The Russians have gone in

[LVSteve]

At the risk of thread drift:

Seriously, is the Warthog
viable as an attack
(not infantry support) weapon
if the foe has anything like
Stinger missiles?

For those wondering why the convoy hasn't been waxed from the air, I suggest you go and look at the Wikipedia pages on the latest Russian surface to air weapons. While Stingers and the latest Polish MANPADS can get it done very close in, it's the stuff like the SA-6, SA-11, SA-15 and SA-22 that make life really difficult. These can reach out from Stinger range to 40-50km and are highly mobile, so you are never certain where they are. On top of that you can bet that the Russians moved some of their big stuff like the SA-20 and SA-21 hard up against the Northern borders of Ukraine, denying huge swathes of airspace to the Ukrainians.

 

[oldbrownhat]

Good WaPo article of the Javelin's capabilities....

If you can pardon a brief moment of flippancy amongst all this angst, every time I hear "javelins" it reminds me of a scene in the original Law & Order series:

Medical Examiner Elizabeth Rodgers: I got another body coming in. Guy took a javelin to the chest.

Det. Lennie Briscoe : Why are you still in this line of work?

Medical Examiner Elizabeth Rodgers : Free javelins.​

Turns out this was one of Leslie Handrix's favorite episodes, too:

Do you have a favourite episode or exchange from the Law & Order series?

My favourite exchange with any of the actors on any of the shows has to be the "free javelins" line. Hands down. I tell Jerry and Jesse Martin that I have to go pull a javelin out of some guy's chest, and Jerry asks what made me decide to pursue this line of work. "Free javelins." That line deserves a chef's kiss.​

We now return you to the drama at hand.

 

[Onomea]

From the Daily Mail article linked in Beemerguy's post above regarding the third Russian general killed:

"..According to reports, Gerasimov was the son of Valery Gerasimov - the Chief of General Staff of Russia's armed forces..."

That's gotta smart.

The article quotes experts who speculate the reason the generals are getting knocked off is because either the Russian troops at the front are too incompetent to make decisions on their own or they are too fearful to advance on their own.

 

[Beemerguy53]

...The article quotes experts who speculate the reason the generals are getting knocked off is because either the Russian troops at the front are too incompetent to make their own decisions on their own or they are too fearful to advance on their own.

Wouldn't you just love to be a fly on the wall at the Pentagon right now?

The various retired generals who've been on cable news the last couple of weeks are having a tough time coming up with new ways to describe their contempt for the Russian army...I can only imagine what's being said about them behind closed doors in Arlington.

The Russians really are little more than thugs in uniform. There is no science behind their style of warfare, and absolutely no restraint or sense of chivalry (one wonders if the Russians even understand the concept)...they simply kill and destroy for the sake of killing and destroying. They are disgusting...

At some point in the future, there will be war crimes trials, and these monsters will be called to account for what they've done. It can't happen soon enough for me.

 

[tripledipper]

Vlad is in deep do-do and his military staff is expendable. These guys are one stars, our Brigadier General rank. You can just imagine the number of Colonels and lesser ranking Officers that have been lost due to incompetence.

 

[ladder13]

Good WaPo article of the Javelin's capabilities. Link is below the pic:




https://wapo.st/3I01gw8

I wonder how many of these, and other weapons, end up in the wrong hands when this is over.

 

[Beemerguy53]

...You can just imagine the number of Colonels and lesser ranking Officers that have been lost due to incompetence.

Whatever the number, I hope it's enough that their troops are truly leaderless...

Listening to the news today, about the number of children these guys have killed...it's infuriating. How long is the world going to watch this before the UN decides to issue an ultimatum to Putin? Yeah, yeah, I know Russia's on the Security Council, but there has to be a way to address this...

I love The Rules here...but they do challenge me to come up with ways to express what I think of Putin and his myrmidons...

 

[oldbrownhat]

Whatever the number, I hope it's enough that their troops are truly leaderless...

Listening to the news today, about the number of children these guys have killed...it's infuriating. How long is the world going to watch this before the UN decides to issue an ultimatum to Putin? Yeah, yeah, I know Russia's on the Security Council, but there has to be a way to address this...

I love The Rules here...but they do challenge me to come up with ways to express what I think of Putin and his myrmidons...

Agreed. (And the forum rules as well.) I fear the "push coming to shove" may not be all that far off, whatever that portends. China, I think, is The Great Unknown at this point. On the surface at least they seem to be keeping their cards very clost to their chest.

 

[Beemerguy53]

Agreed. (And the forum rules as well.) I fear the "push coming to shove" may not be all that far off, whatever that portends. China, I think, is The Great Unknown at this point. On the surface at least they seem to be keeping their cards very clost to their chest.

I think (hope?) that even the Chinese Communists realize that the indiscriminate murder of women and children, and unleashing a campaign of terror on innocent people, doesn't bode well for a country's status on the world stage.

 

[Beemerguy53]

I told this pup about The Rules here, and he said he thinks this would be okay...

 

[biku324]

The ChiComs have gamed it out and chosen business over ideology.

How China's foreign policy of non-intervention is all about selective action | South China Morning Post

 

[Rudi]

I think (hope?) that even the Chinese Communists realize that the indiscriminate murder of women and children, and unleashing a campaign of terror on innocent people, doesn't bode well for a country's status on the world stage.

The chicoms have been murdering innocents since before 1947.

 

[oldbrownhat]

I told this pup about The Rules here, and he said he thinks this would be okay...

"Иногда вы собака. В другие дни вы гидрант"
(Some days you're the dog. Other days you're the hydrant)

(via Google Translate. I should probably check it with my gf's Russian mother)

 

[Beemerguy53]

The chicoms have been murdering innocents since before 1947.

Oh, without a doubt! I'm just hoping they see that it's not working out well for Putin, that the world reacts differently to naked aggression than it did decades ago, and that they take the hint...

We really do need to keep our fingers crossed...other thugs and dictators are surely studying this whole situation very closely.

I'm reminded of the time years ago when G. Gordon Liddy lectured at my brother's college. He told the students: "I'll bet you kids think the world is a pretty nice place. Well, I'm here to tell you that the world is a bad neighborhood at 3 in the morning..."

 

[Absalom]

Agreed. (And the forum rules as well.) I fear the "push coming to shove" may not be all that far off, whatever that portends. China, I think, is The Great Unknown at this point. On the surface at least they seem to be keeping their cards very clost to their chest.

I am getting the impression that China is getting to be everybody's catch-all bogeyman, looming large and threatening in the background.

Realistically, there is little to back that up in real life. The official Chinese goal is to have a "world-class military" by 2049, presumed to mean they want to be on a level with the US. That's purely aspirational; if you know anything about Communist plans, it's that they ever only are fulfilled on paper.

The bulk of Chinese forces is technologically somewhere in the 1980s, and the Chinese leadership's focus on economics and soft power likely means continued different priorities. If China were in NATO, we'd seriously nag them for being nowhere near 2% of GDP on military spending.

Had Putin succeeded, I'm sure they would have thought more intensely about Taiwan. But he is failing spectacularly, and as a result China is facing a resurgent US and a Europe that suddenly discovered its mojo. Any "strategic partnership" with Putin now doesn't look so promising. And the Chinese always hedge their bets, as seen at the UN where they abstained but notably did not veto the anti-Russia resolution on Ukraine, allowing it to pass.

 

[biku324]

The chicoms have been murdering innocents since before 1947.

Between 1937 and 1945, the Japanese murdered between 20 and 30 million Chinese, with rapes in the millions as well. Life was cheap; especially to the Japanese, our new BFFs.

The Chinese have looonnnngggggg memories.

 

[Rudi]

Between 1937 and 1945, the Japanese murdered between 20 and 30 million Chinese, with rapes in the millions as well. Life was cheap; especially to the Japanese, our new BFFs.

The Chinese have looonnnngggggg memories.

And the Emperor lived happily ever after.

 

[Greyman50]

Some need to read about China in 1933 and when Mao came on the scene. Who knows the name of a well know USMC officer that " visited" China quite a bit before 1941?

 

[StakeOut]

Was it Chesty?

 

[AJ]

Some need to read about China in 1933 and when Mao came on the scene. Who knows the name of a well know USMC officer that " visited" China quite a bit before 1941?

You mean Evans Carlson? Popularized the phrase "Gung-Ho". 2nd Raider Battalion Commanding Officer.

Wiki:
Second and third China tours:

After his Warm Springs tour Carlson was posted to the 4th Marines in Shanghai. Shortly afterward he was transferred to the Marine detachment, American Legation, Peiping, China, where he served as adjutant and studied the Chinese language. In 1936, he returned to the United States via Japan. At home he served at Quantico while attending Marine Corps Schools, and studying International Law and Politics at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

He went back to China for the third time in 1937 as an official student of the Chinese language and as a military observer with Chinese forces. There he was afforded the opportunity to learn the tactics of the Japanese soldier.

He met Edgar Snow in China and read Snow's Red Star Over China. This encounter led him to visit the Chinese communist troop headquarters in northern China, where he met Chinese Communist leaders such as Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping. Traveling thousands of miles through the interior of China with the communist guerrillas, often on foot and horseback over the most hazardous terrain, he lived under the same primitive conditions. He was impressed by the tactics used by Chinese Communist guerrillas to fight Japanese troops. Carlson adopted the phrase "gung ho" from Rewi Alley's Chinese Industrial Cooperatives.[3] Carlson often had leftwing political views, prompting General David M. Shoup to say of him, "He may be red, but he's not yellow."[4]

When Carlson left China in 1938, he was commended by the commander in chief of the Asiatic Fleet for his services. Carlson was so impressed with the danger of Japanese aggression in the Far East that in 1939, he resigned his commission as a captain in order to be free to write and lecture on that subject. When the danger he foresaw neared reality in 1941, Carlson applied to be recommissioned in the Marine Corps and was accepted with the rank of major.