How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Huba]

26 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Not ure what to expect, really, but my gut feeling says those numbers are quite low for a country the size of Russia.

Just to clarify, it is monthly production, not annual. My bad for not adding that, it was stated in the tweet, but it wouldn't embed for some reason.

[Eddy]

Rusi - Russian Tactics in the Second Year of the Invasion of Ukraine

Hot off the press. That's my afternoon sorted.

[The_Capt]

27 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Not ure what to expect, really, but my gut feeling says those numbers are quite low for a country the size of Russia.

And what is the quality of those new systems?  Given shortages in tech supply within Russia these systems will likely have issues with guidance systems and flight controls.  They will be then plugged into a 3rd rate ISR architecture that is being eroded as well.  Which is plugged into a Command and Control system that was a mess to start with.

This is what it looks like when organized crime tries to fight a conventional war.  

We have been watching the one-way erosion of the RA for over a year now.  The symptoms of systemic failure are written on the walls, underlined and bolded.  I am getting a growing sense that the upcoming collapse may be spectacular.

All war is communication, and Russia has been sending out signals of failure since this thing began.  All war is violent, but it has to be effective violence.  Simply doing disconnected or ineffective violence only reinforces an opponents resolve because they get angry, not despondent. You never create a curve they feel they are falling behind.  Russia has been a testament to ineffective violence in this war - it has not been focused or connected, a flailing windmill of murder and rage that looks scary for the first few seconds and then everyone realizes it is in fact a seizure.

Russia has already lost this war, they likely already know it.  We have already won it, but some refuse to see it.  All that remains is how do we end it?

[Snols]

Hello there

How to get rid of PFM-1 antipersonel mine? Whack it with long stick or plank. 

 

 

[Bulletpoint]

57 minutes ago, Huba said:

Just to clarify, it is monthly production, not annual. My bad for not adding that, it was stated in the tweet, but it wouldn't embed for some reason.

Even so, it's still a low number, I think.

Compared with German wartime tank production, in 1944, as German factories were being flattened by bombing, they still managed to put out nearly 1000 Tiger tanks, and that's in addition to all the other stuff they had to produce - airplanes, ammunition, trucks, etc.

Of course modern missiles are more technologically advanced than WW2 tanks, but then again, modern production capabilites are also much more advanced. And Russia is safe from bombing.

Comparing with aircraft production, the Germans built 2351 planes of all types during 1944. That's 196 planes a month on average.

Or maybe a better comparison is with the V-1 flying bomb which was cutting edge tech back then. According to Wikipedia, the Germans managed to build a total of 30,000 of those from 1943 onwards.

I understand of course that we can't directly compare Nazi Germany to modern Russia, but I still think it puts their missile production into perspective.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Bulletpoint

[Beleg85]

On media front, Russian media workers are battling hard too. The news from Simonyan is silly one, but Patrushev warning about a radiation cloud coming to Europe cause of Russia hitting some depleted uranium store give you glimps of how highest Kremlin elites are thinking. Chernobyl a rebours + imagined greatness = cure for evident imperial complexes.

 

[kevinkin]

Just a brief summary of were it all stands:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/ukraine-war-with-russia-vladimir-putin-valery gerasimov

The one element of surprise in what Sen. Angus King (I-ME) has called “the longest wind up for a punch in the history of the world” is the timing for when the counteroffensive will begin in earnest.

Edited May 19, 2023 by kevinkin

[photon]

16 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

The one element of surprise in what Sen. Angus King (I-ME) has called “the longest wind up for a punch in the history of the world” is the timing for when the counteroffensive will begin in earnest.

I guess he's too young to remember the buildup for Overlord.

[kevinkin]

Actually the opposite, at 79 maybe he's to old to remember. But that' not the point. 

[Jiggathebauce]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

This is what it looks like when organized crime tries to fight a conventional war.  

That's probably my favorite quote now to sum up this war

[kevinkin]

https://apnews.com/article/g7-japan-hiroshima-ukraine-biden-kishida-3ac64076f63786490a1b062f9a408408

Welcome to the club. Now hit the RA with it. 

[Kinophile]

9 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

 

Once the counter offensive gets rolling, things could (should!) go downhill very fast on the Russian side.

Steve

Last year,  after Kharkiv/Kherson,  the ZSU had shot its bolt and as a force needed to reset and reconstitute in the late fall/December, ending the escalating costs to Russia. The ZSU had to take its hand off the "Kill Ivans"  button. 

This gave RUS time to infill with mobilized, helping it solidify its defense and apply pressure to Bakhmut. It then made sense for the ZSU to not run a winter campaign,  endure the Ivans attacks and prep for Summer. Russia has managed through this winter only because ZSU has been holding its punches. 

This year Russia has shot their bolt early. Their reconstitution process is just barely able to keep up with the current levels of attrition but once the ZSU properly turns on flamethrowers the Russian front line units will melt. They might have some better formations in reserve,  despite the Bakhmut sucking wound,  but I highly doubt they're anywhere near as capable as even just that UKR armor brigade training in Sweden. 

The early burning of Russian reserves will be critical to success later on, c.  the Fall,  forcing them to defend or maneuver with less and less capable units.

Ukraine now has the surging technical and organizational potential to kill far more Russian men far more quickly that Russia can replace them. 

And this year, they'll be able to escalate that potential all through the year,  without stopping . They'll get better and better at killing Ivans, faster and faster, and at steadily less cost to themselves. They'll sit on that "Kill Ivans" button and they're not going to get off until the Job Is Done. 

By using a steady beat of Offensive over the next nine months the ZSU will prevent the MoD from catching its breath. 

They could push it past the threshold where Russia's reconstitution process will lag the attrition process so much that mobilized Russian men will be sent directly from the mobilization points into the Front. Get on the bus in the far reaches of Siberia,  get off the bus in Donetsk, and die in a Caesar strike. Glory to the New Tzar. 

I'm still doubtfully of Crimea falling this year,  but I definitely see the mainland holdings reduced to much less that the Feb 24th lines. 

Edited May 19, 2023 by Kinophile

[DerKommissar]

It is organized crime, indeed. Here is a personal conspiracy theory, so please apply salt -- according to taste:

Putin is happy with his disastrous, criminal, war, as it ticked a lot of his crime boss boxes. Such as:

- His capos are at odds with eachother. This disunity makes them easier to divide & conquer.

- He has aggravated NATO, and got it closer to home. Making the populace fear an external threat, 1984-style. Any anti-war sentiment equals to treason. 

- His civil society, elites, and citizens are now complicit in war crimes. Betraying him, will only land them in prison or horrific debt.

- The war provided cassus beli to remove all remaining attempts at a democratic process. Repression and propaganda are at all time high, and new measures get rubber stamped with minimal prorest. 

- A lot of able-bodied men, especially problematic ones (ie. prisoners, mercs, poor people and minorities) are now dead or crippled. Many middle-class skeptics have emigrated.

- The west has severed economic ties, and the east has not. He gets to take over the abandoned businesses and still provide oil to billions. He takes a big cut off of oil, and controls the economy.

Peace sells, but who's buying? Evidently, not Putin, or his goons. They're psychopaths that don't care about human lives or anyone's approval.

I think we better prepare ZSU and NATO to march on Moscow. Otherwise, the best we can hope for is another temporary ceasefire.

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Even so, it's still a low number, I think.

Actually, I was impressed by the output.  The prewar output, from what I recall, was significantly lower.  This means they have been able to ramp up production relatively quickly despite all their many handicaps (including skilled worker shortages).  I expect they could increase production a bit more, but then they will really run into one or more of their limitations.

It really isn't useful to compare any modern production to WW2 except to illustrate how different the production reality is between modern weaponry is in terms of old tech.  It is really not useful to compare vastly different items, like tanks to missiles.  If you really must, compare it to V2 production.  That was about 300 per month in facilities built to completely withstand Allied bombing, so that wasn't much of a disruption factor.

Steve

[Bearstronaut]

27 minutes ago, DerKommissar said:

I think we better prepare ZSU and NATO to march on Moscow. Otherwise, the best we can hope for is another temporary ceasefire.

There won't be any march on Moscow. That WILL end in nuclear warfare. The best we can really hope for is the collapse and routing of the Russian military in Ukraine and then the addition of the Ukrainians into NATO.

[Huba]

Boom!

 

[Harmon Rabb]

7 minutes ago, Huba said:

Boom!

 

Don't know if it is because it is Friday or because of all the F-16 related news but I'm in a really good mood.

Time to post a meme.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Harmon Rabb

[DesertFox]

Barrel wear, Orc style...Some duct tape and Ipoprofen and it will be fine again 

 

 

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, Jiggathebauce said:

That's probably my favorite quote now to sum up this war

Agreed. Stealing it immediately. 

[Huba]

13 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Don't know if it is because it is Friday or because of all the F-16 related news but I'm in a really good mood.

Time to post a meme.

Assuming the training will indeed only take 4 months, the first aircraft can be in the sky over Ukraine in September. Coincidently, if the training was to indeed take 18 months as stated previously, and started immediately after RU withdrew from Kyiv in late March 2022, it would also be finished in exactly the same timeframe. Not sure if I should now put my tinfoil hat on, or not...

[dan/california]

53 minutes ago, DerKommissar said:

It is organized crime, indeed. Here is a personal conspiracy theory, so please apply salt -- according to taste:

Putin is happy with his disastrous, criminal, war, as it ticked a lot of his crime boss boxes. Such as:

- His capos are at odds with eachother. This disunity makes them easier to divide & conquer.

- He has aggravated NATO, and got it closer to home. Making the populace fear an external threat, 1984-style. Any anti-war sentiment equals to treason. 

- His civil society, elites, and citizens are now complicit in war crimes. Betraying him, will only land them in prison or horrific debt.

- The war provided cassus beli to remove all remaining attempts at a democratic process. Repression and propaganda are at all time high, and new measures get rubber stamped with minimal prorest. 

- A lot of able-bodied men, especially problematic ones (ie. prisoners, mercs, poor people and minorities) are now dead or crippled. Many middle-class skeptics have emigrated.

- The west has severed economic ties, and the east has not. He gets to take over the abandoned businesses and still provide oil to billions. He takes a big cut off of oil, and controls the economy.

Peace sells, but who's buying? Evidently, not Putin, or his goons. They're psychopaths that don't care about human lives or anyone's approval.

I think we better prepare ZSU and NATO to march on Moscow. Otherwise, the best we can hope for is another temporary ceasefire.

All of this is true, but you are overlooking the great weakness of such a system. It is built entirely on people instead of institutions, and there is zero loyalty. At some point it will become apparent to enough upper level people that there would be a lot more to steal if if Putin had a VERY fatal heart attack, and they jaw  jaw a try instead of war war. They seem to be rather bad at the war war part.

[dan/california]

14 hours ago, Huba said:

Has to happen, there surely are people in the West just waiting for an opportunity to fly an F-16 against the Russians, some declared it openly on social media. Should be even easier for the ground crews, for whom the risk od rather minimal, given RU indolence at striking Ukrainan air bases.

Tongue in cheek, I wonder what will be the next fad after F-16s are sent? Some older E-2s could make a difference, what else? Submarines? AAVPs? 

 

Among other things we are not talking about bases in the middle of a hard pan desert surrounded by people who don't like you very much. The actual flying would obviously be very dangerous, and I would NOT recommend getting captured by the Russians, but the rest of it would not be a hardship posting.

[A Canadian Cat]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Russia has already lost this war, they likely already know it.  We have already won it, but some refuse to see it.  All that remains is how do we end it?

What springs to mind is Germany in WW2. I have been watching the YouTube channel that is covering the war week by week. It has been interesting to see the big picture instead of reading about some small part. It was obvious to see that certainly by 1943 Germany was not going to win. They had lost. All that remained was how it would end.

There was lots of events along the way but an outside observer should have been able to conclude that Germany was done, likely before Jan 1943 but certainly after. I don't know when the Germany generals realized it but they must have known not that long afterwards.

[DerKommissar]

47 minutes ago, Bearstronaut said:

There won't be any march on Moscow. That WILL end in nuclear warfare.

Is that a certainty? I don't see anyway anyone would benefit from MAD. How do we know he'll launch nukes then, and not when/after Ukraine joins NATO?

I think going nuclear is a bluff, as Russia would be on the receiving end of such a situation. I do understand why people may be concerned, however. 

25 minutes ago, dan/california said:

At some point it will become apparent to enough upper level people that there would be a lot more to steal if if Putin had a VERY fatal heart attack, and they jaw  jaw a try instead of war war.

Unless the upper level people earn their posts through ignorance and incompetence, which is how this mafia works. When they are not too busy fighting eachother. Anyone with half a brain, already left.

If Putin dies, Putin 2.0 will take his place, followed by obligatory purges. The average IQ will only fall. This is how the Kremlin has been for a long, long, time.

Thanks for the replies, guys. Good to get a reality check.

[womble]

2 minutes ago, DerKommissar said:

Is that a certainty? I don't see anyway anyone would benefit from MAD. How do we know he'll launch nukes then, and not when/after Ukraine joins NATO?

I think going nuclear is a bluff, as Russia would be on the receiving end of such a situation. I do understand why people may be concerned, however. 

I think it's sufficiently certain that the benefits of attempting such a thing would have to be firstly cast-iron guaranteed (which the history of "marches on Moscow" doesn't seem to encourage optimism for) and, secondly, worth the risk. I suspect that "those in charge" will consider that a long-term containment of Moscow will be "enough" and that the chances of actually forcing an unconditional surrender on Russia are so slender, and the cost of attempting it so high as to make the non-zero risk of total annihilation unacceptable.