Русский корабль - иди нахуй

[RDCanecutter 26239]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

The boy is finding his degree tracking him into CEES (central and Eastern European studies). I keep telling him that there’s a really good chance of the region being the new fulcrum in Europe. He’s not thrilled about having to learn another language like polish or Ukrainian to go with his German. We’ll see, but dead-on agree with this post. They are showing their salt.

He doesn't have to learn Polish or Ukrainian. He gets to learn Polish or Ukrainian. From some kindly local who has legs that walk up multiple flights of stairs several times a day, and who appears capable of nursing little Nathan Arizona.

[RDCanecutter 26239]

5 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

I've seen some speculation elsewhere that we aren't seeing as many fully wrecked/turret-tossed vehicles/tanks/etc., and are instead seeing stuff that hit mines or just didn't cook off like we used to, because they are running low on ammo and are rationing fuel.  People saying that admitted that could be anecdotal and they could have been damaged vehicles that were stripped of a lot of stuff.

If you are a surviving Russian tanker at this point, either you're a genius, God loves you, or you need to desert and go straight to Vegas.

Wonder if they could have puzzled out some re-invention of wet stowage. Probably just short of boom-boom ammo like you said.

[BamaATL 16592]

9 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

I've seen some speculation elsewhere that we aren't seeing as many fully wrecked/turret-tossed vehicles/tanks/etc., and are instead seeing stuff that hit mines or just didn't cook off like we used to, because they are running low on ammo and are rationing fuel.  People saying that admitted that could be anecdotal and they could have been damaged vehicles that were stripped of a lot of stuff.

I wonder how many tanks the Russian's actually have left, not just in country, but in totality.  At the start of all this, they claimed to have 17,000.  However, even their own stats indicated that over 8k of these were in storage (to me that means they are in pieces and never really going to be operational, more like bone yard).  They've lost somewhere between 1500 and 2000 in Ukraine.  They have to keep at least a few thousand in border areas, and they have the capacity at best to produce about 25 a month.  They have to be running low, even if we took all this at face value (which I don't).  

 

[atomheartbevo 89362]

3 hours ago, Chad Fuck said:

I had a friend with a Chinese SKS.  It was fun for about three shots before it jammed and we spent the next fifteen minutes trying to unfuck it.  Rinse, repeat.   

Perhaps the Russian ones are better.

I had some SKS's back in the 90s and yeah, cheapness defined them.  I heard the Russian ones were better, and I wondered because the fit/finish on mine were absolute shit, making me think that whatever machinery they made them on was shitty copies of the original Russian equipment.

2 hours ago, Parliament said:

^^^And I have a theory that China poured cheap, garbage assault ri...semi-auto rifles into the US because they thought if they flooded the streets with them, we'd tear ourselves apart.  Kinda like we did with opium back in the day.  Joke's on them; we have our own cheap semi-auto rifles.

Here's the thing - I only bought them at the urging of a friend (we paid like $150 apiece which we got fleeced, I know) in '94 because we (he) thought they'd go up in price (he swore up and down they'd be worth $500 - $600 or more in very short order). They were not banned under the Assault Weapons Ban (well ours weren't because they were 7 rounds-only, internal), but Clinton or the ATF had banned their import from one or more countries.

Because they weren't banned under the AWB and their importing was now illegal from I think China, we were sitting on gold, Jerry, gold I tell ya!

Except they ultimately weren't worth much more than we paid...

Talked to a gun dealer several years ago about it, and I didn't know it at the time, but the US was importing something like a million or more SKS's a year in the 90s.  He mentioned that with the Soviet Union breaking up, the Chinese were cleaning out warehouses of old shit and had shipped almost a million in just one year.

He said at one point, there were Russians who would get a line on warehouses full of SKSes, pistols, etc., and they bribe whoever to strip the warehouse and then would hire Russian military jets to fly them into the US, completely legal. He also said a lot of people would buy several of them like we did, hoping to make some bucks, but then would eventually sell them because they weren't banned and there was no point in holding on to something that wasn't going up in value, since there were millions more sitting in warehouses all over Russia and Eastern Europe, many of which hadn't even been used and were still in their original packaging.

[Doc Sam Beckett 5781]

4 hours ago, BamaATL said:

You done messed up A-aron

 

 

[RDCanecutter 26239]

11 minutes ago, BamaATL said:

I wonder how many tanks the Russian's actually have left, not just in country, but in totality.  At the start of all this, they claimed to have 17,000.  However, even their own stats indicated that over 8k of these were in storage (to me that means they are in pieces and never really going to be operational, more like bone yard).  They've lost somewhere between 1500 and 2000 in Ukraine.  They have to keep at least a few thousand in border areas, and they have the capacity at best to produce about 25 a month.  They have to be running low, even if we took all this at face value (which I don't).  

 

Just going off the culture being equal parts lying, drinking, and stealing, I'd say they put everything that runs in Ukraine, and every day they have less of it.

If their NATO borders are like their own borders with Ukraine, tanks oughta be thin on the ground. They didn't have tanks close to the border of a country they're in a shooting war with, allowing the Rebel Russians to Romp for a few days.

Far as I know, no tanks confronted Wagner when they loped halfway to Moscow.

Maybe they've got some tanks down south to keep the Chechens in control. As to the Chinese border, who knows? I wonder if the Chinese army's stuff is more real than Chinese apartment buildings in Ghost cities.

[Chad Fuck 17503]

Here's the thing - I only bought them at the urging of a friend (we paid like $150 apiece which we got fleeced, I know) in '94 because we (he) thought they'd go up in price (he swore up and down they'd be worth $500 - $600 or more in very short order). They were not banned under the Assault Weapons Ban (well ours weren't because they were 7 rounds-only, internal), but Clinton or the ATF had banned their import from one or more countries.
Because they weren't banned under the AWB and their importing was now illegal from I think China, we were sitting on gold, Jerry, gold I tell ya!
Except they ultimately weren't worth much more than we paid...
Talked to a gun dealer several years ago about it, and I didn't know it at the time, but the US was importing something like a million or more SKS's a year in the 90s.  He mentioned that with the Soviet Union breaking up, the Chinese were cleaning out warehouses of old shit and had shipped almost a million in just one year.
He said at one point, there were Russians who would get a line on warehouses full of SKSes, pistols, etc., and they bribe whoever to strip the warehouse and then would hire Russian military jets to fly them into the US, completely legal. He also said a lot of people would buy several of them like we did, hoping to make some bucks, but then would eventually sell them because they weren't banned and there was no point in holding on to something that wasn't going up in value, since there were millions more sitting in warehouses all over Russia and Eastern Europe, many of which hadn't even been used and were still in their original packaging.

I think you must know my friend Bryan because the whole reason we were messing around with SKS’s was because he thought he was going to be this brilliant post AWB arms dealer. Turned out not so much.

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

Ponzi scheme involving SKS's?

 

[Rimbo 25752]

https://www.threads.net/t/CucG7Zfr7I-/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Russian sources near the Zaporizhzia front 👀 😂

[Rimbo 25752]

https://www.threads.net/t/Cuc8RSvSKuY/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Ukraine has captured Russian positions in Zaporizhzia.

[Parliament 14112]

2 hours ago, statsman said:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-abuse-ukrainian-prisoners-war-torture-azov-trial-mariupol-terror-human-rights-ca5bfc09?st=9kaozd5kn7dd9cc&reflink=mobilewebshare_permalink

Nearly all former prisoners described “poor quality food or a lack of food” in captivity, and many said they received “only limited amounts of drinking water or dirty water with insects,” the U.N. report found. More than a third “complained about the lack of medical attention.” Nearly all had lost “a significant amount of their body weight,” and “several lost one third.”

So they treated them like they were in the Russian amy?

[Orange&White 5516]

Feels sorta like we might be seeing the Russians really losing steam. And equipment. And ammo. And supply routes. And economy. 

[statsman 5406]

If I were a castrated Ukrainian POW, it would be hard to figure out a better way to spend the rest of my life than traveling Europe, finding Russians, drugging them and castrating them. (Is that too harsh?)

[atomheartbevo 89362]

11 minutes ago, statsman said:

If I were a castrated Ukrainian POW, it would be hard to figure out a better way to spend the rest of my life than traveling Europe, finding Russians, drugging them and castrating them. (Is that too harsh?)

[locodos 5329]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

I had some SKS's back in the 90s and yeah, cheapness defined them.  I heard the Russian ones were better, and I wondered because the fit/finish on mine were absolute shit, making me think that whatever machinery they made them on was shitty copies of the original Russian equipment.

Here's the thing - I only bought them at the urging of a friend (we paid like $150 apiece which we got fleeced, I know) in '94 because we (he) thought they'd go up in price (he swore up and down they'd be worth $500 - $600 or more in very short order). They were not banned under the Assault Weapons Ban (well ours weren't because they were 7 rounds-only, internal), but Clinton or the ATF had banned their import from one or more countries.

Because they weren't banned under the AWB and their importing was now illegal from I think China, we were sitting on gold, Jerry, gold I tell ya!

Except they ultimately weren't worth much more than we paid...

Talked to a gun dealer several years ago about it, and I didn't know it at the time, but the US was importing something like a million or more SKS's a year in the 90s.  He mentioned that with the Soviet Union breaking up, the Chinese were cleaning out warehouses of old shit and had shipped almost a million in just one year.

He said at one point, there were Russians who would get a line on warehouses full of SKSes, pistols, etc., and they bribe whoever to strip the warehouse and then would hire Russian military jets to fly them into the US, completely legal. He also said a lot of people would buy several of them like we did, hoping to make some bucks, but then would eventually sell them because they weren't banned and there was no point in holding on to something that wasn't going up in value, since there were millions more sitting in warehouses all over Russia and Eastern Europe, many of which hadn't even been used and were still in their original packaging.

Then there are the Rednecks who have been buying .22 (or pick a caliber) ammo at crazy prices thinking the rounds are an investment.  Fucking Rubes.

I think of all the shotgun ammo my Grandfather had from before the great depression.  Can't sell it, don't want to shoot it, only the pretty pictures on the boxes have any value.

 

PS you can, however, cut them open and use the powder to blow up mailboxes, allegedly

[bolverk 29360]

1 hour ago, BamaATL said:

I wonder how many tanks the Russian's actually have left, not just in country, but in totality.  At the start of all this, they claimed to have 17,000.  However, even their own stats indicated that over 8k of these were in storage (to me that means they are in pieces and never really going to be operational, more like bone yard).  They've lost somewhere between 1500 and 2000 in Ukraine.  They have to keep at least a few thousand in border areas, and they have the capacity at best to produce about 25 a month.  They have to be running low, even if we took all this at face value (which I don't).  

 

 

1 hour ago, RDCanecutter said:

Just going off the culture being equal parts lying, drinking, and stealing, I'd say they put everything that runs in Ukraine, and every day they have less of it.

If their NATO borders are like their own borders with Ukraine, tanks oughta be thin on the ground. They didn't have tanks close to the border of a country they're in a shooting war with, allowing the Rebel Russians to Romp for a few days.

Far as I know, no tanks confronted Wagner when they loped halfway to Moscow.

Maybe they've got some tanks down south to keep the Chechens in control. As to the Chinese border, who knows? I wonder if the Chinese army's stuff is more real than Chinese apartment buildings in Ghost cities.

 

I came across this poorly made graphic a couple of days ago, which estimates that Ukraine now has slightly more tanks than Russia. They're still far behind on heavy guns and MLRS though.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-05/shift-in-balance-of-arms-in-ukraine-underscored-by-fresh-data

Edited to add text so no click necessary:

 

Ukraine Has Caught Up With Russia’s Tank Numbers, Data Signal

• New figures from Kiel Institute put tank deliveries at 471
• Russia’s fleet halves, but Kyiv needs more than parity to win

New data on military aid to Ukraine highlights a significant change in the balance of heavy weapons on the nation’s battlefields after more than 16 months of war.

An update Thursday of the Ukraine Support Tracker database maintained by Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy said Kyiv’s backers had delivered 471 new tanks since the start of the war, with a further 286 still to arrive, even as the rate of new pledges slowed.

Combined with a tally of equipment lost or captured by the open source intelligence group Oryx, widely considered to be conservative, the figures suggest that Ukraine’s tank fleet has grown since the start of the invasion last year, even as Russia’s has halved. 

The gap also narrowed in terms of artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems, although by much smaller margins.  

The data on tanks in particular tallied with parliamentary testimony given by UK Chief of the Defense Staff Tony Radakin on Tuesday.

“Russia has lost nearly half the combat effectiveness of its army,” Radakin told the legislature’s defense committee. “Last year it fired 10 million artillery shells but at best can produce 1 million shells a year. It has lost 2,500 tanks and at best can produce 200 tanks a year.”

According to Oryx, which records only losses it can confirm, 2,082 Russian tanks have been destroyed, damaged, abandoned or captured since the start of the war in 2022. Moscow began with 3,417 tanks available, according to the Military Balance, an annual compendium of world armories published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank.

There are huge uncertainties around such figures, with both sides treating their losses as state secrets and significant difficulties in open-source collection — especially when it comes to Ukrainian losses, which are less well recorded. There are also no reliable figures for the number of replacement tanks or artillery pieces Russia has either produced or pulled from deep storage since the start of the war.

Ukraine did, however, seem to come through the first year of the war with roughly the same number of heavy weapons it had at the start, despite heavy losses, according to Yohann Michel, a land warfare specialist at the IISS. Michel conducted his own analysis of the available data earlier this year, adjusting for likely biases in the data. There have since been both more losses, deliveries and seizures of Russian tanks.

The same, though, can’t be said for Russia, which also has to reserve a portion of its forces for defenses elsewhere across the world’s largest country. The change in the balance of heavy arms is important, but far from decisive for Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive, according to Michel.

Cost ‘Still High’ for Ukraine
“Even if the situation is more equal in numbers, that isn’t how it works,” said Michel. “The problem is that Ukraine now needs to regain territory, so it’s on the offensive against well-prepared defenses and for that you need a strong advantage.”

That explains the focus of Ukrainian forces on destroying Russian artillery and supply lines before committing the bulk of the brigades prepared for the counteroffensive. Ukraine’s general staff recently has been claiming the destruction of more than 30 Russian artillery pieces on an almost daily basis. Artillery losses are particularly difficult to verify, as they are generally hidden well behind front lines.

The Kiel Institute’s update of its figures for February 25 to May 31 found that aid pledges were significantly lower than over the winter, despite some large packages from Germany and the US, with military pledges totaling €9 billion ($9.77 billion) in the period.

At the same time, the share of military aid rose relative to financial and humanitarian commitments, the institute said. The US and European Union member states have been slowest to deliver on arms pledges, the report said, with 286 of 757 tanks, and 177 of 556 155mm and 152mm howitzers yet to arrive.

Those delays could make even some of the delivered tanks less effective than they should be, as Ukrainian forces have had to rush training, often by different North Atlantic Treaty Organization partners that have different practices.

“As long as the Ukrainians don’t have a clear advantage,” said Michel, “the cost of trying to move forward will be very high.

Edited July 8, 2023 by bolverk

[BamaATL 16592]

4 minutes ago, bolverk said:

 

 

I came across this poorly made graphic a couple of days ago, which estimates that Ukraine now has slightly more tanks than Russia. They're still far behind on heavy guns and MLRS though.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-05/shift-in-balance-of-arms-in-ukraine-underscored-by-fresh-data

Interesting, so if the math were to say the same, without replenishment of any type, the Russian's would be out of tanks in 11 months.  Even with replenishment, if my math is correct, and there statistics of production (which I doubt), would be about 36 months.  I've read that part of the reason the tank losses have slowed is because the Russians have been using them mainly as additional stationary artillery vs assaults, and that they remain hidden vs being maneuvered and visible for strikes.  

Another interesting thought is that the lines to defend is roughly 700 miles, which would mean 2 tanks per mile (obviously there are concentrated areas). 

Ironically, and good news for our guys, I think the Kremlin thought they could bleed out the Ukrainians when it all went to shit for them after the initial attack.  The reality is that the numbers suggest that it is the Russians in the process of bleeding out.  

Also, I have to figure at some point there is a tipping point to which there tanks have to be spread so thin that they almost become a non factor.  They have to be able to mass them to have a real force of fire, the thinner they get the less possible that is.  I'm not sure what that number is, but it's not zero, maybe 500 or so?

[Schulz2.0 28752]

 

 

[RDCanecutter 26239]

5 minutes ago, BamaATL said:

Interesting, so if the math were to say the same, without replenishment of any type, the Russian's would be out of tanks in 11 months.  Even with replenishment, if my math is correct, and there statistics of production (which I doubt), would be about 36 months.  I've read that part of the reason the tank losses have slowed is because the Russians have been using them mainly as additional stationary artillery vs assaults, and that they remain hidden vs being maneuvered and visible for strikes.  

Another interesting thought is that the lines to defend is roughly 700 miles, which would mean 2 tanks per mile (obviously there are concentrated areas). 

Ironically, and good news for our guys, I think the Kremlin thought they could bleed out the Ukrainians when it all went to shit for them after the initial attack.  The reality is that the numbers suggest that it is the Russians in the process of bleeding out.  

Also, I have to figure at some point there is a tipping point to which there tanks have to be spread so thin that they almost become a non factor.  They have to be able to mass them to have a real force of fire, the thinner they get the less possible that is.  I'm not sure what that number is, but it's not zero, maybe 500 or so?

Back in the 90s I was in a Natl Guard summer drill observing people doing stuff that even my rookie eyes thought looked untactical.

I said to my buddy, Johnnie Mack who'd been a door-gunner in Viet-Nam, "Johnnie Mack, what do you think would happen to these fuckers in a real war?"

Johnnie Mack, who could have been a stunt-double voice actor for Johnnie Cash, said "I reckon half of em would get killed, and the other half would start learnin."

Now these are Russians, so I reckon 3/4 get killed before anybody starts learnin, but my point is we should expect the casualty rate to slow for no other reason than the the most foolhardy tankers are gone. 

[bolverk 29360]

8 minutes ago, BamaATL said:

Interesting, so if the math were to say the same, without replenishment of any type, the Russian's would be out of tanks in 11 months.  Even with replenishment, if my math is correct, and there statistics of production (which I doubt), would be about 36 months.  I've read that part of the reason the tank losses have slowed is because the Russians have been using them mainly as additional stationary artillery vs assaults, and that they remain hidden vs being maneuvered and visible for strikes.  

Another interesting thought is that the lines to defend is roughly 700 miles, which would mean 2 tanks per mile (obviously there are concentrated areas). 

Ironically, and good news for our guys, I think the Kremlin thought they could bleed out the Ukrainians when it all went to shit for them after the initial attack.  The reality is that the numbers suggest that it is the Russians in the process of bleeding out.  

Also, I have to figure at some point there is a tipping point to which there tanks have to be spread so thin that they almost become a non factor.  They have to be able to mass them to have a real force of fire, the thinner they get the less possible that is.  I'm not sure what that number is, but it's not zero, maybe 500 or so?

 

However thinly they're spread along that front is an interesting question, because we almost always see (at least in the war porn videos) only 1-2 tanks with maybe a couple of BTRs accompanying them. We haven't seen Russians mass them together in a concentrated force since the very early days of the war.

[RDCanecutter 26239]

Both the Russians and the Ukrainians seem fond of sending unsupported lone tanks to bang around in close terrain where a real army's infantry would bite them. The Ukrainians are now a real army, but even in the early days they were crazybrave with the anti-tank weapons so we saw all those videos of the Russian tanks not getting away with it. The Ukrainians tanks appear to get away with it vs poorly-motivated Russians.

[bolverk 29360]

23 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

Both the Russians and the Ukrainians seem fond of sending unsupported lone tanks to bang around in close terrain where a real army's infantry would bite them. The Ukrainians are now a real army, but even in the early days they were crazybrave with the anti-tank weapons so we saw all those videos of the Russian tanks not getting away with it. The Ukrainians tanks appear to get away with it vs poorly-motivated Russians.

 

I think we're on the same page. What I was really meaning is that early in the war, the Russians drove columns of tanks to attack. But we just haven't seen that kind of stuff since. Maybe they learned their lesson. Maybe they're running out of tanks. Or maybe the clusterfuck we see below was simply a one-off.

I'm by no means an expert with no military training and will certainly defer to the expertise of you and others, but I was just wondering about the degree to which there's a scarcity of tanks, forcing them to spread out thinly along the line as @BamaATL was suggesting.

 

 

[MillerEP 30339]

 

[RDCanecutter 26239]

5 minutes ago, bolverk said:

defer to the expertise of you and others

Huhuh... I am about as expert as a freshman smoking the whole blunt so I can loosen up for that exam in the morning. I was a Private with an idea, and a Lieutenant with a map.

[MagicSoccerSpray 1725]

7 hours ago, Parliament said:

^^^And I have a theory that China poured cheap, garbage assault ri...semi-auto rifles into the US because they thought if they flooded the streets with them, we'd tear ourselves apart.  Kinda like we did with opium back in the day.  Joke's on them; we have our own cheap semi-auto rifles.

 

That's not a theory, it actually happened and busted by the FBI as Operation Dragon Fire. And now the Chinese are flooding the drug market with Fentanyl. They are truly Godless fucks.

 

4 hours ago, BamaATL said:

I wonder how many tanks the Russian's actually have left, not just in country, but in totality.  At the start of all this, they claimed to have 17,000.  However, even their own stats indicated that over 8k of these were in storage (to me that means they are in pieces and never really going to be operational, more like bone yard).  They've lost somewhere between 1500 and 2000 in Ukraine.  They have to keep at least a few thousand in border areas, and they have the capacity at best to produce about 25 a month.  They have to be running low, even if we took all this at face value (which I don't).  

 

 

This Youtuber actually bought a bunch of satellite pics and counted all the visible storage tanks three months ago. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't as many as Russia claims.

 

2 hours ago, locodos said:

Then there are the Rednecks who have been buying .22 (or pick a caliber) ammo at crazy prices thinking the rounds are an investment.  Fucking Rubes.

I think of all the shotgun ammo my Grandfather had from before the great depression.  Can't sell it, don't want to shoot it, only the pretty pictures on the boxes have any value.

 

PS you can, however, cut them open and use the powder to blow up mailboxes, allegedly

 

Even if they're paper shells, they have value. I would keep them or try to sell, don't dispose.

[atomheartbevo 89362]

2 hours ago, bolverk said:

I came across this poorly made graphic a couple of days ago, which estimates that Ukraine now has slightly more tanks than Russia. They're still far behind on heavy guns and MLRS though.

But what the Ukrainians have, at least the Western arms, is far more accurate/reliable than what the Russians have. You could argue that they are able to get more done with what they have - if the Russians had anything approaching the accuracy/power of HIMARs, we'd have seen it by now.

2 hours ago, bolverk said:

However thinly they're spread along that front is an interesting question, because we almost always see (at least in the war porn videos) only 1-2 tanks with maybe a couple of BTRs accompanying them. We haven't seen Russians mass them together in a concentrated force since the very early days of the war.

Something is definitely up.  We know NATO intelligence is trying to help them destroy Russian vehicles/systems and providing all kinds of satellite and signals info.  We know they have extensive drone coverage constantly looking for Russian vehicles.  They have accurate and powerful artillery (not just HIMARS) that can reach out behind the Russian lines quite a ways. We know the Russians are shit at hiding a lot of stuff, plus the Ukrainians are very clever about finding hidden vehicles (thanks to infrared, Russian soldiers falling into patterns, tire or tank tracks that lead somewhere and then stop, etc.).

There's also the matter of them appearing not to have anything beyond the Russian/Ukraine border - witness Wagner last month in Rostov on Don and points north, but prior to that, the anti-Putin Russians in the Belgorod area.

And where are Russia's helicopters?  They are supposed to have 1,500, second only to the US, and have lost at least 90 confirmed by OSINT. Are the Stingers that good and keeping their aircraft from CAS?

Everything about Russia right now feels like they are at, or close to, a breaking point - spread extremely thin, and seemingly not able to muster the equipment that we thought they had on paper. Dipping into the convict pool and raising the maximum age of soldiers to 60 or 65 and relying on Iran and North Korea probably tells us everything we need to know. And we know the oligarchs sold off (or stripped for parts) everything they could in the 90s and 2000s.

Might also explain why Russian state media has tried beating the nuclear attacks on NATO drum so consistently over the past year, hoping to scare NATO and Ukraine because they have very little else.

Edited July 9, 2023 by atomheartbevo

[Pods 7522]

9 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Erdogan was a massive dick to Putin about this and with his statement on Ukraine in NATO. There’s something going on there, but I  not enough of an Ankara hand to speculate. Just hoping he’s not trying to throw some small bones to Ukraine to deflect from further can-kicking on Sweden. 

I suspect it's Russia fucking around with the grain shipments Erdogan had brokered.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/un-aid-chief-russia-dont-chuck-away-black-sea-grain-deal-2023-07-07/

Erdogan is many things and an arrogant dick is one of them. He very much wants to be seen as a power broker, while still playing the middle as much as possible. The grain deal was critical to that perception. 

[MagicSoccerSpray 1725]

7 hours ago, Parliament said:

^^^And I have a theory that China poured cheap, garbage assault ri...semi-auto rifles into the US because they thought if they flooded the streets with them, we'd tear ourselves apart.  Kinda like we did with opium back in the day.  Joke's on them; we have our own cheap semi-auto rifles.

 

BTW, the British East India company was the entity that sold opium to the Chinese. AFAIK the US had nothing to do with that, which makes the Chinese Fetanyl crisis even more evil.

 

[BamaATL 16592]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

But what the Ukrainians have, at least the Western arms, is far more accurate/reliable than what the Russians have. You could argue that they are able to get more done with what they have - if the Russians had anything approaching the accuracy/power of HIMARs, we'd have seen it by now.

Something is definitely up.  We know NATO intelligence is trying to help them destroy Russian vehicles/systems and providing all kinds of satellite and signals info.  We know they have extensive drone coverage constantly looking for Russian vehicles.  They have accurate and powerful artillery (not just HIMARS) that can reach out behind the Russian lines quite a ways. We know the Russians are shit at hiding a lot of stuff, plus the Ukrainians are very clever about finding hidden vehicles (thanks to infrared, Russian soldiers falling into patterns, tire or tank tracks that lead somewhere and then stop, etc.).

There's also the matter of them appearing not to have anything beyond the Russian/Ukraine border - witness Wagner last month in Rostov on Don and points north, but prior to that, the anti-Putin Russians in the Belgorod area.

And where are Russia's helicopters?  They are supposed to have 1,500, second only to the US, and have lost at least 90 confirmed by OSINT. Are the Stingers that good and keeping their aircraft from CAS?

Everything about Russia right now feels like they are at, or close to, a breaking point - spread extremely thin, and seemingly not able to muster the equipment that we thought they had on paper. Dipping into the convict pool and raising the maximum age of soldiers to 60 or 65 and relying on Iran and North Korea probably tells us everything we need to know. And we know the oligarchs sold off (or stripped for parts) everything they could in the 90s and 2000s.

Might also explain why Russian state media has tried beating the nuclear attacks on NATO drum so consistently over the past year, hoping to scare NATO and Ukraine because they have very little else.

Another thing that is sort of strange no one really seems to be bringing up, the Russians are consistently seen driving around in 2 wheel drive cargo vans (they look like a dumber version of the Mystery Machine) delivering ammo to the front; and it's not as if it was some sort of covert secret the Ukrainians just stumbled upon.  Like seriously, what the fuck is that?  

Invariably, Orville and Wilbur Wrightchencko fuck them up with ease.  It'd be one thing if we saw this a few times, but I've seen this a lot.  Their logistics just flat out blow.  

[Gatorubet 30064]

1 hour ago, BamaATL said:

Another thing that is sort of strange no one really seems to be bringing up, the Russians are consistently seen driving around in 2 wheel drive cargo vans (they look like a dumber version of the Mystery Machine) delivering ammo to the front; and it's not as if it was some sort of covert secret the Ukrainians just stumbled upon.  Like seriously, what the fuck is that?  

[Rimbo 25752]

https://www.threads.net/t/Cuc4w-XSZNi/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

#BREAKING: Ukrainian forces have broke several areas of the Russian defence, especially in the Zaporizhzia direction. The push, is forwards 😎  Everything will be Ukraine again. Slava Ukraini.

[Rimbo 25752]

[atomheartbevo 89362]

3 hours ago, BamaATL said:

Another thing that is sort of strange no one really seems to be bringing up, the Russians are consistently seen driving around in 2 wheel drive cargo vans (they look like a dumber version of the Mystery Machine) delivering ammo to the front; and it's not as if it was some sort of covert secret the Ukrainians just stumbled upon.  Like seriously, what the fuck is that?  

Invariably, Orville and Wilbur Wrightchencko fuck them up with ease.  It'd be one thing if we saw this a few times, but I've seen this a lot.  Their logistics just flat out blow.  

Don't forget the lack of pallets.

And I don't think it's subterfuge like some of the nutters claim and Russians trying to hide numbers or deployments or where they are dropping off supplies to - the Scooby vans have to stick to half-decent roads which makes them stick out, are inefficient and getting Russians killed. And if they are as loaded down as they appear, they really have to stick to good roads, otherwise they get stuck.

And you know the suspension and transmission is probably shot after just a few trips of hauling weight that they were never intended to haul - those things were meant to haul packages or people around Moscow.  It's been a long time, but I remember the 155mm shells alone were around 100 lbs, and those things were about two feet long and around 6 inches in diameter, which means that they are dense as hell, but somewhat small size-wise for the weight Which means some NCO or officer at an artillery battery is probably screaming at them to carry as many as possible, because even though those vans probably shouldn't carry more than 10 of those shells (and I feel like that's pushing it), in this war an artillery battery will go through 10 shells in a minute or two.

I have my issues with the Tire Guy, but he's right about American military cargo trucks maybe expensive, but they handle a lot of terrain fairly well, can carry a lot, and most/all have small cranes on the back so it just takes one driver rolling up, hopping up on top, offloading the pallets, and then hauling ass out of there.  Those Russians are showing up with shells in fucking boxes, and it's taking multiple guys to unload them, and everything is slowed down, giving Ukrainian drones time to find them.

edit: it comes down to we can actually project power across oceans. Russia is having problems resupplying Russian soldiers that are 100 miles or less from the Russian border.

Edited July 9, 2023 by atomheartbevo

[InkaUtexas 25426]

I worked with the APS program, that is the Army Prepositioned Ships. There are 5, one for the primary areas and 1 back up. That is just the Army's resupply shit, not the stuff we have already prepositioned in around the globe. These are massive Roll On/Roll Off ships. These ships come back to the US where all equipment is maintained at Depot Level and they are reloaded and off they go. That Marines have a similar program. Maintained, ready to go. Oh, and we put trucks on all these ships. 

Add to that our Merchant Marine and if necessary outsourcing to commercial lines. Yeah, we can move some gear. And fast.  

Russia is having problems that Napoleon solved. How the fuck is that? Bad leadership, leading to bad planning, and as others have said, a ton of theft.

Concerning their Tank Numbers. I think they have a lot, but a lot of them suck and in bad condition. Shit, the T-55? When were they last maintained? And they are going to go up against M-1's? Leopards? Challengers? We ate through the Iraqi T-72's and that was with older M-1's. 

We are supporting Ukraine and keeping in mind their logistics capacity. Notice we include US Trucks in almost every aid package? We know they have to move stuff. And I bet there are some interesting contracts out there moving equipment from NATO locations using EU trucking and it is better than anything heading to Minsk from Yakutsk. 

Last note, never carried an SKS, but I have carried a few different AK's. Yugoslavian or Czech were the best. With Russian models depended. Some were good, others sucked. China's sucked ass and we would not use them. The worst were the Pakistani knock offs that flooded Afghanistan. But they did make some good copies of MP-5's. 

Now if I could get my hands on a Russian Dragunov..... That or an RPK. Those both are a lot of fun. 

[InkaUtexas 25426]

Damn. 

 

[956 Worldwide 34314]

13 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

The boy is finding his degree tracking him into CEES (central and Eastern European studies). I keep telling him that there’s a really good chance of the region being the new fulcrum in Europe. He’s not thrilled about having to learn another language like polish or Ukrainian to go with his German. We’ll see, but dead-on agree with this post. They are showing their salt.

So, my advice is similar to @RDCanecutter, which is that he GETS to learn another language.  My advice: suck it up and learn Polish. He will find that the German will be a benefit because his brain won’t be broken by the concept of cases.  It will be a hard slog but acquiring Polish will really make branching out or at least sort of understanding other Slavic languages so much easier. And believe it or not, the alphabet is the easiest part of Ukrainian/Russian. 

In all honesty, Slovak is the cheat code that best opens up all the other Slavic languages. But you learn it and then your best language is a boutique one that’s spoken only in a country of 5 million people. 
 

For the long-haired dictionary bit— Polish and Slovak women run neck and neck as the cream of a very fruitful crop across the Slavic world. 

[InkaUtexas 25426]

Agreed. Learning Bosnian helps me today to understand most SE Slavic languages and to a point Russian. I can listen to the news and get a general idea. 

 

[956 Worldwide 34314]

This is really important symbolically— Zelenskyy and Duda at a joint service for the “innocent victims” (Duda uses the phrase “murdered Poles”) of the Volhynia Massacre in Lutsk. 
 

The Volhynia Massacre(s) were carried out mostly by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) mostly in 1943 but up to 1945 against the Polish residents of Western Ukraine. Western Ukraine had been an integral part of the Rzeczpospolitsa and the regions to this day have emotional resonance for Poles. It’s not fair to say the Ukrainians were “native” and the Poles not, entirely,  but it is fair to say the Polish community lived a generally more privileged life in the region. The UPA moves to wipe out the Polish community as part of the goal for a Ukrainian ethnostate and murder up to 100,000 Poles including many women and children in horrible ways.

This legacy has been a burr under the saddle for both Poles and Ukrainians since then collapse of the union with Poles calling for an apology and acknowledgement of a genocide and Ukrainians and many historians calling it ethnic cleansing— and being hesitant to apologize and commemorate the events together. 
 

This is a huge moment to do together although it’s not quite Brandt at the Ghetto Memorial— it’s a big deal and goes a long way to easing the few remaining hesitancies for full-throated Polish support to Ukraine. Another diplomatic master stroke on Zelenskyy’s tour. And of course they talked NATO after. 

[956 Worldwide 34314]

16 hours ago, bolverk said:

Is Hungary still hanging onto those dudes over transcarpathian issues?

As of late June ,3 had gone home and 8 were still up in the air in Hungary. And it’s important to be clear that Orban claims it’s over “Transcarpathian Hungarian” issues but in reality it’s all domestic audiences and undermining Ukraine. 
 

Hungarians in Ukraine, nearly all of whom are in Uzhorod on the Slovak border and environs, are not discriminated against. That’s a sad trope that Orban trots out mostly to whip up his nationalist base and to try and cultivate support among Hungarian speakers outside of Hungary. Ukraine has even extended a waiver for native speakers of “EU languages (read: Hungarian) to continue to receive schooling in their native tongue. And Hungarian has never been banned or outlawed, the law was always simple that Ukrainian schools would teach in Ukrainian. 
 

Orban weaponizes the Hungarian minority for his interests across Central and Eastern Europe— he issues them all Hungarian passports, runs media operations that are pro-Fidesz and at the same time pro-local populist movements, complains of discrimination, and generally tries to get them to vote for Orban in Hungarian elections and to vote for his friends in their own national elections.  He can’t be as open about it with Slovakia and Romania since they are in the EU but he’s really gloves off with Ukraine. (Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t play this game as much with pro-Russia Serbia which also has a bunch of Hungarians). 
 

He has also frequently whines about “Transcarpathian Hungarians” being drafted to fight for Ukraine, the implication being that their ethnicity trumps their citizenship and they aren’t REALLY Ukrainian and should have no loyalties or responsibilities to Ukraine. As part of this, he’s been holding up Zelenskyy’s new ambassador to Budapest for months— who happens to be a famous Hungarian Ukrainian who is a college professor in Uzhorod, serves in the army, and won applause for conducting seminars for his students via Zoom from the front. 

[Kennythetiger 9333]

5 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

I worked with the APS program, that is the Army Prepositioned Ships. There are 5, one for the primary areas and 1 back up. That is just the Army's resupply shit, not the stuff we have already prepositioned in around the globe. These are massive Roll On/Roll Off ships. These ships come back to the US where all equipment is maintained at Depot Level and they are reloaded and off they go. That Marines have a similar program. Maintained, ready to go. Oh, and we put trucks on all these ships. 

Add to that our Merchant Marine and if necessary outsourcing to commercial lines. Yeah, we can move some gear. And fast.  

Russia is having problems that Napoleon solved. How the fuck is that? Bad leadership, leading to bad planning, and as others have said, a ton of theft.

Concerning their Tank Numbers. I think they have a lot, but a lot of them suck and in bad condition. Shit, the T-55? When were they last maintained? And they are going to go up against M-1's? Leopards? Challengers? We ate through the Iraqi T-72's and that was with older M-1's. 

We are supporting Ukraine and keeping in mind their logistics capacity. Notice we include US Trucks in almost every aid package? We know they have to move stuff. And I bet there are some interesting contracts out there moving equipment from NATO locations using EU trucking and it is better than anything heading to Minsk from Yakutsk. 

Last note, never carried an SKS, but I have carried a few different AK's. Yugoslavian or Czech were the best. With Russian models depended. Some were good, others sucked. China's sucked ass and we would not use them. The worst were the Pakistani knock offs that flooded Afghanistan. But they did make some good copies of MP-5's. 

Now if I could get my hands on a Russian Dragunov..... That or an RPK. Those both are a lot of fun. 

Sometimes I think this logistical shit is just as interesting as the battles themselves. I think about stuff like that a lot watching Band of Brothers. 

[956 Worldwide 34314]

 

[locodos 5329]

10 hours ago, MagicSoccerSpray said:

Even if they're paper shells, they have value. I would keep them or try to sell, don't dispose.

They were paper (Peter's IIRC), there might be a box or two squirreled away somewhere that my brother and I didn't find.  My Grandfather was a gruff old dude and parsimonious with words.  I remember him telling us those old shells were "as useful as tits on a bull" then muttered something about blowing our faces off.

[Schulz2.0 28752]

 

 

[Viper 12011]

Did something happen?

 

 

[Schulz2.0 28752]

The Poles delivered 12 of the Mi-24V to Ukraine.

 

[Schulz2.0 28752]

18 minutes ago, Viper said:

Did something happen?

 

 

The Russians are claiming they shot down a Ukrainian cruise missile that was directed at the Kerch Bridge. Traffic on the bridge was stopped for a while.

[BamaATL 16592]

 

[Armybrat 40678]

How many Russian generals have been relieved of their command in the Ukraine War?

Are there any paper clips left for them to count back in Moscow?

Edited July 9, 2023 by Armybrat

[Deej 76511]

19 minutes ago, Schulz2.0 said:

The Russians are claiming they shot down a Ukrainian cruise missile

So it hit its intended target?

[AUS-97HORN 11654]

53 minutes ago, Deej said:

So it hit its intended target?

no sir,

Russia shot it down, but in an amazing bit of bad luck, the shot down missile fell directly on the bridge and exploded.   However instead of being a MONUMENTAL explosion, it was only a MASSIVE one instead. 

 

minor damage to the guardrail on the left side, just closing the bridge temporarily to clear the tiny bit of bridge left over...

All is well

Edited July 9, 2023 by AUS-97HORN