Politics

[Ray B]

@Red Leg Not that it makes any difference, but some of my time in the military was spent as a radio operator with M/4/11. As such I would either accompany a patrol or FO in the field or in the FDC receiving the calls. In the fire base along with our M109 155 howitzers there was a 105 battery, a platoon each of 8" and 155mm guns. The enemy had two sources of indirect fire: 82mm mortars and 122mm rockets. Even so, all of the guns were in pits with several layers of sand bag emplacements. The powder and bullets were in bunkers that were underground and heavily roofed. The FDC was where the quadrant & elevation numbers were determined for the aiming of the guns. The FDC was also heavily protected.

I see none of this in the video about the Russian artillery battery. And this is in spite of the enemy having ability to counter battery artillery fire. If the battery officer of M/4/11 had run the battery as it appears the Russian battery is being run he wouldn't have been in command for five minutes before the gunny would have relieved him one way or the other.

I can see why the desertion rate is what I hear on the news. Such incompetence is completely off the cliff.

 

[spike.t]

Well... as a cavalry man I would know nothing about artillery but I did have Academy class mates who misguidedly joined artillery , and from the interarm maneuvering I participated in, I shall wholeheartedly agree that the only place and time that would be appropriate for this deployment would be a 21 guns salute on victory parade day...





Well again... unless the very unlikely prospect that Russia organized a teleton donation event to help civilian Ukrainians motor out of their country, this lines up perfectly with a paper I found yesterday night that I found fascinating.

View attachment 455910

Since my last professional military exposure to articulated data about the Russian military logistics admittedly dates back from when it was still called the Red Army, it came as a shock to me, and let me open-mouthed in astonishment !?!?!?!?!?

I absolutely recommend the reading because the author, Lt. Col. Alex Vershinin "since 2014, has worked as a modeling and simulations officer in concept development and experimentation field for NATO and the U.S. Army, including a tour at the U.S. Army Sustainment Battle Lab, where he led the experimentation scenario team" is a genuine logistics professional, and because his paper is articulated on quantitative data, as opposed to qualitative opinion.

If you do not have the time for the 5 minutes read, allow me - spoiler alert - to give you the conclusion: "The Russian army does not have enough trucks to meet its logistic requirement more than 90 miles beyond supply dumps."

Feeding the Bear: A Closer Look at Russian Army Logistics and the Fait Accompli - War on the Rocks

Editor's note: Don't miss our comprehensive guide to Russia's war against Ukraine. Russia’s military buildup along the border with Ukraine has

warontherocks.com

To give credit where credit is due, Red Leg might be onto something , the bear may actually be a lot more emaciated and have lost a lot more of his bite from the good old days when every French, German or American officer could point the Fulda Gap on a map with eyes closed and in a dark room..............................

View attachment 455923

Mr Google found it....interesting read...and the difference in railway gauge is a big issue as well for the Russians it would seem....

 

[Red Leg]

The Wargame Before the War: Russia Attacks Ukraine - War on the Rocks

Editor's note: Don't miss our comprehensive guide to Russia's war against Ukraine. In the two weeks prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine,

warontherocks.com

That is a really good site. Thanks @One Day... ! The article above is really fascinating. It was written about day five of the battle.

@Red Leg Not that it makes any difference, but some of my time in the military was spent as a radio operator with M/4/11. As such I would either accompany a patrol or FO in the field or in the FDC receiving the calls. In the fire base along with our M109 155 howitzers there was a 105 battery, a platoon each of 8" and 155mm guns. The enemy had two sources of indirect fire: 82mm mortars and 122mm rockets. Even so, all of the guns were in pits with several layers of sand bag emplacements. The powder and bullets were in bunkers that were underground and heavily roofed. The FDC was where the quadrant & elevation numbers were determined for the aiming of the guns. The FDC was also heavily protected.

I see none of this in the video about the Russian artillery battery. And this is in spite of the enemy having ability to counter battery artillery fire. If the battery officer of M/4/11 had run the battery as it appears the Russian battery is being run he wouldn't have been in command for five minutes before the gunny would have relieved him one way or the other.

I can see why the desertion rate is what I hear on the news. Such incompetence is completely off the cliff.

Exactly @Ray B

And imagine some young captain trying to run one of these batteries in combat without the help of a real first sergeant or chief of smoke. Even the gun chiefs in an American battery would be SGTS and SSGs on second or third enlistments.

Generously granting the possibility this was a hasty firing position, part of each US Army gun crew would have been frantically digging ammo pits while the guns were being emplaced. And where and how these guns were emplaced in this modern combat environment is criminal and directly led to the destruction of the battalion.

I can't speak for current USMC doctrine, but the three batteries of US Army battalion would be separated by hundreds of meters and individual guns would be positioned so as to cause no damage to a neighboring piece were it struck. As I noted in my previous post, they would also have used terrain to help conceal their location.

There is a final conclusion that we can draw from what we see. The Russians do not have the ability to send individual firing data to each gun simultaneously in order to shape the impact sheath as it hits the target. These guns were clearly all firing the same data and rounds would have landed in a mirror image of the firing unit. That is WWI, WWII, Early Vietnam level fires management. Mind boggling.

Even back in the mid-seventies using a FADAC computer, LT Red Leg could put all six 8" rounds 50 meters apart exactly down the center line of a dirt road 8 miles away.

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

Former CIA Chief and Sec. of Defense Robert Gates (also former president of some minor college in TX) makes some comments on Putin.

Former US secretary of defense details if Putin has territorial ambitions past Ukraine

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told “One Nation with Brian Kilmeade” on Saturday what Russian President Vladimir Putin would have to do to take over Ukraine altogether.

www.foxnews.com

 

[Tundra Tiger]

 

[Red Leg]

View attachment 455925

The vast majority of MSM coverage of this crisis seems pretty accurate to me. Clearly most hosts and anchors are pretty clueless, but they are doing a reasonable job giving air time to people who are true thoughtful experts. For instance, Jack Keane is one of the best.

With respect to this conflict, anything sponsored on RT is directly approved by the Kremlin.

I should add that I don't consider MSNBC or Newsmax MSM.

 

[One Day...]

The Wargame Before the War: Russia Attacks Ukraine - War on the Rocks

Editor's note: Don't miss our comprehensive guide to Russia's war against Ukraine. In the two weeks prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine,

warontherocks.com

That is a really good site. Thanks @One Day... ! The article above is really fascinating. It was written about day five of the battle....

Agreed.

Interestingly:

This is the case I have been making all along

As usual in this type of situations, it looks like we will BOTH have been right in many aspects and at the same time as strategic restraint likely combined with logistic insufficiencies and, indeed, lack of experience at junior officers level, combined with the perennial Soviet/Russian structural weakness of the lack of a NCO "backbone".

The next critical element will be whether the infamous "40 mile convoy" suddenly initiates dynamic maneuvering, or if it indeed remains static for lack of fuel

There too we may end up being both right in as much as a field pipeline may (have) resolve(d) fuel issues, if it indeed was the case (?), although I would think that this would have picked up on satellite imagery, including civilian imagery...

Definitely, round tabling by keyboard is a lot less effective than "live"...

 

[Tundra Tiger]

Agreed sir. The meme made me laugh... so I shared. By the way, as others have said, thank you so much for breaking things down. It is truly appreciated.

 

[Red Leg]

Agreed. Interestingly:

View attachment 455929

This is the case I have been making all along

As usual in this type of situations, it looks like we will BOTH have been right in many aspects as strategic restraint likely combined with logistic insufficiencies and indeed lack of experience at junior officers level combined with indeed structural lack of the NCO "backbone".

The next critical element will be whether the infamous "40 mile convoy" suddenly initiates dynamic maneuvering, or if it indeed remain static for lack of fuel

There too we may end up being both right in as much as a field pipeline may (have) resolve(d) fuel issues, if it indeed was the case (?), although I would think that this would have picked up on satellite imagery, including civilian imagery...

I thought that was the case I was making.

They were convinced this would be Hungary in 58 and Prague in 68. If not liberators at least a cowered populous and displaced government. Could have sworn I said something like that.

I suspect the 40 mile convoy is now a non-factor. Even small unit actions will have damaged it significantly. I suspect they are now hoping the axis of advance from Sumy will tip the balance in the north.

 

[One Day...]

I thought that was the case I was making.

They were convinced this would be Hungary in 58 and Prague in 68. If not liberators at least a cowered populous. Could have sworn I said something like that.

You did indeed

To use the article's langauge, you were making the case they "may have been convinced many Ukrainians would welcome them as liberators and the march to Kyiv would be an easy one".

I was making the case "they have held back much of their overwhelming fires complex to avoid destroying significant amounts of infrastructure and killing too many of their Ukrainian brothers".

I was seeing this choice not as a result of hope for a quick outcome (always possible but hope is not a strategy, even for Putin I would still speculate), but as a result of calculated progressive ramping up of coercive diplomacy.

It is worth noting that one (hope for early surrender) does not exclude the other (planning a progressive ramping up of coercive diplomacy).

Repeating from last post: definitely, round tabling by keyboard is a lot less effective than "live"

 

[Red Leg]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t83160

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t7yoei

Meanwhile back in the USSR ....... I mean the Russian Federation.

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

After reading the War Games article, I noticed another interesting article link: Very interesting reading!

China’s Strategic Assessment of Russia: More Complicated Than You Think - War on the Rocks

Editor’s note: Don’t miss our comprehensive guide to Russia’s war against Ukraine. Western observers of international affairs sounded the alarm

warontherocks.com

 

[Red Leg]

You did indeed

To use the article's langauge, you were making the case they "may have been convinced many Ukrainians would welcome them as liberators and the march to Kyiv would be an easy one".

I was making the case "they have held back much of their overwhelming fires complex to avoid destroying significant amounts of infrastructure and killing too many of their Ukrainian brothers", although I was seeing this choice not as a result of hope for a quick outcome (always possible but hope is not a strategy), but as a result of calculated progressive ramping of coercive diplomacy.

Repeating from last post: definitely, round tabling by keyboard is a lot less effective than "live"

They may still pull this off, but I have concluded their intelligence is awful, their weapon systems are vulnerable, their training is inadequate, their force projection capabilities are extremely limited, their leadership structure is incompatible with the modern lethal battlefield, and their capacity to execute combined operations is less than what they could achieve in the Second World War (which was even then somewhat inelegant compared to the US, Brits, and Germans)

But, they do indeed have the capacity to turn cities to rubble. Against a determined defender, that is not necessarily a good thing. There too, they may find their preconceptions about mass fires are wrong. Stalingrad, Manila, and Monte Casino come to mind.

 

[Sabattiboy]

Phoenix Sunday newspaper front page. Mercury basketball player arrested in Russia. Seems she plays for a team over there on the off season. This will either be america's pearl harbor or Iran hostage under Carter.
Maybe Putin can get us to bomb Ukraine for them as a gesture of good will over our citizen being arrested a Vape possession drug charge. Oh and give Alaska back.
Maybe they will give her Francis Gary Powers old room.

 

[Tundra Tiger]

As someone in Alaska... Nope, no thanks.

I saw that with Greiner. It might be that it's being used as a political stunt, but if that really was her stuff and she was caught travelling with it... my level of sympathy is pretty non-existent.

 

[Wheels]

 

[Vashper]

​

So what does this picture showing us

This is a picture for a respected Opposite Pole. The picture shows the usual torchlight march of the Nazis in Kiev. They carry portraits of Bandera, the head of the Nazi organization UPA, which carried out the genocide of Poles, Jews and others in Western Ukraine. The current UPA does not carry out the genocide of Poles, but is influential in politics and, so to speak, preserves traditions.

 

[Wheels]

 

[Red Leg]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t80dri

A longer video of the 122mm howitzer battalion. It reinforces the earlier observations. Though it would appear fewer ammunition trucks escaped. These young soldiers should never have been put into a fight for which they were so badly prepared.

Interesting data point - the 122 mm muzzle brake develops twice the over pressure our designs are allowed to reach. Look at how several of the howitzers almost overlap. I can guarantee you the crew of the forward guns, if they survived, went home with burst eardrums. Yet another example of very poor collective training.

 

[jpr9954]

Remember that Trump is banned from Twitter. The guy below isn't.