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FlemFire

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Everything posted by FlemFire

  1. You speak like someone who uses Twitter, so perhaps you should.
  2. Sure. I said from the start that Ukraine had zero military avenues to winning this war. How's that looking? To me, this war is an economic fight between the West and Russia, with Ukraine holding court for as long as that war takes to settle the economic one. I stated that if this was the objective, then Ukraine should not engage in trench warfare, but instead a war of maneuver where Russians are demonstrably bad. I stated long ago that if Ukraine was looking out for its own neck, it should take positions of advantage and sue for peace, because they risk losing more the longer the war drags out. How's that looking now? I think giving Ukraine a trickling of weapons serves no purpose other than to fight the war, but not win it. I think this is literally evil and getting many Ukrainians killed by luring them out with false hopes. I think Ukraine fielding an army of middle-aged men on repeated mobilizations w/ women starting to appear on frontlines is a surefire sign that their casualties are far worse than the media is letting on. I think Russia having a vastly bigger firepower pool on the frontlines of an attrition war matches this end result just as it would in any other theater of war. I think Russia is run by a dictator, has a history of accepting suffering, and will therefore withstand more 'punishment' to win the war as they see fit. This makes them a very formidable enemy, not one to poke fun at or take lightly. I think this sort of foe would require NATO boots on the ground to actually deliver a military defeat. My only concern going forward is that I think this war might have had a knock-on effect of endangering the world -- that Russia's economic survival was a live-fire test for decoupling from the West, and it concerns me that such an experiment is now on paper for China to look at and shed itself of some uncertainties. I think this has made the world more dangerous than it ever has been and most people just don't realize it yet. As an American (edit: well, dual-national), this war does not concern me outside of geopolitical considerations and some personal fascination. I bought into the idea that the U.S. should fund Ukraine (far more than it is now), but I now think that this might have had had a terrible snapback effect. I'm not interested in a vote by a community who aligns with your observations, which is to flounder around repeating pithy propaganda, giving outstretched credit to music video kill cams, seeing suggestions of tactical intrigues where there are none, and blindly pursuing wunderwaffen that will magically turn the day in a war measured by inches. The willfulness alone to stare at a frontline of Ukrainians with whitebeards and creased foreheads and think nothing is wrong is in and of itself completely staggering to me. I mostly come here to read the hot takes, understanding full-well that this is a pro-Ukraine echo chamber that would, apparently, be content seeing the entire male Ukrainian population pulverized to show Russia what-for. I'm pro-Ukraine as well, but I'm also pro-reality and I've seen this horse-and-pony show before and it does not end well for "American allies." Not going to bother with the 2nd question. Like I said, if you think we're doomed to live on Planet Drone, so be it. I find the whole argument constrained considering I was a huge believer in drones as the future of warfare to begin with, I just don't imagine them as wunderwaffe like some seem to, what a horror. Nor for billbindc, who only did me the favor of pointing out counter-measures already in place, suggesting the process of iteration is already underway. Thanks, bill.
  3. If you wish to continue thinking counter-measures won't come, that's your business. No point in going in circles and cluttering up the thread for others just be weirdly contrarian about how military technology and adaptation works.
  4. Please see my other response. You act as if this is a step factor from something leaving nonexistence to coming into existence altogether. Comparing it to "cold fusion" reminds me of a certain not paying attention because drones already exist. The tech is already present to be iterated upon. I just said that when the counter-measures come it will leave those militaries without that higher access further behind the curve. We don't know how fast it will evolve or in what directions, but the counter-measures will come because they always have. Literally. Non-debatable. When they do, just like with pretty much all modern technology, those who do not have the proper access will be ever further behind the curve. If you thought US-Iraq in '91 was bad, picture it with one side flying swarms of drones over those sands. For whatever reason, this notion led to some haywire response from Capt and now people are acting like we're locked into a deathmatch with drones from here on out. This is the sort of, dare I say, "blithe" mode of thinking made by people who thought to a certainty strategic bombers would just end wars outright.
  5. Perhaps I should not have used poetic language. Gotta cut to the quick with you jokers: yes, in terms of raw firepower, there are countless weapons which have "gotten more powerful" than they were at first introduction. Thank you for this observation. "as nakedy powerful as it* was at its first introduction." Let me explain what this means. Artillery used to stand on fields out in the open blasting away at enemies. It was the undoubted queen of the battlefield. You could put it wherever you wanted and the people suffering its presence could only sit there and watch it work. Now, on this very page, we're discussing drones. One of the main benefits of drones is that it can hunt down and destroy artillery. So you're telling me that artillery is as nakedly powerful, i.e. just brazenly dominating the battlefield, now as it was at release, in the very SAME discussion where we're talking about the rise of a literal counter-artillery weapon. Artillery had a very good run at dominance, make no mistake, but it ended with the airplane which could hunt and destroy; the parity of the battlefield evened out, and continued to as more and more assets arrived and the diversity of material and technology only expanded. The entire point is that no military weapon has the same advantages as it does when it first arrives. People devise ways to either defang it or even remove it entirely. That is a FACT. You're basically arguing that we've a weapon on our hands that will exist in its advantaged position in perpetuity when, quite literally, not a single weapon in all of military history has done this. You're arguing for the suspension of the entire narrative on warfare.
  6. Is that why artillery tubes held an adjacent-evolution to point upward at planes in the sky? Try again.
  7. I do "drivebys" because I travel for work. I don't have constant time available to make repeating, incorrect prognostications about a war such as you do. You've been wrong about plenty, but the certainty that a newfound technology will not be matched by counter-measures is the lowest of assertions. Please direct me to a single military advancement not named an intercontinental ballistic missile which has perpetually remained as nakedy powerful as it* was at its first introduction.
  8. A stopgap suggests there is further development to be made. Glad we agree.
  9. You're not seeing anything because currently it's almost entirely based in EW, which your two eyeballs will never see. When the EW matches up with the physical, those drones will lose effectiveness quite quickly. How and when that happens is another matter. Countries like the U.S. and China have billions of dollars of budget and the brightest minds watching this conflict like a hawk. Of course they're brewing up counter-measures. How long does it take to research, test, manufacture, and deliver something to a battlefield? Drones could be a nuisance for years to come, or they could get swatted down pretty easily, or go back and forth on that front much like tanks and anti-tank weapons. Note, I was a huge proponent of drone warfare and said very early on in this conflict that drone swarms would likely make tanks outmoded. I am very aware of their capabilities and I think their effectiveness hasn't even capped out yet.
  10. You're right. Military solutions usually surface instantaneously, especially when it concerns newfound technology. That it hasn't happened yet proves that it never will. These tautologies make perfect sense, as they tend to do.
  11. Despite your tangent here, I don't know what you're disagreeing about. Yes, it's a technical marvel. Yes, technical marvels tend to invite military investment and with that comes counter-measures. We're currently in the midst of it, so like you said the gulf of firepower has shrunken. In my expert opinion smaller nations or sub-factions (like Middle-Eastern terrorists or clans), do not have the firepower to match modern weaponry. They must devise themselves advantages. With drones, as it currently stands, there is parity, because everyone is on the same level. When the advanced militaries figure out how to counter drones, then these same non-advanced fighters will find themselves further behind the 8-ball than they ever were before. I pointed out the machine-gun because, for a spell, they also briefly put rebels and standing armies at positions of parity -- until the latter got access to tanks and airplanes. Something is always coming down the pipe. How this is controversial to you is beyond me.
  12. If we're doing SAT math problems, might want to factor in that drones also have an angle of attack seeing as how they're flying in from the air, meaning you actually have to go much faster than them. Having seen one of these things catch up to and promptly explode a guy flying down the road on an ATV, I don't think you're outrunning the speedier drones anytime soon.
  13. The weapons serve different functions so they're kinda hard to compare. Having played through most campaigns/scenarios, I can say that I never paused and went "uh oh, a Bren" whereas the MG42 unexpectedly rearing its head was often akin to getting smacked across the face. In-game, the MG42 on a pod is possibly the deadliest anti-personnel you can put into the hands of infantry. I'm not sure what the soft factors are for the Bren but having used it I didn't notice anything lacking per se, it effectively does what you expect it to do. I think it's closer comparison is maybe the BAR, of which the Bren is better, IMO, though the American squads overall end up having way more firepower thanks to the Garands mostly.
  14. Best counter to a drone is to shoot it down. We're currently at a stage that, at least I believe anyway, we'll look back on as people do to 1914-1915 where new technology landed faster than humanity's ability to match it with changes in military doctrine. Right now there's EW going on from both sides that tilts back and forth in its ability to intercept (electronically) these drones, but when I believe we'll see the development of new point defenses specifically directed at shooting drones right out of the sky. There's no way, for example, that the U.S. would allow compilation vids of its soldiers getting grenaded repeatedly by drones. IEDs and dummy traps are one thing, GoPros of dismemberment and death is another. It also would not surprise me if we're only in a small moment where drones offer a sense of parity between otherwise disparate sides, but over time only one of these sides ("first world") will have the means to develop anti-drone gear, and then it'll go right back to an apocalyptic hellscape for those who do not have those means. Imagine a future for Middle-Eastern factions, for example, who have to deal with a drone swarm with a multi-year lead on what's already available. The gulf in firepower will only grow wider and wider.
  15. I can provide you many quotes, essays, papers, pamphlets, government researches from or adjacent to socialists and unionists in that 1900-1940 timeline talking about immigration if you would like. If it helps your dog whistles, they weren't talking about 'Hispanics' back then, but Slavs, Greeks, Irish, Italians, and others. Then again, slyly implying this is a racial issue is the trick deployed by the industrialists to get the pro-union left onboard with their own destruction. I would expect a man with your surface level approach to warfare to be of a similar mind when it came to economic issues.
  16. ??? What. I just said they want labor. That's it. All other complications are, typically, theater. Like this post, for example, which approaches the issue as if it's a matter of politicking and not a matter of certain power levers in the economy wheeling and dealing:
  17. The issue's complicated beyond Ukraine -- it has to do with the U.S.'s southern border which is currently wide open and letting in millions of illegals, nevermind granting literal free entrance for hostile fifth columns if rivals wish to insert such a thing (spoiler: they do). Killing the value of American organized labor via cheap immigrants has been a distinct issue dating back to at least the early 1900s, it's just that nowadays the numbers are so high that leadership is having a hard time hiding it from the plebs. Pro-immigration propaganda is also running out of gas, as fifty years of stagnated wages isn't matching the rose-colored theories of the economists (the economists paid by the industrialists making the most buck off said migrants, what a shocker). I think you and others are reaching the wrong conclusion in perceiving this as the Biden administration failing to get what they want. They're getting precisely what they want: an open border. Other matters are secondary to such an extent that they will be sacrificed for the primary. Ukraine is either collateral damage in this spat or the powers that be are using the topic to slowly navigate to an off-ramp, though this is a distinction without a difference if you're a Ukrainian in a trench somewhere.
  18. Firepower superiority is in fact pretty much the entire goal of any engagement, whether it is at the tactical level up to the strategic. You bring more weapons and armaments to bear than your opponent, you are going to win battles. Firepower might not win a war -- it's actually war itself that has these 'multiple dimensions' you speak of -- but fire superiority will absolutely kill your enemy faster than they can kill you. Everything else follows from this, whether it is clearing a house or clearing a sector or clearing an entire nation. Achieving fire superiority is not a simple equation, but the presence of it in regards to winning battles very much is. Once again, and I don't know why I have to keep repeating this as Ukraine is obviously being bled dry of its manpower: Russia is more than happy to oblige Ukraine in fighting tit-for-tat battles, because they have considerably higher volumes of artillery. They are being allowed to leverage their greatest strength. Take for example this postage stamp of territory in the southwest. Ukraine keeps throwing 'marines' by boats to keep a hold of it. Why? The whole area looks like the moon and there's oodles of articles leaking out about how it's a death trap. Did it ever cross anybody's mind that Russia is going to cede immaterial territory if the return of value is inviting Ukrainians into a blatantly obvious kill zone? This thought never enters your brain if you sip propagandistic koolaid 24/7 and think the Russians are bad at everything. And when you underestimate an enemy you inevitably do stupid things that get a lot of people killed. There are countless examples of this in history, just as well. Denial? These are 'military thoughts' from a person advocating for rocketeers, mole people, and other grade-A nonsense. Lashing out at any high-strung concept you can get your fingers on is not to be confused for anything but cockamamie nonsense. I'm actually flabbergasted that your insipid notions got any track at all. Men can't go anywhere in this war without being seen, so flying them through the air in a proverbial skeet shoot is an honest solution? And pray tell, granting the absolute widest of berths to justifying this notion, what Ukrainian elements have the capabilities to operate behind enemy lines in any manner? We've seen infiltrations into certain Russian territories that turned out to be little more than tactical suicide and the total wasting of valuable assets. Now you soar these people through the air, knowing full well that Russia has a defense in depth already setup, and expect some sort of calamity of cohesion to occur that allows the Ukrainian frontline to surpass the entrenchments before them?
  19. It's called achieving air and firepower superiority. Once you maintain these elements, everything slowly falls in. Firepower is actually a pretty simple equation: it's just being sure that you're bringing more firepower against your enemy than they are against you. Air superiority is the real winner in any given conventional war. It allows for constant interdiction which then gradually weakens the frontline which then allows for breaches and eventual chaos. It is a massive force multiplier in all facets. Air superiority also effectively neutralizes the enemy's ability to operate on any sort of large-scale, which in effect is the conclusion of the war even if there might still be fighting going on. In trench warfare all of this is effectively impossible. Breakthroughs at any juncture are red herrings, as a situation in spot A is not indicative of the situation the front as a whole, which means A can be resolved by the defenders quite easily. You can see this in any given conflict which devolves into trench warfare. WWI is an obvious example, but there are others, like Iran-Iraq or Azerbaijan-Armenia. By its very nature, trench warfare does not allow for offensive primacy. Trench warfare is literally a symptom of inabilities to acquire consistent superiorities -- it's not meant to be "solved," it's already solving something.
  20. Quite some tempered outrage for carpet bombing civilians, I must say.
  21. I'd never strawman. Just not conducive to conversation. However, if I didn't want to have a conversation I have a few strawmen I lean on, like MAGA, far-right, soothsayer, conspiracy theorist, etc., as I can favorably bring these up regardless of content. You might wonder, what does a former President's marketing label have to do with a war in eastern Europe? If you have to ask, you're thinking too hard. Just deploy it and go.
  22. You're right. I'm joining you guys. After analyzing the results, here's my assessment: I'm not entirely sure why the attacks didn't work, but I'm putting it together. Every attack throughout the entire static warfare stage of this conflict has either failed or been completed with immense casualties, even those attacks which were not entirely expected, but this one was supposed to be different. Because it was supposed to be. Your Russian cannon fodder should not have been able to hold those lines with the force density we saw (was I in the intel room looking at the sat maps? No, but the stupid Russians didn't know we had their force arrangements on Fox/CNN). We are talking conscripts facing US C4ISR and modern weaponry. Real Terminator stuff vs. their rusted weaponry and rustic mindsets. I know we're into a new kind of war with 1.5 years of analysis on this subject but standard pre-war doctrine from 40-years ago says it takes a 1000 troops to hold a km. RA was doing it with 300 troops (from the Russia report from Sep, which I now trust for this specific purpose). Tossing away rotations -because Russia (lol just because, you know, because)- that means they had about a company per km with maybe a bit of depth and no reserves (per Russia, and my own media). I don't know how all the crucial geographic spots got blanketed in craters, but I do know that they had very limited support. Basically 150 guys (lost 150 just because) with drones and ATGMs. A few tanks to pull up for sniping. And AH. These things -- drones, ATGMs, tanks, air support -- I'm going to dedicate no more than 15 words to as they're not that important to the results of the battle. And they do all this with conscripts?! While being hammered by western modern artillery, deep strike and UAS, no don't ask me how said assets are moved forward and can be protected in staging when Russian assets are just sitting in defense waiting for them. They were there and they were firing on all cylinders. About the only thing the RA had was EW and that was not airtight. The ONLY thing they had was EW. Per new military doctrine, it appears EW is the queen of the battlefield. I'll report back with more findings later. The point is, the Russians are not to be respected. Respecting your enemy is for losers. You strawman them so that they are super easy to burn on the battlefield. Pretty sure Sun Tzu said that in some book.
  23. RAND got at least half the equation right: eastern Ukraine is a lot like Normandy. They seem to have completely forgotten that in Normandy the Allies had total air supremacy with an outstanding artillery advantage. Imagine, the words supremacy/superiority don't exist in the vocabulary of an article detailing such a battlefield. A quick reference to one event entailing two days of aerial bombing and that's it. Very credible, yeah. Leave it to a think tank to prescribe something without including the fine print I think the situations are in fact reversed -- in that you'd need to think of Ukraine in the Germans '44 role. The Germans did inflict casualties by ebbing-and-flowing backward, leaning upon the geographic setting to pitch easy ambushes and hit-and-run tactics before completely throwing away all available reserves into a crazy offensive--wait a second.
  24. Correction, the liberal method was to be applied in the early 90s. The horse was out of the barn by the time Yeltsin was "elected" again in '96 and definitely toast by the early 00s. None of this is far-right and, as mentioned, has been backed by multiple thinkers on the subject, including George Kennan, the preeminent statesman on all-things-Russia during the Cold War. At this stage (late 2023), who is at "fault" is actually immaterial, as mentioned. If one wants to think it was 100% one side or the other, that's their prerogative. This forum's rules operate on believing in absolutes. I'll abide by said rules (and I also think the discussion is worn out regardless). I'm more curious about what books are being read that allow one to ignore basic military fundamentals. I'm reading the text-version of a snipe hunt trying to figure out why the Ukrainian counter-offensive went sideways. Please provide your sources for thinking it could work. Data, military theory, examples in history, etc. Again, I'm genuinely curious. Please avoid platitudes or empty derisions toward one side or the other. Hitching the real-world to that sort of nonsense is how people got surprised in the first place.
  25. You missed air support and artillery supremacy of any kind. Those are, in fact, extremely significant which begs the question as to how they could be 'missed' at all. I said back in January that Ukraine needs to operate a loose defense and let Russia invite itself in. The point would be to inflict losses not to "corrode" but to shock Russian sensibilities via major losses, frankly the only remotely possible avenue for a military route to victory and even then it is only to leverage Russia's internal socio-economic stability against it. For some reason, people said I was nuts and that Ukraine had this in the bag.
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