panzermartin
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Posts posted by panzermartin
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25 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:
Not quite....
Yes of course! I was partly joking. But since this is repeated very widely, I will take the chance to note that this started before WW2 and before Nazi Germany revealed its full Nazi potential and intensions, also fooling the Soviets and then invading them to their big shock. Many people bring this to paint a Nazi brotherhood tone on the Soviets but it was more of a pseudo-deal somewhat reminscent to 1918s Brest-Litovsk but of course with the shameful Poland grab. Remember even Ghandi thought Hitler was cool back then, among many many others that didnt favor the British rule.
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15 hours ago, Beleg85 said:
Now finally Sumlenny posted something fresh and worth of reading.
Best is Russian Specnaz boarding HMS Victory. Or this one: "Novorossiya pilot" awakes in a body of Josef Stalin's son Vassily, a war pilot, and wins the war, revealing a Western agent Khrushchov, saving Stalinism".
It's funny, but if you analyze society through its popculture it is really scarry what it can do to collective mentality. Movies like "Stalingrad", "Orda", "1612" were all so bloody, dumb, naive and sadistic that to Western viewers looked like American Pulp Fiction genre. But in retrospect, they were mainstream that builded this damn mythos.
Not to do offtopic- it illustrates that state of collective Russian psyche is one of the reasons why this war may be longer and bloodier than some people in the West suggest, drawing on military situation alone.
Crazy and hilarious stuff but since the 50s we have been reading comics, Marvel, Captain America, and watching so many other movies with insane plots of Russian, German, Chinese, Arab baddies getting trashed that it's only natural that someone thought to fill the gaps from the opposite side. Even mainstream Top Gun 2 narrates a strike inside a "Pariah state" that kinda resembles Iran, with Su 57s and F14s. With ala Death Star final run heheh. And it's currently a massive box office hit I might add. And let's not forget the first that tossed the idea is siding with Nazi Germany against the "common enemy" was Patton himself
Still, those books are in a very bad taste, but interesting to see the subculture side of Russian propaganda.
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9 hours ago, Machor said:
You are reiterating my point: The problem isn't with NATO and Turkey; it's with Erdoğan and Islamism.
Ever since Erdoğan was elected out of obscurity to become the mayor of Istanbul with the promise of converting the Hagia Sophia into a mosque [competing votes were split between two centre-right and two centre-left parties that squabbled among each other] and stated on record: "Democracy is like a tram. You get on where you need to, and you get off where you need to," it was obvious that him and the Islamists had to be nipped in the bud. Instead, both within Turkey and internationally, various factions thought they could draw him to their side, until he became all-powerful. When I stated that Erdoğan was bad news at a leading US university in 2008, I was called an 'elitist' and accused of opposing 'democratization'. Everyone was talking about 'Liberal Islam', and telling me Erdoğan's Islamists were just an Islamic counterpart to Europe's Christian Democrats. If we have made any progress at all, I hope that discourse has now died, and there will be zero tolerance should Islamism rear its ugly head anywhere else. Some Russian (Solzhenitsyn?) said "Russia was crucified on the cross to show the world the evil of Communism;" Turkey was impaled on the stake to show the world the evil of Islamism.
RE: Tensions in the Aegean
The danger is that Erdoğan has every reason to start a phony war, and then use it as an excuse to declare martial law and cancel elections. He does not even need the Turkish military to engineer a provocation since, like a certain someone, he now has his own military organization, who swear allegiance personally to him.
Now, facing Erdoğan's machinations, we have the Greek military who, along with a certain segment of Greece's ruling elite that they are close with, would also love to see Erdoğan start a phony war with Greece. When Erdoğan tried to get cozy with Russia, they responded by killing 37 Turkish soldiers; when he then tried to switch to China, they demanded Turkey extradite all Uyghurs. Therefore, should Turkey lose its ties with the West as well, it would end up more isolated than North Korea. With this reasoning, even if the Greek military does not engineer the first provocation, it would gladly reply to any provocation by Erdoğan with an escalatory provocation, and Erdoğan knows this as well. Thus, you have two actors who would both benefit from a phony war, but these actors aren't nation-states.
Thanks for the insight and I get your points. I sincerely hope for better days for Turkey. I wouldn't want to see them cornered or collapsing, I won't take any joy in that, in fact I find it dangerous. Regardless of the islamist delirium, do you think Turkey is destined to expand westwards as it always pursued. I almost understand the need of Turkey for more access to the sea and in a perfect world where everyone would behave fair, we could probably share the energy wealth of the aegean. That would be beneficial for both, while excluding 3rd parties. But I'm not sure Turkey will stop there if it had the might and the way to go unpunished.
So far we are avoiding escalation like the plague, we don't even intercept UAV that loiter over the islands. I sincerely hope there are no thoughts of provoking Turkey for short sighted political gains. That would be silly on our part as we bet a lot on international sympathy and support.
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9 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:
Most important is Ukraine can fight on and kick Putin and his criminals out again. Apart from that I think the war has been a much needed and valuable wake up call for all our countries. We are allies and need each other more than ever. Poles, Greeks, Germans, Dutchies and all the others. If necessary we go to war together.
Europe has been an island of normality and peace for decades. There are flaws but I think it does so many things better, especially welfare, healthcare, protection of smaller family business, culture, strict environmental rules etc... We are willing to fight for this but I hope this war won't change things for the worse.
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4 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:
Thanks, seems the Dutch aid didn't get that much media attention.
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I can't believe we are bullying Poland, the country that has supported the most and beyond its abilities the Ukrainians so far both in military and humanitarian aid.
So, what wealthy Netherlands has done so far for Ukraine? Only piece I could find is " limited number of howitzers"
J/k of course but let's put the pressure on the bigger players.
On a serious note, does really the Dutch army has only 18 MBTs as Wikipedia implies ?
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1 minute ago, acrashb said:
That depends.
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53 minutes ago, Cederic said:53 minutes ago, Cederic said:
Incidentally the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is not just 'Britain', is still Great (ask the Ukrainians) and did not occupy and loot countries at will. We introduced terribly civilised cultural practices like cricket to them, helped them exploit and profit from their natural resources then set them free as independent nations capable of making their way in the modern world. We're nice like that. (The sods have responded by continually beating us at cricket.)
It's true that every war, occupation and colonization brings developments in infrastructure, governing model, cultural additions, lots of good things as well. The Romans also invaded Britain and brought some good things too, walls, forts, aqueducts, ways to count etc. Even Brittania was a word of theirs. One can say it was in a way part of the evolution of human race. But you wouldn't want the Romans above your head all the time, would you? . It still was an occupation that involved a lot of violence, suppression and humiliation of natives. Colonial powers didn't set those countries free because they matured but because there were bloody unrests and weren't strong enough anymore to handle them . Cricket and driving on the left is fine but they had been also killing people as recently as in the late 50s in Cyrpus for instance...
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53 minutes ago, Grigb said:
Russians helped Germans to start whole things. Then almost lost to them and survived due to the help from countries across channel/pond only to grab significant portion of Europe to murder, enslave and steal.
Can we deal with Germans next time without Ivan? They are kind of buzzkillers. Sometimes literally.
I'm not sure we can, at least with WW2 in mind.
History shows we need Ivan to balance the system. It's like removing the Orca killer whales from the ocean because they are hostile. But they also keep an eye on the sharks. Now who is the dolphin...
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10 minutes ago, billbindc said:
That massive rearming of the Bundeswehr is going to be a powerful reason for many EU countries why that "patron across the Atlantic" cannot ever go away.
I *sincerely* hope Germany has closed its circle as a military bully. Unfortunately to quote Heraclitus, "everything flows" so we cant predict the future and the conditions. But I would fear more if there is no Russia anymore to counter them on June 2041
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14 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:
Yeah, if the goal is just to post on the internet you can get a netbook for less than $200 USD.
Yes, but how about a laptop that he can play newest CM titles on, or a demanding FPS
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25 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:
Where did you read that statement from Erdogan?
https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1186488/erdogan-issues-threat-of-military-force/
The "we will come one night" was posted by his party spokesman actually, I got it mixed.
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25 minutes ago, Huba said:
Beside that is the point of creating a security structure that by design excludes far most powerful country in the world, if said country is willing to participate? To take actions that is not aligned with this country?
How about the other way around, not necessarily taking actions that are aligned with this country.
We don't necessarily have to exclude them when interests are mutual but not necessarily comply when interests are conflicting. Yes the sub deal was a punch below the waist, and a reminder that a powerful country (even on the same side) needs to be contained from time to time.
16 minutes ago, Huba said:But this was first and foremost about armaments selling, wasn't
Yes let's not fool ourselves. Behind every pact there is a lot of business involved...But it certainly is much more than that, we have been buying French Mirages and a lot of other stuff decades now, so it's nothing new.
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Well times have changed since Macron brought that up, and this conflict created some very loud developments, like the massive rearming of the Bundeswehr.
We don't have a EU army yet but for a start Greece has already signed a mutual defense pact with France :
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57 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:
A EU military pact is an illusion. It will never come off the ground. Europe is too divided, too short sighted to do anything effective without the US
Though there is truth in this, it's a very pessimistic prediction. Remember people were saying the same things for the economic union and common currency. Despite the flaws we can overcome the problems and find some unity.
As Europeans do we forever have to rely militarily on a Patron from the other side of the Atlantic? I don't think so. We can of course always cooperate but we have to grow some self esteem on that matter.
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32 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:
I don't get this kind of talk. NATO is functioning and on a high level. It closed ranks within days against Putin, did and still does send massive arms shipments to Ukraine, is sending forces to the Eastern borders etc. etc.
Erdogan's version of Turkey doesn't belong in NATO. But perhaps other times will come. At the moment he's bit by bit destroying the Turkish economy and sooner or later that will undo him. Every Turkish aggression against Greek territory will have dire consequences for Erdogan and result in ending Turkey's membership of NATO.
If NATO would be a joke, Putin would have invaded the Baltics, not Ukraine.
https://www.turkishdefencenews.com/largest-military-exercise-of-the-turkish-army-in-years-efes-2022/
Infront of NATO officials in the biggest exercise of invading a "random island" with participation of most NATO members, Erdogan spoke about how seriously he is about the status quo of the aegean islands and how "they will come suddenly one night".
Yes a joke.
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9 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
So what is your alternative? Every country for itself?
In an ideal world countries wouldn't need defensive pacts or militaries to feel safe. I know many people here are on the payroll of militaries and wouldn't agree. I'm just an art guy though so I can speak disconnected from this reality. Certainly this war has been a huge setback on the road to a peaceful future and our options are not that many anymore.
If I really had to chose an alternative I would vote for a EU military pact . It makes sense that countries that share a common economy policy and currency to have a unified military and strategy. NATO is too widespread and we have troubles. How Turkey for instance is considered a key member while acting rogue and getting away with it. Or EU distancing itself from the more aggressive strategy of US (that is acting from safe waters ) in Ukraine due to energy necessities etc.
In any case we are preparing here for a "hot" summer. Erdogan has even discovered Turkish minorities in Kos and Rhodes (he means the tourists I guess?
) and we are not sensing much support from our allies despite giving everything to NATO, having numerous US bases, investing a lot of money in western hardware despite our fragile economy...The moment of truth might come soon and then we will certainly have a verdict if NATO has been a joke we couldn't get all these past years.
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7 hours ago, Machor said:
reminder that when Turkey joined NATO along with Greece in February 1952, it had free-and-fair elections with a two party system
But what are the feelings towards NATO nowadays in Turkey. From the rhetoric of Erdogan and his ministers towards Greece, (for the first time it feels like we are really on the brink of war sadly ), to the bipolar stance in the Ukraine war, the S400, and the invasions of Syria., it looks like Turkey doesn't feel to belong there and has a different future vision, that of an independent regional superpower.
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5 hours ago, danfrodo said:
The only problem with this is that RU absolutely is a threat to its neighbors, while RU's neighbors couldn't possibly invade RU and win. So those neighbors want to join NATO to survive. This makes RU feelings feel hurty. Tough s--t. If RU wasn't a threat in the first place these nations wouldn't join NATO.
So RU causes the problem then claims to be scared because of it. It's totally backwards thinking. If RU was a peaceful, trustworthy nation NATO wouldn't even exist.
As has been said here a thousand times, if Lithuania/Estonia/Latvia weren't in NATO he would've attacked and annexed them long ago.
Edit: PanzerMartin -- no disrespect intended, I totally get that you were presenting an RU view. Putin's aggressions over the last 20 years make it clear how distorted that view is.
No disrespect taken, I get your points. Yes it's no surprise that Russia is a threat to its neighbors, every big power has historically been. But in the grand scale Russia is still the minor player,with little influence beyond its borders.
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3 hours ago, Vet 0369 said:
I have always felt the Soviet/Russian paranoia is based on the facts that the French (Napoleon), the Germans (through the Middle Ages and WWI and WWII), the Swedes, the Finns, the British, and the U.S. have all invaded them (joint British/U.S. expeditionary force at Arcangel in support of the “White” Russians, and is probably just as justified as the fears of all their neighbors and the rest of Europe. However, Putin’s statements that he’s looking to rebuild the former Russian Empire and that Sweden and Finland were part of Russia lends credence to the concerns of all the countries that at any time were ruled by Russia. Of course he conveniently fails to note that the name of his country is derived from the name of the Swedish tribe (the Rus) that settled Kyiv and Novograd.
I've been saying this since forever. Just the memories of WW2 are enough to go paranoid . They are probably serious when talking about Nazis although we might find this paranoic.
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3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
And has absolutely nothing to do with NATO
You see, here is where I disagree with your whole post. NATO is not United Nations . NATO serves a post modern colonialism in disguise. It's a defensive pact only in paper. But it actually serves the interests of the big players. Energy, strategic, weapons sales etc.
We think world has changed but the time frame is miniscule, it's only a generation since the colonial era. We are driven by capitalism and not values. Otherwise we wouldn't allow Turkey in, we wouldn't equip Saudi Arabia and all those countries that violate basic human rights.
NATO is like the NRA that claims we will stop shootings by arming the lawful citizens.
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1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:
And we get to the primary flaw in the pro-Russian logic. NATO is a defensive pact and as such it is structured to be defensive. It's painful to have to make a statement like that, but this is exactly what the Russians absolutely refuse to take into consideration. No threat to NATO, no threat from NATO. Period.
I don't consider myself the most pro russian guy but I can see why Russia feels threatened. Its not irrational, lets be honest.
On paper NATO is a defensive organization but its members have conducted and have been involved in the most wars and invasions since the end of WW2. Mainly US. NATO offcially has also intervened violently, bombing in the Balkans, Libya and waged war on Afghanistan for 20 years. So not a strictly defensive pact per se. The other most important member of NATO, (once Great) Britain, has been a colonial force for centuries, occupying and looting countries at will, and only recently has withdrawn from most of its distant colonized lands. Not a great record to be honest. France is not lagging that far behind on that matter and Germany has the most dark recent past of all of them and a special wound with Russia. So, yes not that aggressive anymore, but not a great criminal record if you want them for neighbours.
US, the flagship and mastermind of NATO, has bypassed UN council to invade sovereign states like Iraq with false pretext of WMD and has 750 military bases around the globe, thousands of miles beyond its borders. Its military spending is 10x times more than the second on the list. An alien observer coming from space would argue that these guys with the stars and stripes are everywhere, how can they complain of expansionism of others?
Russia is not nervous of NATO but of US army presence so close to its vital routes. Imagine a US base in Sevastopol (again distance from home:
completly blocking Russia way out to Bosporus and Mediterranean Sea.
In this story Russians might seem the bad guys and we would probably not want to see them reaching the polish borders but from their POV and as an entity , they have probably sound reasons to not want NATO(US) presence that close to their home. This regardless of what we feel is moral or not.
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50 minutes ago, poesel said:
Interview with Oberst Reisner, the Austrian guy that does regular videos about this war on Youtube. He is slightly more negative than the general consensus here. His predictions are that Russia will occupy Donezk, the war will be fought to a standstill in winter and continued next spring.
Interview in German:
https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Interview-mit-Markus-Reisner-zum-Krieg-in-der-Ukraine-Vier-Raketenwerfer-das-ist-reine-Symbolik-article23377155.htmlThanks, interesting read. He sounds a little optimistic on the resources of the russian army but given the hoaxes we ve been fed from the early days of this war, about russian shortages in gas or long range missiles (and until today already 2000 plus fired) he might be somewhere in the middle of truth.
I think he is right on the artillery duels outcome. Unless something dramatic happens Russia has the upper hand on this. So it's possible that the Russians might reach Dnipro river from Donbas after all by Autumn. I suspect the Ukrainians defensive lines past Kramatorsk and Slavyansk are not well prepared or deep enough and the terrain there doesn't offer much advantage with sparse and smaller settlements. The winter pause will be critical. If the West goes full steam, Russia will probably collapse under pressure and under a new offensive from a re equipped and well trained UA army. But a stalemate along Dnipro seems more probable, as I'm not sure the West will be decisive in providing more and more weapons as time goes by and the situation is more defined.
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17 minutes ago, poesel said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Hellenic_Army
Greece is very well equipped with vehicles.
We have a good variety of tracked and wheeled assets but unfortunately we rely on ancient M113s, BMP1s and undereqquiped Leonidas for the APC role. Marders could fit the bill there. I wonder if the M1117 (we have over 1000s of them) could support that role too apart from patrolling, they are well armored and nimble, perfect for island terrain ( but lack firepower I think.)
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
I would say, sinister is not the right word. But US hegemony since the end of WW2 is something we cant debate. Its definetely a modern empire, like the Romans, the British etc. Otherwise why would they need 750 military bases around the World. At this point can comeone answer me, does US spend zillions to maintain those bases just for the sake of protecting other peoples well being.
That being said, the western world moved forward and prospered along with the prosperity of post WW2 USA. I still consider them a force of progression and change, I wouldnt want to see them going authoritarian or isolationist. That would probably be the end of the circle of western democracy since it was born in Athens. Yes they are a ruthless capitalist hegemon but they are constantly evolving and have a very vocal progressive and democratic side,( sometimes over the top, as everything american). Our backward religious zealots are probably offended by their LGBT flag next to their embassy emblem here but how cool an official state does that?
But there is a dark side , the rampant capitalism and materialism they nurtured, the market driven mentality and the threat towards more social orientated systems they represent . And there is that behemoth, dominant military/gun complex, the black and white approach of the world, the series of miscalculated campaigns that brought turbulance (change?) in the Middle East that other countries had to pay for and handle the consequences. And a half baked job in Ukraine starting in 2014...who knows where that will lead us.
Truth is the whole western world much depends on USA's clear thinking and reading of the current situation...Well God Bless I guess...