How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Grigb]

23 minutes ago, hcrof said:

Interesting quote, thanks! 

What is your assessment of the 1917 scenario? Is it hot air like those in America expecting imminent civil war or is there actually an alternative power structure that could challenge the state but is not able to carry out a quick coup?

1917 in RU culture is uncontrollable riot destroying the State and not somebody challenging the State. This is what RU Nats means when they refer to it. It is like they are shouting to RU gov that unless RU gov listens to them and reforms (aka betrays) some servants there will be uncontrollable riot that kills all of them together with the State.

Unlike US it is a very real scenario. RU is heading there right now. So, RU Nats are right from my point of view. However, it will happen only when all other options (all sorts of coups) fail. 

[LongLeftFlank]

1000 pages, woot!

Not quite the conflagration we'd been banking on....

 

 

Edited July 7, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[The_Capt]

1000 pages and 1M views, well safe to say that this thread has expunged the shame of the Peng Thread being the largest and mostest longest on the forum.  This is now the Forum Thread of Legend...we well all be able to tell our grandchildren that we were here, and they will all think we are lying about it - which is the exact opposite situation with aforementioned Peng Thread.

Edited July 7, 2022 by The_Capt

[Bil Hardenberger]

1000 pages.. what a landmark occurrence!! Too bad only about 250 of those are worth saving for posterity.    Still, a worthy thread that will be mined by future historians for hundreds of years.  

Bil

[Butschi]

1 minute ago, Bil Hardenberger said:

a worthy thread that will be mined by future historians for hundreds of years.

I just wonder how they will interpret it (depends on when in the future, whether some kind of dark age happend in between, etc.). It must be some religious thing, obviously. The Cult of the Combat Mission or something. People spending hours and hours worshipping a strange deity, an all seeing eye on the battlefield. People sifting through old scripture on wars long forgotten or never having existet. And this thread will be proof of this cult looking for signs and portents that the All Seing Eye had a hand in present conflicts, too, that the prophecies were right. Something like that.

[cesmonkey]

This Russian newspaper offers a mildly-critical editorial expressing the view that Russians will continue to follow Putin down the path he is leading, whether that is a rational thing to do or not.

Here is an excerpt as translated by Google:
 

Quote

 

By all appearances, Putin continues to maintain control over the dominant emotions of Russians. Which is the basis of his rating. And the rating is pushing for new bold plans. Such is the reality. Or a narrative about reality...

As long as Putin maintains an umbilical connection with his majority, he will be unstoppable in translating his own mental constructs about the world into real life. Putin's perceptions as a geopolitical reality. And domestic political too.

 

https://www.ng.ru/editorial/2022-06-26/2_8470_red.html

[Taranis]

7 minutes ago, Butschi said:

I just wonder how they will interpret it (depends on when in the future, whether some kind of dark age happend in between, etc.). It must be some religious thing, obviously. The Cult of the Combat Mission or something. People spending hours and hours worshipping a strange deity, an all seeing eye on the battlefield. People sifting through old scripture on wars long forgotten or never having existet. And this thread will be proof of this cult looking for signs and portents that the All Seing Eye had a hand in present conflicts, too, that the prophecies were right. Something like that.

And always talking about bones

[Huba]

13 minutes ago, Taranis said:

And always talking about bones

Got to be a cult thing. What's strange is that people in XXI century believed that some of them, who claim to be "authors" or "administrators" were in direct contact with this deity, able to affect and even change it. A weird cult where priests construct the god, instead of being a mere intermediary.

And on a sadder note, without all externally hosted images and linked pages, data loss would be too great for this thread to be comprehensible I'm afraid.

Edited July 7, 2022 by Huba

[Grigb]

35 minutes ago, Huba said:

And on top of that, do you envision a scenario where after a coup RU armies keep steady? I imagine even few days of political uncertainty could be catastrophic to them, but what's your take on that?

Two major things to keep in mind:

1. The majority of RU regulars do not want to fight. They want to go home. But unless they are either given explicit permission (even semiofficial one) and transport or something really major happens (complete disintegration of RU) they will stay in place. So, do not expect immediate collapse. However, determined push will likely lead to panic and route. Because obviously they do not want to come home as losers but better come home as losers than dead. Eventually they will leave but that might take longer than you expect without a good shove from UKR. 
2. Hardcore LDNR formations will try to use anything to grab as much land as possible. These guys are freaks. They are already determined to fight till victory or death - Enjoy the war while you can because the peace will be terrible! Their minimal victory is to push UKR forces to 100 km away from LDNR borders. Anything less and they will lose legitimacy in the eyes of LDNR population. 

Everything else depends on who and how will initiate coup. Let's say Party clan initiates liberal rebellion (Party clan unlikely to succeed in direct coup as Putin is rather difficult target and Party clan is not fighting clan). If they can get on their side a charismatic general (somebody like Lebed) he can simply go to TV and "order" RU troops to go home. If he is charismatic enough it will lead to a major troop exodus which will lead either to an organized retreat or route (but soldiers would not care because they will be going home because of "order").

[Battlefront.com]

Well now, I figured we'd be at 1001 by the time I woke up.  Happy to be disappointed

Thanks everybody for 1000.  There will be something to mark this occasion.  Details to come soon.

Steve

[Offshoot]

Given Boris Johnson's prominent support, his resignation is unfortunate timing for Ukraine. The usual Russian suspects have reacted as you would expect - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/07/glee-in-russia-and-sadness-in-ukraine-as-boris-johnson-quits

And perhaps with some hubris: "The Russian embassy in the UK tweeted a Bloomberg headline from last month which quoted him as saying he planned to stay on as prime minister until the mid-2030s. “Something must have gone wrong,” the embassy’s caption above the headline said."

Putin himself passed a law that could see him be in power until the mid-2030s. We will see if he lasts.

 

Edited July 7, 2022 by Offshoot

[Huba]

Just now, Offshoot said:

Given Boris Johnson's prominent support, his resignation is unfortunate timing for Ukraine. The usual Russian suspects have reacted as you would expect - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/07/glee-in-russia-and-sadness-in-ukraine-as-boris-johnson-quits

And perhaps with some hubris: "The Russian embassy in the UK tweeted a Bloomberg headline from last month which quoted him as saying he planned to stay on as prime minister until the mid-2030s. “Something must have gone wrong,” the embassy’s caption above the headline said." Putin himself passed a law that could see him be in power until the mid-2030s. We will see if he lasts.

 

They'll stop laughing when Ben Wallace, the Secretary for Defense replaces him. I saw a poll today showing that he's most trusted of the ministers at the moment and supposedly has a big chance to be the next. He openly equated "Russian fascism" with Nazism, among others.

In other news, drone drops grenade into driver's hatch on a T-62M ( reportedly abandoned, but still great aim)

 

[Vanir Ausf B]

2 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Interesting is that this girl seem to be serve as common infantry sergeant on frontlines, not medic/staff officer as many women in uniforms do. It's curious how common it is in Ukrainian army.

I have wondered the same. I recall a similar interview with a female SP artillery operator a while back.

There was also this female volunteer from Brazil. Tragically, she was killed last week.

 

[Grigb]

 

Quote

For those who want to organize protests in the Russian Federation, there is now good news: students will be excluded from higher education [institutions] by order, and citizens of military age will be sent as 'volunteers'

 

[Harmon Rabb]

In other news the Armed Forces of Malta could attack Italy in the event of a conflict.

 

[Huba]

Fresh pictures from Bilohorivka crossing for Steve:

Stolen from here:

https://amplifyukraine.eu/images-from-belogorovka-where-the-katsapi-lost-about-80-pieces-of-equipment-during-the-crossing-нетвойнe-ukraine/

[BlackMoria]

8 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

In other news the Armed Forces of Malta could attack Italy in the event of a conflict.

 

It looks like strippers and cocaine are popular amongst the Belarusian higher ups as well. 

[MSBoxer]

I am personally thrilled that future generations may come to know my name, if only in connection to "The Ancient Cult of the Combat Mission". 

Admittedly, I expect to be viewed as a minor functionary whose main contribution is mumbling in the corner and knocking over paper towers with discarded food.

[Battlefront.com]

30 minutes ago, Huba said:

Fresh pictures from Bilohorivka crossing for Steve:

You definitely know how to make my day

This is the Russian military defeat that just keeps on giving.  After the war, and Ukraine has this territory back again, this will likely become some sort of protected battlefield site.  Though now that Russia has just about seized control of it, I expect they are going to try and clean it up.

Steve

[akd]

@sburke @Kinophile

Air Force Lt. Col. Roman Igolkin killed in Jul. 3rd strike on Melitopol (maybe he was already reported, but name is not coming up in thread search):

 

Edited July 7, 2022 by akd

[Rice]

1000 pages, during which Black Sea has gone on sale multiple times on Steam, yet all development on anything related to Russia seems to have been halted because of the war. I don't understand this contradiction.

[A Canadian Cat]

This was shared on The Few Good Men site: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-turning-point-in-ukraine/id1629454648?i=1000568268889

I listened to this yesterday. He had some interesting thoughts. I don't think that I agree with him that the Russians can stand attrition better than the Ukrainians. I mean if you purely measure populations numbers sure but that's not the only factor. He pointed out what we already have been talking about that Russian artillery is what is letting them make progress and hold out. There was discussion about the problems the RA has with supplying artillery ammo and UA's current campaign to disrupt RA logistics, particularly with regard to artillery ammo.

He had some lessons learned for other armies to take from this: stockpiles of ammo are important, being able to supply ammo for your own army is important, NATO 155mm artillery standard really isn't as standard as it should be, and they need to fix that. Apparently different countries guns have different charging requirements, different fuse requirements, different maintenance requirements. This is hurting the UA since they have battery by battery different fuse, charge, training and maintenance requirements. Ouch.

His estimate is that drones are lasting about a week on the battlefield before they get nailed by the enemy or otherwise become non serviceable. Therefore armies should be making sure they have systems that are cheap and easy to replace. He pointed out that having big complex systems if fine to be part of the UAV mix but the bulk of the UAVs that are available have to be easy to replace.

Interesting tidbit at the end about why he is not making predictions - he's advising the UA and therefore knows some of what they are planning so is being careful not to reveal any of that.

[A Canadian Cat]

12 minutes ago, Rice said:

all development on anything related to Russia seems to have been halted

I don't think that's what Steve said. He said they would not be releasing new content at the moment. He did not say that work had been halted.

I found this from BFCElvis (I am pretty sure Steve said the same but I didn't find that post before I found this one):

 

[Taranis]

CAESAR PRODUCTION TIME :
Interesting information on the production time of a CAESAR (source Le Monde)

Quote

 

We wrote that manufacturing a Caesar system currently takes more than eighteen months. For his part, Michel Goya wrote on the website The Way of the Sword: “Nexter currently releases a Caesar cannon every forty days. »

These two figures correspond to two different data, we explain at Nexter. It is necessary to distinguish the frequency with which the manufacturer can produce Caesar guns and the time to produce a unit from start to finish (from the piece of metal to the tube ready to fire).

Eighteen months corresponds to the current production time of a complete artillery system, because this process requires time to guarantee the reliability of the material (as with all such complex armaments). Nexter is working on a significant reduction in this time - to save several months per unit -, in view of the requests made to us and the orders placed, because these production times are flexible and can be restricted. "These are extremely complex parts, we need reliable products that can withstand the worst conditions of use," insists Nexter.

The figure of forty days relates to the frequency with which the lines can supply a gun ready to deliver, since the industrialist is working on several guns at the same time. “We do not communicate on this frequency, which can vary greatly from year to year depending on the number of orders placed by our customers”.

 

 

[The_MonkeyKing]

13 minutes ago, IanL said:

This was shared on The Few Good Men site: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-turning-point-in-ukraine/id1629454648?i=1000568268889

Good podcast find. will subscribe