panzermartin
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Posts posted by panzermartin
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I don't know, maybe the Kosovo escalation is part of a bigger plan, that we will see unfolding the next weeks or months. There is some sort of Axis forming, Serbia - Russia - China - Iran and maybe Turkey (that is drifting and drifting away from NATO). A big event like the Ukraine war is unlikely to be isolated and not to cause chain reactions, but I hope we just won't slip into WW3 without even realizing.
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3 hours ago, dan/california said:
Any clue what that works out too in actual manpower? The definition of a battlegroup has gotten sort of flexible lately. Also any indication of the number of guns and AFVs? I am just trying to get an approximate idea of how much tonnage has to cross the Dnipro every day to keep those forces functional. I realize that this may not be available from public sources.
3 hours ago, Haiduk said:I posted about Kherson about week ago. In short - main forces there 7th air assault division (mountain) - at least 5-6 BTGs, then 205th MRB almost in full composition, BTG of 34th MRB (mountain), 11th air-assault brigade (at least 2 BTGs), 126th coastal defense MRB (also 2 BTGs), 127th recon brigade, about 1-1.5 BTGs ot 42nd MRD, moved from Zaporizhzhia, elements of 98th VDV division, moved from Donbas, at least four battalions of LDPR conscripts. Other lesser units, artllery, AD. In last days Russia moved many troops to Kherson and I will write about this. Up to 12-15 BTGs total, not counting LDPR conscripts
4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:It's a bit dated (July 5), but Schlottman puts the BTG count stood at about 10. Armor includes T-90s and BMP-3s, Marines, Airborne, and Spetsnaz units. This was prior to the flood of reinforcements into the area, so there's likely quite a bit more there.
The dilemma for Russia is that if it withdrew its armor heavy artillery, it would effectively end any hope of keeping the western bank positions. Why? Because thus far Ukraine has shown itself more than capable of taking back terrain from Russian infantry units. Especially in this case where Ukraine's forces are backed by armor and heavy artillery.
What this means is, realistically, Russia had to choose between defending Kherson with everything it had or retreating to the eastern side. Anything other than full defense or full retreat would not have worked.
Steve
Thanks for the insight good points. I must have missed these updates.
That's a rather impressive force to allow to be cut off. It will be a huge blow for the Russians if this surrenders or gets destroyed. I wonder have they thought of the chances the bridges to go out of action or the initial plan didn't predict they will get stuck in Kherson until now. The volume of units is still a challenge Imo for UA to defeat, even with problematic supply though . Eithers side defeat/victory will be pivotal for the course of the war for sure.
@Battlefront.comit seems it's all or nothing I come to agree. We don't have indications that they are thinking or are able of withdrawing any of these forces. Also studying the terrain seems that the eastern bank doesn't offer that much suitable spots for artillery base , not enough roads and a lot of wetlands.
A good chunk of media and people have lost interest in what's going on right now but this is going to be one of the most interesting events in European history since WW2.
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On the Kherson and the Dniepr bridges, I can't really find much information about the structure of russian forces in the pocket. I wonder if their standard armor leaning BTG never changes.
If I was RU commander I would rely mostly on well equipped infantry units instead of Armor and heavy arty that cant be repositioned or withdraw easily. I would also station most artillery units covering Kherson on the eastern shore. But thats only me and not some overconfident and inflexible RU commander
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Just 40 plus people trying to make another cool tik tok video unsuccessfully.
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2 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:
Sorry for banality, but this is most approriate answer, mate:
Haha, I wish there was some Gandalf around to make things crystal clear.
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23 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:
Not directly connected to war, but close:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62313579
One of Orban's close advisers resigned after his "race speech". First I thought it was mistranslated (contexts are very difficult to catch properly in that language) but also some Hungarians are rather pissed on him, even some supporters I know personally. Orban is increasingly using strong Moscow-sponsored rhetoric in last months, he do this openly more and more. First time was his famous pathetic croak at Zelensky's remarks the day of discovery of Bucha massacre. Now this.
Last remarks were given at Summer Camp in Romania, traditional place of him giving opening speeches of new term among Szeklers, i.e. Hungarian minority in Romania. There were several hungarologists who claim that in closed parts of those meetings he often speaks about necessity of "corection of borders" and "joining Hungarian lands again". He is no alien to highly nationalistic "Greater Hungary" idea but nurtured it rather privatelly until now. B****d is getting insolent.
Another early sign of what may happen to Europe if we break this terrible "Western-dominated international order". @panzermartin
The thing is I know if the "western order" falls, my country will be in the frontlines, as the border of EU in SE Mediterranean.
So I didn't want this war in the first place. I had only wished for Russia and Europe coming together for the prosperity of the continent but there's no hope now...
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3 hours ago, dan/california said:
HIMARS has Russian losses back up in the range of a battlegroup per day.
Kherson is a trap for one side or the other. My bet is Putin is playing General, and the Russian army is going to be very sorry.
These losses are fantasy stats, as we have discussed before. I wouldn't take seriously their daily report either.
https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/07/24/how-heavy-are-russian-casualties-in-ukraine
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I'm sorry but the connection of green movements and environmentalists with Putin and Saudi dictators sounds very trumpish to me and not something I would expect to read in this forum.
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4 hours ago, Mattias said:
Panzermartin. The constant in your posts on this subject, as far as I have seen, is that you make no firm claims that you back up with facts. You merely apply a constant pressure of “what if”, “what about”, “maybe”. When you have been called out here you have back off, graciously waving a hand - “oh I was only voicing a thought - but I do understand your opinion”. But you don’t qualify your opinion, instead you merely shift focus - sliding sideways.Personally I am immensely grateful for this forum precisely because it is not defined by people posting half baked opinions and then just leaving them. Instead real facts, as good as we can get them, are being weighed and analysed, and informed conclusions/assumptions made from from that.
The thing is, in July 2022 we are now beyond talking nice and moral ambiguities with russia . This is full on Germany 1939 with all the bells and whistles. We see all the signs of violent authoritarianism, in what is being said and in whats is being done. That really is all there is to it. How russia, and it’s supporters, rationalises it’s actions is now irrelevant, it is merely the words of a abuser/killer in action. Talking about justice for the perpetrator in that context is to insult and co-abuse the victims.
If I may suggest, or indeed urge: Take a stand, for or against - completely. This is now, or will be, a matter of supporting or opposing the 21st century equivalent of Nazi Germany. It defines you in the eyes of others.
And by the way, showing a “generous understanding” for the opponent’s strong emotions, his/her “personal” side, is front and center in the textbook of social media tactics. I mean, we all know that “hysterics” can not possibly be correct. So lets really highlight that bit in in the mass of facts that the other party produces.
Over and out.
Thanks for the post. Sometimes when I write here I get a lot of replies I can't follow. I feel like I'm shot from different directions, so sometimes I have to leave a debate unresolved or like waving hand as you say. It's really exhausting sometimes.
The fact I'm posting here and not in some pro russian forum tells me that I can sense where I mostly belong. But I like to challenge the dominant line. I did this with the Iraq War here when everyone was going Gung ho, and you can't imagine the flak I took. Everyone was so certain about the WMD the AL qaeda links and so on, only to accept some years later that they were wrong. Bush Jr was joking as well and life went on as usual. And people were again posting facts, excel sheets, analysis from reliable sources but nobody predicted the mess that followed. So, whatever firm facts we are looking for, might not be that firm sometimes.
But I still come here, because it is still one of the best sources of info on the internet about the war. I'm sorry that I'm not contributing to that so much. I have been posting since 2002 here and I appreciate that despite heated discussions from the Iraq war, to Gaza, Syria and Ukraine I was allowed to voice my half baked opinion.
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25 minutes ago, sburke said:
as long as you keep dodging the point sure it really makes no sense to discuss. However, if you would like to consider how well Russia maintains that enormous nuclear force on a GDP lower than Italy sure maybe we can have a rational discussion of just what kind of state that nuclear force is in... and that should scare most Russians.
Last I heard Malta's population wasn't being starved to death so not having Nukes is likely a good thing.,
I'm not dodging any point. Of course the state of their nuclear will probably not be ideal. And the number of active warheads might not be accurate. But I find it more scary personally, less safe. You imply that this will prevent them from using them? I don't really know. Or in an event of nuclear war this will help NATO somewhat prevail?
The US administration doesn't behave like they underestimate Russia's nuclear arsenal though.
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Grigb, I sense you and your family have a personal inflicted wound from soviet times or today's Russia. Because you are really passionate about hating your own country in a way I haven't seen before. It's true I can't debate that, from my safe western corner of fantasies. But I can spot the personal side. The thing is, don't worry the message is getting across and we are not actually that passionate to defend Russia's actions. Maybe we are just playing the devil's advocate to try to challenge our own mindset and seek the truth. Its not changing the course of history. Even if we think that evil or backwards countries still have national interests or rights when even criminals have the right in court to defend themselves and not get them straight to the electric chair.
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2 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:
I'm not going to participate in this off topic discussion, but just would like to say this. Germany has learned it's lessons and is one of the most decent and democratic countries in Europe. To compare present Russian (war) crimes with German (war) crimes of the past, in order to weaken the severity of the Russian crimes is unjust.
No, I have been defending modern Germany a lot in a country that has been pretty anti german and have taken a lot of flak because of this. So, whatever came across my posts its probably misinterprented.
On the other hand we also shouldn't equalize today Russia with Nazi Germany because it is a simplification in a more complex situation.
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12 hours ago, sburke said:
Russia has a lower GDP than Italy.
List of countries by GDP (nominal) - Wikipedia
Does it never occur to you that financially Russian really isn't capable of supporting a nuclear arsenal of that size? There is a reason the US has had to help deal with Russia getting rid of all its nuclear material that @Ultradavediscussed several hundred pages ago. Frankly if I was a Russian commander, I'd be very afraid to hit that launch button as there is no telling how badly it will malfunction.
You really need to ground your view of Russian military development in a realistic perspective on what a corruption ridden 11th rated GDP country is ACTUALLY capable of doing.
So, what is the actual point of diminissing the nuclear capabilities of Russia? To make us feel better, I know.
Because in all other aspects it doesnt matter. Its not a discussion with some conclusion to export. We can only assume and assuming in such life or death matters is not a good guide. And if you have Brazil's GDP doesn't matter that much either. According to the GDP of Germany, they should have the best european army and nukes. But they don't because their focus was not there. And North Korea has 30 to 40 nuclear warheads with a GDP a fraction of Malta''s. If you are a country that has been succesfully practicing nuclear weapons since the 1940s and you have thousand advanced rockets, you still have some good chance to end civilization.
No point in debating this.
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8 minutes ago, Grigb said:
Do Greek camps for communists = German Nazi concentration camps?
No, nothing really compares to german engineering.
On a serious note I don't mean to downplay the Gulag years, it is that those times were different and very harsh in history of humans. Even Russia has moved on since then although they still feel like a caricature mutation of soviet union and tsarist russia.
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And another malfunction of (russian?) hardware. Or maybe violence is a feature in russian made robots
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3 hours ago, Grigb said:
And if I tell you that RU is not heading there because it was already there from the beginning? You do know that they had concentration camps simultaneously with Germans?
Yes I know they had. But back then Greece (and again in the 60s) also had concetration camps for communists, Belgians had zoos with humans from African colonies, South Africa had apartheid and Blacks could be shot for going to school in US. But we don't have these anymore (ok apart from Blacks being shot) and neither have the Russians.
Russia is not Nazi Germany but it can become if the conditions grow worse and some "gifted" preacher emerges.
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Historically, are we aware what percentage of nuclear tests were a failure on both sides of the curtain? It would be a good first indication.
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52 minutes ago, chrisl said:
You can think that, but there's not much to support it.
Your second to last sentence shows a confusion that's also common in most press reports. Delivery systems and warheads are distinct from each other. If the warheads don't go "boom" the delivery systems don't matter.
Russia hasn't done a nuclear test that went "boom" since 1990. They talk a lot, but the impression I get is that it's all powerpoint. The latest wunderweapon is this hypersonic missile. Without a warhead it's just a kinetic energy weapon. It's also a non-trivial thing to do. Russia is good at rockets - they've managed to maintain a very reliable launch program for 30 years post-USSR and have some of the most reliable launch vehicles you can get. I have no doubt that they can make something go hypersonic. The hard part is controlling it as a maneuver vehicle in the atmosphere, and there's no evidence that they've been able to do that. We've spent the last 5 months looking at their "precision" guidance capability, their "advances" in armor and APS, their AD radar systems, etc, and there's not much there.
Given that they haven't done a test that went "boom" since 1990, it's a pretty good bet that they haven't developed anything new in the warhead department. They could possibly have developed a new fission bomb in the ~10 kT range - that's not that hard to do and they have a lot of materials laying around, but that stuff is also tracked (and leaves tracks) and I can't find anything indicating that there's anything new. This congressional report from 2022 notes a lot of delivery system development, but given the actual resources available to Russia to do that, it's probably a lot of powerpoint and staged demos. And delivery systems don't mean much if the warheads don't go "boom".
Warheads take a lot of maintenance. The US spends ~$20B/year on "stockpile stewardship", which translates in real terms into "how do we make sure the bombs will explode without actually exploding one". That's about 1/3 of the total Russian military budget. You can make the argument that US engineers cost proportionally more, but it's a weak one. The US doesn't have anywhere near the level of corruption in the political and military budgets that Russia has, and has a lot of controls to make sure they're actually getting what they're paying for. And the bright Russian scientists and engineers can come to the US and make US engineer and scientist salaries. And even with all that, the US nuclear weapons development program nearly died about 20 years ago due to lack of interest from scientists and engineers not being interested in working on it (there was an NYT article or series on it that I haven't been able to find). Russia faces much worse problems in getting the technical people necessary to maintain their weapons systems and keeping them trained and making sure they're actually doing the work.
You're correct that "it is a deadly serious national security asset that demands strict monitoring", but I suspect most of the monitoring is coming from the outside through arms control agreements (and maybe a bit of espionage), which do nothing to make sure the bombs will work, just that there aren't more than there are supposed to be and that the material is accounted for. The corruption within Russia is pervasive enough that unless you can show me something concrete, it's likely at least as bad in the nuke maintenance department as it is with the truck tires. At least someone is going to see if the truck tires go flat in the lot.
And as has already been pointed out (more by other posters) - a nuclear arsenal only works if it's not going "boom" outside of tests. Actually pushing a button to launch nukes in anger is an indication that your nuclear strategy failed, because you'll stop existing less than 60 minutes later, along with your country in any meaningful sense. If Putin wanted to make a real nuclear threat, he'd set one off on a test range. But he'd also want to be really, really sure that it went off, because if it doesn't, the threat fizzles as fast as the bomb does.
Good points thanks. You might be correct that a lot of warheads are of questionable condition. I don't know how time will treat such complicated devices. But I would bet their rocket fleet is in good shape and the platforms can achieve all the stages of flight most of the time.
The real question is, how many of the warheads are needed to go boom to erase a big country from the map and If it's logical to bet on these chances at all. If say 100 are launched and only 3 out of 10 goes boom, you will still have most big cities wiped from the map.
I guess until we hear again about resuming nuclear test detonations we are still away from that scenario.
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21 minutes ago, billbindc said:
"This country was forced to fight a war nobody wanted" is about as persuasive as Hitler's claims that the Germany people had to fight to avoid "racial annihilation". This was a war of choice by ambitious old men running a kleptocracy who don't want to be known as broken old men who used to run a kleptocracy.
History is not linear. We have talked about the deeper reasons fascism was nurtured in post WW1 Germany. The British empire monopoly, the capitalist anatagonism, the global anti communist phobia, the humiliation of a defeated great power and the economic misery, that sunk them into this illness. They didnt wake up on day and said we are going to rule the world. It's the conditions that make the characters not vice versa. Watch how fascism will rise again in Germany and Europe once it sinks into poverty or is neglected its cheap energy from the East. Oh, and they are building a big army I heard.
Russia is heading the same way Germany was unfortunately. And it's not in the steering wheel no matter what. The most powerful and the monopolies of this world are always the moving force.
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5 hours ago, Butschi said:
True, but would the US be willing to gamble with the lives of hundreds of millions of their citizens by intervening in the hope that Russian nukes are in a state of maintenance that prevents them from being used in retaliation?
I think Russia has been more active in the nuclear front than the West , with newer platforms, advanced warheads etc. So it might come as a surprise that they are in fact ahead of the competition in that macabre department. If I was Russia and I knew my conventional army can never be enough to counter NATO, I would keep a sizeable force enough for neighboring police (that came out not even enough to take Ukraine) and invest more in asymmetrical measures like nuclear than in my conventional army. So the state of their army might not be a 100% reflection on that. Plus they are famous for their reliable rocket tech. Nuclear are not a BTR that is left to rust, it is a deadly serious national security asset that demands strict monitoring.
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4 hours ago, dan/california said:
Russia does NOT want a war with NATO, nuclear or otherwise. I say this with 98% confidence because even as a flood of Western weapons has resulted in somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000 Russian KIA, not one Russian shell or missile has landed in Poland, not one. Given that the Russian casualties to date are literally several orders of magnitude larger than most of the casus belli in history, my firm conclusion is that they don't want to fight.
But of course. It's like that from the beginning. All the official RU roars are empty threats. (Except maybe the final nuclear answer if they get cornered) Every time something bad happens to Russia from NATO intervention, they reply "the consequences will be severe" and nothing happens. This country was forced to fight a war nobody really wanted. It's really a tragedy what's unfolding. Can you imagine going to WW3 by mistake.
Btw given the claimed bad state of Russian weapons I was surprised that no missile landed in Poland by malfunction. (Lviv is very close to the border) So they must be doing something right
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5 hours ago, Beleg85 said:
I would not be so sure. Syria was almost zero stakes, he could leave it by a whim and nobody would even notice in Russia. But here is different, he is already too deep into that swamp. You are right Russian
subjectscitizens would probably buy it (largely) but his power would not be stable anymore. And of course everything depends on question: what victory.Worthy read from Timothy Snyder. @panzermartin may ba a good read for you, since you are clearly struggling whom to believe (not being personal here, I understand your urge to think critically); when comes to Belarus/Ukraine/Poland topics, Snyder is one of the best adressess you can find (less so on Russia, but still holds). His wife Marcy Shore also wrote great book about Maidan I cannot recommend enough, reconstructing mentallity of the Revolution of Dignity - good antidotum for "realist"/tankies guys who want us all think that every social movement is orchestrated by global powerhouses.
Good read, thanks
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15 hours ago, The_Capt said:
So this post got me thinking and raises a really good set of points. Right now we have been handing out a lot of fish on this thread. We pull in the data, filter it, assess and then pull out analysis, which leads to some level of prediction. What we (I) have not done is provide enough fishing rods. Of course you guys are swimming around the internet and being exposed to all sorts of narratives, some good and some bad. It may be helpful to arm you with some ways to do your own analysis so that while you are out there you can come at it better.
Everyone has got their own system, western military teachings all tend to cover the same ground (e.g. PMESII, OPP, whatever that thing Bil does, which must work because he keeps beating me). Eastern approaches are different and take into account different criteria, I am not an expert on these so I will let someone else weigh in on them. I will give you my personal system and the one I teach, see if it helps and if it does not keep looking around.
My system is pretty simply to be honest and focuses on two main areas: what is seen, what is not seen, but should be. That first one is much easier, the second requires a lot more depth but we can walk to that.
What is Seen
I think I posted this before and @sburke lost his mind a bit. Let me try a less-powerpointy version (seriously guys it is the message, not the medium).
Ok so this is a representation of what is essentially the western operational system. It starts on the left with what is basically "Command" and works its way to a desired Outcome. Everyone is focused on the "Boom" on both sides of this thing...of course you are...it is exploding! The reality, however, is that the Target is really only in the middle of this whole thing. It is an indicator - one of many - but it is not the only indicator. I think everyone here gets that but they often do not know what else to look for (although some clearly do).
So the big red system on the left is often referred to as the "kill chain" (thanks for nothing Brose). It is really the center of what we call a "targeting enterprise" and frankly we in the west are very good at this. This is "cause" space that translates human will, through capability, into energy (and here it can get quite complex), through mediums (also crazy complex) and onto a target and foresaid "boom" (yay!). Be it an ammo dump, shopping mall, tank or goose (I hate geese) the process is pretty much the same, and volumes have been written as to how to do this faster/better than an opponent.
The point of the big red circle is that when we see a "boom" it is important to analyze the entire Cause chain all the way back to determine 1) if that was the actual intended target or was it simply happenstance, 2) how well the chain is doing in competitive terms and 3) what is this all signaling about Will? All of this also has to take into account context and the situation on the ground.
Cool. We now have a bead on Cause. Effect is much harder and more important. The big blue area is where the pay dirt really sits. A lot of big booms are impressive, but trust me is they do not translate into that big blue space you are going nowhere loudly - and I speak from experience here.
So the first question is "what effect is this actually happening?" Here an effect is a "consequence of action", so for example the effect of all those HIMARS booms - who are at the end of their own kill chain - was (allegedly) to have the Russian logistics system tie it self in knots to get away from them. Great, outstanding...but was it decisive?
Second is Decision. I have written about the three types of decisions available in warfare (at least) - positive, negative and null. Let's leave off the last two and just focus on the first one. A positive decision is a "death of alternate futures". There was a future where Russia pounded Kyviv into submission for two months in Mar-Apr 22. The Ukrainian government tapped out because western support was being cut off from the west and Russia occupied half of Ukraine and the capital, set up a puppet government and then enjoyed an insurgency-from-hell that would last 20 years. That future died in March when the Russians were held off and pushed back from Kyviv: it was positively Decisive. The Russians may actually have a future where they are back at Kyviv bit it won't be in Mar-Apr of 22, the reality will be very different. The HIMARS are having an effect, that much is clear. What is not clear is how decisive the sum of those effects are as yet. If the Russians lose the ability for operational offensive for a significant duration (e.g. this "pause" never ends) then we can say it has been decisive, because there are dead futures on the floor.
Last are Outcomes. "What is the difference between a Decision and an Outcome Capt?" My personal definitions is that an Outcome is a death of options, normally strategic options. The sum of decisions in western doctrine is supposed to lead to "Objectives" which are the "Deal Done" points in western military planning. Frankly these have let us down in the past, so I go with Options. If Options die, they kill off entire fields of futures....a future-cide if you will. Here something like the entire collapse of the northern Russian front was an Outcome to my mind because the Russian strategic options space collapsed. Same thing happened after the first week of this war as the strategic options spaces that led to a quick war also died - it is why we got all excited about it back then. The most significant Outcome is the end of the war of course, but that Outcome is the sum of a bunch of other ones, that all loop back to Will.
So whenever something blows up, look both left and right on that spectrum, and ask a lot of questions. How is the Cause chain doing comparatively? What is happening with Will? What is the problem with Russian Capability translating into Energy and Targets? Really keep a close eye on the Blue circle, the indicators of the important stuff are there: what is the actual effect? Is this decisive? what was the Outcome?
Ok, so that was the easy part.
What is not Seen, but should be.
While books have been written on the first part above, the second is the land of experience. Here a deep understanding of history comes in very useful as it provides a lot of context. This space (which I do not have a snazzy picture for) is essentially "what should be happening but is not..." It is very tricky and takes a lot of experience to "see the blank spaces", it is where the effects should be happening but are not based on whatever time and space we are in within a given scenario.
For example, let's take the Russian cruise missiles (and this is not a beat up of @panzermartin, he is asking some good questions). We know the Russians have a lot of missiles (https://missilethreat.csis.org/country_tax/russia/) and they had launched roughly 1000 of them in about a month at the beginning of the war.
And another report that they were at 2125 total "68 days into the war" (https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-ill-fated-invasion-ukraine-lessons-modern-warfare#:~:text=Russia launched more than 1%2C100,68 days of the war.). Now if we take "What we see" as the only indication, well this is a clearly functioning Cause chain. Will, Capability all landing on targets. A little shaky on the dud rate and "missing" military targets by many reports, and the Medium of UA AD has been pretty effective (then we get into competitive system effects which is a whole other thing - there are red and blue circles in collision); however, that is a lot of "boom". The Effects we saw were a lot of damage, some of it military and the UA definitely had to react to defend itself by moving AD and C2 around. I am not sure they have been Decisive, but we will get to that.
So that is what we saw, and on the surface 2125 incoming missiles all over the Ukraine is not small and frankly looks scary...but I only see what is missing:
A Ukrainian strategic center of gravity is the inflow of support from the western world. We are pushing a lot of money and boom-boom over the border from Poland. High on Russia's list of high value targets has to be to cut off that incoming support anyway possible. They have done strikes in Lviv on training bases, so they clearly have the capability to hit. But what are we not seeing? I am not seeing rail infrastructure being crippled in Western Ukraine. I am not seeing road infrastructure being destroyed faster than Ukraine can repair. I am not seeing 30 Ukrainian ammo depots in western Ukraine being hit to cut off the supply of 155mm shells - it is what I am not seeing that is the biggest indicator something is going very wrong on the Russian side. The Russians have the capability - range is no excuse as they could park missiles in Belarus, so why are they not using all them there 2125 missiles on what really matters? First answer is that they are "dumb" but that is too easy. Split Will, missiles spread across disjointed commands all lobbing on their own priorities much more likely. Lack of ISR to consistently hit things when they need to be hit like UA ammo dumps and logistics nodes, which tend to move around...also very likely.
This is the same thing very early on in the war - why was I still seeing Ukrainian social media feeds 72 hours into this war? All them tanks getting lit up, old ladies with balls of steel etc. Rule #1 of country invasion: make it go dark. Russian failed in this, it was missing and should not have been.
Wargamers have an advantage here as they play these problem sets all the time. We have seen it a lot on this thread. A wargamer can ask..."why did they not do this? I would have."
And this has nothing to do with an echo chamber either, but we do need to be careful. For example, we have not seen UA operational offence yet, and nothing that looks like all traditional arms manoeuvre. This one has me particularly puzzled and we are getting more data in on why this may be happening.
I will sum up by saying that in order to really filter the "reality" from opinion and BS, take all this and apply it to what we can actually see and not see. We can build assumptions but they have to remain on speaking terms with the facts. Once an assumption becomes a fact [edit for @Combatintman. “without sufficient validation”] we are in trouble. Enough facts put through the lenses of the two frameworks I give here become a trend, and it is those trends that told us that Russia was losing the first part of the war while most of the mainstream were figuring out how to deal with a Russian victory.
Good luck and surf safe.
Great post thanks.
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44 minutes ago, acrashb said:
1) should have, but could not. NATO countries combined GDP ~18.4 Trillion, Russia GDP pre-war ~1.6 Trillion (and much of that consumed by corruption).
2) "if accurate"? Of course it's accurate. Readily verifiable.
3) Bull**** (I mean this in the academic sense - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bull**** ). Review the last twenty years of Putin's and other prominent Russian power-brokers statements. It was a question of when, not if.
But don't take my word for it: https://www.understandingwar.org/report/how-we-got-here-russia-kremlins-worldview
The "state of their army" and the "sat thing" was not a matter of choice or conflict avoidance, it was necessity driven by economics and social (corruption) factors.
At the outset of the war one could be excused for a shallow understanding driven by dominant (and shallow) media. Now? Not so much.
What dominant and shallow media you are talking about. You mean the ones have been bombarding us with the evil Russia thing since forever. The ones that were claiming that Russians sold their fuel for vodka or they are running out of missiles or tires since week 1. Or that Russia executed the heroic defenders on snake island. Because these make the 95% of mainstream World news. Yes, thats shallow.
I mostly rely on info here, some Twitter accounts and surprisingly some pro russian places . Sometimes, among their blatant propaganda, they have more accurate info on what's going on the battlefield like in 2014. They quickly proved the 2000 russian encriclement that circulated here, was not true, as Haiduk confirmed.
The rules of this western dominated world are set by the most powerful. Russia is not there among them, it's actually the underdog. Their friends are Iran and North Korea ffs. Underdogs don't set the rules and don't have the initiative that's why I don't agree with the thought that Russia had some grande world domination plan apart from securing its national interests NEXT to its borders and in mostly russian dominated areas. We ll see how the energy powerplay will unfold, I think it's their only serious leverage, as their military is so backwards as you all agree.
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How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
Reality always beats fantasy any day