[Discussion] Ukraine - Russian Invasion and Discussion

A place for aggregated discussions of a possible conflict, it’s implications and effects, news updates and personal accounts if any. If the expected conflict kicks off, I will change the title but the function will stay the same.

I dont know, Twitter seems pretty good at tanking.

What horrified and shocked me was the response from the Leopard 2 manufacturer that it would be something like 14 months to bring back the production line; and at least 9 months to pull tanks from what is laughably called "ready storage". The company noted that the existing tanks would have to be completely disassembled and PM'd and then reassembled for use.

I mean, wtf? This means that Germany has about 350 L2s ready to go (and I *really* question that number), 200 available in 9 months or so, and over a year before they can *start* building replacements. What about ammo? Spare parts? Fuel? Electronic components?

This stinks of "oh, well, we're in no danger these days, the Russians love us, so... Who cares about these tanks?" They sold about 1700 of them to other countries.

If the Russians had had a competent invasion force and decided to go on further into the Balkans or the Baltic states or Kratos forbid, Poland, the Germans would have been soiling themselves trying to put together a competent response. They should have restarted their wartime production cycle on February 5th, 2022. Instead they have been whistling past the graveyard, and are now wondering what the slow, dragging footsteps between them and the cemetery gates could possibly portend...

Robear wrote:

If the Russians had had a competent invasion force and decided to go on further into the Balkans or the Baltic states or Kratos forbid, Poland, the Germans would have been soiling themselves trying to put together a competent response. They should have restarted their wartime production cycle on February 5th, 2022. Instead they have been whistling past the graveyard, and are now wondering what the slow, dragging footsteps between them and the cemetery gates could possibly portend...

To be fair, the rest of Europe starts to get pretty nervous whenever Germany goes to a wartime production cycle.

Add Jordan Peterson to the list of Right Wing Putin c*cksuckers.

Paleocon wrote:

Add Jordan Peterson to the list of Right Wing Putin c*cksuckers.

My shocked face (tm).

Not sure I can trust a paper that doesn't put "intellectual" in air quotes when talking about the Right.

According to the WSJ it looks like the Biden administration is leaning towards giving Ukraine a "significant number" of Abrams tanks in the coming weeks.

Apparently it will be part of a larger diplomatic deal that will let Germany continue to sit on its ass and only send a token amount of Leopards to Ukraine, but requires them to give permission to the other countries with Leopards to donate them to Ukraine.

I wonder if US can also figure out a deal with Erdogan so Sweden and Finland can finally become part of NATO :/

The ramp time on these tanks (regardless of type/country supplier) in in months, right? Certainly not in time for these to be a viable defense against the looming Russian assault that seems to be in the works.

Given Germany's obstructionism, I'm starting to question how many countries would actually honor the NATO pact if one of its members were attacked.

Germany to send 14 Leopard 2 A6's from its own stocks.

Bout effing time!
The A6 was first put into service in 2001, so it's one of the more modern variants.

JC wrote:

The ramp time on these tanks (regardless of type/country supplier) in in months, right? Certainly not in time for these to be a viable defense against the looming Russian assault that seems to be in the works.

Given Germany's obstructionism, I'm starting to question how many countries would actually honor the NATO pact if one of its members were attacked.

My feeling on this is that tanks are hardly necessary to stop a Russian assault. Far more utile in this regard would be more artillery and ammunition, ATGMs, UAVs, and intelligence. The tanks and IFV's would be most useful in the counterattack phase once Russian attacks have culminated. 400 modern MBT's, for instance, would have been really, really nice right about now that the Wagner wankers have pretty much exhausted their utility in Bakhmut. A division sized NATO equipped armored spearhead with the proper support would absolutely annihilate Russian resistance in Donetsk and drive the orcs all the way back to Rostov on Don inside four days. A Polish mech division would gather 50k Russian prisoners within a week.

Paleocon wrote:

Add Jordan Peterson to the list of Right Wing Putin c*cksuckers.

If you're interested in a deep dive on that dude

Paleocon wrote:
JC wrote:

The ramp time on these tanks (regardless of type/country supplier) in in months, right? Certainly not in time for these to be a viable defense against the looming Russian assault that seems to be in the works.

Given Germany's obstructionism, I'm starting to question how many countries would actually honor the NATO pact if one of its members were attacked.

My feeling on this is that tanks are hardly necessary to stop a Russian assault. Far more utile in this regard would be more artillery and ammunition, ATGMs, UAVs, and intelligence. The tanks and IFV's would be most useful in the counterattack phase once Russian attacks have culminated. 400 modern MBT's, for instance, would have been really, really nice right about now that the Wagner wankers have pretty much exhausted their utility in Bakhmut. A division sized NATO equipped armored spearhead with the proper support would absolutely annihilate Russian resistance in Donetsk and drive the orcs all the way back to Rostov on Don inside four days. A Polish mech division would gather 50k Russian prisoners within a week.

What looming Russian assault? The supposed Belarus front, take two? From all accounts that I've read, the northern boarder is death trap of mines and ever expanding entrenchments, all under HIMARS range.

The Russians are beyond culminated, and only a complete shift to a total war footing would even allow the Russians even the possibility to generate new offensive capabilities.

From the sources that I have been following, the Ukrainian plan seems to be to attrit the hell out of the Russians/Wagner at Bakhmut and take Kreminna, putting even more logistical strain on Russia. Plus, just letting the Russians freeze to death.

The armor build up is for a sizable number of combined armor brigades of fresh Ukrainian forces capable of a significant Ukrainian offensive in the spring.

The rumored Russian assault is supposed to come in early Spring and mostly be concentrated around pushing the Ukrainians out of Luhansk and Donetsk. They are said to have kept half their mobiks in training and are supposed to have better equipped and trained folks ready by March. It remains to be seen how much of a difference that time will make. I am skeptical.

In any event, the UK MoD is putting the chances of a Russian offensive push from Luhansk in March at a medium and one from Belarus at a low.

They also have 180K+ from their normal fall/winter normal conscription class (which, thanks to new laws and the annexation of Ukrainian territory, means they're going straight into the grinder after basic).

And there's oodles of signs they are planning another mobilization wave of perhaps 500K that, according to some, has already begun and that will definitely go wide in the coming weeks.

The only decent news is that according to reports there's only about 10,000 Wagnerites left out of the 50,000 they've recruited from Russian prisons. There's also chatter that Wagner's had fewer takers during their recent recruitment drives for some strange reason and they've had to reject a lot of candidates because of their poor health.

Russia will be able to scrounge up enough manpower to cause serious concerns for Ukraine. The real question is will they be able to outfit and supply them like a modern mechanized army or will it be a continuation of their most recent tactics of just throwing bodies at Ukrainian defenses.

OG_slinger wrote:

They also have 180K+ from their normal fall/winter normal conscription class (which, thanks to new laws and the annexation of Ukrainian territory, means they're going straight into the grinder after basic).

And there's oodles of signs they are planning another mobilization wave of perhaps 500K that, according to some, has already begun and that will definitely go wide in the coming weeks.

The only decent news is that according to reports there's only about 10,000 Wagnerites left out of the 50,000 they've recruited from Russian prisons. There's also chatter that Wagner's had fewer takers during their recent recruitment drives for some strange reason and they've had to reject a lot of candidates because of their poor health.

Russia will be able to scrounge up enough manpower to cause serious concerns for Ukraine. The real question is will they be able to outfit and supply them like a modern mechanized army or will it be a continuation of their most recent tactics of just throwing bodies at Ukrainian defenses.

Yeah. If they had a bunch of battle ready T-90M's, they probably wouldn't be fielding a bunch of T-62's and T-64's. If anything, the battle for Bakhmut has indicated a steady trip backward in technology and doctrine.

The underreported aspect of this, however, is how they would even go about fielding a military of that size given their well-documented inability to supply a much smaller force under more ideal circumstances. It isn't just the vehicles and equipment we need to consider. It is the food, fuel, ammunition, medical, parts, and consumables that a modern military relies upon. They were barely able to manage what was effectively 4 weeks of an offensive with 120k men against an unprepared adversary when they had a full YEAR to prepare and preplace the logistics. Now, they have an enemy that has grown very good at blowing up rail stations and POL depots, a broken Kerch bridge, roughly 2/3 of their military truck fleet destroyed, and active partisan activity with a year's worth of experience.

Even if the Russians can throw human waves at the problem, they are not going to manage a sustained advance. In fact, the addition of more mouths to feed will likely hasten collapse.

Yeah, I'm with Paleo on this.

For Russia, the people are the easy part, kitting them out in a way that they are going to be able to make sizeable advances anywhere along the current lines, seems.... optimistic.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is going to be sporting several new brigades worth of NATO armor. And with the way that the trajectory of arms has been accelerating (the west has seemingly gone from Bradleys to MBTs pretty quickly) will Ukraine finally be getting F-16s? ATACMS? Gray Eagles?

Finally, have we discussed the new ring of publicly observable air defenses going up in Moscow? Are we to believe that Russia is really going to be in the position to redouble their efforts in Ukraine, while at the same time, they are worried about being hit by Ukrainian prop drones?

Of course, if those anti-air defenses are coup deterrents, then Putin is even weaker than we thought.

The possible deliveries of battle tanks by Washington to Ukraine will be a “another blatant provocation” against Russia, Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the US, said on Wednesday.

“It is obvious that Washington is purposefully trying to inflict a strategic defeat on us,” Antonov said in remarks published on the embassy’s Telegram messaging app.

I mean, to be fair...

..............yes.

If they didn't anticipate that after 80 years of cold war that's on them.

Tbf, the international community let them do what they wanted multiple times, including in Ukraine just a few years ago. I think this level of support genuinely is surprising compared to previous police actions.

Absolutely. It's just that Antonov's quote in Prederick's post comes across so disingenuously. Playing the victim here is rich.

It looks like the Spanish are willing to send some of their L2's to Ukraine. This is significant given that they have 342 of them and share no land borders with a hostile neighbor and have no expansionary ambitions of their own. It does make you wonder why they have them in the first place.

The Dutch say they are willing to send L2's to Ukraine despite not actually owning any. They currently lease a bunch and have expressed that they wish to purchase 18 to donate to the war against Russian fascism.

Canada has 80 of them. I suspect they will part with a few of them.

Poland has 142 that will probably not be part of their long term defense planning after this, so I suspect a sizeable percentage of those are going to sneak across the border,

It will be a stretch, but I think they might be able to get to or close to Zaluzhny's goal of 400 modern MBT's.

Badferret wrote:

Yeah, I'm with Paleo on this.

For Russia, the people are the easy part, kitting them out in a way that they are going to be able to make sizeable advances anywhere along the current lines, seems.... optimistic.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is going to be sporting several new brigades worth of NATO armor. And with the way that the trajectory of arms has been accelerating (the west has seemingly gone from Bradleys to MBTs pretty quickly) will Ukraine finally be getting F-16s? ATACMS? Gray Eagles?

Finally, have we discussed the new ring of publicly observable air defenses going up in Moscow? Are we to believe that Russia is really going to be in the position to redouble their efforts in Ukraine, while at the same time, they are worried about being hit by Ukrainian prop drones?

Of course, if those anti-air defenses are coup deterrents, then Putin is even weaker than we thought.

Interestingly, the "kitting out" part may actually be the least awful part of a salad bowl of pure logistic awfulness. The bigger issue would be in theater sustainment.

The US gets a lot of stick for the complicated logistics around modern systems like the M1 Abrams and they are not to be discounted, but you know what is harder than sustaining 100 Abrams tanks in the field? 700 T-72's. And I would bet that 100 M1's would cut through 700 T-72's like sh*t through a goose.

The Russians are not going to "mass" their way out of a failed invasion. Not now. Not ever.

Everything I'm reading seems to indicate RUS has more stuff but worse quality of:

Equipment
Troops
Leadership
Morale

Jury seems to be out on logistics? We know how bad RUS is but UKR has problems with mish-mashed systems and no coherent approach to getting materiel to groups in the field (true?).

Seems like consensus is there will be decisive action in next six months. Either UKR smashes or RUS holds. I don't see how RUS does anything offensive with massed, dismounted infantry and artillery (even assuming they've been husbanding resources for a big push).

Ukraine can and probably does have nightmarish logistics as well, but in the land of the blind, they are definitely the one-eyed man.

A number of key factors work to their advantage.

1) central positioning: By virtue of maintaining control over key logistics hubs like Zaporizhia, Kharkiv, and Kyiv, they enjoy the advantage of internal lines of logistics and communication. These are much more difficult to disrupt than the Russian alternatives which are exposed GLOCs that either run through Tokmak, Melitopol, and Volnovakha or across the Kerch Bridge.

2) superior reconnaissance: Thanks to Western largesse and partisan cooperation, the Ukrainians enjoy a tremendous advantage in reconnaissance and targeting of enemy logistics. Particularly given that the Russians have demonstrated a complete inability to operate effectively more than a few dozen miles from a heavy freight railhead under complete fire control, the targeting of forward deployed caches of fuel, food, and ammunition has resulted in near complete paralysis of Russian military power.

3) longer range artillery: Particularly with the arrival of GMLRS and now with the proposed arrival of GLSDB, the Ukrainians are able to destroy Russian logistics depots from farther away than the Russians are able to respond.

4) lower burn rate: This one is underreported and very key. The Russian reliance on massed attacks and massive bombardments necessitates a much, much higher logistical burn rate. They burn though artillery ammunition at an estimated 4-10 TIMES the rate that Ukrainians do. And because their targeting, recon, and kill chain reaction time is sh*t, the effectiveness of those fires is actually less than that of the Ukrainians. Russian conscripts do not require fewer calories to operate than NATO trained Ukrainians. Their vehicles do not require less fuel.

Pretty sure Russian Mobiks get less food and fuel, though…

Robear wrote:

Pretty sure Russian Mobiks get less food and fuel, though…

Bernhard Kast (host of YouTube's Military History Visualized), Mark Felton, and TiK have all done deep dives on the Battle of Stalingrad and the cliff the Germans, Italians, and Romanians fell off of in terms of military effectiveness once the calorie count started tapering off. Folks tend to credit "General Winter" for this. They really should be crediting his able aide Colonel Hunger. If you aren't getting 4500 kCal/day in cold weather, you are combat ineffective. If you aren't getting 2500, you are most likely starving in a literal, biological sense.

Has no one ever translated The Art of War into Russian? That would be such a shame.

From what I can tell, I am nowhere near alone in my frustration at the foot dragging by the Social Democrats in Germany regarding measures necessary to defend Ukraine and to defeat what others have described as Putin's "barbaric venture". I guess what I would like to know is, other than the obvious explanation of simple moral cowardice, what is their motivation? No one believes themselves the villain in their own story. Surely Schultz has some at least internally consistent moral justification for his incalcitrance. Is there some kind of German, postwar traumatic explanation for why he seems so eager to be generous with Ukraine's territory and political future in exchange for not hurting Russian fee fees?

An American and a Russian die and go to Hell. They are met at the gates by Satan, who offers them a choice: They can either go to American Hell or Russian Hell.

Both new arrivals are curious as to what the difference is, so Satan explains that in American Hell you are free to do whatever you want; you'll find that we have all the finest amenities here in Hell, whatever your heart desires, you can find it here! However, you have to eat a shovel-full of sh*t each morning, but then you're free to do whatever you'd like.

Russian hell is basically the same, but you have to eat TWO shovels full of sh*t before your start your day.

The American is quick to choose American hell, but is flabbergasted when the Russian chooses to go to Russian hell.

Several eons later the American bumps into the Russian and says "My Russian friend, Hell wasn't what I thought at all! Every day I play a round of golf on a championship golf course. I hang out with my friends at an amazing social club until late in the afternoon. The brothel I go to has the most beautiful women I've ever seen. Every night I have an incredible steak dinner at a Michelin Star restaurant. I honestly don't mind eating the shovel-full of sh*t in the morning anymore. One thing has bothered me all this time though, why did you choose to go to Russian Hell? Was it mistake?

The Russian replies: "It was you who make the mistake Comrade. In Russian Hell, half the time there is no Shovel, and the other half the time there is no sh*t."

Paleocon wrote:

From what I can tell, I am nowhere near alone in my frustration at the foot dragging by the Social Democrats in Germany regarding measures necessary to defend Ukraine and to defeat what others have described as Putin's "barbaric venture". I guess what I would like to know is, other than the obvious explanation of simple moral cowardice, what is their motivation? No one believes themselves the villain in their own story. Surely Schultz has some at least internally consistent moral justification for his incalcitrance. Is there some kind of German, postwar traumatic explanation for why he seems so eager to be generous with Ukraine's territory and political future in exchange for not hurting Russian fee fees?

Yeah. Violence is wrong and if we act tough we'll have even worse consequences. By showing restraint I'm not enabling a bad guy, I'm stopping things from getting out of control. I'm the mature one stopping all you bloodthirsty idiots from making things worse.