How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Harmon Rabb]

4 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

So much for compromise.....while I expected Ukraine to harden, looks like Russia has decided to harden as well, for some stupid reason. 

 

 

Maybe someone told Russia about the E.U.'s Mutual defence clause?

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/sede/dv/sede200612mutualdefsolidarityclauses_/sede200612mutualdefsolidarityclauses_en.pdf

Whatever the case I suspect as as Russia becomes more and more isolated the E.U. and NATO will care less and less what Russia thinks.

[chuckdyke]

Expansion of NATO in Europe also means that Europe will become less dependent on the US. The US already had a dissident president, and his supporters still support putin. I prefer the US to remain fully democratic, but I don't take them for granted. To call Kim of North Korea and putin great guys give me the shivers. Two nut regimes with enough bombs to wage a terror campaign on the world is unacceptable. One nut regime (Russia) is bad enough. The Democratic Party won't be here forever. The social democratic systems in Europe are called left liberals in the US. The Republican Party needs to regain trust. 

Edited May 13, 2022 by chuckdyke

[FancyCat]

24 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Maybe someone told Russia about the E.U.'s Mutual defence clause?

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/sede/dv/sede200612mutualdefsolidarityclauses_/sede200612mutualdefsolidarityclauses_en.pdf

Whatever the case I suspect as as Russia becomes more and more isolated the E.U. and NATO will care less and less what Russia thinks.

Maybe, but I was under impression Russia would try and divide the west into a pro-quick Peace and a pro-hardball with Russia, giving Ukraine a out seemingly while allowing Russia to claim anti-NATO spread success was something that may have garnered some Western support. Instead by cutting off the door to even EU accession, they give up talking points for pro-peace figures to rally around.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Everything old is new again. Panzerfausts doing work on Russian armor in Ukraine.

 

[chuckdyke]

1 minute ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Panzerfausts doing work on Russian armor in Ukraine.

It is like saying a tank is doing the same job as in WW2. Panzerfaust3 effective range 3000ft. Panzerfaust 60 as the name says sixty stands for sixty meters (200ft). Panzerfaust I think it means literally tank-fist. 

[Harmon Rabb]

27 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Maybe, but I was under impression Russia would try and divide the west into a pro-quick Peace and a pro-hardball with Russia, giving Ukraine a out seemingly while allowing Russia to claim anti-NATO spread success was something that may have garnered some Western support. Instead by cutting off the door to even EU accession, they give up talking points for pro-peace figures to rally around.

Agreed,I had the same thought when Russia said they would be okay with Ukraine joining the E.U.

 

[Vanir Ausf B]

4 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

It is like saying a tank is doing the same job as in WW2.

Well... it kinda is.

[chuckdyke]

1 minute ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Well... it kinda is.

Similar doesn't mean the same. They are now completely different vehicles. Driving crosscountry at full speed (double that of a WW2 tank) with a glass of beer balanced on the end of a gun never ceases to amaze me. 

[danfrodo]

10 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Well... it kinda is.

I agree w Vanir Ausf B.  One is called panzerfaust.  Other is called Russian tank.  Land is Ukraine.  That's a pretty good similarity for me. 

[Fenris]

BBC report on those two old men shot in the back

 

[cesmonkey]

In today's  end-of-day update, the YouTube channel War In Ukraine says a small Ukrainian recon group crossed over the Russia border to the village of Morum, found no Russian forces there, and returned back to Ukraine.
 

 

[JonS]

Sanctions can work surprisingly quickly

https://i.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/300587871/russia-is-fixing-weapons-with-fridge-and-dishwasher-parts

[sburke]

8 minutes ago, JonS said:

Sanctions can work surprisingly quickly

https://i.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/300587871/russia-is-fixing-weapons-with-fridge-and-dishwasher-parts

so stealing washing machines is actually a plan to get around sanctions... devious.

[Canada Guy]

Found an interesting site 'Battle Front' and it threw up a few questions.

1. He stated that the UKR was running T80BVs but I had thought that they were only running Oplots at the beginning of the war. 

2. What does the flamethrower platoon consist of? I cannot imagine it is anything like what I would consider 'flamethrower '

3. He has a pic of what looks like a 30mm AA gun hog tied to the roof of an IFV in his video 'weakness of the VDV' at 16:56. This explains a lot but do any of you know what this trying to accomplish or what this is?

Edited May 13, 2022 by Canada Guy

[Suleyman]

What a scummy pair of soldiers shooting security guards for what? 

[Vergeltungswaffe]

2 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Similar doesn't mean the same. They are now completely different vehicles. Driving crosscountry at full speed (double that of a WW2 tank) with a glass of beer balanced on the end of a gun never ceases to amaze me. 

The technology has come a long way, but the mission is still destroy enemy vehicles, suppress enemy infantry, exploit when possible and so on. Same as WW2.

[dan/california]

2 minutes ago, Vergeltungswaffe said:

The technology has come a long way, but the mission is still destroy enemy vehicles, suppress enemy infantry, exploit when possible and so on. Same as WW2.

The tank has improved by a great deal since WW2. Unfortunately for tankers the things infantry has to kill tanks with have improved by about two orders of magnitude more.

[chuckdyke]

48 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Unfortunately for tankers the things infantry has to kill tanks with have improved by about two orders of magnitude more.

The Chieftain had the kindness to explain the survival onion of a tanker. I found it applicable to other units too. A do I have to be there. B Can I be observed, C can I be targeted D Can I be penetrated E can I be killed. The digital battlefield has the means to address these concerns. I applied it in Armored Assault in SF2 The ability to pop smoke and have the optics to look through it paid off. By minding the C2 structure both vertical and horizontal the Challenger Platoon moved to contact toward solid tentative contacts. Also, by positioning my snipers we also know the probable location of some ATGM positions. The Challengers were the best means to kill the enemy armor, but they can't operate on their own. 

[Combatintman]

1 hour ago, Canada Guy said:

Found an interesting site 'Battle Front' and it threw up a few questions.

1. He stated that the UKR was running T80BVs but I had thought that they were only running Oplots at the beginning of the war. 

2. What does the flamethrower platoon consist of? I cannot imagine it is anything like what I would consider 'flamethrower '

3. He has a pic of what looks like a 30mm AA gun hog tied to the roof of an IFV in his video 'weakness of the VDV' at 16:56. This explains a lot but do any of you know what this trying to accomplish or what this is?

I won't delve into the tank part of the question but the other two are pretty easy.  One of the main bits of kit in the flamethrower platoon is the RPO-A

RPO-A Shmel - Wikipedia

As to its composition - not sure, in regular ground forces these elements sometimes get bundled under the title of 'assault engineers' or similar and at higher echelons are where you find the TOS rocket launcher.

TOS-1 - Wikipedia

Traditionally in the orbat, this equipment/capability sat under the chemical protection element at each level for reasons which always escaped me.

The ZU-23/2 on top of the BMD discussion has been thrown around a few times with some claiming that it had left service but it has definitely been seen in Ukraine.  I can't recall the origins of the idea of nailing a ZU-23/2 on top of a BMD - it could possibly have been back in Afghanistan to add high angle firepower to zap Mujahids on mountains.  However, it makes sense to have an air defence capable weapon system which is mechanised if the rest of your force is mechanised.  They probably are part of an air defence element bundled with a few MANPADS at the BTG level - nothing too sinister or worthy of overthinking here.

[Kinophile]

im absolutely fascinated by the decap strikes against Zelensky within Kiev itself. The presidential offices were shot up and attacked several times. The saboteurs could easily have succeeded,and I think UKR morale would have taken a serious drop.

If this was the trump card Putin relied on, but which failed, then it does go some way to explaining the rushed, thrown together nature of the first days.

Putin didn't expect or care if the UKR population welcomed the Rus troops, he expected the UKR defense establishment to be headless, confused, distracted by personal defense and unable to coherently organize or communicate.

The successful personal defense of the government in Kiev was possibly the real war-winning event. Zelensky, the Defense ministry and UKR chiefs of staff still alive meant that the RuA had to turn itself inside out from an occupying posture to a real invasion stance,  something it has patently failed to do (twice).

After the failed assassination days,, Russian Victory was impossible.

@Haiduk you were/are in Kiev at the start. What can you add?

 

Edited May 13, 2022 by Kinophile

[Aragorn2002]

6 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Expansion of NATO in Europe also means that Europe will become less dependent on the US. The US already had a dissident president, and his supporters still support putin. I prefer the US to remain fully democratic, but I don't take them for granted. To call Kim of North Korea and putin great guys give me the shivers. Two nut regimes with enough bombs to wage a terror campaign on the world is unacceptable. One nut regime (Russia) is bad enough. The Democratic Party won't be here forever. The social democratic systems in Europe are called left liberals in the US. The Republican Party needs to regain trust. 

I agree. Things can go wrong, very fast in the US. Biden is an old man and his vice president won't get the votes he had. Another reason why Europe has to learn to stand on it's own feet.

[domfluff]

9 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

The Soviets used to be very good at this stuff.  Seems Russia has forgotten how.

That line made me think of something else. Obviously there's a risk of clutching at straws, and trying to justify the cold war mentality as being about something real, rather than a waste of time, but if we assume that's not the case, and the above is accurate:

This reminds me of a conversation around the British army in Iraq and Afghanistan. Throughout the Cold War, it's been a common statement that the British infantryman has the benefit of experience in patrolling Northern Ireland - that they had all of the potentially-mundane-but-still-vital experiences of being deployed and operating as a team, in a potentially hostile situation. That's the same army that went into the Falklands, and that experience has been suggested as one of the reasons why Goose Green was saved from being a complete disaster. Certainly the army would have gained some solid, practical COIN experience.

The conversation around the more recent deployments was that the army went into them assuming that they had this same institutional knowledge of counterinsurgency operations - without acknowledging that this really belonged to the previous generation, and that experience just wasn't embedded anymore, and an awful lot of it had to be relearned, quickly.

So, yeah, I wonder. I wonder if there might be many Soviet principles which are based on a sound foundation, and may at one point have actually worked extremely well... but now aren't matched by the depth of experience to be practical.

[Haiduk]

3 hours ago, Canada Guy said:

2. What does the flamethrower platoon consist of? I cannot imagine it is anything like what I would consider 'flamethrower '

I can't recall now what exacly VDV platoon variant, but I suppose it the same like in motor-rifle units. Flamethrower platoon is a part of CBRN company of brgade/regiment and usually consists of 3 squads per 6 men + 1 platoon commander. They armed with RPO-A thermobaric munition launchers (platoon has 180 launchers in the stock). Usually squads operates by pairs. Each servicemen carries two RPO-A, but of course all depends from situation.   

Edited May 13, 2022 by Haiduk

[Haiduk]

25 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

you were/are in Kiev at the start. What can you add?

I live too far from the center of city. I suppose, there were some attempts to sneak on guarded territory of Govt. quarter, because even in our distant district I heard several clashes with short, but intensive sounds of rifles firing, so there really were many diversion groups around. But I have too little faith to the words of Arestovich about dozen attempts and "epic battles" near Bankova street with Russian diversion groups. 

My advice to you and all - never believe the words of Arestovich. Even he say something true it should be divided in many times. The mission of Arestovich is not bring true picture of war, but to calm population with heroic victorious tales. He is just a part of PsyOps for inner customer. 

Edited May 13, 2022 by Haiduk

[Combatintman]

58 minutes ago, domfluff said:

That line made me think of something else. Obviously there's a risk of clutching at straws, and trying to justify the cold war mentality as being about something real, rather than a waste of time, but if we assume that's not the case, and the above is accurate:

This reminds me of a conversation around the British army in Iraq and Afghanistan. Throughout the Cold War, it's been a common statement that the British infantryman has the benefit of experience in patrolling Northern Ireland - that they had all of the potentially-mundane-but-still-vital experiences of being deployed and operating as a team, in a potentially hostile situation. That's the same army that went into the Falklands, and that experience has been suggested as one of the reasons why Goose Green was saved from being a complete disaster. Certainly the army would have gained some solid, practical COIN experience.

The conversation around the more recent deployments was that the army went into them assuming that they had this same institutional knowledge of counterinsurgency operations - without acknowledging that this really belonged to the previous generation, and that experience just wasn't embedded anymore, and an awful lot of it had to be relearned, quickly.

So, yeah, I wonder. I wonder if there might be many Soviet principles which are based on a sound foundation, and may at one point have actually worked extremely well... but now aren't matched by the depth of experience to be practical.

Ah yes that old chestnut which the Americans in particular were, quite rightly, thoroughly bored to death of.  For some reason the British Army decided it was the master of counter-insurgency in the early 2000s because of the master tactic of wearing berets/soft hats in Northern Ireland.  Funny old thing was that in my two tours there (1989-1990 and 1992-1995), every time I left a patrol base I was required to wear a helmet.

There is a lot more to it clearly, the security force footprint in Northern Ireland was massive compared to the deployments in Basra and Helmand.  Off the top of my head there were at least eight regular battalions, about six or seven Ulster Defence Regiment Battalions, and god knows how many RUC of various hues at any one time.  Then of course the opposition was smaller than anything faced in either Basra or Helmand, was less liberally armed and not prone to employing suicide bombers.

Add to that the environment in Northern Ireland was familiar and well-known with handy things like accurate census records, vehicle licensing offices, property/land ownership records, telephone books and no massive linguistic, religious or cultural differences on the scale of those seen in Basra and Helmand.

Then there is the border - while there was certainly quite rightly a lot of sympathy in the Republic of Ireland for the nationalist cause, the Gards (Gardai - RoI Police Force) and Irish Defence Force were helpful in their dealings with us and the Republic of Ireland was a benign neighbour compared to Pakistan or Iran in the Afghan and Basra contexts.  The border was; therefore, relatively secure, particularly when compared to Afghanistan and Iraq.

I remember running pre-deployment training for both theatres and the number of people who looked at me blankly when I talked about 'Charlie 1s' (a form that was filled out by patrols in NI every time a vehicle stop was made with details such as make colour model VRN driver details, location of the stop etc).

Masters of COIN indeed - although coming second in Basra and Helmand was personally disappointing for me, I hope that the particular COIN competence trope has been thoroughly killed off in grown up circles in the British military and that lessons have been learned.

Edited May 13, 2022 by Combatintman
Added a bit about the border.