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

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Another bad day for them.
No aircraft but they lost a lot of artillary this time:
  • 730 Conscriptovich
  • 20 Tanks
  • 27 APC/IFV
  • 22 Artillary
If you think that 730 is silly high remember that the direct contact point length of the front line is nearly 600km long not including the river seperating Nikopol and the potential issue of the north Belarusian border.
 
CaneyJ said:
If you think that 730 is silly high remember that the direct contact point length of the front line is nearly 600km long not including the river seperating Nikopol and the potential issue of the north Belarusian border.
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And also remember that usually for every one killed theres usually between 2-4 wounded.

So realistically thats 2000-2.5k out of action.
 
Also remember they are bussing these guys to the front with 2 days training and a gun with maybe a single clip of ammo that they get handed when they arrive.

The ground is hardening and they don't have shovels so they are out in the open constantly getting pounded by airburst shrapnel artillary and spotter drones.

Total madness but thats Russian leadership for you.
 
Mr Jack said:
The AfD and Linke are extremists on the left and right; and their opinions are no different from those put forward by their parallels in the UK, whether dressed up in the "just talk" gibberish of the likes of Corbyn or more explicit support for Putin. Nor is that figure of 20% particular different to the UK (where 18% oppose both sending money for weapons and weapons themselves). The fact is that the overwhelming majority of the German public back more support for Ukraine, and various widely reported but small scale pro-Russian protests have been met with widespread disgust.

Germany has long standing laws, conventions, and positions regarding getting involved in foreign wars - do I really need to explain why that might be? - which has led to a general reluctance to take any kind of leading role in military support for Ukraine. This has been worsened by the fact that the government is a three way coalition that must agree the position between the SDP, the Greens, and the FDP. The SDP is led by the character of Chancellor Scholz - who was essentially elected because he was the most boring, normal, risk-adverse candidate - and a left wing of the party that has historically sought closer relations with "communist" Russia, as well as a streak of naive pacifism. The Greens are a far more sensible and pragmatic bunch than the British Green party but are still to the left of the SDP and also inclined to naive anti-war positions. The FDP meanwhile are balls-to-the-wall laissez faire nutters (think the Cleggian wing of the Lib Dems) and much more concerned about anything that hurts businesses and profits than the SDP or the Greens, so make getting sanctions agreed much more difficult.

None-the-less, the German government overturned decades of policy within weeks and started sending weapons into an active warzone, and committed large sums of money to supporting Ukraine in short order. Those sums aren't the largest in percentage terms, but they're pretty big by comparison with the other large European countries (Poland aside) and go alongside the co-ordinated EU response.

Germany is also less well placed to provide direct support than one might imagine. Following the fall of the Iron Curtain, Germany rapidly downscaled its military and the Bundeswehr (German military) is a substantially less capable force than that of the UK or France, as well as being one which is aggressively configured specifically to defend Germany rather than get involved in overseas conflicts. One of the first things the coalition agreed on was a rapid U-turn on this approach, and over the next decade the Bundeswehr is likely to return to being Europe's strongest military. All this means that Germany has no great stockpiles of equipment it can send without critically weakening its own forces, and also that any acquisition of new equipment for Ukraine is now competing with Germany acquiring that equipment for its own use.



Total rubbish. Like many others I'd like Germany to be doing more to support Ukraine but arguing that its level of support for Ukraine "supports and enables" Russia is total and utter horse leavings. Germany is doing more than many other nations (as an aside, why is it that France isn't getting it in the neck more, it's not only sending less support but is also better placed to send support).
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I wasn't saying that German's level of support for Ukraine has supported and enabled Russia, more that there are significant public opinion / political elements that would essentially like to reduce support / sanctions to a level which would in practice support and enable Russia (although longer term I guess it could be argued that German policies have encouraged putin... that's not clear cut though). They aren't the majority, but I think they have probably influenced German policy into being less proactive and taking a back seat in many areas.

One other factor is that Germany is the most prominent member of the EU, with great diplomatic influence and economic strength. Therefore is has an even greater responsibility to take a leadership role in European matters than other countries such as the UK, which I think they could have done better at.

Yes, it was a large political shift for Germany to decide to supply military aid at all and begin to compensate for years of their defence spending being lower than it should have been, so that should be factored in. However I can't help thinking they could have done more, faster, and maybe they would have done if there weren't these significant public opinion and political elements against it. Could also be argued a large shift should not have been required in 2022.

Making comparisons across different polls can be tricky due to different question wording and methodology etc, so using the numbers from the poll I linked for example, 19% of Germans think there has been too much military support to Ukraine, compared to 7% of Brits and 16% of Americans. To me, that's getting into being mainstream, and is in fact eye-opening to me, which was what I was originally trying to say.
 
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Mr Jack said:
Germany has long standing laws, conventions, and positions regarding getting involved in foreign wars - do I really need to explain why that might be? - which has led to a general reluctance to take any kind of leading role in military support for Ukraine.

None-the-less, the German government overturned decades of policy within weeks and started sending weapons into an active warzone, and committed large sums of money to supporting Ukraine in short order. Those sums aren't the largest in percentage terms, but they're pretty big by comparison with the other large European countries (Poland aside) and go alongside the co-ordinated EU response.

Germany is also less well placed to provide direct support than one might imagine. Following the fall of the Iron Curtain, Germany rapidly downscaled its military and the Bundeswehr (German military) is a substantially less capable force than that of the UK or France, as well as being one which is aggressively configured specifically to defend Germany rather than get involved in overseas conflicts. One of the first things the coalition agreed on was a rapid U-turn on this approach, and over the next decade the Bundeswehr is likely to return to being Europe's strongest military. All this means that Germany has no great stockpiles of equipment it can send without critically weakening its own forces, and also that any acquisition of new equipment for Ukraine is now competing with Germany acquiring that equipment for its own use.
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The frustration regarding Germany is valid and is based on an historic underspend on it's military as per NATO guidelines - half of the required budget (@1.1% compared with the 2% requirement) which is an insult and has led to this situation. Your entire point rests on the pseudo-fact that we should all just turn a blind eye to Germany using what should be its defense spend on other Areas of its economy (EVERY country could do that but we don't) because of their history in WW2. IT'S A CONVENIENT EXCUSE Mr Jack WW2 was a very long time ago and irrespective of that Geopolitics and national security won't wait and frankly don't care.

Think Germany will actually put forward that 100 billion and raise its defense spending? It's been said in this thread before that it's questionable and other think so too: https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-to-miss-2-percent-nato-defense-spending-target-think-tank/

www.reuters.com

Berlin lags on defence purchases after 100 billion euro pledge - sources

Germany is struggling to ramp up defence procurement or even just replace arms and munitions it has supplied to Kyiv, several sources told Reuters eight months after Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged 100 billion euros to bring the military up to speed.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com

The truth is that Germany has gotten used to having that considerable extra money and it's now being spend elsewhere. They may change that after recent government decisions, but it will take a long time.

I appreciate that you have a unique affinity for Germany as it's your new home but jumping to their defense on this issue as if recent government announcements (I say announcement rather than actual tangible committed spending) make up for a long standing laziness on this issue is misplaced effort. Germany is regularly and legitimately criticized justifiably.
 
CaneyJ said:
If you think that 730 is silly high
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Actually, I think it's rather low.

kindai said:
And also remember that usually for every one killed theres usually between 2-4 wounded.
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I still think that's rather low. But I wonder how many were captured? Ukraine seems very quiet about that figure. Perhaps that's because some of those trying to surrender are being shot by their own side?
 
Harlequin said:
The same money the UK has - we have always been a sovereign nation, so can just print it
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Doesn't work like that, you cant just print money and enter it into circulation.

Money doesn't exist until it's borrowed, not printed.

Can Russia borrow money just now, not from regular sources but Maybe from China and other BRICS countries.
 
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CaneyJ said:
Also remember they are bussing these guys to the front with 2 days training and a gun with maybe a single clip of ammo that they get handed when they arrive.

The ground is hardening and they don't have shovels so they are out in the open constantly getting pounded by airburst shrapnel artillary and spotter drones.

Total madness but thats Russian leadership for you.
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The reality is a lot more complicated than these reports of "barely usable weapons" or having no ammo. One of the bigger issues is logistics - in some cases companies have been moved to forward staging with only the ranks above private having ammo issued (probably for security reasons) and the allocation for the rest never arrives.

Generally though they seem to have plenty of combat uniform, despite reports of large amounts going missing or never existing in the first place they still seem to have a plentiful supply of it. They've managed to dig up plenty of PK/PKMs, AKMs and even a fair few SVDs and while the condition is varied most are in OK condition despite some being like 40+ years old and barely if functional. They are generally deployed with 3 spare magazines - though that is like 10 minutes worth if things actually kick off and like with the start of the war there doesn't seem to be timely resupply of food or ammo.

Supply of everything else is poor though - 72 hours rations (often reported to be long out of date and/or inedible) and having to source their own stuff for hats, gloves and stuff like that, boots are often only available in about half the quantity needed. Shovels are strangely in short supply, same with medical equipment and radios.

EDIT: What is quite saddening to see is many are quite happy about being deployed until the reality of a few days in a muddy hole and in many cases being out equipped and less organised than the Ukrainian forces - only at which point they start complaining - they were quite happy about the notion of killing Ukrainians until the boot was on the other foot so to speak.

SideWinder said:
I guess Russia could technically 'buy' small arms from someone else, North Korea? Iran?
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NK seems to have the ability to produce a large amount of the Type 56 and are slowly phasing it out so could probably ship a load to Russia :s
 
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do_ron_ron said:
Have you seen the despots in the ME we do support?
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I knew you would come back with the ME proxy wars fought by Saudi et al. So far they have not used nuclear blackmail. They are not fighting a genocidal war against civilians with the intent of taking over the country. Talking Yemen* we have a crew of Iran backed insurgents, despot no 1., trying to defeat the sitting government, despot no. 2, who are supported by Saudi, despot no. 3.
None of the above are particularly likeable, kind of like Afghanistan government who were barely more likeable than the Taliban. However it is Iran's spoken aim to spread it's particular abhorrent form of Islamic terror further and sometimes one has to hold ones nose.

*as I last understood the yememi situation.

Anyway its all off topic in this discussion where Ukraine must prevail over Russia. End.
 
Hagar said:
I knew you would come back with the ME proxy wars fought by Saudi et al. So far they have not used nuclear blackmail. They are not fighting a genocidal war against civilians with the intent of taking over the country. Talking Yemen* we have a crew of Iran backed insurgents, despot no 1., trying to defeat the sitting government, despot no. 2, who are supported by Saudi, despot no. 3.
None of the above are particularly likeable, kind of like Afghanistan government who were barely more likeable than the Taliban. However it is Iran's spoken aim to spread it's particular abhorrent form of Islamic terror further and sometimes one has to hold ones nose.

*as I last understood the yememi situation.

Anyway its all off topic in this discussion where Ukraine must prevail over Russia. End.
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I was not talking about proxy wars in the ME, just the support we give them including equipment that is used for torture.

The Ukraine war is not a genocidal war, you should look up the appropriate definition. In WW2 the Russians lost between 16-17.5 million civilians due to it being a genocidal war, Ukraine is nowhere near that figure(on a pro rata time basis)
 
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