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[Strongpoint]

I'm just waiting to hear more about warehouses and oil depots "mysteriously" burning down

Maybe the Russians cancelled the Air Show because they were afraid that the Jets would "mysteriously" crash?

It may be the case. Imagine what a single Ukrainian saboteur with a manpad somewhere on a roof could do

[EuchreJack]

I'm just waiting to hear more about warehouses and oil depots "mysteriously" burning down

Maybe the Russians cancelled the Air Show because they were afraid that the Jets would "mysteriously" crash?

It may be the case. Imagine what a single Ukrainian saboteur with a manpad somewhere on a roof could do

Or a laser pointer.

[Starver]

Totally different emotional response.... Scraped from the Reporter thread:

[...]the New York Times reports. [...]

[...] she admitted, dressed in black except for a fanny pack with a rainbow belt. [...]

Before reading properly, it confused me a bit. Even for the Grauniad[1], the writing was strange. But then I realised how it says it is quoting the NY Times's[2] write-up.


Because a "fanny pack" would be described as a "bum bag" in British English. And though "Bum bag" might sound strange to a Leftpondian, for various reasons, "Fanny Pack" is almost guaranteed to raise a titter in all but the most oblivious Rightpondian.

Shall we say this is the lighter side of the various emotions in this thread, however?!?


[1] Bevause teh papper si faomusly laible too variuos tyops.
[2] Not the same as "The Times".

[nenjin]

Russian bridging attempt fails with ludicrous casualties

How the fuck do you lose 32 armored vehicles in one fight in 2022 as one of the supposedly top militaries in the world?  That's basically an entire BTG rendered combat-ineffective.  Not even counting human losses which I have no idea, 150? 200?  More?

This shit looks like the aftermath of a Company of Heroes map. Unreal.

I think Russia has, not so secretly, always half-assed everything and used bluster to cover for it. From Nuclear Power Plants to the armed forces and hardware, it feels like half of Russia's perceived power is the belief in it, rather than something more tangible like a well-disciplined army, well-maintained hardware and a competent command structure. I'm sure the US and others have done fucked up plenty in their own theaters too but....man it just seems like amateur hour over there.

[Cthulhu]

Corruption's definitely been eating them alive.  I've been cautious about calling them a paper tiger, since an asymmetrical war against Ukraine's not the same as a full-scale regional war and they're not fighting it like one, but I dunno.

We've all fucked up, but this is nuts.  An entire battalion destroyed (Some other counts are putting it at over 50 vehicles in the photos, plus doubtless some underwater), probably well over 200 soldiers dead in one engagement, if this happened to the US in one of our asymmetric military adventures I feel like it'd be war-ending from public opinion and political backlash alone.

[nenjin]

I would say we probably experienced some shit like that in Vietnam, easily. Just might not have made the news for moral and war support reasons. But being trounced by a tactically and numerically inferior foe? Yeah I feel like we've eaten shit like that before.

Just, not, you know....in the last 50 years.

[Cthulhu]

Vietnam yeah, but I think the situation's completely changed now (partly because of Vietnam of course), with the visibility of stuff like that and the political climate.  I guess 9/11 would make things different now that I think of it, might've just made Americans more bloodthirsty, but in more general terms I don't think Americans would have the stomach for it.  I think if we were off doing some invasion of some smaller country today and had an entire battalion crushed in one swoop, for no gains, it'd be the end of the war right there.

[Lord Shonus]

I would say we probably experienced some shit like that in Vietnam, easily. Just might not have made the news for moral and war support reasons. But being trounced by a tactically and numerically inferior foe? Yeah I feel like we've eaten shit like that before.

Just, not, you know....in the last 50 years.

Vietnam's a terrible analogy for this. US forces did quite well in the actual fighting there, with the biggest problem being the South Vietnamese government being corrupt and incompetent as hell so their army formations (and it was a war of armies, not the inept soldiers owned by militia that pop culture has turned it into) kept getting owned. As large as US numbers were in that war, the ARVN was a much bigger player in both troops deployed and troops lost. Russia is going this basically alone, and they're the ones getting wrecked.


While we don't know what Russia's casualties in this war are, it is highly likely that they've already reached a pretty significant percentage of the US Vietnam casualties of 58,000 KIA.  Except Russia's done it in in four months, while the US spent twelve years. I've said this before, but if Ukrainian claims of Russia's casualties are anywhere close to accurate, the only historical parallels to that loss rate are places like the Somme or Verdun. Or, and most relevant to the region, the engagements of this war are the bloodiest that Russia (or Ukraine!) have been involved in since Kursk in 1943.

[Cthulhu]

Purely numbers-wise Korea might be a better comparison for the US, though I dunno what the political backlash was. The US military was pretty weak at the start of the war and they got hammered until they could establish the Pusan perimeter, thousands of casualties in the first couple months.  Still low compared to whatever the hell Russia has been losing and still a completely different situation, but in terms of "has the US military ever gotten their asses handed to them in a horrible mass-casualty kind of way since WW2"

And yeah, I am concerned by the way quality info on Ukrainian losses never seems to get any visible pull the way Russian losses do. People just don't say and don't look, and that makes me worry.  I still don't buy the "US is using Ukraine as cannon fodder against Russia" thing for the reasons I previously brought up, not necessarily that it's not happening but that the implication behind that rhetoric is that capitulation is a realistic option for Ukraine after Russia's straight up said their plan is to "punish" Ukraine and destroy it as a nation.

[hector13]

Corruption's definitely been eating them alive.  I've been cautious about calling them a paper tiger, since an asymmetrical war against Ukraine's not the same as a full-scale regional war and they're not fighting it like one, but I dunno.

We've all fucked up, but this is nuts.  An entire battalion destroyed (Some other counts are putting it at over 50 vehicles in the photos, plus doubtless some underwater), probably well over 200 soldiers dead in one engagement, if this happened to the US in one of our asymmetric military adventures I feel like it'd be war-ending from public opinion and political backlash alone.

You’re assuming the Russian news is going to carry this as a story.

If you were a Russian news editor, would you show that?

[Lord Shonus]

Purely numbers-wise Korea might be a better comparison for the US, though I dunno what the political backlash was. The US military was pretty weak at the start of the war and they got hammered until they could establish the Pusan perimeter, thousands of casualties in the first couple months.  Still low compared to whatever the hell Russia has been losing and still a completely different situation, but in terms of "has the US military ever gotten their asses handed to them in a horrible mass-casualty kind of way since WW2"

And yeah, I am concerned by the way quality info on Ukrainian losses never seems to get any visible pull the way Russian losses do. People just don't say and don't look, and that makes me worry.  I still don't buy the "US is using Ukraine as cannon fodder against Russia" thing for the reasons I previously brought up, not necessarily that it's not happening but that the implication behind that rhetoric is that capitulation is a realistic option for Ukraine after Russia's straight up said their plan is to "punish" Ukraine and destroy it as a nation.

We aren't hearing about Ukrainian losses because they're maintaining operational security. That's the same reason why the photographed Russian vehicle losses keep taking sudden leaps, because they're not getting counted until the regular military moves on and allows people to get in and take pictures. So you get a lot of wrecks all at once.

Normally you would try to estimate them by looking at the other side's propaganda claims, but Russia's claims are a mixture of outright nonsense (in several categories they claim the Ukranians have lost more equipment than they started the war with), and photos of the same wreck from different angles to make it look like multiple wrecks. The Russians not having a lot of fodder for their Tiktok soldiers to brag about might well say something.

[Cthulhu]

Corruption's definitely been eating them alive.  I've been cautious about calling them a paper tiger, since an asymmetrical war against Ukraine's not the same as a full-scale regional war and they're not fighting it like one, but I dunno.

We've all fucked up, but this is nuts.  An entire battalion destroyed (Some other counts are putting it at over 50 vehicles in the photos, plus doubtless some underwater), probably well over 200 soldiers dead in one engagement, if this happened to the US in one of our asymmetric military adventures I feel like it'd be war-ending from public opinion and political backlash alone.

You’re assuming the Russian news is going to carry this as a story.

If you were a Russian news editor, would you show that?

That's true, and also raises another interesting question.  Unless literally every Russian in Ukraine dies somehow, these guys are gonna have to go home eventually.  I'm sure more reliable info is still leaking into Russia, they're not airtight, but what happens when the eyewitnesses start telling their friends and family how it really went down?  That scenario is essentially what happened at the start of the Russian revolution, soldiers coming home from WW1 disillusioned and enraged with their government.

[bloop_bleep]

My personal headcanon is all the exploding factories, dysfunctional tanks, cancelled airshows are the result of the work of one Nutjob Pavel, a man who has been touring Russia for a decade to satiate his compulsive need to strategically loosen nuts on vital equipment.

[Strongpoint]

Russian bridging attempt fails with ludicrous casualties

How the fuck do you lose 32 armored vehicles in one fight in 2022 as one of the supposedly top militaries in the world?  That's basically an entire BTG rendered combat-ineffective.  Not even counting human losses which I have no idea, 150? 200?  More?

The Russian military doesn't know how to wage a modern war. What they are good at:

1) Quick military-political operations against an unprepared enemy using their actually well-trained and well-equipped paratroopers and special forces. See Crimea 2014 or subjugation of Kazakhstan protests in January of this year
2) Turning cities into piles of rubble with a ridiculous amount of artillery\airforce and then capturing the smoking remains.
3) Terrorizing cities with cruise\ballistic missile strikes (they launched 2000+ of those since the start of the war)

Everything else is mediocre to bad.

The only reasons why their army didn't collapse yet are: a huge advantage in air support, more numerous and modern artillery, more numerous and modern tank\IFV fleet. The artillery problem is in the process of being fixed with more NATO artillery arriving.

Ukrainian infantry is already more numerous, better trained (on average) and better equipped (on average)

BTW - https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/04/answering-call-heavy-weaponry-supplied.html - here you can see what is known to be supplied to Ukraine. Keep in mind that most of those require weeks for training and then getting to the frontline, we'll see the effect of those in July or even later.

Russia has no chance to win unless they either use WMD or start full mobilization AND get Chinise military hardware to arm those poor mobilized souls with.

[scriver]

Maybe not Paper Tiger

But maybe Sick Man of Europe