Armchair General's DonbAss Derailed Discussion Thread (Topics Include History, Traps, and the Ongoing Slavic Civil War plus much much more)
- Thread starter ParadiseLost
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Wargamer08
Well-known member
That's not quite the gotcha you think with how badly kept they are.
The pre deployed caches were terribly managed and upkept before they started raiding them for equipment to see to Ukraine. Don't take my word, take the US Army's Impector General.
Equipment for Ukraine drawn from Kuwait wasn’t combat-ready, IG says
AnimalNoodles
Well-known member
The artillery spam is winning isnt it?
And we have no idea how your airpower based militaries are going to work against militaries with serious air denial capability.
This isnt 1941. You cant turn a bicycle factory into a gun factory anymore. And you no longer have the near autarkic end to end logistical path you once had. many of those inputs come from countries that are now hostile to you, inputs that arent easy to replace.
Yeah. The stocks openly known to the public.
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
Let's see how things are going...
Today's losses, Russia suffering roughly 7:1 disparity in losses.
The artillery spam is not 'winning.' It's letting them trade blood for soil at prohibitive rates. At the current pace, they'll push to the Dniepro in what, 20 years, after tens of millions of losses?
Also, Russian air denial capability really is not impressive. It's only been partially effective against Ukrainian Cold War-era soviet hardware. We already know that NATO Gen 4/4.5 aircraft are better than what the Ukrainians are flying against Russia, and Russian AA has been suffering attrition.
Against Gen 5 aircraft, optimistic expectations for Russians would be to inflict significant casualties in exchange for having their entire air defense network wiped out. Pessimistic expectations are they're lucky to shoot down a handful of missiles before low-visibility/stealthed munitions destroy most of their AA before they can launch a single missile.
AnimalNoodles
Well-known member
I ignore "statistics" released on twitter or osint. Neither of us accepts the legitimacy of the others sources. I look at results.
You seem to think that ukraine has an unlimited amount of men to throw at this. This isnt a stalemate, its an unstable equilibirum. Unless both sides agree to come to terms, Ukraine will simply run out. When ukraine's defenses collapse, it will collapse all at once, like a balloon.
Russia has shot Ukraines air force out of the sky several times over. The only reason Ukraine has any planes at all is because of a constant stream of donations. As i've pointed out many times over, NATO has never been shy about enforcing no fly zones. if NATO had confidence they could quickly defeat Russian air defenses, they would have tried.
Artillery spam means that a 140 million wannabe superpower with oil wealth is stuck in trench warfare against a poor ex-soviet 40 million country for years and its fanboys scream about victories measured in "price of a mile" scales.
If that is winning, king Pyrrhus was a great leader.
Like what? US airpower of all the existing ones have best tools to deal with that. Even Ukrainian air force still has a lot of assets despite the supposedly best at air denial military fighting it for 2 years. USAF alone could do tens of times better, and at the same loss rate, most of the planes would fall apart from aging rather than enemy action.
Depends on the gun. If you make guns little different from 1940's, why not?
Meanwhile the massive car, truck, and other vehicle manufacturing? You can turn them into light armored vehicle factories *easily*. Stuff like Strykers, Piranhas, all sort of MRAPs pretty much are that already.
Which affects Russia even worse than the West.
And the West is slowly weaning off China too, while a lot of the complex inputs come from allied industrial powers like Mexico, SK and Japan.
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planefag
A Flying Bundle of Sticks
All you do is spout vatnik fantasies backed by nothing more than your own delusions and Russian propaganda, and when called out on it, all you can do is repeat your prior lies. There's no point in engaging with you, and all you deserve is silent contempt.
Our girl Olga Skabeeva has revealed that Russia is well aware of NATO's plan to strike Russia with overwhelming force in an initial strike. Rationally of course, she is still fearful of the threat of NATO's aggression, regardless of whether Russia is aware of the Wests centuries long perfidious attempts at destroying their country.
Also F-35's confirmed in operation over Ukraine.
Also F-35's confirmed in operation over Ukraine.
Wargamer08
Well-known member
Time will tell.
I think Ukraine is on the ropes. It lacks the ability to get it's self back in the war. It lacks the industry, it lacks the manpower, it lacks the political will to mobilize said manpower, it lacks the equipment to fit out new troops. It is almost entirely reliant on foreign money to operate it's government and social apparatus. Both the EU and the US refuse to even consider anything over then token increases in equipment production.
I'm open to being shown up, to being wrong. But as it stands, using Ukraine's own numbers Russia is taking a Vietnam amount of casualties and a Vietnam amount of time to slowly grind Ukraine to dust.
Hell in those terms Russia are doing great. Far fewer plane losses. Must be the lack of classic Ukrainian planes like F16s or F35s being flow by totally legitimate Ukrainian pilots with names like John Smith. Frankly I'm shocked that hasn't happened yet, the USSR 100% did it Vietnam. Turn about and all that.
I think Ukraine is on the ropes. It lacks the ability to get it's self back in the war. It lacks the industry, it lacks the manpower, it lacks the political will to mobilize said manpower, it lacks the equipment to fit out new troops. It is almost entirely reliant on foreign money to operate it's government and social apparatus. Both the EU and the US refuse to even consider anything over then token increases in equipment production.
I'm open to being shown up, to being wrong. But as it stands, using Ukraine's own numbers Russia is taking a Vietnam amount of casualties and a Vietnam amount of time to slowly grind Ukraine to dust.
Hell in those terms Russia are doing great. Far fewer plane losses. Must be the lack of classic Ukrainian planes like F16s or F35s being flow by totally legitimate Ukrainian pilots with names like John Smith. Frankly I'm shocked that hasn't happened yet, the USSR 100% did it Vietnam. Turn about and all that.
The manpower question is treated without much haste because they don't want to raise more light infantry, and without major increase in equipment shipments they can't turn the manpower to something else.
Political will is a bigger issue than anything else, there's plenty of stuff in reserve that could be handed out if there was money and/or political will, and there's no point in increasing production if those aren't on the horizon.
It's grinding its own army more than Ukrainian one though.
Russia couldn't lose this many planes even if it wanted to on account of not having them in the first place, while what they have has a terrible readiness rate. Look at the sortie numbers. One supercarrier could do more sorties than their whole air force. Of course that slows attrition, but also scales down what it can possibly do.
As i said, it's all about political will, if that's found in sufficient quantity, other problems will become minor.
Wargamer08
Well-known member
Political will isn't some minor thing. The gathering political will and national effort is literally what's keeping Russia competitive in the war. It takes concentrated effort to shift political inertia to motivate a population to war. It's hardly something that happens overnight.
Likewise talking about how production would go up if massive social and political changes happen. Obviously, but it's fucked because of existing issues and won't be fixed until they are. Leftist policies in general and DEI and profit centric policies in particular are crippling western production.
The training for Ukraine's next army will take months. A lot of that training doesn't need equipment. If they were serious, they would be training the men in the expectation of getting the equipment. If nothing else, the men sitting around trained with no equipment might shame their sponsors into more donations.
A large problem Ukraine is facing is lead time. Even if the EU or the US wanted to dump a whole bunch of surplus equipment on them, it gathered enough political will. How long is the lead time from issuing the order/contract to begin refurbishment of equipment and delivery? I know for MBTs it's almost 9 months.
I think the west is procrastinating while it decides on it's options. I think the longer that happens, the worse it bodes for Ukraine.
>profit centric policies
Come on, we aren't leftists here.
And some western countries aren't DEI crazy, so given an actual contract backed with money they absolutely could start making a lot more stuff.
We aren't talking about training them to use M16's. How do you train in expectation of getting things like fighter jets or tanks?
They don't have the appropriate sims and training vehicles. It would be a waste of money and political capital to try. Actual training would, again, need western countries to organize it in existing training facilities.
Also surplus equipment isn't made equal, some can be prepared much quicker, especially if some countries tone down on the red tape. It took a lot less than 9 months from the start of the war for Ukraine to get MBT deliveries...
Wargamer08
Well-known member
How much action ready surplus is left at this point? Less then I think you realize.
sigh Knowing the US DoD, they've probably got stockpiles everywhere that they've literally lost/forgotten about in their bureaucracy.
Lots of NATO stuff is more or less active but awaiting retirement or replacement.
USA could arrange hundreds of spare M1's, with time, or sooner given some red tape cutting and political will.
Poland still has ~150 PT-91's that will be exchanged to other tanks sooner or later, with right intermediate or order shuffling that could be accelerated, they may end up in Ukraine eventually anyway as US and SK orders for new tanks get fulfilled.
Also over a thousand BMP-1's, figure out how to replace at least some and they will be partially freed up.
Greece has ~ 500 Leo 1's and ~2000 M113's, some assisted modernization could free up some of it, that's a big number, cheap vehicles and Ukraine already uses both.
That's just few places i thought about. There could certainly be a some hardware found in western EU where immediate land warfare is not a threat.
Fuck.Moscov ALWAYS WARNED ABOUT SOMEBODY ATTACK,WHEN THEY PLAN TO ATTACK THEMSELVES,WHICH MEAN THAT THEY WOULD ATTACK NATO.
Considering,that Poland is ruled by germans agent Tusk,and Germany are their Troyan horse in NATO,it mean attack on Poland.
Fuck again.
If only they were also so isolationist when it comes to migrants arriving on Italy's shores, there would be a lot more money and refugee residences left for Ukraine, but no, that problem gets to be exported to the rest of Europe.
Crosetto: “No ai militari in Ucraina, la Francia non parli per la Nato”
Il ministro della Difesa: «Bisogna attivare con maggior forza le vie diplomatiche. La conversione della Russia in un’economia di guerra la rende più agile dell…www.lastampa.it
Italy's Defence Minister despite sending aid to the Ukraine refuses to send troops in the Ukraine. Most military men I know here in Italy probably would risk going to military court than facing the Russians and the Ukraine's Russians.
Probably a good thing for us Italians.