History in the Making: Russian Invasion

Ruzzia targeted the residential building in Krivyi Rih, the home city of President Zelenskyi. Many people are dead, many injured. Ruzzia is a terrorist state.

russia is a terrorist state.

Advan046 said:

In reply to aircooled :

Similar to what my impressions were from reading about WW2 aviation campaigns. That if you get into statistics, the rail bombings did help if maintained in frequency to not allow ease of repair, attrition of rail workers, and if your ground forces are committed to advance then it built momentum. But because it was a vague gain, it led to many feeling the resources expended and lives lost was too great.

Nothing vague about it. On the contrary, strategic bombing in WWII was perhaps the most carefully studied campaign of the war, if not the entire century. The US Strategic Bombing Survey produced voluminous reports based on Allied operational information, captured enemy documents, and teams on the ground that examined physical evidence and interviewed relevant people. That they were able to do this within a few months of the end of the war makes the depth of the evidence all the more impressive.

Here's just one section of the overall survey: The Effects of Strategic Bombing on the German War Economy

I think he means vague at the time.  There was a huge effort in strategic bombing of Germany, which was intended to be crippling, yet the Germans managed to still function.  Not implying "as normal", they were clearly impacted, just not as much as the Allies might have expected (Albert Speer having a lot to do with that of course)..

For those who are not as up on the subject: Albert Speer did an amazing job re-configuring the German war economy later in the war to help compensate to an amazing amount the effects of the Allied bombing.  He was the reason why some say strategic bombing did nothing because some production actually notably increased.  He improved efficiency so much productivity went up in some areas, even with all the damage done!

I suspect Speer is the one responsible for the common modern concept of "German Efficiency".  It really wasn't so much before him.

In reply to aircooled :

"At the time" meaning while the war was in progress? To an extent that's true, obviously - intelligence is never perfect - but even so the Allies had a pretty robust BDA program.

Two good specialist resources on the Allied strategic bombing effort are Robert S. Ehlers, Jr.'s Targeting the Third Reich: Air Intelligence and the Allied Bombing Campaigns and Randall T. Wakelam's The Science of Bombing: Operational Research in RAF Bomber Command.

Interesting.

https://mil.in.ua/uk/news/rosiya-vykorystovuye-v-ukrayini-zagradzagony/

Russia uses blockades in Ukraine

But what it really says:

The Russian command created illegal barricades that stand behind the troops and are supposed to kill the retreating ones.

This was told by Russian prisoners who were threatened to be killed by the blocking units.

Also, a machine gunner of a separate company of the FSB commandant's office, who led the blocking squad, was captured by the Ukrainians .

They stood on the second line and did not allow the "Storm-Z" unit to retreat. The order was to hit them when they retreated , "said the prisoner.

The SBU also interrogated fighters from the "Storm Z" unit, who said that they had surrendered, fearing that they would be killed by these barricades.

" After arriving there (at the position, - ed.), without explaining anything, they let us land and told us to just hide from the "birds" (drones - ed.). In the event of an escape, we were told that there are barricades behind... They shoot anyone who escapes ," said a prisoner from the "Storm-Z" unit.

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In reply to Noddaz :

Y'know, Enemy at the Gates was highly inaccurate, but maybe someone should have told the modern Russians that.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to Noddaz :

Y'know, Enemy at the Gates was highly inaccurate, but maybe someone should have told the modern Russians that.

As far as military tactics go, apparently there is no modern Russia.

In reply to Noddaz :

No joke. They may be having a Cholera outbreak right now due to a lack of drinking water and the dam blowing.

There's claims from the TikTok batallion that Wagner leaked their location to Ukrainian artillery. So you know, Kadryov is supposedly either headed to Bakhmut or to Belohorod.

Center for the Countering of disinformation warns against listening to Russia discussing the ZPP and nuking it. They feel Russia's trying to twist the ZPP threats and Nordstream-2 into a conspiracy that Ukraine is secretly behind the pipeline destruction AND the nuclear threat.

BBC Interview with an escaped Russian airforce pilot. Very short tho.

Easily the biggest middle finger I could possibly think of to give this guy.  This made my day.

https://twitter.com/DmytroSolenko/status/1669033263736791054

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

I agree with your sentiment, but I wonder whether posting this on a public forum could get you unwanted attention. 

Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

I agree with your sentiment, but I wonder whether posting this on a public forum could get you unwanted attention. 

I appreciate the concern, but I'm ok with it (besides, I post much worse on facebook)

Aside from getting a warm, fuzzy feeling about poking Orban with a stick, what exactly does denying the transfer of HIMARS gain for the US or NATO generally? I see no tangible benefit.

On the other hand, there are several possible negatives. This decision is certainly not going to make Orban any more willing to cooperate with US or other European initiatives, which, given that NATO decision-making requires unanimous consent, seems problematic. Refusing to supply a NATO member state with NATO-standard equipment leaves the door open for Hungary to go searching elsewhere to fulfill its requirements, which could lead to another difficult diplomatic situation similar to Turkey's purchase of Russian S-300s a few years ago. And of course, HIMARS is a US-built system, which means US companies will not be gaining business from the contract.

I'm not saying that Orban shouldn't pay a diplomatic price for his obstructionism, but this seems a crude and ill-considered way to go about it.

I'm sure it is still a tough slog (and will be for the rest of the war), but with the Russians mostly hyping videos from the failed breach, I am guessing they don't have a lot of other positive footage on their side.  I have seen a few other videos from the Russian side, but nothing really as decisive as that.  I am actually wondering if some of what has been shown by the Ukrainians is only to counter Russian media.  I'd guess they'd rather not be releasing any footage right now.

In reply to 02Pilot :

Keeps our tech out of Russian hands.  Once Vlad's disposed of, then whatever obligation Orban seems to have to Vlad is disposed of as well, (because that dude has something on that guy) and we can go back to 1990's Orban, and maybe trust him with our weapons systems again.

(obviously I'm saying this in jest/ a light hearted nature)

I saw something in the news (that I can't find again) that the Russians are trying to haul away the Leopard II and also the Bradleys that were shot up.

Noddaz said:

I saw something in the news (that I can't find again) that the Russians are trying to haul away the Leopard II and also the Bradleys that were shot up.

Even if they can't get any effective intelligence from them, they can still keep Ukraine from recovering them.  Since they aren't going to just blow them up, I'd assume they either want them as war prizes for propaganda purposes, or there is a unit out there that wants to cobble together a couple of Bradleys instead of having to keep using their BMPs.

This is directly at Tokmak and has either reached the defensive lines there or breached them:

During the last week, the Armed Forces of Ukraine advanced three kilometers deep into the Russian position in the area of the settlement of Mala Tokmachka and up to seven kilometers south of Velyka Novosilka

It's hard to say how things are bending at this point.  Are the Russians wearing down?  They are certainly playing up Ukrainian losses, including things like showing a destroyed Russian tank and saying it was Ukrainian (who for some reason, the dead crew was wearing Russian unit patches?!).

The Ukrainians have captured some of the high ground around Bahkmut (what's left of it).  Why are they still pushing in Bahkmut?  So the Russians cannot move those troops to the south.  The Russians loosing Bahkmut, would be an obvious propaganda problem for them.

View from the hill:

02Pilot said:

Aside from getting a warm, fuzzy feeling about poking Orban with a stick, what exactly does denying the transfer of HIMARS gain for the US or NATO generally? I see no tangible benefit.

Orban also has done some things with Putin recently with Ukranian prisoners and is messing with the entry of Sweden.

Chuck Pfarrer, quoting Armed Maidan claimes that in the past 10 days Russia has had more than 36,000 casulties. Ukraine continues to grind forward in advance. I'm taking it with a lot of salt, but posting it here in case someone takes it very seriously; there's still lots of misinformation.

Someone likely within the RU Intelligence services has hacked their own crypto wallets and transferred cryptocurrenies to Ukraine. Implies that Russia's intelligence agencies- the GRU- is full of sympathizers.

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

If the US was concerned about HIMARS ending up in Russian hands, they never would have sent them to Ukraine. It's a mature technology at this point.

GIRTHQUAKE said:

02Pilot said:

Aside from getting a warm, fuzzy feeling about poking Orban with a stick, what exactly does denying the transfer of HIMARS gain for the US or NATO generally? I see no tangible benefit.

Orban also has done some things with Putin recently with Ukranian prisoners and is messing with the entry of Sweden.

And again, how is this going to help those situations?

In reply to 02Pilot

It's all about the drama to make them look relevant. Same reason congress has its dept limit drama every couple of years when everybody knows what the outcome will be.

In reply to 02Pilot :

I dunno. Immediate punishment before the UN/EU/NATO can?

VolvoHeretic said:

In reply to 02Pilot

It's all about the drama to make them look relevant. Same reason congress has its dept limit drama every couple of years when everybody knows what the outcome will be.

I tend to agree that's all intended to be about US domestic optics, but the good congressman is awfully optimistic if he thinks this is going to win him points with, well, anyone. On the other hand, it has the potential to cause lasting diplomatic complications for the US and NATO.

02Pilot said:

VolvoHeretic said:

In reply to 02Pilot

It's all about the drama to make them look relevant. Same reason congress has its dept limit drama every couple of years when everybody knows what the outcome will be.

I tend to agree that's all intended to be about US domestic optics, but the good congressman is awfully optimistic if he thinks this is going to win him points with, well, anyone. On the other hand, it has the potential to cause lasting diplomatic complications for the US and NATO.

Not trying to threadjack, but you just boiled down U.S. partisan politics in that sentence fragment.  I'll leave it at that. 

Back to the topic at hand: Nothing to see here...