Doc844

Hmmm let russia do what it wants in Ukraine to avoid a bigger war.  Really.  Quick history lesson.
"Peace in our time" 1938. 
Appeasement of Mr Adolf, fast forward 7 years, 60 million dead. 
Whoooops.
And I'm not being flippant, just flabbergasted.
 

Hmmm let russia do what it wants in Ukraine to avoid a bigger war.  Really.  Quick history lesson.
"Peace in our time" 1938. 
Appeasement of Mr Adolf, fast forward 7 years, 60 million dead. 
Whoooops.
And I'm not being flippant, just flabbergasted.
 

Hmmm let russia do what it wants in Ukraine to avoid a bigger war.  Really.  Quick history lesson.
"Peace in our time" 1938. 
Appeasement of Mr Adolf, fast forward 7 years, 60 million dead. 
Whoooops.
And I'm not being flippant, just flabbergasted.
 

Hmmm let russia do what it wants in Ukraine to avoid a bigger war.  Really.  Quick history lesson.
"Peace in our time" 1938. 
Appeasement of Mr Adolf, fast forward 7 years, 60 million dead. 
Whoooops.
And I'm not being flippant, just flabbergasted.
 

Hmmm let russia do what it wants in Ukraine to avoid a bigger war.  Really.  Quick history lesson.
"Peace in our time" 1938. 
Appeasement of Mr Adolf, fast forward 7 years, 60 million dead. 
Whoooops.
And I'm not being flippant, just flabbergasted.
 

Hmmm let russia do what it wants in Ukraine to avoid a bigger war.  Really.  Quick history lesson.
"Peace in our time" 1938. 
Appeasement of Mr Adolf, fast forward 7 years, 60 million dead. 
Whoooops.
And I'm not being flippant, just flabbergasted.
 

Hmmm let russia do what it wants in Ukraine to avoid a bigger war.  Really.  Quick history lesson.
"Peace in our time" 1938. 
Appeasement of Mr Adolf, fast forward 7 years, 60 million dead. 
Whoooops.
And I'm not being flippant, just flabbergasted.
 

Hmmm let russia do what it wants in Ukraine to avoid a bigger war.  Really.  Quick history lesson.
"Peace in our time" 1938. 
Appeasement of Mr Adolf, fast forward 7 years, 60 million dead. 
Whoooops.
And I'm not being flippant, just flabbergasted.
 

Im tired (night shift) but did you just call me a right wing looney????
 

Lots of interesting discussions and info to chew through.  Been playing catching up due to work stuff. 😩   one thing that has struck me and not been mentioned in regards to drones is the civilian/terrorist sphere. 
This war is showing what can be done with drones, whether it be military spec or someone with a bit of botch tape and plasti-cuffs.  So what happens when some one decides that going all AR 15 in a school, sorry America, and dieing for it, decides to stick some homemade explosives to a drone and goes all drone bomber in a residential area.  Or even worse a terrorist organisation does it, multiple targets, maximum terror.  How do governments protect against that, prevent it.  I know its off topic but this war has brought into stark contrast how much damage can be done with a simple drone.
 
Also there was a post about miniature drones being used in mass swarms to target individual soldiers, like 10000 to 15000 drones in a swarm.  This was actually written in a book I just recently read, Counter Strike by Dan Bruns.  It is about a Chinese blitz attack on Taiwan and the only way it can be stopped is for the American President to authorise the use of hunter killer drones, in the book 15000 Chinese soldiers simply just die.  Scary sh*t.  Books not great but kills time when ur off shift on a rig.
As for the coming UKR offensive there are 2 thoughts that keep niggling away in the back of my head.  Firstly in regards to equipment, how it seems to be dribs and drabs coming in.  Units are still training, won't be ready in time etc.  But I keep thinking of how Ukraine and the West played it with other heavy gear, ie tubed arty and Himars.  The US/West said they were getting them however everyone gave timelines of training, but it turned out they had already been doing it for months and they were active pretty much from the get go. 
So, it worked then so why not this time.  Tell it loud and the Russians will hear it and believe it because they want to.  When the offensive starts 2 or 3 brigades may well be ready to go.
This leads me to the second point.  Ukraine psyops have been excellent from the very beginning, whether it be official news or through the use of social media.  So they aren't going to be suddenly bad at it.  So all the conflicting reports just now may well be the start of the shaping phase of the offensive.  Send out contradictory reports, not enough arty, need more ammo, the attack won't start until May-june etc.  This then becomes a lot of info for the Russians to sift through to try and formulate a picture and a plan, and I say plan very loosely.  When the offensive gets going I think its going to be a bit of an eye opener.
Just my thoughts after 16 days of 12 hour shifts with another few to do.  Hope you get the jist of what I'm driving at but I am pretty tired.

Im tired (night shift) but did you just call me a right wing looney????
 

Do you really think we are being kept informed about everything the day it happens? Ukrainian tank crews are being trained for months now, tanks are being bought and prepared for months now. Some of them are probably already in Ukraine.

Ok, let me hit this on the head one last time because it is going to a really bad place.  And I totally get the sentiment but we need to be absolutely clear on this point - being the 'good guys' and acting like a modern professional military means all the time, no matter what. 
No days off, no "revenge breaks" and definitely no "hey they are doing it."
Only a combat veteran of Afghanistan or Iraq can describe just how badly we wanted to call in an A10 and wipe out an entire grid square after one of your own goes home in a box.  Or retaliate when the insurgents did some really dark sh#t.
But that ain't the gig, ever.  The single biggest point civilians do not get about war is that 'killing' is not the hard part - the hard part is 'to not keep on killing'. 
We clipped guys for holding a cellphone in the wrong place for too long, chewed up teenagers digging hole in roads, and a hammered into meat a few farmers dumb enough to stick around.  We did it and high-fived when we dropped them.  We slept soundly that night and never thought twice about doing it the next day. 
But we never let that out of the professional box we kept it in - the second we did, and could no longer tell which way was up - even when the other team was basically operating on Genghis Khan ROEs - we would stop being soldiers and become something else. And then the whole thing starts to unravel.
The RA and Russia will pay for their actions for decades.  War crimes are one of the key indicators that the RA is in freefall and not a coherent fighting force - military discipline has fallen apart on a wide scale, and they are reaping that field this fall.
But we beat them by being better than they are, forever.    

In regards to the kerch bridge I couldnt decide for myself between truck bomb or missile.  However on watching the video taken from the CCTV capture backwards and forwards lots of times I'm more and more coming down on the side of missile.  A few points of why, firstly at point of detonation, to me the explosion looks like it comes from behind where the truck was last seen and when you crawl the video forward it seems as though it was to the right rear, on the edge of the frame.  This made me think that if it was a missile, it clips the edge of the right hand lane, detonates but it looks like alot of the explosive force is directed into the water, hence all the water that comes back and over the bridge, blown their by the strong wind.  If the missile had struck the middle of the road then I would think alot of the back blast of water would be deflected back down and/or would also force it's way up between the lanes, but what is seen is that it all comes from the right of the road.
 
Plus, because the missile may have just clipped the edge then this would explain the lack of major cratering or dismantling of the road surface.  Just to emphasise, I am in no way an explosives or bridge expert although I have seen plenty of the first, but taking into account directions, angles of after spray of water and damage done this makes more sense to me.  As for truck bomb, my knee jerk gut reaction is no and the angles of the explosion and back blast, especially the water movement just reinforce that.  Just my musings on it.

Wow, that took some effort to catch up and what a time to do it, just as the kerch bridge gets smacked.  However although I'm liking all the theories of what did it, everyone has overlooked the main reason for all major russian mishaps in this war.
The extremely dangerous and explody act of smoking.  The smokers done it again, dropped his fag in the truck, rolled under the seat, set fire to highly flammable cheap chinese foam padding which then caused 152mm ammo to explode and blew up the bridge.  Case solved, call me Sherlock not Shirley.

I'm way behind on this thread again, work can suck at times, only on page 1485, but wanted to chip my 2 pence worth in on nukes and use of.  One thing to remember is that as people get older they move more away from the 'me' to their kids but even more importantly their grandkids.  They are their future, our future and humans are hardwired to that as part of the perpetuation of the species.  So yes you may have the man at the top, ala, Mr Putlin who may or may not give a ****, all is lost I'm gonna go the way of Hitler and take everyone with me.  But I can guarentee that most under him and even more so those who are further away from the levers of power do not agree and want a future for their families and relatives.  I strongly believe that if Putlin decides to drop a nuke there is a very high probability, even inevitability that someone will vacate his brain from his skull.
 
If I recall correctly what I stated above was one of the main reasons why Kruschev de-escalated and brought the world back from the brink.  Not saying that this position should be used as a hail Mary plan but I could see that being the way it would pan out.
  Putlin -  "**** the west, they ruined my glorious plan, **** Ukraine they didnt roll over and die, press the red button".  Loud bang and the next thing he sees is Lucifer standing with a big grin saying welcome.

I'm way behind on this thread again, work can suck at times, only on page 1485, but wanted to chip my 2 pence worth in on nukes and use of.  One thing to remember is that as people get older they move more away from the 'me' to their kids but even more importantly their grandkids.  They are their future, our future and humans are hardwired to that as part of the perpetuation of the species.  So yes you may have the man at the top, ala, Mr Putlin who may or may not give a ****, all is lost I'm gonna go the way of Hitler and take everyone with me.  But I can guarentee that most under him and even more so those who are further away from the levers of power do not agree and want a future for their families and relatives.  I strongly believe that if Putlin decides to drop a nuke there is a very high probability, even inevitability that someone will vacate his brain from his skull.
 
If I recall correctly what I stated above was one of the main reasons why Kruschev de-escalated and brought the world back from the brink.  Not saying that this position should be used as a hail Mary plan but I could see that being the way it would pan out.
  Putlin -  "**** the west, they ruined my glorious plan, **** Ukraine they didnt roll over and die, press the red button".  Loud bang and the next thing he sees is Lucifer standing with a big grin saying welcome.

I'm way behind on this thread again, work can suck at times, only on page 1485, but wanted to chip my 2 pence worth in on nukes and use of.  One thing to remember is that as people get older they move more away from the 'me' to their kids but even more importantly their grandkids.  They are their future, our future and humans are hardwired to that as part of the perpetuation of the species.  So yes you may have the man at the top, ala, Mr Putlin who may or may not give a ****, all is lost I'm gonna go the way of Hitler and take everyone with me.  But I can guarentee that most under him and even more so those who are further away from the levers of power do not agree and want a future for their families and relatives.  I strongly believe that if Putlin decides to drop a nuke there is a very high probability, even inevitability that someone will vacate his brain from his skull.
 
If I recall correctly what I stated above was one of the main reasons why Kruschev de-escalated and brought the world back from the brink.  Not saying that this position should be used as a hail Mary plan but I could see that being the way it would pan out.
  Putlin -  "**** the west, they ruined my glorious plan, **** Ukraine they didnt roll over and die, press the red button".  Loud bang and the next thing he sees is Lucifer standing with a big grin saying welcome.

I'm way behind on this thread again, work can suck at times, only on page 1485, but wanted to chip my 2 pence worth in on nukes and use of.  One thing to remember is that as people get older they move more away from the 'me' to their kids but even more importantly their grandkids.  They are their future, our future and humans are hardwired to that as part of the perpetuation of the species.  So yes you may have the man at the top, ala, Mr Putlin who may or may not give a ****, all is lost I'm gonna go the way of Hitler and take everyone with me.  But I can guarentee that most under him and even more so those who are further away from the levers of power do not agree and want a future for their families and relatives.  I strongly believe that if Putlin decides to drop a nuke there is a very high probability, even inevitability that someone will vacate his brain from his skull.
 
If I recall correctly what I stated above was one of the main reasons why Kruschev de-escalated and brought the world back from the brink.  Not saying that this position should be used as a hail Mary plan but I could see that being the way it would pan out.
  Putlin -  "**** the west, they ruined my glorious plan, **** Ukraine they didnt roll over and die, press the red button".  Loud bang and the next thing he sees is Lucifer standing with a big grin saying welcome.

I'm way behind on this thread again, work can suck at times, only on page 1485, but wanted to chip my 2 pence worth in on nukes and use of.  One thing to remember is that as people get older they move more away from the 'me' to their kids but even more importantly their grandkids.  They are their future, our future and humans are hardwired to that as part of the perpetuation of the species.  So yes you may have the man at the top, ala, Mr Putlin who may or may not give a ****, all is lost I'm gonna go the way of Hitler and take everyone with me.  But I can guarentee that most under him and even more so those who are further away from the levers of power do not agree and want a future for their families and relatives.  I strongly believe that if Putlin decides to drop a nuke there is a very high probability, even inevitability that someone will vacate his brain from his skull.
 
If I recall correctly what I stated above was one of the main reasons why Kruschev de-escalated and brought the world back from the brink.  Not saying that this position should be used as a hail Mary plan but I could see that being the way it would pan out.
  Putlin -  "**** the west, they ruined my glorious plan, **** Ukraine they didnt roll over and die, press the red button".  Loud bang and the next thing he sees is Lucifer standing with a big grin saying welcome.

Apologies if this has been replied to, still catching up on the last few pages, work can be so awkward at times 🤫.  Now I'm not saying that Western Intel, political leadership were astute enough at the time but I'm going to say it anyway.  But it may be possible that Russians build up to how it was going to deal with Ukraine were becoming more prominent/realistic possibilities, so the US had to re-orientate sooner rather than later to be able to counter the threat.  Still being tangled in that mess which for me was unwinnible from Western standards would have severely degraded how America could respond.  So the decision was made to cut losses and pull out, pretty **** deal for Afghanistan but the coalition could have stayed, my country included (UK),  for another 20 years and still not made much of a difference except more blood and money spent for little gain.  Just my 2 cents but worth thinking about.

In reference to the not knowing they were going to war and thinking they were only on training ops etc, unless there is a huge difference (which is possible) I'd call bull***t. The only time we were issued live ammo, especially a full combat load is if you were expecting to go into harm's way. I doubt there is a "training" exercise anywhere involving 200,000 troops that are running around with real bullets. Range time, yep. CQB, yep. Field maneuvers, nope.
We always knew real bullets meant real world. The 100% indicator that you are going in is when the morphine gets issued. So unless the RA just wanders around all the time with full combat loads for all their vehicles and people I'd say they had to know. There was never a doubt in our minds when things were training vs real.

I had some experience with the British and Canadian armies as well (brief experience) but came away VERY impressed with their NCOs, from junior NCOs to SGMs. Just outstanding. Don't have a good idea of their background but really I don't think it matters. The professionalism of the NCOs and that they pass down to the soldiers under them is the key, regardless of background. It's part of the task - take a bunch of young soldiers from widely different backgrounds and mold them into an effective team.
Dave

For sure! But considering how much all the stuff they made us carry around weighed , "light" is just a name. lol

The situation of Belarus is very intriguing, a country that has had the snot kicked out of it for the last century, mainly by the Nazis and the USSR.  Now it finds itself in a position where 1, it could realistically oust Lukashenko, his pay master has alot on his plate just now.  2, it could at the same time determine the fate of Putin and Russia as a nation, close the back door and the northern russian cough 'offensive' cough, falls apart.  This may be their best chance to finally be their own country.