Russia/Ukraine conflict

[UncaNed]

TOS-1A

Similar to drone vs pile-o-mines.

Speaking of mines...

Aren't all of the incredible number of anti-tank mines Russia gifted to Ukraine -free for the job of gathering them up -going to be turned into drone-dropped bombs with the addition of the right kind of fuses? There should be an almost unlimited supply already in Ukraine, plenty to take out all the Russian positions as soon as they can be delivered to all the targets there, and then on to demolish Russia's weapon manufacturing and pilot housing with the rest.

Yes, the minefields were a key component but minefields alone are not a significant obstacle. The problem is minefields combined with drones and artillery. Minefields slow attackers down then drones spot them and artillery eliminates them. This is how the first Leopard tank was lost. Sufficient Ukrainian air power would have kept the Russia drones at bay and would have attrited the Russian artillery and crucially would have interdicted their supply of shells.

Without the threat of artillery, paths through these massive minefields could have been cleared in days or even hours with specialized mine clearing equipment. Instead it took Ukraine months to clear the first major minefield because they had to manually clear mines one by one at night to avoid detection.

The brave sappers who cleared those mines in the dark had the highest casualty rate in the Ukrainian army. I am still stunned by their achievement and by their sacrifice. They remind me of the RAF during the Battle of Britain but without the high flying glamour. Imagine going out there night after night knowing a lot of you would not be coming back alive. The high level of motivation displayed by these sappers is why I know Ukraine is going to win.

Heroiam slava! ​

(Glory to the heroes!)​

In this era of autonomous robots and such, how are there not already many highly efficient machines finding and plucking mines out of fields? There are already some pretty impressive weed-pulling machines for agriculture.

- Paging Grohmann Engineering. -

 

[iPlug]

Speaking of mines...

Aren't all of the incredible number of anti-tank mines Russia gifted to Ukraine -free for the job of gathering them up -going to be turned into drone-dropped bombs with the addition of the right kind of fuses? There should be an almost unlimited supply already in Ukraine, plenty to take out all the Russian positions as soon as they can be delivered to all the targets there, and then on to demolish Russia's weapon manufacturing and pilot housing with the rest.

In this era of autonomous robots and such, how are there not already many highly efficient machines finding and plucking mines out of fields? There are already some pretty impressive weed-pulling machines for agriculture.

- Paging Grohmann Engineering. -

Love it. There seem to be many opportunities to automate the process of regifting/repurposing those Russian mines, and Ukrainians have proven they are the handy sort capable of this.

The vast majority of Russian laid mines are reported to not buried. Their identification and extraction of several at a time, closest to the Ukrainian side of fighting lines then returning to safe cover, should not be a huge challenge. This would be much easier than having to quickly clear a line all the way to the enemy before they could return fire and hope equipment does not also detonate on other mines.

In addition to automating mine extraction, it should be even easier to automate a process of modifying them to become the form purposed to detonate upon Ukrainian drone delivery.

 

[wdolson]

What's your source for this?

From Wikipedia:

According to Ukrainian pilots, the R-37M isn't achieving a lot of "hard kills", the destruction of actual Ukrainian aircraft. However, their launch forces pilots to abandon their current missiles and take evasive action.[21] Ukrainian pilots believe that the only defence is for their allies to supply them with F-16 fighter jets and AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles. While it won't close the distance, Ukrainian pilots hope that it will push back the effective range of missiles like the R-37.[22] [My underline.]

R-37 (missile) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE of the picture you are painting(!)...

Of ALL that you have written about the UKR Air Force – and that's no small amount – I don't remember you mentioning even once that the old Soviet junk that UKR are flying no does not have fire and forget air-to-air missiles. Don't you realize what A MASSIVE handicap that is!?!...

The F-16s that UKR will be receiving also have radars that are equivalent to what the Russian Dictator's aircraft have. The Soviet junk UKR are flying now have what – a fifth of the radar range of the Russian Dictator's aircraft? That means that the Russian Dictator's pilots will risk getting shot down every time they try to launch their FAB-500 glide bombs once UKR have f-16s in the air. As it is now those bombs can be launched with impunity. And those bombs are currently a MASSIVE problem!

The Soviet junk UKR has today also can not be used to shoot down the Russian Dictator's incoming cruise missiles. The F-16 can! That will also be HUGE!

It's so obvious that the F-16 will make a difference. That's why I just do not understand why you keep trying to paint some other picture...

I stand corrected on the R-37s taking out Ukrainian aircraft. I have said many times the F-16s will help. So many people are talking about the F-16s as being a game changer that will roll up the entire Russian forces in short order. A lot of the speculation I see is that the relative handful of F-16s are going to do to the Russians what a full court press by the USAF could do.

Again I do believe the F-16s will make a difference, but they will be too few in number to make a decisive difference. These F-16s will be relatively few in number compared to previous combat uses of the F-16 and they will be operating in a more potent threat environment than the F-16 has ever operated in. Except possible Israel F-16s have also never operated from bases that were within range of enemy action.

People were predicting that HIMARS would completely flip the war in Ukraine's favor. They helped a lot and are still helping a lot. People were predicting that Leopard II and Challanegers would change everything. Again they are helping, but the Russians aren't fleeing in terror back to their borders because of them. The F-16s will probably have an impact somewhere between the modern tanks and the HIMARS, but the AFU is not going to be marching to the Azoz under an impenetrable umbrella of western fighters.

Speaking of mines...

Aren't all of the incredible number of anti-tank mines Russia gifted to Ukraine -free for the job of gathering them up -going to be turned into drone-dropped bombs with the addition of the right kind of fuses? There should be an almost unlimited supply already in Ukraine, plenty to take out all the Russian positions as soon as they can be delivered to all the targets there, and then on to demolish Russia's weapon manufacturing and pilot housing with the rest.

In this era of autonomous robots and such, how are there not already many highly efficient machines finding and plucking mines out of fields? There are already some pretty impressive weed-pulling machines for agriculture.

- Paging Grohmann Engineering. -

Interesting thought repurposing mines. The Ukrainians are crafty enough to do that.

As for robotic mine removal, weeds don't tend to explode destroying the expensive weed pulling robot.

 

[AudubonB]

Love it. There seem to be many opportunities to automate the process of regifting/repurposing those Russian mines, and Ukrainians have proven they are the handy sort capable of this.

From the literature:

Patrick O’Brian’s magnificent Aubrey/Maturin series contains a vignette when, during the nigh-interminable Napoleonic Wars, his British hero seizes a fallen-harmless French cannonball from his ship’s deck, writes “Post Paid, return to sender” (or something similar*) and fires it back.
Not the first time we have a parallel between Napoleon and Putin.

*Perhaps I’ll try to locate the exact reference

Yes: from The Fortune of War:

 

[SmokyPeat]

I stand corrected on the R-37s taking out Ukrainian aircraft. I have said many times the F-16s will help. So many people are talking about the F-16s as being a game changer that will roll up the entire Russian forces in short order. A lot of the speculation I see is that the relative handful of F-16s are going to do to the Russians what a full court press by the USAF could do.

Again I do believe the F-16s will make a difference, but they will be too few in number to make a decisive difference. These F-16s will be relatively few in number compared to previous combat uses of the F-16 and they will be operating in a more potent threat environment than the F-16 has ever operated in. Except possible Israel F-16s have also never operated from bases that were within range of enemy action.

People were predicting that HIMARS would completely flip the war in Ukraine's favor. They helped a lot and are still helping a lot. People were predicting that Leopard II and Challanegers would change everything. Again they are helping, but the Russians aren't fleeing in terror back to their borders because of them. The F-16s will probably have an impact somewhere between the modern tanks and the HIMARS, but the AFU is not going to be marching to the Azoz under an impenetrable umbrella of western fighters.



Interesting thought repurposing mines. The Ukrainians are crafty enough to do that.

As for robotic mine removal, weeds don't tend to explode destroying the expensive weed pulling robot.

I'm glad you've come around a bit. The AFU is more than happy to put to good use all of the F-16, M1 Abrams, Bradley's, HIMARS, ATACMS, artillery, cruise missiles, etc. that US and allies are willing to part with. I noticed your attitude in regards to the F-16 and M1 Abrams in particular changed (to a certain degree)not long after it became very apparent that Ukraine would be receiving them. Now that the ~30 M1s are in place, hopefully we'll get a good demonstration soon.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

I don't claim to be an expert on Russian culture personally, but I have read a number of people who are in the last year and a half. Among them Kamil Galeev, Timothy Snyder, Julia Ioffe, and a number of others whose names escape me at the moment. [...

I guess I haven't really read much from Ioffe and Snyder, but I've listened to a fair amount of the material with them that has been posted in this thread. As I recall they do not place any kind of significance on this culture stuff at all.

I wonder what you would have been writing about German culture if you and I somehow could have had this discussion in ~1942/43?...

To me it just seems so obvious that THE all overarching factor influencing Russian culture today and going back to at least ~1900 is the very, very unfortunate reality of Russia/USSR being a Military Dictatorship and not a Democracy. And since there is no freedom of speech and no freedom of press, finding out what Russian culture really is seems to obviously be absolutely impossible. Also: What Military Dictatorship/no freedom of speech/no freedom of press/ no freedom to freely organize does, is that it freezes everything that relates to culture. It becomes impossible to change. Those that try are either killed, put in jail or completely destroyed economically as in put on the street/forced into homelessness.

Some facts about this:

There were more than 220 journalists murdered in Russia since Yeltsin came to power and up to the year 2007. And there have been dozens of journalists murdered since 2007.

List of journalists killed in Russia - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

CNN.com - Transcripts

And that's not counting politicians, lawyers and other legal professionals. Here are a couple more notable Russians that have been murdered while The current Russian Dictator has been in power:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/23/here-are-ten-critics-of-vladimir-putin-who-died-violently-or-in-suspicious-ways/

There are some 500 political prisoners in Russia:

https://osce.usmission.gov/on-the-further-deterioration-of-the-human-rights-situation-in-russia/#:~:text=We%20call%20on%20Russia%20to,war%20of%20choice%20against%20Ukraine.

Also... What does this say about Russian culture:

[Yuri] Shevchuk has consistently opposed the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine since it began on 24 February, when he stated, "Our future is being taken from us. We’re being pulled as if through an ice hole into the past, into the 19th, 18th, 17th century. And people refuse to accept it."[17]

In May 2022, Shevchuk was charged under the war censorship law after speaking out against Putin and the war in Ukraine at a concert in Ufa, declaring: “The motherland, my friends, is not the president’s a[**] that has to be slobbered and kissed all the time, the motherland is an impoverished old woman at the train station selling potatoes.”[18] He also said that "people of Ukraine are being murdered" and "our boys are dying over there" due to "some Napoleonic plans of another Caesar of ours."[19]

Yuri Shevchuk - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

Allegedly:

One datapoint about what kind of stress the Russian Dictator's military transport aviation is currently under...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1715737942319112301

 

[SmokyPeat]

It's really all of Russian military aviation being overworked. Combine that with aging airframes and it's a recipe for attrition.

How F-16s for Ukraine could harm Russia without taking a single shot

Opinion: In a protracted war, where one force tries to exhaust the other, it’s the total longevity of the military force that matters.

www.defensenews.com

 

[X Fan]

I guess I haven't really read much from Ioffe and Snyder, but I've listened to a fair amount of the material with them that has been posted in this thread. As I recall they do not place any kind of significance on this culture stuff at all.

I wonder what you would have been writing about German culture if you and I somehow could have had this discussion in ~1942/43?...

To me it just seems so obvious that THE all overarching factor influencing Russian culture today and going back to at least ~1900 is the very, very unfortunate reality of Russia/USSR being a Military Dictatorship and not a Democracy. And since there is no freedom of speech and no freedom of press, finding out what Russian culture really is seems to obviously be absolutely impossible. Also: What Military Dictatorship/no freedom of speech/no freedom of press/ no freedom to freely organize does, is that it freezes everything that relates to culture. It becomes impossible to change. Those that try are either killed, put in jail or completely destroyed economically as in put on the street/forced into homelessness.

Some facts about this:

There were more than 220 journalists murdered in Russia since Yeltsin came to power and up to the year 2007. And there have been dozens of journalists murdered since 2007.

List of journalists killed in Russia - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

CNN.com - Transcripts

And that's not counting politicians, lawyers and other legal professionals. Here are a couple more notable Russians that have been murdered while The current Russian Dictator has been in power:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/23/here-are-ten-critics-of-vladimir-putin-who-died-violently-or-in-suspicious-ways/

There are some 500 political prisoners in Russia:

https://osce.usmission.gov/on-the-further-deterioration-of-the-human-rights-situation-in-russia/#:~:text=We%20call%20on%20Russia%20to,war%20of%20choice%20against%20Ukraine.

Also... What does this say about Russian culture:

[Yuri] Shevchuk has consistently opposed the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine since it began on 24 February, when he stated, "Our future is being taken from us. We’re being pulled as if through an ice hole into the past, into the 19th, 18th, 17th century. And people refuse to accept it."[17]

In May 2022, Shevchuk was charged under the war censorship law after speaking out against Putin and the war in Ukraine at a concert in Ufa, declaring: “The motherland, my friends, is not the president’s a[**] that has to be slobbered and kissed all the time, the motherland is an impoverished old woman at the train station selling potatoes.”[18] He also said that "people of Ukraine are being murdered" and "our boys are dying over there" due to "some Napoleonic plans of another Caesar of ours."[19]

Yuri Shevchuk - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

“What does this say about Russian culture:”

Ru is a sick culture and has been in their DNA to rampantly kill for quite some time; in particular since Stalin (who loved to kill intellectuals, lawyers, etc.).

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

“What does this say about Russian culture:”

Ru is a sick culture and has been in their DNA to rampantly kill for quite some time; in particular since Stalin (who loved to kill intellectuals, lawyers, etc.).

I would again explain it with Ru/USSR being a Military Dictatorship under Stalin until today.

Compare with Germany under Hitler and the Nazi's. Hitler and the Nazi's were contemporary with the Stalin regime in the USSR.

The Nazi's murdered some 6 million jews and some additional 6-11 million other civilians and POWs.

The Holocaust - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

What does that tell us about German culture today?

Democracy changes everything. It completely changed Germany. And it would have changed Russia as well, if Russia would also have become a Democracy in 1945/46...

 

[lolachampcar]

That decision was imposed on Germany.
We are not in a position to impose that decision on Russia. It does not seem like ordinary Russian citizens (who remain in the country) are willing to make that change (and pay the price for doing so). Those that feel passionately about the issue have voted with their feet.

I believe the best we can do is help Ukraine defang them militarily and morally.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

That decision was imposed on Germany.
We are not in a position to impose that decision on Russia. It does not seem like ordinary Russian citizens (who remain in the country) are willing to make that change (and pay the price for doing so). Those that feel passionately about the issue have voted with their feet.

I believe the best we can do is help Ukraine defang them militarily and morally.

I agree with all of this except for this part:

It does not seem like ordinary Russian citizens (who remain in the country) are willing to make that change (and pay the price for doing so).

I believe that ordinary Russian citizens would absolutely be willing to make this change. I even believe they absolutely want to make this change. But yes. The problem here is if they are willing to pay the price for attempting.

In order to maximize the chances of Ru becoming a Democracy we must help UKR to militarily achieve all their goals. And the Democratic World should apply max pressure on Ru in order maximize the chances of the current regime collapsing. And if the current regime collapses the Democratic West must do everything to ensure that all the horrific authoritarians in today's Ru are at least imprisoned for life. AND also make sure that Ru doesn't become the socioeconomic hellscape that it was during the 1990's. In that case we will just risk yet another Authoritarian Ru backlash. And information and history is KEY in all of this. Ru television should be turned into a 24/7 History Channel non-stop informing Russians about ALL of their history. But the absolute focus should be on the Genocide in UKR. This should also completely marinate the rest of Ru society including education, museums and other cultural institutions – just like what took place in Germany after WWII.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

Continued:

One most likely major problem in the above Ru democratization scenario is that China, Iran as well as others will most likely do everything they can to continue to keep Ru in the Authoritarian 'lane'...

 

[wdolson]

That decision was imposed on Germany.
We are not in a position to impose that decision on Russia. It does not seem like ordinary Russian citizens (who remain in the country) are willing to make that change (and pay the price for doing so). Those that feel passionately about the issue have voted with their feet.

I believe the best we can do is help Ukraine defang them militarily and morally.

One thing Timothy Snyder has frequently been critical of leaders in western democracies about is the seeming belief that given a change democracy just springs up on its own. That isn't how democracies come about. Japan and West Germany had democracy forced on them after they were defeated and occupied. Because the cold war was brewing both countries did what it took to adopt democratic norms to make sure they stayed under the western nuclear umbrella.

The EU has required new member states to adopt democratic norms and fair market reforms if they don't already have them. Some countries have been in EU limbo for years because they struggle to adapt.

For a democracy to work long term, a relatively high level of civics education among the whole population is necessary. A lot of countries that were healthy democracies are now backsliding. I believe in Germany the areas that were East Germany tend to have more authoritarian sentiment than the part of the country that was West Germany.

In Europe democracy has taken hold because of the pressures of the EU, which is the carrot for countries to make the reforms necessary to become a healthy democracy, but also these countries have a lot of contact with the healthier democracies in Europe who serve as a model. Russia trades with Europe and a lot of the Russian middle and upper classes have traveled in Europe a fair bit, but the average Russian of more humble means has no experience of the outside world except maybe some of the former Soviet republics if they have family there. That is one reason Putin can't tolerate a liberal democracy developing in Ukraine because too many Russians have contact with Ukraine.

Russia does not have free media and especially the lower classes are only exposed to the propaganda put out by the state. That media frequently talks about how awful life is under democracy in the west. They make a lot of it up, but there is little to counter the narrative. It also hits home because the most unstable period in Russia in the last 80 years was the 1990s when Russia was experimenting with democracy at a time when the economy was very unstable. A lot of Russians equate democracy with the chaos that existed in Russian in the 90s and they have zero examples of anything else to look at. They have no clue how the average German, Finn, or American lives. The only view they get of these countries is through the fun house mirror the state controlled media shows them.

If Russia breaks up into many smaller countries, some of the new countries may approach the west and start the reforms necessary to become democracies, but as we've seen with Ukraine, even when the people are mostly behind a democratic movement, it takes time to root out all the corruption and old ways. If Russia remains a unified country, they might become more peaceful because they don't have any other choice (most of their army is gone and they no longer have the means to rebuild it to the level it used to be), but the odds of Russia becoming a democracy are very small. They would probably continue the sham democracy they have now in some form, but they won't have a true democracy.

 

[SageBrush]

I believe that ordinary Russian citizens would absolutely be willing to make this change. I even believe they absolutely want to make this change.

Recent history is that Russia tried "democracy" and was thrown into chaos and economic collapse by the foreign champions of laissez faire capitalism (AKA maximal exploitation, as advocated by right wing economics.) Putin did not seize autocratic power, he was given it wholeheartedly. Now, it may well be true that Russia's citizenry are ready for a different autocrat, but there is really no basis to conclude that those citizens that remember their experiment in "democracy" want another go round

Around 30% of voting americans want a Putin style autocrat. I'm pretty sure that fraction is considerably higher in Russia

 

[lolachampcar]

Thank you Sage for making my point much more eloquently.

 

[EatsShoots]

What exactly is Ukraine's intention with the left bank of the dnipro? They cannot get vehicles across the river any time soon, so expanding out is entirely by infantry. Doesn't this make them hyper vulnerable to russia counter-attacking with vehicles?

Recent history is that Russia tried "democracy" and was thrown into chaos and economic collapse by the foreign champions of laissez faire capitalism (AKA maximal exploitation, as advocated by right wing economics.) Putin did not seize autocratic power, he was given it wholeheartedly. Now, it may well be true that Russia's citizenry are ready for a different autocrat, but there is really no basis to conclude that those citizens that remember their experiment in "democracy" want another go round

Around 30% of voting americans want a Putin style autocrat. I'm pretty sure that fraction is considerably higher in Russia

The last few years of political observation has made me the most cynical I've ever been of the competency of people in general to rule themselves and/or choose their rulers. I agree there is no meaningful groundswell in russia for a change in governance. The fact is a great percentage of people like bullies as long as they can convince themselves the bully is on their side.

 

[KBF]

I would again explain it with Ru/USSR being a Military Dictatorship under Stalin until today.

Compare with Germany under Hitler and the Nazi's. Hitler and the Nazi's were contemporary with the Stalin regime in the USSR.

The Nazi's murdered some 6 million jews and some additional 6-11 million other civilians and POWs.

The Holocaust - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

What does that tell us about German culture today?

Democracy changes everything. It completely changed Germany. And it would have changed Russia as well, if Russia would also have become a Democracy in 1945/46...

Germany was already a democracy that voted in the Nazi party because post WWI reparations were so vindictive (people forget that WWI was a result of chains of defensive pacts; France in particular wanted vengeance for centuries of conflict with the Germans... And losing a lot post-Napoleon). The moderate politicians were seen as useless, and 'Germany First' sentiment was leveraged by Hitler to take control... The Nazis decided to just start breaking the rules around military production, and the rest of Europe realized too late they didn't really have the capability/will to enforce these rules (and some were due to technicalities changed by tech - like limits on the tonnage of warships were kind of obsolete when they discovered ways of making lighter battleships, etc - we toured southern Germany and visited many interesting museums a few years back: the Deutsches Museum in Munich is fascinating!)

I highly recommend Bonhoeffer's autobiography. First-hand accounts of an intellectual resisting the Nazi regime (with insights into how Hitler also took over the German Church and turned it into a political structure... Current nations should take note of that, too...) sheds light on how the intellectual centre of Europe could descend into fascist madness... A lesson all current democracies should pay attention to...

I think a better evaluation of democracy is comparing East and West Germany post WWII - Germany is the country it is today because of the restraint the Allies used in helping West Germany getting back on its feet instead of trying to only punish. But it helps that Germans were genuinely ashamed of how far things had turned once the holocaust was uncovered... In WWI they felt they had been unfairly singled out (with Austria/Hungary); in WWII they were actually the aggressors and owned it.

Anyway, just pointing out some nuances here. I think it might be more accurate to say that truth, transparency, repentance and forgiveness changed Germany more than anything else, though that would be my subjective evaluation. Russia kind of become 'democratic' in the 90's, but it didn't change society very much because these other things were lacking (and loads of corruption).

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

...] Anyway, just pointing out some nuances here. I think it might be more accurate to say that truth, transparency, repentance and forgiveness changed Germany more than anything else, though that would be my subjective evaluation. [My u.] [...

Would that have been possible without West Germany and then all of Germany being a Democracy?... I don't think so.

 

[madodel]

Would that have been possible without West Germany and then all of Germany being a Democracy?... I don't think so.

From what I read the AfD has most of its strength in the old DDR. They have 30+% support in some of those states. Which coincidentally is about as high as the NAZIs ever had before they imprisoned or killed anyone that opposed them.