Ukraine Conflict - Das Himmelfahrtskommando

[xzar_monty]

4 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Hilarious for sure, but also very concerning, because it makes Putin more and more dangerous as he could lash out even more out of his desperation.

Precisely. It becomes harder and harder to envisage a scenario where he could back down (in any sense) in a way that enables him to save face (in his own view). That's quite concerning.

[Lexx]

I mean ... he had enough time to back down and save face ... clearly he doesn't want to.

[Malcador]

9 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

Something for more tactics focused ppl. 

 

It's interesting to note the Humvee is using an HMG the Ukrainians will have experience with and the ammo for, really. Also a Humvee can take rifle rounds.

[Chilloutman]

so what do you think his plan is now? Nuke it? Doubt it would help him in any way, quite contrary. Bleed out for months? Does not sounds too good either

[Hurlshort]

15 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Completely agree about women. If it's equality, then it ought to be true equality, not "equality" where you get to serve in all military positions but get lower physical and other standards to satisfy and don't have to sign up for Selective Service. Keeping my fingers crossed that the Supreme Court will agree.

Equity should be the goal. Equality ignores individual strengths. The idea that someone can't serve in the military because they struggle to meet an arbitrary number of push-ups is short-sighted. Only 10% of military forces even see combat. Do quartermasters need to be yolked? Probably not. Do they need to be good with numbers? Absolutely. 

Establishing a baseline for both fitness and intelligence and saying "You have to hit this target" is a lazy way to assess individuals. I'd think a modern military would strive to be better than that.  

[xzar_monty]

7 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

so what do you think his plan is now? Nuke it? Doubt it would help him in any way, quite contrary. Bleed out for months? Does not sounds too good either

I don't think it makes much sense to speculate.

But yeah, anyone following the war will probably speculate at least a little.

People's uprising in Russia is a possibility. It's also possible that Putin slips on a soap in a particularly Russian manner. It's impossible to say how likely these scenarios are.

[Chilloutman]

seriously doubt people's uprising in Russia. Young generation is more pro west but rest of population still lives in illusion of great russia and everyone in west wanting to get them. And on top of that most of those pro-west are fleeing Russia in droves

[Malcador]

14 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

so what do you think his plan is now? Nuke it? Doubt it would help him in any way, quite contrary. Bleed out for months? Does not sounds too good either

Don't think he can retreat, so will have to try to bleed it out and maybe negotiate a peace as people tire of the killing, perhaps ?

[xzar_monty]

6 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

seriously doubt people's uprising in Russia. Young generation is more pro west but rest of population still lives in illusion of great russia and everyone in west wanting to get them. And on top of that most of those pro-west are fleeing Russia in droves

I agree it's not likely. Romania, for example, had the comparative advantage that its communist repression had not lasted that long. Russia has been extremely authoritarian and particularly oppressive for over a thousand years, with only about two brief periods of something resembling an attempt at democracy.

Interestingly, some of the earliest references to (future) Russians mention that these people a) can't be trusted and b) don't even trust each other. We shouldn't read too much into that, but it's interesting nevertheless. (More info in Peter Frankopan's book The Silk Roads.)

Edited March 24, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Chilloutman]

Yeah but bleeding strategy have one weakness - IF Ukraine manage to regroup and counter attack in south supply lines for Russia will be decimated. Of course its big IF

[ShadySands]

1 minute ago, Hurlsnot said:

quartermasters need to be yolked?

This is funny because in my experience these are the jobs that are more likely to be swole. Not that it's needed for the job or anything but the amount of free time and culture varies so much depending on your role and unit.

[Darkpriest]

Putin's red line is Crimea, Donesk, Lughansk in full oblast boundries and some sort of no NATO/ or Russian controled Ukraine army development in Ukraine. He will not go less than that. He already conceedes on a regime change and full land bridge to Crimea and Moldova. If UA will not give him this much, he is ready to conscript tens of thousands more and send them Stalin wise to flood UA until UA submits defeat, but the longer and more bloodied it will be, he will escalate measures even more, short of tactical nukes, as that would push West towards a military response. 

The more things escalate and the more terrain Russians will start controlling in the south, the further red line will be pushed against Ukraine. 

[Chilloutman]

I seriously doubt conscripts would be any improvement for Russia in this war. Quite contrary really. You still need to train people for modern war, you need to supply them on front. This is not WW2 where you can give one guy rifle and second ammo and send them to death.

[xzar_monty]

13 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

illusion of great russia and everyone in west wanting to get them.

This is extremely interesting, by the way. Read the recent comments from anyone at Kreml. Lavrov, whomever. There's this paradox: at the level of actions, Russia is an aggressor. But at the level of words, Russia whines more than anyone in international politics. It's astonishing. It's nothing but moaning and whining, with the occasional threat thrown in.

Also, note how Russia says that NATO is out to get it. But actually, even Russia itself doesn't believe it. Russia's western front is effectively empty now. Because Russia knows that NATO has no intention to attack.

[Darkpriest]

55 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

I seriously doubt conscripts would be any improvement for Russia in this war. Quite contrary really. You still need to train people for modern war, you need to supply them on front. This is not WW2 where you can give one guy rifle and second ammo and send them to death.

I agree, but you can also say the same on the UA side. A lot of them are not regular soldiers but citizens volunteering and fighting with minimal training. The obvious difference are determination and knowledge of terrain, but in itslef you cannot claim that UA is having an advantage in equipment and tech, and they are fighting mostly an infantry based war

[Chilloutman]

3 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

I agree, but you can also say the same on the UA side. A lot of them are not regular soldiers but citizens volunteering and fighting with minimal training. The obvious difference are determination and knowledge of terrain, but in itslef you cannot claim that UA is having an advantage in equipment and tech, and they are fighting mostly an infantry based war

Thats true but as you pointed out difference is that defensive side have big advantage. If you want to win this you would have to have like 3-5:1 advantage. I doubt Russians have enough supplies to field such amount of people. They would have to go to war economy and I doubt even Russians are willing to do that for Ukraine. And it would take time to do so. I think that sanctions will hit hard in like 3 months.

Edited March 24, 2022 by Chilloutman

[HoonDing]

It won't end until Putin receives Zelensky's head on a silver platter. And you can probably take that literally.

[pmp10]

 

1 hour ago, Chilloutman said:

so what do you think his plan is now? Nuke it? Doubt it would help him in any way, quite contrary. Bleed out for months? Does not sounds too good either

It's not at all clear that Russians are the ones bleeding more.
We don't know the Ukrainian losses and red army is very artillery heavy.

1 hour ago, Darkpriest said:

He already conceedes on a regime change and full land bridge to Crimea and Moldova.

I wouldn't bet on the land bridge part just yet.
He will soon control everything from Kherson to Mariupol and that is enough for a bridge and two more separatist republics.
It will all depend on how long can Russia grind it out.

[Darkpriest]

1 minute ago, pmp10 said:

 

It's not at all clear that Russians are the ones bleeding more.
We don't know the Ukrainian losses and red army is very artillery heavy.

I wouldn't bet on the land bridge part just yet.
He will soon control everything from Kherson to Mariupol and that is enough for a bridge and two more separatist republics.
It will all depend on how long can Russia grind it out.

Yes, hence why I said so far the red line was not necessarily the land bridge, but if they will take Mariupol amd secure much more of the South and sustain a lot of damage in the process, they will move that red line to the full lnd bridge. 

I think the earlier UA will conceed on those east republics and crimea the better chance of Putin not moving his red line goalposts. 

[Lexx]

Looks like another secret family got sanctioned. The attached twitter thread is also an interesting read:

I just love how these people are constantly crapping on our evil western ways, all the while they all have properties and secret families tied up over here. Every single one of them is a damn hypocrite.

[Azdeus]

4 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

But given the state of democracy in Sweden, the blame does not lie entirely on the politicians. After all, all of them were voted in, and the elections were fair.

I am not trying to be clever or cruel, by the way.

Oh, no offencetaken, or meant, I was very bitter about the available choices. We didn't have a referendum to stop conscription or any such thing, the politicians decided that they wanted to lower the taxes for "everyone", it went through with 153-150 votes. They also wanted to suck some US ****, that wasn't possible with the conscription law in place, so after that they were more free to send people to wars we shouldn't have put our noses in. Yet now that Ukraine could use some help from fighting forces the politicians **** their pants and don't use this availability to aid a country that actually needs it.

Guess it's easier to shoot brown people.

[kanisatha]

2 hours ago, Hurlsnot said:

Equity should be the goal. Equality ignores individual strengths. The idea that someone can't serve in the military because they struggle to meet an arbitrary number of push-ups is short-sighted. Only 10% of military forces even see combat. Do quartermasters need to be yolked? Probably not. Do they need to be good with numbers? Absolutely. 

Establishing a baseline for both fitness and intelligence and saying "You have to hit this target" is a lazy way to assess individuals. I'd think a modern military would strive to be better than that.  

Sure. I would agree with this. But within any particular category of job the standards should be the same for both men and women. How could it be justified that if you are in the infantry, a male must meet X physical standards but a female can meet X- standards? But that's what we have right now.  A woman who meets a lower physical standard is not excluded from jobs that a man could hold only by satisfying higher standards.

[xzar_monty]

52 minutes ago, Lexx said:

I just love how these people are constantly crapping on our evil western ways, all the while they all have properties and secret families tied up over here. Every single one of them is a damn hypocrite.

Just the other day, in Moscow, on a stadium, Vladimir Putin was ranting against the evils of the West, dressed in extremely expensive Western clothing. So there you have it.

[xzar_monty]

22 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Sure. I would agree with this. But within any particular category of job the standards should be the same for both men and women. How could it be justified that if you are in the infantry, a male must meet X physical standards but a female can meet X- standards? But that's what we have right now.  A woman who meets a lower physical standard is not excluded from jobs that a man could hold only by satisfying higher standards.

This is particularly true in the military and other jobs that pertain to life and death situations (firefighters, lifeguards, etc.). The standards should absolutely be the same for everyone.

[213374U]

1 hour ago, Lexx said:

Looks like another secret family got sanctioned. The attached twitter thread is also an interesting read:

I'm the last to complain when the rich get eaten. That being said, I wish we'd see a more frequent and uniform application of the law that allowed for that.