How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[danfrodo]

14 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

Now that would be a nice town to retake and effectively trap all the Russian forces north of the dam in a pocket with their back to the Dneipr. One of the maps I've seen shows 2-3 BTGs holding the dam and the areas north towards Kryvyi Rih - is that still roughly correct as far as you know?

Hopefully this will come to pass.  Probably a lot of nice gear to be captured in that potential pocket.  Free stuff for UA.  Russians have not been very good about destroying their equipment before running away or surrendering.

[Battlefront.com]

Ah, these guys are now back in Ukraine.  Rusich was known to me back in the 2014/2015 war.  Hopefully Ukraine can reduce it's numbers and do the world a favor.

Steve

 

[db_zero]

FWIW-The Sun reported that Russia put out a notice for retired ex-soldiers up to the age of 60 to volunteer for auxiliary duty in parts of Russia. Here is the story from another source, whether they are reliable is anyone's guess.

https://theworldnews.net/gb-news/russia-pleading-with-60-year-olds-to-volunteer-for-army-after-heavy-ukraine-losses

In another related story Mikhail Khodorkovsky an ex-oligarch who left Russia has said that if Putin starts sending conscripts from the urban areas to Ukraine there will be a political price to pay. Conscripts from the poorer rural areas that get killed can have their families paid off and that helps tamp down unrest. 

I don't think this will stop Putin, but I suspect it will force a change in strategy. The Russian trump card is massive artillery and they will probably use massive long range bombardment followed up by small probing attacks and plodding forward movement whenever possible.

The Syrian volunteers will be used as cheap cannon fodder, while the Wagner mercenaries and better quality Russian forces following up.

Things may turn into a long grinding war of attrition.

The West should figure out and send weapons that can effectively neutralize the Russian artillery and force the Russian to engage aggressively.

[db_zero]

23 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Is Europe or the US in better shape, I wonder? With regard to population, I mean.

In the US its looking better that Russia or China.

https://www.ncsl.org/Portals/1/Documents/nalfo/USDemographics.pdf

Europe's trends:

https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/system/files/ged/eprs-briefing-633160-demographic-trends-eu-regions-final.pdf

One thing that is undeniable-the trend is movement towards urban and coastal areas.

[akd]

@sburke @Kinophile

Lieutenant Colonel Georgy Petrunin, “Military Commandant of Samara” (15th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade?):

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by akd

[DesertFox]

13 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

 Russians have not been very good about destroying their equipment before running away or surrendering.

That is the understatement of the century  I haven´t seen a single vehicle that was demilitarized / rendered useless by its own crew.

[sburke]

Just now, akd said:

@sburke @Kinophile

Lieutenant Colonel Georgy Petrunin, Military Commandant of Samara (15th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade?):

 

yep he's been added.  Confirming with @Haiduk on Col Vladimir Kryvolapov regarding rank - of the 810th Marine Bde

[Haiduk]

Dead Russian soldier with his ugly spoils - golden cross, chain and... golden teeth crowns

[sburke]

as Astro would say ruh roh!

Putin ally China rejects Russian oil despite steep discounts amid Western sanctions, report says (msn.com)

[acrashb]

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

I'd lay strong odds we'll soon see (in 5 years) overwatch drones slaved to the tank targeting & acquisition systems, that will be sent up and constantly be tracking with and above the tank, providing heavily increased range of awareness both to the tank and nearby units. Probably two drones per tank - one up and watching, one down and recharging. 

The ultimate limits are ground pressure (manoeuvre), total weight (bridges and transport), and total size (transport), and maybe cost (really cost-effectiveness). Materials science may affect the first two, and certainly UGV MBTs affect all of the limits.  Regarding Steve's concerns about energy, sensor package drones take a lot less than weaponized drones, and MBTs can have APUs to reduce overall fuel usage.  Or we use camo helium balloons for more loiter time.  I see the drones as tied less to the tank, but more to the overall OOB in the information mesh.  The tanks are just delivery agents, network hubs, and energy sources.

1 hour ago, akd said:

Another NLAW kill?

As others have said, why can my CM-you-name-the-version AT assets not get that close to the frontal aspect of an MBT?  

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

Worth noting a broad but extremely important distinction: 

Communism s is based on the idea that men are perfectible. 

Fascism is based on the idea that men are defined by their intrinsic characteristics. 

[...]

I would strongly suggest reading Robert Paxton's "Anatomy of Fascism" for a fuller exegesis of the topic.  

That's a great addition.  And I'll pickup Paxton's book.  

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

Beat me to it, darn it

very nice overview @acrashb

Thank you, and I like billbindc's additions.  You can't dig into this stuff in one or two pages, but useful summaries (on anything  ) can be done on one page.

[Aragorn2002]

38 minutes ago, akd said:

@sburke @Kinophile

Lieutenant Colonel Georgy Petrunin, “Military Commandant of Samara” (15th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade?):

 

Bon voyage.

[Battlefront.com]

Relaying some info that was sent to me by a friend in Kiev.  Pictures out of Belarus show a derailed train and a "saboteur" that was caught and shot in the kneecaps by Belorussian police.  The derailed train is kinda boring (no spilled tanks!) and the kneecap thing was bloody so I'm not reposting them here.

Steve

[Haiduk]

Sappers  of 95th air-assault brigade ambushed with IED two Russian T-72B in Izium area

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Haiduk

[c3k]

9 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Relaying some info that was sent to me by a friend in Kiev.  Pictures out of Belarus show a derailed train and a "saboteur" that was caught and shot in the kneecaps by Belorussian police.  The derailed train is kinda boring (no spilled tanks!) and the kneecap thing was bloody so I'm not reposting them here.

Steve

And how far down does a nation sink for police to shoot a suspect in the kneecaps?

[Kinophile]

It's Belarus "police". 

'Nuff said...

[Haiduk]

1 hour ago, akd said:

@sburke @Kinophile

Lieutenant Colonel Georgy Petrunin, “Military Commandant of Samara” (15th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade?):

 

@sburke @Kinophile

Yes, confirmed by Russian media:  https://samara.tsargrad.tv/news/na-ukraine-pogib-voennyj-komendant-samary-podpolkovnik-georgij-petrunin_525395

He didn't belong to 15th brigade. He was military commandant. Commandant service providing garrison security, military traffic control, justice, law enforcement among military units. Military police, for examlpe is a part of commandent service. Looks like in Ukraine he could be a chief of military police or some kind of this.

Edited April 6, 2022 by Haiduk

[Sequoia]

I don't understand how Slavs can become  Neo Nazis given the Nazi view of Slavs as Untermenschen.

[SgtHatred]

1 minute ago, Sequoia said:

I don't understand how Slavs can become  Neo Nazis given the Nazi view of Slavs as Untermenschen.

The same way people can deny that a thing happened, while also bragging about that same thing happening.

People are ****ing idiots.

[Battlefront.com]

2 minutes ago, Sequoia said:

I don't understand how Slavs can become  Neo Nazis given the Nazi view of Slavs as Untermenschen.

Someone who subscribes to an extremist ideology is probably not a deep thinker, or at least someone who isn't bothered by annoying inconsistencies.  Religions are full of ardent supporters who carefully select the things that confirm their world view and conveniently leave out all the rest.  Human Beings have an amazing capacity for selective reasoning, that's for sure.

Steve

[A Canadian Cat]

On 4/5/2022 at 11:29 AM, Battlefront.com said:

Yup, there's a lot of thinking about this, but it could go so many different ways it's difficult to see which one is the most likely.

However, we must remember that dictatorships are prone to failure. 

Indeed. I read some where regarding predicting when a dictatorship will fall: "Everything seems fine until it is suddenly it's not". I mean you know unrest and political strife is is brewing but you cannot predict the day or even if the plot is triggered.

 

On 4/5/2022 at 11:29 AM, Battlefront.com said:

Either from the masses or rival factions within or a combination of both. 

<snip>

 

I've never put much stock in a Russian pro-democracy movement toppling Putin, but mass unrest could be a major factor.  Especially if the security services start to show signs of weakness and divided loyalties.

I agree the pro-democracy movement is extremely week. I could see some civil unrest and protests being the trigger /  cover for the internal plotters to make their move. Here is my favourite scenario:

Unfocused protests (either about war dead or food or gas shortages) are not put down efficiently because some of the security services are sympathetic to the protests and their leaders are not motivated to get things done. During the chaos back room plotters make their move and take over and make a big show of Putin is out and someone is in charge who will fix things.  Suddenly the bosses of the security service become motivated again and get their guys to clean up the streets.

Just a guess - I have no inside knowledge and no net work of agitators setup to generate unrest

[kraze]

17 minutes ago, Sequoia said:

I don't understand how Slavs can become  Neo Nazis given the Nazi view of Slavs as Untermenschen.

That's an old version of nazism. Russians have installed updates - viewing everyone as untermenschen.

[kraze]

1 hour ago, Haiduk said:

Dead Russian soldier with his ugly spoils - golden cross, chain and... golden teeth crowns

I mean I always knew russian GDP is propaganda BS just like everything else...

But I could never imagine russians are that piss poor. That's some African tribes level poverty.

Looting teeth crowns. Jesus effing Christ.

[Ts4EVER]

14 minutes ago, kraze said:

That's an old version of nazism. Russians have installed updates - viewing everyone as untermenschen.

Dunno about that, but I think at this point you can actually kind of compare Russia to Nazi Germany.

Every society has its ideology, but I would say that there usually is a difference between its "creed", the kind of official, coherent ideology and its day to day ideology. As an example: In the western world we have a certain set of ideas that are based on various philosophies and precedents, but most people basically only know, understand and believe the essential basics of this. What is important to them is the parts of the ideology that make the society function, in the west mostly stuff like "work hard to be able to fulfill your consumption wishes."

The same was the case in Nazi Germany. I trully don't think that the majority of the German population was too concerned with the finer points of the Nazi crackpot racial theories that underpinned their ideology. However, I do believe that in this era there was a real sense in the German population of: "The world is a cruel place, the strongest get what they want, we have been screwed over in the past, but now we need to be strong, no matter the cost."

One of the biggest hits shortly before the Nazi takeover in Germany was the "Threepenny Opera", a leftwing musical that aims to show the inherent hypocrisy at the heart of capitalist society, basically portraying the "respectable" middle class as self-interested criminals dominated by purely economic interests. Hanna Arendt pointed out that maybe this musical was so successful not because the German people were waking up to leftism, but because it already mirrored the way they saw the world - basically: Let's drop all pretenses of civilisation and take what we want, this is how the world works.

I think this might be the Russian day to day ideology at this point as well, in part explaining the cruelty of even the basic soldiers.

 

edit: Oh and also of course the Threepenny Opera's success was due to the songs, I mean just listen to this banger:

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Ts4EVER

[__Yossarian0815[jby]]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

 The classic example of this is the 1920s/1930s shift of the German population from supporting Communism to supporting the Nazism.  At one point the actively political portion of the population was split fairly evenly between the two ideologies, but once Nazism became dominant the Communists switched sides.

 

Steve

Um, no. The KPD (communist party of Germany) was never very strong in Weimar Germany (10-16%). The NSDAP certainly didn´t grow at the expense of the KPD. In fact the KPD  was forbidden so that the Nazis could claim their takeover to be democratically legitimate (Ermächtigungsgesetz).

 

 

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

23 minutes ago, IanL said:

Unfocused protests (either about war dead or food or gas shortages) are not put down efficiently because some of the security services are sympathetic to the protests and their leaders are not motivated to get things done. During the chaos back room plotters make their move and take over and make a big show of Putin is out and someone is in charge who will fix things.  Suddenly the bosses of the security service become motivated again and get their guys to clean up the streets.

Just a guess - I have no inside knowledge and no net work of agitators setup to generate unrest

This is quite accurate.  The average soldier or policeman is generally not paid very well and is in the same boat as the general public.  If the economy is going OK and someone protests about free speech or rigged elections, then it's pretty easy to beat some sense into them.  But if their friends and family are out there pissed, definitely harder to swing the baton.  If the protests get really big, then the scale becomes a problem as thumping heads becomes less effective.  Then some bright bulb up the chain of command thinks bloodying them might help straighten things out.  That often turns into a breaking point.

Steve