Bearstronaut

It was never going to be different. Hanyang (now known as Seoul) was the capital of the Joseon kingdom since the 14th Century and was the capital of the earlier Baekje kingdom during the Korean Three Kingdoms period. It is far too important in their history to not be the capital no matter what cold, military logic would say. Also, as an aside Busan is a phenomenal city. It's probably my favorite place I've ever been and if any of you get the chance to go there you absolutely should.

It was never going to be different. Hanyang (now known as Seoul) was the capital of the Joseon kingdom since the 14th Century and was the capital of the earlier Baekje kingdom during the Korean Three Kingdoms period. It is far too important in their history to not be the capital no matter what cold, military logic would say. Also, as an aside Busan is a phenomenal city. It's probably my favorite place I've ever been and if any of you get the chance to go there you absolutely should.

Stream of semi-consciousness...

The thing to keep in mind is that the Ukrainians are using the cluster munitions on their own territory. They aren't littering someone else's country with unexploded submunitions. They are the ones who will be bearing the cost of the UXO problem. The fact that they are using cluster munitions anyway demonstrates that they believe that is a cost worth bearing.

Speaking as a retired artillery officer....three other reasons to explain this:
1. They have insufficient radios and field phones to communicate with the battery command post.  
2.  The clearing in the trees is too small for proper dispersion of the guns.  Knowing that drones are sweeping treelines for targets, the russians may have chanced putting these guns into a small clearing in the middle of a forest with a trail going into the clearing for the tow vehicles.
3. They lack fire control calculators/computers to calculate fire patterns like converge, linear, etc.   The spacing looks about right for just doing a common bearing and range shoot to all guns and the spacing of the guns is about right for overlapping lethal burst patterns.

When you look at the conditions and imperatives even a Russian 'win' at this point would entail, breaking themselves on this rock looks inevitable. Moscow would have successfully and painfully executed an anschluss only to buy themselves an Afghanistan and a political milieu demanding more of the same against....NATO. 

Wet weather moves mines. Probably less so  in Ukraine than in places with significant elevation changes (Korea). There is a place I used to go hiking in Korea where the trails got swept a couple of times a year by ROKA engineers because it was near an old minefield and they wanted to make sure hikers didn’t get blown up by mines moved there by the monsoons. The picture is me about ten years ago on that trail.
 

I don't want to derail the thread, but it's hard to find an American who's done as lasting damage to the world as MacArthur by allowing his egomania and zealotry blow a complete victory.  Like a football match team being up 10 goals to zero and then having to forfeit into a draw for some reason.

Wet weather moves mines. Probably less so  in Ukraine than in places with significant elevation changes (Korea). There is a place I used to go hiking in Korea where the trails got swept a couple of times a year by ROKA engineers because it was near an old minefield and they wanted to make sure hikers didn’t get blown up by mines moved there by the monsoons. The picture is me about ten years ago on that trail.
 

"A Elbereth! Gilthoniel!"

Wet weather moves mines. Probably less so  in Ukraine than in places with significant elevation changes (Korea). There is a place I used to go hiking in Korea where the trails got swept a couple of times a year by ROKA engineers because it was near an old minefield and they wanted to make sure hikers didn’t get blown up by mines moved there by the monsoons. The picture is me about ten years ago on that trail.
 

Wet weather moves mines. Probably less so  in Ukraine than in places with significant elevation changes (Korea). There is a place I used to go hiking in Korea where the trails got swept a couple of times a year by ROKA engineers because it was near an old minefield and they wanted to make sure hikers didn’t get blown up by mines moved there by the monsoons. The picture is me about ten years ago on that trail.
 

To further deconstruct the myth of the Germans being better, American artillery to my knowledge was significantly superior to Germans or Brits. Brits were fast to setup but inaccurate, and the Germans required precise surveys and maps so given time and preparation, were accurate. America, befitting its status as the best country of all time, needed minimal surveys and used tapes with different shell/charge/atmospheric conditions that made it easy to get fire on target fast.

Contextually I think it points out Russia's continued imperial existence as opposed to the U.S.'s federal one. In the U.S. someone from Florida and Washington are equal and the civilian population has internalized that. You couldn't run a war by only drafting Florida men. Politically it would be a non starter.

However, in Russia you can go outside of the core and draft men and send them off to die. They aren't Russian although they are under Russian rule.

It's absolutely wild to me that Russians can feel that way with a war that has killed or maimed hundreds of thousands of their men and led to (now) near nightly drone raids into their cities. I spent most of the last decade on active duty in the US Army and I felt that the general American public felt that our wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan didn't concern them. In a sense they were correct. Our casualties were relatively light and the war was fought entirely by volunteers. I remember being in high school during the worst days of the Iraq War in 2006 and talking to a girl who didn't even know we were at war. However, I really don't think that would be the case if we were in the type of war Russia finds itself in. Says a lot about Russian society and culture to be perfectly honest.

It's absolutely wild to me that Russians can feel that way with a war that has killed or maimed hundreds of thousands of their men and led to (now) near nightly drone raids into their cities. I spent most of the last decade on active duty in the US Army and I felt that the general American public felt that our wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan didn't concern them. In a sense they were correct. Our casualties were relatively light and the war was fought entirely by volunteers. I remember being in high school during the worst days of the Iraq War in 2006 and talking to a girl who didn't even know we were at war. However, I really don't think that would be the case if we were in the type of war Russia finds itself in. Says a lot about Russian society and culture to be perfectly honest.

It's absolutely wild to me that Russians can feel that way with a war that has killed or maimed hundreds of thousands of their men and led to (now) near nightly drone raids into their cities. I spent most of the last decade on active duty in the US Army and I felt that the general American public felt that our wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan didn't concern them. In a sense they were correct. Our casualties were relatively light and the war was fought entirely by volunteers. I remember being in high school during the worst days of the Iraq War in 2006 and talking to a girl who didn't even know we were at war. However, I really don't think that would be the case if we were in the type of war Russia finds itself in. Says a lot about Russian society and culture to be perfectly honest.

At least when I went through basic we still got instruction on some of the heavier weapons. When I was still on active duty a few years ago the newer soldiers in my squad had never even touched a M249 or M240B, let alone fired one.

I didn't get any bayonet training when I went through basic in the winter of 2012/2013. But I was also a POG (IT Specialist), so I still can't shed any light on what the combat arms guys were up to at that point in time.

The BFC way, it'll be ready when it's ready.
😎

The matter of far-right or "pseudo far-right" (better to call them populists) support of Russia is not so ideology, but Russian money.  Russia generously fertilized both left and right politics, activating them, when it needs. 
But Le Pen doesn't support Russia after 24th Feb, though she afraids, that victory of Ukraine can lead to WWIII. Prime minister of Italy, for example, is representative of right spectre, but her level support of Ukraine is increadable. Polish ruling party and goverment also of right spectre, but they support Ukraine.  
Why some (far-) right political organizations has pro-Russian or false "appeasemnet" (for the cost of Ukraine of course) positions? Isolationism became popular. "We have many problems inside, but current government is wasting our taxpeyers money and military resourses for senseless support of corrupted Ukraine!" Or "do not provoke WWIII!!!" And little of ideology - as I can see in tweets of western Russia-supporters, they respect Russia for "tradicionalistic values", "Christianity", "fighting with LGBT", "fighting with Jewish-Masons world conspiracy" and they see Ukraine like a dangerous puppet in hands of leftists and globalists (OMG!!!!). Though indeed level of conservatism in Ukraine is comparable to Poland or Hungary. 
My personnal big dissapointment is US Republicans, which always were hawks in relation to USSR and Russia (McСain for exanle) and now MAGA-isolationism and QAnon ate brain of half of them and their followers    
 

if a not particularly studious nineteen year old, from a part of Russia where hope has never been a thing, can suddenly make multiples of his family's income, some of them are going to volunteer. Not even the entire new section of the towns cemetery for war dead is going to penetrate the conviction that it will be different, for them.
Edit: I felt for months now that one of the single worst things Russia has done for its own war effort is screwing up soldiers pay. When you signed up because the money was enough to really change your family's situation, and your wife is calling you at the front to say the fridge is empty and she can't pay the school fees......that is TRYING to lose the war. I mean they pay these guys in Rubles, why wouldn't they just print them if they had too? Of course this is excellent for Ukraine, so by all means I hope the vampire squid that run Russia keep stealing it all.

FWIW I spent four years of the last decade stationed in South Korea and I felt safer in Seoul than in any American city. Kim Jong Un isn't stupid. He is fully aware that Korean War 2.0 will result in the destruction of his regime. The ROK armed forces are technically and tactically proficient, far more so than the KPA. USFK is just a bonus. Now, that may change in 15-20 years due to the increase in isolationist sentiment in the US and the absolutely catastrophic demographic collapse South Korea is going through.

Ukraine won the war when the Russians retreated from the Kyiv axis in April 2022. Not even the most deranged vatniks think that Russia taking Kyiv and imposing regime change is possible anymore. No matter what happens (excepting nuclear war) Ukraine will remain an independent state even if it isn't able to recover the annexed territories.

Ukraine won the war when the Russians retreated from the Kyiv axis in April 2022. Not even the most deranged vatniks think that Russia taking Kyiv and imposing regime change is possible anymore. No matter what happens (excepting nuclear war) Ukraine will remain an independent state even if it isn't able to recover the annexed territories.