Kinophile

Time to move on, guys. Russian units are about to start falling quicker than knickers in a bordello.

@Zeleban @akd JINX! NO COME BACK! Cant post until someone says your name! ...to paraphrase my 10 yr old ....

Excellent post.

Like playing chicken with a half deaf, semi-blind rottweiler. It's still a rottweiler.

Good point! lets explore that. I'm not entirely convinced we're going to see Russian military collapse anytime soon. They still have a basic (not good) capacity to move men around and feed them. I'll also note that the harvest is now in, and waiting for that might be something that helped delay mobilization. Agriculture is heavily labour dependent, even Western farming, and RUS agriculture is several decades behind. During WW1, ripping millions of farm labourers off the land is the fundamental root cause of the fall of the Romanovs - food shortages going on for years. So, we can say that the RUS MoD will at least: Mobilize 150,000 men Get them to the Front, somewhat ok equipped Feed them somewhat ok Let them loose on UKR civilians for anything extra (already happening) Use them to fatten the line and fill gaps. The Kremlin possibly thinks that this will get the MoD about 3-5 months breathing space before the Jan/Feb winter horror show really kicks into high gear. To be clear, I'm also convinced the Ukraine theater will collapse - I'm absolutely NOT on the side of the RUS will muddle through somehow. The above is just my assumption of what they cna, for now, shove through the ever-fracturing pipeline. The RUS army will retreat or collapse (either sectionally or sequentially). Its the when (and where?) that I'm interested in.

Its the classic of what's dramatic, crazy and OMG WETF is what makes it to our eyeballs (through Media), because what isn't those things is well, boring and doesn't get repeated or presented. Boring doesn't sell. So once I started seeing all the videos of ridiculous fails ref moblization, and untrained clueless guys appearing on the front lines, I assumed those were just the dramatic ones that get attention and so get shared. Even though they're way too common and widespread (as well as disparate in the various scenes being shown) for how a modern mobilization effort should be done, they still show one thing - a lot, and I mean a LOT of men are going through the mobilization process. The sheer quantity wont win the war (pace the equipment/training and command issues we all know) but it sure as heck will affect something on the battlefield. Either the pace of advance, the length of the front, new fronts being opened, flank protection, etc. So the fact remains - the mobilization is still happening, resistance is minimal in effect and the system is succeeding in its basic mission - get bodies onto the battlefield asap. We're all having a good chuckle at the incompetence of the mobilization, but shoudn't we be looking more analytically at the actual battlefield effects, tactical and operational? That's a far more useful conversation that Oh Look Dumb Ivans In A Field, Again, Silly Sheeples. Sure, yes, dumb. But at some point those hundreds of thousands of miltiarized sheep will be in battle. I fully expect the first few waves of mobiliks to melt away but through sheer quantity enough will be kept in place/survive to still be in the way and a threat to nearby UKR units. I ahve great faith in the UA but there is a point where quantity will have effect. How much, I dont know, and want to find out. The presence of 100,000-300,000 men will change something - I'm not going to pretend I know what, or to what extent, but that's where I'm putting my efforts these days. Even, so his numbers are laughable. I highly doubt any force retreating through an interdicted and heavily observed GLOC is getting out of there without heavy and unsustainable casualties.

Remember how I mentioned that it makes sense for UKR to follow, develop in parallel to the Polish military? Taaa-daaaaa...* I'm sure there's chatter back and forth, with UKR experience guiding what POL buys, and Poland's purchasing experience and networks helping UKR get in the door with suppliers. *toot toot goes my own trumpet

Oh man, why did the UKR stay there. Seems they reversed, came forward, reversed, too late. You can really see how the ****ty T-series reverse is lethal. Insane that the RUS charged forward, I guess they felt the trees were too dense (ref first shot hits a tree)? That charge would be death in CMBS - but that's also because the game AI doesnt get flustered, it has no psychology. The UKR crew seemed to get confused, didnt even shoot, and that confusion was fatal for them?

Just a throwback to Steve's favourite military event of the war https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-63049481 BBC interview with a guy who was at bucha, then Izium then very likelypart of the supporting fires at Bilorhivka. Not a single word of regret for the horror and crimes inflicted on the Ukrainian civilians. Just noting the loss of his own people and how scared he was.

30 mins ago...

https://videos.dailymail.co.uk/video/mol/2016/08/13/1270642651671674661/1024x576_MP4_1270642651671674661.mp4

So the prize is Kremina? What's defending that? Does UA need to take it or just cut it off (N&S), pocket the Lyman and Kremina garrisons and pound them out of existence?

Thats fundamentally ridiculous and completely off the rails, logic-wise. To be clear, I'm from a country that was invaded and oppressed for about 800 years, suffering very intensive and determined cultural eradication efforts, many many deliberate massacres of civilians, brutal repression of rebellions, exploitations as serf-like domestic servants and military cannon fodder, colonisation and economic exploitation, deliberate official neglect during multiple famines, intolerance of religion, execution of POWs and supression/extinction of the native language. In some ways I'm probably more aware of it than many of my compatriots as I'm a fluent Gaelic speaker, through primary school and secondary in Gaelic immersion, and so I'm more aware of what has been lost and destroyed. Its like with the dinosaur fossil record - what we find and see is but a tiny fraction of what actually existed. So with indigenous Irish culture, what's left, what's survived to here and now is very likely just a sad echo of what was and what could have been. That's one of the unending tragedies of every colonisation process, the denial of what-might-have-been, to the eternal loss of human culture in general. For eight centuries. So my bona fides, as far as I'm concerned, are unassailable. But it would be stupid for me to equate a Staffordshire farmer, paying his taxes and trying to muddle through from one season to the next, with the relentlessly brutal and imperialistic policies of the regime of the time. A British Army officer suppressing a rebellion with wholesale slaughter of rebel prisoners, yup, hang 'em high. They were directly and deliberately implementing the HMG policies/attitudes1. But they're not the same person, the Farmer (and his family, by implication and actual effects) and the Officer, and deserve very different fates. You're not a stupid person. You're very articulate, your English is excellent and you have very salient points which you're able to cogently argue through. You have enormous grounds for hate and anger and which, as I've stated before (and my paragraph above will help support), I fully agree with why you'd feel that. You have every right as a Ukrainian to hate Russians. But this is frankly hate for hate's sake, and that just breeds more death. There's no thought in a sentence like the one quoted above, just emotion and ranting. And like I said, I get it. I've absorbed enough accounts and writings from history to feel the intense anger of my people through the hundreds of years of English/British rule. So I'm no stranger to your sentiments. But the point stands and, for this leprechaun-sounding paddy, you're doing yourself a disservice and ruining your own arguments and credibility with this death spiral of useless, vacant vitriol. This is not the place (you'll achieve nothing here) and your energy is far better spent helping your country or relating what's going on there than this cul-de-sac argument over how to properly punish "the Ivan". I beg you to stop. 1 The rebel atrocities were just as heinous and damnable and, crucially, further solidified the "savage peasant" image of the Irish. Later on, in the 19/20th centuries that helped make rebellion "uncool" for many middle class Irish. It took some blatant whitewashing and outright denial to help clean the idea of independence from the stain of Irish crimes against civilians.

cmon, Live And Let Die.

Yes.

The irony (in a war saturated with it) is just perfect - Ukraine again planning, executing and succeeding at exactly the kind of kessel-ing that the RU has constantly attempted and consistently failed at. That plus river crossings of course. In every respect, the UA is the mirror of the RuAF.

The AI certainly seems to think anything taller than moss requires kneeling into perfect headshot position...! But I digest...from the thread

Ahem, BF. Seeeee my ATGMers CAN spot and shoot from prone in tall grass...

Interesting look.

Russia isnt the only country with a Special Circumstances department...

FYI, I personally didnt know about the Totskoye exercise. Fascinating event.

In that Time article on Zaluzhny, he mentions that UKR must win this war, this terrible, brutal, vicious, stupid and cruel war just so they can get a breathing space to prepare for the next one. THAT'S the right attitude to dealing with the Kremlin, and Russian imperialist nazisim in general. This is a man and a society with no illusions and zero ****s left to give.

From ISW yesterday And slaughter of that first wave hasn't even begun yet. Not just UKR but the weather will soon take its cut, again and again.