How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[danfrodo]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

So rather than turn on each other let’s crush the hopes and dreams of the armoured corp because the tank is clearly best employed as a museum piece!

I get that this is probably going to be a thing, as sad as it makes me.  But it does also say "make CM africa, CM 1941, 42, 43, where have proper fights w armor & men, as god intended.

[kimbosbread]

16 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

I wonder how many times the tank has to die before it finally dies?

Something is dead in this sense when its capability modulo its logistics/training/crew footprint is outweighed by the ease of destroying it. Tanks and attack helicopters consume enormous amounts of valuable resources. When you start having to layer on APS and all these other things, it is even more expensive.

Your competition is a Lada towing a pack of brimstones or lancet-analogues (or another fire and forget munition). Can you provide more bang that per dollar?

[Battlefront.com]

32 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Something is dead in this sense when its capability modulo its logistics/training/crew footprint is outweighed by the ease of destroying it. Tanks and attack helicopters consume enormous amounts of valuable resources. When you start having to layer on APS and all these other things, it is even more expensive.

Your competition is a Lada towing a pack of brimstones or lancet-analogues (or another fire and forget munition). Can you provide more bang that per dollar?

Even better competition:

We've had the "tank is dead" discussion many, many times and it always comes down to the same thing.  The tank is not dead yet, but it's a dead system walking for sure.  Why?  Because there are systems that already exist that can do nearly everything a tank can do and less expensively in far larger numbers in a wider array of combat environments and without the need to forward deploy or take months to get into action.

Steve

[Jiggathebauce]

Maybe it's time finally for the unmanned battlemechs to emerge and replace the tank, just need the artificial muscles that can carry the loads lol. Carry on, I'm playing a lot of battletech lately. 

[Teufel]

 

[Teufel]

Russian solidarity among brothers in arms. 

 

[Harmon Rabb]

6 minutes ago, Jiggathebauce said:

Maybe it's time finally for the unmanned battlemechs to emerge and replace the tank, just need the artificial muscles that can carry the loads lol. Carry on, I'm playing a lot of battletech lately. 

Unmanned? Why must you stomp on my dreams of being a MechWarrior?

[dan/california]

Drenched in copium, but he seems to be trying to get it across that things aren't great for the Russians.

[dan/california]

8 minutes ago, Teufel said:

 

Do we think it was Putin? Or his own epic bad habits?

[Teufel]

Word! Western logic doesn’t apply to Eastern Europe, the word “naive” only exists as synonymous for “person living in prosperity”.

Even has fancy scientific term “empathic cultural anthropology”. Budanov frames it as a boss.

[Teufel]

Claimed to be restaurant and has little to do with war, but one hell of a  fire. Joke, more on the British side, dry and cold.

 

Edited September 15, 2023 by Teufel

[Centurian52]

1 hour ago, kimbosbread said:

Something is dead in this sense when its capability modulo its logistics/training/crew footprint is outweighed by the ease of destroying it. Tanks and attack helicopters consume enormous amounts of valuable resources. When you start having to layer on APS and all these other things, it is even more expensive.

Your competition is a Lada towing a pack of brimstones or lancet-analogues (or another fire and forget munition). Can you provide more bang that per dollar?

That all sounds very truthy. But at no point in time has that ever been how anything works. Anti-tank munitions have always been far cheaper than the tanks they are meant to destroy. If you ever have an anti-tank munition that is more epensive than a tank, you don't have an anti-tank munition. There is a fancy name for this actually. It's the shot exchange problem, and it has been plaguing air defenses throughout this war as they struggle with decisions over whether or not to expend an expensive missile to shoot down a cheap drone (in fact this is the driving factor behind the big comeback that anti-aircraft guns have made, since they can shoot down cheap drones without expending ammunition that is more valuable than the drone). So no, cheap ways of killing tanks do not render tanks obsolete. Cheap ways of killing anything has never rendered anything obsolete.

And I should remind everyone that the tank losses in this war are not remotely unprecidented (no one mentioned heavy losses recently, but I think the number of tanks destroyed is a large part of why so many people seem to think the tank is obsolete). Tanks have taken extremely heavy losses in every single conventional war they have ever participated in (I'll admit that they haven't taken heavy losses in many guerilla wars as far as I'm aware). The Isrealis lost around 400 tanks in just the two weeks of the Yom Kippur War. The Germans lost around 25,000 tanks in WW2, with the combined US and British tank losses being about the same, and Soviet tank losses being over 80,000. Yes, this war is an order of magnitude smaller than WW2, but tank losses have also been about an order of magnitude smaller. As far as I can tell tank losses in this war have been about on par with WW2 when you adjust for scale.

I think I am in agreement with Steve that what is likely to render tanks obsolete in the near future is gun armed UGVs. The services that a tank provides on the battlefield are still essential. But once something comes along that can do a better job of providing those services, such as a UGV, the tank will no longer be required. So I think once a country somewhere adopts a gun-variant of a UGV the tank will be obsolecent (and fully obsolete once that gun UGV has been produced in sufficient quantities). When that happens it will not be Javelins or Lancets that rendered the tank obsolete, but a better direct-fire asset. Even when UGVs do render manned tanks obsolete, I'm still not sure that it won't be entirely appropriate to think of them as unmanned tanks.

Edited September 15, 2023 by Centurian52

[Battlefront.com]

29 minutes ago, Teufel said:

Russian solidarity among brothers in arms. 

 

WTF.  Even I'm surprised to see this, and I've seen a lot of unbelievable things I now believe.  I guess someone didn't want to be bothered trying to get the wounded guy back to an aid station.

Steve

[Teufel]

World according to logics of Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs.

 

[Teufel]

World according to logics of German Minster of Foreign Affairs.

 

[Battlefront.com]

28 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Do we think it was Putin? Or his own epic bad habits?

Source is questionable, but it does seem that something is going on with Kadyrov.  On that assumption...

Unless there is something VERY dramatic and very negative going on between Putin and Kadyrov that we have seen zero hints of, it wasn't Putin.  Kadyrov has gone out of his way to be a cheerleader and supporter of Putin, mostly because without Putin directing the Kremlin to slosh money into his troth things would not be good for Kadyrov.  On the other side of the coin, the last thing Putin needs is for Chechnya to become actively disruptive again.  Since things become uncertain without Kadyrov, there's no way Putin would risk whomever might succeed him unless there was strong evidence of massive disloyalty.

I don't know what the internal politics of Chechnya are like these days, but my sense is nobody is openly gunning for his throne.  Why the Hell would anybody want that job?  Especially because it seems that Kadyrov has wisely kept the money flowing to enough people that would-be rivals are content to cash their paychecks (so to speak) and let Kadyrov shoulder the responsibilities.  As long as Kadyrov is able to do so, that is.

Here's what I see as the possibilities kinda in order of most to least likely:

1. Kadyrov's health is genuinely not good for any number of reasons that aren't directly related to poison (at least recent poison)
2. As above, but someone thinks it would be better for him to go quickly than for it to get dragged out.  Especially if that person thinks acting first gives him more power.
3. FSB has decided that there's someone else in the Chechen leadership that they would rather deal with and an arrangement was made between the two to get rid of Kadyrov.
4. Kadyrov has been doing something very quietly behind the scenes to betray Putin while at the same time pretending to be super-duper-loyal.
5. Someone with a personal grievance (Kadyrov has angered many families over the years) found a way to get even with him.

Steve

 

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, danfrodo said:

I get that this is probably going to be a thing, as sad as it makes me.  But it does also say "make CM africa, CM 1941, 42, 43, where have proper fights w armor & men, as god intended.

Minefields, and the breaching of same, were a MAJOR element of El Alamein. That is probably the only battle in the North Africa campaign most people can name.

[Teufel]

17 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

WTF.  Even I'm surprised to see this, and I've seen a lot of unbelievable things I now believe.  I guess someone didn't want to be bothered trying to get the wounded guy back to an aid station.

Steve

What is this man doing crossing the road thinking the Russian Army will yield?!

Speaking of logics and messed up things.

[Battlefront.com]

2 minutes ago, Teufel said:

What is this man doing crossing the road thinking the Russian Army will yield?!

Speaking of logics and messed up things.

Maybe Luhansk should stay with Russia.  Looks like they have similar views on the importance of life.  Not one person stopped to help.

Steve

[FancyCat]

15 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Maybe Luhansk should stay with Russia.  Looks like they have similar views on the importance of life.  Not one person stopped to help.

Steve

Let's not go overboard, these things happen anywhere including the U.S, hit and runs and people ignoring it.

[Battlefront.com]

6 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Let's not go overboard, these things happen anywhere including the U.S, hit and runs and people ignoring it.

Well, maybe I'm missing something but I've never seen video of a dead pedestrian sitting in a US intersection with dozens of people driving by and no pedestrians trying to help.  Hit and runs?  Sure, lots of those, sometimes with people chasing down the driver.

Anyway, of course I was being a bit snarky.  One incident does not a trend make.

Steve

[danfrodo]

30 minutes ago, Teufel said:

What is this man doing crossing the road thinking the Russian Army will yield?!

Speaking of logics and messed up things.

this can't be real, in any culture, anywhere.  Please tell me this isn't real.  Please.

And it does look very fake in the responses of the people right next the victim who didn't even flinch as the truck barely missed them

Edited September 15, 2023 by danfrodo

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

this can't be real, in any culture, anywhere.  Please tell me this isn't real.  Please.

And it does look very fake in the responses of the people right next the victim who didn't even flinch as the truck barely missed them

Oh, that's real for sure.  You can see one of the people who crossed with him turn around and shield his/her eyes to see what happened, then walks away.

But what is not shown is that the truck did pull over and the driver came back.  You can see that if you watch the upper left.  That still doesn't explain all the other cars driving right by him as well as two pedestrians standing there doing absolutely nothing.

Unfortunately, it is true that some people are not equipped to act in a situation like this.  However, it does seem to be an unusually extreme indifference to life.

Steve

[danfrodo]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

Oh, that's real for sure.  You can see one of the people who crossed with him turn around and shield his/her eyes to see what happened, then walks away.

But what is not shown is that the truck did pull over and the driver came back.  You can see that if you watch the upper left.  That still doesn't explain all the other cars driving right by him as well as two pedestrians standing there doing absolutely nothing.

Unfortunately, it is true that some people are not equipped to act in a situation like this.  However, it does seem to be an unusually extreme indifference to life.

Steve

Between that the the RU guy shooting wounded comrade, I'm gonna go puke now.  

Maybe was a fragging incident?  But wouldn't someone say "hey, those aren't shrapnel wounds!".  oh, wait, russian army, nevermind.

[Offshoot]

20 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

this can't be real, in any culture, anywhere.  Please tell me this isn't real.  Please.

I was in Moscow in the early 90s and saw a couple of people in the road who had been hit and no one stopped. Who knows how long they had been there. We were strongly dissuaded from helping by the Russians we were with because they were afraid we would also be hit, which would have been a real possibility.

On the other hand, when I lived in London I saw a guy on crutches fall over in the middle of the road in front of an oncoming bus. Not one of the at least 10 people queued at the bus stop moved to help him.