Maciej Zwolinski
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Posts posted by Maciej Zwolinski
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18 hours ago, Butschi said:
Does anyone have good sources handy on
a) the supposed Russian estimate of 2 days for the initial invasion (not CIA)
Rusi report talks about a 10-day plan for invasion
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5 hours ago, Kinophile said:
hh Delboy. So damn funny.
Still, I think Clusterf**k is the closest English version, to wit:
QuoteA [sudden] and disastrously mishandled situation or undertaking.
Seems accurate.
Translating dolboyebism is a complex task. You need to include several steps
First, Dolboyebism - the suffix "-ism" suggests that this is a word denoting things related to another word, in this context it would probably mean "something that a dolbayeb would do" (a hypothesis confirmed by meaningful conclusion of step 2).
Second, "dolbayeb" is a compound word, where two parts may be distinguished: "do lba" (to the head) and "yeb". Given that we are dealing with a swear word, it may be safely assumed that "yeb" pertains to "yebat", to have sex (rude).
Thus we arrive at "dolbayeb" - man, with whose head someone had sex (presumably damaging it in the process) - and "dolbayebism" - "a thing so stupid, that it could be done by a man, with whose head someone had sex, damaging it in the process".
On the Internet I found someone's translation of "dolbayeb" as "****head", which I like as it is both correct as to the meaning and the closest ethymologically. Dolboyebism thus could be translated as "****headery" or "****headism".
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1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:
I think what we have here is the usual non-experts and lowly foot soldier perspective on withdrawals. The last phase of a withdrawal under intense enemy pressure is almost always chaotic, disorganized, and prone to losing clusters of men/material AT BEST. Worse is mass captures and slaughter.
It sounds like another regurgitation of the well publicised story of the withdrawal from the Zenit position, where a company of 110th Bde retreated in some chaos, incurred casualties and had to leave 6 wounded, whom Russian subsequently shot after surrendering
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1 hour ago, poesel said:
First is if the F-16 will have data integration with an AWACS. That would allow the Ukrainians to fly and shoot without active radar. Huge advantage.
That is assumed. F-16's radar is not particularly impressive.
1 hour ago, poesel said:Next is the type of missile. If they get the AIM120D instead of the C they have 160km instead of 105km. Or they get Meteors and now they have 200km.
It is a fairly robust assumption they will not get either. AIM 120D is the newest one in US use, IIRC. The US have never released their latest stuff to the Ukraine. Meteor is AFAIK not integrated with F-16 at all. At least I have never seen it fly with one.
1 hour ago, poesel said:Range doesn't mean you have a certain kill, but you can still spoil an attack even with a missile that missed in the end.
Yes, but you have to do it prior to bomb release - at some point between the AMRAAM max range and 50km release point. The question is what is AMRAAM's practical max range when it is fired in such position,
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4 hours ago, Grigb said:
Mr Murz, he dead
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30 minutes ago, ASL Veteran said:
From my perspective, Ukraine was at its weakest and Russia was at its strongest (relatively speaking as compared to each other) on day one. Every day since day one has Russia getting weaker relative to Ukraine overall. Russia has fewer armored vehicles of all types than at the beginning of the war. Ukraine has more, and better, armored vehicles, artillery systems, and various other equipment than at the beginning of the war.
I think you discount the completely mistaken posture of Russian army during the first days of the invasion. They tried to conquer Ukraine in columns of march allowing themselves to be encircled and attacked from all sides. That way they debilitated their force to the extent completely nullifying their nominal force superiority.By March 2022, their northern pincer almost got annihilated West and North-East of Kiev. They were at their weakest in March 2022 and from that date, the Russians gradually improve.
37 minutes ago, ASL Veteran said:With that in mind, it seems to me that the biggest factor in how things will play out will be how Ukraine can expand the capabilities of their air force and whether or not deliveries of F16s, and other modern aircraft can influence the outcome along with the Leopards, Abrams, and artillery systems, etcetera. If Ukraine can gain some form of air superiority, even temporarily over a specific sector of the front lines, I think it could have a very big impact on whether or not Ukraine can conduct a successful offensive.
I do not think that Ukrainian air superiority is ever going to happen. The countries supplying UKR with F-16 are not even trying to suggest that. They won't have the numbers, and the F-16 AFAIK are intended to replace the current fleet of Mig-29 and Su-25 in their defensive and limited close air support tasks, as the former Soviet aircraft have reached and exceeded the end of their technical usability.
37 minutes ago, ASL Veteran said: -
30 minutes ago, Grigb said:
The Novogrodovka-Progress-Ocheretino defense line has been built by Ukrainian troops since the beginning of the fighting for Donetsk in 2014. Retreating there does not make the troops in AFU vulnerable in any way. They were vulnerable on the way there, but how much do we see the burned columns of Ukrainians?.. Non. Why? Because there was no isolation of the battlefield until the last minutes of the battles. The enemy could move fully and freely to Avdiivka, Lastochkino, Tonenkoe..
Apparently Murz and his friends do not share the view there are only weak fortifications behind Avdieyevka. In Polish military twitter this has been a common opinion, that there are and that ZSU should have started making field fortifications all across the front at the latest in the late summer of 2023 and are now behind the curve.
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36 minutes ago, Jiggathebauce said:
Amazing how valid criticism from one person is a full on cancellation of your favorite general by the proletariat. Here's a tissue, comrade.
Tissues are bourgeois inventions, comrade. Since the last 5-year plan all tissue and toilet paper factories have been retooled to make sandpaper. And better make a good stock of it while it lasts, comrade. Next year they are all switching to coarser grain.
PS. True story from actual experience of living under "real socialism". Two things they could never produce in sufficient numbers was toilet paper and rope for baling hay.
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1 hour ago, Jiggathebauce said:
Patton was no hero and isn't worth celebrating.
Come on, he posted an interesting quote which happened to be said by George Patton and not celebration of George Patton.
Is Patton now cancelled to the effect that all his quotes are thoughtcrime? I did not get the latest memo from the Ministry of Truth, apologies.
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1 hour ago, panzermartin said:
Hey, we "peacefully" existed 400 years under the ottoman rule after the fall of Istanbul.
You spelt Constantinople wrong:) I do not think that there has yet been the opportunity for Istanbul to fall, the name is in official use for less than 100 yrs.
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1 hour ago, Kraft said:
Maxim Kuzminov, the russian Pilot who surrendered the helicopter to Ukraine last year was found dead in Spain.
That is very bad news.
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1 hour ago, Butschi said:
Trying a potentially flawed WW2 comparison myself: France and UK declared war on Germany because they had guaranteed Poland's freedom. If you go by stated wargoals at the beginning of a war, and look at them a year into the war, both countries failed miserably. Poland was occupied, France had surrendered and the UK had to leave all their heavy equipment in Dunkirk. But as you say yourself, the calculations for victory/defeat are finalized later and at least UK is generally considered to be part of the winning team (France was more of a political decision, I think?)
It is a very good comparison, in that it shows that there may be different wargoals for different participants. To crudely simplify that very complex topic: UK and France wargoals included lengthy mobilisation and then defeating III Reich via a combination of blockade, strategic bombardment and positional warfare. They assumed that Poland can well be defeated in the meantime, and intended to fulfill the alliance by reinstating Poland after the final Anglo-French victory. Poles were not officially told that, though. Some Polish officers and politicians understood that just from their own analysis of the situation. But most people waited for the French to start their relief offensive after the first week of the war, and the actual expectation was that we will hold the Germans at worst at the Vistula before the French destroy the Wehrmacht from behind .
Official position of the Ukraine being full return to legitimate borders, my hunch is that their minimum win condition is to reinstate the pre-2022 border in the south while retaining freedom to join Nato and EU. An armistice line in Donetsk and Lugansk changed in Russian's favour could probably be accepted after much wringing of hands. Now it is a moonscape anyway.
On the other hand, some nations supporting Ukraine can have entirely different perspective on what constitutes a win. No nuclear exchange and Ukraine avoiding total subjugation, possibly.
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11 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:
Usually they start to fall when somebody in AFU command takes risk of bringing Western AA launcher closer to frontlines for a few hours/days. It is Russian roulette on Ukrainian side too, though; I think in final days of Bakhmut battle Russians also started loosing planes out of a sudden, so perhaps it's tactics to scare off further advances or muscovite pilots simply overestimating their red margin of error. Perhaps Avdiivka bulge was too risky to put such priceless platform there, and now frontline flattened a little (on other side, ground given up in Avdiivka seems too small to make significant distance).
This time the aircraft seems to be hit much to the south of Avdieyevka, so either the attack is unrelated to the battle, or the Ukrainians managed to find an approach route from Avdieyevka to e.g. one of the Crimean airports and set the ambush somewhere further on the way.
I hope the reports on the Ukrainian SAM ambush on consecutive days mean that they finally dedicated one of the Patriot units as a roving battery and we will be hearing about it more often. This will sound callous, but their military utility when guarding civilians in Kiev or Odessa was limited, whereas trying to make glide bombing risky for Russians is extremely important at this moment. Even in light of the huge risk the Patriots would be located and attacked.
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37 minutes ago, Carolus said:
It's a goddamn massacre in the air
Alas, to late to help the defenders of Avdieyevka
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3 minutes ago, hcrof said:
I wonder if precision artillery rounds like Excalibur are going to get rarer - a drone can do the same job for a tiny fraction of the price. But dumb artillery, especially mortars, will be around for a while.
That is likely. Precision artillery rounds are more resistant to countermeasures so they may still be needed for specialist purposes against particularly hard or valuable targets. But they can be purchased in lower number.
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4 hours ago, chrisl said:
Here’s a question: What would it take for drones to mostly replace artillery?
Costs down, weight of explosive material up. Tube artillery in this war resembles a forge with thousands of very myopic but very strong smiths constantly hammering away all around them. It is best used on the offence to batter down fortifications and buildings, and on the defence, to set up fire concentrations on the attacking units and barrages in front of them so that they cannot go forward.
You need to be able to deliver via drones the HE equivalent of, say, 5000 155mm rounds per day without bankrupting yourself to think about replacing tube artillery in this war.
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29 minutes ago, poesel said:
It would be interesting to know which missiles they get. But obviously they won't tell for good reason.
I predict a short flurry of downed Russian planes and then an end to the (mass) use of glide bombs from the Russian side.I am hoping for that as well, but I am not sure how this could happen.
Russian glide bombs are tossed from the distance of 50 km to front line on the Russian side. AFAIK Su 34 (and as of late also Su 24 unfortunately) approach high and fast from a direction roughly perpendicular to the frontline and at the furthest possible distance, they make the toss - pull up and release the bomb. Then they immediately reverse direction and head for home. Apart from the height and distance being higher, the technique is roughly similar to Russian helicopters tossing unguided rockets.
This means, that in order to counter those attacks Ukrainian aircraft would have to be able to reliably shoot down Su 34 and Su 24 on their approach flight to the bomb release point (say 70 km behind the front on the Russian side?). Assuming the Ukrainian aircraft are F-16 with AIM 120 C they theoretically could do it, the missiles having a 100 km. range. However, F-16 would be fighting from big positional disadvantage. In order to hide from RUS SAMs and air-to-air patrols, the F-16s would probably be approaching very low. Therefore, once they release the missiles they would be firing from low up, at targets first fast approaching and then fast egressing, close to the far end of AMRAAM maximum range, from the frontal aspect of the target and then in a stern chase. Would this scenario still yield a significant enough probability of kill? I do not know, but there are a lot of factors decreasing it compared to the theoretical optimum.
While doing this, Russian air to air patrols are a non-trivial risk factor, even now from time to time they account for Ukrainian aircraft with the R 37s. Also, while trying to hit Russians 70 km on the other side of the front, the Ukrainian F16 would have to pop up in Russian SAM envelope. In light of those risks, I do not think Ukrainians would be willing to risk their few precious F-16 if the probability of killing the glide bomb carriers is low. So I am afraid that your scenario might not happen in real life. But maybe I am wrong somewhere in this reasoning, or the Ukrainians surprise me with something. Hopefully they will.
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9 hours ago, Grigb said:
The biggest difference is APS with ability to counter drones. No APS, no difference.
Do you refer to any existing APS or write in an abstract way (that it would be good if someone developed an APS with such capability in the future?)? Also, does the Ukraine actually use any APS now?
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1 hour ago, Grigb said:
There are claims that it worked extremely effectively against weakened UKR units. Weakened UKR units tend to leave bombarded areas altogether, giving aggressive RU meat groups the perfect chance to overrun areas before stronger UKR units arrive for counterattack.
That is quite a typical dynamic. Since WWI the tactic of vacating the first line in case of heavy bombardement has been used (although more often in connection with artillery bombardment than air). And the classic attacker's response to this is infiltration.
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2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
The novelty of it seems to be that everybody, including me (as I've said 100s of times in this thread), assumes Russia wouldn't be able to keep this sort of "inhuman" strategy going. Yet it has. At least so far.
Re. inhumanity of that strategy - note it bears a strong resemblance to how Wagner would advance its convict units and everybody thought this was only possible because nobody cared about the convicts. Now ordinary Russian military units are using the same strategy, with the same insane risks to the individual infantrymen.
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46 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:
Hopefully Robotyne has been properly fortified, and just as importantly given some real air defenses. Without glide bombs and with supply routes that are more vulnerable, it seems like the perfect place for another 50-100k Russians to die.
Why without glide bombs? What would prevent russia from using glide bombs around Robotyne?
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3 hours ago, Beleg85 said:
nteresting post by one of foreign fighters, even if some numbers seem dubious. Also don't forget to open translation of another post by (supposedly, but be aware it may be psyops) Russian colonel and read his view about their losses, translated by Dmitri.
The messages of col. Shuvalov (may not be a real name) strongly resemble letters from Verdun
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6 minutes ago, Carolus said:
This fellow summarized the German-Ukrainian agreement:
That is not a security guarantee agreement though. It is about supply of arms, various ways of political cooperation etc. But security guarantee is a type of military alliance which nobody will sign with Ukraine now, obviously.
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3 minutes ago, Sequoia said:
You do understand that longing for a government where the leader has unrestricted power is the type of government one finds in Russia currently. As Winston Churchill purportedly once said, Democracy is a terrible way to run a country, but it's far better than anything else that's been tried.
I understand that but that is not the point. The point is that in this case democracy has generated a situation where the executive branch of the governement is blocked from realising its preferred policy and in that sense, seems weak.
I am not offering any value judgements on the US constitutional system of checks and balances because I do not have enough knowledge of it. I also have not seen any evidence for longing for a Russian-type governement on this thread.
I am already regretting making that post.
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
Isn't it rather an indication that the Ukrainian claims have been significantly overstated? I can't imagine Russians going on as if nothing happened if they lost 13 SU-34/35 per week. That is ca. 10% of their entire fleet of those aircraft.
I am inclined to think that the Russians only lost those 2 planes whose crash has been confirmed by photos.