How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

11 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

Of course. Belarus was a major manufacturer of certain automotive chassis during the Soviet era. The MAZ and MTZ plants in Minsk made things like the MAZ-543 (which you know better as the truck chassis that carries such famous things as the Elbrus (Scud-B) and the Smerch), the MAZ-537 heavy hauler normally used for tank transport, the MAZ-7910 (S-300), the MAZ-7917 (Topol), the MZKT-79221 (Topol-M), and the GM-355 tracked chassis (Tor).

Ah.  I took the reference to the data plate to mean that it was manufactured in "Belarus" or was marked as "Belarus" military property.  Either one of those by definition means it isn't Soviet.  But if someone looking at that saw "Minsk" then that could be either and is, probably, Soviet era.

It's been about a week since it was announced that Russia was getting weaponry, including vehicles, from Belarus.  Given how desperate Russia is for replacements and that this unit was likely refitting in Russia until moving in to blunt the Ukrainian counter attack, I wouldn't be surprised to see Belarus equipment showing up this quickly.

Steve

[Calamine Waffles]

Belarus does collaborate with Russia on weapons and has been doing so since the fall of the Soviet Union. They even used to collaborate with Ukraine (the guidance system of the Skif/Stugna was originally made by Peleng in Belarus)

[Artkin]

If you want to pretend you have tor, I disguised tunguskas as them for my motor rifle brigade mastertoe

It would be pretty sweet to see some of the higher level assets ingame like this

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

 

Heh.  Well, hopefully the 44th Artillery Brigade gets the message.  Cool video on mute though:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/v6xte5/44th_artillery_brigade_and_arial_reconnaissance/

 

[cesmonkey]

15 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Another intense video from a British volunteer.  CASEVAC and withdrawal in a forest.  Looks to be a company sized force.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/v6ywko/another_video_of_ben_grant_son_of_uk_mp_fighting/

It seems this was the first video with the one passed around a few days ago with them engaging the BTR ("tank") is the second video.

Steve

Looks like the same one to me:

 

[Battlefront.com]

Another example of Ukraine's excellence at messaging.  This is a video (sorry, Reddit) showing civilian vehicles shot to pieces by Russians in and around Kyiv.  The presenter focuses on one car from Bucha (name recognition, smart right there) that had a family in it, probably all killed.  He shows the destruction inside then examines the entrance holes, deducing they are from 30mm and were placed accurately and from long distance.  How would the Russians be able to do this?  He answers the question by examining a BMD-4 which was used by the VDV operating in that area.  The BMD-4 was made after sanctions were in place using Thales thermal imaging/aiming devices assembled in Russia under contract by Thales in order to dodge sanctions.  He also says, correctly, that the French government had to have known about this.  The conclusion is that Western (in this case French) companies that deliberately dodged sanctions have blood on their hands because they pursued profits over duty to Humanity.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/v5y2j5/bypassing_sanctions_enables_russia_to_commit_war/

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Another strategic goal failure for Putin.  One of his reasons to crush Ukraine was to stop them spreading lies about how awful it is to live under Putin's regime.  Well, kinda like his desire to divide NATO blew up in his face, so too is keeping Ukraine from giving Russians bad ideas.  Worse for Putin, it's Russians in exile doing it and not Russian speaking Ukrainians.  Even more troubling, they aren't just saying that Putin's Russia sucks, but that Putin needs to be deposed.

Way to go Vlad!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/07/russian-language-ukrainian-tv-channel-aims-to-topple-putin

[Canada Guy]

Is NATO standard equipment not all metric? A mix, or all American imperial?

I had assumed all metric as all but one country uses SI but may be wrong as American equipment is probably the most prevalent.  

[G.I. Joe]

18 minutes ago, Canada Guy said:

Is NATO standard equipment not all metric? A mix, or all American imperial?

I had assumed all metric as all but one country uses SI but may be wrong as American equipment is probably the most prevalent.  

Some of the folks with a regular or primary reserve background can probably answer this better than I can, but I think metric is probably prevalent if not standard. I do know the U.S. military has used mostly metric for a lot of things since before the Vietnam War for the sake of NATO interoperability (e.g. ranges and distances in kilometers, switching to 9mm sidearms). The military is up there with the scientific and engineering communities (and science fiction writers ) for being a place where Americans do use SI measurements.

Edit: Probably not 100% standard because .50 cal light machine guns are still widespread. Also bearing in mind that the UK and Canada were still using Imperial measurements when NATO was founded.

Edited June 8, 2022 by G.I. Joe

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Interesting that he likens the situation to 1905 rather than 1917, the former being more obscure for US based historians than the latter.  Not only does Girkin seem to understand this war quite well, he also is a lover of Russian military history.  He was, maybe still is, a military reinactor for those who didn't know.  Therefore, if he thinks the situation is looking like 1905 I'm inclined to defer to him.

His other observations about Putin likely waiting until it is too late does seem to be likely.

I appreciated the analogy to the flawed strategy and  management in the Russo-Japanese War but he doesn't address the larger political issue that there is no real political opposition left in Russia to pick up the pieces and there isn't even a Sergei Witte to try and manage the process. If the current situation does lead to regime retreat, it won't be even the stutter step towards a more liberal society that was attempted in 1905.

[danfrodo]

1 hour ago, gnarly said:

Politicians, however....

 

https://www.euronews.com/culture/2022/05/30/uk-to-revive-imperial-measurements-to-bring-back-british-culture-and-heritage-says-mp

 

[Sorry, off-topic...]

Just about the stupidest thing I have heard in decades.  I've been an engineer for over 3 decades and every time I get something in pints of pig blood or whatever imperial units are made of I immediately convert to metric.  It's a completely idiotic system and US should've converted back when we were planning to in late 70s (Reagan canceled US conversion to metric). 

5280 feet in a mile.  Using fractions instead of decimals (1/8, 3/16, 5/32" etc).  Degrees in some arbitrary nonsense farenheit scale that ties in w nothing physical.  pounds-mass, pounds-force.  And that's without even getting into energy & fluidics, which are a nightmare in imperial system.  And cooking?  everything is stupid for cooking  - ounces, pints, cups, teaspoons, tablespoons. 

So snuck off right after work for early showing of Top Gun w my 21 yr old.  The enemy is not explicitly named, could be china/NK/RU, so I just decided they were Russians and this greatly increased my enjoyment of the dogfight scenes.  Heckuva fun movie, saw it in a 'theatre', which is a large room w chairs and a big screen -- weeeeeird.

But back on topic, the official UKR press release guy said to be prepared for a very hard week ahead for UKR forces.  Said they just don't have enough heavy weapons in the izyum/popasne/sloviansk areas and UKR will probably be losing some ground.  I saw this in the Denys Davydov youtube video for today.

[dan/california]

4 minutes ago, billbindc said:

I appreciated the analogy to the flawed strategy and  management in the Russo-Japanese War but he doesn't address the larger political issue that there is no real political opposition left in Russia to pick up the pieces and there isn't even a Sergei Witte to try and manage the process. If the current situation does lead to regime retreat, it won't be even the stutter step towards a more liberal society that was attempted in 1905.

The biggest similarity between 1905 and now is the shocking nature of Russia's military failure. Both Japan and Ukraine were supposed to be short victorious wars against third rate opposition. In both cases they declined to follow the script. In 1905 the regime survived sort of, but from 1906 to 1917 all the regime did was try to put out internal fires and generally stagnate. Its confidence, international standing, finances, and military reputation were all deeply damaged. Furthermore in 1905 Teddy Roosevelt got the Czar a much better peace deal than he deserved. It remains to be seen if Scholz and Macron can manage that for Putin. Also 1905 did not involve anything like the financial and trade pressure Russia is under now. 

I agree the internal situation in Russia is very different. But in 1905 the Czar was in good health, had an heir whose health problems were not common knowledge, and several hundred years of tradition to prop it up. Neither Putins health, the theoretical certainty of his successor, or the regimes historical legitimacy are remotely similar. While the initial impetus too invade Ukraine was entirely Putin's, I really think much of this stage of the war is a contest between factions of the Russian regime for position in the post Putin "discussion". Who lost Ukraine? is going to be a blood sport when the time comes.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Good thread by Chris Dougherty:

• I was reviewing #ukraine maps by@TheStudyofWar, @JominiW, et al yesterday to prepare for this radio interview with @TheWorld and I wondered why the war in eastern Ukraine is an attritional slugfest and not a battle of sweeping maneuver?
• Many folks thought that the war would feature more armored maneuver as operations shifted east to Donetsk & Luhansk, (& as the weather changed). This makes sense, as it's more open terrain.
• As @gianpgentile noted in the @WarOnTheRocks podcast below, the area around eastern Ukraine was the sight of some of the largest battles in history, incl. Manstein's "backhand blow" & a bit north in Russia, the massive battle of Kursk.
• From 1941-43, forces in this area pushed front lines 100s of miles in a battle. As noted by @RitaKonaev
  below, today's fight looks more like WWI's Western Front, Mosul 2016-17, or late-stage Korean War: heavy casualties w/o much gained or lost.
• 3 factors account for this change. 1) the size & makeup of Ukr. & Rus. forces can't support large-scale maneuver. The German 6th Army that fought heavily in Ukraine & Stalingrad was roughly the same size as today's Russian army, & it was 1 of many armies in the Wehrmacht.
• Red Army forces were even larger. Both sides had hordes of armored vehicles & infantry needed to cover huge distances while securing flanks & supply lines. Such large forces could suffer horrendous losses & keep moving.
• Today's forces aren't big enough or designed for large-scale combined-arms maneuver. As @KofmanMichael & @RALee85 note in this superb @WarOnTheRocks
  piece on Russian force design. Ukrainian forces, meanwhile, are designed for territorial defense.
• The 2nd factor is the amount of ISR in the theater. Western intel support, along w/ Bayraktars & other drones, gives Ukraine a great picture of Russian forces. Per @DanMichaelsWSJ, this makes maneuvers like river crossings even more dangerous.
• W/o surprise, maneuver requires overwhelming w/mass, fires, or both. But neither side has the mass to create & exploit a breakthrough. So we get massed fires (w/o much maneuver) instead
• The 3rd factor is changes in terrain since 1943. I haven't done a terrain walk in Ukraine, but it's a safe bet that it's more urbanized than it was 80 years ago. Russian forces have been road/rail-bound, & the roads, rails, & bridges run through cities like Severodonetsk.
• These factors mean we likely won't see major breakthroughs on either side. Terrain may change hands--the Severodonetsk salient worries me--but neither side has the mass to exploit minor gains. The war now likely becomes a test of endurance.

 

 

[Vanir Ausf B]

Friedman's comments on Dougherty's analysis. This is right up @The_Capts alley:

• This is a good thread, but I'm going to highlight the same dynamic not in terms of attrition versus maneuver, but in terms of mass, maneuver, firepower, and tempo. These are the four physical tactical tenets from On Tactics, which isn't built on an attrition versus maneuver dichotomy.
• It's absolutely true that neither side has the mass to facilitate maneuver like the Wehrmacht and the Red Army did in WW2. Moreover, massing forces in space and time today under pervasive ISR is dangerous. But maneuver is still happening, it's just facilitating firepower. As so. This is contributing to the highly "attritional" fighting.
• This is a major trend in tactics since World War 2. Instead of mass facilitating maneuver which is supported by firepower, maneuver needs to facilitate firepower. Both sides are figuring this out, and Russian doctrine is designed for this (although they missed something.)
• What they missed is a new role for mass. That's what@C_M_Dougherty highlighted. Mass now needs to exploit the effects of firepower. The pattern is no longer mass to maneuver to firepower, but maneuver to firepower to mass (for exploitation).
• So what about tempo? Because Russia lacks the mass to exploit firepower, Ukraine doesn't have to outright defeat Russian maneuver. They just have to slow it down because the effects of firepower are always temporary. Plus they're on the defense and time favors the defense.
• The Ukrainians have taken advantage of tempo since day one, always slowing and bogging down Russian actions until they collapse on their own. Mass could compensate for that but the Russians just don't have it.
• These tactical trends (pervasive ISR, maneuvering to facilitate modern firepower, massing for exploitation) aren't unique to the conflict in Ukraine. The technology will drive everyone in this direction.
• The other issue here (connected with tempo) is the initiative. Ukraine is on the defense but they have the initiative. Russia has to attack and they have to do so in places with logistical infrastructure. Their choices are constrained.
• This is a problem for US forces because doctrine and structure is designed for 1) a world of mass facilitating maneuver, not maneuver facilitating firepower, 2) faster is always better, and 3) the offense has the initiative.
• Which is not to say that these 3 assumptions will never be true. Merely that they may not be. But forces built around their universal application will struggle. Transitions to a force design that matches the modern tactical dynamic will be contentious.
• Which is what we're seeing with the USMC force design debate. FD2030 is creating forces designed more for using maneuver to facilitate firepower and it's blowing some minds.

 

 

Edited June 8, 2022 by Vanir Ausf B

[chrisl]

3 hours ago, JonS said:

Eh, I blame the programme manager - he's the one responsible for making SURE discrete elements of the project interact properly. Mind you, no self respecting engineer would be using non-metric in the first place, so theres that.

There were indications in the nav data that something was wrong but the reasons for it weren't chased down before the last opportunity to correct for it - it was the result of multiple failures and there were multiple opportunities to catch it. Ultimately a management and system engineering failure.

And sadly, most of US aerospace uses imperial units to this day.  NASA uses all metric and requires all work to be in metric by contract.  As a result you sometimes see some interesting dimensions on drawings where some COTS part is obviously made in imperial and then just converted for the drawing.  It's a lot like bicycle parts that are a weird mix of English, French, and Italian sizes and threads, but all expressed in metric units, except when they're not.

Edited June 8, 2022 by chrisl

[dan/california]

8 minutes ago, chrisl said:

There were indications in the nav data that something was wrong but the reasons for it weren't chased down before the last opportunity to correct for it - it was the result of multiple failures and there were multiple opportunities to catch it. Ultimately a management and system engineering failure.

And sadly, most of US aerospace uses imperial units to this day.  NASA uses all metric and requires all work to be in metric by contract.  As a result you sometimes see some interesting dimensions on drawings where some COTS part is obviously made in imperial and then just converted for the drawing.  It's a lot like bicycle parts that are a weird mix of English, French, and Italian sizes and threads, but all expressed in metric units, except when they're not.

NOTHING is worse than bicycles, there are literally 17 different standards for bottom brackets now. It can only be described as intentional industry self sabotage. They are trying to drive their customers nuts, nothing is compatible with anything.

We really shouldn't go down this rabbit hole should we.......?

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

I appreciated the analogy to the flawed strategy and  management in the Russo-Japanese War but he doesn't address the larger political issue that there is no real political opposition left in Russia to pick up the pieces and there isn't even a Sergei Witte to try and manage the process. If the current situation does lead to regime retreat, it won't be even the stutter step towards a more liberal society that was attempted in 1905.

Yes, Girkin's blinders can be seen in his analysis.  What he also doesn't grasp is that Russia's ability to militarily win a war in "Ukraine" (as he calls it) was never possible without full mobilization ahead of the invasion.  Due to the crap quality of the Russian military and the size of the task it would absolutely have to crush Ukraine by sheer weight of hundreds of thousands of armed Russians.  Which, of course, would likely have resulted in failure for other reasons. 

It's already too late to do a mobilization now because the war is lost.  that ship has sailed and metaphorically sits at the bottom of the Black Sea.  Not realizing this shows that as sour as Girkin's view on this war is it's not sour enough.

Steve

[gnarly]

28 minutes ago, dan/california said:

NOTHING is worse than bicycles, there are literally 17 different standards for bottom brackets now.

That's the epitome of an oxymoron... To which I can relate directly

Edited June 8, 2022 by gnarly

[Battlefront.com]

Lots of great thoughts in the two threads Vanir Ausf B just posted.  Thanks!

This one stands out to me more than the rest...

1 hour ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

The Ukrainians have taken advantage of tempo since day one, always slowing and bogging down Russian actions until they collapse on their own. Mass could compensate for that but the Russians just don't have it.

This is one of the primary reasons I doubted Russia could win this war before it even started.  The "mass" to be everywhere it needed to be AND have the troop density required was NEVER available for this invasion.  In fact it was even worse than I thought because it seems Western (US in particular) assessments of Russian strength were probably did not fully take into consideration chronic under staffing of their peacetime formations.  I don't fault them for that as I'm not sure the Russians even knew how few men they really had!

Now Russia is trying to fight a more limited war against Ukraine with greatly depleted and banged up forces.  If Putin had opted for an incremental attack on Ukraine, and limited attacks to the Donbas and the "land bridge", then I'm sure Russian forces would have had mass that Ukraine would have had a much more difficult time dealing with.  Radically reducing the scope of operations as they have isn't producing more favorable mass because that mass is sitting in Ukrainian refrigerated rail cars, fertilizing the soil, or sitting encased in zinc.

Have I mentioned how screwed Russia is at this point in the war?  I seem to recall doing so recently   But really, I don't need to since ISW's report on June the 6th said as much in the first paragraph of their OpEd:

Quote

The fight for Severodonetsk is a Russian information operation in the form of a battle. One of its main purposes for Moscow is to create the impression that Russia has regained its strength and will now overwhelm Ukraine. That impression is false. The Russian military in Ukraine is increasingly a spent force that cannot achieve a decisive victory if Ukrainians hold on.

Yup!

Steve

[G.I. Joe]

1 hour ago, chrisl said:

And sadly, most of US aerospace uses imperial units to this day.  NASA uses all metric and requires all work to be in metric by contract.  As a result you sometimes see some interesting dimensions on drawings where some COTS part is obviously made in imperial and then just converted for the drawing.

Imperial units are pretty common in aviation internationally, it's all altitudes in feet and speeds in knots up here and Canada is pretty consistently metric (though people do tend to use Imperial units for their height and weight informally). No flying experience outside of Canada and the U.S. personally, but I gather that is the international standard.

Knots didn't become standard over mph until sometime in the Fifties or Sixties. In World War II, USN and Royal Navy aircraft used knots but the RAF / RCAF etc. and USAAF used mph. Makes sense to use the same units as the ship you're landing on. One combination I've seen (in flight sims, but pretty sure it's accurate) is IJN aircraft with airspeed indicators in knots and everything else metric...

47 minutes ago, dan/california said:

We really shouldn't go down this rabbit hole should we.......?

Maybe not...

[chrisl]

30 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yes, Girkin's blinders can be seen in his analysis.  What he also doesn't grasp is that Russia's ability to militarily win a war in "Ukraine" (as he calls it) was never possible without full mobilization ahead of the invasion.  Due to the crap quality of the Russian military and the size of the task it would absolutely have to crush Ukraine by sheer weight of hundreds of thousands of armed Russians.  Which, of course, would likely have resulted in failure for other reasons. 

It's already too late to do a mobilization now because the war is lost.  that ship has sailed and metaphorically sits at the bottom of the Black Sea.  Not realizing this shows that as sour as Girkin's view on this war is it's not sour enough.

Steve

I saw a tweet a few days ago that claimed the UA now had more NATO caliber artillery shells than remaining Warsaw Pact caliber shells.  If the west hadn't stepped in and started pouring in equipment and ammunition it's plausible that RU was going to win at least a short term military victory around now just by running Ukraine out of ammunition, even at enormous human and materiel cost.  They'd still eventually lose because they'd be stuck with an insurgency that would never end, at much greater cost than their Afghanistan adventure, but they'd be in a position to at least temporarily claim conquest of Ukraine. The early success of the UA and the speed of western supply sort of flipped that on Russia - even with "full mobilization" at this point they'd be throwing progressively worse trained and equipped men into an effectively infinite supply of increasingly more effective weapons.

[Battlefront.com]

17 minutes ago, chrisl said:

I saw a tweet a few days ago that claimed the UA now had more NATO caliber artillery shells than remaining Warsaw Pact caliber shells.  If the west hadn't stepped in and started pouring in equipment and ammunition it's plausible that RU was going to win at least a short term military victory around now just by running Ukraine out of ammunition, even at enormous human and materiel cost.  They'd still eventually lose because they'd be stuck with an insurgency that would never end, at much greater cost than their Afghanistan adventure, but they'd be in a position to at least temporarily claim conquest of Ukraine. The early success of the UA and the speed of western supply sort of flipped that on Russia - even with "full mobilization" at this point they'd be throwing progressively worse trained and equipped men into an effectively infinite supply of increasingly more effective weapons.

Absolutely agree.  In my prewar thinking I pictured Ukraine's conventional military holding out for a month or so east of the Dnepr with only Kyiv and some adjacent territory remaining in their hands.  At which point the war would change over to an insurgency that would bleed Russia white over a longer period of time while Ukraine readied to launch a conventional counter attack on a grand scale.  As much as I knocked Russia and elevated Ukraine's respective forces prior to the war, I didn't knock Russia or elevate Ukraine enough.  Both countries have exceeded my expectations.

This caused Ukraine to get into a situation I hadn't contemplated.  Specifically being able to fight a hot conventional war for 3+ months with plenty of heavy assets still active.  The primary complication of this otherwise good thing is ammo stocks running out while things are still intense.  I had always thought NATO would come through with whatever Ukraine needed to stay in the fight, but I was thinking most of it would be seen in action later.  There's a lot of negatives that come with rushing new systems into Ukraine's frontline, however in this situation the positives outweigh them.

We must keep in mind that Russia is not immune to shortages either.  At some point Russia might start running out of some calibers of standard ammo.  Nobody knows when that might happen, but ammo isn't endless for anybody.  Plus, at some point Russia will run into problems with conventional artillery pieces being too worn to stay in the fight.  Russia has the capability to recondition them, definitely.  The problem for Russia is that such work can't be done if the systems are in the field popping off rounds.  Does Russia have enough spare systems, especially SPGs, sitting in Russia that can be rotated in while others are withdrawn for overhaul?  I don't think so.

Steve

[Huba]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

We must keep in mind that Russia is not immune to shortages either.  At some point Russia might start running out of some calibers of standard ammo.  Nobody knows when that might happen, but ammo isn't endless for anybody.  Plus, at some point Russia will run into problems with conventional artillery pieces being too worn to stay in the fight.  Russia has the capability to recondition them, definitely.  The problem for Russia is that such work can't be done if the systems are in the field popping off rounds.  Does Russia have enough spare systems, especially SPGs, sitting in Russia that can be rotated in while others are withdrawn for overhaul?  I don't think so.

Steve

I just read another lengthy rant by Girkin in which he concentrates specifically  on the failures of Russian artillery. Google translate  works good enough for it to be understandable, if a bit painful to read. So few takes from him:

- 122mm is already running out, at least in Central Millitary District

- 152mm is still plentiful, but many units, especially of LDPR are not trained on D-20s and other weapons of this caliber, and while hastily re-training, the weapons themselves taken out of storage are in horrible state

- from where he sits, UA has no problem with artillery ammunition, the mix of calibers is less of a problem than for Russians

- the doctrine regarding artillery/ infantry cooperation and CB fire is not adhered to due to lack of training. The parade-ground manoeuvres from before the war were rather counterproductive to actual preparedness (paving roads to firing positions, no shoot-and-scoot etc.)

- there's nowhere near enough UAVs, and their coordination with guns is not very good

Here's a link:

https://vk.com/@iistrelkov-andrei-morozov-murz-nikak-bl-nikak-chast-2-ili-batalony-pros

Edited June 8, 2022 by Huba

[LongLeftFlank]

7 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yes, Girkin's blinders can be seen in his analysis....  

Interesting that he likens the situation to 1905 rather than 1917, the former being more obscure for US based historians than the latter.  Not only does Girkin seem to understand this war quite well, he also is a lover of Russian military history.  He was, maybe still is, a military reinactor for those who didn't know.  Therefore, if he thinks the situation is looking like 1905 I'm inclined to defer to him.

His other observations about Putin likely waiting until it is too late does seem to be likely.

These are the truly dangerous ones. Like a certain Austrian corporal, and a Corsican  before him, he has an idée fixe of his civilisation or zeitgeist or Great Soul or wevs. 

And openings for such dangerous people tend to arise in a vacuum when the existing elites who would otherwise mock and marginalize these clown(s), or else put them down like mad dogs, is widely discredited or overthrown.  Which frankly, could be happening in Russia soon.

(There may be a few of those minds in this community too, but unlike Girkin, they largely confine their energies to gaming, LARPing and sh*tposting instead of trying to actualise it in RL).

...And while no reality will ever measure up to that mythical invincibility, Girkin is sure as hell gonna die chasing the dream. And he will try to take his compatriots along for the ride, assuming they're (a) insecure and resentful enough not to realise they have better options (b) the ancien régime is discredited, exiled or headless (1790s)....

And while on the face of it, he seems like a extraordinarily intelligent man, and likely is on many dimensions, when his basic intellectual wiring is so wrong, he makes an extremely dangerous kind of fanatic.

To quote @JasonC, again.....

Effective intelligence equals cleverness minus self-importance, and Hitler's was negative because the second term was infinity.

But at least half of the 35+ million European dead had to perish before that became evident.

****

Galeev, my other instapundit of choice, discusses the Tsushima parallels (btw, he also declared Russia would lose hugely from Day One). This post dates 2 March.

 

 

Edited June 8, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[hcrof]

Has anyone else noticed that while russian tank losses have decreased from about 10 a day to about 3 a day, their artillery losses have increased from 2-3 a day to about 9 a day? This has happened over the last 2 weeks or so from memory.

Im not sure what it means but it seems to be a good thing - fewer tank targets and more effective UA CB fire? Or maybe the pressure is off a bit and UA artillery has more time to hunt russian guns?