Russian invasion of Ukraine

[jagfox]

Russia doing what they "should have" at the start of their "special military operation" and striking at Ukrainian infrastructure such as bridges, railways as well as electrical substations.  

[vikingTON]

36 minutes ago, Shadow Play said:

Surely his doctor and various medical staff will?  I’m not trying to be facetious but if all these people know it’s not inconceivable that they have leaked information to outside agencies.

It is pretty inconceivable tbh, given the historically demonstrated consequences for anyone who leaks confidential information from the Kremlin.

I don't think a £50 bung from the Russian equivalent of The Sun is quite going to cut it. 

[D Angelo Barksdale]

33 minutes ago, Steven W said:

Can someone enlighten me to exactly what a 'general mobilisation' is exactly?

It's a special Russian military manoeuvre. Named after the legendary WW1 hero General Ivan Mobilisation.

[ICTChris]

23 minutes ago, Steven W said:

Can someone enlighten me to exactly what a 'general mobilisation' is exactly?

It means that Russia would formally declare war in Ukraine. This would allow them, legally, to take certain actions - call up reservists, stop any contract soldiers from leaving the armed forces (hundreds, probably thousdands of Russian troops have flat out refused to fight in Ukraine and aside from kicking them out the army nothing can be done), I think it allows them to send conscripted soldiers into combat. It could improve the manpower available to the Russians by a large degree. Russia has had issues with not having enough infantry to do things like cover tank and mechanised forces so on theory it could help with this.

There are cleaR issues with this though. Practically, Russia will need to train, equip, feed and transport a vast number of new soldiers. Do they have the ability to do this? It’s doubtful to say the least. Also, the quality of the new recruits will be questionable - Russianhas taken heavy losses among its elite and best equipped units, they can’t be replaced with guys pulled in against their will. It will also be an admission of defeat, Russian media is currently saying everything is going as planned, all good so if they say after two months “we need to start drafting” it’s a clear failure. Also, risking more people in the general public having direct experience of the war might make it less popular. 

[dorlomin]

42 minutes ago, Steven W said:

Can someone enlighten me to exactly what a 'general mobilisation' is exactly?

A general mobilisation is when you start pulling in your full reserves. For the UK it would really just be calling up the Territorial Army (whatever its called today). For Russia it would be the slow process of activating their 2 million reserves. Countries have war plans where they have the stages of this mapped out, the bases where you pull each wave into to train them and and the depots the equipment is pulled from. 

There are those who strongly question is Russia has the bases, the training personnel and the equipment to do this quickly, or at all. 

It would also force many countries to start their general mobilisations. As you could not have a 2 million man army on your border months before you are fully mobilised. 

The more likely scenario some are suggesting is for Putin to declare war on Ukraine soon as reservists and conscripts can only be deployed outside Russia during a war. Also in non war contractors (full timers) can just quit. Id hazzard that they might pull up troops from the most recent conscription, they were released in April. They would be the fittest and the most recently trained and use them to fill out for the losses and understrength in actually deployed units (big if) if they declare it a war. The rest of the mobiliation would be much harder due to people not being army fit anymore and very likely no equipment or equipment in needs of weeks to months of repairs to get up to speed again. 

[LongTimeLurker]

32 minutes ago, dorlomin said:

...Also in non war contractors (full timers) can just quit... 

Did they not address that with a new law recently that made it illegal to refuse an order to deploy to Ukraine? My understanding is that made the choice for soldiers on a contract either a trip to a brutal Russian jail with the label of being a traitor to the Motherland and all that would likely flow from that or a trip to Ukraine and a possible visit from a TB2 drone.

Edited May 4, 2022 by LongTimeLurker

[Sergeant Wilson]

33 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

 Russia has had issues with not having enough infantry to do things like cover tank and mechanised forces so on theory it could help with this.

 

I've seen this mentioned before, but why does a tank need infantry cover? I thought the whole point of a tank was shoot enemy tanks and squash enemy infantry. What's the point if they need men outside to cover them?

[Loonytoons]

I've seen this mentioned before, but why does a tank need infantry cover? I thought the whole point of a tank was shoot enemy tanks and squash enemy infantry. What's the point if they need men outside to cover them?

They provide protection in vulnerable situations.
Both back each other up basically.

[Sergeant Wilson]

1 minute ago, Loonytoons said:

They provide protection in vulnerable situations.
Both back each other up basically.

Do you want to be in the tank or walk beside it?

[Bairnardo]

Do you want to be in the tank or walk beside it?

I'm beginning to think you're not a real Sergeant at all.

[Shadow Play]

1 hour ago, virginton said:

It is pretty inconceivable tbh, given the historically demonstrated consequences for anyone who leaks confidential information from the Kremlin.

I don't think a £50 bung from the Russian equivalent of The Sun is quite going to cut it. 

So various western intelligence agencies don’t ever get any information from sources within the Kremlin?  They have no spies at all?  l would have thought it possible but there you go I’ve learned something else on P&B.

Thank you.

[Boo Khaki]

10 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

I've seen this mentioned before, but why does a tank need infantry cover? I thought the whole point of a tank was shoot enemy tanks and squash enemy infantry. What's the point if they need men outside to cover them?

Tanks are enormously vulnerable without protection of friendly infantry, mainly to enemy infantry funnily enough. I wrote a pretty big post in this thread last week about why I thought lack of infantry was quite possibly the underlying cause of such heavy Russian AFV losses.

[Sergeant Wilson]

3 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

4 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

Do you want to be in the tank or walk beside it?

I'm beginning to think you're not a real Sergeant at all.

It's all changed since I drove tanks.

[vikingTON]

8 minutes ago, Shadow Play said:

So various western intelligence agencies don’t ever get any information from sources within the Kremlin?  They have no spies at all?  l would have thought it possible but there you go I’ve learned something else on P&B.

Thank you.

What sources of information have Western intelligence found, about the private life of any leader in the Kremlin? 'Boris Yeltsin likes happy hour' not included. How would they even begin to groom and/or turn the private medical team of a much more paranoid and closed leadership circle than anything that exists in the West? It is pretty inconceivable.

The Occam's razor explanation is that people will just throw any old shit at the wall in the absence of credible information. 

Edited May 4, 2022 by vikingTON

[Detournement]

The people who are saying Putin is Ill are the same people who said Kim Jong Un was dead.

If that's anything to go by it won't be long until he's looking better ever and sporting some incredible new threads.

 

 

You obviously still can't get in the dancing with trainers in DPRK. That's basically my Saturday night look circa 2000 to get in the local cattle market. Ciro Citerrio leather jacket, a comfortable fit in the trouser dept and shoes shined by a parent/appartchick. Shermanator shirt not pictured. 

Edited May 4, 2022 by Detournement

[Moomintroll]

7 minutes ago, Detournement said:

The people who are saying Putin is Ill are the same people who said Kim Jong Un was dead.

If that's anything to go by it won't be long until he's looking better ever and sporting some incredible new threads.

 

 

You obviously still can't get in the dancing with trainers in DPRK. That's basically my Saturday night look circa 2000 to get in the local cattle market. Ciro Citerrio leather jacket, a comfortable fit in the trouser dept and shoes shined by a parent/appartchick. Shermanator shirt not pictured. 

Say what you are, but slowly.

[Shadow Play]

4 minutes ago, virginton said:

What sources of information have Western intelligence found, about the private life of any leader in the Kremlin? 'Boris Yeltsin likes happy hour' not included. How would they even begin to groom and/or turn the private medical team of a much more paranoid and closed leadership circle than anything that exists in the West? It is pretty inconceivable.

The Occam's razor explanation is that people will just throw any old shit at the wall in the absence of credible information. 

You sound very confident and from that I can only assume you have a good knowledge of how western intelligence gathering works.  I don’t have any great knowledge of the subject and I was simply surmising that it was a possibility.  Thank you.

[beefybake]

23 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

It's all changed since I drove tanks.

living room carpet doesn't count.

[vikingTON]

3 minutes ago, Shadow Play said:

You sound very confident and from that I can only assume you have a good knowledge of how western intelligence gathering works.  I don’t have any great knowledge of the subject and I was simply surmising that it was a possibility.  Thank you.

0.001% and 99.999% are both possibilities though, so that surmising without a credible boundary based on logic and reason is useless. 

[Shadow Play]

Just now, virginton said:

0.001% and 99.999% are both possibilities though, so that surmising without a credible boundary based on logic and reason is useless. 

I’m happy to accept your assertions on the matter.  Like I said, you come across like you have a good knowledge of how western intelligence gathering works.