Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[magnkarl]

3 minutes ago, bickster said:

Putin announced on Navy Day recently that Russia will build 30 new ships for the Navy (unspecified classes)

Firstly you'd have to question the numbers and secondly even if they do, their recent Naval designs have been mostly spectacular failures.

Still a boat, right?  

[bickster]

Just now, chrisp65 said:

Is this where we got our 40 new hospitals idea?

No I think the whole idea stemmed from the Russian Armata Tank numbers first  

[Anthony]

One of the reasons Germany in WW2 didn't have any heavy bombers was because Hitler was focus on numbers for propaganda purposes. Putler is falling into the same trap.

[Mandy Lifeboats]

54 minutes ago, bickster said:

Putin announced on Navy Day recently that Russia will build 30 new ships for the Navy (unspecified classes)

Firstly you'd have to question the numbers and secondly even if they do, their recent Naval designs have been mostly spectacular failures.

1 ship + 29 Lifeboats. 

Mission accomplished. 

[sidcow]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

Putin announced on Navy Day recently that Russia will build 30 new ships for the Navy (unspecified classes)

Firstly you'd have to question the numbers and secondly even if they do, their recent Naval designs have been mostly spectacular failures.

Doesn't matter though.  All the public will be told is strong man Putin is building a massive navy to defeat the puny Nato forces threatening to invade their beaches.  All that matters is the announcement, not the result.

[bickster]

Just now, sidcow said:

Doesn't matter though.  All the public will be told is strong man Putin is building a massive navy to defeat the puny Nato forces threatening to invade their beaches.  All that matters is the announcement, not the result.

Don't be stupid, they've even released a picture of the new design

[Mandy Lifeboats]

I cannot read a post about the Russian navy without thinking about the battle of Tsushima.  I wrote this for the history thread.  It sounds exaggerated. It's not.  It's all 100% true and very funny. 

 

BATTLE OF TSUSHIMA 1905.   

It's 1904 and Russia is at war with Japan.  Things aren't going well and Russia decides to send the Baltic Fleet to attack Japan.  That's only 18,000 miles away. 

The fleet forms up near St Petersburg.  It's a massive fleet of warships and auxiliary support ships.  The crews aren't experienced navigating in a large fleet.  The flagship runs aground. A destroyer rams a battleship forcing them both to return to port for repairs. 

The fleet is approaching Denmark when the lead ship reports being attacked by 8 Japanese Ships.  Its actually a fishing boat delivering a message.  The gunnery is so bad that the fishing boat doesn't realise its under attack and just sails to the flagship and delivers its message. 

The fleet is now at Dogger Bank.  It spots a massive Japanese Fleet and attacks.  Its actually the fishing fleet from Hull.  The warships fire for 20 minutes before realising their mistake.  As the smoke clears 1 fishing boat has been sunk and 2 fishermen killed.  But the unarmed fishing fleet gets a score draw.  The Russians shelled 2 of their own ships and killed 2 Russians.  

The British are furious and the Royal Navy is despatched to sink the Russia Fleet.  The French Ambassador manages to stop the attack.  The French tell the Russians to stay the hell away from any British Ports or face destruction.  

This causes a slight problem for the Russians because Gibraltar and the Suez Canal were on their route.  They decide to go around Africa instead.  

They have arranged to be resupply with coal by a German Passenger Liner company.  But they now need much more coal for the longer journey.  They pile coal on deck.  That's still not enough so they store coal in every available space below deck.  Several crew members die of Black Lung.  Cleanliness reduces to zero.  Coal dust gets into guns and other vital machinery. 

Morale is low.  The fleet stops off in Madagascar.  The crew bring several exotic pets aboard.  This includes a Crocodile who injures several crew members and a venomous snake which bites a senior officer.  One ship has an infestation of Cameleons.  

A battleship is hit by shell fire from another battleship who are conducted a salute during a  burial at sea. 

The Admiral orders gunnery practice.  Its abandoned after the gunners successfully sink the ship towing the target.  

The fleet approaches Japan.  They decide upon a sneak attack.  All ships extinguish lights except the hospital ship.  A Japanese Destroyer spots the hospital ship and investigates.  The Russians identify it as a Russia ship and send frantic messages telling it to turn its lights off.  The Japanese Destroyer spots the fleet, turns off its lights and exits.  The Russia Fleet thinks they are still undetected.  They are very wrong.  

The Japanese Fleet intercepts the Russians.  

Japan Loses > 117 dead, 3 torpedo boats sunk.  

Russian Loses> 5000 dead, 6000 taken prisoner, 7 battleships and 14 other ships sunk, 4 battleships and 1 Destroyer captured.  

In a final insult, a Russian Cruiser grounds itself.  The crew flee ashore and destroy the ship to stop it falling into Japanese hands.   They ran aground in Russia.  

 

 

 

[bickster]

Yeah I've read that before, absolutely hilarious tale of woe

[legov]

2 hours ago, The Fun Factory said:

Of course. Putin is hoping the West will lose interest and move on to the next crisis.  The current elected leaders will eventually be replaced, with different agendas and domestic issues to address.  And if Trump ever got re-elected that would be very bad news.

I've been quite surprised by how united Europe has been behind supporting Ukraine though, regardless of political ideology. Even the far-right that's in power in Italy right now have been solidly pro-Ukraine.

The US is the one I'm worried about, as you said if Trump gets reelected that's not good news for Ukraine.

Edited August 2, 2023 by legov

[ender4]

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

Doesn't matter though.  All the public will be told is [XXX].  All that matters is the announcement, not the result.

Are we talking about the Tory party again?

[sidcow]

14 minutes ago, ender4 said:

Are we talking about the Tory party again?

I'd love a newspaper to ask for photographic evidence of exactly which "new hospitals" have been built. 

It's no different to the Red Bus and needs to be exposed unequivocally. 

[chrisp65]

2 minutes ago, sidcow said:

I'd love a newspaper to ask for photographic evidence of exactly which "new hospitals" have been built. 

It's no different to the Red Bus and needs to be exposed unequivocally. 

This is the beauty of it, they ‘will’ be built. It’s a promise they can absolutely insist is absolutely true right up to the next election. After that election, it’ll be Labour that fails to hit a tory target.

Should they somehow bizarrely win the next election, well, they can just do a Starmer and say they didn’t realise it would cost money when they made the pledge so the sensible thing to do now is revise the pledge its not going back on your word, its the right thing to do in grown up politics.

 

[Xann]

2 minutes ago, legov said:

I've been quite surprised by how united Europe has been behind supporting Ukraine though, regardless of political ideology. Even the far-right that's in power in Italy right now have been solidly pro-Ukraine.

Away from the Putin land grab, this conflict has a great significance in the global power stakes for the coming decades.

If everyone hadn't stepped up vs Putin, then it's likely there would be more nibblings, and Taiwan's position would be more precarious still.

* America is stepping up IC manufacture capabilities, but they're not ready yet giving them extra reason to dissuade a Taiwan invasion.

The reduction of the Russian war machine, with no body bags returning to the US, is a bit of a Brucey bonus.

As you say, we just need to keep Trump out of the equation.

 

* We were in the running for an Intel factory in the UK, but Farage handed it to Ireland.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/intel-uk-chip-factory-brexit-b1933801.html

 

[avfc1982am]

 

[magnkarl]

Ukraine's sea drones taking out ships far from Ukraine. Well done.

This ship is a missile carriying Repucha landing ship, so they'll have taken out some of Russia's terror bombing capability.

Followup, Russia said they destroyed all drones. I guess letting drones ram your boats counts as destroying..

Edited August 4, 2023 by magnkarl

[Genie]

23 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

Ukraine's sea drones taking out ships far from Ukraine. Well done.

This ship is a missile carriying Repucha landing ship, so they'll have taken out some of Russia's terror bombing capability.

Followup, Russia said they destroyed all drones. I guess letting drones ram your boats counts as destroying..

Haha, using the side of your boat to destroy a drone is an interesting tactic  

[djdabush]

and here is the footage of the boat successfully destroying the naval drone. A wonderful job, that drone is in smithereens now.

 

 

[Genie]

3 minutes ago, djdabush said:

and here is the footage of the boat successfully destroying the naval drone. A wonderful job, that drone is in smithereens now.

 

 

High 5’s all round from the Russians, Ukraine won’t be using that drone again.

[Mandy Lifeboats]

That's a good start to a Friday.  

What disappoints is that a further attack wasn't arranged whilst it was being towed slowly back to port.  

Ukraine needs better long range anti-ship missiles to make the most of their initial success. 

 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuanian have begun completely disconnecting their gas and electrical infrastructure from Russia.  They hope to complete the task by the end of 2025 by dismantling all electrical connections across the border.   They will connect with the EU via Poland. 

Another small nail in Putin's coffin.  

 

 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Mandy Lifeboats
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