How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Elmar Bijlsma]

1 hour ago, chuckdyke said:

Only now can we say that the German army was capable in WW2. During the 50s and 60s we had 10 Pence War Comics. You wouldn't dare to contradict popular opinions.

In that era of 10 Pence War comics you also has German generals writing themselves glowing reviews in their memoirs and history books. If anything, peeling the paint off the mythical German über army and exposing its deep flaws is only gaining traction relatively recently.

Edited April 19, 2023 by Elmar Bijlsma

[Offshoot]

A long but more complete view of combat in Bakhmut involving border guards. It has a bit of everything: command center, a foot patrol, drone operators working with mortar crews, manpad air defence hunters, wounded retrieval and evacuation, discussion of the quality of the Russian soldiers now and their new tactics, personal accounts, and some stunning views of destroyed Bakhmut. The closed captions work well.

 

[Taranis]

7 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Minister of Defense Reznikov introduced AMX-10RC for service in Marine units.

 

Yes, I also noted that he precised Marine units.

Interesting !

Edited April 19, 2023 by Taranis

[chuckdyke]

48 minutes ago, Elmar Bijlsma said:

If anything, peeling the paint off the mythical German über army and exposing its deep flaws is only gaining traction relatively recently.

I am talking about 60 years ago, German army couldn't do anything competently. Then the pendulum swung the other way. Now it is a little more objective. Deep flaws were the logistics. 

[JonS]

2 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Deep flaws were the logistics. 

And strategy. And intelligence. And jointness. And unified command. And ...

The Eastern Front rather puts the lie to that old canard about history being written by the victors.

[Butschi]

9 hours ago, dan/california said:

China's government is utterly amoral and expansionistic.

I agree with amoral but where do you see expansionistic? Not defending China here, just expansionistic, in the traditional military sense isn't really what I would describe them as.

Edited April 19, 2023 by Butschi

[Maciej Zwolinski]

42 minutes ago, JonS said:

The Eastern Front rather puts the lie to that old canard about history being written by the victors.

Does it? Looking at the current performance of Russian army, don't you see there a lot of what German generals wrote about? Lack of concern for own troops, lack of concern for civilians, lack of training, unreliable officers, butcher generals, unimaginative tactics, shoddy logistics, drowning the enemy with massed infantry attacks, etc. etc.?

I think it would be a very unlikely coincidence if that description was false at the time when the Germans wrote it, yet unexpectedly became true in the 2020s when a lot of people expected proffessionals kitted out in Ratnik gear, toting AK-12s, supported by Armatas

[Maciej Zwolinski]

3 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

hen the pendulum swung the other way. Now it is a little more objective. Deep flaws were the logistics. 

No, today the pendulum swung much more to the other side.  Giving any opinion on Werhmacht other than it was useless will set crack and motivated teams of Wehraboo hunters on you.

[Lethaface]

1 hour ago, JonS said:

And strategy. And intelligence. And jointness. And unified command. And ...

The Eastern Front rather puts the lie to that old canard about history being written by the victors.

The post-versailles wehrmacht had a large, well trained, cadre of (nc) officers, many of them fulfilling a 'life long' professional duty in a tradition predating the Nazi regime (not that I think that's new for you ). That allowed them to enlarge the cadre into a relative large and competent armed force pre WW2.
So at the start of the war they were a rather formidable fighting force (compared to other forces at the time), although that also eroded over time for (among others) the reasons you mention. The same reasons dictate that a sustained war against the Allies was never going to end well.
Still at a mid - low level parts of the German armed forces remained a force to be reckoned with until the bitter end, while national/military strategy,  intelligence and command were passing around the crack pipe (fortunately).

Some of the never ending research and discussions are about a zero sum game whether the WW2 Germans sucked or not. I think one don't needs so much extra research to conclude that in some aspect they sucked while in other aspects their performance was above par. The rest of the details are food for military history academics, but often consumed/regurgitated by people having some pride/ego on the subject without the proper context.

[Lethaface]

10 hours ago, dan/california said:

Unfortunately it takes two parties to dial it back in a geopolitical situation like the current one.  China's government is utterly amoral and expansionistic. The way they have crushed Hong kong, and Xinjiang is simply beyond the pale. The west can have arms race with China, or lose a war with China. I rely don't see a third choice, and a AI graded six month course in Xi Jinping thought every two years just to stay out of a labor camp sound like a lousy proposition, at least to me.

 

And that really isn't a joke, the CCCP is just getting started with AI as an authoritarian tool.

 

So at the moment an arms race really seems like the least bad choice, unless China comes up with a whole new government system. Which seems about as likely as my old, fat, slow, and broken self winning this year's Tour de France.

 

Without trying to start a semantic discussion about what an arms race is, I have a different outlook. 'We' need to be able to posture a credible defense against a China imposing their will/narrative over Western interests. That mainly revolves around making sure they understand a blockade or even an invasion of Taiwan is a bad idea and harmful for China. 
Military build up to answer China's developments is surely a part of that. But most of it is (geo) political / diplomatical and economical.

But an arms race to have a bigger and better military compared to China on every imaginable front is stupid. China might even win such an arms race without fighting a war, as they have the means of production in place while we might ruin our economies trying to outproduce China (with a different type of economy system. And yes I know and have known about China's policies both national/international and I'm not a fan). 

We need to have better / good enough tools to give China a bloody nose if they decide to try their luck. And enough of it / scaleable means of production, so China can't just calculate the losses as acceptable before we run out of pointy sticks.

If US wants to start a war with China just to see who has the largest ......, I think that US will have to go for that one solo or without NATO at least. I would wholeheartedly opt-out on behalf of NATO if I could.

And on Russia, more relevant for this thread, we need to have the capability to posture a credible threat against any Russian invasion of European (NATO) countries.Over the past few decades we f'ed up and lost that capability. It needs to be rebuilt, but with the lessons of the current war in mind and aimed at the next (defensive) war.
But that doesn't mean we now need a big and military able to conquer a country like Ukraine or Russia against a foe being a clone of the current Ukraine and it's capabilities.

Such differences matter because they influence the required capabilities and consequently the (conceptual) requirements coming from those. 

Edited April 19, 2023 by Lethaface

[Kinophile]

Short but Excellent article from. John Spencer on that most basic of the logistics trains -  food supply in the ZSU. I hope he follows up with more. 

https://mwi.usma.edu/an-army-fights-as-well-as-its-fed-lessons-from-the-chef-helping-to-feed-the-ukrainian-military/

Edited April 19, 2023 by Kinophile

[Elmar Bijlsma]

And in the Holy Fudge category of combat footage, we have a new king:

POV guy shows great personal courage, head is on a swivel. Top notch NCO-ing going on.

Edited April 19, 2023 by Elmar Bijlsma

[Haiduk]

Some intimate )))) Adult content ! )))

 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Does it? Looking at the current performance of Russian army, don't you see there a lot of what German generals wrote about? Lack of concern for own troops, lack of concern for civilians, lack of training, unreliable officers, butcher generals, unimaginative tactics, shoddy logistics, drowning the enemy with massed infantry attacks, etc. etc.?

I think it would be a very unlikely coincidence if that description was false at the time when the Germans wrote it, yet unexpectedly became true in the 2020s when a lot of people expected proffessionals kitted out in Ratnik gear, toting AK-12s, supported by Armatas

Truth in what is written is a separate issue.  What Jon stated is that generally the victor gets to set the historical record going forward for the generations that come after.  In this case, the defeated (Germans) did that.  There are many complicated reasons for the German accounts being taken more-or-less at face value, but the biggest of them all is that the West didn't trust anything that the Soviets had to say.  And they were correct to do that because the Russians have a history of lying and distorting to such an extent that you can't tell what is real.  This continues right through this war.

The mistake the West made was no scrutinizing the German accounts more thoroughly until the last 20-40 years.  Indeed, much of the German source documentation is accurate and a more honest reexamination of it has been quite helpful in better understanding the war.  Similarly, the Russians briefly allowed access to their source material and that was extremely useful when scholars, who understand Russian culture and language thoroughly, were able to make great improvements in understanding what happened on the Eastern Front.  Which is why Putin put the kibosh on that... the carefully crafted Soviet story of the Great Patriotic War took too many hits.

As an aside, I had a rare 1st Edition of the Soviet printed English version of The Great Patriotic War.  It is an extremely detailed military account of the war.  I'm sure that most of the details of times, places, and who fought was mostly accurate.  However, it wasn't hard to get the impression that it wasn't trustworthy in its accounts of the fighting due to all of the propaganda language throughout.

Steve

[Haiduk]

47th mech.brigade with Slovenian M-55S and Bradley

[Haiduk]

More and more videos how militaries of different countries honorably see off UKR soldiers after their training course... Now Norwegian instructors on Polish training ground

One man, mobilzed and trained in UK (he is still in UK) told they have very hard and extreme course. Interesting how match NATO trainings to Ukrainian war realities... 

 

[Splinty]

25 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

47th mech.brigade with Slovenian M-55S and Bradley

That's 2 Brads in the picture. It was taken from the back of one.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Good summary of tactical developments, although nothing that hasn't been mentioned here before in some way.

 

[zinz]

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-koreas-yoon-opens-door-possible-military-aid-ukraine-2023-04-19/

This seems like an interesting development. Would be amazing for Ukraine if south korea provides military help.

Welcome everyone long time lurker.

 

On another note the following extension might be of interest to some @steve

https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-chrome-clean

[masc]

1 hour ago, Elmar Bijlsma said:

And in the Holy Fudge category of combat footage, we have a new king:

POV guy shows great personal courage, head is on a swivel. Top notch NCO-ing going on.

Amazing footage, some of the best we've ever seen I think.  The squad leader rolling out of the bunker to the left there shows how important taking the initiative/violence of action is.  He neutralized that Russian squad's attack with about a magazine from his M4.

[billbindc]

4 hours ago, JonS said:

And strategy. And intelligence. And jointness. And unified command. And ...

The Eastern Front rather puts the lie to that old canard about history being written by the victors.

As did the American Civil War until I was literally 40 years old.

[dan/california]

4 hours ago, Butschi said:

I agree with amoral but where do you see expansionistic? Not defending China here, just expansionistic, in the traditional military sense isn't really what I would describe them as.

There is a very good reason Australia just committed a large chunk of GDP to a nuclear submarine program, and it isn't New Guinea.

[panzermartin]

4 hours ago, Butschi said:

I agree with amoral but where do you see expansionistic? Not defending China here, just expansionistic, in the traditional military sense isn't really what I would describe them as.

Wait, didn't t you know that China has over 750 military bases all across the globe and is enforcing chinese language, chinese currency, chinese culture and chinese weapons everywhere?

But it's too difficult to write in chinese so we all continue in english here. 

[dan/california]

2 hours ago, Lethaface said:

Without trying to start a semantic discussion about what an arms race is, I have a different outlook. 'We' need to be able to posture a credible defense against a China imposing their will/narrative over Western interests. That mainly revolves around making sure they understand a blockade or even an invasion of Taiwan is a bad idea and harmful for China. 
Military build up to answer China's developments is surely a part of that. But most of it is (geo) political / diplomatical and economical.

But an arms race to have a bigger and better military compared to China on every imaginable front is stupid. China might even win such an arms race without fighting a war, as they have the means of production in place while we might ruin our economies trying to outproduce China (with a different type of economy system. And yes I know and have known about China's policies both national/international and I'm not a fan). 

We need to have better / good enough tools to give China a bloody nose if they decide to try their luck. And enough of it / scaleable means of production, so China can't just calculate the losses as acceptable before we run out of pointy sticks.

If US wants to start a war with China just to see who has the largest ......, I think that US will have to go for that one solo or without NATO at least. I would wholeheartedly opt-out on behalf of NATO if I could.

And on Russia, more relevant for this thread, we need to have the capability to posture a credible threat against any Russian invasion of European (NATO) countries.Over the past few decades we f'ed up and lost that capability. It needs to be rebuilt, but with the lessons of the current war in mind and aimed at the next (defensive) war.
But that doesn't mean we now need a big and military able to conquer a country like Ukraine or Russia against a foe being a clone of the current Ukraine and it's capabilities.

Such differences matter because they influence the required capabilities and consequently the (conceptual) requirements coming from those. 

You are making the same assumptions about Xi's rationality that everyone made about Putin's. That assumption is at least somewhat debatable. Xi might decide he could care less about the economic damage, and that he is determined to go down in the books as the guy who took Taiwan back. Apparently it is a disorder that aging absolute dictators get. The only real guarantee he won't do that is the U.S. having the ability to sink the Chinese navy in a weekend and maintain at least air denial over Taiwan. 

[Holien]

28 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

Wait, didn't t you know that China has over 750 military bases all across the globe and is enforcing chinese language, chinese currency, chinese culture and chinese weapons everywhere?

But it's too difficult to write in chinese so we all continue in english here. 

And Secret Police stations in foreign nations. One just closed in NYC.