Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

It really feels now that Zelenski is having his Churchill moment. Fortune favours the brave.

It still so terribly sad that this happens however, Russians or Ukrainians dying just following orders.

Only if the leaders of the countries went on the battlefield first how different it would be.
 
frostbite said:
And your point was? Do you really think that Germany is helping the defence of Ukraine and Eastern Europe and not the USA?
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This is a very weird thing you're consistently doing.

In this case @stefan92 made a very specific claim. You said they were wrong. When it turns out that you're the one who is wrong, you deflect and ask a totally irrelevant question that you cannot possibly have inferred fairly.

I'm saying consistently, because I remember just a couple of days ago you were talking about Russian vs American death tolls in the last 20 years, with you claiming that Russia killed more. You also brought up WW2 (and possibly WW1, hard to tell). You talked about the European debt crisis. Then, on a dime, you turn around and say you're not interested in talking about the past. Of course you are, you just spent hours doing it! What you meant was that you wanted to criticise Germany's and Russia's pasts, and that other things in the past don't matter.
 
VorZakone said:
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The ability of Americans to deliver an absolute feck ton of materiel to a battlefield in a record amount of time is impressive. You have to give it to them. And it is only rivalled by their ability to always find some extra money when it comes to military spending.
 
With the Moskva taken down by just a drone and 2 missiles that had a 100% hit-success rate, China will be quietly scrapping any plans to launch an invasion of Taiwan across 100 miles of open sea.
 
Wonder how many sailors have been rescued. Could be a huge casualty count.
 
GlastonSpur said:
With the Moskva taken down by just a drone and 2 missiles that had a 100% hit-success rate, China will be quietly scrapping any plans to launch an invasion of Taiwan across 100 miles of open sea.
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It is possible that Xi's navy isn't as shit as Putin's.
 
VorZakone said:
Wonder how many sailors have been rescued. Could be a huge casualty count.
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According to the Lithuanian Minister of National Defence, apparently only 54 rescued out of the approx. 500 on board.
 
GlastonSpur said:
With the Moskva taken down by just a drone and 2 missiles that had a 100% hit-success rate, China will be quietly scrapping any plans to launch an invasion of Taiwan across 100 miles of open sea.
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You sure the missiles were delivered by drone? Would think they are land based, but haven’t found a source on it. They weigh nearly a ton each, so not sure a drone could carry them.

In any case, the loss of the cruiser cannot be overstated in tactical or symbolic value. This is something they cannot just replace. It would take years. Probably as costly as the rest of the hardware they have lost on land.

Simply great news!
 
Mike Smalling said:
You sure the missiles were delivered by drone? Would think they are land based, but haven’t found a source on it. They weigh nearly a ton each, so not sure a drone could carry them.

In any case, the loss of the cruiser cannot be overstated in tactical or symbolic value. This is something they cannot just replace. It would take years. Probably as costly as the rest of the hardware they have lost on land.

Simply great news!
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Apparently they used a drone to draw attention on the one side whole hitting the ship with those missiles from the other side
 
TwoSheds said:
It is possible that Xi's navy isn't as shit as Putin's.
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True. But it's also possible that the Taiwanese anti-ship missiles are more sophisticated - and definitely a lot more in number - than those developed by the Ukrainians.
 
Mike Smalling said:
You sure the missiles were delivered by drone? Would think they are land based, but haven’t found a source on it. They weigh nearly a ton each, so not sure a drone could carry them.

In any case, the loss of the cruiser cannot be overstated in tactical or symbolic value. This is something they cannot just replace. It would take years. Probably as costly as the rest of the hardware they have lost on land.

Simply great news!
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Not delivered by drone. The Ukrainian story is that a drone was used to distract the ship's radar orientation and missile defence systems on the starboard side, whilst two Neptune missiles came in and hit on the port side.
 
VorZakone said:
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That's a lot of money but I suppose nothing near what the US spent in Iraq.

Still, these significant contributions from NATO and EU countries makes me wonder if there is some kind of rope-a-dope strategy being played by China and Russia here. Hopefully that's just me being an idiot.
 
Dr. Dwayne said:
That's a lot of money but I suppose nothing near what the US spent in Iraq.

Still, these significant contributions from NATO and EU countries makes me wonder if there is some kind of rope-a-dope strategy being played by China and Russia here. Hopefully that's just me being an idiot.
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Huh? How would that work?
 
hellhunter said:
Apparently they used a drone to draw attention on the one side whole hitting the ship with those missiles from the other side
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GlastonSpur said:
Not delivered by drone. The Ukrainian story is that a drone was used to distract the ship's radar orientation and missile defence systems on the starboard side, whilst two Neptune missiles came in and hit on the port side.
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Thanks, hadn’t seen that. It almost sounds a little comical though. Like something that would work in a cartoon or straight-to-DVD action movie.
 
hellhunter said:
To be fair, that seems to be a solid summary of Russian efforts so far
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Harsh but true :lol:

Mike Smalling said:
Thanks, hadn’t seen that. It almost sounds a little comical though. Like something that would work in a cartoon or straight-to-DVD action movie.
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It seems like the tracking radar of the Moskva's air defence just has a 180° field of view. Distracting it with a drone means that the missiles could only be spotted by their weaker general surveillance radar, which was quite difficult due to how low the Neptune flies and how rough the sea was.
 
Mike Smalling said:
Thanks, hadn’t seen that. It almost sounds a little comical though. Like something that would work in a cartoon or straight-to-DVD action movie.
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Its beyond incompetent for a 21st century navy. Multiple target tracking and and automatic prioritisation has been the norm since the early eighties at least.
 
stefan92 said:
Harsh but true :lol:


It seems like the tracking radar of the Moskva's air defence just has a 180° field of view. Distracting it with a drone means that the missiles could only be spotted by their weaker general surveillance radar, which was quite difficult due to how low the Neptune flies and how rough the sea was.
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That has to be a joke?
 
Organic Potatoes said:
This thread goes more into depth on how it might have happened, though I can’t vouch for the source and have no detailed knowledge of these systems:
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Okay so the best radar is constrained by azimuth (not uncommon if its a targetting radar), the inferior 360 deg radars cannot disginguish a missile from a wave top. I'd venture a guess the DSP development has not been stellar.
 
TwoSheds said:
Huh? How would that work?
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It's just going so ridiculously bad for Russia I'm left thinking what if there is an alternative endgame here that doesn't expressly involve Ukraine and it's just the distraction. The west is committing attention, materials and money there. What else are China and Russia doing that we can't see?

That said, the Moskva would be a pretty big sacrifice to make so I'm probably just being an idiot and over thinking things. Wars don't normally go this badly this quickly for an invading force with an overwhelming advantage in men and materials.
 
Dr. Dwayne said:
It's just going so ridiculously bad for Russia I'm left thinking what if there is an alternative endgame here that doesn't expressly involve Ukraine and it's just the distraction. The west is committing attention, materials and money there. What else are China and Russia doing that we can't see?

That said, the Moskva would be a pretty big sacrifice to make so I'm probably just being an idiot and over thinking things. Wars don't normally go this badly this quickly for an invading force with an overwhelming advantage in men and materials.
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Dont look for a conspiracy when incompetence can explain it sufficiently well.
 
Dr. Dwayne said:
It's just going so ridiculously bad for Russia I'm left thinking what if there is an alternative endgame here that doesn't expressly involve Ukraine and it's just the distraction. The west is committing attention, materials and money there. What else are China and Russia doing that we can't see?

That said, the Moskva would be a pretty big sacrifice to make so I'm probably just being an idiot and over thinking things. Wars don't normally go this badly this quickly for an invading force with an overwhelming advantage in men and materials.
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The Russians don't have any more military than this really, they're certainly not in on it if it is a ruse. Incompetence is usually a simpler explanation than a grand conspiracy.
 
Dr. Dwayne said:
It's just going so ridiculously bad for Russia I'm left thinking what if there is an alternative endgame here that doesn't expressly involve Ukraine and it's just the distraction. The west is committing attention, materials and money there. What else are China and Russia doing that we can't see?

That said, the Moskva would be a pretty big sacrifice to make so I'm probably just being an idiot and over thinking things. Wars don't normally go this badly this quickly for an invading force with an overwhelming advantage in men and materials.
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This is your mistake. The troops Russia committed to the invasion aren't that much bigger than what Ukraine has available, especially not now as their reservists are also activated while Russia is officially still not in a war (and this means they can't force their reservists to fight, they still have to rely on people volunteeringly joining). Russia has no numerical advantage, only a huge advantage in heavy weaponry, but this is diminished by their poor tactics. Which are partially caused by the high number of material, as it is simply financially not possible to keep so many big stuff maintained and train all crews properly.

Those have been surprising facts to realize for many (me included) but once you know this it is pretty straightforward what is happening.
 
stefan92 said:
This is your mistake. The troops Russia committed to the invasion aren't that much bigger than what Ukraine has available, especially not now as their reservists are also activated while Russia is officially still not in a war (and this means they can't force their reservists to fight, they still have to rely on people volunteeringly joining). Russia has no numerical advantage, only a huge advantage in heavy weaponry, but this is diminished by their poor tactics. Which are partially caused by the high number of material, as it is simply financially not possible to keep so many big stuff maintained and train all crews properly.

Those have been surprising facts to realize for many (me included) but once you know this it is pretty straightforward what is happening.
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To be fair that comment is based on the size of their standing army versus Ukraine's. Agree that when we think of the troops sent there versus what Ukraine has it's more of an even match, possibly even in Ukraine's favour when we consider the consequences of the invasion.

Russia's practice of leading from the front and the recent purges of military leadership for their failures in the field aren't helping them, that's for sure. Neither was sending a bunch of recruits to invade a country. Like I said, it's so ridiculously incompetent that it seems impossible, leading me to wonder if something else is afoot.
 
Dr. Dwayne said:
To be fair that comment is based on the size of their standing army versus Ukraine's. Agree that when we think of the troops sent there versus what Ukraine has it's more of an even match, possibly even in Ukraine's favour when we consider the consequences of the invasion.

Russia's practice of leading from the front and the recent purges of military leadership for their failures in the field aren't helping them, that's for sure. Neither was sending a bunch of recruits to invade a country. Like I said, it's so ridiculously incompetent that it seems impossible, leading me to wonder if something else is afoot.
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I still like the theory that Russia actually did not intend to wage war against Ukraine, but that Putin (due to whitewashed intelligence reports) really believed, that Ukraine would simply fall in line and very few people would actually resist.

So yes, I believe in the wording that Russia wanted to conduct a "special military operation", not a war. This became a war because Ukraine being united in their resistance, which came as a shock to the Russians. To me this explains a lot, including the purges of FSB and military leaders.

Another theory I like to add: You made it sound like China/Russia would be close allies. I very much doubt that and wouldn't be surprised if China is quite happy getting rid of Russia as a military power with good connections to the west and might have hoped for such an outcome to get cheap access to Russian resources (as the west doesn't want to deal with them anymore).
 
stefan92 said:
The problem is, that this isn't about Steinmeier as a private person. This is about the head of the German state who isn't welcome in Ukraine, this is effectively treating Germany like an enemy.

To put it bluntly, there are a lot of wars and other horrible stuff ongoing in the world (what the Chinese are doing to the Uigurs could also be called a kind of genocide for example), and no one here cares or expects Germany to care about it. We also have no formal alliance or whatever in place to help Ukraine, we just help out of goodwill, nothing forces us to do it. It isn't smart to risk this goodwill, yet Ukraine is constantly doing this to Germany.

And the way they try to weasel out of this doesn't make it better (by claiming that there never was an official request for a visit from the office of the German president - well no, of not a surprise, this group trip in question was organised by Poland, not by Germany).

I'm all for supporting the Ukrainian people, but their government and diplomats lost a lot of my respect in recent days.
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Exactly, is a representative of germany, a country that made divert UK flights with help to not fly over germany to not anger putin, a coubtry tgat sebt initially 5k helmets and notjing more. A country that was blocking the ban from swift, a country that keeps dumping money to russia kill ukranians vs the perspective to have economic problems. Germany has de right to look for its own interests but zelenski has the right to sent the message of "what are you waiting for to do the right thing".

Is more insulting what germany (and the EU) is doing financing the ukranian genocide than what zelenski did (by far) the same for other conflicts but zelenski has no tine to worry about uiguirs.
 
stefan92 said:
I still like the theory that Russia actually did not intend to wage war against Ukraine, but that Putin (due to whitewashed intelligence reports) really believed, that Ukraine would simply fall in line and very few people would actually resist.

So yes, I believe in the wording that Russia wanted to conduct a "special military operation", not a war. This became a war because Ukraine being united in their resistance, which came as a shock to the Russians. To me this explains a lot, including the purges of FSB and military leaders.
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Yes, this is a good point. A Russian version of the Anschluss.

stefan92 said:
Another theory I like to add: You made it sound like China/Russia would be close allies. I very much doubt that and wouldn't be surprised if China is quite happy getting rid of Russia as a military power with good connections to the west and might have hoped for such an outcome to get cheap access to Russian resources (as the west doesn't want to deal with them anymore).
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I don't believe they are. Too much historical tension between them. China I would actually suspect of using Russia for resources and to try and damage the west economically or politically before completely double crossing them and I'd assume Vlad to be at least somewhat astute to that possibility.
 
Dr. Dwayne said:
It's just going so ridiculously bad for Russia I'm left thinking what if there is an alternative endgame here that doesn't expressly involve Ukraine and it's just the distraction. The west is committing attention, materials and money there. What else are China and Russia doing that we can't see?

That said, the Moskva would be a pretty big sacrifice to make so I'm probably just being an idiot and over thinking things. Wars don't normally go this badly this quickly for an invading force with an overwhelming advantage in men and materials.
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True. But in this case the invading military has been corrupted from top to bottom, orientated more to being accomplices to gangsterism within Russia than it is to fighting offensive wars, especially against an enemy who can actually fight back.

It is also badly trained, badly equipped, lacks proper NCOs (as we in the West would understand the roles and purposes of NCOs to be) and comprised to a significant degree of conscripts and those who have been more or less press-ganged into the army by force, intimidation or deception: there is a very high rate of suicide within the Russian army ... prior to this invasion the Mother’s Right nonprofit estimates that up to 44% of deaths among military conscripts are suicides, while only 4% happen in the line of duty.

Moreover, it is fighting a war that most of the Russian military don't want and don't understand.
 
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Obviously not the case here where everyone follow this closely, but the way news are reported sometimes, highlighting exhaustively every ukranian victory, I think some folks who watch 5 minutes of news a day are expecting the ukranian army to be marching through moscow by christmas.
 
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