Русский корабль - иди нахуй

[Bateshorn 9920]

Just now, Schulz2.0 said:

 

The Lame Duck is going to be tough as shit.  I think the Senate is going to have to make a decision about whether to do another Ukraine supplemental in December to try and give them at least another year or two of funding without having to go through the House. There's ways to work around in the Defense Authorization act, but it's mostly nibbling at the edges.

[Bevo 13536]

2 minutes ago, Schulz2.0 said:

 

“I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine,” he recently told Punchbowl News. “They just won’t do it.”

McCarthy suggested that Americans want Congress to focus on issues closer to home.

“There’s the things [the Biden administration] is not doing domestically,” he said. “Not doing the border, and people begin to weigh that. Ukraine is important, but at the same time, it can’t be the only thing they do, and it can’t be a blank check.”

[SydneyCarton 47947]

4 minutes ago, Schulz2.0 said:

 

65% of Americans support Ukraine in one of the few bipartisan issues of the day. Of course somehow it will get twisted into partisan hell. For fucks sake WE'RE GIVING THEM OUR OLDER GENERATION SHIT AND IT SPURS MORE OUTPUT OF NEW SHIT JUST GIVE THEM THE FUCKING WEAPONS!

Edited October 18, 2022 by SydneyCarton

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

this is legitimately depressing.  it'll feel vietnam esque if we stop our aid, they get overrun, and that is that.  

[Brisketexan 104831]

22 minutes ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

this is legitimately depressing.  it'll feel vietnam esque if we stop our aid, they get overrun, and that is that.  

Then buckle up, buttercup, because the expected House Majority Leader told you that's exactly what we're going to do.

I hate this fucking timeline so, so, so much.

[The Dog 43903]

The headline doesn't match the quote - a bit clickbaity.

Regardless that's why they did Lend Lease and Russia is running out of gear. 

[Pescado_Rojo 19384]

Seems like we need to give them the good shit while we still can. Get this thing wrapped up before the Putin Party can throw a wrench in things. 

[Bevo 13536]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Then buckle up, buttercup, because the expected House Majority Leader told you that's exactly what we're going to do.

I hate this fucking timeline so, so, so much.

I wouldn't say that and I would expect him to be forced to clarify his comments: “There’s the things [the Biden administration] is not doing domestically,” he said. “Not doing the border, and people begin to weigh that. Ukraine is important, but at the same time, it can’t be the only thing they do, and it can’t be a blank check.”

[SydneyCarton 47947]

2 minutes ago, Bevo said:

I wouldn't say that and I would expect him to be forced to clarify his comments: “There’s the things [the Biden administration] is not doing domestically,” he said. “Not doing the border, and people begin to weigh that. Ukraine is important, but at the same time, it can’t be the only thing they do, and it can’t be a blank check.”

Dude. When's contextually talking about this within the scope of SPENDING LESS MONEY and using the DEBT CEILING to curb spending, while talking about all the other shit they want to spend money...he's tacitly telling you they're going to give way less to Ukraine. It's like my fucking 4 year old telling me that it's not that he wants candy for dinner SPECIFICALLY, it's that he wants to skip dinner and go straight to dessert. Come the fuck on. 

There is also a reason reports coming out from Russia and their own propaganda news shows have referenced the importance of the US mid-term elections. Well...here you fucking go. Proof that Russia certainly prefers one party in power. 

Edited October 18, 2022 by SydneyCarton

[956 Worldwide 34598]

4 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

Honestly, one of y'all with military/political/diplomatic/NAFO insight needs to explain to me just how this thing ends.  Because I don't see it.

Right now, you've got two combatants who are locked in a death grip with one another.  This isn't anything like Afghanistan, where the Russians could just decide they'd had enough, cross a bridge, and be done with it.  Even if Russia were to evacuate all of the occupied territories, they've kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian citizens.  And I just don't see the Ukrainians not pursuing that militarily.

Because, let's be honest--if Russia were to evacuate the occupied territories (and I think we all agree that Ukraine isn't going to stop fighting until that happens, including the Crimea, right?), that would probably mean that the Russian military is so badly degraded that it can't defend Russian territory.  By that point, the road to Moscow might be open, allowing significant Ukrainian advances into Russia itself.  But of course, that really does raise the prospect of nuclear-weapon use.

So neither of these sides can stop fighting unilaterally.  And there's really no available political solution that could result in an agreed cessation of the fighting.  So I really don't see how this turns into anything other than a very long war.

And to a very large degree, I think that suits us just fine.

The way the United States has been dispensing aid, it's pretty clear that the primary goal is to degrade the Russian military.  Ensuring Ukrainian victory is a goal, but it is decidedly a secondary goal.  If that were the primary goal, we'd be giving them the good stuff--Abrams tanks, Bradley IFVs, F-16s--and the Ukrainians would be able to eject the Russians from Ukrainian territory in a couple months.  But we're not doing that.  Instead, we're giving them just enough of the right kind of weapons to make sure that they kill a lot of Russians and destroy a lot of Russian equipment without really having the ability to redeem all of their territory.

And from a purely cynical standpoint, I think that makes a lot of sense.  We don't owe Ukraine anything.  And Ukraine shouldn't expect anything to come from the goodness of our hearts.  What we've got going on right now is an exchange of goods for services.  We give them goods, and they give us the service of killing as many Russians as possible.  

And that's an important service, because it means that Russia can't meaningfully threaten a NATO ally for at least the next decade.  And because an attack on a NATO ally would have to be met with American military force, that saves American lives.

 

 

So . . . TLDR: Buckle up--this is a multi-year war that is going to result in hundreds of thousands of deaths on both sides.  But in reality, that's a feature, not a bug.  That long-term war of attrition degrades Russia and thereby makes America safer.

I agree and don’t agree with a lot of this.  In the first, I am obstinately opposed to the idea that a long drawn out war of attrition suits the United States and that the military degradation of Russia is the primary goal. If it were, the best way to do that would be to actually give Ukraine the things it needs to destroy Russia’s military.  The brake here is in fact Putin’s nuclear blackmail and brinksmanship.  We’re trying to help Ukraine win while not sparking a massive war and we’re being pretty conservative in doing so. 
 

Democratic nations do not like slow-moving long term crises, the longer they last the more they become a liability and Biden would love far more to say “Me and Ukraine kicked some Russian ass” than to slowly feed meat from Krasnodar to the grinder and potentially watch it get away from him. 
 

Ukraine rolling on to Moscow is a phantasm, they are entirely dependent on the West for what they can do now and no U.S. leader would countenance it. We won’t give them long range missiles and fighters NOW. Not to mention that the well-documented logistics issues the Russians have would bite Ukraine just as bad if not worse the other way and Ukraine has absolutely nothing to gain in continuing a war it has already won. Just like the French in 1918, victory is the other army going home. Putin retains the technical ability to simply fold and go home but this is not a military question now. 
 

As for how it ends, something completely unexpected or anticlimactic is just as likely as a dramatic resolution.  Wars tend to drag on stupidly longer than the people who start them imagine. The one person who has the most to say about this appears to have thought about how to end it least because he never imagined he’d be in a position of having to end without winning. 
 

We aren’t grasping just how big this conflict is or can get, it is not a regional conflict. It’s a struggle over how the world is going to work.  Looking back to a hypothetical message board in late 1914, who would bet that the war would end when the tsar was tossed out and an unknown name Lenin rolled in from Finland station? This war is a lot more like 1914 than it is 1941 and big part of that is because nuclear weapons have the effect of freezing this thing where neither side can get the upper hand.
 

It’s astonishingly stupid and dangerous, the whole idea of nuclear weapons is to never get into existential struggles with your neighbors that you can avoid, but here we are. 

[956 Worldwide 34598]

5 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

Dude. When's contextually talking about this within the scope of SPENDING LESS MONEY and using the DEBT CEILING to curb spending, while talking about all the other shit they want to spend money...he's tacitly telling you they're going to give way less to Ukraine. It's like my fucking 4 year old telling me that it's not that he wants candy for dinner SPECIFICALLY, it's that he wants to skip dinner and go straight to dessert. Come the fuck on. 

There is also a reason reports coming out from Russia and their own propaganda news shows have referenced the importance of the US mid-term elections. Well...here you fucking go. Proof that Russia certainly prefers one party in power. 

There’s been some nuance in what McCarthy has said. He’s expressed a lot of willingness to keep sending guns but has openly grumped about humanitarian aid. I won’t go farther with that on the DT board, but that is the angle to look at. 

[tx 3 putt 76692]

beautiful 

 

[Chad Fuck 17610]

beautiful 
 

That is nuts. It’s like it hit the fuse of some munition inside.

[tx 3 putt 76692]

4 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:

That is nuts. It’s like it hit the fuse of some munition inside.

 

im starting to think that any advancing force can be slowed down by masses of drones with varying amounts of explosives. 10's of thousands of them 

[InkaUtexas 25688]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

Then buckle up, buttercup, because the expected House Majority Leader told you that's exactly what we're going to do.

I hate this fucking timeline so, so, so much.

So open up the depots in Germany now. Transfer the APS fleet's load to the Poles, let them come back and refill. USMC Pre-positioned? head to Norway and drop your shit off. See you at Blount Island for Christmas. Sign any contract we can with the eastern nato countries and fill up their arsenal. Yo, Algeria, ya want some Korean tanks? Send those T-72's to Ukraine. And sorry Saudi and the UAE, make peace in Yemen cuz those Patriot refills are heading east. 

We have a ton of equipment in Europe we can transfer. Let the Ukrainians have it and defend Europe. 

 

 

[Brisketexan 104831]

9 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

im starting to think that any advancing force can be slowed down by masses of drones with varying amounts of explosives. 10's of thousands of them 

Here's my question....what is the typical altitude of the drones doing these grenade drops?

And then the next question....is there some sort of relatively cheap device (radar, sonar, something that picks up the radio guidance signals being sent to the drones) that can be mounted on vehicles?

Then the third question -- if they are detectable, and they are below a few hundred feet, could they be handled by a member of the platoon carrying a 10 gauge or something similar?

 

In case it wasn't clear, I know next to nothing about drone interdiction, except those cool videos we all saw a few years ago about falcons taught to take them out at airports or some shit like that.

 

[InkaUtexas 25688]

Fuck 10 g. Give them M-79's with flechette rounds. 40mm canon and will hit that high. 

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

9 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Here's my question....what is the typical altitude of the drones doing these grenade drops?

And then the next question....is there some sort of relatively cheap device (radar, sonar, something that picks up the radio guidance signals being sent to the drones) that can be mounted on vehicles?

Then the third question -- if they are detectable, and they are below a few hundred feet, could they be handled by a member of the platoon carrying a 10 gauge or something similar?

 

In case it wasn't clear, I know next to nothing about drone interdiction, except those cool videos we all saw a few years ago about falcons taught to take them out at airports or some shit like that.

 

the one upthread showed a drop at :22 and impact at :27, so a little 9.8m/s^2  / 32.2 m/s^2 says --

delta x = 1/2 a t^2 = 400 feet

 

[Brisketexan 104831]

1 minute ago, InkaUtexas said:

Fuck 10 g. Give them M-79's with flechette rounds. 40mm canon and will hit that high. 

Well, see, my firearms background is more of the redneck variety, not the combat-trained variety, so I appreciate your input.

Either way, I think shooting drones down would be fun as shit:

 

I mean, if the Russians tried it, it would probably go more like this, but still:

 

1 minute ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

the one upthread showed a drop at :22 and impact at :27, so a little 9.8m/s^2  / 32.2 m/s^2 says --

delta x = 1/2 a t^2 = 400 feet

 

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

i mean 32.2 ft/s^2 for gravity, not meters, of course.

[InkaUtexas 25688]

7 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Well, see, my firearms background is more of the redneck variety, not the combat-trained variety, so I appreciate your input.

Either way, I think shooting drones down would be fun as shit:

 

I mean, if the Russians tried it, it would probably go more like this, but still:

 

I hope Future Command and some students from RLM are working on this. 

And yeah, I would love to go drone hunting. 

OR we could make mini catapults with lots of BB's. I would shoot those as well and no radar/heat signature. 

Edited October 18, 2022 by InkaUtexas

[Chad Fuck 17610]

52 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

im starting to think that any advancing force can be slowed down by masses of drones with varying amounts of explosives. 10's of thousands of them 

This is what the Chinese fishing militia is about.  Numbers matter.  

[Bateshorn 9920]

38 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

 

 

Quoted for the pup. That’s a very good doggo.

[Brisketexan 104831]

1 minute ago, Bateshorn said:

Quoted for the pup. That’s a very good doggo.

Man, I miss my labs.  Had labs for 25 years, retrieved SO many birds.  Had to put our last one down a month after the snowpocalypse....and don't know if we have another dog in us.  But damn, a good, birdy retriever is one of the best things in life.

[Gravy Train 974]

1 hour ago, Chad Fuck said:

That is nuts. It’s like it hit the fuse of some munition inside.

Big boom with different footage merged.  Looks fake to me.  

This one ain't:

 

[Bateshorn 9920]

28 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Man, I miss my labs.  Had labs for 25 years, retrieved SO many birds.  Had to put our last one down a month after the snowpocalypse....and don't know if we have another dog in us.  But damn, a good, birdy retriever is one of the best things in life.

Get your travel on, brother, now that you don’t have to be home by 5 to let the dog out.

 

At some point, you’ll start surfing dog sites and a very good boy/girl will find you. 

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

damn.  that takes some real precision to get that one guy, and the curves in the trench protect everyone 10 feet away from the explosion.

[Bevo 13536]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

Here's my question....what is the typical altitude of the drones doing these grenade drops?

And then the next question....is there some sort of relatively cheap device (radar, sonar, something that picks up the radio guidance signals being sent to the drones) that can be mounted on vehicles?

Then the third question -- if they are detectable, and they are below a few hundred feet, could they be handled by a member of the platoon carrying a 10 gauge or something similar?

 

In case it wasn't clear, I know next to nothing about drone interdiction, except those cool videos we all saw a few years ago about falcons taught to take them out at airports or some shit like that.

 

They would be somewhere in-between picking up mallards as they descend into a field and geese flying high in formation under a blue sky. 10 gauge even with buckshot won't bring them down unless you are the one being targeted and the drone is right over your head.

[Brisketexan 104831]

2 minutes ago, Bevo said:

They would be somewhere in-between picking up mallards as they descend into a field and geese flying high in formation under a blue sky. 10 gauge even with buckshot won't bring them down unless you are the one being targeted and the drone is right over your head.

What about this 8 gauge I found online?

[atomheartbevo 89547]

6 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

Right now, you've got two combatants who are locked in a death grip with one another.  This isn't anything like Afghanistan, where the Russians could just decide they'd had enough, cross a bridge, and be done with it.  Even if Russia were to evacuate all of the occupied territories, they've kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian citizens.  And I just don't see the Ukrainians not pursuing that militarily.

Putin could end it by pulling out and returning the civilians.  Of course, it would mean that he's probably going to lose power, and also he believes he's smarter than everybody else, and would never admit he made a mistake, so he's going to double down.

6 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

The way the United States has been dispensing aid, it's pretty clear that the primary goal is to degrade the Russian military.  Ensuring Ukrainian victory is a goal, but it is decidedly a secondary goal.  If that were the primary goal, we'd be giving them the good stuff--Abrams tanks, Bradley IFVs, F-16s--and the Ukrainians would be able to eject the Russians from Ukrainian territory in a couple months.  But we're not doing that.  Instead, we're giving them just enough of the right kind of weapons to make sure that they kill a lot of Russians and destroy a lot of Russian equipment without really having the ability to redeem all of their territory.

I see it as the opposite - the US (and NATO) has been steadily increasing aid based on the capabilities of Ukraine to support and efficiently (and safely) use what we give them.  We worked within the limitation of training their standing army with what they possessed and would have immediate access to, which was mostly Soviet-era equipment.

We also needed to know that if we shipped them an expensive weapons system, that they would use them properly (and not simply be dropping expensive rounds on open fields because somebody wasn't programming coordinates properly) and more importantly they wouldn't immediately lose it to the Russians (whether by capture or air or artillery strike).  We damned sure couldn't start dropping in F-16s if there was a chance that the Russians would immediately knock them out with missiles/air strikes, we needed to make sure that the Ukrainians could keep their own Air Force running.

In terms of your examples - Abrams and Bradleys and F-16s each require a hefty repair/maintenance/logistics chain that we've had in place for well over four decades - that's a shit-ton of institutional knowledge that is passed down from mechanic-to-mechanic, in training schools that have four decades worth of expensively-learned knowledge.  And that's before we talk about training people to use them.

Don't get me wrong, I would have liked it if we took Ukrainian pilots and started getting them up to speed on F-16s back in March, just in case, but NATO has enough Soviet aircraft for now that we can push into the Ukrainians, and then backfill those NATO nations with F-16s.  That would be easier for us to help supply and get up and running in a country where we can have boots on the ground looking over the shoulders of their mechanics and pilots, versus pushing them into Ukraine, where our personnel would not cross the border and couldn't do hands-on help.

We also can't just stand up Abrams, Bradley, and F-16 maintenance/logistics support infrastructure in Ukraine, where it was completely staffed by Ukrainians.  Abrams run on turbines, which would slow down Ukrainian mechanics used to the engines of Soviet equipment, and they share no parts with the Soviet T-series.  Our F-16s share no parts with Soviet aircraft, etc. and we would have to move a massive amount of spare parts and ammo into Ukraine as well, and those would be fixed locations, prone to attack by Russian air.  There's also a reason why we stockpile that equipment and weapons in Europe, the Pacific, and Middle East, because it's not easy to move that much gear that quickly, as good as our airlift and sealift are.

With that said, We have been steadily helping to build up a Ukrainian military that is poised to go on the offensive, up to and including the taking of Crimea.

We have been training tens of thousands of their soldiers, we have been providing extremely expensive and accurate artillery (both barrel and rocket), we are working with them on unmanned water-based vehicles that in theory could take out their ships/subs sitting at anchor.  We have been providing more and more anti-air defense (AGM-88s, etc.), and now that much of their cruise missile capacity has been eaten up, all the while we are boosting their anti-air defenses,  today NATO shifted their priority to countering drones as well.  These things are meant to help Ukraine proper in dealing with Russian air attacks, but also help the Ukrainian military focus on their offensives.

I'm not saying that our aid has been perfect, but there should be plenty of case studies written about this, because everything we have provided has been put to extremely good use, so whatever we are doing in terms of training and supplies is working.

And it's working well - Russia is having to resort to buying weapons from fucking Iran, bringing 60 year-old tanks out of retirement, and they are literally kidnapping random men off the streets to fill their ranks.

Edited October 18, 2022 by atomheartbevo

[Pods 7551]

The ones I've seen have been delta wing designs. You'd have to put a really big hole in it to get a delta wing to lose lift.

That said, they are big and clumsy, not at all maneuverable and with a distinctive radar signal. We need to get Ukraine more air defense systems and they'll fuck these Iranian drones up. 

Edited October 18, 2022 by Pods

[InkaUtexas 25688]

10 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

What about this 8 gauge I found online?

You bring that, I will go get one of these. I am sure the Russians will start pulling them out soon. 

 

[InkaUtexas 25688]

Any O/G types want to weigh in? 

 

[Brisketexan 104831]

In fairness, it's a blown-out pipe -- it could have been caused by Taco Bell.

[elfenix 34208]

12 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

You bring that, I will go get one of these. I am sure the Russians will start pulling them out soon. 

 

steampunk 2022 > cyberpunk 2077

[Bevo 13536]

25 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

What about this 8 gauge I found online?

It would be fun except for the fact that you would be shooting at something that can fire back. And if it is anything like my hunting, I would need lots of boxes of shells and an ice pack. Oh, and a cooler.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Bevo

[elfenix 34208]

3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

In fairness, it's a blown-out pipe -- it could have been caused by Taco Bell.

you'd need all of scott martin's $28 taco bell order to do that much damage

[Brisketexan 104831]

1 minute ago, elfenix said:

you'd need all of scott martin's $28 taco bell order to do that much damage

[InkaUtexas 25688]

Well guess the Embassies in Pyongyang, Damascus and Asmara are going to grow. 

 

[MillerEP 30394]

 

[MillerEP 30394]

 

[Pods 7551]

10 minutes ago, Bevo said:

It would be fun except for the fact that you would be shooting at something that can fire back. And if it is anything like my hunting, I would need lots of boxes of shells and an ice pack. Oh, and a cooler.

Should be safe trying to shoot them. The ones the Russians have been using are delta wing kamikaze drones and not very agile at the speeds they fly. I also read that they are pre-programed with a target, so they can't be jammed as easily. 

Edited October 18, 2022 by Pods

[MillerEP 30394]

 

[MillerEP 30394]

 

[MillerEP 30394]

 

[MillerEP 30394]

 

 

Edited October 18, 2022 by MillerEP

[Bevo 13536]

5 minutes ago, MillerEP said:

 

Well, if Iran ships missiles with a 300-700km range, I think that opens the door for us to do the same.

[atomheartbevo 89547]

32 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

You bring that, I will go get one of these. I am sure the Russians will start pulling them out soon. 

 

It's descendants have to be making it proud

 

[Nivek 16894]

3 hours ago, Bevo said:

“I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine,” he recently told Punchbowl News. “They just won’t do it.”

McCarthy suggested that Americans want Congress to focus on issues closer to home.

“There’s the things [the Biden administration] is not doing domestically,” he said. “Not doing the border, and people begin to weigh that. Ukraine is important, but at the same time, it can’t be the only thing they do, and it can’t be a blank check.”

We should definitely invest in a border wall instead of Ukraine.  

[MillerEP 30394]

^"We will kill you until you like us"

 

Edited October 18, 2022 by MillerEP