Vostok-2018

Erwin · September 11, 2018

5 hours ago, ikalugin said:

REDFOR is initially defending in the scenario

Well of course that's what they say...

BTR · September 11, 2018

And it's on. Well, on from yesterday, but it still counts.

ikalugin · September 11, 2018

6 hours ago, Erwin said:

Well of course that's what they say...

That is what the map says and what is consistent with earlier exercises, ie Zapad-2017.

Sublime · September 11, 2018

to be fair it seems every nations large exercises seem to have an initial defensive stage (maybe for PR?) before its assumed the enemy attack is parried and counterattack is begun. That was the Vostok 17 script and the script in countless Cold War NATO wargames..

Erwin · September 11, 2018

Quite. Didn't German invasion into Poland in 39 start cos the Poles were "attacking" somewhere or other and Germany had to defend itself?

Artkin · September 11, 2018

54 minutes ago, Erwin said:

Quite. Didn't German invasion into Poland in 39 start cos the Poles were "attacking" somewhere or other and Germany had to defend itself?

I thought I heard this also

ikalugin · September 11, 2018

If you can read the map there is extensive mobile defense in depth planned. This mirrors the practical experience of 080808 war, where we had to play defensive initially and the potential Ukraine related scenarios, where we would be assisting defense by the VSN before launching a counter offensive.

Sublime · September 12, 2018

20 hours ago, Erwin said:

Quite. Didn't German invasion into Poland in 39 start cos the Poles were "attacking" somewhere or other and Germany had to defend itself?

Yes along with the infamous radio station attack that was staged complete with murdered KZ inmates dressed in Polish Army uniforms.

I do remember in the 2017 exercises reading that the script of the game had a 'western/nato invasion' which then was beat back amd the Baltics and Kaliningrad swiftly reunited with Russia..

ikalugin · September 12, 2018

https://russianmilitaryanalysis.wordpress.com/2018/09/12/vostok-2018-day-1-september-11/

Kofman.

He also has a good account of West-2017, esentially it's scenario implied a west supported coloured revolution in Belorussia, where forces from the Baltics participated vs a false flag operation you imply. While Russian fears about such a scenario may seem implausible in the west they are just as real as the Western fears about the Russian invasion of Baltics.

Edited September 12, 2018 by ikalugin

Sublime · September 12, 2018

Actually no I believe you misread my post - I wasnt proposing a false flag operation, plus what government east or west would rationally say "yes we.re practicing false flag attacks to start a war" it kind of destroys the false flag.

No me referring to the false flag isea was statement of fact about how Germany initiated its invasion of Poland in 1939 ( I will swipe at Russian revisionism these days that exculpates the SU from responsibility for costarting WW2 with the Nazis and helpiny invade Poland)

My statement about defensive beginnings to operations east AND WEST (again in the cold war even when doctrine changed in the 80s to almost immediate counterattacks it always presupposed War Pac invasion, I believe this is on both sides to make these war games palatable PR wise)

Also on the maps ubfortunately I dont read cyrillic.

I do disagree with the threat the Baltics/ Europe faces vs what really is Russian paranoia over NATO. Every country thats joined has done so willingly - no nations ever had an armed incursion to keep it in like several Warpac countries.

Russia also invaded Crimea in the last 5 years, NATO hasnt invaded anywhere.

ikalugin · September 12, 2018

6 minutes ago, Sublime said:

NATO hasnt invaded anywhere.

You know that this is not true for the 1991-2018 time period.

7 minutes ago, Sublime said:

Also on the maps ubfortunately I dont read cyrillic.

You just need to know how to read Soviet patern maps, but I guess that is also an acquired skill.

Sublime · September 12, 2018

Axtually youre right NATO did invade Afghanistan. Though for really good reasons, much better reasons than say Crimea is Russian because we say it should be.

Im iffy on Kosovo - that was hardly an invasion and even NATO in 01 was nothing like an invasion compared to say the SU invasion.

Id also like to add that at least we ID our soldiers and dont play games with un id.d roops or say miners are ordering t72s on ebay.. but whatever.

I can understand with good reasom Russian paranoia about invasion. but thats simply not reality anymore. The gigantic nuclear stockpile assures that as have the repeayed statements that if russia is invaded or allies invaded or it feels its serious enough itll go nuclear.

So frankly the idea of NATO aggressively invading Russia is a serious joke. The collective public opinion in yhe west would never support it, itd be an unwinnable war and everyone knows it. Russia has NOTHING Americans want except for them.to maybe Fu*k with other countries more.

The idea of Russia invading neighbors is far less far fetched than NATO trying to invade Russia the idea is simply ludicrous.

Just as the US public IMO was taken advantage of and plaued afyer 911 into invading Iraq (apparently it was said Afghan wasnt target rich enough) so the govt used this wave of patriotism and outrage to statt a series of forever wars. Breeding fear of terrrorism to keep us in perpetual war. just like i fear your govt keeps the nato bogeyman alive

Edited September 12, 2018 by Sublime

ikalugin · September 12, 2018

2 minutes ago, Sublime said:

Id also like to add that at least we ID our soldiers and dont play games with un id.d roops or say miners are ordering t72s on ebay

Same applies to SOFs in Lybia? I mean we can play this game for a while, but it would be OT. Maybe do that in another thread?

DerKommissar · September 12, 2018

49 minutes ago, Sublime said:

No me referring to the false flag isea was statement of fact about how Germany initiated its invasion of Poland in 1939 ( I will swipe at Russian revisionism these days that exculpates the SU from responsibility for costarting WW2 with the Nazis and helpiny invade Poland)

I've always found that false flag op to be absolutely meaningless. Great Britain and friends declared war -- but did nothing to help Poland. Even when Poles fought for the Allies, few lifted a finger to help them during the Warsaw Uprising.

We also often forget that SU was involved in a proxy war with GB in Scandinavia. At that time, Nazi Germany was seen as a potential client state of the SU. The RAF planned to bomb oil fields in the Caucuses during Battle of France.

From that perspective, the German Wehrmacht in France was trained in SU and fueled by SU. Had Barbarossa not happened, who's corner do you think the SU would be in? Hardly surprising that in '45, the status quo returned.

1 hour ago, Sublime said:

Russia also invaded Crimea in the last 5 years, NATO hasnt invaded anywhere.

I would akin the "invasion" of Crimea to Anschluss more than '39. This being said I think the word "invasion" has been hit by the PC stick for the last 50 years. Are the NATO troops in Syria considered "invaders"? After all, the official government did not consent to them being within their borders?

I'd mention Libya too -- but that was more than 5 years ago. In the West, there is paranoia about Eastern aggression and in the East, there is paranoia about Western aggression. Unfortunately, our hands are as dirty as the Russians. We just got better PR.

ikalugin · September 12, 2018

https://tvzvezda.ru/news/forces/content/201809121214-an89.htm/player/

Bear long range bombers and their Flanker escorts delivering cruise missile strikes as part of Vostok-2018.

Sublime · September 12, 2018

well first of all I often go with the intent part of war. War is messy and no nation has clean hands. I do challenge anyone on this forum to find a nation thats as consistently gone out of its way to help other nations, and gone out of its way at the expense of American lives to minimize civilian casualties.

Yes the US wasnt invited into Syria. Of course I believe that Assad has used Chem weapons on civilians and he turned peaceful protests during the Arab spring violemt by machine gunning crowds. I can get behind a limited US campaign of bombing and SF to try to let the Syrians get rid of Asad on their own. I certainly see more honor in that than propping up a blatantly murderous regime.

I do have major problems with the US turning a blind eye to Saudi and Paki perfidy especially towards the west.

ll things considered Id say NO our hands are NOT as. dirty as the Russians unless you want to count American history back to the indiands but discount Russian history until post 91. Even then still iffy.

Ikalugin is right though its OT we can PM back and forth but I believe youre russian ( right? ) and Im American and we.re probably not goung to reach a concensus.

Last thing. Maybe Crimea was like an Anschluss. The Donbass is definitely not though. Thats a bonafide real war.

Also how many airliners have any western countries cold war or post cold war downed? How many nerve agent or journalist assasinations have been laid at the feet of the west vs Russia?

I could go on and on...

The US is no innocent lamb and trust me Im under no illusions as a convicted felon in the US the govt wouls probably either put me in a camp for the duration or in a grunt unit if a major war broke out. I dont think any govt really cares about people like me ( poor money wise )

I digress though.

P.S. Dezert Storm WAS NOT NATO. It axtually was a bigger coalition than the Allies in Ww2 for christs sakes even the Soviets were ok with it. OIF 2. DEFINITELY wasnt NATO the Germans and French were apopoleptic we invaded as was much of the world.

In favt the ONLY time NATO has ever invomed article 5 for defense was the US for 9/11 ( insanely ironic we.re bitching NATOs a drag on us considering the only time it got forced into war it was on our behalf)

Libya was NATO but I disnt rlly agree with it I mean Gaddafi finaly was xooperating. I think that was cery short sighted because he.s held up as the dictators nightmare/why the US cant be believed nowadays. And dont get me wrong the US ended up 100 percent on board but the initial Libya effort was spearheaded mainly by the French and Brits and we kinda got sucked in.

Edited September 12, 2018 by Sublime

DerKommissar · September 12, 2018

22 minutes ago, Sublime said:

Yes the US wasnt invited into Syria. Of course I believe that Assad has used Chem weapons on civilians and he turned peaceful protests during the Arab spring violemt by machine gunning crowds. I can get behind a limited US campaign of bombing and SF to try to let the Syrians get rid of Asad on their own. I certainly see more honor in that than propping up a blatantly murderous regime.

Didn't some people want to separate from the US, a while back? I remember that too was not a bloodless enterprise. More currently, we got rid of Qaddafi -- so, Libya is officially peaceful? Last I heard, it's gotten even worse. They also supported Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war, he used chemical weapons against civilians.

27 minutes ago, Sublime said:

Also how many airliners have any western countries cold war or post cold war downed? How many nerve agent or journalist assasinations have been laid at the feet of the west vs Russia?

Well, at the top of my memory Iran Air Flight 655. How many assassinations has the CIA orchestrated? I don't know. I do know they tried to whack Castro a bunch of times. The GRU has much to learn about meddling in other countries' internal politics and regime changes from the CIA.

58 minutes ago, Sublime said:

I do challenge anyone on this forum to find a nation thats as consistently gone out of its way to help other nations, and gone out of its way at the expense of American lives to minimize civilian casualties.

Switzerland. They don't go out of their way to "help" other nations, and, incidentally, get people killed. Swiss didn't bomb Yugoslavia, invade Grenada or get involved in a civil war in Yemen.

1 hour ago, Sublime said:

Ikalugin is right though its OT we can PM back and forth but I believe youre russian ( right? ) and Im American and we.re probably not goung to reach a concensus.

Yeah, my bad for OT. It was not my intention to get into a political argument. I try not to do it, but sometimes my amateur enthusiasm in history of geopolitics gets better of me. I'm Canadian, actually. Very informative thread, actually. Love the videos.

ikalugin · September 13, 2018

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/3339440.html
Some photos from the events.

https://translate.google.ru/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Ftvzvezda.ru%2Fnews%2Fforces%2Fcontent%2F201809130839-mil-ru-mt4rv.html&edit-text=
We also plan to paradrop some 51 BMDs and 700 troops.

Edited September 13, 2018 by ikalugin

ikalugin · September 13, 2018

Interesting to see how PRC uses a mix of wheeled gun platforms and tanks:

ikalugin · September 13, 2018

The big photo-op.

Sublime · September 13, 2018

16 hours ago, DerKommissar said:

Didn't some people want to separate from the US, a while back? I remember that too was not a bloodless enterprise. More currently, we got rid of Qaddafi -- so, Libya is officially peaceful? Last I heard, it's gotten even worse. They also supported Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war, he used chemical weapons against civilians.

Well, at the top of my memory Iran Air Flight 655. How many assassinations has the CIA orchestrated? I don't know. I do know they tried to whack Castro a bunch of times. The GRU has much to learn about meddling in other countries' internal politics and regime changes from the CIA.

Switzerland. They don't go out of their way to "help" other nations, and, incidentally, get people killed. Swiss didn't bomb Yugoslavia, invade Grenada or get involved in a civil war in Yemen.

Yeah, my bad for OT. It was not my intention to get into a political argument. I try not to do it, but sometimes my amateur enthusiasm in history of geopolitics gets better of me. I'm Canadian, actually. Very informative thread, actually. Love the videos.

You may very well have me on Switzerland.

I still think its almost a joke exercise to compare the US and Russian regimes and how cynically they practiced policy. Oh yes the US killed hundreds of thousands but when the margin is vs tens of millions... well.

The civil war is a stretch. For one the South seceded then attacked the North. Its not like they simply left. And theres a lot of other issues tied up in the Civil War I dont think its very applicable.

As far as CIA vs GRU/SVD/KGB Id say we have WAAAAY more (and I distinctly remember when my father got grounded from flying and moved into intel he always insisted that US intel sucked vs Soviet in everything, especially HUMINT, except for SIGINT. Yea we had a bunch of silly hare brained plots to kill Castro. None worked and the fact theyre so well known attests to how epically they failed.

You take that vs the infamous ricin pellet, the Skripals, etc etc etc.

Iran flight is a good point and Id forgotten about that. Of course a few points because Im me:

The US didnt double down and start blaming EVERYONE else. IIRC the Captain got canned and there were apologies blah blah.

Contrast this with KAL007 or MH370 for example.

Its actually not your bad on OT, Ive been the worst offender on the thread and Ikalugins comment was directed at you. You didnt do anything wrong..

P.S. I gotta add the Swiss the more I think about it is dubious. As in who is worse the hitman or the person who helps someone hide the murdered persons money for example? Most would say the murderer is the worst of course. As far as US law for almost the entire country if youre there for a murder, even just as a driver or to dig a hole youre in the same boat as the actual killer. I think this example is a little harsh on the Swiss but its an example, the Swiss hardly have a monopoly on being good in the world.. Just because they dont bother many people how many do they help? How many nations send out the amount of plain food and medicine in aid as the US for example? I honestly think also Switzerland is so small.. I think you can only perhaps see the true character of a nation when theyre in a truly strong position and you see how they work with it. In this way history will be very harsh on Nazi Germany the SU and unfortunately America as well. Its just by degrees.. Ah who am I kidding the human race has less than 50 years left IMO

Switzerland may have been neutral a long time now but that doesnt mean they didnt turn a blind eye to what the Nazis were doing and also doing quite healthy business with them. Sometimes trying to help people and killing other people along the way may sadly be justified. If 90 percent of the globe acted like Switzerland leaving the Nazis and another 9% what would have happened? No this isnt justification for Grenada or Iraq 03 or any nonsense, its just the Swiss are hardly angels, theyve just hidden their horns and pitchforks behind a facade of gold.

Edited September 13, 2018 by Sublime

ikalugin · September 13, 2018

Can we please stay on topic?

If you are not interested in the exercise itself (ie first use of Type-99As outside of China), we can discuss how it could be projected onto the more interesting topics, ie how Russia may plan Ukraine contingency.

Note, the scale of the exercise is greater than the alleged scale of Russian intervention into the Ukrainian civil war (5? BTGs)

Edited September 13, 2018 by ikalugin

Sublime · September 13, 2018

Absolutely. I cant read cyrillic and I just was reading your observation of the PRC units. Now as Im sitting on a subway with my $hit 4g connection can you explain what you mean by the Chinese mix in guns? You mean wheeled like towed or like Strykers?

Overall whats your opinion of the PRC? (military)

How DO you feel this exercises relates to the Donbass anyways? The 5 BTG comment, do you think there.ll be a Russian surge as it were just to end the situation? Would Russia ever tolerate Chinese 'volunteer' troops in Donbass ( I doubt it too close to home ) or Syria in your opinion?

Whats your opinion on contracter groups. Wagner group for example? But also lately in the news theres been worry amongst some Mr Prince of the now defunct Blackwater USA will convince Trump to make Afghanistan a contractor war.. Opinion?

I think its asking for disaster. I point to Fallujah early 04 and also note those contractors had a huge US military prescence in country with them.

Edited September 13, 2018 by Sublime

ikalugin · September 13, 2018

8 minutes ago, Sublime said:

Absolutely. I cant read cyrillic and I just was reading your observation of the PRC units. Now as Im sitting on a subway with my $hit 4g connection can you explain what you mean by the Chinese mix in guns? You mean wheeled like towed or like Strykers?

Yes, Chinese are using wheeled IFVs and wheeled mobile gun platforms, much like Stryker units, in addition to the new Type-99A tanks. A Chinese serviceman commented that the gear they are using is brand new and they only had one year to train with it.

8 minutes ago, Sublime said:

Overall whats your opinion of the PRC?

A rising global power, that could use foreighn military experience (which we are sharing on Vostok-2018). In terms of the Ground Forces they suffer much the same problems that we do, that is - they do not have the production capacity to quickly modernise their entire force.

8 minutes ago, Sublime said:

How DO you feel this exercises relates to the Donbass anyways?

The large multi-MD exercise could be a part of training for any number of large scale, high intensity, contingencies, for example Ukraine. Some of the units that participate on the BLUEFOR side may be a part of contingency planning for an Ukrainian operation, for example the 90th tank division from Central MD.

8 minutes ago, Sublime said:

Whats your opinion on contracter groups. Wagner group for example? But also lately in the news theres been worry amongst some Mr Prince of the now defunct Blackwater USA will convince Trump to make Afghanistan a contractor war.. Opinion?

Expendable cost reduction for operations we want to conduct but won't conduct with the regular forces. If they screw up (die or kill civilians) we do not care, as they are technically illegal in Russia anyway. Western PMCs follow a different set of rules and overall mindset, so I don't think that they are being applied in the same way.

Edited September 13, 2018 by ikalugin

Sublime · September 13, 2018

1 minute ago, ikalugin said:

Yes, Chinese are using wheeled IFVs and wheeled mobile gun platforms, much like Stryker units, in addition to the new Type-99A tanks. A Chinese serviceman commented that the gear they are using is brand new and they only had one year to train with it.

interesting. I wonder if they.ll have more luck than we.ve been having with ours..

1 minute ago, ikalugin said:

A rising global power, that could use foreighn military experience (which we are sharing on Vostok-2018). In terms of the Ground Forces they suffer much the same problems that we do, that is - they do not have the production capacity to quickly modernise their entire force.

Do you think China will become a threat to its neighbors for example say in another 20 years? See for example the South China Sea..

1 minute ago, ikalugin said:

The large multi-MD exercise could be a part of training for any number of large scale, high intensity, contingencies, for example Ukraine. Some of the units that participate on the BLUEFOR side may be a part of contingency planning for an Ukrainian operation, for example the 90th tank division from Central MD.

Expendable cost reduction for operations we want to conduct but won't conduct with the regular forces. If they screw up (die or kill civilians) we do not care, as they are technically illegal in Russia anyway.

Seems like the US govt handles them the same way except theyre not illegal. It also makes deniability a lot easier, depending on the situation. They also seem to be a liability in some ways, if you look at the US in Iraq those Blackwater contractors getting killed in 04 forced the military to conduct not one but two seperate major offenses to clear out Fallujah. ( to be fair to the contractors that would probably have happened anyways in some form, the city was out of control, but it forced the military to DO SOMETHING) - the 2nd offensive Phantom Fury probably being the heaviest ground combat seen in large numbers by US troops since Vietnam.

Vostok-2018

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