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

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Well there are more working class than upper class and not every private soldier has a field marshalls baton in his kitbag. There are more privates than generals, more sailors than admirals and yes they do face higher risk on the most part.

But in the west we at least equip our servicemen to a high standard* and give them weapons to both defend themselves and carry a fight to the enemy.

*(Excluding a precipitate rush to arms by T Blair esq.)
 
The reason in the west that poorer people tend to end up in the less glamorous roles of the armed forces is they join up in large numbers looking for a roof over their heads, stability, a fair wage, well balanced discipline and a possibility of a decent pension. All or many of these are often absent in their lives until they join up, due to a lack of education, perhaps a lack of commitment, troubled home lives, and a distant prospect of travel and furthering of education otherwise. It's not some political agenda to rid the country of the working class by putting them in mortal danger.
 
Chris Wilson said:
The reason in the west that poorer people tend to end up in the less glamorous roles of the armed forces is they join up in large numbers looking for a roof over their heads, stability, a fair wage, well balanced discipline and a possibility of a decent pension. All or many of these are often absent in their lives until they join up, due to a lack of education, perhaps a lack of commitment, troubled home lives, and a distant prospect of travel and furthering of education otherwise. It's not some political agenda to rid the country of the working class by putting them in mortal danger.
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For once I am in agreement.

Don't care where someone came from, I will always respect those putting their lives on the line.
 
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Minusorange said:
What's surprising about this ? It's not like the poor people in the West aren't the first to go into the meatgrinder while the elite are banging the drums of war but their children conveniently don't get dragged into it
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It's different when you have a choice. In Iraq you could see a lot of American soldiers came from poorer backgrounds, a lot from the "south" but the difference is they joined up because they wanted to, not because they were conscripted. Even now in Ukraine if you go watch videos from American volunteers in Ukraine, most of them seem to have a southern accent.
 
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ubersonic said:
Indeed, a few years ago a pair of Tu-160s performed a mock attack run on Hull (which kind of tells you all you need to know about the quality of Russia's battlefield intelligence lol), it raised quite a few eyebrows at the time as the got in firing range and the RAF didn't even pick them up until they turned for home.
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An attack on Hull by strategic bombers firing cruise missiles could be truly devestating. The damage would run into literally the dozens of Pounds…
 
Grim5 said:
It's different when you have a choice. In Iraq you could see a lot of American soldiers came from poorer backgrounds, a lot from the "south" but the difference is they joined up because they wanted to, not because they were conscripted. Even now in Ukraine if you go watch videos from American volunteers in Ukraine, most of them seem to have a southern accent.
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It's no different with a draft though, those with intelligence will be in the "safer" roles, those who aren't as clever will be grunts, those with connections (generally comes with wealth) will either get paperwork jobs or dodge the draft entirely, I'm not saying it's a good or bad thing, it is what it is, but it's certainly not exclusive to Russia and it's not really worthy of a talking point because it happens in literally every army in every war
 
Turn said:
*Zelenskiy: Russian Forces Suffered More Than 1,100 Dead in Less Than a Week of Fighting in Bakhmut

*Wagner Founder Prigozhin Sets Out Ambitions: Says He Plans to Turn His Russian Mercenary Group Into an ‘Army With an Ideology’
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Erm... That is somewhat dangerous talk? Sounds like someone openly stating they are about to attempt a coup, or am I reading that wrong?
 
Roar87 said:
I think you're generally correct in that most of the time it's lads from working class backgrounds and poorer people who do the fighting, how ever the Royal Family have basically served in most of wars the UK has had, Prince Andrew obviously in the Falklands, both William and Harry in Afghanistan. I think you can just concede that the Royal Family have actually fought in wars, but most of the time it's poor people.
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William never served in Afghan mate
 
Minusorange said:
What's surprising about this ? It's not like the poor people in the West aren't the first to go into the meatgrinder while the elite are banging the drums of war but their children conveniently don't get dragged into it
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Funnily enough, while that may be true of the East, it's not true of the UK: for example, in WW1 the upper classes percentage-wise had more deaths than the working classes.

Cite.

BBC said:
Although the great majority of casualties in WW1 were from the working class, the social and political elite were hit disproportionately hard by WW1. Their sons provided the junior officers whose job it was to lead the way over the top and expose themselves to the greatest danger as an example to their men.

Some 12% of the British army's ordinary soldiers were killed during the war, compared with 17% of its officers. Eton alone lost more than 1,000 former pupils - 20% of those who served. UK wartime Prime Minister Herbert Asquith lost a son, while future Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law lost two. Anthony Eden lost two brothers, another brother of his was terribly wounded, and an uncle was captured.
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Minusorange said:
It's no different with a draft though, those with intelligence will be in the "safer" roles, those who aren't as clever will be grunts, those with connections (generally comes with wealth) will either get paperwork jobs or dodge the draft entirely, I'm not saying it's a good or bad thing, it is what it is, but it's certainly not exclusive to Russia and it's not really worthy of a talking point because it happens in literally every army in every war
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That is not what happened in the UK in WW1 and WW2. It definitely happened in the USA - remember Trump's bone spurs?
 
Werewolf said:
yup, usually from memory in with units either directly on the front line or very close to it.

It's also funny people saying flying an apache was safe, it's a fairly large target for any one who can see it, and has all the usual issues with helicopters at low level/high performance flying (you've got very little room before you run out of air if anything goes wrong), added in the fun of IIRC much of Afghanistan being quite a hostile environment for choppers due to the altitude, terrain and dust (I seem to remember reading that they were burning through certain spares quite fast simply due to wear from the dust levels)
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The combinat of high altitudes and hot weather is the worst possible for rotary wing aircraft. Add in fine, abrasive dust, leftover American SAM missiles and the ubiquitous “Dushka” heavy machine guns and you have a very hostile operating environment for rotary wing aircraft where just keeping the flipping thing away from the landscape is challenging enough before the shooting starts.
 
Quartz said:
Funnily enough, while that may be true of the East, it's not true of the UK: for example, in WW1 the upper classes percentage-wise had more deaths than the working classes.

Cite.
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I can't find precise numbers for example this says

In 1912 only about 20% of the population of Britain was middle class. (To be considered middle class you would normally need to have at least one servant). In 1912 well-off people lived in very comfortable houses. However, to us, middle-class homes would seem overcrowded with furniture, ornaments, and knick-knacks.
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and
At the beginning of the 20th century surveys showed that 25% of the population of Britain were living in poverty. They found that at least 15% were living at subsistence level. They had just enough money for food, rent, fuel, and clothes. They could not afford ‘luxuries’ such as newspapers or public transport. About 10% were living below subsistence level and could not afford an adequate diet.
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localhistories.org

Life in 1912 - Local Histories

By Tim Lambert The Middle Class In 1912 only about 20% of the population of Britain was middle class. (To be considered middle class you would normally need to have at least one servant). In 1912 well-off people lived in very comfortable houses. However, middle-class homes would seem overcrowded...
localhistories.org

I doubt much changed in 2 years at outbreak of WW1

So that leaves 55% unaccounted for but looking at the chart on this article

www.theguardian.com

Inequality 'worst since second world war'

Academic Danny Dorling says the last time the best-off took as big a share of all income as they do today was in 1940, two years before the publication of the Beveridge Report
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

54% of the population were in the bottom 10% so perhaps be generous and say 10% were upper class

That means out of a population of 36million people, only 30% would have been officer material or 10.8million and 19.98million as troops, in total there was circa 240k Officers which is 2% of total potential vs 3million total troops or 15% of total potential

Of which according to your link 17% officers died vs 12% soldiers which was 40,800 vs 360,000 so it's pretty much for every officer dead, 9 troops are dead

And only 2% of the well off went to war while 15% of the poor went to war basically a 7 to 1 ratio

So I'm not sure how this means it's not true that more poor people die in wars than rich people ?

Pretty sure given the amount of Generals dead in the last year in Ukraine it's statistically disproportionate the death of Generals to ethnic minorities when you take the % of total generals in isolation which is a poor way to deal with the statistics of overall deaths
 
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