Bet TSLA
Active Member
Elon basically just repeated whatever BS David "Wormtongue" Sacks whispered in his ear. It was sophomoric drivel, but whatever disease that is currently afflicting Elon seems to leave him incapable of recognizing that.
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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
- Start date
Ukraine Air Force specifically asking for F-15/F-16 type aircraft.
www.pravda.com.ua
Ukrainian Air Force explains what kind of systems and aircraft it needs to strengthen air defence
Ukraine needs a lot more air defence systems to protect its skies; it also needs combat aircraft with a wide choice of weaponry, such as F-15 and F-16 fighter jets. This hardware is needed for Ukraine’s military to quickly liberate the territories occupied by Russia.
www.pravda.com.ua
Honestly I would love to see it... But these require a LOT of maintenance which, I am not sure that Ukraine can sustain at the moment.Ukraine Air Force specifically asking for F-15/F-16 type aircraft.
Ukrainian Air Force explains what kind of systems and aircraft it needs to strengthen air defence
Ukraine needs a lot more air defence systems to protect its skies; it also needs combat aircraft with a wide choice of weaponry, such as F-15 and F-16 fighter jets. This hardware is needed for Ukraine’s military to quickly liberate the territories occupied by Russia.
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
Red Bull is still active in the Russian Dictatorland.
The Ukraine Solidarity Project also made a little movie:
Credit goes to (in Swedish):
cornucopia.se
The Ukraine Solidarity Project also made a little movie:
Credit goes to (in Swedish):
UPPDATERAS: Kreml väntar sig 100 000 dödade mobiki till våren - spionagemisstänkta i Sverige bodde i GRU-lönnmördarförbandet 29155s hus - Storbritannien menar att Ukraina bör fortsätta med en vinteroffensiv - stora ryska manskapsförluster - minnesdag
Rysk opposition säger enligt uppgifter att Kreml väntar sig att 100 000 av de mobiliserade mobiki kommer vara dödade eller lemlästade till våren och till det kommer övriga skadade. De två spionagemisstänkta ryssarna som greps nyligen ska ha haft en lägenhet i Moskva i samma hus som flera GRU-operatö
cornucopia.se
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
Allegedly. But it seems to pretty much match up with 'recent events'...
Credit goes to the same Swedish site as the previous post.
Credit goes to the same Swedish site as the previous post.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
If true, that shows Russia would very much like a temporary ceasefire, at least until winter is over. That is one point that can be negotiated to reduce suffering on both sides, although it does mean Ukraine possibly giving up some advantage (presuming their military is better prepared for winter). Goes back to previous point that negotiation does not necessarily have to involve recognizing occupied territory as Russia.
It would be foolish for Ukraine to agree to a cease-fire. They need to keep pressing Russia to a breaking point if possible. Russia would love a cease-fire so they could replenish soldiers and munitions.
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
The Brits seem to agree...
Source:
Russia Risks Knockout Blow in War as Putin Hits Rock Bottom
Vladimir Putin has left his troops in a perilous situation and a senior military official tells The Daily Beast it’s go-time for the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
www.thedailybeast.com
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
The northern countries of the NATO alliance have been sending winter gear to the Ukrainians for several months. In WW II the Soviets were good winter fighters. Russia has forgotten how (looking at their poor performance in the early months of this war), but the Ukrainians have been retrained in winter fighting by NATO. Once the mud season is over the Ukrainians will be able to move again and I expect they will be putting pressure on Russian positions again.
Ben Hodges who is a retired US general who over saw Ukrainian training by NATO just before he retired predicted that Ukraine would hold out in the early days and come back. He's predicted that the Ukrainians will take a big chunk of the occupied territory this winter and the fighting will be in Crimea by spring.
The Russians haven't changed their attitude about Ukrainians for centuries. Russians have referred to Ukrainians as chimps. Russian news goes on about how Russia is really fighting NATO because emotionally Russia could take being beaten by the US, but to be beaten by Ukrainians is a humiliation they can't tolerate.
Before this war the world didn't really take Ukraine seriously. A lot of people in the west still referred to Ukraine as "the Ukraine" which implies it is a region that might have some ethnic identity, but it isn't a nation state. Like Americans will refer to regions of the country as "the Midwest" or "the South". Those are cultural regions, but they don't have any political identity.
Holodomor is one reason Stalin is the #2 mass murderer in history. Only topped by Mao.
Looks like the Ukrainians are continuing to bleed Russia. Today's totals
personnel ‒ about 86710 (+560) persons were liquidated,
tanks ‒ 2901 (+2),
APV ‒ 5848 (+4),
artillery systems – 1896 (+1),
MLRS – 395 (+0) од,
https://www.mil.gov.ua/en/news/2022/11/26/the-total-combat-losses-of-the-enemy-from-24-02-to-26-11/
The pattern of late has been fairly high personnel losses, but low equipment losses. This fits with the stories that the Russians keep throwing mobiks at the Ukrainians in human wave attacks around Bakhmut and the Ukrainians keep mowing them down. According to what I've seen from things like wartranslated, the Russians calling home are complaining about only being given a rifle and nothing else, then being sent against the Ukrainians who kill many of their group. All officers and any form of battlefield leadership are absent. If they were somehow able to take a Ukrainian position they wouldn't know what to do about it.
The Russians are just throwing away lives. Maybe they are hoping the Ukrainians will use up all their ammunition killing the mobiks so then the half trained troops can move in and take the positions? It looks like a version of the Chinese mass humanity attacks on UN troops in the Korean War, except organized by Monty Python characters.
ISW reports RUS likely using a empty cruise missiles as decoys.
"Russian forces are likely using inert Kh-55 cruise missiles in their massive missile strike campaign against Ukrainian critical infrastructure, further highlighting the depletion of the Russian military’s high-precision weapons arsenal. The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported on November 26 that Russia is likely removing nuclear warheads from aging Kh-55 missiles and launching the missiles without warheads at targets in Ukraine.[13] The UK MoD suggested that Russian forces are likely launching the inert missiles as decoys to divert Ukrainian air defenses.[14] Ukrainian officials have previously reported that since mid-October, Russian forces have extensively used the non-nuclear variant of the missile system, the Kh-555, to conduct strikes on critical Ukrainian infrastructure.[15] The Russian military’s likely use of a more strategic weapon system in the role of a decoy for Ukrainian air defenses corroborates ISW’s previous reporting that the Russian military has significantly depleted its arsenal of high-precision missiles.[16] The use of more strategic weapons systems in support of the campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure suggests that the Russian military is heavily committed to the strike campaign and still mistakenly believes that it can generate strategically significant effects through that campaign."
And ground freezing by first or second week of December might allow Ukranian offensive moves.
"The overall pace of operations along the frontline has slowed in recent days due to deteriorating weather conditions but is likely to increase starting in the next few weeks as temperatures drop and the ground freezes throughout the theater. Ukrainian and Russian reporting from critical frontline areas throughout eastern and southern Ukraine, including Svatove, Bakhmut, and Vuhledar, indicates that operations on both sides are currently bogged down by heavy rain and resulting heavy mud.[1] Temperatures are forecasted to drop throughout Ukraine over the next week, which will likely freeze the ground and expedite the pace of fighting as mobility increases for both sides. The temperature in areas in Ukraine’s northeast, such as along the Svatove-Kreminna line, will dip to near-or-below-freezing daily highs between November 28 and December 4. It will likely take the ground some days of consistent freezing temperatures to solidify, which means that ground conditions are likely to be set to allow the pace of operations to increase throughout Ukraine over the course of the weekend of December 3-4 and into the following week. It is unclear if either side is actively planning or preparing to resume major offensive or counter-offensive operations at that time, but the meteorological factors that have been hindering such operations will begin lifting."
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 26
"Russian forces are likely using inert Kh-55 cruise missiles in their massive missile strike campaign against Ukrainian critical infrastructure, further highlighting the depletion of the Russian military’s high-precision weapons arsenal. The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported on November 26 that Russia is likely removing nuclear warheads from aging Kh-55 missiles and launching the missiles without warheads at targets in Ukraine.[13] The UK MoD suggested that Russian forces are likely launching the inert missiles as decoys to divert Ukrainian air defenses.[14] Ukrainian officials have previously reported that since mid-October, Russian forces have extensively used the non-nuclear variant of the missile system, the Kh-555, to conduct strikes on critical Ukrainian infrastructure.[15] The Russian military’s likely use of a more strategic weapon system in the role of a decoy for Ukrainian air defenses corroborates ISW’s previous reporting that the Russian military has significantly depleted its arsenal of high-precision missiles.[16] The use of more strategic weapons systems in support of the campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure suggests that the Russian military is heavily committed to the strike campaign and still mistakenly believes that it can generate strategically significant effects through that campaign."
And ground freezing by first or second week of December might allow Ukranian offensive moves.
"The overall pace of operations along the frontline has slowed in recent days due to deteriorating weather conditions but is likely to increase starting in the next few weeks as temperatures drop and the ground freezes throughout the theater. Ukrainian and Russian reporting from critical frontline areas throughout eastern and southern Ukraine, including Svatove, Bakhmut, and Vuhledar, indicates that operations on both sides are currently bogged down by heavy rain and resulting heavy mud.[1] Temperatures are forecasted to drop throughout Ukraine over the next week, which will likely freeze the ground and expedite the pace of fighting as mobility increases for both sides. The temperature in areas in Ukraine’s northeast, such as along the Svatove-Kreminna line, will dip to near-or-below-freezing daily highs between November 28 and December 4. It will likely take the ground some days of consistent freezing temperatures to solidify, which means that ground conditions are likely to be set to allow the pace of operations to increase throughout Ukraine over the course of the weekend of December 3-4 and into the following week. It is unclear if either side is actively planning or preparing to resume major offensive or counter-offensive operations at that time, but the meteorological factors that have been hindering such operations will begin lifting."
Yup, esp since only one side has winter gear.
Doggydogworld
Active Member
Milley said: "There might be a political solution, where politically, the Russians withdraw."
That's the opposite of what Musk said, that Ukraine should permanently give up claim to 20% of their territory in exchange for peace. The idiocy of Musk's plan is that so-called peace would only last 6-12 months until Putin resupplies enough to go after the other 80%.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
NATO hardware is breaking down from overuse
www.yahoo.com
Artillery Is Breaking in Ukraine. It's Becoming a Problem for the Pentagon.
WASHINGTON — Ukrainian troops fire thousands of explosive shells at Russian targets every day, using high-tech cannons supplied by the United States and its allies. But those weapons are burning out after months of overuse, or being damaged or destroyed in combat, and dozens have been taken off...
NATO hardware is breaking down from overuse
Artillery Is Breaking in Ukraine. It's Becoming a Problem for the Pentagon.
WASHINGTON — Ukrainian troops fire thousands of explosive shells at Russian targets every day, using high-tech cannons supplied by the United States and its allies. But those weapons are burning out after months of overuse, or being damaged or destroyed in combat, and dozens have been taken off...
Not surprising. US and NATO doctrine relies heavily on air power with artillery used a lot less than it is in this war where air power is minimal.
Russian guns are wearing out to such an extent they are pressing towed 152mm guns into service that were made in the 1940s. Unlike the west, the Russians tend to fire their guns until the barrel is completely worn out then they pretty much discard it. They burned out a lot of artillery in the Chechen war and never repaired it.
Apparently Russian metallurgy is not up to what the Soviets had. I have read of Russian artillery officers complaining that the newer guns made since the fall of the USSR have shorter barrel life than the late Soviet barrels.
The western artillery makers are probably examining the worn out barrels from their guns with an eye to seeing if they can make any improvements. This is the ultimate test lab for their guns.
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
Allegedly:
Source:
www.ukrinform.net
Source:
Russia to launch new wave of covert mobilization on December 10
In the Russian Federation and in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, preparations are underway for the next wave of covert mobilization into the ranks of the Russian-occupation forces starting from December 10. — Ukrinform.
www.ukrinform.net
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
The mobiks are starving.
They could be moving a lot of things. We don't know what the Russians are buying from China. It's not the electronic components they really need to make their most sophisticated weapons. Those are German parts and the Chinese don't have equivalents.
The PLA uses a lot of equipment that has its roots in the USSR so there is a lot of compatibility in older weapons systems. The Russians are so short of everything they could be buying Chinese made AKs, ammunition, uniforms, body armor, commercial drones to be modified, or a long list of other items that they need just to put the mobiks on the front line with minimal gear.
They still have over 100K mobiks cooling their heels in Russia because they don't have even the minimal gear to give them. The people who have been deployed have gotten a basic summer uniform, a rifle, and not much else. Mobiks in phone calls home have complained about having to scrounge for ammunition. Many complain they have no food or only very minimal food. The weather is getting cold and they still don't have winter gear.
Mobiks are going to be dying of fostbite and hypothermia soon. Back in March the Russians lost a lot of troops to the cold in the north. When the Ukrainians took back the north they found a lot of bodies that had died from the weather.
Recent thoughts from Trent Telenko about what is going to happen to the "professional" troops in the coming months
Thread by @TrentTelenko on Thread Reader App
I expect Ukraine will keep up the pressure all winter and Russia will find it necessary to throw the units pulled from Kherson back into the fight before they are ready.
What's happening to the Russian army is similar to what happened to Japanese air power in the Pacific. Through most of 1942 Japanese aviation, especially naval aviation was better than what the Americans could field. The American advantage was a deep bench and a doctrine of preserving pilots by constantly rotating them through the front lines. Short term this was a weakness for the Americans, but long term it paid dividends.
By late 1942 neither side had much in the way of operational aircraft carriers. The US was down the the Saratoga with the Enterprise undergoing a major repair and overhaul in Bremerton, WA. Similarly the Japanese were down to two fleet carriers the Zuikaku and Shokaku. The Shokaku was undergoing repair and the Zuikaku was down for much needed maintenance.
The US and Japan had a major struggle for Guadalcanal in the Solomon Island chain, but by the end of 1942 it was looking like the US was going to force the Japanese off the island. With no carriers the US developed an offensive plan for 1943 that would walk its way up the Solomon chain taking islands using air power from other islands already captured. To counter this the Japanese kept feeding air power into their fortress at Rabaul on NW end of the island chain. At one point they fed in all their remaining carrier based aircraft and crew to fill out losses.
The attritional air war did change a little in Japan's favor for a short while, but those pilots were irreplaceable with Japan's wartime training program (which was much shorter and less comprehensive than the pre-war program) and the US was able to replace lost pilots quickly from a growing reserve of well trained pilots.
By the end of 1943 the IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) was rebuilding their carrier fleet, but they had few carrier qualified pilots left. They went on a crash training program around the South China Sea which had the advantage of being far away from any Allied airpower as well as being close to their oil supply so they had enough fuel for some training. There were a lack of refineries in the region so fuel was not in over abundance. Additionally they were fueling their carriers with straight crude oil from Borneo, which could be used directly in a pinch, but it had a lot of contaminants that would have been removed in refining and had some degree of light ends, basically gasoline. Bunker sea is a heavier oil closer to diesel than gasoline. The light ends tend to leave a lot of vapors in the fuel tanks as the fuel is burned, which becomes an explosion hazard. The contaminants clog up the engines and they require more maintenance.
They knew the US was going to make a major move by mid-1944. Task Force 58 had been conducting air raids on Japanese outposts all over the western Pacific. They had hit the Marianas islands hard, hit islands north of New Guinea, hit Iwo Jima, and the Philippines. The Japanese moved the carriers to the Philippines to prepare to counter the next American move. They guessed it would be the Marianas and they were correct.
US submarines around the Philippines curtailed training. Every time the carriers went out, US subs would follow them. Eventually they quit trying to train at all. The air crews were not well trained, but they had some training. The Japanese decided they would have to make do with what they had.
When the US landed on Siapan in early June 1944, the entire IJN fleet set sail to counter them. Because there were so many US subs in the area, their move was quickly detected and the USN prepared for the fight.
The battle was called the Marianas Turkey Shoot because the USN played a perfect defensive battle and shot down most of the Japanese aircraft thrown at them. The Japanese only managed to hit one ship, the USS South Dakota which got hit with one small bomb. US subs sank two of the largest carriers and aircraft sank one more, but the carrier fleet escaped with most of the ships intact.
After the battle the IJN tried to rebuild their carrier airpower. They reconstituted the units that had been devastated with green air crews and tried to train them up. The Japanese had a number of defensive plans based on what the next move was by the US. One element of the plan was to rush all available air power, including the new carrier squadrons to the fight if invasion looked imminent. If the carrier pilots had a chance to train up, the carriers would be deployed with their aircraft, but if they didn't have time to get carrier qualified they would be committed from land bases.
At this point in the war the US was alternating commanders from one battle to the next. Admiral Spruance had been in charge of the Marianas operation, and next it was Admiral Bill Halsey's turn for the invasion of the Philippines. Like with the invasion of the Marianas, Halsey conducted raids on every base within range of the Philippines to whittle down Japanese air power. The Japanese thought the next invasion could be Iwo Jima, Formosa (Taiwan), the Philippines, or Okinawa. An invasion of Formosa would allow the US to supply China directly from the sea and there was planning to do this, but the Japanese conducted a land offensive that took the ports along the coast that would have been necessary to supply China from Formosa.
In any case in early October, only a few weeks before the invasion at Leyte Gulf in the Philippines, Halsey conducted a raid on Formosa to neutralize air power there. Somebody in the IJN command thought that Formosa was the next invasion target and it triggered some of the invasion counter plans, which included sending all their poorly trained carrier squadrons to Formosa.
The Japanese had some minor success, torpedoing two US cruisers which both needed towing to safety. But they lost around 500 aircraft and crew. It broke the back of the IJN's carrier air power. In the Battle of Leyte Gulf the Japanese carriers were just bait to lure away American air power from the surface ships that were trying to sink the landing force. The Japanese threw away a number of carriers as decoys and their ability to conduct carrier operations was finished.
This is the arc the Russian army is on. They didn't start the war with anything like the pre-war IJN pilot quality, but they had some moderately competent units. The VDV and naval infantry units were used heavily in the early fighting and they got gutted. They have been trying to keep them going feeding in green but somewhat trained troops. At least they had basic training.
They tried to achieve something sending all their trainers to Ukraine, but now those people have been used up too. They have nobody left to train new recruits. The mobiks are given old rifles, taught some very basic things, and sent to the front. Those are the people who will be shoved into the gutted out formations of more professional soldiers. The surviving professional soldiers might be able to whip the mobiks into some kind of fighting force given some time, but when the next emergency comes, those units will be shoved back into combat with a handful of worn out veterans too combat fatigued to be of much use and a lot of poorly trained mobiks who might know the business end of a gun at that point, but not much else.
Like the Japanese at Formosa, they might score a few small successes. As the saying goes "even the blind pig finds the occasional truffle". But overall, the Ukrainians will just gut the units again, killing of permanently maiming the remaining professionals, leaving shattered units with no leadership and no veterans.
The Russians have been fielding units with the "Guards" designation. These are units that got that distinction in WW II when it performed well in combat. But the designations mean nothing today other than a reference to past glories. A Guard unit today is no better than a unit without the Guard designation. Similarly the professional units are getting watered down to a point where they are only marginally better than units that are all mobiks.
The Russians can throw a lot of warm bodies at the fight, who will turn cold very quickly, but they can achieve very little with this force. They are running out of everything to equip these men and they have no means to train new troops.
As their specialties get hollowed out, they are trying to replace them with people who have no training. They have forced some mobiks who have never driven anything into being tank drivers. They probably have a lot of pre-war anti-aircraft people left and other behind the lines specialties, but the frontline specialties have taken heavy losses too. They are fielding tanks that are 60 years old with crews who don't know what they are doing. There are stories that they have been fielding tanks built for a crew of three with only two crew members, which makes the tank little more than a target.
This is an army that is unraveling. They are doing serious damage to the long term institution just to keep it in the field. With the trainers gone, they now have nobody to train conscripts. Their losses are high which means they are not just bleeding experienced people, they are losing institutional knowledge. When they rebuild the army after this war (if the country doesn't fall apart), they will have to start from scratch rebuilding that institutional knowledge. It will take them decades before they are even remotely competent again.
The Russia that comes out of this war will also be impoverished due to the sanctions. Rebuilding will be painfully expensive and painfully slow. The army they started the war with had 70 years of leftover Soviet gear to use, but much of that has been burned up by the war. The modern Russian military has very little new gear, despite their industry producing some modern equipment because they haven' had the funds to buy much of the new gear in quantity. Now they are going to have to buy a lot of the new gear, which will be a massive strain on their budget. With the inherent massive corruption, there is also the question of how much of it will actually make it to the new army.
Russia is in serious trouble.
