maneuvers and fires the UGV remotely. Do you still need all that armour? Pushing it even further, does our Mad Max Future look something like this? [/tongue in cheek, but only partly] ....The UGV war buggies are so modular, they are literally *designed* to blow apart, leaving certain components salvageable (rather than burning to the axles due to all that extra fuel and ammo cooking off).... Or the launcher is the bit that's designed to blow off, leaving the platform (hull down) able to pull back ...soon to come again, all shiny and chrome! Witness me!!!!!!

So this is 'Ender's Game' where the twitch kidz on their FPS are unaware they're actually fighting a real war?

Galeev on a roll lately regarding magical thinking, 'martyrdom' and the silly season... And all this in a land where chess is a spectator sport.... or used to be, anyway.

[you know you'd be disappointed if I didn't respond with a meme clip] And in the War of the Future, all higher commanders will have nice goatees. In fact, I am totally convinced @The_Capt is in RL a dead ringer for CPT Mitchell from "Hyena Road". Just like @Beleg85 is in fact Aristotle and @IanL is in fact a cat. And I am an evil Bakshi wizard with no flesh on his forearms.

... hell, even the 'holes' might be only one potential posture for the 'light' fighter. Thinking about 'thinning' and deepening the front as a counter to saturation bombardment. Don't present identifiable targets, or conversely, present a functionally infinite number of vacant/dummy targets. Ten thousand holes in Blackburn Lancashire / And though the holes were rather small / they had to fill them all... Those Mad Max dune buggies posted by @Haiduk are quite something, though not especially new to warfare. ...during the 1985 Chad war, the Libyan T55s were unable to rotate their turrets quickly enough to hit TOW-mounted Hilux pickups. And of course you had the SAS in Cyrenaica 1942. Imagine (and we don't actually have to imagine much) a higher tech version where the riders hop off into safe hidey holes and then remotely operate the weapon platform in the hot zone. Like upsized toys, with plug and play modules for AT, AP, air defence, minelaying/clearing, salvage/maintenance of other vehicles, etc. [Some pages ago, someone posted a tweet of Russians marveling at an 'indestructible' MG position that turned out to be a remotely-operated BTR turret] And at that point, the 'poor bloody infantry' is more like something out of Heinlein than a distraught bag of meat clutching a rifle waiting for the shell with his name on it.