How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[billbindc]

33 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Abandoning a fully functional tank without any immediate sense of pending death is not to be expected.  But yeah, if I was sitting at a road junction all on my own, the LAST place I'd want to be is inside that tank.

Steve

https://twitter.com/Blue_Sauron/status/1501459371791892481?s=20&t=T10Hrg4CMK9gnaSIludJCg

Indeed.

 

[John Kettler]

21 hours ago, akd said:

Some clearer pics of that armored train. It’s just as 1940s as you might have thought:

 

Wouldn't it be grand if a TB2, SO or some other form of attack zapped the Russian armored train? Talk about a morale blow!

Regards,

John Kettler

[akd]

 

[kraze]

23 minutes ago, womble said:

If it gets to the point of actually trying to take Kyiv with a maximum effort, it seems to me that either they have enough HE and thermobarics to make actual streetfighting mostly irrelevant, or they will fail. 

They use thermobarics, HE and throw human trash at a much smaller Kharkiv daily - still eat dick there, couldn't surround it in any way.

They do the same at Mariupol, which is even far smaller, in fact going full genocide in there - bombing nurseries and children hospitals to murder our kids - and throw their human trash at it from three directions at once - they killed 1300 civilians and who knows how many more were wounded in just two weeks - and it still doesn't fall.

So no, short of using nukes and making Kyiv a land owned by no one - they have no chance at being there except in a form of a sunflower fertilizer.

 

Edited March 9, 2022 by kraze

[akd]

Some street-fighting (doesn’t go great for the UKR unit):

 

[Lethaface]

1 hour ago, kraze said:

So according to him Ukraine totally asked a russian crew to go and die in a fire so we could make a great movie.

On multiple occasions.

No, he means that we shouldn't become war-cheerleaders.

[DesertFox]

Apparently some folks have yet to understand the concept of no-fly zones and their implications, here is a good piece to bring you up to speed.

 

The Dangerous Allure of the No-Fly Zone - War on the Rocks

[kraze]

In case you thought I was exaggerating about genocide

This is just a single russian strike on a nursery:

(No need for translation, self explanatory NSFW photos and videos)

https://censor.net/ua/news/3323280/okupanty_skynuly_aviabomby_na_dytyachu_likarnyu_i_pologovyyi_budynok_u_mariupoli_videofotoreportaj

This is what they do to people that have our army protecting them. They target children like it's nothing and they don't give an f. Imagine what they will do to people in Mariupol if it falls.

Edited March 9, 2022 by kraze

[kraze]

3 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

No, he means that we shouldn't become war-cheerleaders.

Admittedly it's hard not to feel happy seeing insane genocidal trash turn into a sunflower fertilizer.

For us it certainly helps with morale in a face of a very real existential threat. Russians did come here to murder as many of us as they can after all.

[John Kettler]

19 hours ago, Vet 0369 said:

If I’m not mistaken, all Soviet aircraft were designed as “rough field” capable, even the Ukraine AN-225, the largest airplane in the world, that the Russians have destroyed in it’s hanger outside Kyiv.

Vet 0369,

The MiG-29 is downright awesome when it comes to rough field capability, by virtue of a substantial guard behind the nose wheel and the truly ingenious system that closes the normal engine intake openings during takeoff (and landing?), instead drawing air through inlet slots which open on the wings when the primary intakes are closed. These measures, from a FOD vulnerability aspect, make the MiG-29 very tough indeed, a far cry from western fighters which need permanent runways and meticulous FOD walks to avoid ingesting potentially debris into the intakes. Would imagine the tires on the MiG-29 might be more puncture resistant, too, but have no direct info on that score. Were the ground firm and flat enough to take off and land, the MiG-29s could operate directly on the steppe, no runway needed. 

Regards,

John Kettler

[Battlefront.com]

7 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

No, he means that we shouldn't become war-cheerleaders.

One can cheer for a victory without cheering for a war.  We're wargamers so we are used to that concept. 

Steve

[DesertFox]

Maybe some eyopener on the russian mentality. But I guess most folks already know. Anyways:

 

 

[akd]

Naughty Boyars disobeying the Good Tsar’s wise edicts:

 

[John Kettler]

18 hours ago, Vet 0369 said:

Makes sense. Thank you. I didn’t know that stingers are equipped with IFF.

Vet 0369,

That slotted open box affair to the right of the front end of the Stinger launcher is the IFF antenna. But am not sure it would work ref the Ukrainians, since our IFF is NATO standard. Presumably the Ukrainian aircraft don't have it, so doubt the IFF would be any good given that reality. The large pic at top of linked article clearly shows the launcher with the IFF antenna erected. The antenna is tied to an interrogator device.

https://www.military-today.com/missiles/stinger.htm

Regards,

John Kettler
 

[Lethaface]

15 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

One can cheer for a victory without cheering for a war.  We're wargamers so we are used to that concept. 

Steve

Indeed, I'd be happy if Ukraine successfully manages to defend itself against this war of aggression. But I'm not cheering for a larger war ;-).

[danfrodo]

4 minutes ago, akd said:

Naughty Boyars disobeying the Good Tsar’s wise edicts:

 

That is most excellent.  If he starts shooting army officers he's gonna have some generals seeing their best way to survive might be to get Putin first.  On lower levels it might tell some captains and majors to surrender to avoid being shot for failure.  So yes, Putin, please start shooting military scapegoats.

[DesertFox]

They are bombing Zhytomyr

 

[kraze]

9 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

Maybe some eyopener on the russian mentality. But I guess most folks already know. Anyways:

 

 

Good thing that's just all putin casually talking to himself about robbing and executing people and not "poor, common" russians, who are just "suffering" under "putin's tyranny".

But what do I know.

Edited March 9, 2022 by kraze

[DesertFox]

 

 

[Vet 0369]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

 but the heavy lifting is being done by small missile teams and good old infantry dug and slugging it out.

This! There is ALWAYS in-fighting in the U.S. Department of Defense for increased funding. The Air Force tried, and almost succeeded in getting the Navy’s aircraft carriers scrapped in favor of more nuclear bombers after WWII. The thing that saved the carriers was N. Korea invading S. Korea. Carrier borne air power convinced Congress that scrapping them was a bad idea. The U.S. Army tried for years to separate the USMC from the Navy, and incorporate it into the Army in order to get it’s funding. They said that WWII showed the Army was just as capable of making amphibious landings as the Marines, and that was true.

Bottom line is that no matter what high-tech gear or nukes you use, it will always fall to the Grunt to go in and dig out the enemy, even if it means using sticks and rocks.

[Lethaface]

26 minutes ago, kraze said:

Admittedly it's hard not to feel happy seeing insane genocidal trash turn into a sunflower fertilizer.

For us it certainly helps with morale in a face of a very real existential threat. Russians did come here to murder as many of us as they can after all.

I'd be happy if those ordering the indiscriminate (or consciously targeted civilians) strikes face a public trial for the world to see and get the punishment they deserve or become sunflower fertilizer, and soldiers to go home. Alas I don't make the calls.

Turning into sunflower seeds is part of job risk of invading army.

Edited March 9, 2022 by Lethaface

[Battlefront.com]

40 minutes ago, womble said:

If Kyiv falls, Zelensky moves the capital to Lviv (or even out of the country) and the only people who recognise the puppet government that Putin would install would be Russia and the ones who voted against condemning the invasion, last week in the UN.

Absolutely.  And just as Putin doesn't understand that people can genuinely depose autocratic governments, he doesn't seem to understand that it's not up to him if the world accepts a change in power or not.  The world gets to decide.

40 minutes ago, womble said:

More generally, I have to wonder what "holding" action would look like.

It would likely be like every other occupation force in that there would be a major military presence in a few key locations, much smaller ones in sensible hub areas, and very small ones (if any) in the areas surrounding each hub.  The degree of hostility towards occupation would determine many things, including how "hardened" those positions would be.

If Putin were able to look ahead beyond the wild assumption that he can take at least eastern Ukraine, he'd see no point in continuing the war as it is now.  Ukraine is not going to stop fighting the Russians, ever.  This means his occupation forces would be taking casualties on a daily basis. 

Let's say that on average Ukrainian guerrilla fighters take out 1 vehicle, 5 soldiers KIA, 15 soldiers WIA per day.  That's basically a patrol sized force that gets hit pretty hard or several that just get scraped.  The math says that over the course of a year Russia would lose:

• 365 vehicles lost
• 1825 KIA
• 5475 WIA

For an occupation force of 170,000 that amounts to a loss of about 4% per year.  That's sustainable only if the population is willing to accept that sort of loss rate.  It also assumes that Ukraine's forces are satisfied with slowly picking off Russians instead of doing things like blowing up a mess hall with 100 soldiers in it at once.

Then there's the costs that come into play.  How much would it cost to keep a large enough force in Ukraine to not only maintain order but to also keep losses down?  I looked up something quick and the US was at one time spending $400,000 per year per soldier in Afghanistan.  Let's reduce that by a factor of 5 as we know the US spends heavy compared to Russia.  That's $80,000 per year.  Let's also assume that they keep a force of 170,000 in Ukraine.  That's $13.6 Billion per year with totally optimistic numbers of troops and expenses.  That's nearly 10% of Russia's prewar annual GDP, which is of course cratered to at least half that amount. Where is Putin going to find this sort of money?

So on the financial front, Russia would have to invest something like 20% of GDP just to occupy Ukraine for a year and have to absorb about 4% of its occupation force being taken out of action.

Does that look sustainable to anybody?  Doesn't look that way to me even if you take my Russian friendly assumptions and make them even better.

OK, does Russia have to occupy Ukraine to this extent for a year or more?  Yes.  As soon as Russian forces aren't there to immediately respond to any armed resistance the puppet government will be removed from power.

NOTE I don't think any of this is likely.  Russia will never survive that long.

Steve

[kraze]

5 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

That is most excellent.  If he starts shooting army officers he's gonna have some generals seeing their best way to survive might be to get Putin first.  On lower levels it might tell some captains and majors to surrender to avoid being shot for failure.  So yes, Putin, please start shooting military scapegoats.

Nah, it's just for show, nobody will get punished because these are putin's orders. And it's not like conscripts themselves minded - they kill, rob and rape quite happily as is.

[akd]

 

[kraze]

1 minute ago, Lethaface said:

I'd be happy if those ordering the indiscriminate (or consciously targeted civilians) strikes face a public trial for the world to see and get the punishment they deserve or become sunflower fertilizer, and soldiers to go home. Alas I don't make the calls.

Turning into sunflower seeds is part of job risk of invading army.

People who order killings are not the ones who do the killings.

Every soldier has a choice to not follow criminal orders, to not be a soldier - and russian soldiers choose to kill. Quite happily.