Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[sidcow]

35 minutes ago, Mozzavfc said:

I think the idea is the tanks rush ahead, control an area, and pin the defenders down/cause them to retreat, and then for troops to follow them up to support and hold the area.

What's been happening is the NLAWs and Javelins have been tearing them to shreds. I'm surprised the tank crews aren't abandoning their tanks as soon as they leave the safety of their bases. They are moving coffins

There are various photos of Ukrainians posing with captured tanks, and also farmers towing tanks away so it could be this is exactly what's happening. 

I do wonder if we are seeing the death of the tank here as a weapon of war though. 

So easy to take out even with hand held rockets from large distances away. I certainly wouldn't want to be sitting in one surrounded by enemy, which is really the opposite of what they're supposed to be. 

I know our (UK) armour is supposed to be better and they probably work against lesser equipped opposition, but in a modern army situation they seem to be easy to take out, that's before you even start thinking about tank buster aircraft. 

Edited March 9, 2022 by sidcow

[HanoiVillan]

2 hours ago, Genie said:

Any negotiations with the West would have to include Putin disappearing.

This is not going to be an acceptable pre-condition to any talks, and it is not up to western countries to push or force Ukraine to fight a war if and when they want peace, in support of a completely pie-in-the-sky goal that's not going to happen. 

Edited March 9, 2022 by HanoiVillan

[OutByEaster?]

Where do people see the mid to long term future of a post Putin Russia with a ruined economy?

I think it's reasonably straightforward with Ukraine, they'll borrow and rebuild and become an "owned" economy through that debt - but they'll survive and be in a position where they can over a period of a few years get back to a reasonable standard of life.

Russia on the other hand is a mystery - the longer this goes on the more their economy crumbles, the more their military crumbles (and with it the ability to control their own territory) and the more likely it is that we might end up with a ruined country piled up with civil war and massive poverty but still with some very valuable natural resources.

I just can't work out an end game for Russia - I think Putin is done for one way or another, but he's going to leave a Russia that's very different to the one that existed a few months back and potentially a humanitarian disaster.

Where do they go after this?

 

 

[HanoiVillan]

3 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I think Putin is done for one way or another

I don't understand why people have convinced themselves of this, but it seems extremely unlikely. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but if it leads to pushing the war to continue in pursuit of this goal it would be a tragedy and a disaster. 

[NurembergVillan]

 

 

[magnkarl]

16 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Where do people see the mid to long term future of a post Putin Russia with a ruined economy?

I think it's reasonably straightforward with Ukraine, they'll borrow and rebuild and become an "owned" economy through that debt - but they'll survive and be in a position where they can over a period of a few years get back to a reasonable standard of life.

Russia on the other hand is a mystery - the longer this goes on the more their economy crumbles, the more their military crumbles (and with it the ability to control their own territory) and the more likely it is that we might end up with a ruined country piled up with civil war and massive poverty but still with some very valuable natural resources.

I just can't work out an end game for Russia - I think Putin is done for one way or another, but he's going to leave a Russia that's very different to the one that existed a few months back and potentially a humanitarian disaster.

Where do they go after this?

 

 

I can definitely see areas like Dagestan, Chechnya, South Ossetia, Karelia etc wanting out. Some of them have the capability to make life even worse for Putin.

I’m not sure if Putin’s done though. It’ll take years to get him out, he’ll ride on a wave of dead Russians before he’s deposed. Hopefully someone lets Navalny out.

What is overbearingly true is that Russia is essentially done as a conventional military power. Their army and equipment is getting shredded by a country 10 times smaller.

Edited March 9, 2022 by magnkarl

[sidcow]

2 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Where do people see the mid to long term future of a post Putin Russia with a ruined economy?

I think it's reasonably straightforward with Ukraine, they'll borrow and rebuild and become an "owned" economy through that debt - but they'll survive and be in a position where they can over a period of a few years get back to a reasonable standard of life.

Russia on the other hand is a mystery - the longer this goes on the more their economy crumbles, the more their military crumbles (and with it the ability to control their own territory) and the more likely it is that we might end up with a ruined country piled up with civil war and massive poverty but still with some very valuable natural resources.

I just can't work out an end game for Russia - I think Putin is done for one way or another, but he's going to leave a Russia that's very different to the one that existed a few months back and potentially a humanitarian disaster.

Where do they go after this?

 

 

Yes, as I said earlier I don't see The West just dropping all sanctions.  And even if they do they'll definitely wean themselves off Russian Gas and Oil. 

There are a lot of Countries in the world who have relied on Fossil Fuel sales to make their way in the world in modern times who are all going to have to find new ways of paying their way in the future. 

The smart ones should be reinvesting their massive profits in new industries, tech, infrastructure etc. 

The dumb or more corrupt ones are just stealing as much of the nations wealth for themselves. Russia falls into that category, and they're going to experience that future much further in advance than the other oil nations as well.  

They would be better advised to stop spending oodles of money on military, proxy wars and border expansion.  Kick out the Oligarchs and start building loads of home grown wind turbines, build some battery gigafactories, get their scientists to switch from nuclear weapon development to designing and building solar panels, look at their mineral resources and see how they can max those profits, modernise their farming and become Europe's food garden. 

Set those hackers to building tech companies instead of attacking foreign Governments. 

These are all things they should be doing...... But they won't. 

Putin will either remain in charge and carry on doing what they're doing until he dies, or someone else will take him out and carry on with doing broadly the same thing, maybe with a bit less antagonism towards the west until the oil and gas has run out then there will probably be revolution and anarchy.  I hope by then The West has seriously invested in anti ballistic missile defences and can protect itself properly withiut worrying about total armageddon. 

[Awol]

3 minutes ago, sidcow said:

There are various photos of Ukrainians posing with captured tanks, and also farmers towing tanks away so it could be this is exactly what's happening. 

I do wonder if we are seeing the death of the tank here as a weapon of war though. 

So easy to take out even with hand held rockets from large distances away. I certainly wouldn't want to be sitting in one surrounded by enemy, which is really the opposite of what they're supposed to be. 

I know our (UK) armour is supposed to be better and they probably work against lesser equipped opposition, but in a modern army situation they seem to be easy to take out, that's before you even start thinking about tank buster aircraft. 

The Russian problem is not following their own doctrine on how to fight. Tanks without infantry are very vulnerable, but as one part of combined arms maneuver warfare they’re formidable.

Because the Russian campaign design plan was awful (based on a wildly wrong strategic assessment of the Ukrainians will and capability to resist), they’ve got off on the wrong foot and are struggling to regain their operational balance. The old ‘I wouldn’t start from here’ problem. 

That’s why penny packets of unsupported armour are getting turned into scrap metal by highly mobile light infantry armed with NLAW/Javelin.

Constant attacks by Ukrainians in their *KennethGif* rear areas only compounds the issue. 

[Zatman]

Ukrainian FA want to remove the coaching badges plus all the medals and international caps from Tymoschuk who is the record cap holder but he is the assistant at Zenit and has not made any comment regarding the war

[foreveryoung]

I know this war is getting out of hand with bombing civilian cities, but I cannot for the life of me think they bombed that Maternity hospital on purpose. Stray missile perhaps?

Was it really Russia, or false flag, something to get Nato in the war. We will possibly never know. One things for sure, anymore of that and I doubt  Nato will have a choice.

[OutByEaster?]

22 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I don't understand why people have convinced themselves of this, but it seems extremely unlikely. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but if it leads to pushing the war to continue in pursuit of this goal it would be a tragedy and a disaster. 

I don't necessarily mean imminently, or even in the immediacy of this conflict - but his power is based on the strength of mother Russia and his position as a powerful strong leader at the head of it - it seems very unlikely he'll come out of this with that intact - Russia is realising its modern limitations I think and I don't think that politically Putin survives that. He's almost 70 and I can't see him holding on to power much beyond this conflict, even if he survives it.

What worries me is that we end up with a Russia fighting half a dozen internal civil wars whilst US gas and oil companies and their lobbyists persuade the US to put boots on the ground in the ruins in order to secure its natural resources - I think there's a genuine chance that we might end up with a situation where the UN spend a fortune and expend a great deal of energy in trying to hold Russia together at the end of this - that we might end up with a larger humanitarian crisis in Russia than the one we're expecting in order to repair Ukraine. 

I'm struggling to get any sort of vision of a future Russia beyond the damage this conflict is bringing them -do we end up with a giant Afghanistan, a version of Africa, does Russia somehow recover as a functioning democracy and modern economy?.

 

 

[bickster]

8 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

I know this war is getting out of hand with bombing civilian cities, but I cannot for the life of me think they bombed that Maternity hospital on purpose. Stray missile perhaps?

Was it really Russia, or false flag, something to get Nato in the war. We will possibly never know. One things for sure, anymore of that and I doubt  Nato will have a choice.

Its not like its a new thing for them they've committed exactly the same attrocities in Alepo etc

It's done on purpose for the psychologiical effect

Like @Awolsaid, it's what they do

[sidcow]

23 minutes ago, Awol said:

The Russian problem is not following their own doctrine on how to fight. Tanks without infantry are very vulnerable, but as one part of combined arms maneuver warfare they’re formidable.

Because the Russian campaign design plan was awful (based on a wildly wrong strategic assessment of the Ukrainians will and capability to resist), they’ve got off on the wrong foot and are struggling to regain their operational balance. The old ‘I wouldn’t start from here’ problem. 

That’s why penny packets of unsupported armour are getting turned into scrap metal by highly mobile light infantry armed with NLAW/Javelin.

Constant attacks by Ukrainians in their *KennethGif* rear areas only compounds the issue. 

I'm no expert (by a long shot) but the traditional way of surrounding tanks with infantry I think was effective because you used to have to get pretty close to the Tank to use hand held anti tank weapons.  They were not very accurate so to ensure a hit and more importantly to hit hard enough to destroy it you had to be pretty close.  

Those videos above are soldiers using fairly old technology. You can see they are pretty close and it's equally obvious that a load of Russian infantry fanning out would take out those soldiers before they could fire, or at least make their lives very difficult and probably take them down before they get away. 

However my understanding is that some of the more modern systems can a) be used from much further away and b) are fire and forget so you just hit the button and run like hell and c) strike the tank by looping upwards and downwards striking the turret from above where it's more susceptible to a direct hit and also are much more explosive. 

So I'm not sure close support infantry can protect the tank quite so well as they used to.   If the missile is being launched from half a mile away it's much harder to stop than something being launched from the trees the other side of the field.   To cover that kind of area you're going to need a huge amount of infantry to protect one tank, and in turn they're now so far away from the tank they themselves are probably now in the open without tank support. 

As I say I'm no expert but this is how I see it. 

Edited March 9, 2022 by sidcow

[Davkaus]

11 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

I know this war is getting out of hand with bombing civilian cities, but I cannot for the life of me think they bombed that Maternity hospital on purpose. Stray missile perhaps?

Was it really Russia, or false flag,

It's really bizarre to bend over to such lengths to think of conspiracy theories that excuse Russia when they've spent days shelling evacuation routes so civilians can't flee to safety.

[Genie]

Liz Truss has had to recall her comments that she supports British ex-service personnel going go Ukraine to fight. It’s completely against foreign policy (as well as the wrong message to Putin that the UK is not fighting directing).

[avfc1982am]

36 minutes ago, sidcow said:

There are various photos of Ukrainians posing with captured tanks, and also farmers towing tanks away so it could be this is exactly what's happening. 

I do wonder if we are seeing the death of the tank here as a weapon of war though. 

So easy to take out even with hand held rockets from large distances away. I certainly wouldn't want to be sitting in one surrounded by enemy, which is really the opposite of what they're supposed to be. 

I know our (UK) armour is supposed to be better and they probably work against lesser equipped opposition, but in a modern army situation they seem to be easy to take out, that's before you even start thinking about tank buster aircraft. 

I've spoke to a couple of soldier mates about this...They're opinion is Russia are a bunch of amateurs as no armoured vehicle in the British army wouldn't have top cover or force protection. Therefore if a vehicle gets ambushed defensive positions would be taken and return of fire until a designated call sign collect the dead or injured. They would then attempt to escape the area to designated place and take up defensive positions before casevac of the casualties. The bottom line is we would never send in armour without aircover or ground support. 

[magnkarl]

1 minute ago, Genie said:

Liz Truss has had to recall her comments that she supports British ex-service personnel going go Ukraine to fight. It’s completely against foreign policy (as well as the wrong message to Putin that the UK is not fighting directing).

Don’t worry, there’s already a large amount of Brits in Ukraine, along with most other European nations. They’re probably part of the reason why Ukraine is doing so well, on top of Ukrainians being hard as nails.

[Genie]

Just now, magnkarl said:

Don’t worry, there’s already a large amount of Brits in Ukraine, along with most other European nations. They’re probably part of the reason why Ukraine is doing so well, on top of Ukrainians being hard as nails.

Yep, I agree.

Its just another example of a senior politician being so completely incompetent to the point of potentially talking the country directly into a war.

[meregreen]

AirPower is the modern way of pulverising opposition. Tanks have their use, but are vulnerable to one man with a guided weapon. Russia probably thought she could dominate the airspace. This has proven to be beyond them thus far. 

[sidcow]

1 minute ago, avfc1982am said:

I've spoke to a couple of soldier mates about this...They're opinion is Russia are a bunch of amateurs as no armoured vehicle in the British army wouldn't have top cover or force protection. Therefore if a vehicle gets ambushed defensive positions would be taken and return of fire until a designated call sign collect the dead or injured. They would then attempt to escape the area to designated place and take up defensive positions before casevac of the casualties. The bottom line is we would never send in armour without aircover or ground support. 

Yes, I've also read something about "Chobham armour" which is supposed to be really tough and proved itself in The Gulf War as seriously protective.