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[MaxTheFox]

That is a possibility.

[Madman198237]

Artillery doesn't use depleted uranium. Its characteristics (high density, pyrophoricity, self-sharpening) are not useful in (indirect) artillery shells, which are not used to get direct hits.

Other tank projectiles use tungsten or other heavy metals, which are basically just as bad as DU for health effects. The radiation given off by DU is very minor, you would need to have quite a lot of DU shards stuck in your body for a very long time in order to suffer any long-term radiation effects, let alone acute radiation poisoning.

The US also had nuclear-capable artillery, in calibers of >5", including nuclear-tipped battleship shells for the Iowas. I doubt any of them are still in inventory in any country because they're, well, a really bad idea.


And if you think regular artillery using nuclear shells is crazy, try the Davy Crockett system, that fired intentionally radiation-heavy nuclear shells from a recoilless rifle with a maximum range barely longer than the minimum safe distance from the radiation burst.

[Jopax]

Nah, pretty much all of their 5 main SPG's are capable of firing tactical nuclear ammo, fairly low yield but still far more powerful than regular ammo. Which isn't really saying much as the stuff the US and most of NATO uses is also capable of firing those kinds of rounds, so yeah, pretty much 100% clickbait by way of careful truth selection :V

[Lord Shonus]

After the giant atomic cannon test, the US developed nuclear-tipped shells for 16", 8", and 6" artillery. The 16" and 8" guns are gone, but the 6" ones are not - 6" (152mm-155mm) is an extremely common caliber for tube atrillery. There is no reason to believe that the Soviets could not do the same. Meaning that the majority of fieldpieces in service are "capable" of firing nuclear shells.

Naturally, so are the large number of tactical ballistic missiles that both sides will be firing off (with non-nuclear warheads" in the first hours of any serious conflict. Or Russia's fleet of tactical support aircraft.

"Nuclear capable" doesn't really mean much. It is when there's reports of actual nuclear warheads being brought up that the capability becomes a concern.

[Robsoie]

The radiation given off by DU is very minor, you would need to have quite a lot of DU shards stuck in your body for a very long time in order to suffer any long-term radiation effects, let alone acute radiation poisoning.

"minor" when you're a soldier prepared for handling those kind of ammo, with military medical help like pills and etc.. and that will only have a short time exposition to the particles.
But when you're a civilian that will have to live for decades around the zone on which such ammo has been used, things may be very different according to the doctors reports in the article linked in the previous post.

[MaxTheFox]

The radiation given off by DU is very minor, you would need to have quite a lot of DU shards stuck in your body for a very long time in order to suffer any long-term radiation effects, let alone acute radiation poisoning.

"minor" when you're a soldier prepared for handling those kind of ammo, with military medical help like pills and etc.. and that will only have a short time exposition to the particles.
But when you're a civilian that will have to live for decades around the zone on which such ammo has been used, things may be very different according to the doctors reports in the article linked in the previous post.

Same for tungsten and simply unexploded ordnance left behind.

[Starver]

Generally, I'd say that anything in The Sun is probably overinflated tosh (except when they still had their Page 3 Girls, when they at least might not have had much room for tosh on that page).

Like has been said, nuclear shells 'were a thing', during the white-hot heat of  "we can easily put nuclear in everything to make it better!" (even Operation Ploughshare stuff, and the Orion launch system) for a Jetsons/Thunderbirds future in peacetime and who-knows-what future in war.

They have, however, moved nuclear-capable forces up against Ukraine (I think the rocketry launchers are the more credible) and ran drills for their Nuclear Forces arm (the whole lot) just a couple of days ago, overseen by Putin, which is either brinksmanship or uncharacteristically bad optics in our eyes (maybe it was a home-facing "look how seriously we all face this threat from The West™" optic) but I don't think it'll actally work as a 'deterent' to the defence of the Ukraine, if that's what they were hoping for.

MAD works if both sides take each other seriously. I don't know about Russia, but I don't think NATO has enough belief that Russia would lob nukes for... 'Greater Crimea', to include Kiev and Lviv? Given that, I can't see how there aren't plenty of conventional long-range weapons already zeroed in on every actual (non-separatist) border-crossing point, or within an aircraft's launch of being so. If anything goes nuclear, it'll be a mis-step from the unknown psychology of Russia, not a Jack D. Ripper/T.J. Kong character. (Worst case scenario: some sort of Valeri Petrofsky doing something underhand to muddy the waters.)

Of course, future-history might prove me wrong, but I predict Cold War-with-border-skirmishes for an indeterminate amount of time, and then what happens next depends upon how Ukraine's population (and president) decide to act upon the reality of it[1], which could go in a number of diverging ways, probably all at once. And I don't think there's enough certainty in there for master-tactician Putin to know it'll go to his advantage, so I don't even know how he thinks he'll 'win' this one.

Making Ukraine (or more) into 'Greater Chernobyl' just doesn't seem like something that'd go through his mind. And even Belarus (its people, if not its leader) might complain about that!


[1] And of course the UN, but what with the Security Council being as it is, this relies upon Russia not being totally frozen out, which relies upon (at least) China not being sympathetic with them. Whether a simultaneous Taiwan scenario is helpful or harmful is a doozy of a question. I can see why some think there's got to be some back-channel coordination between the two. Although I wouldn't put it past either to be prepared to stab the other in the back over the 'plan'.

[LordBaal]

You never heard of the nuclear hand granade?

[ZBridges]

Denial aint just a river in Egypt.

Putin has been harping about missiles and NATO presence for at least 5 years, out of the mans own lips.


The thing to point out-- Has the US, or the NATO powers, ever once fired a missile into Russia in that time?  No. It never did.

Putin asserts that the US and NATO have "ignored" Russia's security concerns. He's been saying it for months even. (But wait there's more!) (And EVEN MOAR!) What is Russia concerned about? The missile attacks that never happened, and would be politically suicidal to make happen unprovoked?

No.  The "Concerns" of Russia are just paranoid posturing at their most base level, and at the most malign, merely a mask worn-- a facade to cover his blind and naked ambition to reclaim the former soviet bloc countries For Mother Russia.

Do not fall for his bullshit.  Call him out on it-- Yes, the US and NATO have not capitulated to a nonsense demand, and have not capitulated to a nonsense demand for nearly a decade now.  why? Because it is, was, and ever shall be a nonsense demand.

Putin needs to shut the fuck up, and withdraw his troops, and save what little dignity Russia has, while he still can.  Nobody's buying his bullshit.

If nobody is buying his bullshit, why does the current US administration keep saying that Russia will invade imminently?  Is this another attempt at misinformation?

[Lord Shonus]

"Nobody is buying his bullshit" means "nobody with a working brain believes that any of Putin's statements are anything but bald-faced lies to cover naked aggression". The US and others are giving "invasion imminent" warnings because Putin is spewing out one Big Lie after another while massing troops aon his border with a sovereign nation that he does not like.

[Starver]

With France[1] having just negotiated a USA/USSRRussia summit, I think it looks like Putin's desperate need to look powerful may have born fruit for him. But if the summit happens (contingent upon no further attack, at least) it's hard to tell how much of this advantage can be leveraged further, and how much a right-royally pissed-off Biden (as I'm sure he is) will stand by (small-d) democratic rights and Ukrainian self-sovereignty and be the immovable object vs. the allegedly irresistable force. (I don't think he can be the latter against Vlad's version of the former, or would want to be.)

Home-support for Putin will be buoyed up, naturally, but I'm not sure that was ever a problem to be solved this sort of way.

((PPE: This amateur assesment notwithstanding Lord Shonus's ninjaing statement, which I also agree with, in this tangled tactical troika....))

[1] Extra brownie points for Macron in the upcoming elections, if it goes well. Some risk that if it goes (some versions of) badly that it'll put him in the direction of Pétain rather than de Gaulle, but the worst of those outcomes possibly preclude the planned elections anyway.

[MrRoboto75]

right-royally pissed-off Biden (as I'm sure he is)

I'm not 100% certain Biden can experience anger.

I think if push really comes to shove the US isn't actually going to bother saving Ukraine.  Our military industrial complex will have tons of fun selling arms to them, but we won't actually intervene with troops.  Russia will be "appeased" with it until they eventually try to push further.  Of course the US doesn't want to outright SAY they'll abandon Ukraine, but if Russia knocks tomorrow we aren't doing anything.  Feel free to prove me wrong.

[Lord Shonus]

Ukraine isn't a terrible match for Russia on the ground. Russia's biggest potential advantage is airpower, as their air forces are significantly superior (on paper) to Ukraine's in both quantity and quality. This is also an advantage that is hard for the West to counter, because simply shipping over F-35s wouldn't do much good due to the time needed for retraining and the complex logistical requirements (if nothing else, a country that uses primarily ex-Soviet aircraft will have significant issues arming a plane that cannot use Soviet missiles, bombs, or cannon shells). Making matters worse, up until the Gulf War, NATO forces took it as given that they would fight under a neutral sky at the very worst, because the USAF, RAF, and French Air Force are very, very good at keeping other people out of the sky. This means that mobile SAM systems or other ground-based AA (particularly SHORAD (Short Ranged Air Defenses) intended to cover individual formations rather than entire regions) are a serious weakness in the NATO arsenal. Attempts to rectify this have been repeatedly derailed by the needs imposed by Operation Bomb Useless Dirt.

Equally important, sending in ground troops takes time, and is effectively impossible to do secretly. Having the US Army positioned on the Ukraine-Russia border might deter an attack, but "the US army is heading toward Ukraine to take up defensive positions" is all too likely to put Putin in a "Do or die" mode and start the invasion in the hopes of having the war over before the US can get there - the Spring Offensive of 1917 all over again.

Worst of all, once you start having Russian boys going into the ground with American bullets in them (and vice-versa), you risk getting a very serious US-Russia conflict going that neither side can back down from. That goes scary places. Not to mention that a NATO combat force that smashes a Russian invasion will (from the Russian perspective) start looking very much like an invasion force looking for a "Final Solution to the Russian Question".



Or, in other words, sending in ground troops probably won't help much, and could very well make the situation worse. In the event that Biden decided on a military solution, the most practical solution would be a "no-fly zone" over the conflict area, possibly escalating to Close Air Support (CAS) and Interdiction missions against Russian ground forces. That's much easier to contain, and doesn't require a major redeployment - there are already NATO air forces in position to fight Russia in the skies.

Even if no military action is taken, the economic consequences Russia faces if Biden goes through with what he's already threatened are absolutely devastating. If Putin goes through regardless, it will be because he's decided that Biden's bluffing, or else that the world needs Russia so much that a few month of belt-tightening will bring everybody crawling back. Or else that the loss of face from backing down will hurt him personally more than the economic dislocation will.

[LordBaal]

A lot of whatsapp messages saying that Putin efectivelly gave order to invade Ucraine today, just the green ligth, that the attack migth come any day now....

Of course being were I am, lots of press and missinformation stating how Russia is just defending from capitalist agressions and that Ucranie is invading Crimea.... :/

[Starver]

"Ukraine has always been at war with Crimea!" "There are five fingers!"