Ukraine - Russia Conflict
- Thread starter pardus
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In another "totally not WWII, we swear" moment:
Ukraine war: Putin allows former prisoners to be conscripted
Russia dangles freedom to prisoners if they fight in Ukraine. Many are taking the deadly gamble. | CNN
Ukraine war: Putin allows former prisoners to be conscripted
Russia dangles freedom to prisoners if they fight in Ukraine. Many are taking the deadly gamble. | CNN
All information and video/lessons are important.
However, I am having a real hard time with the ‘this is the future of warfare; we need to pay attention before we are in a conflict like this’ narrative.
My stance on Russia is known. If not for our $11B (or whatever the fr*ck it is now) in funding and weapons and foreign fighters, Ukraine would be speaking Russian.
No one can do basic tactics- like infantry + armor. There‘s no effective stand-off weapons, no air, no naval fires or indirect. No one has anti-drone tech. No one has an IC infrastructure capable of war fighting functions and exquisite capability.
It’s like an NFL team watching a Pop Warner game and wringing their hands in dismay about what happens if they ever have to play one another. It’s insane.
DM me for the super inappropriate analogy I was gonna make instead of the above football analogy.
However, I am having a real hard time with the ‘this is the future of warfare; we need to pay attention before we are in a conflict like this’ narrative.
My stance on Russia is known. If not for our $11B (or whatever the fr*ck it is now) in funding and weapons and foreign fighters, Ukraine would be speaking Russian.
No one can do basic tactics- like infantry + armor. There‘s no effective stand-off weapons, no air, no naval fires or indirect. No one has anti-drone tech. No one has an IC infrastructure capable of war fighting functions and exquisite capability.
It’s like an NFL team watching a Pop Warner game and wringing their hands in dismay about what happens if they ever have to play one another. It’s insane.
DM me for the super inappropriate analogy I was gonna make instead of the above football analogy.
I remain glad to see that a people are actually willing to fight for their own country for a change, instead of expecting us to do it for them.
I agree here. People (non-specific) are mistaking bravery and a fighting spirit for tactical prowess, I think. I value patriotism and nationalism, resistance to tyranny, and the moral and physical courage it takes to engage in that fight.
I think two things can be true at the same time- I respect the individuals fighting and dying as citizens of Ukraine (my thoughts on foreign fighters is a bit different) in this war; I also don’t think the Russians or Ukraine are true ‘peers’ in any sense.
I respect the intent. As a practical evaluation of tactics and war fighting capability from both sides… lacking.
Imagine the 82nd airborne replacing the Ukrainians. Or the Batts. Or any SOF.
*Biden Voice* C’mon, man!
Yekaterinburg is...1200 or so miles as the crow flies to Kyiv. Yeah, interesting if true for several reasons.
They do seem to have it in some capacity. Russians use the "Harpoon" and also deploy static jamming devices. Ukrainians recently started to acquire similar anti-drone guns from Lithuania. Apparently they tried to get their hands on such tech before 24 February, but it was allegedly blocked by NATO. Now after the recent drone attacks, it was promised to them.
Ukraine to get anti-drone systems in coming days, NATO's Stoltenberg says
Hitting With Harpoons! Russia Confirms Using Harpoon Systems To Shoot Down Ukrainian Suicide Drones
Germany did recently start to send some newer stuff. Maybe they’ll give the Ukrainians a few of those anti-swarm revolver guns, if the drone madness further escalates. Ukraine is becoming a testing ground for these new weapons …
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@Gordus - we are speaking from different optics here. You’re googling; I’m speaking from experience. Not a shot at you, but an objective observation. And you’re talking about ‘possibly getting it’ or ‘almost having it’. That means ‘they don’t have it’.
They have it ‘in some capacity’. In comparison to ours- it’s woefully underdeveloped or not present at all, and if it is, it’s not being employed effectively.
They have it ‘in some capacity’. In comparison to ours- it’s woefully underdeveloped or not present at all, and if it is, it’s not being employed effectively.
That’s fair. Though it’s more a mix of research and remembering some earlier footage where Russian jamming devices were partially captured and destroyed. I get your point about their stuff being less refined or more rudimentary.
Hopefully the Ukrainians will get the promised NATO assistance in that area.
pardus
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I don't know where you are getting your intel from, but it's not accurate.
I don't know your Russia stance.
If you really think the US Military is ready for a near peer conflict, then good on your motivation, I think that is extraordinarily unlikely, we couldn't deal effectively with with a couple of insurgencies despite the resources thrown into that fight, we literally lost thousands of lives in the GWOT unnecessarily due to incompetence. Do I think we will win against China in a fight? Yes, but it will cost a LOT of lives, a lot of which could be avoided if we did the right thing, which we won't because pronouns are more of a priority, and generals are mot much more than political hacks.
Yes there are some serious problems in the UKR military, and I have railed against them, are they peers to a NATO country? No, but they have shown the bottle to do something no NATO country has done since the 50s, so until NATO does that again, it's like a fat kid in his mom's basement telling everyone how he would be like totally kicking heads in. Ukraine had fuck all support when it stopped the Russian invasion, that was all them. Do they need western help to repel the Soviets from their borders? Yes, but Russia could never have won this without a total unrestricted war, which probably would have drawn Poland in at a minimum, so highly unlikely.
What are your thoughts on foreign fighters?
UKR military is definitely lacking but they are learning and incorporating those lessons far faster than we would.
The 82nd/batt/SOF wouldn't achieve much without the massive back up of the entire US military apparatus, put a battalion of them under sustained accurate artillery fire without that backup and you'd get the same result, do you even know one US military member who has been under sustained artillery fire? It's a very different thing to a firefight or kicking doors. GWOT was a playground.
We have one member/ former member who has. Haditha dam in 2003. Elements of Viking Hammer, northern Iraq. Both during invasion, probably others, but 19 years ago…
