Bearstronaut
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Posts
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Posts posted by Bearstronaut
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10 minutes ago, Zeleban said:
But what about working in a team, negotiations among alliance members, etc.?
There's a pretty big difference between a combined arms assault into Estonia and an errant missile crossing into Polish airspace my dude.
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I guess Heinlein was pretty prescient when he came up with the mobile infantry concept.
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5 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:
Has Girkin now begun to call Russian soldiers "worms"?
That's not the actual Igor Girkin.
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3 hours ago, JonS said:
You make it sound like the ANA debacle, barely 2 years later - equip a culturally different army with its own doctrine and its own tactical context kinda-sorta like us and expect them to fight like us, then stand around with pursed lips scratching your head when it all goes a bit pear shaped.
Apparently we never learn. Before the ANA it was the ARVN. Before the ARVN it was the ROKA. Although we stayed in South Korea long enough that the ROKs were able to develop their own successful military industrial complex and would likely be successful in a war (at extremely high cost) against the DPRK without us. That would not have been true had we dipped out of the ROK back in say, the 1970s.
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4 hours ago, poesel said:
China was the worlds superpower from about 500 (when they took over from the Romans) to about 1750 where they lost it to England. The main reason they lost the spot was self-inflicted isolation. After 250 years of further 'mismanagement' they are a superpower again (not 'the', but 'a').
By its sheer size and cultural homogeneity, China is destined to be a superpower. That it was not during our lifetime is a historical aberration.
As to who is threatening whoms way of life, I would guess it is rather the West that is threatening China. Every Chinese I know (all of them living in China) would rather live in a western style China than in the current one, if something like that would be possible. They know it isn't so they are not speaking of that (loud).
Umm, what? What about the early Muslim Caliphates? The Mongols? The Ottoman Empire? The Spanish Empire? All projected more power than the insular Han Chinese and the Mongols even conquered China.
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36 minutes ago, Zeleban said:
That is, you claim that American citizens will gladly go to another continent to die for the sake of the Germans or the Baltic states, while they were not ready to go and die for the sake of the Vietnamese or Afghans. Do I understand you correctly?
We went and died in the hundreds of thousands for the French and British twice last century.
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1 hour ago, Zeleban said:
Damn accurate description of Ukraine
There's been plenty of examples of a weak and brittle nation on the brink of collapse over the past half century. Afghanistan and South Vietnam being the most obvious examples. Ukraine reminds me more of South Korea than either of those countries. Definitely not perfect to be sure but with a strong sense of national will and the determination to fight for their country. Hell, Ukraine is even better than the ROK was. People are seriously talking about Zelensky losing an election during an existential war while absolutely nobody would have thought that about Rhee Syngman or Park Chung-hee.
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4 minutes ago, Vacillator said:
Slightly off-topic
but is there a particular brand you would recommend?
Sorry Phil you can get back on topic shortly.
Not really. It all tastes pretty similar and it's not like there is a ton of different options here in the US (and I'm sure the UK is similar).
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2 minutes ago, Vacillator said:
Mmmm, I like Red Pepper Paste. In fact @kohlenklau brought me some Texan chilli sauce when he visited the UK. Very nice it was too Phil, thanks again.
Korean pepper paste is delicious. I always have some in my fridge.
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19 minutes ago, kohlenklau said:
I had eventually realized it was backwards and corrected it. Thanks.
Yes, I just grabbed it off of a label I found online!
Are you fluent in Korean? I need a few specific voice recordings! Please help
I am fluent but I'm not a native speaker and my accent definitely doesn't sound North Korea.
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On 10/2/2023 at 12:50 PM, kohlenklau said:
OK, slowly modding a few things to get more of a Korea 1950 vibe to the battlefield...
The small sign in between the two windows is backwards.
Also, it's funny that the other sign just says "Red Pepper Paste".
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On 11/19/2023 at 3:16 PM, LongLeftFlank said:
My best guess as to the origin of @Bearstronaut's handle is here. (and I totally want the score as a ringtone)
You are correct.
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1 hour ago, The_Capt said:
This part. All war is sacrifice. And in this regard the Western world is perhaps as weak as it has ever been. Our willingness to sacrifice anything for greater causes is woefully weak. We will make a lot of noise, cancel people, whatever. But actually sacrificing something that hurts...no freakin way. We are three generations into entitlement and no empire in the history of the planet has done well when it pushes the sacrifice to "lessers" (be they internal or external).
Tax havens, choking out social programs, defence spending that does not loop back into our own pockets. Gawd help us, oil, gas and " export of precision machine tools and key weapons manufacturing equipment components to Russia."
I am not even sure we know how to really give sacrifice anymore. If someone told people they could cure cancer and have world peace but would have to give up their cellphones, I am pretty sure I know which way it would go.
So as to Russia, and China for that matter, what is most disconcerting is that this war (and maybe the next one) are highlighting that our adversaries still know how to sacrifice. Ukraine knows how to sacrifice. I mean really pay the red coins to achieve something. In Russia's case it is utterly evil, immoral and illegal by any angle, but say what you will, the Russian's still know how to sacrifice.
So we can talk about Glass Dragons, real estate bubbles, Russian doomed trajectories and demographic statistics all day long. But until we recognize that our adversaries are willing to lose more than us in order to gain, we are in trouble. we can't get people to wear masks and take free vaccines in the middle of the worst pandemic since 1918, how can we expect them to endure famine and war?
My biggest fear is that by the time we figure it out, it will too late. We are like the European powers in 1899, rich entitled and heading off a cliff...all arguing about who should go first.
To be completely honest I think millions upon millions of Americans would be perfectly willing to sacrifice our prison population and poverty-stricken ethnic minorities to the jaws of war.
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20 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
You forget where Belarus (and other ex-Soviet states) learned this wonderful stuff. Mother Russia
The only reason we've not seen such demonstrations from Russian VDV/Spetsnaz forces lately is because they're all dead or in the process of being killed. The recruits aren't given enough time to learn these valuable skills.
Steve
Speaking of, does anyone know what ever happened to the dude in the famous VDV song? Did he die gloriously in the SMO? /s
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9 hours ago, Kinophile said:
I'm just glad I managed to shoehorn hypothetical alien bacteria as an interstellar civilizational handshake medium into a forum on the Ukraine war. Pretty dang chuffed right now, tbh. Screw you, forum search algorithms!
Someone read/watched The Expanse books/tv series.
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1 hour ago, Probus said:
Looks like the IDF is going in tonight. Will be an interesting weekend, to put it lightly.
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4 minutes ago, dan/california said:
The U.S. Army's seemingly steadfast determination to buy a new generation of manned helicopters is high on my list of bad signs.
"But what else are we gonna do with all those warrant officers we gave ten year ADSOs to?"
-HQDA
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56 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
We will try and negotiate with it. The threads of this negotiation are already there. The narratives of “Silly Ukrainians, Silly Russians” are all basically saying “well sure, in Ukraine…but we would do it better”. This sort of collective denial will be subtle and deep, at a cultural level.
Then as evidence mounts we will try and take these new technologies and bolt them onto our existing systems and doctrine. In the west, our military tactics and units have not really changed that much since WW2. The TF/BG concept has had all new tech bolted onto it and Unmanned will be as well. We will spend billions on counters to try and protect that old concept. But as you note we won’t be able to, the shifts are too big.
Next, we will get all “out of the box” and create experimental units and doctrine that looks good on the surface but in reality is designed to fail. This will validate that the old orgs and doctrine were right all along. We normally do this by half-measures - we do not build a complete coherent experimental system. We just take away the old stuff.
Then we will hit a forcing function. A real world disaster that we cannot negotiate with or ignore. It will cost a bunch of teenagers their lives. Then we will scramble to try and realign. It will be expensive and brutal. After that, well the whole thing becomes a dice roll. It didn’t have to be, but this is where sunk cost fallacies get you.
Air-Land warfare has changed. More, it is continuing to change. It isn’t just the pace, it is the depth. Fundamentals and foundational principles are challenged (eg Surprise, Concentration, Mission Command). This is not simply “a better tank killer”, this is stuff that breaks force ratios, tempo, and basic utility of what we thought was combined arms. The death of how we used to do minefield breaching ops is just the latest in a very long line of doctrine that look more and more obsolete. I strongly suspect that joint warfare as a whole is shifting under our feet. RMA has finally landed with a big enough bang to get our attention.
What will follow the Russo-Ukraine war will be a decade long argument. But in the end, everyone in charge will have come up in the old system. Further, we do not really promote radical Tesla-type disruptors to be GOs in modern militaries. So we are looking at a pretty conservative bunch steeped in a conservative military culture and doctrine. Oh, and with a trillion dollar defence industry tooled for stuff we had for the last 80 years.
Not a good start.
Do you think the IDF losing a bunch of tanks and AFVs to Hamas when they inevitably push into Gaza will have any affect on the calculus? Or will they handwave it away with the "urban warfare" excuse?
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23 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
Yeah.
I've read a couple other reports that remind us that North Korea probably has ready stocks of ammo that might be enough to introduce a wobble into the Earth's rotation. They also have excess production capacity. Which is to say that if North Korea wanted to deplete it's ready rack to help Russia get back up to 2022 levels of artillery usage, it probably could. But North Korea is paranoid and insular, therefore (as you say) it's unlikely to tap into its stocks too far. That means aid to Russia will likely come from new production and that is what I believe ISW is basing their assessment on.
Steve
North Korea is my area of expertise and I am VERY surprised that they were willing to part with what they seem to have sent to Russia. I'm pretty curious to know what they received in return.
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24 minutes ago, Butschi said:
I'm not sure that is true. To be a little nitpicky to start with: In 1918 the Allies had more or less figured out how to go on the offensive. It was still slow going but I think they were a bit farther down that road than Ukraine is now.
Fair enough. Maybe 1917 works better. The Entente had figured out that what they had done in 1915 and 1916 wasn't working and were experimenting but still hadn't figured out how to achieve that elusive breakthrough. Although historical analogies never align 100%.
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It seems to me that Ukraine has realized that what the game is and is fighting like it is 1918 and the Russians are still fighting in 1915.
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15 hours ago, Vacillator said:
Yeah maybe.
We have of course already had @George MC's excellent RT battle pack and subsequent training scenarios. I love it all. George, can you 'quickly' knock together another BP please
? I'll pre-order now...
@Mr.X is also working on his own CMRT battle-pack of several campaigns. I think he is shooting for a release of before Christmas.
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25 minutes ago, akd said:
Random image from Israel, but 1.) MBT Cope is spreading and 2.) confirmation of vertical limits of Trophy engagement (could be less, of course, but can’t be more):
We call them cope cages but if nothing else it still prevents a drone from flying over and dropping a grenade down an open hatch.
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56 minutes ago, Splinty said:
TBH Infantry basic is almost exactly the same as basic for support units. I've been through both, and most of the differences are in the amount of "aggression" instilled in the trainees by the drill sergeants. The advanced infantry training is where the differences start to really show. I went to Air Defence advanced training, my first enlistment, and almost all of that training was in classrooms. Whereas Infantry Advanced training was all in the field.
That's what I mean. Send everyone through advanced infantry training like the Marines send everyone to SOI after basic. I went to language school, AIT, and then straight to an intel brigade in Korea. I was a NCO by the time I got assigned to a BCT and I could count the number of days I had spent "in the field" after basic on my fingers. Then it was "ok SGT Bearstronaut, you're tactical now so do tactical stuff."
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
The USS Kearny, a Gleaves-class destroyer, was torpedoed on 17 October 1941 and suffered 11 crew KIA. The USS Reuben James, a Clemson-class destroyer, was torpedoed and sunk on 31 October 1941 with a loss of 100 of her crew.