How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Butschi]

12 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

My perspective as a historian (of sorts) is that society's general attitude towards life dictates its approach to war.  The more lawless and brutal the society, the more barbaric the behavior on the battlefield.  Exhibit A right now is, of course, Russia.

What is already in the mind of the soldier makes matters worse.  If the soldier is violent and disrespectful of others in civilian life, then he's primed to do horrible things in war.  Exhibit B is Wagner.

It is important for people to understand that Einsatzgruppen were not random samplings of Reich society (remember the members were not just Germans).  Instead the men manning these murder units were, by and large, the mental misfits that served no positive role in society even under the best conditions.  They were given uniforms, weapons, and instructions to be who they really were.  I have the same sense about Arkan's Tigers, which drew from pre-war violent criminal elements.

This is why political and/or religious extremist movements are so dangerous.  Even before a conflict they have already discarded most of the things which keep people from being violent towards each other.  They also disproportionally draw from the same pools of recruits as Einsatzgruppen, Ustaše, Arkan's Tigers, Wagner, etc.  Unfortunately, this is timeless.

Steve

Yes, society's general attitude is one point, for sure. Related but not exactly the same is consequences. German soldiers in WW2 discovered very early on that there would be no consequences, no prosecution of war crimes. Indoctrination aside, I don't think British soldiers, for instance, were that much better human beings than German soldiers but war crimes were strictly prosecuted and (probably because of that) happened much less often.

Luckily I can't speak from any personal experience but I think there is also a difference between killing in the heat of battle or shortly thereafter (like executing enemy soldiers who try to surrender) and deliberately killing in cold blood.

There is this famous speech by Himmler where he talks about the psychological strain that apparently existed even for the Einsatzgruppen. (On the other hand, it is a myth that the Wehrmacht itself had no part in these mass executions). And there was this order to immediately shoot any Red Army political commissars that get captured. This was flat out refused by many commanding officers and soldiers, Bolshevik Untermensch or not.

[JonS]

On 4/21/2023 at 4:49 AM, sross112 said:

(in December of 44 the Big Red 0ne was a different animal than a division fresh off the boat).

That’s true in a number of different ways, and I think it’s useful to think about those different ways, rather than just considering one explanation.

First off, and probably most superficial here, the equipment (especially) and organisation (to a degree) of US infantry divisions changed a lot over the course of those two years,* with increasing amounts of heavier and/or faster firing weapons the general direction of travel. In addition, by late 1944 divisions were routinely being augmented with semi-permanent attachments of units and sub-units of specialists – artillery, armor, anti-tank, AAA, engineers, heavy mortars, recce, logistics, etc – all of which significantly boosted the capabilities and resilience of the basic division.

For example, in December 1944, 1^st US Infantry Division had the following attachments:

639th AAA AW Bn (Mbl)	18-31 Dec 44
745th Tk Bn	6 Jun 44-8 May 45
Cos A&B, 87th Cml Bn (4.2-in Mtr)	1 Oct-17 Dec 44
20th Engr C Bn	12 Jun 44-
957th FA Bn (155 How)	1 Aug-17 Dec 44
Btry A, 987th FA Bn (155 Gun)	1-17 Dec 44
60th FA Bn (9th Div) (105 How)	6-8 Dec 44
2d Bn, 36th Armd Inf (3d Armd Div)	4-7 Dec 44
634th TD Bn (SP) (- Co C)	1 Aug 44-6 May 45
703d TD Bn (SP)	18-31 Dec 44
3d Plat, Co C, 801st TD Bn (SP)	18-31 Dec 44

Source: https://history.army.mil/documents/ETO-OB/1ID-eto-ob.htm

That’s a significant increment of combat power, and the 1^st wasn’t particularly favoured in that regard – those kinds of attachments were entirely normal in late 1944. They weren't so normal, though, in late 1942.

Secondly, it was a new division in that manpower turnover in combat units was pretty horrific. Over the course of the campaign in NWE the 1^st lost just over 200% of its total nominal manpower, and those losses would naturally have been highly concentrated in the 27 rifle companies, which probably experienced turnover up around 4-500% given they collectively represent only a third of the Division’s total manpower. And those losses occurred over less than 300 days on the frontline. And before that there was the losses in North Africa and Sicily. Being a rifleman was not a role where longterm planning made a lot of sense. So yes, it was literally a different division. All the original guys were dead or wounded.

Finally, the division was made up of much more than just those 27 rifle companies, and learning how to ‘do’ combined arms with all the other units was another really notable difference between the division of 1942 and the one at the end of 1944. Turnover in the rifle companies was horrific, but that dropped off pretty steeply as you moved back from the frontlines and away from the ‘rifleman’ MOS. So, headquarters staffs at battalion and regiment and division, artillery, armor, engineer, air power – the blokes in those units all survived a lot longer and their corporate knowledge and skills improved on a pretty steep curve. Which, coincidentally, is exactly where combined arms happens – feeding the rifle companies into battle effectively supported by the other arms means those riflemen look a lot better at doing their jobs than their brethren from two years ago, even if the riflemen aren’t actually that flash at their particular role. They still need to close with the enemy, kill or capture him, and take and hold terrain regardless of season weather or terrain, but all that is MUCH more achievable when you have a lot of burly and really competent friends close at hand.

There is an anecdote from, IIRC, a US company commander writing about the second half of 1944  - after Normandy, and before the Bulge. I forget a lot of the details, but basically he said that he and his men could’ve been armed with pitchforks for all the use their rifles were. His primary and most useful role was to act as local protection for ‘his’ forward observer, escorting him forward from place to place and protecting him there while he blasted the Germans out of the next position to be taken, then rinse-repeat.

Taken together, all this means that Marshall wasn’t necessarily wrong, in an absolute sense, about 1:10 or whatever his ratio was**, but probably was about the reasons why. The vast majority of soldiers weren’t required to shoot directly at the enemy, because that just wasn’t their role. Of the ones who were - the guys in those 27 companies - most of the time they weren’t really required to either. Statistically the heavy fighting would be ‘somewhere else’, where the heavy lifting was often being done by someone else, usually their armored or artillery buddies. When the armor and artillery failed – due to circumstances or incompetence – then the infantry were in for a really bad day, and they might have to actually rely on their own Garands because everything else has failed. Examples of those bad days include Omaha and the Hürtgen.

None of this detracts from the efforts of individual riflemen and their individual experiences. But, taken in the round, those experiences were abnormal and that was by design because the Western Allies successfully implemented the kind of war they wanted to fight, one which did not depend overly much on the routine efforts of Rifleman #7, 2 Squad, 3 Platoon. That was very different to what was expected in November 1942 - it was a different division.

 

 

* And that’s just flat out amazing, right?! Only two years from the landings at Oran to the north shoulder of the Battle of the Bulge. The Western Allies really had their stuff in one sock when it came to military effectiveness in WWII. There is no other military that came even close.

** Interestingly, LtCol Wigram came to broadly the same conclusions as Marshall, based on his personal observations and experience commanding an infantry battalion in 1943/44 in Sicily and Italy. Coincidence?

 

Edited April 21, 2023 by JonS

[Huba]

A really excellent  article about EU and NATO as "postimperial empires". It concentrates on how the war in Ukraine transforms Europe, but also explores the similarities and differences between these super-national entities and the empires of old.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/europe-war-russia-postimperial-empire

 

[Haiduk]

Moment of bomb explosion in Belgorod. At 0:10 the bomb hit parking pocket near the road and penetrates relatively deep to the ground. At 0:29 it blows up and throws a car on the roof of supermarket. 

Citizens were really lucky that bomb exploded in the depth - only two people were injured, nearby buildings got some damage, several cars were destroyed or damaged

 

[Peregrine]

Can't explain why it exploded like that but it does now make a bit more sense. I think in Western aircraft you have to arm two different things to make the ordnance live so I couldn't quite understand how it being released over friendly territory could make such a big mess.

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, Peregrine said:

Can't explain why it exploded like that but it does now make a bit more sense. I think in Western aircraft you have to arm two different things to make the ordnance live so I couldn't quite understand how it being released over friendly territory could make such a big mess.

My guess: It was a bunker buster. Designed to penetrate, wait for a bit to let debris settle in the impact hole to better pack in the bomb, and then explode to cause shock waves through the ground.

Edited April 21, 2023 by Bulletpoint

[Peregrine]

When it comes to Russian competence with things that go boom I guess there is no bottom. A bunker buster does seem a reasonable guess but why is it armed over friendly territory?

 Bizarre.

 

[DesertFox]

57 minutes ago, Peregrine said:

Can't explain why it exploded like that but it does now make a bit more sense. I think in Western aircraft you have to arm two different things to make the ordnance live so I couldn't quite understand how it being released over friendly territory could make such a big mess.

15second delay fuze for maximum effect after penetration into a build-up structure. Imagine what would have happened if this one hit a house.

[Kinophile]

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/04/19/7398492/

150km. Thats frontline coverage range. 

Middle,  maybe end of May is my guess for the offensive(s)  to begin. Not big,  but a series of hard local pushes. 

Unlike the Ivan, ZSU seem less operationally opportunistic, so far. It's wise,  as you can waste a lot of force on Tactically promising moments that peter out, quickly evaporating your pool of power. 

UKR chiefs seem very deliberate in that they define a simple,  clear objective with simple clear approach and stay focussed on that process. 

How much a high command values the lives of their men has a real impact on planning and reaction decisions. 

[Battlefront.com]

6 hours ago, hcrof said:

It kind of blows my mind that Russia can drop a bomb on its own city and simply shrug it's shoulders as if it was no big deal...

In any other country heads would roll, it might even take down the government but in Russia, barely a whisper.

Blows my mind too, however in any other civilized country there would be big problems for a government that had so many smoking accidents.  And that is just the tip of the iceberg of what Western people would not put up with The Russian standard sense of normality, generally, is very different than what we experience in the West.

Steve

[Yet]

On 4/20/2023 at 10:08 AM, Seedorf81 said:

"The Netherlands and Danmark are buying 14 Leopardtanks for the Ukraine."

165 million Euro's, but tanks will be delivered in 2024.

that's the Leopard 2A4

[womble]

10 hours ago, sross112 said:

The Russians use rail for the majority of their supply, so I'd say drop the rail right away and leave the road open for exodus. Also, leaving the road open so they can use wheeled supply will put a lot of friction into their already strained logistics. It would look better in the end as Ukraine would be seen as humanely leaving open a corridor for civilian supply and movement.

Are there any systems that can reliably break the rather sturdier rail link without "house-of-cards"-ing the eminently tippable road bridge deck sections? In the last instance, there was the assistance of a burning oil tanker train, too... I guess you could stop one of those with loitering munitions to the cab/locomotive set, and then set it alight however you like...

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, Butschi said:

Yes, society's general attitude is one point, for sure. Related but not exactly the same is consequences. German soldiers in WW2 discovered very early on that there would be no consequences, no prosecution of war crimes. Indoctrination aside, I don't think British soldiers, for instance, were that much better human beings than German soldiers but war crimes were strictly prosecuted and (probably because of that) happened much less often.

Warcrimes were routinely committed by Western Allied service members, but generally there was a line and if the line was crossed there were consequences.  Unfortunately, often the consequences were administrative (rank reduction, posting to a crap job, etc.) instead of legal.

5 hours ago, Butschi said:

Luckily I can't speak from any personal experience but I think there is also a difference between killing in the heat of battle or shortly thereafter (like executing enemy soldiers who try to surrender) and deliberately killing in cold blood.

In WW2 killing in the heat of battle was common on all sides.  More recent movies made in the US highlight the fact that the US was no exception.  Rape, stealing, and other criminal activity as well.  But cold blooded examples of cold blooded killings by Western Allied forces was likely quite low as was deliberate primary cause crimes on civilians.

An example of cold blooded killings happened in Italy where a f'up US soldier was tasked with marching German POWs down a mountain to a collection point.  They gave him this assignment because apparently nobody wanted him with them at the front.  The came to find out that he walked the POWs down around the corner, shot them as they stood at the edge of the ravine so their bodies tumbled out of sight, sat down and had a smoke instead of going all the way to the bottom and back.  When questioned about this he said it was just too much bother.  Sociopaths and psychopaths get drafted just like everybody else.  I don't recall if the vet who recounted the story said what happened to the bastard or not.

5 hours ago, Butschi said:

There is this famous speech by Himmler where he talks about the psychological strain that apparently existed even for the Einsatzgruppen. (On the other hand, it is a myth that the Wehrmacht itself had no part in these mass executions). And there was this order to immediately shoot any Red Army political commissars that get captured. This was flat out refused by many commanding officers and soldiers, Bolshevik Untermensch or not.

There was an excellent book written some years ago entitled "Ordinary Soldiers" that detailed a police unit that was pressed into service murdering Jews in the Baltics.  These guys did not adjust well to their situation, but they mostly did as ordered.  The book was an examination of how very deliberate psychological control over the unit was developed in the previous 10 years of experience getting "ordinary" people to do horrible things.  It's not a fun read because you can very easily see how people you know and love could have been there pulling the trigger.

Another one was the famous long series of interviews with a death camp Kommandant, "Into That Darkness".  Shows better how the system of psychological warfare was developed and waged.  The Kommandant would probably have been an unremarkable and "normal" individual if the Nazi regime had not existed.

Anyway, this is one reason I do continue to have a streak of sympathy for the Russian people.  They have been culturally brainwashed into being the way they are.  As with any form of brainwashing, some are better equipped and/or lucky enough to get out or at least avoid the worst of it.

Steve

[kimbosbread]

56 minutes ago, womble said:

Are there any systems that can reliably break the rather sturdier rail link without "house-of-cards"-ing the eminently tippable road bridge deck sections? In the last instance, there was the assistance of a burning oil tanker train, too... I guess you could stop one of those with loitering munitions to the cab/locomotive set, and then set it alight however you like...

There is nothing I know that exists currently that does this out of the box. To degrade the system without the pain of destroying the rail:

• If you knew where all the signals and control boxes were (gps) that are difficult to replace, and had suitably long range small drones with 1kg HE, you could cause significant degradation to the rail network, but that's because you are knocking out difficult to replace stuff all over.
• Alternatively, hit the rail yards and destroy enough locomotives, again with your long range drones/cruise missiles/saboteurs.

Let's say we want to take out a 100km line of rail. That's a ton of steel, wood, dirt and gravel to move, and it's easy and fast to fix.I can imagine two possibilities to "move":

• [Mechanical] A track unlayer, which rides the rails and somehow tears up the track behind it (explosive, or just mechanical)
• [Explosive] Drones that drop charges at periodic intervals along the track (say every 5-10m), for several km. Agricultural drones already can drop/plant seeds in complex patterns; in this case it's a matter of can you carry enough charges that each can cause serious damage to a section of track. Imagine an airborne UR-77, if you will.

I don't know enough about trains to know if there's some other target; I guess if you had time you could wait for them to run out of spare parts.

Edited April 21, 2023 by kimbosbread

[DesertFox]

I would be really surprised if that pattern was only applied to Germany.

 

 

[dan/california]

7 hours ago, JonS said:

That’s true in a number of different ways, and I think it’s useful to think about those different ways, rather than just considering one explanation.

First off, and probably most superficial here, the equipment (especially) and organisation (to a degree) of US infantry divisions changed a lot over the course of those two years,* with increasing amounts of heavier and/or faster firing weapons the general direction of travel. In addition, by late 1944 divisions were routinely being significantly augmented with semi-permanent attachments of units and sub-units of specialists – artillery, armor, anti-tank, AAA, engineers, heavy mortars, recce, logistics, etc – all of which significantly boosted the capabilities and resilience of the basic division.

For example, in December 1944, 1^st US Infantry Division had the following attachments:

639th AAA AW Bn (Mbl)	18-31 Dec 44
745th Tk Bn	6 Jun 44-8 May 45
Cos A&B, 87th Cml Bn (4.2-in Mtr)	1 Oct-17 Dec 44
20th Engr C Bn	12 Jun 44-
957th FA Bn (155 How)	1 Aug-17 Dec 44
Btry A, 987th FA Bn (155 Gun)	1-17 Dec 44
60th FA Bn (9th Div) (105 How)	6-8 Dec 44
2d Bn, 36th Armd Inf (3d Armd Div)	4-7 Dec 44
634th TD Bn (SP) (- Co C)	1 Aug 44-6 May 45
703d TD Bn (SP)	18-31 Dec 44
3d Plat, Co C, 801st TD Bn (SP)	18-31 Dec 44

Source: https://history.army.mil/documents/ETO-OB/1ID-eto-ob.htm

That’s a significant increment of combat power, and the 1^st wasn’t particularly favoured in that regard – those kinds of attachments were entirely normal in late 1944. They weren't so normal, though, in late 1942.

Secondly, it was a new division in that manpower turnover in combat units was pretty horrific. Over the course of the campaign in NWE the 1^st lost just over 200% of its total nominal manpower, and those losses would naturally have been highly concentrated in the 27 rifle companies, which probably experienced turnover up around 4-500% given they collectively represent only a third of the Division’s total manpower. And those losses occurred over less than 300 days on the frontline. And before that there was the losses in North Africa and Sicily. Being a rifleman was not a role where longterm planning made a lot of sense. So yes, it was literally a different division. All the original guys were dead or wounded.

Finally, the division was made up of much more than just those 27 rifle companies, and learning how to ‘do’ combined arms with all the other units was another really notable difference between the division of 1942 and the one at the end of 1944. Turnover in the rifle companies was horrific, but that dropped off pretty steeply as you moved back from the frontlines and away from the ‘rifleman’ MOS. So, headquarters staffs and battalion and regiment and division, artillery, armor, engineer, air power – the blokes in those units all survived a lot longer and their corporate knowledge and skills improved on a pretty steep curve. Which, coincidentally, is exactly where combined arms happens – feeding the rifle companies into battle effectively supported by the other arms means those riflemen look a lot better at doing their jobs than their brethren from two years ago, even if the riflemen aren’t actually that flash at their particular role. They still need to close with the enemy, kill or capture him, and take and hold terrain regardless of season weather or terrain, but all that is MUCH more achievable when you have a lot of burly and really competent friends close at hand.

There is an anecdote from, IIRC, a US company commander writing about the second half of 1944  - after Normandy, and before the Bulge. I forget a lot of the details, but basically he said that he and his men could’ve been armed with pitchforks for all the use their rifles were. His primary and most useful role was to act as local protection for ‘his’ forward observer, escorting him forward from place to place and protecting him there while he blasted the Germans out of the next position to be taken, then rinse-repeat.

Taken together, all this means that Marshall wasn’t necessarily wrong, in an absolute sense, about 1:10 or whatever his ratio was**, but probably was about the reasons why. The vast majority of soldiers weren’t required to shoot directly at the enemy, because that just wasn’t their role. Of the ones who were, the guys in those 27 companies, most of the time they weren’t really required to either – the heavy fighting would statistically be ‘somewhere else’, and the heavy lifting was often being done by someone else, especially their armored or artillery buddies. When the armor and artillery failed – due to circumstances or incompetence – then the infantry were in for a really bad day, and they might have to actually rely on their own Garands because everything else has failed.

None of this detracts from the efforts of individual riflemen and their individual experiences. But, taken in the round, those experiences were abnormal and that was by design due to successful implementation of the kind of war the Western Allies wanted to fight, which did not depend overly much on the routine efforts of Rifleman #7, 2 Section, 3 Platoon. That was very different to what was expected of them in November 1942 - it was a different division.

 

 

* And that’s just flat out amazing, right?! Only two years from the landings at Oran to the north shoulder of the Battle of the Bulge. The Western Allies really had their stuff in one sock when it came to military effectiveness in WWII. There is no other military that came even close.

** Interestingly, LtCol Wigram came to broadly the same conclusions as Marshall, based on his personal observations and experience commanding an infantry battalion in 1943/44 in Sicily and Italy. Coincidence?

 

Absolutely outstanding post. How much do you think Ukraine's ability to hammer command posts all the way to battalion level and higher has interfered with the staff level learning process you describe? Or was the Russian system just hopeless from the beginning?

Edited April 21, 2023 by dan/california

[sross112]

1 hour ago, womble said:

Are there any systems that can reliably break the rather sturdier rail link without "house-of-cards"-ing the eminently tippable road bridge deck sections? In the last instance, there was the assistance of a burning oil tanker train, too... I guess you could stop one of those with loitering munitions to the cab/locomotive set, and then set it alight however you like...

That is a very legitimate concern if we want to leave the road bridge intact. Maybe it wouldn't be necessary to actually drop a section. Just damaging it enough to make it unusable so it has to be replaced before a train can travel over it. Especially if you could do it to multiple sections. 

48 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

There is nothing I know that exists currently that does this out of the box. To degrade the system without the pain of destroying the rail:

• If you knew where all the signals and control boxes were (gps) that are difficult to replace, and had suitably long range small drones with 1kg HE, you could cause significant degradation to the rail network, but that's because you are knocking out difficult to replace stuff all over.
• Alternatively, hit the rail yards and destroy enough locomotives, again with your long range drones/cruise missiles/saboteurs.

I'm not a train expert, but maybe the loading/unloading facilities would be easier to target/destroy? I'm sure some ingenuity would still get the job done, but it would inject a huge amount of friction and slow the process immensely. Along with your suggestions of hitting some of the technical parts to create as much chaos with the system as possible.

These things would probably be more resource intensive as they would most likely be faster and easier to repair than replacing a span, but may be more damaging overall to the whole rail system. If the technical parts are hard to source Russia has been known to strip other parts of systems for replacements. If this was done to the rail system over a period of a couple months it could cause serious issues in other parts of the country that they get the parts from. Again, adding to the overall friction or even cascading failures if kept up long enough. 

[womble]

59 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

There is nothing I know that exists currently that does this out of the box. To degrade the system without the pain of destroying the rail:

[snip]

Interesting points, but I think you might've missed the context, namely "dropping the Kerch Bridge rail without destroying the road deck".

All the "other rail interdiction" targets can be nailed whether the bridge is in range or not, if you want to just degrade rail comms. A large chunk of the terminal effects of "dropping the Kerch bridge" are symbolic as much as anything, and if they have to repair that rail link again, under fire from UKR rocket artillery... Assuming that symbolic is any use at all, that is.

Mostly, though, Crimea's problem in a siege is water, and I don't imagine they can tanker in enough water (along with all the other feedstock of the war machine and fodder for the civilian population), even if the Kerch rail link remains up. Once the UKR have sealed off the peninsula's land approaches, that's the beginning of the end for the Crimea garrison.

[dan/california]

11 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

More interesting videos:

1.  Russia provides Ukraine with more relief, this time in the form of crashing an S-400 launch vehicle while on road march in Russia:

 

2.  Ukrainians preparing a boobytrap in a Bakhmut (censored Igor Girkin tweat):

https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1649084577560817664

 

First in a new series of K2 videos from a different sector than the infamous T Intersection videos we all watched.  This one is of Russian reinforcements trying to get to their own trenches.  By K2's count, 10 Russians got KIA or very seriously WIA:

Steve

I have been saying for literally fifteen years, since CMSF came out, that a real indirect fire FCS on a 40mm grenade launcher is the greatest untapped improvement out there. At this point there is no technical reason you couldn't literally have the drone operator looking at a cursor showing where the grenades are going to go, and his own fire button. It would have wrapped up this little engagement with a fifth of the time and a fifth the ammunition. Yes there would be system integration hassles, yes there would need to be some safety checks by the crew manning the gun, but still....

[Beleg85]

Short thred about one of crucial Ukrianian positions- reason why muscovites are pushing through the town rather than around it.

[Kinophile]

Gives you a good sense of just how far the 83P can throw its line.

Edited April 21, 2023 by Kinophile

[womble]

27 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Gives you a good sense of just how far the 83P can throw its line.

What's that? About a kilometer? How long is the explosive cable? Am I missing something, cos it doesn't look very long?

That trailing cable is going to play hob with the accuracy of the thing at that range. I can see the usefulness of being able to clear a bit of minefield without actually having to sit at the edge of it, but not so much if you can't be 100% sure where the breach is going to end up...

[Haiduk]

5 minutes ago, womble said:

What's that? About a kilometer? How long is the explosive cable? Am I missing something, cos it doesn't look very long?

That trailing cable is going to play hob with the accuracy of the thing at that range. I can see the usefulness of being able to clear a bit of minefield without actually having to sit at the edge of it, but not so much if you can't be 100% sure where the breach is going to end up...

Range of throwing 100-400 m. Length of HE charge - 120 m

Edited April 21, 2023 by Haiduk

[womble]

5 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Range of throwing 100-400 m. Length of HE charge - 120 m

Thanks Haiduk.

 

[Seminole]

9 hours ago, Astrophel said:

Since 2014 the Moscow government has been energetically reprofiling Crimea, importing "russians" of various ethnicities but loyal to Moscow, and driving out disloyal groups like Tatars and Ukrainians.

That's why I linked to the census info in the Wikipedia article.  It shows various census going over a century.  Stalin's deportation of the Tartars is evident, but the place has never registered above 26.5% Ukrainian (self-identified).  The census conducted in 2001 by Ukraine pegged the demographics at 60% Russian, 24% Ukrainian.

 

9 hours ago, Astrophel said:

 I hope the pro-moscow progagandists don't have the gall to demand another referendum.

I doubt Thomas Jefferson would be considered a 'pro-Moscow propagandist', but the assertions in the American Declaration of Independence raise an important question regarding who rightly decides the question.

What would be more galling to Western democracies:  A plebiscite to determine the will of the people of Crimea, or a war to compel them to live under a government they may not assent to?

Imposing a government against the will of people seems antithetical to democratic tenets.

 

9 hours ago, Astrophel said:

"Russia" should withdraw to the internationally recognised borders and this means Crimea is returned to Ukraine.  It really is this simple.

Even if the people living there don't want that?  Why is ignoring them so simple, and why is their input so unvalued?

If Crimea launched an insurgency against the Ukrainian government, would NATO support their separation as in Kosovo, or would NATO help crush the rebellion?  It seems less simple than some would have it.