How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[danfrodo]

1 minute ago, Hapless said:

Funny how the technophilia creeps in. Why photoshop a mobilisation card when you can get an old one and change the date with a pen?

On a related note, guess we either spend hours sifting and cross-referencing sources to find out what Russian mobilisation cards look like...

or... wait until tomorrow.

See you in the morning

thanks Hapless.  The plot thickens.

So I guess the big question is whether mobilization is a bigger danger to Ukraine or to Putin?  I am thinking Putin but time will tell.  Mobilization would definitely fit into the idea that Putin will just dig in to whatever terrain he can and hope to wear out Ukraine. 

[danfrodo]

4 minutes ago, MSBoxer said:

 

So now the Irish have invaded?? 

btw MSBoxer, your taglines are hilarious

[MSBoxer]

2 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

So now the Irish have invaded?? 

btw MSBoxer, your taglines are hilarious

If Bono is for you, who can stand against you?

Thanks, I have been trying to figure out how to change those, been close to 20 years and is about time.

 

[Seedorf81]

3 hours ago, MSBoxer said:

Amen.  I have been skipping most of the posts on the last few pages.

It surely doesn't look like things are improving..

Some topics and comments are so heated up that I start to reminisce about John Kettler and his conspiracy-stories. Those were less fanatical than some of the things I read in this thread (multi-multi-multi-topic-thread?) lately.

I loved reading the amazing news-updates and the very interesting debates and analyses, but things seem to go a little haywire, I fear.

 

Edited May 8, 2022 by Seedorf81
Like always spelling-mistake

[danfrodo]

Yes, let's all (ME included) get the best Ukraine war discussion back on track.  WW2 does not matter here.  Racial politics don't matter here. 

So, anyone got any updates from the war?  Villages taken/lost?  More war videos w epic slavic-rock?

[asurob]

28 minutes ago, ASL Veteran said:

It's actually not - or wasn't an extreme outlier maybe ten years ago.  probably less common now.  

An extreme data point is just that.  Extreme and you are smart enough to know that.  

[asurob]

27 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

thanks Hapless.  The plot thickens.

So I guess the big question is whether mobilization is a bigger danger to Ukraine or to Putin?  I am thinking Putin but time will tell.  Mobilization would definitely fit into the idea that Putin will just dig in to whatever terrain he can and hope to wear out Ukraine. 

I think if Putin is dumb enough to fully mobilize then we are past game over for him.  Even if he is somehow (and based on everything Steve is saying that's very unlikely) be able to equip even 50 percent of these mobilized troops...his generals have shown zero skill.  This smacks of extreme desperation on his part to remain in power.

[Huba]

5 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

Yes, let's all (ME included) get the best Ukraine war discussion back on track.  WW2 does not matter here.  Racial politics don't matter here. 

So, anyone got any updates from the war?  Villages taken/lost?  More war videos w epic slavic-rock?

Here you go, the new ISW map is out (only the general one for now):

 

[potato4212]

The absolute state of the conscripts of Luganda and Donbobwae. I guess the Russians somehow ran out of aks already (How?) maybe they sold them all to African warlords and Collectors in the U.S (who are better armed than the guys fighting for Donbass and Luhansk. They dont even have optics on them, the poor bastards. 

[danfrodo]

Wow, this is really gonna mess up the CMBS:2022 OOB.  Have to import all the Fire & Rubble weapons for the conscripts.  What a mess.

Meanwhile:  I wonder if that RU Izyum salient is really as precarious as this map suggests.  I wonder how big the forces are in there.  Hopefully Putler is telling them "keep advancing, ignore the flanks!".

[Kinophile]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

History is messy.  However, generally the thin line between "traitor" and "patriot" has a lot to do with what alternatives were available to them at the time. 

...

Breaking away after losing a debate is very different than breaking away from something that didn't recognize the ability to have that debate in the first place.

And, to their great credit, they became more realistic and pragmatic about their response to demands for more autonomy.  Well, as long as they were white.  The dark skinned subjects had to wait until India to get that ball rolling.

 

Welll, if you were far away, difficult to attack......and white? - ok, sure. 

But If you were right next door, say, a short ferry ride away and easily attacked (and white) then no, the Brits absolutely sat on you.

Canada - nope, USWoI x 2. Plus they still have bloody bears. Yah lets not.

Australia - Snakes and too bloody far away. Wayyyy too hot. Yah lets not.

Ireland - a few hours by boat, indefensible coast line, no major geographic land barriers. Badgers at most. Yes, jolly good, lets!

India became free because after WW2 the Brits couldn't feasibly attack and crush them.

It wasn't some moral decision, the English elites of the time dont deserve any credit whatsoever.

It was a sheer distance+mil/eco cost analysis. If they could feasibly attack and crush the uppity natives (white or black) then they absolutely and inevitably did. 

...

Its the same with Russia and Ukraine. Russia didnt attack Poland- because they feasibly can't. But they felt they could with Ukraine, so they did.

Simple "might makes right" that every single elite of every single empire has always used as their lodestar.

Edited May 8, 2022 by Kinophile

[theFrizz]

1 hour ago, BornGinger said:

But as you took it seriously my comment about your opinion about the Confederate States is that whether or not people like that they wanted to become independent from the crooks in the USA in the 1860s it is a part of the history and those statues help people to remember it.

You should probably not talk about things you apparently don't understand. The same can be said about the rest of your post. Thanks. 

[Huba]

So I watched Scholz's 8th of May speech. It was obviously quite conservative, but at least he unequivocally stated that the way of this war is through Ukrainian victory, and that there won't be peace on Russia's terms.

Keeping pressure on Germany bore fruit and as many people (including our German members!) predicted, Germany finally came around. They aren't a leader of this cause, this couldn't be realistically expected of them, but stopped being an obstacle, and that means a lot.

 

[akd]

People posting off-topic in this thread:

 

[FancyCat]

So i wonder if it's deliberate that these new conscripts are equipped with crap or nothing useful. Especially if they may or may not be coming from recently conquered areas. I mean i find it unbelievable, they can't even be given a AK, they don't have any AKs to be given out? As horrible (tho not surprising) could they be hoarding weapons and equipment for Russian conscripts and just letting a form of population control/culling occur of the male population in the occupied regions? 

 

 

[dan/california]

The most important thing on those maps is the Ukrainians pushing from Kharkiv towards Kupiansk. Kupiask is the linchpin of Russian logistics in the northern Donbas. If the Ukrainians can even bring it under continuous threat from tube artillery, much less take it, the Russian logistics are absolutely *&%$$&  *%*%$&$&*. It will make everything else happening in the Northern Donbas irrelevant. My two cents on the rest of the entire war is that the Russians are either stuck, or paying about a hundred times more in men and material for every meter of ground gained than they can afford.

The Ukr general staff seems to talk less when they are doing better, and they are bleeping near silent at the moment, and Steve still wants to hold his cards for a bit on actual game stuff. So the thread has just sort of lost its mind. 

[dan/california]

The maps in question

 

[FancyCat]

1 hour ago, BornGinger said:

I'm pretty sure the Russians don't want to eradicate the whole Ukrainian population.

They do want to stamp out Ukrainian culture, anti-Russian activists and the political class. 

[dan/california]

8 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

So i wonder if it's deliberate that these new conscripts are equipped with crap or nothing useful. Especially if they may or may not be coming from recently conquered areas. I mean i find it unbelievable, they can't even be given a AK, they don't have any AKs to be given out? As horrible (tho not surprising) could they be hoarding weapons and equipment for Russian conscripts and just letting a form of population control/culling occur of the male population in the occupied regions? 

 

 

It is entirely believable the Russians would do this. But doing this and then asking them to guard the northern flank, and THE key logistics hub, for the entire main offensive effort is really dumb. It is even really dumb by Russian standards, so my bet is mostly desperation. There may be a certain amount of different Russian military districts trying to hoard stuff for themselves.

[chrisl]

1 hour ago, potato4212 said:

The absolute state of the conscripts of Luganda and Donbobwae. I guess the Russians somehow ran out of aks already (How?) maybe they sold them all to African warlords and Collectors in the U.S (who are better armed than the guys fighting for Donbass and Luhansk. They dont even have optics on them, the poor bastards. 

The conscripts would be better off selling their vintage M-Ns to collectors and using the money to buy plane tickets to the west.

[Huba]

7 minutes ago, dan/california said:

The most important thing on those maps is the Ukrainians pushing from Kharkiv towards Kupiansk. Kupiask is the linchpin of Russian logistics in the northern Donbas. If the Ukrainians can even bring it under continuous threat from tube artillery, much less take it, the Russian logistics are absolutely *&%$$&  *%*%$&$&*. It will make everything else happening in the Northern Donbas irrelevant. My two cents on the rest of the entire war is that the Russians are either stuck, or paying about a hundred times more in men and material for every meter of ground gained than they can afford.

The Ukr general staff seems to talk less when they are doing better, and they are bleeping near silent at the moment, and Steve still wants to hold his cards for a bit on actual game stuff. So the thread has just sort of lost its mind. 

What I'm really waiting for is the next "big" arms package for Ukraine - allegedly tomorrow Biden is going to sign the lend-lease act. We can speculate what will it include, but HIMARS/ GMLRS combination seems to be on the table and was requested multiple times. With this capability, Kupyansk can be easily brought under fire from present Ukrainian positions. 

[Fenris]

John Rambo has been spotted in theatre

 

[chuckdyke]

5 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

The colonies in what became the United States had legitimate grievances over self rule t

They were British gentlemen objecting to a German king. 

[chuckdyke]

7 hours ago, LukeFF said:

And on this I fully agree.

There is a first time for everything. 

[Gary R Lukas]

7 hours ago, LukeFF said:

And on this I fully agree.

Here Here