Русский корабль - иди нахуй

[Ghost of LL 15705]

11 hours ago, Chopper said:

In spirit I agree a million percent. But unless this one ends with Ukraine successfully invading Moscow and Putin swallowing poison in his bunker, there's eventually going to be some sort of negotiated settlement.

Not necessarily.  There was never a negotiated settlement in Korea, or in Cypress, or in the Golan.

Realistically, this is what that is going to look like.

[Viper 12221]

 

 

[SydneyCarton 49534]

1 hour ago, The Bell Tolls for Thee said:

They are on war footing, we are not. Going to have to do more here to move the needle.

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Neonmoon said:

That's because WE are not at war you fucking troll.

Which knob is this GRUHorn I presume?

[atomheartbevo 90674]

1 hour ago, The Bell Tolls for Thee said:

They are on war footing, we are not. Going to have to do more here to move the needle.

As neonmoon pointed out, we aren't at war.

But hell, even with Russian being on a "war footing", they won't be able to make more than a few dozen tanks a month, not enough to keep pace without how many the Ukrainians are destroying.  And they aren't able to replace a lot of their vehicles/systems that are being destroyed, because the production lines shut down years ago.

Russia is literally a country that is relying on Iran and North Korea to help keep its military going.

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

29 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

As neonmoon pointed out, we aren't at war.

But hell, even with Russian being on a "war footing", they won't be able to make more than a few dozen tanks a month, not enough to keep pace without how many the Ukrainians are destroying.  And they aren't able to replace a lot of their vehicles/systems that are being destroyed, because the production lines shut down years ago.

Russia is literally a country that is relying on Iran and North Korea to help keep its military going.

I remember several months ago when you were convinced Russia was going to run out of missiles. Turns out, they're producing missiles at a higher rate than at any point before the war/sanctions.

[Foosters 18287]

11 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

I remember several months ago when you were convinced Russia was going to run out of missiles. Turns out, they're producing missiles at a higher rate than at any point before the war/sanctions.

Your concern is noted

[wildcat09 29600]

24 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

I remember several months ago when you were convinced Russia was going to run out of missiles. Turns out, they're producing missiles at a higher rate than at any point before the war/sanctions.

Of course they are, they weren't losing a war before they launched this one.

[956 Worldwide 35601]

Interesting to see an Integrated Country Strategy, which is ordinarily a pretty boring document aimed at matching resources to goals, become a big news item that makes Politico. I am not clear what was to be gained by leaking the internal version at this point, especially as the admin fights to get funding for the continuing war effort. 
 

The one thing I’d add is to be cautious when thinking of this as the whole of government strategy toward Ukraine. It’s the strategy for the mission on the ground. For a priority place like Ukraine, a lot of the overall strategy is still coming from the NSC. 
 

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/02/biden-admin-ukraine-strategy-corruption-00119237

 

Quote

Biden administration officials are far more worried about corruption in Ukraine than they publicly admit, a confidential U.S. strategy document obtained by POLITICO suggests.

The “sensitive but unclassified” version of the long-term U.S. plan lays out numerous steps Washington is taking to help Kyiv root out malfeasance and otherwise reform an array of Ukrainian sectors. It stresses that corruption could cause Western allies to abandon Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion, and that Kyiv cannot put off the anti-graft effort.

 

 

[956 Worldwide 35601]

On 9/30/2023 at 5:46 PM, Schulz2.0 said:

 

 

Fun fact:  This Czech armorer now owns Colt and makes weapons in the U.S. as well. One of their largest investments. They wanted to get in on the possibility to sell to U.S. military and LE organizations. 

[956 Worldwide 35601]

On 10/1/2023 at 1:37 AM, atomheartbevo said:

Crazy thing about the Tu-95s (besides the fact that their lineage goes back to our B-29), is that they first flew in 1952, but did not see combat until 2015 (Syria).

63 years before finally doing the deed.

I’d hesitate to say that it goes back to our B-29. The first Soviet strategic bomber was a reverse engineered B-29, which they then tried to upgrade and enlarge. That project failed and they scrapped it in favor of the Tu-95.  It’s a pretty much clean-sheet design with everything from swept wings (unique for prop aircraft) and counter-rotating turboprops setting it apart from the B-29. Really the only thing in common is they both have four engines driving props. 
 

It entered service after our B-52, which we are also still flying. The fact is that from an airframe perspective, building bomb and cruise missile trucks is a mature art as long as you aren’t talking stealth. You can put a LOT of miles on a well-maintained airframe and both these aircraft are showing their deadliness with upgraded avionics and targeting systems and stand-off weapons.  You can’t shoot down what you can’t see, or what you can’t reach— and that’s why both services are going to fly the B-52 and Tu-95 for a long time and why China is still cranking out its own copy of the Tu-16. 
 

Just for fun, a couple shots of a BUFF that landed in Czech Republic just a bit before the full invasion as part of a Bomber Task Force deterrence flight.

[WhatTheBuck 28941]

7 hours ago, Viper said:

And they say customer service is dead...

 

 

Did they tell him to turn it off and then turn it back on again?

[Schulz2.0 29293]

 

 

 

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

53 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Of course they are, they weren't losing a war before they launched this one.

I'm just pointing out his statement that Russia would soon be unable to produce more missiles was wildly wrong. I'll let you decide why he's wrong.

[InkaUtexas 26959]

This horrible human is still talking. And if she talks, well she is lying. 

 

[KYHorn 17637]

Oops. Send in the drones.

Moscow authorities published the addresses of secret facilities of Russian security agencies Investigators from the "Dossier" center found on the website of the Moscow City Hall a document with the title "List of consumers of electric power (capacity), the restriction of the regime of electric power consumption of which may lead to economic, environmental and social consequences". It is there that the addresses of restricted facilities are listed. The list of special Moscow electricity consumers approved by Sergei Sobyanin includes addresses where employees of secret agencies are registered. Among them is building 91 on Profsoyuznaya Street. The document also lists specific apartments, presumably belonging to intelligence officers. The largest concentration of secret facilities is located in the Serebryany Bor, a specially protected natural area in the area of Moscow. There are military unit facilities belonging to the Foreign Intelligence Service, as well as plots intended for "defense and security" and "operation of a service dacha." The building in Stoleshnikov Pereulok, where the famous Jean-Jacques café is located, turned out to be somehow connected with the Federal Protective Service. In the border region of Bryansk, officials even noted a temporary mobile FSB station. And in St. Petersburg, the law enforcement agencies have several dachas in the most elite neighborhoods of the city. Such information is a state secret, and for the disclosure of addresses under Article 283 of the Criminal Code threatens up to seven years in prison. The file was placed in the section "Special Group" on the site of the mayor's office, now it is no longer available. The investigators also found similar files on the websites of the administrations of St. Petersburg, the Leningrad region, the frontline Belgorod and Bryansk regions, the Primorsky Krai, Kamchatka, Chechnya and North Ossetia. Also, the lists include addresses belonging to the Ministry of Defense and captions to them: "ammunition depot", "refueling point" and "storage facility". According to the investigators, the addresses of these facilities may already be known to the Ukrainian security services and could be used as potential targets for strikes. Therefore, the journalists created a map in which they indicated all possible potential targets for strikes, so that ordinary residents could understand the risks of living near such places.

Edited October 2, 2023 by KYHorn

[ShaggyBevo RIP 3873]

1 hour ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

I'm just pointing out his statement that Russia would soon be unable to produce more missiles was wildly wrong. I'll let you decide why he's wrong.

The missile plant had a smoking accident in the last 12 hours.

[KYHorn 17637]

 

Spoiler: That's Russian tech support. And they helped him.

[atomheartbevo 90674]

2 hours ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

I remember several months ago when you were convinced Russia was going to run out of missiles. Turns out, they're producing missiles at a higher rate than at any point before the war/sanctions.

1 hour ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

I'm just pointing out his statement that Russia would soon be unable to produce more missiles was wildly wrong. I'll let you decide why he's wrong.

I didn't think they'd still be able to get help from Western companies for parts, including American companies, but based on the wreckage that's been recovered they are still using Western components.  Now sure, those Western companies are not directly supplying the parts, so can't be held fully accountable, but if that pipeline was closed off, it would be a different story.

With that said, they are launching many, if not most, of those missiles at civilian targets. As tragic as the civilian loss of life/infrastructure is, it's better that Putin is pissing away their missiles (and associated manufacturing capacity) on that, than on using their manufacturing output to truly help Russian soldiers.

[Parliament 14619]

I think it's fair to say Russia has held up better than many of us armchair military geo-political internet hacks here would have predicted.  Doesn't change the fact we need to help Ukraine kick their ass.

[Pescado_Rojo 19593]

4 minutes ago, Parliament said:

I think it's fair to say Russia has held up better than many of us armchair military geo-political internet hacks here would have predicted.  Doesn't change the fact we need to help Ukraine kick their ass.

I think most of us realized Russia would stuff as much meat in the grinder as they could get their hands on, but I think most of us thought Ukraine would have more Western offensive weaponry ready to go by now. I know logistics and training take time, but I thought for sure we'd be seeing combined armored brigades of Bradleys and Abrams fucking up Russia's shit by now. 

[atomheartbevo 90674]

3 minutes ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

I think most of us realized Russia would stuff as much meat in the grinder as they could get their hands on, but I think most of us thought Ukraine would have more Western offensive weaponry ready to go by now. I know logistics and training take time, but I thought for sure we'd be seeing combined armored brigades of Bradleys and Abrams fucking up Russia's shit by now. 

Yep.  Still, it's damned amazing what they are doing with this huge mish-mash of Soviet, American, and European hardware.  Their logistics people have a lot to teach everybody else on integrating dissimilar systems on the fly while your country is formerly invaded and partially occupied by what was the world's second most powerful military.

[Pescado_Rojo 19593]

19 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Yep.  Still, it's damned amazing what they are doing with this huge mish-mash of Soviet, American, and European hardware.  Their logistics people have a lot to teach everybody else on integrating dissimilar systems on the fly while your country is formerly invaded and partially occupied by what was the world's second most powerful military.

Oh it absolutely is. Their intelligence and reconnaissance services have done a great job of getting the most bang for their buck with the advanced platforms they DO have as well. Storm Shadowing Russian senior officers in Sevastopol, Harpooning the dry docks at the perfect time, etc. I'm sure Western electronic surveillance has helped, but they must have a fantastic amount of HUMINT in the occupied regions and even Russia proper. 

[Brisketexan 107021]

19 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Yep.  Still, it's damned amazing what they are doing with this huge mish-mash of Soviet, American, and European hardware.  Their logistics people have a lot to teach everybody else on integrating dissimilar systems on the fly while your country is formerly invaded and partially occupied by what was the world's second most powerful military.

Yeah....I'm not shocked by where the war stands today.  Russia still has a metric shit ton of meat and metal.  It is well-equipped for a drawn-out war of attrition, barring a complete collapse in support at home/a collapse of the government.  It's their play, and it's not a bad or ineffective one.  I WANT a massive breakthrough and total collapse of Russian forces.  But the odds on that remain long.

It's a war of attrition.  Hoping for a break here and there, probing, seeing if there's exploitable weakness.  It's a script that's been performed many times before.  Understanding that there's a good chance that the war ends with Russia holding at least SOME territory that is Ukraine.  

[Pescado_Rojo 19593]

6 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Yeah....I'm not shocked by where the war stands today.  Russia still has a metric shit ton of meat and metal.  It is well-equipped for a drawn-out war of attrition, barring a complete collapse in support at home/a collapse of the government.  It's their play, and it's not a bad or ineffective one.  I WANT a massive breakthrough and total collapse of Russian forces.  But the odds on that remain long.

It's a war of attrition.  Hoping for a break here and there, probing, seeing if there's exploitable weakness.  It's a script that's been performed many times before.  Understanding that there's a good chance that the war ends with Russia holding at least SOME territory that is Ukraine.  

Man, I think you've got to push them at least out of Donetsk and Crimea. That's where the large, undeveloped petroleum reserves are located. Letting Russia hold and develop those fields would be a huge win for Putin. Getting them back for Ukraine, and helping Ukraine develop them and bring them to market would be a huge win for Ukraine and Europe. Provides revenues to help rebuild the country, and minimizes Russia's ability to sell their most valuable commodity to rebuild their military...also helps to improve the energy situation in Europe. 

[Brisketexan 107021]

1 minute ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

Man, I think you've got to push them at least out of Donetsk and Crimea. That's where the large, undeveloped petroleum reserves are located. Letting Russia hold and develop those fields would be a huge win for Putin. Getting them back for Ukraine, and helping Ukraine develop them and bring them to market would be a huge win for Ukraine and Europe. Provides revenues to help rebuild the country, and minimizes Russia's ability to sell their most valuable commodity to rebuild their military...also helps to improve the energy situation in Europe. 

All true.  But Ukraine may run out of bodies before it can accomplish that.  If they can recapture Crimea, maybe all the way up to Mariupol, that would be a win of some sort.  And I don't know if they can ultimately do that much.  

Ukraine's most limited resource is bodies.  And they are continuing to burn through them.  It's a Lanchester Law problem - Lanchester square law, in this case.

Quote

• If A>B but α<β, or A<B but α>β, the winning side will depend on whether the ratio of β/α is greater or less than the square of the ratio of A/B. Thus, if numbers and firepower are unequal in opposite directions, a superiority in firepower equal to the square of the inferiority in numbers is required for victory; or, to put it another way, the effectiveness of the army rises proportionate to the square of the number of people in it, but only linearly with their fighting ability.

Ukraine's play has to be to break Russian society and government.  Because military-on-military, Russia can outlast them.  It has way more bodies, and Ukraine's outsized performance in terms of lethality isn't enough to make up the difference.

[Bevo 13926]

9 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

All true.  But Ukraine may run out of bodies before it can accomplish that.  If they can recapture Crimea, maybe all the way up to Mariupol, that would be a win of some sort.  And I don't know if they can ultimately do that much.  

Ukraine's most limited resource is bodies.  And they are continuing to burn through them.  It's a Lanchester Law problem - Lanchester square law, in this case.

Ukraine's play has to be to break Russian society and government.  Because military-on-military, Russia can outlast them.  It has way more bodies, and Ukraine's outsized performance in terms of lethality isn't enough to make up the difference.

40M to 140M, but Ukraine has a lot more reason to fight.

[Brisketexan 107021]

29 minutes ago, Bevo said:

40M to 140M, but Ukraine has a lot more reason to fight.

Agreed.  But motivation and fighting spirit only get you so far.  This isn't "Rudy."  I just don't want it to be "Robbie."

 

[atomheartbevo 90674]

2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Yeah....I'm not shocked by where the war stands today.  Russia still has a metric shit ton of meat and metal.  It is well-equipped for a drawn-out war of attrition, barring a complete collapse in support at home/a collapse of the government.  It's their play, and it's not a bad or ineffective one.  I WANT a massive breakthrough and total collapse of Russian forces.  But the odds on that remain long.

It's a war of attrition.  Hoping for a break here and there, probing, seeing if there's exploitable weakness.  It's a script that's been performed many times before.  Understanding that there's a good chance that the war ends with Russia holding at least SOME territory that is Ukraine.  

I wonder how much meat they can throw into the grinder though, given how many fled the country, and the fact that they are lowering the standards for mental and physical illnesses, as well as lowering and raising the age limits.  It just feel like they don't have the available pool of manpower that they claim they do, because otherwise we should have seen it long before now, and the Russian parliament wouldn't have to keep lowering the standards for conscription (which were already incredibly low).

You know what, when the Russian police/FSB/whatever start grabbing large numbers of men off the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg like they've done in smaller towns and rural areas, then It'll be clear how far Putin is willing to go.

[B00M 6736]

Raw numbers look bad but won’t Russia have to draft to significantly increase the volume of meat for the grinder? I feel like Ukraine must have an edge until casualty numbers get into the millions … is there a published western estimate of potential Ukrainian reserves?

[BamaATL 16593]

All this is based on this Harvard Russian Demographics Study, data published 1/22022 (so a bit out of date, but not greatly)

https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/insights/russias-discouraging-demographics-shouldnt-change-us-approach

Essentially, if you limit it to males of fighting age 18 to 45 it would represent 17% of their total population of 145 million, or 24.5 million.  

You can deduct 1 million dodgers gone from the country, plus approximately 1 million kia/wia.  

Further, you can deduct 10.3 million from Moscow and St. Pete, because mobilizing these folks gets Putin killed.  

So total manpower remaining is somewhere around 12 million, with probably a million currently serving.

 

So the question is, of those 11 million or so, how many of those left can be brought in to fight without having a cascade societal failure?  Mind you, this would be non Moscow/St. Pete.  In theory, I suppose you could send every last one of them, but reality, I would guess no more than a million or so more.  If that is the case, my guess would be 2 years, at current rates, if the Ukrainian ability to kill increases, that could speed things up.  This sort of tracks with their equipment capability (assuming the can continue to pull old stock and get it to the front).  

Ultimately, there is a tipping point, even for them as to what their real capability is.  Killing/seriously wounding about a million for them probably does the trick for Ukraine.  Also the demographic news gets worse for Russia thereafter.  

[Schulz2.0 29293]

 

[B00M 6736]

5 minutes ago, Schulz2.0 said:

 

Ammo shortage at the front? Russia?!

[BamaATL 16593]

10 minutes ago, Schulz2.0 said:

 

According the control map, the 488th is in a salient closest to Lyman, northern part of Ukraine.  This tracks, because it would appear they are pinned down by surrounding Ukrainian mechanized groups, which I can only assume includes a good bit of mechanized artillery.  It would appear that the 488th, along with 3 other brigades are trapped.  It's hard to know exactly how many men this might be, because Russian brigades vary in size, some being 2k, with some up to 8k.  Considering they have all taken losses, most likely heavily given their location, that would mean somewhere between 4k and 12k of men are pinned down in the area.  

[Handcruser 2816]

Fun fact:  This Czech armorer now owns Colt and makes weapons in the U.S. as well. One of their largest investments. They wanted to get in on the possibility to sell to U.S. military and LE organizations. 

What they really wanted is Colt’s license to sell in canada. Then Canada banned guns.

[Brisketexan 107021]

All this is based on this Harvard Russian Demographics Study, data published 1/22022 (so a bit out of date, but not greatly)
https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/insights/russias-discouraging-demographics-shouldnt-change-us-approach
Essentially, if you limit it to males of fighting age 18 to 45 it would represent 17% of their total population of 145 million, or 24.5 million.  
You can deduct 1 million dodgers gone from the country, plus approximately 1 million kia/wia.  
Further, you can deduct 10.3 million from Moscow and St. Pete, because mobilizing these folks gets Putin killed.  
So total manpower remaining is somewhere around 12 million, with probably a million currently serving.
 
So the question is, of those 11 million or so, how many of those left can be brought in to fight without having a cascade societal failure?  Mind you, this would be non Moscow/St. Pete.  In theory, I suppose you could send every last one of them, but reality, I would guess no more than a million or so more.  If that is the case, my guess would be 2 years, at current rates, if the Ukrainian ability to kill increases, that could speed things up.  This sort of tracks with their equipment capability (assuming the can continue to pull old stock and get it to the front).  
Ultimately, there is a tipping point, even for them as to what their real capability is.  Killing/seriously wounding about a million for them probably does the trick for Ukraine.  Also the demographic news gets worse for Russia thereafter.  

Russia will expand those brackets from 16-60 years. And they’ll absolutely draw on people in Moscow and St Pete….from families and crews who aren’t sufficiently loyal to the regime. A 60 yr old with a shovel is still a meat sack. That’s all they need. More meat sacks.

[956 Worldwide 35601]

46 minutes ago, BamaATL said:

All this is based on this Harvard Russian Demographics Study, data published 1/22022 (so a bit out of date, but not greatly)

https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/insights/russias-discouraging-demographics-shouldnt-change-us-approach

Essentially, if you limit it to males of fighting age 18 to 45 it would represent 17% of their total population of 145 million, or 24.5 million.  

You can deduct 1 million dodgers gone from the country, plus approximately 1 million kia/wia.  

Further, you can deduct 10.3 million from Moscow and St. Pete, because mobilizing these folks gets Putin killed.  

So total manpower remaining is somewhere around 12 million, with probably a million currently serving.

 

So the question is, of those 11 million or so, how many of those left can be brought in to fight without having a cascade societal failure?  Mind you, this would be non Moscow/St. Pete.  In theory, I suppose you could send every last one of them, but reality, I would guess no more than a million or so more.  If that is the case, my guess would be 2 years, at current rates, if the Ukrainian ability to kill increases, that could speed things up.  This sort of tracks with their equipment capability (assuming the can continue to pull old stock and get it to the front).  

Ultimately, there is a tipping point, even for them as to what their real capability is.  Killing/seriously wounding about a million for them probably does the trick for Ukraine.  Also the demographic news gets worse for Russia thereafter.  

Putin will mobilize Moscow and St: Petersburg, eventually.  He’s been throwing the provinces and minorities at the fight because it’s the path of least resistance, and—- this is key— a mobilized or dead Buriyat is far less damaging  to the Russian economy than a dead or mobilized Moscovite.  That’s tapping into the backbone of what’s left of Russia’s knowledge economy.  Putin wants to preserve that more than he fears a real urban uprising.  They are simply more valuable at home than they are on the battlefield. 

[BamaATL 16593]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Russia will expand those brackets from 16-60 years. And they’ll absolutely draw on people in Moscow and St Pete….from families and crews who aren’t sufficiently loyal to the regime. A 60 yr old with a shovel is still a meat sack. That’s all they need. More meat sacks.

Maybe, but the thing with Russian men over 45 is the effects of long term alcoholism is so severe at that age most of them need almost ambulatory care to get anywhere, let alone the front.  That would effect upwards of 40% of the elder age bracket.  Additionally, even if the thought is to use them completely as fodder, this would still create a gigantic logistical problem.  The Russians couldn't organize a 50 mile convoy 2 years ago, and I doubt they'd do better now.  As to young kids being sent to the front there is good news on that front in that they don't have many of them.  

I still think Putin hedges against pulling people from Moscow and St. Petersburg because that will get him killed.  Perhaps he could do it for a bit, but I doubt for very long.  Putin values his own life before anyone else's, and I'm sure he is not about to risk his.  Russian elites that right now think waiting it out and not being in the middle of things will change their mind the first time their neighbors or sons come back in a zip lock bag, if for no other reason than to save themselves or their kids.  

[InkaUtexas 26959]

Cannot confirm for sure, but I am dying watching this! 

 

 

Edited October 3, 2023 by InkaUtexas

[atomheartbevo 90674]

2 hours ago, B00M said:

Raw numbers look bad but won’t Russia have to draft to significantly increase the volume of meat for the grinder? I feel like Ukraine must have an edge until casualty numbers get into the millions … is there a published western estimate of potential Ukrainian reserves?

2 hours ago, BamaATL said:

All this is based on this Harvard Russian Demographics Study, data published 1/22022 (so a bit out of date, but not greatly)

https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/insights/russias-discouraging-demographics-shouldnt-change-us-approach

Essentially, if you limit it to males of fighting age 18 to 45 it would represent 17% of their total population of 145 million, or 24.5 million.  

You can deduct 1 million dodgers gone from the country, plus approximately 1 million kia/wia.  

Further, you can deduct 10.3 million from Moscow and St. Pete, because mobilizing these folks gets Putin killed.  

So total manpower remaining is somewhere around 12 million, with probably a million currently serving.

2 hours ago, BamaATL said:

So the question is, of those 11 million or so, how many of those left can be brought in to fight without having a cascade societal failure?  Mind you, this would be non Moscow/St. Pete.  In theory, I suppose you could send every last one of them, but reality, I would guess no more than a million or so more.  If that is the case, my guess would be 2 years, at current rates, if the Ukrainian ability to kill increases, that could speed things up.  This sort of tracks with their equipment capability (assuming the can continue to pull old stock and get it to the front).  

Ultimately, there is a tipping point, even for them as to what their real capability is.  Killing/seriously wounding about a million for them probably does the trick for Ukraine.  Also the demographic news gets worse for Russia thereafter.  

1 hour ago, BamaATL said:

Maybe, but the thing with Russian men over 45 is the effects of long term alcoholism is so severe at that age most of them need almost ambulatory care to get anywhere, let alone the front.  That would effect upwards of 40% of the elder age bracket.  Additionally, even if the thought is to use them completely as fodder, this would still create a gigantic logistical problem.  The Russians couldn't organize a 50 mile convoy 2 years ago, and I doubt they'd do better now.  As to young kids being sent to the front there is good news on that front in that they don't have many of them.  

Zeihan has talked about how Moscow stopped publishing a lot of demographics information for a while now, and he's talked about how a lot of it was always false to begin with, because various Russians (politicians or bureaucrats or both) benefitted from manipulating the numbers (or didn't want to tip off supposed enemies).  He also mentioned that what Russia official said didn't match up with certain hard numbers, and ironically, I think one of the numbers that outsiders looked at was the normal pre-2022 yearly conscription.  While I doubt they are off by tens of millions, it could easily be in the upper millions, given the living conditions, disease (including alcoholism) and shitty medical care when you get outside of the major metro areas.

The thing that gets me is that Russia doesn't act like they have many millions of men to draw from, for a few reasons 

1. They keep changing he volunteer age ranges (I think we are at 18-65 or 70) and the parliament keeps relaxing standards, up to and including mental illnesses such as schizophrenia (as long as they can be controlled by drugs), as well as certain medical conditions that we'd laugh at here in the West.

2. The state let Wagner empty out the prisons, even though the state benefitted heavily from prison labor, and they pardoned those criminals who fought.  Wagner didn't unilaterally declare "we're going to empty the prisons and pardon people" - they had Putin's backing. Plus, that's pretty fucking dangerous to Russian society as a whole to take hardened criminals, put them through a few weeks of military training, expose them to harsh combat conditions for 6 months where there are very few rules/laws/regulations, and then release them into society. People may say "well Putin was getting rid of undesirables" but those undesirables were slave labor for Russia.

3. Their training pipeline is almost non-existent.  Yeah, they train different than Western militaries, where they have induction and a month or two of training, and then it's completed at a training battalion in the unit they deploy with, but their training battalions were devastated over the course of the first year or so as they threw them into the grinder,. They've had 570+ days to setup a new training pipeline, and yet here we are in October of 2023 and Russian soldiers are bitching on Telegram that they had no training whatsoever and don't have a fucking clue what to do, not to mention no ammo.  If you felt like you had plenty of manpower, you would conscript a little more heavily (but spread it out), you'd setup a training pipeline, and you'd always have a few hundred thousand fresh troops ready to go as needed.

4. Okay, more than a few reasons, but this Is the kicker:  If they had the manpower, they'd have been able to freeze this conflict last year by going into a seriously heavy defensive posture a year ago.  We wouldn't be talking about Ukrainian counteroffensives. Kherson would not have been retaken, nor would Kharkiv almost a year to this day (or the Russians would have retaken them).  Bakhmut wouldn't have been so hard for the Russians to take, and the Battle of Bakhmut wouldn't be entering its 14th month.   They wouldn't be building new rail lines because the existing rail lines were about to be overrun. 

We talk about the meat grinder used against the Germans in WWII, but it's not on display here, because the Russians simply aren't deploying enough meat for the grinder.  Oh, and in WWII, the Russians relied on Ukrainian meat to help defend Mother Russia, that's something missing from the equation.

[atomheartbevo 90674]

2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Russia will expand those brackets from 16-60 years. And they’ll absolutely draw on people in Moscow and St Pete….from families and crews who aren’t sufficiently loyal to the regime. A 60 yr old with a shovel is still a meat sack. That’s all they need. More meat sacks.

2 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Putin will mobilize Moscow and St: Petersburg, eventually.  He’s been throwing the provinces and minorities at the fight because it’s the path of least resistance, and—- this is key— a mobilized or dead Buriyat is far less damaging  to the Russian economy than a dead or mobilized Moscovite.  That’s tapping into the backbone of what’s left of Russia’s knowledge economy.  Putin wants to preserve that more than he fears a real urban uprising.  They are simply more valuable at home than they are on the battlefield. 

2 hours ago, BamaATL said:

I still think Putin hedges against pulling people from Moscow and St. Petersburg because that will get him killed.  Perhaps he could do it for a bit, but I doubt for very long.  Putin values his own life before anyone else's, and I'm sure he is not about to risk his.  Russian elites that right now think waiting it out and not being in the middle of things will change their mind the first time their neighbors or sons come back in a zip lock bag, if for no other reason than to save themselves or their kids.  

There's the specter of mass protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg as well.  We saw that the Moscow police and FSB are woefully unprepared for even a few thousand Wagner troops coming down a specific route when Priggy went marching - their lame attempts at barricades, etc., showed a real lack of manpower.  It's not helped that the FSB/Russian police forces in general were themselves impacted by mobilization.  And it appeared that more than a few local Russian police sided with Wagner, so there's no reason to think they won't side with locals in Moscow or St. Petersburg - they aren't going to die for Putin.

In those rural areas and towns, they are isolated from one another, and even if 50 people in a town go on a riot over being mobilized, you can still get that put down in short order.  50 people in Moscow could turn into 500 people and then 5,000 people in short order.  Putin does not want thousands of Muscovites marching on the Kremlin - the optics of that would be stunning for the world to see.

[InkaUtexas 26959]

Not just Ukrainian meat, but all of the SSR territories. And with the US/UK backing them up. 

I did not think Russia would win in their first wave. It is hard to take a nation. We learned that over the past two decades. I did not expect them to fail so much, but here we are. 

This is a three year war going forward. A few things matter. 

1- Does the EU hold strong? Looks like they are. 

2- can Ukraine bleed the Russians more than they bleed. No one really knows these numbers. 

3- 2024 US Elections. 

4- If Putin starts bleeding the big cities or cost of living goes up, well a revolution would be interesting. 

5- Keep building up NATO's capacity to be an integrated force. I think that scares the shit out of Russia's MOD. 

One thing to note. No one like Russia that matters. Cut off all foreign travel (looking at you Dubai and Thailand), fuck them up in Africa using third parties, and continue diplomacy to support Ukraine. 

Rant over, back to you @atomheartbevo

7 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

There's the specter of mass protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg as well.  We saw that the Moscow police and FSB are woefully unprepared for even a few thousand Wagner troops coming down a specific route when Priggy went marching - their lame attempts at barricades, etc., showed a real lack of manpower.  It's not helped that the FSB/Russian police forces in general were themselves impacted by mobilization.  And it appeared that more than a few local Russian police sided with Wagner, so there's no reason to think they won't side with locals in Moscow or St. Petersburg - they aren't going to die for Putin.

In those rural areas and towns, they are isolated from one another, and even if 50 people in a town go on a riot over being mobilized, you can still get that put down in short order.  50 people in Moscow could turn into 500 people and then 5,000 people in short order.  Putin does not want thousands of Muscovites marching on the Kremlin - the optics of that would be stunning for the world to see.

[Scheiss Meister 8477]

1 hour ago, InkaUtexas said:

Cannot confirm for sure, but I am dying watching this! 

 

 

Shades of Jeb Stuart's letter to his father-in-law complaining about the quality of the Union mules and horses that he had captured in his ride around McClellan.  His father-in-law was General Philip St. George Cooke, Quartermaster of the entire Union Army.

Edited October 3, 2023 by Scheiss Meister

[BamaATL 16593]

The bottom line take away I have is that the idea that Russia seemingly has an unlimited pipeline to human resources just isn't remotely true.  At the end of the day, the numbers just don't remotely bear this out.  In fact, their human resources are even more limited than I think any of us have considered.  When I mentioned societal cascade failure earlier, it's not just in reference to simply pulling manpower out of society and converting it to military manpower, I am referring to everything else that I society must do in order to not collapse.  Things like power line maintenance, food production and procurement, general upkeep and maintenance, etc.  Russia is no different than any other in place in that it depends on younger people to carry the physical lion's share of the work.  In Russia's case, losing men is even more damning because they don't have women in the workforce to pick up the slack (at least not to western norms).  While shit conditions in far reaching provinces aren't likely to impact the power base in Moscow, if suddenly they started to do that, it would be a big problem for Putin.  Right now, economic conditions aren't good for them, the rouble is trading something awful, foreign goods and services are high due to that alone, not to mention sanctions.  Despite this, they have a worker shortage, in part because of deployment, in part because they really can't afford to pay enough to have workers justify doing the work, and in part because so many have left.  Even if they nationalized all this and went to a full war time economy, I doubt it would make a dent in the short term in terms of productivity.  Further, in order to insulate himself, Putin continually draws away from the worker pool to put people in internal state security.  

I really don't think they can manage much more than a million or so losses without having to start drawing from a pool that would lead to societal collapse.  At the end of this, it would appear that there will wind up being a lot of ghost towns in far flung regions, because with most of the men dead, women unable to earn money, no one to do upkeep, these places will simply rot.  Essentially, I think we can expect significant mass migration.  

So could they potentially put up to 20ish million men in play to fight?  Maybe, but at what cost?  If they did that, it would just hasten a societal collapse (which might happen anyway).  Further, if they did do that, you have to remember that logistics plays a huge role.  For every front line soldier, you should have 3 logistics people behind them.  Under that formula, the absolute maximum Russian could put in is about 5 million.  If they did that, under the current kia/wia the math says about 6 years is the most they can handle of this.  Again, I just can't see them having the ability to put this many people in play.  I think the max is much closer to 1 million, and it might be smaller than that. 

Bottom line to me is this, the higher the level of lethal weaponry we get to the Ukrainians, the quicker the Russians are dead, and the quicker this ends simply because Russia's human resources are finite.  

[atomheartbevo 90674]

34 minutes ago, BamaATL said:

The bottom line take away I have is that the idea that Russia seemingly has an unlimited pipeline to human resources just isn't remotely true.  At the end of the day, the numbers just don't remotely bear this out.  In fact, their human resources are even more limited than I think any of us have considered. 

Agreed.  The numbers of soldiers deployed to Ukraine just don't bear it out.  Are we supposed to believe that Putin was waiting until Ukrainian troops are moving into Crimea or DPR/LPR in late 2023 or 2024 before he starts mobilizing half-a-million or a million men at once?

And how is he supposed to supply them if they can't even supply the hundreds of thousands already in Ukraine?  People joke about how in WWII, every other Russian didn't have a rifle, and would pick up the rifle of the guy in front of them who gets it, but given the weapons/armaments that are in play here in 2023, whoever/whatever kills the armed soldier in front of an unarmed Russian soldiers is also going to kill the unarmed Russian soldier.

34 minutes ago, BamaATL said:

So could they potentially put up to 20ish million men in play to fight?  Maybe, but at what cost?  If they did that, it would just hasten a societal collapse (which might happen anyway).  Further, if they did do that, you have to remember that logistics plays a huge role.  For every front line soldier, you should have 3 logistics people behind them.  Under that formula, the absolute maximum Russian could put in is about 5 million.  If they did that, under the current kia/wia the math says about 6 years is the most they can handle of this.  Again, I just can't see them having the ability to put this many people in play.  I think the max is much closer to 1 million, and it might be smaller than that. 

They'd have to have the logistics to match even a million men coming into uniform, and they don't.  And me thinks that if they tried to mobilize on such a large scale, particularly in the large cities, they'd have to drastically ramp up the internal state security (FSB, or more likely their National Guard, which is meant to protect Putin and the Russian government and reports directly to Putin) because you can bet when you get numbers that large, you'll get deserters and you'll get people who are like "fuck it, I'd rather take my chances in Russia killing some motherfucking officer or NCO or civilian official who I think is responsible for my fucked up world than ending up in a garbage bag alongside a Ukrainian road." We've seen the Russian attitude of not giving a fuck about fellow Russians play out time and time again.

On a side note, when Putin announced the mobilization last year, the Russian markets dropped around 5%, while the US dollar rose against the ruble.  That was only 300,000 men.  In that mobilization letter, there was a classified section that supposedly related to the numbers, which various people claimed that the Kremlin could go up to a 1-1.2 million men, but again, Ukrainians would have seen that on the battlefield by now. And in November of last year, independent of Wagner's recruiting drive, Putin allowed criminals (as long as it wasn't sex crimes against minors and crimes against the state like treason) to join the military, which reeks of desperation, because those types are probably not going to play nicely with their commanders. At the same time, Putin said they hit 318,000 men being mobilized and met their goals for the fall mobilization.

Fast-forward to April of this year, and Putin signed the law saying they could summon draftees by text message or email, as well as blocking anyone eligible for military service who receives such a digital summons from leaving Russia. Again, did they draft another 300,000 or more? I think the Ukrainians would have seen it by now.  

I think since then there's been a low-key one where they are just feeding individual soldiers into units, or maybe squads and platoons into large units, hence the digital summons, but not masses of hundreds of thousands.  Russia even denied Ukraine's report last month of another large mobilization wave, saying they are focused on bringing in professional/experienced soldiers. Russia lies obviously, but Russian social media would have picked up on another 300,000 or even 200,000 newly getting their summons all at once.

Everything goes back to logistics. There's a very real possibility that the destruction of so many Russian training units, logistics vehicles (trucks, vans, etc.) and so on has left the Russian military unable to do anything with a large number of men even if they announced a mass mobilization (since they can't even keep the current men supplied).

[atomheartbevo 90674]

And all of this goes back to the missiles.  Putin is expending far too many cruise missiles on civilian targets that do no military harm (but do piss off the civilians even more and make them hate the Russians even more).

That's the action of an ex in a nasty divorce who has decided the marriage can't work and is taking an axe to a favorite pool table or sewing table or some framed memorabilia or a family pet or an in-law, or taking scissors to the family photo album. It's not the actions of a man who thinks he can actually conquer and then unify a country with his own people.

The missiles alone make me wonder if he's decided he can't win it, and is just impotently lashing out, it harkens back to Hitler flipping out at Berlin being hit and so he lashes out at London, given the RAF time and space to recuperate.  Think of the hundreds of missiles directed at civilian buildings, playgrounds, schools, hospitals, businesses, etc. and imagine if instead, they were dumping them onto Ukrainian airfields and logistics hubs, or even closer to the front (the Russians have got to have intel on Ukrainian installations).  Of course, then we circle back to whether the missiles are all that accurate and if they aren't, they just point them at the cities to try to do something, anything, or if they are accurate, Putin doesn't want them all shot down around heavily-defended Ukrainian military installations, or doesn't think Russian production can outpace Western resupply efforts to the anti-air installations.

[Captainant 28600]

6 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

And all of this goes back to the missiles.  Putin is expending far too many cruise missiles on civilian targets that do no military harm (but do piss off the civilians even more and make them hate the Russians even more).

Not to mention, they're running out of sea based launch platforms for those missiles thanks to UAF naval drone warfare and SCALP strikes. 

6 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

That's the action of an ex in a nasty divorce who has decided the marriage can't work and is taking an axe to a favorite pool table or sewing table or some framed memorabilia or a family pet or an in-law, or taking scissors to the family photo album. It's not the actions of a man who thinks he can actually conquer and then unify a country with his own people.

The missiles alone make me wonder if he's decided he can't win it, and is just impotently lashing out, it harkens back to Hitler flipping out at Berlin being hit and so he lashes out at London, given the RAF time and space to recuperate.  Think of the hundreds of missiles directed at civilian buildings, playgrounds, schools, hospitals, businesses, etc. and imagine if instead, they were dumping them onto Ukrainian airfields and logistics hubs, or even closer to the front (the Russians have got to have intel on Ukrainian installations).  Of course, then we circle back to whether the missiles are all that accurate and if they aren't, they just point them at the cities to try to do something, anything, or if they are accurate, Putin doesn't want them all shot down around heavily-defended Ukrainian military installations, or doesn't think Russian production can outpace Western resupply efforts to the anti-air installations.

I think we are going to see a shift in russian strategy towards 1944/45 Japanese strategy - they know they can't win so instead they'll make it as painful and costly as possible to encourage an early armistice. Putin is dancing on a razors edge to not get coup'd as he cranks up the pain on his citizenry, but I don't really know how the plane gets landed without another russian revolution or social restructuring at this point

Edited October 3, 2023 by Captainant

[BamaATL 16593]

There are a couple things I wanted to clarify.

1.  I am not belittling women and their ability contribute to productivity.  I am belittling Russia's attitude towards women and their lack of inclusion in their workforce.  So when I said it's more damning to Russia when men die, it's not because I think women can't be productive, it's because Russia has essentially squandered them as a productivity resource.  

2.  I didn't include/expound on Ukrainian demographics and losses.  Their losses are significant and their human resources are also finite.  However, there are a couple of things that make them and Russia different in this regard.  The first and most important aspect is that for them this is existential, meaning if they don't win, they don't exist.  That's entirely a different picture than what the Russians are facing.  The second is that they have the advantage of western equipment and western medicine in their fold.  I'm of the belief that as a result the kia rate for them is significantly lower, and the wia rate is more apt to be favorable to returning to action.  

[InkaUtexas 26959]

They have no problem sending their women to work the skin game in Dubai on 90 day visas, so there is that. 

Concerning the WIA I agree. Better Western medicine is available including thousands of people donating equipment, serving as volunteers, etc. Add to that the West opening up hospitals to wounded UA military and civilians. Shorter evacuation lines, and I really don't think Russia invested in front line hospitals in the occupied territories. 

 

[atomheartbevo 90674]

46 minutes ago, BamaATL said:

2.  I didn't include/expound on Ukrainian demographics and losses.  Their losses are significant and their human resources are also finite.  However, there are a couple of things that make them and Russia different in this regard.  The first and most important aspect is that for them this is existential, meaning if they don't win, they don't exist.  That's entirely a different picture than what the Russians are facing.

Yeah, if Russia faced an existential crisis, Putin wouldn't be signing decrees opening up mobilization to schizophrenic and other mentally ill people, to hardcore criminals, loosening physical health standards, changing the volunteer age range to 18-65, etc. he'd be straight up mobilizing millions of Russian men, including from Moscow/St. Petersburg, and it wouldn't matter what ailments they had, and few would be allowed to stay in the civilian jobs ("essential" workers in an existential crisis are different from "essential" workers in a voluntary war where you're trying to keep the economy somewhat going).

Instead, Putin is trying to thread that needle, tying into what @BamaATL said, in terms of keeping the "skilled" workforce that contributes directly to the economy within their current jobs, while trying to fully open the military up to "undesirables" that are not contributing to a skilled workforce (mentally ill, physically ill, hardened criminals, old people, etc.) or are in menial jobs where they could easily be replaced by a 16 or 17 year-old or whatever (including the unskilled agricultural and oil/gas/lumber/etc. industries).  That first order for 300,000 to be mobilized a year ago, that stung the financial sector a bit (although they probably look back on that with fondness now).  Since then, he's been trying to keep mobilization on the download (hence the digital summons).

[InkaUtexas 26959]

Russia being Russia and yeah, sanctions can work. Plus it is a stolen aircraft.