How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

PhD student writing about his dissertation work concerning the culture of Russian military ethos and civilian oversight:

 

[Battlefront.com]

Ukrainian night ops:

 

[Kinophile]

Thanks @LongLeftFlank

I suspect this coming battle, which tbh 8s already in motion, will become a real drone war, at range, and in direct (drone op v. Drone op) opposition. I think RUS Army is trying to "wake up" within the AO proper to the battlefield uses of drones.

I'm certain the tactical ISR that RQ-11/20s provide will bring invaluable to suppressing RUS fires and ground movements, as well as RUS drone ops.

 

Edited April 4, 2022 by Kinophile

[Aragorn2002]

7 hours ago, JonS said:

The side bars about the Marders and T-72s and BMPs in the last couple of pages are kind of grimly amusing. On the one hand we're saying that 'the day of the tank is over', while on the other hand we're saying that any old rubbish is fine for the Ukrainian army as long as it has a bit of armour plate and can move itself. Have I read that about right?

I am deliberately exaggerating here, to highlight the cognitive dissonance that's going on.

The obvious deduction, IMO, is that the death of armour has been vastly overstated. Armour is a lot more vulnerable than ... well, maybe than it has ever been, but it still beats the heck out of wandering around an active battlefield clad in not much more than a cotton shirt. And it still, as always, brings the things it always has: mobility and protected direct-fire firepower. That is still super useful, especially if you're trying to move forward.

Personally I don't think the age of the tanks is over at all. They've just ignored the old rule that tanks are mainly dependent on infantry for their protection against anti-tank weapons, especially the extremely accurate and long range portable anti-tank weapons of today.

[Maquisard manqué]

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Well Clausewitz kinda left these parts out.  War is personal and worse it strips off all the veneer of civilization pretty quickly.  Military discipline is not just about keeping people from running away, it is just as much about ensuring they can still see which way is up. 

Why did they do it?  Because they can.  And in the end we are all scared monkeys that are equal parts kind as we are cruel.  You de-humanize your adversary hard enough and it is a slippery slope right to this sort of stuff.

Is the lack of proper NCOs a likely factor in this too? (As well as other evidence of poor discipline - littering, bunched up vehicles etc)

Obvs the world doesn’t need my opinion on this but this looks a lot like reprisals. When there’s near total mobilisation and they are terrified of what lies behind every bush (partisan warfare), soldiers have often taken their fear and frustration out on any nearby civilians they can get their hands on. These crimes will be remembered, even if The Hague doesn’t catch up with the perpetrators.

[Aragorn2002]

10 hours ago, Lethaface said:

The effort is better spend producing more new vehicles. 

Perhaps, I'm not familiair with that kind of thing, but in case of 'emergency' and calling up reservists that are already familiair with the Marder it can have it's advantages. 

[Aragorn2002]

9 hours ago, Sequoia said:

I agree it was a blunder but I think the blunder was caused in large part in that no one really expected the enormously greater blunder Putin made in going for a full invasion. Even if his fantasy of a short war came about, there was no way Ukraine wouldn't have been a gigantic suck on Russia until they gave up just like both the Soviets and the West did in Afghanistan.

Absolutely agree. Apart from that, what would have happened if the West had sent more weapons or even promised NATO membership to Ukraine? It would have justified Putins aggression and put part of the blame on NATO. Fighting for a just cause is an advantage that can not be overestimated.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Aragorn2002

[DesertFox]

 

 

[kraze]

33 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Absolutely agree. Apart from that, what would have happened if the West had sent more weapons or even promised NATO membership to Ukraine? It would have justified Putins aggression and put part of the blame on NATO. Fighting for a just cause is an advantage that can not be overestimated.

Justified for whom?

In the beginning of 2014 only 18% of Ukrainians wanted to join NATO and about 3/4 (undeservedly) considered russians ok guys.

Everybody was more than happy to stay neutral and there were no issues apart from russian soldiers looting something and killing ukrainians in Crimea once a year just for fun - but our government always tried to sweep that under the rug and pretend it never happened.

The war began in 2014, the justification was that Ukrainians are subhuman and don't deserve to have a country. And it flew perfectly well with the russian population.

Pretending that NATO is somehow a reason for the war that started 8 years ago when Ukraine was extremely anti-NATO is your typical russian BS designed to give "russian-friendly" politicians in the West a reason to keep letting Russia do its crimes.

[Taranis]

An Ukrainian soldier inspects a Russian army tank destroyed by Ukrainian forces during the liberation of the western area of kyiv, April 2, 2022. CHLOE SHARROCK/ MYOP FOR "LE MONDE"

* BMP-2 turret

[chuckdyke]

56 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Fighting for a just cause is an advantage that can not be overestimated.

Hergé was a prophet. Downloaded it yesterday. Putin is nothing more than a Soviet relic. We have known about it for ninety years now.

[LongLeftFlank]

1 hour ago, Maquisard manqué said:

Is the lack of proper NCOs a likely factor in this too? (As well as other evidence of poor discipline - littering, bunched up vehicles etc)

Yup, and the Russian Army culture where sergeants are selected (as in nearly all non-Western armies btw) for their ability to bully the ranks and act as toadies/bagmen for the officer capos.

The Phd tweetstorm Steve posted a few above seems to nail it.

When you have both an unrestricted mandate and obligation to obey orders without question, BUT you are also treated like the scum of the earth day to day by everyone above and around you, it leads directly to what we're seeing here.

No warmed over Austro-Hungarian phrenology spittle about Mongoloid forest primitives is required.

There are no evil races, only evil cultures. Or more accurately, cultures broken either by privation or to serve the designs of evil men. (Or the pure convenience of careless or self-deluded ones, which amounts to much the same thing).

Edited April 4, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[DesertFox]

More high-tech gifts...

 

 

[Aragorn2002]

1 hour ago, kraze said:

Justified for whom?

In the beginning of 2014 only 18% of Ukrainians wanted to join NATO and about 3/4 (undeservedly) considered russians ok guys.

Everybody was more than happy to stay neutral and there were no issues apart from russian soldiers looting something and killing ukrainians in Crimea once a year just for fun - but our government always tried to sweep that under the rug and pretend it never happened.

The war began in 2014, the justification was that Ukrainians are subhuman and don't deserve to have a country. And it flew perfectly well with the russian population.

Pretending that NATO is somehow a reason for the war that started 8 years ago when Ukraine was extremely anti-NATO is your typical russian BS designed to give "russian-friendly" politicians in the West a reason to keep letting Russia do its crimes.

I see. Interesting information, which puts things even more in perspective.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Aragorn2002

[Aragorn2002]

1 hour ago, chuckdyke said:

Hergé was a prophet. Downloaded it yesterday. Putin is nothing more than a Soviet relic. We have known about it for ninety years now.

Indeed. And plenty more where Vlad came from.

[chuckdyke]

1 minute ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Indeed. And plenty more where Vlad came from.

Culture of highwaymen and bushwhackers.  

[kraze]

26 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

I see. Interesting information, which puts things even more in perspective.

Green line and numbers are 'for' NATO, purple 'against', yellow - 'dunno'. Note how just before the invasion support for joining NATO was at an all time low with those 18%.

And note how it never even went above "deciding" 50% since.

(polling started in 2002 because nobody even considered an idea before that, I guess it had something to do with putin preparing to occupy Crimea and almost doing it in 2003)

Edited April 4, 2022 by kraze

[Bulletpoint]

The sanctions seem to have disappeared from the news.. Are they having any real effect?

[domfluff]

Economic effects will take time to manifest, but given that there's been a Russian propaganda push to get them ended, I think it's reasonable to assume that they're having an effect.

[kraze]

https://censor.net/ua/news/3331200/slidy_tortur_tila_zi_zvyazanymy_rukamy_ta_sproby_pryhovaty_zlochyny_zvirstva_rosiyan_u_buchi_fotoreportaj

Some more photos from Bucha.

Authorities report that more than 600 murdered civilians were found at this point and looks like there will be more.

At the same time state press RIA Novosti published an article "what Russia has to do with Ukraine" calling for a new genocide of Ukrainians, calling everyone a nazi, incl. civilians and explaining that every Ukrainian civilian should be punished due to support of the army, how Ukraine has to be destroyed and Ukrainian culture and language forbidden.

So Bucha massacre is just a part of the "solution to Ukrainian question" I guess.

https://censor.net/ua/news/3331176/rya_novosty_opublikuvalo_stattyu_scho_rosiya_maye_zrobyty_z_ukrayinoyu_iz_zaklykamy_do_deukrayinizatsiyi

Edited April 4, 2022 by kraze

[Armorgunner]

14 hours ago, DesertFox said:

Those BMP-1s were first sold to Sweden (335 pieces) and there modified into Pbv 501. Then these vehicles were aquired by Czech republic and 58 pieces are now sold to Ukraine. Dunno what happened to the rest of those 335 pieces in Sweden. Greece also received some 500 ex-NVA pieces, so there is still a lot of ex-NVA stuff floating around somewhere.

433 pcs of BMP-1 SP-2, BMP-1P och BMP-1A1, were bought from Germany and retrofitted in Czech, for the Swedish army. 83 were used for spare parts. 2008 335 pcs were sold back to Czech, which in turn sold 250 of them to Irak.

[Aragorn2002]

48 minutes ago, kraze said:

https://censor.net/ua/news/3331200/slidy_tortur_tila_zi_zvyazanymy_rukamy_ta_sproby_pryhovaty_zlochyny_zvirstva_rosiyan_u_buchi_fotoreportaj

Some more photos from Bucha.

Authorities report that more than 600 murdered civilians were found at this point and looks like there will be more.

At the same time state press RIA Novosti published an article "what Russia has to do with Ukraine" calling for a new genocide of Ukrainians, calling everyone a nazi, incl. civilians and explaining that every Ukrainian civilian should be punished due to support of the army, how Ukraine has to be destroyed and Ukrainian culture and language forbidden.

So Bucha massacre is just a part of the "solution to Ukrainian question" I guess.

https://censor.net/ua/news/3331176/rya_novosty_opublikuvalo_stattyu_scho_rosiya_maye_zrobyty_z_ukrayinoyu_iz_zaklykamy_do_deukrayinizatsiyi

Bastards. Horrible pictures. This has to be a game changer, even for the Chinese.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Aragorn2002

[DesertFox]

 

 

[Aragorn2002]

46 minutes ago, domfluff said:

Economic effects will take time to manifest, but given that there's been a Russian propaganda push to get them ended, I think it's reasonable to assume that they're having an effect.

The Rubble recovered quickly, but that is said to to be artificial and temporary. Still quite disappointing after all the euphoria about the sanctions. Personally I prefer sitting in the cold to paying for Putins war.  More has to happen. Burn the Russian economy down to the ground. 

[kraze]

29 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

The Rubble recovered quickly, but that is said to to be artificial and temporary. Still quite disappointing after all the euphoria about the sanctions. Personally I prefer sitting in the cold to paying for Putins war.  More has to happen. Burn the Russian economy down to the ground. 

It didn't recover.

You may not know this but 1 USD was 0.66 rub in USSR.

Problem is you couldn't buy dollar anywhere and owning one was jailtime. But everybody was feeling proud it was so cheap.

It's very much the same in Russia, except for jailtime for having $ (yet).

As in you can't buy dollars anymore. It is forbidden. But you can SELL them to the state. At a sweet price of getting 83 rubles back for one.

Edited April 4, 2022 by kraze