Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar

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Another thing to be wary of - if this drags on long enough, even if Putin and the old guard die out, people in Russia will likely forget what they are fighting for and why, less and less will remember the world as it used to be, Russia will become trapped in a conflict vs the West kind of like North Korea but with an actual active war.
 
Rroff said:
Another thing to be wary of - if this drags on long enough, even if Putin and the old guard die out, people in Russia will likely forget what they are fighting for and why, less and less will remember the world as it used to be, Russia will become trapped in a conflict vs the West kind of like North Korea but with an actual active war.
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You need to stop worrying so much, you're going to give yourself an aneurysm.
 
DrToffnar said:
Stocks prepared in peace time with no real aspiration to invade anywhere on a large scale.

Phrased it a little incorrectly tbh. I don't 'assume', was more of a question I suppose
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Russia is unable either outbuild or outspend the USA never mind US/NATO, ultimately by proxy Russia is fighting a series of industrial superpower(s) with the largest defense companies and contractors in the world.

With regards to Russian stockpiles, given military spending year on year (limited) it is unlikely they have significant amounts of guided weapons left, Russia have reverted to form which is carpet bomb everything, they will have lots of mortars / shells / dumb bombs left but that only gets you so far.
 
Stumble Bum said:
lol nope, this is nothing like WW2. Times have changed, Russia only have one tank manufacturer and they had to stop production as they don't have the parts. Once their hardware is gone that is it. Russia can't produce ****. And with no hardware it doesn't matter how many soldiers they have.
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This is exactly the kind of thinking I'm warning about - you are looking at it from a peace time angle.

If they mobilise the population to a war footing that can change very fast, the shortages of foreign supplied parts can be replaced by domestic industry, the tooling and machinery is there, they can develop and expand current mining and processing/refining industries, etc. in a war time scenario this can happen at extraordinary pace compared to what we are used to seeing. For instance in WW2 ships which normally took ~2 years to build were being put together and into service in 40-50 days.

One stumbling block for Russia is their domestic industry and skill-base/experience with advanced semiconductors is over 10 years behind the current bleeding edge - this would limit some of their hardware to something more akin to their export specs especially advanced air defences and higher end tanks like the T-14 and not something which can be changed overnight or even over a few years. They could very rapidly adjust to producing export spec T72s, etc. domestically and in big numbers - those supply shortages are a peace time problem not a hard stumbling block.

DrToffnar said:
I wonder what Russias numbers are looking like. I know next to nothing about military equipment and/or stocks Thereof. I assume Russia has a much healthier stockpile then that of the US/NATO?
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On paper Russia should have significant stockpiles - the reality seems to be half their military budget of recent decades is tied up in marinas in the Mediterranean, as some people have put it, large amounts of their reserve stock seems to have been cannibalize for parts to supply upgrade programs rather than spend the money doing it from scratch and apparently the reserve and mothballed stock generally has been raided for bits to sell by individuals to make money probably due to lack of pay, etc. and/or corruption.

A lot of their ordinance is well past its use by date and/or stored badly as well - for instance it isn't uncommon to see discarded belts from machineguns, etc. where 1 in every 4-5 rounds have malfunctioned. A lot of their vehicles pulled out of mothballed stock and even some of the reserves were breaking down early on in this invasion due to things like tyres not having been maintained properly.

While there will be a degree of rot in many Western army's reserves in comparison for instance the US has tank parks with individually 500-1000 M1A1s alone which are regularly serviced and only need some quick maintenance to be fully operational.
 
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Rroff said:
This is exactly the kind of thinking I'm warning about - you are looking at it from a peace time angle.

If they mobilise the population to a war footing that can change very fast, the shortages of foreign supplied parts can be replaced by domestic industry, the tooling and machinery is there, they can develop and expand current mining and processing/refining industries, etc. in a war time scenario this can happen at extraordinary pace compared to what we are used to seeing. For instance in WW2 ships which normally took ~2 years to build were being put together and into service in 40-50 days.

One stumbling block for Russia is their domestic industry and skill-base/experience with advanced semiconductors is over 10 years behind the current bleeding edge - this would limit some of their hardware to something more akin to their export specs especially advanced air defences and higher end tanks like the T-14 and not something which can be changed overnight or even over a few years. They could very rapidly adjust to producing export spec T72s, etc. domestically and in big numbers - those supply shortages are a peace time problem not a hard stumbling block.
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If Russia put themselves on a war footing, then the invasion of Ukraine is now a "war" and not a "special military operation", given this the rest of the civilised world who wishes to supply Ukraine could move onto a war footing and outproduce Russia 100 fold.

Provided Ukraine had the troop numbers then Russia is done for (in Ukraine) or any ambition to have a go at the baltics.
 
Malevolence said:
Wow, Twitter really is a ******* joke
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Never been a fan of Twitter - the little things like forcing their own navigation functionality contrary to how browsers usually work and is conventional for most sites, etc. is just annoying and the way they treat people who don't have a login to try and force them towards it, etc. (albeit they've changed that slightly for the better recently but it is still bad).

See loads of stuff which doesn't get censored which is inexcusable while other people are getting instantly banned for something completely innocent, etc. one of the users on there I found really useful for a lot of stuff got banned in 2018 for a simple autocorrect word substitution and has given up trying to get any recourse.
 
Surely international mockery of party Boris/uk , is going to necessitate an HP vote of confidence - Kremlin will love this as an advert for democracy.
 
Past 40mins:
*Pentagon Invites Top 8 U.S. Arms Makers to Wednesday Meeting to Discuss Weapons for Ukraine —Sources

*China, Russia Seek Weapons to Hit U.S. Satellites: Pentagon
*China Is Seen Increasing Intelligence, Surveillance Satellites
*Space Debris Risk Is Growing: Defense Intelligence Agency
 
Watched a couple of videos by Zelensky's adviser and since the president is not a career politician I am guessing that he will be inclined to adopt views/position of his advisors. Well Arestovych back in 2019 in an interview predicated a full scale conflict between Ukraine and Russia, his reasoning was that unless Ukraine is in NATO, Russia will slowly but eventually absorb Ukraine either politically or by force.

We have seen that NATO categorically refuses to intervene directly or let Ukraine become a member. Ukrainian's existence depends on this NATO membership according to Arestovych (and a bit of an assumption - the Ukrainian leadership). As NATO refuses to let Ukraine ascend instead Zelenksy is looking to secure security guarantees, hoping for a similar trigger as NATO. I am curious whether this is feasible and whether the current war will ever even end before such guarantees can be implemented.

Russia on the other hand formally wants to denizify and demilitarise Ukraine whilst in reality it certainly looks like they are going to be occupying newly acquired Ukrainian territories, not just administrative borders of Donbas. It stands to reason that Russia will continue to keep gaining Ukrainian land over time (years if they have to) until presumably only western Ukraine will remain. Ukraine will be long term proxy battleground between US/West and Russia.

The kind of political shifts we are seeing will unravel for decades to come so I cannot see things going back to the time where the west was cooperating with Russia (to an extend, there was always friction). This development also gives Russia little reason to resolve things diplomatically as there is no relationship left to salvage.

This is truly the end of an era that began after the Soviet Union collapsed. Europe is going to be worse off for decades to come as long as Russia will remain an enemy as opposed to a partner and doubt Putin's death will change Russia's foreign policy.

There's of course a chance that the war will end, Russia will withdraw out of Ukraine and politicians will try to find common ground but I just cannot see it, seems we are past the point of no return.
 
Rroff said:
Closing your eyes doesn't make the problem go away.
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You just keep making stuff up to suit your anxious Andy attitude, this isn't WWII. Russia can 'mobilise' and try and make as many tanks as they want, it's just more cannon fodder for Nlaws. Haven't you learnt anything from this war. All of Russia's hardware is completely out of date. They've been sticking Canon DSLR's in their damn drones for goodness sake. :p

Quantity of tanks / amoured vehicles is a very outdated concept. Drones and anti-tank/Manpads rule the battlefields now.
 
Stumble Bum said:
You just keep making stuff up to suit your anxious Andy attitude, this isn't WWII. Russia can 'mobilise' and try and make as many tanks as they want, it's just more cannon fodder for Nlaws. Haven't you learnt anything from this war. All of Russia's hardware is completely out of date. They've been sticking Canon DSLR's in their damn drones for goodness sake. :p

Quantity of tanks / amoured vehicles is a very outdated concept. Drones and anti-tank/Manpads rule the battlefields now.
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So far most of the stuff I've "made up" in this thread... has had a bad habit of becoming reality in the long run...
 
Nerusy said:
The kind of political shifts we are seeing will unravel for decades to come so I cannot see things going back to the time where the west was cooperating with Russia (to an extend, there was always friction). This development also gives Russia little reason to resolve things diplomatically as there is no relationship left to salvage.

This is truly the end of an era that began after the Soviet Union collapsed. Europe is going to be worse off for decades to come as long as Russia will remain an enemy as opposed to a partner and doubt Putin's death will change Russia's foreign policy.

There's of course a chance that the war will end, Russia will withdraw out of Ukraine and politicians will try to find common ground but I just cannot see it, seems we are past the point of no return.
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It is very difficult to see how things will play out from here - but one thing which seems quite certain is that Putin (and probably Lavrov) have no interest in resolving things except on their terms unless forced to - and the longer this runs for the more of a life of its own it will take on within the Russian government and people to a point if it goes on long enough many won't even know why they are doing it just that is the way it is.

There is a chance things stall enough Russia's hand is forced, they seem to be gearing up for a big push currently to try and get some kind of "win" for some supposed May 9th deadline but that likely won't be the end of it.

I think it is very easy to forget as well that for all this is currently contained to Ukraine militarily and with Russia using a range of justifications focussed on Ukraine that this is very much a war against NATO and that ultimately won't stop at Ukraine's borders one way or another.
 
Stumble Bum said:
With 1300+ posts in this thread alone, I'd imagine some of your pessimism has to land eventually.
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Not sure why you are so intent on trying to downplay it, won't change the reality of it. I think "some" is not a just appraisal of the balance of how much of my pessimism has landed unfortunately.

EDIT: On a related note I still find it surreal sometimes thinking about this post I made on the 23rd:

Rroff said:
There is at least 2 RQ-4s operating, out of Crete and Sicily - both FORTE11 and 12 are in the sky currently. Which to me is somewhat ominous as overlapping persistent coverage is what I'd expect to see in the last 24 hours before more significant action.
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(Not just based on the way they were using those 2 drones alone but combining looking at the overall picture)

As despite reading the signs I still didn't really think this would be a reality in this day and age.
 
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Harlequin said:
@Rroff - could anyone sneak a sub into the black sea?
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Outside of my knowledge - I'd imagine the straits would be fairly difficult to do that but if someone had the resources and was inventive enough maybe using a cargo ship as a trojan horse or something. (EDIT: Well not precisely a trojan horse but you get my meaning).
 
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