we in the west have no comprehension of how terrible the war was for Russia, our only point of reference is the holocaust and that hasnt exactly left the Jewish diaspora in a great state of mind, that memory coupled with the disaster of fall of communism and the poverty and pain that caused have left Russia in a sad place, they live in fear of being weak but also live in a country that is no better off than Spain Romania and so by definition cant afford to be strong.
Fyp
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
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The last time US declared that another president has committed war crimes, they bombed his country (Iraq). I get Saddam didn't have nukes, but it appears to be the only thing that stops US from striking Moscow. Could US perform some kind of sabotage on Russian's nuclear weapons and then strike? Average men such as me don't really understand how it works and it's worries.
1. US is obviously itching to destroy Putin
2. The only thing that's stopping them is nukes
3. US secret service are very likely trying their best to undermine Putin's ability to nuke
4. US have their spies very close to Putin. Putin has been really scared by US intelligence, as evidenced by the fact that he has limited US embassy capacity some years ago because of their alleged spying activity.
5. Now what if by the end if the year US intelligence will figure out how to neutralize Russia's ability to nuke back? Then US blasts Moscow off map and be done with it.
I still think it's unlikely. But I no longer think it's impossible
I don't think there's any equivalent between the Gulf War situation and this one when it comes to strategy. Saddam had in theory chemical weapons, but not the ability to project that power on a strategic level. He could gas his neighbors. He could probably launch missiles with chemical weapons at Israel. But he didn't because even as nutty as he was, he knew the line.
If we don't think that Putin knows the line that keeps Russia untouched, we're fooling ourselves.
Sabotaging Russia's nuclear arsenal is right out of a Tom Clancy novel. It sounds like a cool idea, but its unlikely to happen. Mainly for the pure numbers of nukes. The different ways of deployment and strategic over lap. The Russian nuclear command and control system is a closed system, the communication system is hardened and there are redundancies in terms of launch authorization as well.
If we're talking about a nuclear power like for example North Korea that has probably and I'm guessing a dozen long range nuclear weapons, sure there's a possibility. But if we're talking a about a nuclear power with 5000 nuclear warheads. That's different and with overlap where they're targeting major cities with multiple war heads launched from different platforms, even if you take out a few, that city is gone.
The best way to remove Nuclear weapons as a threat is diplomacy, and even in today's enlightened way, diplomacy being used to remove weapons is cosmetic at best as we will never see a reduction of war heads by the major powers to the point where a nuclear exchange becomes "Winnable".
Right now the solution is simple. As much as we can fantasize about NATO jets launching strikes onto Russian soil. Bombing Air force bases, or even Moscow. Its not going to happen. Want to remove the major nuclear strike possibility or even the threat of nukes being used in Russia.
It means sadly no involvement of NATO on the ground or in the air in Ukraine. Attacks on Russian soil is a no go.
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From the news, the Ukrainian's have hit and destroy Russian Amphibious assault ship.
They're reporting that it was the Orsk, which is an Alligator Class of boats, that's designed to carry 400 troops, and either 20 troops, or 40 armored fighting vehicles, and has a crew of 50 men.
They've been using these ships to re-enforce troops, if it was filled with Troops and equipment its not a small loss.
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Did the Ukrainian Navy scuttle their ships to avoid capture by the enemy?
They did scuttle their flag ship, which was the Sahaydachniy, which was a Krivak III frigate. It was under repairs and the Ukrainian Navy didn't want to give the Russian's a propaganda win, and sank it.
Other then that most of Ukraine's navy was captured or destroyed in 2014. They were trying to rebuild it, but its mostly composed of a few small patrol boats and missile boats. Most of their combat capable boats were reported destroyed or captured.
My gut tells me that the Russian Navy was attacked by land assets. or by something completely crazy.
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The reports I am seeing is that it was a simple ballistic missile. Some are speculating that Ukraine used this video of the Orsk released by Russian state media a few days ago to extrapolate the exact coordinates to fire the missile at. If true Ukraine showing once again they are fighting this war much smarter than the Russians
He seems to be trying to argue that Russia really isn't losing as badly as they are...using past war propaganda as proof or that we only see the good Ukraine videos, and simply because they are advancing in certain areas of the country.
The lone tank edit for example, do you really need to see that the tank survived the first and 2nd shot and drove around for 5 minutes? That's why a cut occurs...that doesn't mean that Russians are 'winning' in between those 5 minutes.
The minute he talked about how we don't know how many Javelins is missing versus hitting is where I turned it off. We do know exactly how many Javelins have been used and hit as the US has that data.
I saw a more recent number which was something like 1000 fired 950 confirmed AMV kills but can't find it, this is from March 3
Quote:
At least 280 Russian armoured vehicles have been destroyed with the American Javelin missile, out of 300 shots fired, journalist Jack Murphy said in an article quoting a US Special Operations official.
The difficulty with all of these assessments of how biased the online reports are is trying to work out whether it is coming from a pro Russian bias or just the military establishment that has spent the last 70 years seeing Russia/USSR as the only military equal to the US, in fact for most of that 70 years seeing the USSR as massively more powerful than the US in numbers and its ability to project those numbers in Europe and who are unable to accept that Russia is this incompetent in the light of what we are seeing, you get the sense that most of the 'experts' are thinking 'they must be holding back their best stuff, they cant be this bad surely?'
Also talked on the video in the last part is how russians may be in the middle of a firefight and in communication and could still be doing everything right while their tanks are seemingly unprotected as we don't see out of view what is also happening.
Based on radio intercepts that does not seem to be the case. Some intercepts showing that responses can be as long as 20 minutes.
While he makes some solid general points about the dangers or war propaganda, I feel based on his video tone he is still in denial about how just incompetent the russian military really is, almost too incompetent to even believe it to be possible.
Yes maybe the hubs on tanks were taken to strip from one tank to another (cannibalizing)...or as some videos have shown of active tanks being stripped bare of equipment inside down to wires, that really is how they are operating.
The difficulty with all of these assessments of how biased the online reports are is trying to work out whether it is coming from a pro Russian bias or just the military establishment that has spent the last 70 years seeing Russia/USSR as the only military equal to the US, in fact for most of that 70 years seeing the USSR as massively more powerful than the US in numbers and its ability to project those numbers in Europe and who are unable to accept that Russia is this incompetent in the light of what we are seeing, you get the sense that most of the 'experts' are thinking 'they must be holding back their best stuff, they cant be this bad surely?'
On that note I thought this video was good:
He did a previous video I haven't seen linked here analyzing Russian military spending leading up to this war:
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The lone tank edit for example, do you really need to see that the tank survived the first and 2nd shot and drove around for 5 minutes?
What if it, for example, destroyed three Ukrainian tanks in those five minutes, and then after it gets destroyed the rest of the Russian force drives the Ukrainians away. I would say that paints a pretty different picture.
I don't think anyone is denying the general point that the Russian operation as a whole has gone badly, but the information value of short video clips is still very limited.
we in the west have no comprehension of how terrible the war was for Russia, our only point of reference is the holocaust and that hasnt exactly left the Jewish diaspora in a great state of mind, that memory coupled with the disaster of fall of communism and the poverty and pain that caused have left Russia in a sad place, they live in fear of being weak but also live in a country that is no better off than Spain and so by definition cant afford to be strong.
Yes, of course WW2 was terrible for Russia, but let's not forget that they were also aggressors during WW2. They love to defame Ukrainians because the had Nazi collaborators, but the Soviet Union made a pact with Hitler to partition Europe and invaded no less than 3 other countries while cooperating with the Nazis. Then after WW2, they continued to occupy and oppress areas that they conquered during WW2. They were doing pretty much the same thing as the Nazis, minus the specific targeting of Jews (although they had a long history of pogroms themselves). That doesn't even cover the pre-WW2 conquests of Russia.
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Last edited by FlamesAddiction; 03-24-2022 at 11:37 AM.
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One of the reasons for all bling no basics in the Russian military is most of the hardware and systems they build are sold abroad. So it’s more important that it looks impressive to potential buyers than that it actually works in the field. Also, Russian manufacturing and procurement is so corrupt at every level that it’s more surprising when complex machinery works than when it doesn’t.
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
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