The Russians have gone in

[charlie sherrill]

I read today that our M777, Triple Seven, howitzers are now being used to good effect by the Ukrainians. The bottleneck remains training, but they're getting there.

Have yet to read of the Ukrainians using the German Panzerhaubitze 2000. That bad boy sounds like a beast. Training in Germany started earlier this month.

And many of them were made by BAE Systems right here in Hattiesburg, Ms. The factory has been shut down for a few months but I look for it to reopen. They tested a lot of them at Camp Shelby, just South of Hattiesburg. These things are amazing. You can shoot them over mountains and hit the target on the other side. A straight shot is over 22 miles. They can be towed by the barrel with a pickup truck. They come in 105 or 155. Coon dogs are optional.

 

[oldbrownhat]

Three months in, was supposed to take 3 days. What could puti possibly be thinking?...

Probably that, as a "keen student of history", he should have paid more attention to this:

As an aside, von Moltke is the oldest person whose voice has been preserved:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BBkFacaBHY[/ame]

From Wikipedia: On 21 October 1889, Generalfeldmarschall von Moltke made two audio recordings with Adelbert Theodor Wangemann, a German native who worked with Thomas Edison and had been sent to Europe with Edison's newly invented cylinder phonograph....

 

[bigwheelzip]

"Well done! Beautiful! Peasant!

The phrase repeated after every anti-tank rocket slams home into Russian armor, captured on video of the 80th Separate Air Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Air Assault Forces.

The rockets get refered to as "our beauties", and the enemy as "Moscow demon".

The recorded attack video of the screen on the targeting unit of the missile launcher is scary and surreal.


Sent from my motorola one 5G using Tapatalk

 

[Absalom]

Three months in, was supposed to take 3 days. What could puti possibly be thinking? China must be watching with baited breath too. Although re-supply for Taiwan will be impossible if they blockade the island.

I think Taiwan is currently safer than it has been for a long time. That's not to say that with Xi Jinping's apparent strategy toward establishing Putinesque control over his country, Taiwan won't be on the menu.

I don't think the Chinese have ever had any illusions about their own relative military backwardness, especially versus the US.

The main thing which I believe they are observing is the law of unintended consequences. Putin wanted to show up NATO and weaken it, counting on national interests preventing any serious united response to his takeover of Ukraine. He seems to have expected cowed Europeans to resist and hinder any effective US response.

And what the Chinese see happening is the opposite. The US has come roaring back into leadership of the free world, NATO is united like not since 9/11, new countries are joining that will give Russia an additional 830 miles of NATO directly bordering Russia, and everybody in the West is rediscovering how invigorating it is to have a real cause and a bona-fide villain.

That's the last thing that China wants to see repeated in East Asia. And it would be if they make a move on Taiwan. We've been publicly and refreshingly blunt about that.

And China has a lot more to lose. It also lacks the lever that Putin has with the Russian energy resources. The Chinese economy is much more interdependent with the world than Russia's, which has been described as a gas station with nukes. China has a positive trade balance, but not by as much as you'd think: for 2021, they imported $77 for every $100 exported. And many of the imports are essentials like raw materials.

So if action against Taiwan triggered a revival of old anti-communist alliances in the Pacific, involving the US, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and other trading partners, and similar actions as those against Putin, that would be a scenario which China will be very reluctant to provoke.

 

[Rudi]

Yes, as I've mentioned before, a world backlash like Ukraine would be very bad for business. I avoid buying anything from the chicoms, but that is hard, considering how much of the stuff we need is made there.

 

[UncleEd]

Analysts indicate Russia is
making gains in the Donbas
region of Ukraine, those
eastern sections Russia has
always had designs on.

An unknown is how battered
or not the Ukrainian forces are.

Ukraine may have to retreat from
the Donbas in order to better
carry on its war of attrition
against the very battered Russians.

US and NATO arms assistance
remains one of the most critical
component for Ukraine's success.

 

[Onomea]

I am worried about the Donbas. I read an op-ed by an analyst who said artillery is very much a numbers game and the Ukrainians are out numbered

Also read that US MLRS systems are on the way...

Those guys need help. Hope it arrives soon.

 

[oldbrownhat]

I am worried about the Donbas. I read an op-ed by an analyst who said artillery is very much a numbers game and the Ukrainians are out numbered

Also read that US MLRS systems are on the way...

Those guys need help. Hope it arrives soon.

The situation over there is getting desperate. The Russians seem to be pursuing a scorched earth policy. Seems to be a matter of who can out-shell the other Zelenskyy remains defiant but I fear that may not be enough unless we can supply enough weaponry. And if that isn't enough....

WaPo live update here.

Key updates
- Russia abolishes upper age limit for military recruits
- Russian-held Kherson 'closes borders' to Ukrainian-held territory
- Ukrainian official doesn't rule out retreat from Severodoentsk

Here's what else to know

Disapproval of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine is increasingly bubbling to the surface in Russia — from hawks demanding a more aggressive policy to officials and service members who want no part of the bloodshed.

Efforts to document war crimes committed during the conflict are hurtling ahead. But the array of investigations — involving more than a dozen countries and a slew of international and human rights organizations — has raised concerns about duplication and overlap.

Russia is responsible for inciting genocide and perpetrating atrocities that show an "intent to destroy" the Ukrainian people, a new legal analysis signed by more than 30 independent experts concluded.

The Washington Post has lifted its paywall for readers in Russia and Ukraine. Telegram users can subscribe to our channel.​

Also, irom The Guardian:​

Kremlin mulls Nuremberg-style trials based on second world war tribunals
Russia to seek to justify invasion of Ukraine by staging show trials of war prisoners, conflict scholars fear​

 

[LVSteve]

The BBC article on the Russian change of age limit for service.

Russia scraps age limit for new troops in Ukraine push - BBC News

 

[Onomea]

The Russians are advancing in the east. They're using thermobaric weapons. It's a desperate battle. Excerpted from today's NYT. (I seem to have hit my gift article limit for the month.):

"...The Russian advance has been aided by liberal use of one of its most damaging conventional weapons, the thermobaric warhead, according to Ukrainian military commanders, medics and video from the battlefield.

The weapon, a track-mounted rocket artillery system nicknamed Solntsepek, or the Heat Wave, fires warheads that explode with tremendous force, sending potentially lethal shock waves into bunkers or trenches where soldiers would otherwise be safe.

The missiles scatter a flammable mist or powder that is then ignited and burns in the air. The result is a powerful blast followed by a partial vacuum, as oxygen is sucked from the air as the fuel burns.

"You feel the ground shake," said Col. Yevhen Shamataliuk, commander of Ukraine's 95th Brigade, whose soldiers came under fire from the weapon in fighting this month near Izium, a town northwest of Sievierodonetsk.

"It's a hollow booming sound and the ears ring when it explodes, more than from ordinary artillery," Colonel Shamataliuk said. "It destroys bunkers. They just collapse over those who are inside. It's very destructive."...

I sure hope our MLRS systems get there quickly.

 

[Beemerguy53]

Very interesting article here on the state of Russian propaganda...

The Russian "Firehose of Falsehood" Propaganda Model: Why It Might Work and Options to Counter It | RAND

 

[Onomea]

"...European Union countries finally reached a deal to wean off Russian oil, their most significant effort yet to hit the Russian economy over the war in Ukraine, though the impact will be softened by an exemption for pipeline oil, a concession to landlocked holdouts, most notably Hungary.


After weeks of negotiations, the 27 countries agreed on Monday to end seaborne deliveries of Russian oil. Pipeline deliveries will continue to flow. Several countries will also get extensions or exemptions, according to E.U. officials and diplomats.


European Council President Charles Michel said the agreement would cover more than two-thirds of Russian oil imports, cutting off a "a huge source of financing for its war machine." E.U. officials and diplomats will still have to agree on technical details in the coming days and the sanctions must be formally adopted by all 27 nations...."

https://wapo.st/3M0n8th

Meanwhile, India — and China, I believe I've read — are buying Russian oil at fire sale prices...

 

[oldbrownhat]

I'm trying to avoid reading the daily reports about the war because they're pretty depressing It's agonizing to follow.

Either the Guardian or the WaPo reported that there is still a possibility that the US will send the long-range missiles Ukraine wants (or a shorter-range version) but time is of the essence as the Russians seem to be advancing hourly and apparently have taken Luhansk.

As Yogi Berra famously said, "It ain't over 'til it's over" but I fear there may not be much left at the end.

 

[LVSteve]

I'm trying to avoid reading the daily reports about the war because they're pretty depressing It's agonizing to follow.

Either the Guardian or the WaPo reported that there is still a possibility that the US will send the long-range missiles Ukraine wants (or a shorter-range version) but time is of the essence as the Russians seem to be advancing hourly and apparently have taken Luhansk.

As Yogi Berra famously said, "It ain't over 'til it's over" but I fear there may not be much left at the end.

Which, by some accounts, is largely a pile of rubble with flaky to nonexistent services. Is that really what they want? Is the Russian artillery detachments just a job creation scheme for builders? Doesn't sound like "winning" to me.

 

[oldbrownhat]

... Is that really what they want? Is the Russian artillery detachments just a job creation scheme for builders? Doesn't sound like "winning" to me.

Beats me, but as Churchill said, "Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."

 

[Greyman50]

From a history view point, must look at East Berlin after WWII as well as many other " Eastern States" then. Interesting book " From the Ruins of the Reich", forget author. BTW, most Soviet troops did not know what flush toilets were, many peeled and washed their potatoes in them to the amusement of the Germans…

 

[biku324]

Just in case anyone wondered if Putin has ambitions against all of the West...

Vladimir Putin suggested on Thursday that it's time for Russia to stay in the business of territorial expansion — drawing direct allusion to long wars with the West to that end.

It comes as the Russian army has spent weeks trying to take the Donbas — Ukraine's eastern region that, according to Kremlin propaganda, should be full of ethnic Russians waiting for Moscow's arrival.

So on Thursday, after visiting an exhibition dedicated to Peter the Great's 350-year anniversary, Putin remarked on how little had changed over the intervening centuries.

"Peter I fought the Northern War for 21 years," Putin remarked. "It seemed then, fighting with Sweden, that he took something away … but he wasn't taking anything away, he was returning!"

Putin added that Peter I founded Russia's imperial capital — St. Petersburg — on territory taken from Sweden during that war.

"When he laid the new capital, not one country of Europe recognized this territory as Russia, they all recognized it as Sweden's," Putin said. "And there, since time immemorial, the slavs had lived alongside the Finno-Urgic peoples, and this territory was located under the control of the Russian state."
MSN

 

[DWalt]

Who else has noticed that news about the Ukraine war has nearly vanished from the mainstream news media recently? You have to dig it out from th internet.

 

[UncleEd]

Who else has noticed that news about the Ukraine war has nearly vanished from the mainstream news media recently? You have to dig it out from th internet.

The war right now is a slow moving
slugfest with artillery barrages. But
reports have emerged from time to
time. As to general US news media,
a lot of attention was diverted to
inflation and Ulvade/Buffalo.

And to add, as predicted on this
forum, interest would mellow or wane
even on this forum as other matters
captrured posters' attention. Also
notice a relatively few posters were
active here compared to overall
S&W Forum membership.

 

[oldbrownhat]

Who else has noticed that news about the Ukraine war has nearly vanished from the mainstream news media recently? You have to dig it out from th internet.

Yup. It seems that as long as the Ukrainians were giving the Russians a good drubbing, with perhaps the thought that it would all be over soon, it was exciting (if still terrible) news. But now that it has turned into an artillery slugfest with no "exciting" news, it has slipped in the ratings and the news agencies have let other current events overtake it.

I see that Britain is now also sending long-range artillery to Ukraine - with threats from Putin, of course. They say it will take three weeks to train the Ukrainian artillerymen. That could be a long time under the current circumstances.