Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Rhys McCabe Hype Train]

24 minutes ago, Detournement said:

Do you think that people in DPR and LPR actually want to be a part of Ukraine after 8 years of war, seeing their political parties outlawed and the integration of extreme Ukrainian nationalist paramilitaries into the state?

There are also 2 million Ukrainian passport holding refugees in Russia.

 

Big team found.

[ICTChris]

Putin’s speech delayed.

here’s what this delay means in the context of post Soviet demilitarisation and the overall historical legacy of Catherine the Great (1/176).

[Newbornbairn]

33 minutes ago, Detournement said:

Do you think that people in DPR and LPR actually want to be a part of Ukraine after 8 years of war, seeing their political parties outlawed and the integration of extreme Ukrainian nationalist paramilitaries into the state?

There are also 2 million Ukrainian passport holding refugees in Russia.

 

 

Amazed you slithered back tbh.

[Duszek]

1 hour ago, Detournement said:

Do you think that people in DPR and LPR actually want to be a part of Ukraine after 8 years of war, seeing their political parties outlawed and the integration of extreme Ukrainian nationalist paramilitaries into the state?

[Detournement]

Very good. 

There are no plans for reintegrating these regions back into Ukraine because there is zero chance of it ever happening. 

[dorlomin]

3 hours ago, ICTChris said:

Is this the case now though?  Can they arm, train, supply and deploy more soldiers?  The mobilisation will likely take several months, will it make a difference in time?

The relevant troops are mobilised. They are either contractors with several years service who have refused to fight in a foreign country, or conscripts who are not allowed to be sent to a foreign country. Suddenly Kherson is no longer a foreign country. 

Declare the occupied parts of Ukraine as Russia and now he has about 140 000 trained and equipped soldiers he can deploy. 

More over Russia has been fighting as a kind of weird hybrid of a western professional army, but without the professional infantry and a Russia mass mobilisation army without the mass mobilised infantry. 

Many of the critiques of the Russian army: it lacks initiative, because its war plans require large numbers of low readiness conscripts it cannot rely on initiative. Its equipment is cheap, because it relies on a mass of conscripts to man that equipment, it has fought tactically poor, because its tactics rely on large amounts of infantry that are absent, are being addressed by this move. 

If he has only a few months artillery then this is his YOLO zerg rush. His one Hail Mary. 

On the other hand this is why so much western military equipment is the way it is. The reason the US has 3500 M1s in storage, the reason the M270s were designed to launch utter hell on large concentrations of troops. Why the A-10s were designed to kill a lot of tanks before the pilots died (that slow and that close to the ground the planes have a short life expectancy in a high intensity conflict, but they would take a chunk of T-72s with them before they go). 

The US gave Ukraine a  small number of MRLS systems (multiple rocket launchers) to launch the much rarer and very precise GMRLs munitions (the wheeled HIMARS have been doing that). We did it as they had no other platform for precision munitions. Now we need to give them a boat load of the M270s and open our stocks of dumb rounds. Give them as many of the old M1 as we can, not to use as modern MBTs with all the training that requires but as old school heavy tanks to sit on a hill and kill as many T-72s and BMP-2s before they are over whelmed. 

The war will be decided when the main rush of Russian conscripts hits, days, weeks or maybe a month or so. 

Shit is about to get real. 

[dorlomin]

We need to start shipping as much kit to Ukraine as possible as quickly as possible. Our air power means there is nothing that can genuinely threaten us on land. Anything that is not bolted down that they can use. Ship it. 

[LongTimeLurker]

Meanwhile no speech from Vlad. Wonder if he may have received some negative feedback on what mobilisation would do to the Russian economy:

 

 

[doulikefish]

5 minutes ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Meanwhile no speech from Vlad. Wonder if he may have received some negative feedback on what mobilisation would do to the Russian economy:

 

 

Put back til 2mr I've read 

[doulikefish]

Only thing I can think is Putin will declare the new republics part of Russia and then say an attack on them is an attack on Russia itself to escalate the mobilization that depending on who to believe is or is not happening and martial law is being imposed

It's all a bit gone no idea what's happening in Russia right now 

 

[Bairnardo]

Vlad going all in against an Army that's getting stronger by the day is pretty ballsy..... The US will be all over this.

[LongTimeLurker]

He should have mobilised months ago if he wanted to ever take Odesa, Kyiv etc. That he didn't do so but instead retreated to focus mainly on the Donbas suggests doing it comes at a heavy price he still might not be willing/able to pay. 

[MuckleMoo]

[bennett]

Surprised that the Russians have any armour left to mobilise. 

[jagfox]

Interesting thread on Russian mobilisation.

 

 

[jagfox]

 

 

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, dorlomin said:

Give them as many of the old M1 as we can, not to use as modern MBTs with all the training that requires but as old school heavy tanks to sit on a hill and kill as many T-72s and BMP-2s before they are over whelmed.

Problem. Sitting on a hill is about all they could do as they are too large, and heavy, to actively deploy in battle in most areas of conflict Ukraine due to rivers and such. Immobile tanks, SPG’s, missile launchers, etc are simply fresh meat for an army with any precision weapons. The Russians may be short on supplies, but they could easily prioritize the precision weapons remaining on such targets.

[Theroadlesstravelled]

Getting slapped about by Ukrainian peasants? Putain mair like.

Amiritelads

[renton]

47 minutes ago, TxRover said:

Problem. Sitting on a hill is about all they could do as they are too large, and heavy, to actively deploy in battle in most areas of conflict Ukraine due to rivers and such. Immobile tanks, SPG’s, missile launchers, etc are simply fresh meat for an army with any precision weapons. The Russians may be short on supplies, but they could easily prioritize the precision weapons remaining on such targets.

I don't think overall strategic mobility would be a deal breaker since there is likely excess bridging equipment that could be found.

However, the majority of those stored M1 tanks are partially dismantled, with engines that haven't been so much as turned over in years, likely unworkable transmissions and dried out hydraulics.

It would take a fair effort to turn those into useable assets, and even then most are the original M1 tanks, rather than the M1A1 or M1A2 versions and thus have the original 105mm guns.

Adding yet another gun calibre to Ukraine's armour units is a logistical headache, but also comes from a calibre largely long discontinued by NATO (and thus limited stock) and crucially is likely less than 100% effective against the most modern Russian armour (hence, as you will know, why NATO was already quickly adopting 120mm as standard by the late 80s/early 90s)

If the West wants to supply MBTs or other armoured assets to Ukraine it'll have to come from existing active arsenals. Suspect that means Leopard 2 from Germany as most likely candidate given its large export profile and customer base. The Abrams with its likely still sensitive tech and gas guzzling turbine engine makes it more logistically difficult, and there simply isn't enough Challengers or Leclercs out there to give away.

[Jute]

Putin now announcing a partial military mobilisation.