Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
Well, CRP has officially summoned the Autist Army to investigate.
Let us see what they dig up!
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The Sietch will be brought offline for HPG systems maintenance tomorrow (Thursday, 2 May 2024). Please remain calm and do not start any interstellar wars while ComStar is busy. May the Peace of Blake be with you. Precentor Dune
Armchair General's DonbAss Derailed Discussion Thread (Topics Include History, Traps, and the Ongoing Slavic Civil War plus much much more)
- Thread starter ParadiseLost
- Start date
Let us see what they dig up!
SchrodingersWehraboo
Well-known member
Also of note, the account started in February, but this post-combat footage started dropping scant days after the most recent foreign volunteer tragedy:
Not even getting into the lack of combat footage itself, guy has a gopro mount on his helmet but where’s the camera? No enthralling fps clips to go along with his boasting?
Chiron
Well-known member
Since LTR will kick this to DonBass Thread, I will save her some work.
T-62 is not used by Ukraine aside from nostalgia pieces, and the T-70 is a WW2 light tank.
I think you meant T-64 and T-72.
Javelins don't figure prominently, nor do NLAWs, and the Russians have captured so many of them, they are even training their troops on them.
UkA Forces I see, mostly use Stugna, Soviet-based ATGMs, and the trusty RPG series. Also bear in mind what we see on videos are single tanks with hatches open. This is important, because the automatic safeties disable the smoke dischargers, DROZD, and Shotora systems when the hatches are open as they would kill the crew if used while hatches are open. Also the fire suppression system has safeties on it to keep from triggering when hatches are closed as they are designed to swiftly stop the ammunition from blowing, but does so by flooding the tank with halon.
The ambush video we saw several pages back demonstrates this. The tank is traveling in column with crew out in their hatches. This is why the tank did not blow up and kept traveling for quite a distance, the halon system activated and kept a fire from being a catastrophic one. That tank will return to battle after a stay in the depot. They will have to rip out much of the electronics and other bits, clean it up, then send it back out with a fresh interior.
In battle situations the crew expects, hatches will be closed, active systems up, and support elements in place, rendering the CLU useless and NLAWs ineffective. Also trying to paint the tanks with Drozd or Shotora systems will cause the turret to sling their way, since the driver's hatch is shut and he is not at risk of a broken neck. This will enable the ATGM team to be engaged as the system will point the gun at their location. We saw that in the video of the Ambush. One of the Tanks had an active system and buttoned up, so when it got targeted, the turret slung towards the ATGM team's position and the crew was able to destroy it while shrugging off a frontal hit without a need to pop the dischargers.
In the actual battles, as opposed to ambushes, the Russian Defenses work as advertised and the Ukrainians die with their footage blown up with them.
Its classic survivor bias as we see all the footage of the successful ones, but rarely see all the failures which occur more often than the successes.
It is what the Chieftain warned about in his latest video. And given how battered he got on the internet when the Sherman Revisionism was all the rage before it got battered back down with hard science and numbers, he has learned his lesson. He now makes sure he has actual hard data before committing. He doesn't want a repeat of being made a fool of when someone pointed out the US and Germany used different armor standards that weren't comparable to each other, and thus the Sherman Gun had half the penetrating power of a comparable German Gun and US armor could only take half the punishment a German sheet of armor of the same thickness could.
So the entire 5 Shermans to a Panzer (not just the Panther) was true, and completely irrelevant as the Allies had a massive artillery and airpower advantage to where it didn't matter. Which is what the conversation should have been in the first place. But I digress.
Now if one thing is absolutely clear in this current war:
Russia is once again a 1st Rate Power. They have the critical resources the world needs to function and are demanding Rubles for it. OPEC knows which way the wind is blowing and is moving to get off the Petrodollar.
The US is utterly irrelevant and unable to translate military power into lasting socioeconomic-political outcomes and got militarily defeated by the Taliban. Any arguments to the contrary are nonsense.
That said:
A month in and its now clear what the RuA's first real objective was:
Sea of Azov, this was where they poured their resources in terms of reinforcement and air support. Everything else was a double feint designed to support this. If they actually overran their threatened goals, well and good. But it wasn't necessary for their real job of pinning and drawing out UkA away from the Sea of Azov.
Now that Mariupol is wrapping up, the Russians will most likely move to begin the push on the Dnieper, maintaining their plan while not worrying overmuch about secondary fronts. Hell they welcome UkA counter-attacks on those fronts, especially if they perceive success as it allows their main effort to do what it needs to do with less opposition. RuA doesn't need to win every battle, only win key ones necessary to affect their desired Operational Outcomes that achieves the socioeconomic-political goals set by Putin. The Comrade Fathers, Comrade Imams, and Comrade Rabbis will take it from there once it is completed.
Meanwhile their economic portion of the war continues to fuck Ukraine by systematically destroying the logistical, technical, and manufacturing nodes underpinning Ukraine's economical base with which to support their army to begin with. It also continues to ratchet up the pain on the US and EU which are already fractured and on the verge of open civil war due to Covid-19. By demanding and only accepting Rubles for his gas and ditching the dollar and demanding Rubles, Gold, or Bitcoin for Russian Goods and services, Putin is forcing Europe to play ball or freeze and starve. By attacking at the time of the year he did, he also stopped Ukraine's planting season and export of processed stores. Which is forcing the Middle East to toe his line or starve. These actions also caused the Russian Stock Market to surge and the Russian People to throw money into Russian Businesses.
In this Putin is also sending a message to China, don't think you can use this time to screw me, we are either equal partners or you're my enemy as well.
The next step for Russia is to get its birthrates up, which means removing the Oligarchs who invested abroad. The other step is reintegrating the former SSRs back into the Russian fold and wooing Turkey out of NATO and into his camp, which if done, makes Europe indefensible.
Except they refused to do that.
paulobrito
Well-known member
So, they can be frozen happily.
strunkenwhite
Well-known member
You have a strange view of what insanity is.
strunkenwhite
Well-known member
Chiron, I am getting worried about you. These are dangerous levels of copium. What is the LD50? Is there a hotline I can call?
Unable to ... man, Russia is invading Ukraine to stop it from being too friendly to the west. This is a backlash to the strength of the US's socioeconomic-political gravity well. I thought both sides at least agreed on that, and just disagreed as to, for example, whether Russia's unacceptable outcome was Ukraine switching orbits or just going actually neutral instead of "neutral". My point is, the very fact that this conflict exists argues against your claim IMO. Unless you give all the credit to the EU and none to the US, lol.
But does this include losing their grip on Kherson?
"Maj. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi said Russia would now be focused on defeating Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donbas region, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting a war since 2014."
www.nytimes.com
On the verge of civil war? Is this projection?
Russia could definitely survive without its oligarchs, but the oligarchs are running the show so I'm not sure where you're getting this delusion from that any of that will happen.
I'd like to know what you mean by "don't figure prominently". Clearly western powers think they are important, or they wouldn't make such an effort to send so many of them in particular. Clearly the Ukrainians think they are important, both in actual testimonials and observed use.
Are you claiming that these are considered by Ukrainians to be superior to Javlin and NLAW? Clearly it's not because of a lack of the weapons, because you just said they have them coming out their ears (to get captured in such numbers).
Even if you were right that Russia had the west firmly by the balls with its energy shipments, that wouldn't make it a first rate power any more than Saudi Arabia was. It'd make it a second rate power with good leverage.
Unable to ... man, Russia is invading Ukraine to stop it from being too friendly to the west. This is a backlash to the strength of the US's socioeconomic-political gravity well. I thought both sides at least agreed on that, and just disagreed as to, for example, whether Russia's unacceptable outcome was Ukraine switching orbits or just going actually neutral instead of "neutral". My point is, the very fact that this conflict exists argues against your claim IMO. Unless you give all the credit to the EU and none to the US, lol.
Translation, Russia's real objective was wherever they are doing best. Everything else is a feint which means it's not bad if they're doing badly.
But does this include losing their grip on Kherson?
Hmm, maybe someone should tell the Russian generals this:
"Maj. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi said Russia would now be focused on defeating Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donbas region, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting a war since 2014."
Live Updates: Russia Signals It May Be Narrowing War Aims
Russia says its focus is eastern Ukraine, not major cities, and the Pentagon says Ukrainians are fighting to retake a strategic region. President Biden met U.S. troops in Poland.
The war is going to have consequences on Ukraine's future for sure, but that's a problem for postwar when they're not being propped up by patriotic rage and NATO aid. What's propping up Russia? Their losses are very unsustainable. How fast do you think the pace of equipment destruction will taper off, to let Russia win before they run out of stuff made this century?
On the verge of civil war? Is this projection?
What is this madness? Russia cannot survive apart from both the west and China (well, maybe as a crippled shadow of its current self). To his credit, even a Putin gone mad knows this, which apparently puts him ahead of you.
Russia could definitely survive without its oligarchs, but the oligarchs are running the show so I'm not sure where you're getting this delusion from that any of that will happen.
planefag
A Flying Bundle of Sticks
This is what vatniks actually believe
When you forget to put on the Mauripol background . . .
Bimbo brain strikes again!
Bimbo brain strikes again!
And the contrast there just reflects poorly on Russia.
sillygoose
Well-known member
As if the US didn't do the same against insurgents from foreign countries in Iraq? Or used fires and WP indiscriminately in urban areas without regard to civilian casualties?
You realize she's Russian right?
Did they kill people who surrendered?
sillygoose
Well-known member
There is a bunch of stuff out there about US forces shooting wounded and torturing PoWs. They probably covered up actual massacres of PoWs.
Edit:
Some info, probably only came out due to a soldier reporting it and the involved soldiers threatening to kill him to cover it up:
Three US soldiers charged with murdering Iraqi prisoners
Three US troops have been charged with murder for shooting three Iraqi prisoners and threatening to kill a fellow soldier who wanted to report the incident, the Pentagon said yesterday.
www.theguardian.com
Moar:
Army tapes reveal motive in Iraq prisoner killings - CNN.com
U.S. soldiers interrogated by the Army in the 2007 murders of four Iraqi detainees blamed a military policy they said made it too hard to detain suspected insurgents, a CNN investigation has found.
www.cnn.com
Atrocities and Criminal Homicides in Iraq
Global Policy Forum is a policy watchdog that follows the work of the United Nations. We promote accountability and citizen participation in decisions on peace and security, social justice and international law.
sillygoose
Well-known member
See edit above.
So you're just playing a game of "whataboutism." Is it the official policy of the US military to not accept the surrender of "enemy mercenaries" or whatever you want to call them? Do you have them openly saying as much somewhere like we now have Russia doing? Do you have documented instances of such?
The other thing is, how is this treated back in the home country? In the US, you have people protesting and fighting legal battles for the people being indefinitely detained. There has always been public outcry against the kind of incidents you have cited, and the people involved are punished for it if they get caught/outed. In Russia, you get arrested for trying to protest and fined if you speak out against what the government is doing.
The other thing is, how is this treated back in the home country? In the US, you have people protesting and fighting legal battles for the people being indefinitely detained. There has always been public outcry against the kind of incidents you have cited, and the people involved are punished for it if they get caught/outed. In Russia, you get arrested for trying to protest and fined if you speak out against what the government is doing.
King Arts
Well-known member
Ok yes we do want the Russians to stop but we should not be ghoulish and celebrate the deaths of other men. I can sort of understand it if you are a Ukrainian and it’s in the moment still not a good look.
It’s still not a good idea because then they will fight to the death and inspire them to not take prisoners of their own. They should just say that mercs won’t be treated as honorable soldiers but as criminals instead and put in jail, but when have Russians ever been smart.
sillygoose
Well-known member
Pointing out that in practice that is what the US did for years before this war and led to a world culture of these violations of international law is whataboutism? I'm pointing out that this IS the actual norm in practice. The US military certainly tries to pretend it isn't, something the Russians are simply more honest about, but there is a record of it doing so and violating all sorts of norms it claimed to uphold. I know you think this is gotcha question, but actions speak louder than words and in terms of actions the US does not live up to its supposed words except to make an example of enlisted when they get caught.
That hasn't happened in Russia? Dissent is stifled in the US too when it is for a popular enough cause or sanctioned enough by the media. Where are the protests for the January 6th rioters who have been detained in all sorts of illegal ways?
People get abused in US custody all the time. After all the US has the world's largest population of prisoners, utterly dwarfing Russia despite the population differences.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
Taken out of the context of him supposedly fighting Russians in Ukraine; if he were just any normal American threatening Tucker Carlson with bodily harm on social media, what would that tell you about their political allegiances and ideological inclinations? To me, it smacks of someone who is afraid of what Tucker is saying; otherwise, they wouldn't be threatening to silence him with force, unless they were simply a violent thug who reacts to everything with violence. Either way, not someone I would consider trustworthy enough to believe their stories of military conquest.