Tiger
Active Member
Is Russia trying to get everyone to join NATO?
Follow the money, maybe it was such a bluff all along, and arms race Seems awfully real to the Ukrainians, though. How to stop madness?
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Is Russia trying to get everyone to join NATO?
This is ridiculous, those Bastion missiles that are in those videos have been there for over 30 years..Russia ‘moves military equipment’ towards Finland after warnings over joining Nato
https://metro.co.uk/2022/04/12/russia-moves-military-equipment-towards-finland-after-nato-warning-16451495/?ito=flipboard
It’s easy to feel some form of hubris watching Russia struggle with its offensive war on Ukraine due to supply chains, this doesn’t mean Russian’s defensive system is as bad, on the contrary, they have very capable defensive systems that’ll give us problems. The issue at hand is once you start a world war, how do you know China isn’t going to feel threatened and side with Russia? Right now the Chinese are staying out, in an event of a World War, China likely isn’t going to stay neutral. Here’s some hard numbers for you:If we‘ve learned anything, it’s that a non-nuclear war between NATO and Russia, would be over very rapidly, and I highly doubt we’d need to kill more than 30M - 50M Russians as you claim to win that war in that short of a period.
World War 1 casualties: 15-20 million. Zero nukes dropped.30M-50M Russians in a non-nuclear war? That's 1/3 the population of Russia. That sounds a bit high to me.
At the moment the focus of both sides on land is on redeploying and resupplying their forces (i.e. logistics) and carrying out (or blocking) 'shaping' operations such as Mariopol and some of the pushes for important road/rail/river/etc junctions and key points. Plus the air game which is somewhat attritional. As the land begins to dry out one or other side will then consider that the build-up pendulum has swung as far in its favour as possible, at which point they will likely launch a more concerted offensive (drier ground will make offensive manoeuvring much more effective).
My personal opinion is that Ukraine may be edging ahead in that build-up, and so it is not in their interests to go on the offensive in a large scale manner yet. They would probably prefer the Rssians to go first, hope to contain that (without getting trapped in a large-scale encirclement, which is a clear risk), then counter atack. Which means that the delay rather sucks if you are trying to hold out in Mariopol or if you are a civilian in Russian-occupied territory. However if the Russians manage to gain local air dominance during this build-up phase then they would hold a much stronger hand when going into the next phase.
It is important for the Ukraine not to agree a cease-fire or peace deal at this point. I think they are well aware of that. Fortunately the West is no longer trying to pressure them into giving in quickly. The shaping game is also geo-political in nature.
Just imho.
It’s easy to feel some form of hubris watching Russia struggle with its offensive war on Ukraine due to supply chains, this doesn’t mean Russian’s defensive system is as bad, on the contrary, they have very capable defensive systems that’ll give us problems. The issue at hand is once you start a world war, how do you know China isn’t going to feel threatened and side with Russia? Right now the Chinese are staying out, in an event of a World War, China likely isn’t going to stay neutral. Here’s some hard numbers for you:
World War 1 Deaths: 15-20 million
World War 2 Deaths: 70-85 million
Somehow World War 3 is going to have less causalities?
You do realize Russia is holding back a lot of its bigger guns right? And one last point, a world war is never quick.
You may want to look up Russia’s “Father of all bombs.”The Ukrainians have the advantage of being able to move their troops along inside lines while the Russians are forced to move them via outside lines. The Russians literally have farther to travel to get to the same point when moving troops from the north to the east.
The only "bigger" guns the Russians are holding back are nuclear. What we have seen so far is their A team. There was an essay from a very credible source a few weeks ago. I posted it here, but I can't find it now. It lays out a very solid case that the Russians have held back virtually nothing, only a few pieces of equipment they only have a tiny handful of.
I haven't finished reading this one, but it's from today. It outlines how Russia is headed for a major personnel crisis and other problems even worse than they have now
Thread by @TrentTelenko on Thread Reader App
If Russia gets into a war with NATO, the only thing they have available is nukes. The larder is otherwise empty. Even with the heavy recruitment efforts they are doing now, it will be months before even poorly trained, green troops can be thrown into battle. Just rounding them up and sending them into battle with no training will take weeks.
A conventional war between NATO and Russia would be very one sided and very short. The high commands of western militaries plan for everything. Before WW II the US military had a war plan for what they would do if the UK tried to take back their wayward colonies in North America (the US). A highly unlikely scenario by the 20th century.
Each plan had a color. War Plan Orange was the plan to fight Japan. The broad outlines of the original plan were executed in the war.
NATO has a plan in place for what they would do if Russia starts a war with NATO while fighting Ukraine. If I was planning it, I would first neutralize all Russian assets anywhere within strike range of NATO territory, then move into Ukraine (they have probably already gotten the green light from the Ukrainians for this) and knock out every Russian war asset 100 miles or more from Ukrainian territory, including all the rail lines. Once that is done, the Russian units in Ukraine and on Ukraine's borders will be isolated and cut off from all supply. Then send NATO ground forces to either destroy them or accept their surrender. Stop at the 2013 Ukraine border, but keep knocking out anything that moves in Russia or Belarus anywhere near Ukraine of NATO territory.
At the same time NATO is reducing Russian land forces, sink every Russian military ship or sub at sea anywhere in the world.
If the nukes don't fly, it will be over in a few weeks with Russia's ability to fight a conventional war reduced to almost nothing. China is not that big a fan of Russia. They will likely let Putin destroy himself and look for opportunities in the aftermath.
China is not in a position to get into a shooting war with the US. If anything Russia's poor performance in this war has shown them that a force just partially trained up by the US is much better than the entire Russian army. And countering any US led force would be a tough fight for China right now.
You may want to look up Russia’s “Father of all bombs.”
The bomb is reportedly four times more powerful than the US military's GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (whose official military acronym "MOAB" is often colloquially said as the "Mother of All Bombs"). This makes it the most powerful conventional (non-nuclear) weapon in the world. The veracity of Russia's claims concerning the weapon's size and power have been questioned by US defense analysts.
The bomb was successfully field-tested in the late evening of September 11, 2007. According to the Russian military, the new weapon will replace several smaller types of nuclear bombs in its arsenal.”
The bomb works by detonating in mid-air. Most damage is inflicted by a supersonic shockwave and extremely high temperatures.[5][7] Thermobaric weapons differ from conventional explosive weapons in that they generate a longer, more sustained blast wave with greater temperatures. In doing so, they produce more damage over a larger area than a conventional weapon of similar mass.[2]
Compared with MOAB
According to General Alexander Rushkin, the Russian deputy chief of staff, the new bomb is smaller than the MOAB but much deadlier because the temperature at the centre of the blast is twice as high.[4][8][9] He says the bomb's capabilities are comparable to nuclear weapons, but unlike a nuclear weapon known for its radioactive fallout, use of the weapon does not damage or pollute the environment beyond the blast radius.[5]
In comparison, the MOAB produces the equivalent of 11 tons of TNT from 8 tons of high explosive. The claimed blast radius of the FOAB is 300 meters, almost double that of the MOAB, and the temperature produced is twice as high.[7]
The thermobaric device yields the equivalent of 44 tons of TNT using 7.8 tons of a new type of high explosive. Because of this, the bomb's blast and pressure wave have a similar effect to a small tactical nuclear weapon, though on a smaller scale
Just how many of these non nuclear bombs the Russians have is anyone’s guess. Are you willing to roll the dice and start a war with Russia knowing they have these in their arsenal? Just because I said “no nukes” doesn’t mean the Russians don’t have an ace up their sleeves. Right now the Russians are trying to use conventional warfare to prove they can still do this without dropping non nuclear bombs that’s capable of flattening Ukraine, and for everyone’s interest, I would rather not want to see Ukraine go on the offensive to give the Russians the excuse to drop a few dozen of these.
Father of All Bombs
Aviation Thermobaric Bomb of Increased Power (ATBIP) (Russian: Авиационная вакуумная бомба повышенной мощности (АВБПМ)), nicknamed "Father of All Bombs" (FOAB) (Отец всех бомб), is a Russian-made air-delivered/land-activated thermobaric weapon. In describing the bomb's destructive power, Russian...military-history.fandom.com
As far as what China does, no one has a crystal ball. Logic gets thrown out the window when we talk about World War scenarios
Swedish and Finnish farmers should service and prep their tractors ahead of time. Pure Russian bluster, it's time to make the bullies lie quiet. Every ramp up by Russia, another Nato member, state of readiness increased somewhere.This is ridiculous, those Bastion missiles that are in those videos have been there for over 30 years..
Also russians violate our airspace often, the corridor between finnish and estonian airspaces over baltic sea is very thin.
Practically Finland is already in Nato - public support for joining is so huge now, that it's impossible not to join.
And I'm convinced Russia will do anything they can to prevent it - short of an armed conflict.
The Ukrainians have the advantage of being able to move their troops along inside lines while the Russians are forced to move them via outside lines. The Russians literally have farther to travel to get to the same point when moving troops from the north to the east.
The only "bigger" guns the Russians are holding back are nuclear. What we have seen so far is their A team. There was an essay from a very credible source a few weeks ago. I posted it here, but I can't find it now. It lays out a very solid case that the Russians have held back virtually nothing, only a few pieces of equipment they only have a tiny handful of.
I haven't finished reading this one, but it's from today. It outlines how Russia is headed for a major personnel crisis and other problems even worse than they have now
Thread by @TrentTelenko on Thread Reader App
If Russia gets into a war with NATO, the only thing they have available is nukes. The larder is otherwise empty. Even with the heavy recruitment efforts they are doing now, it will be months before even poorly trained, green troops can be thrown into battle. Just rounding them up and sending them into battle with no training will take weeks.
A conventional war between NATO and Russia would be very one sided and very short. The high commands of western militaries plan for everything. Before WW II the US military had a war plan for what they would do if the UK tried to take back their wayward colonies in North America (the US). A highly unlikely scenario by the 20th century.
Each plan had a color. War Plan Orange was the plan to fight Japan. The broad outlines of the original plan were executed in the war.
NATO has a plan in place for what they would do if Russia starts a war with NATO while fighting Ukraine. If I was planning it, I would first neutralize all Russian assets anywhere within strike range of NATO territory, then move into Ukraine (they have probably already gotten the green light from the Ukrainians for this) and knock out every Russian war asset 100 miles or more from Ukrainian territory, including all the rail lines. Once that is done, the Russian units in Ukraine and on Ukraine's borders will be isolated and cut off from all supply. Then send NATO ground forces to either destroy them or accept their surrender. Stop at the 2013 Ukraine border, but keep knocking out anything that moves in Russia or Belarus anywhere near Ukraine of NATO territory.
At the same time NATO is reducing Russian land forces, sink every Russian military ship or sub at sea anywhere in the world.
If the nukes don't fly, it will be over in a few weeks with Russia's ability to fight a conventional war reduced to almost nothing. China is not that big a fan of Russia. They will likely let Putin destroy himself and look for opportunities in the aftermath.
China is not in a position to get into a shooting war with the US. If anything Russia's poor performance in this war has shown them that a force just partially trained up by the US is much better than the entire Russian army. And countering any US led force would be a tough fight for China right now.
I realise I will be unpopular in saying this, but back in the day I and a few colleagues did some analysis of non-Western upstream O&G explorers, developers and operators, (surface & subsurface) and we came to the conclusion that there were some companies, in some countries, where the teams were beating the best Western efforts by about 10%. Furthermore we suspected that our (company) efforts were short of the best Western company efforts by a further 10%.What countries have the expertise? From all I know about the oil business, almost all the world's expertise in oil services is American or western European.
If it goes nuke it could be.And one last point, a world war is never quick.
I would disagree that the Russians are fronting on this, making a less powerful bomb than nukes isn’t all that difficult, the one we were able to drop weights about 30,000 pounds from what I remember. But I do agree that deploying it is the challenge. However that challenge is negated by their development of hypersonic missiles, which has the capability to evade radar:The Russians are very good at smoke and mirrors to convince the world they are more sophisticated than they are. According to the Wikipedia article the bomb is probably only capable of being dropped out the back of a transport plane
Father of All Bombs - Wikipedia
Something they could deploy if they had air supremacy, but the delivery plane would likely be shot down before it got over the target vs NATO. Even if they have adapted it for use on the Tu-160 (of which they only have 27 operational), they would have to fly into one of the most dangerous air threat zones in the world to drop anything.
The fact the Russians never showed the thing dropped, only the result tells me they have been fronting about its capabilities.
The filling of the bomb appears to be Torpex with ethylene oxide added. Torpex is a WW II explosive (first used by US submarine torpedoes) that was used in the largest bomb deployed in WW II the Grand Slam which was 22,000 pounds.
There was a lot of hand wringing about Russia deploying their handful of TOS-1s in this war.
TOS-1 - Wikipedia
Also a thermobaric weapon. The Ukrainians have captured some and used them against the Russians. They have apparently been used by the Russians too, but neither side is saying anything about any damage inflicted.
If the Russians do have deployable FOABs (which is not really known, they have a history of fronting), they might use them, but they probably don't have that many. Everything I've seen thus far shows the Russians have lots and lots of old stuff with small quantities of newer hardware. I would expect the same for this.
Occam's razor application here: Why do you think that the Russians responsible for the "big guns" development and procurement are any more reliable and less corrupt than the ones in charge of the aspects of Russian military that we've seen? Plus Soviet/Russian propaganda of their achievements is comical at times.In short, I think the Russians are holding back their big guns (and when I say big guns I mean bombs, missiles), etc. We’ve overestimated their military capability in traditional combat but I would not underestimate their bombs, which the Russians are experts in building.
This question runs through my mind often, I don’t have an answer for this. And I don’t think our state department and defense has an inkling of an answer for us neither. Just how many of these large bombs (short of nuclear) do the Russians really have? In short, we really don’t know how many of these bombs the Russians have in their arsenal. As the war drags on we’ll get a better assessment of large bomb capabilities (IF the Russians decide to resort to using them). Logic tells me that they have them in large quantities as they’ve had about 2 decades of work behind these bombs. What’s different about bombs is that once you make it, it could be stored, whereas mechanical ground vehicles need routine maintenance and upkeep (things like tires).Occam's razor application here: Why do you think that the Russians responsible for the "big guns" development and procurement are any more reliable and less corrupt than the ones in charge of the aspects of Russian military that we've seen?
Yes I get can agree that hypersonic missiles are hard to control due to speed, but let me interject that hypersonic has everything to do with Ukraine and WW3 capabilities, I’ll address this later. Before I do, I have this question to ask. Did the Russians use and hit their target with hypersonic missile in Ukraine? If the answer is yes, then this weapon is relevant:For info a typical nuclear warhead has a total mass of 100 - 300 kg with all the gubbins.. The very large conventional warheads some of you are talking about have a mass of 15,000 kg. You simply cannot package these very large conventional warheads to fit onto a missile such as an Iskander which can only carry a warhead of approx 500k-700g. The sort of aircraft required to deliver these very large conventional warheads would ordinarily only venture into a permissive air environment. I'm not saying the Russians might not try it in (say) Mariopol steelworks, but it would be quite adventurous to fly that mission.
On the subject of hypersonics there is a lot of nonsense talked in the ra-ra media. (imho) The real issues are twofold: first the sustained manoevrability in-atmosphere (much more so than exo-atmosphere) at hypersonic speeds; and secondly the ability to do targetting on-the-fly at those speeds (by a variety of means). Almost everything you read about that is hyped up as being 'hypersonic' fails one or both of those tests (and probably a third one as well :reliability, but that is true of any weapon system as otherwise it also fails the cost-effectiveness test). That is why only the Chinese and Russians claim to have fielded them, because they are passing off conventional missiles as meeting these tests for other reasons. Yes, they go at hypersonic speeds, but that does not mean they are viable hypersonic manoeuvring weapon systems that can exploit the hypersonic regime to overcome anti-missile defences. In contrast the West is (imho) ahead in this area, but does not need to play the bragging game, and knows how much more work needs to be done to field effective hypersonic systems. Bottom line: this is not at all relevant to Ukraine.