The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

cdxbow

Well-Known Member
Does that antenna appear to be spinning? It looks more like an 1135 if anything, but it's hard to tell.
Certainly is, so she's still got some power. That particular footage was said to have appeared first on Turkish channels, so it's likely it's from a Turkish drone.
 

STURM

Well-Known Member
This article IMO gives quite a bit of food for thought. There are no doubts that the Russians at many levels were unprepared and incompetent for what they faced but would other armies have fared better in a similar operational context? We tend to assume or want to believe that other more competent and better trained armies would have performed better but how true is this assumption? Something I keep wondering on is whether the Russian military would have performed better had it not been handicapped by decisions made by the political leadership; leading to units being unprepared; not told they would face major combat; told they would be welcomed as liberators, etc.


''Since Russia launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine in February, it has become quite fashionable for commentators, despite their lack of warfighting experience, to criticize the Russian military for its apparent ineptitude. I’ll admit too that I fell into this camp that felt the war in Ukraine demonstrated how overrated the Russian military was. While that is true in some regards, it’s an incomplete picture in my opinion.''

'' I can’t help but think the US military would run into many of the same quagmires as the Russians if we were in their shoes. I say this because of my own experience at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC). If you’ve never been to JRTC, it’s a massive training area in Louisiana where brigade combat teams spend a few weeks fighting a much smaller opposing force comprised of US soldiers pretending to be bad guys. ''
 

GermanHerman

Active Member
It seems that Wali, the famous Canadian sniper is back to Canada. Does somebody here speaks French and can tell us what did he say about his time in Ukraine? : Retour du tireur d'élite Wali | « La guerre, c’est une déception terrible » | La Presse
He is mostly talking about the situation for volunteers in Ukraine.

Apparently the ukrainians keep most of the volunteers in the rear while they vet them and build Trust. The Most experienced will be moved to a unit that does operate behind enemy lines while less / insufficient experienced people are left stuck far away from the action.

A lot of the people want to see action and leave their units when they grow impatient (the article mentions one instance of a group of 60 fighters leaving together, also trying to take weapons with them.)

They have to source vehicles and gas privatly and also rely on locals for food. It's hard to get weapons and equipment, one has to know the right people to get everything needed.

I guess the last paragraph is about volunteer outside of the Legion.

In concequence the majority of the volunteers would just return home without combat experience. He decided to go home after nearly dying. Apparently he was entrenched with two other volunteers who went up to smoke a cigarette. They dismissed his warning and consequently got shelled right next to him with the shrapnell missing him by Inches. He decided he dosnt want to push his luck and returned home.

He didnt kill anyone, the warfare is highly mechanized according to him. He says Ukraine lacks the ability to use its artillery effectively, they missed some good opportunies to inflict major losses to the russians because of this.

I hope I got the most of it. A lot of the problems he is talking about sound eerily familiar to my experience from aid work abroad. I also have a pretty good idea of the kind of volunteers who go to Ukraine expecting everything to be perfectly preplanned for them.
 
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Big_Zucchini

Well-Known Member
I'm seeing Twitter OSINT often referring to Izyum as strategic, exceptionally even.

Aside from being a natural milestone between Kharkiv and Donetsk, does it have anything to add to its importance?
 
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Inverno

New Member
The Moskva got some overhaul more than a decade ago, but from which i understand it did not get a modernisation/mid-life update. To keep large surface vessels active shouldn't be a problem, as long if they are in a good condition and updated with modern sensors, CMS, ESM/ECM and weapon systems, like the Project 1144 heavy cruiser Admiral Nakhimov.


Here an update about the Moskva, but many things are not clear yet.


And according to this news site another Russian general has been killed in action.
Some leaked documents on Twitter/VK that, if authentic, shine some light on the state Moskva was in.

Leaked report on the readiness status of Moskva as of February 10, 2022
 
Prorrusian sources are publishing pictures of Admiral Makarov in Sebastopol, claiming it´s safe. We cannnot know for sure the date when these pictures were taken.

 
If Russia indeed wants to conclude this war with a lasting strategic win - as that's what it was looking for, I'm afraid Russia will have to mobilise.
With the additional forces they can aim to take Odessa and Karkov.
Odessa is particularly important as they will be able to reinforce the position by sea and also gain a greater ability to put pressure on Lviv, with the aim of interdicting and degrading Ukraine's ability to receive military aid.
Economically this would cripple Ukraine for the long term, as they would have lost all of their ports, seriously diminishing their ability to trade with the outside world.
The taking of Mariuopl satisfies the "De-Nazification" requirement, the taking of Odessa and Karkov in addition to the ongoing destruction of Ukraine's heavy weaponry (in addition to the general economic degradation of Ukraine) would satisfy the "De-militarisation" criteria, and only agreeing to a ceasefire and not a peace treaty for the long term would prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. Thus Russia can declare victory and acheive all of its aims.
 
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StobieWan

Super Moderator
Staff member
Prorrusian sources are publishing pictures of Admiral Makarov in Sebastopol, claiming it´s safe. We cannnot know for sure the date when these pictures were taken.

Well. the video of the crew of the Moskva "after" the fire turned out to be stock footage so they have form for playing fast and loose with dates of images. I'd guess her presence in harbour could easily be verified with satellite imagery ?
 

surpreme

Member
This article IMO gives quite a bit of food for thought. There are no doubts that the Russians at many levels were unprepared and incompetent for what they faced but would other armies have fared better in a similar operational context? We tend to assume or want to believe that other more competent and better trained armies would have performed better but how true is this assumption? Something I keep wondering on is whether the Russian military would have performed better had it not been handicapped by decisions made by the political leadership; leading to units being unprepared; not told they would face major combat; told they would be welcomed as liberators, etc.


''Since Russia launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine in February, it has become quite fashionable for commentators, despite their lack of warfighting experience, to criticize the Russian military for its apparent ineptitude. I’ll admit too that I fell into this camp that felt the war in Ukraine demonstrated how overrated the Russian military was. While that is true in some regards, it’s an incomplete picture in my opinion.''

'' I can’t help but think the US military would run into many of the same quagmires as the Russians if we were in their shoes. I say this because of my own experience at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC). If you’ve never been to JRTC, it’s a massive training area in Louisiana where brigade combat teams spend a few weeks fighting a much smaller opposing force comprised of US soldiers pretending to be bad guys. ''
Trying to get my point out but couldn't find the right words to said. On my post I said the west always anti-Russian but forget how it really is in war. We seen to forget how big Ukraine is and the environment it not desert or jungle. Joint force at all levels is not easy to do it take practice. I agree how would other militaries would have perform in this environment.. The thing that I must add on is Russia didn't have a wargame to practice for a incursion in Ukraine. As a U.S. Army veteran we perform such wargames for the next battle that could come in the future
 

Big_Zucchini

Well-Known Member
If Russia indeed wants to conclude this war with a lasting strategic win - as that's what it was looking for, I'm afraid Russia will have to mobilise.
With the additional forces they can aim to take Odessa and Karkov.
Odessa is particularly important as they will be able to reinforce the position by sea and also gain a greater ability to put pressure on Lviv, with the aim of interdicting and degrading Ukraine's ability to receive military aid.
Economically this would cripple Ukraine for the long term, as they would have lost all of their ports, seriously diminishing their ability to trade with the outside world.
The taking of Mariuopl satisfies the "De-Nazification" requirement, the taking of Odessa and Karkov in addition to the ongoing destruction of Ukraine's heavy weaponry (in addition to the general economic degradation of Ukraine) would satisfy the "De-militarisation" criteria, and only agreeing to a ceasefire and not a peace treaty for the long term would prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. Thus Russia can declare victory and acheive all of its aims.
The due date is in 1-2 days (depending on time zone). Russia will have to present Mariupol as the local bastion of Nazism or whatever, and parade its ruins as Russia's 2nd victory.
If strategic gains are to be made, it's hard to argue for any continuation of the war as is, as it would make more sense to make it a war of attrition.

Russia's only meaningful gains were in the sheer destruction in some cities. Russia could reinforce that by producing more means of deep fires and cheap artillery.
 

hauritz

Well-Known Member
Would full war and mobilising reserves really achieve anything?

to start with the quality of the average mobilised reservist is probably going to be even lower than the conscripts that they would be replacing. They would need to be armed, fed and trained.something Russia seems to be already struggling with.

There would also be a negative effect on their economy as the workforce is gutted to fill the military ranks. Wars are expensive to conduct and the Russian economy is already on the precipice.

They are also running out of precision weapons that they lack the ability to replace without western sourced electronics, their vaunted reserves of armour and Soviet era equipment is either obsolete or in too poor of a material condition to be used.

the Ukraine on the other hand continues to receive more and more support from the west. The support isn’t just material either. They are probably receiving high quality intel and tactical advice.

Russia did push back the Germans in WW2 but at an incredibly high cost and also with a lot of material support from its allies. Also in WW2 the population was motivated to repel the invaders. I am not sure that actually being the invaders will garner that same level of support from the Russian population.
 

Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
Would full war and mobilising reserves really achieve anything?

to start with the quality of the average mobilised reservist is probably going to be even lower than the conscripts that they would be replacing. They would need to be armed, fed and trained.something Russia seems to be already struggling with.
They wouldn't be replacing conscripts. The current fighting force in Ukraine consists of volunteer contract soldiers. While individual instances of conscripts being there have been reported there does not appear to be any widespread or large scale deployment of conscripts. Deploying conscripts would likely be the first step, that wouldn't even require mobilizing.

They are also running out of precision weapons that they lack the ability to replace without western sourced electronics, their vaunted reserves of armour and Soviet era equipment is either obsolete or in too poor of a material condition to be used.
I'm not sure how you arrived at this conclusion. Russia hasn't even exhausted supplies of armor and artillery in line units. Remember, if a brigade or regiment send one BTG, then they have two more BTGs worth of equipment sitting at home. Russia has been routinely activating some vehicles from the reserve during large training exercises, and supplied T-62s from mobilization reserves to both Syria and Libya (Khaftar's forces) without much apparent difficulty. There is no evidence that Russia is running out of Soviet-era armored vehicles or artillery. Moreover production lines for Msta-S, T-90A/M, BTR-82A, and BMP-3 are all open. In some cases, like the BMD-4, there are limitations on production of chassis. But in many other cases (like the BTR-82 family or the T-90A) Russia can produce hundreds per year, if they want. Artillery might be a little trickier to mass produce, Russia has only put out ~2 artillery btlns of Msta-SM at the peak of GPV-2020, (and 1 Tornado-G) but Russia has piles of D-20s and D-30s in storage. There, also, are likely quite a few 2S1s and 2S3s, not to mention 2S5s (the latter were pulled from the Land Forces entirely to simplify inventory).

the Ukraine on the other hand continues to receive more and more support from the west. The support isn’t just material either. They are probably receiving high quality intel and tactical advice.
So far, aside from ATGM and MANPADS, Ukraine can't even replace their current losses from western aid. You'll note at what point Russia stepped up strikes to hit railroad infrastructure. It came after the west announced and commenced deliveries of MBTs, light armor, and artillery. The stream of those would have to be pretty constant to enable Ukraine to keep fighting. It's not impossible but fairly unlikely.

Russia did push back the Germans in WW2 but at an incredibly high cost and also with a lot of material support from its allies. Also in WW2 the population was motivated to repel the invaders. I am not sure that actually being the invaders will garner that same level of support from the Russian population.
I'm not sure what the relevance here is. This isn't WWII and wars aren't fought like WWII today. The nature of the fighting is distinctly different from WWII.
 

T.C.P

Well-Known Member
My respect for the Ukrainain air force just went into a whole another level for their recent strikes on snake island. First they used a TB-2 to take out the AA system on the island and later when another Tor was sent in by boat, they used Tb-2s to destroy it while on the boat. After the AA was cleared, they sued Su-27s to bomb the crap out of the Island.



here is the video of them taking out the tor while it was still in the boat

https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/ukjxos
Here is the video from a Tb-2 of the Su-27 bombing the island

https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/ukl0es
Long distance video of the first Tb-2 strike from another Tb-2

https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/ujwh13
 
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