RogerdeLluria
Staff Sergeant
- 1,410
- Jul 5, 2015
You beat me there. Although it was upgraded to GDF-007 in 2003-2006 to fire AHEAD ammo.
If I had to bet, it's probably the old (non AHEAD) 35 mm ammo that Spain is trying to send.
"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (142 Viewers)
- Thread starter XBe02Drvr
- Start date
If I had to bet, it's probably the old (non AHEAD) 35 mm ammo that Spain is trying to send.
Greg Boeser
1st Lieutenant
I think Putin should take personal charge, lead from the front. If that doesn't inspire, seeing your commander-in-chief riding bare-chested into battle, I don't know what will.
Thumpalumpacus
Colonel
From your linked article:
While the wording was deliberately both vague and optimistic, it has been seen by Russian watchers as an obvious demotion for Surovikin – and a sign of Vladimir Putin's increasing anxiety over the stalling invasion, which has been raging since February 2022.
Speaking to CNN about the reshuffle, Mark Galeotti, senior associate fellow with the Royal United Services Institute, said Gerasimov had been handed "the most poisoned of chalices. It's now on him, and I suspect Putin has unrealistic expectations again".
Aside from the obvious demotion of Surovkin, I believe this could also be an attempt to throw the Russian MoD under the bus for what appears to be a looming failure, in order to separate Putin from the great mistake he's made ... i.e., the blame is not in the decision, but how the MoD executed it. In short, it's insulation.
This has been a trend over the last three months at any rate, once the defeats on the eastern and southern fronts landed home. If their projected winter offensive goes bad, now it's Gerasimov himself on the hook, rather than Putin, is how I read it. It goes without saying that I could be reading it wrongly.
Gerasimov may want to avoid buildings with more than one floor for a while.
Thumpalumpacus
Colonel
The Swiss make these decisions with the luxury of knowing they're surrounded by friendly, non-aggressive countries. They know they won't be invaded. The only answer is to force them to supply themselves.
It's easy to take a hard stand when you know it's not your ass on the line.
Admiral Beez
Major
I can't help but place much of the blame for the coming fall of Solodar upon the West's vacillations and timidity over sending Leopard 2 and other modern tanks to Ukraine in December 2022. If we send Ukraine these tanks now, we are demonstrably proving that the reasons given previously for withholding the tanks (mainly that the AFU does not have the ability/experience to operate nor the logistics to support modern MBTs) were bogus. What could have possibly changed in Ukraine from December when European leaders said tanks were impossible to January when the same leaders are saying tanks are essential?
This pussyfooting around on the part of the West is prolonging this war and costing Ukrainians lives. Let's give the AFU what they need.
This pussyfooting around on the part of the West is prolonging this war and costing Ukrainians lives. Let's give the AFU what they need.
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Admiral Beez
Major
I wonder what national marking the AFU will put on their new tanks. I don't thing the white spray painted cross does them justice, and now there's little chance of IFF confusion. There's always flags.
Or to be perfectly clear..
Or to be perfectly clear..
RogerdeLluria
Staff Sergeant
- 1,410
- Jul 5, 2015
swampyankee
Chief Master Sergeant
- 4,307
- Jun 25, 2013
All those oligarchs have a lot of their ill-gotten gains stashed in Swiss banks.Speaking of blocking arms for Ukraine.
Switzerland blocks Spanish arms for Ukraine | Switzerland Times
Limited understanding in Madrid of Swiss neutrality Bern vetoes Spanish arms delivery to Ukraine Spain wants to deliver military material to Ukraine, but is prevented from doing so by Switzerland.…switzerlandtimes.ch
swampyankee
Chief Master Sergeant
- 4,307
- Jun 25, 2013
And the Duke of Normandy is a vassal of the King of France.
Soledar will fall because the US in particular has been very wary of supplying Ukraine weapons such as tube and MLR delivered cluster munitions to level the playing field against Orc numbers.
High precision weapons don't do much against relentless human wave attacks, you need good old fashioned cluster munitions for that.
The US Army has millions of MLRS 155mm cluster rounds in depots that have been taken out of service. These would be ideal for turning human wave attacks into truly suicidal endeavours.
Türkiye has stepped up to fill that gap in Ukraines inventory BTW
High precision weapons don't do much against relentless human wave attacks, you need good old fashioned cluster munitions for that.
The US Army has millions of MLRS 155mm cluster rounds in depots that have been taken out of service. These would be ideal for turning human wave attacks into truly suicidal endeavours.
Türkiye has stepped up to fill that gap in Ukraines inventory BTW
Admiral Beez
Major
What's with the ZZ in your Russian? Is that a reference to the Schutzstaffel? First the Russians call the Ukrainians Nazis, and now we're supposed to call the Russians Nazis? I will do neither. To do so suggests that the Russians somehow cannot be monsters in their own right. Let's instead refer to the Russians as Stalinists, because his policies towards Ukraine including the Holodomor are just what Putin has in mind.
Thumpalumpacus
Colonel
From ISW:
Key Takeaways
www.understandingwar.org
Key Takeaways
- Russian forces have likely captured Soledar on January 11, but this small-scale victory is unlikely to presage an imminent encirclement of Bakhmut.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin likely seeks scapegoats for the Russian defense industry base's struggle to address equipment and technological challenges, and retains unrealistic expectations of Russian capacity to rapidly replace losses.
- Ukrainian intelligence confirmed that senior Russian military leadership is preparing for significant military reforms in the coming year, though ISW continues to assess Russia will struggle to quickly—if at all—implement planned reforms.
- Russian and Ukrainian forces reportedly continued offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
- Russian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and west of Donetsk City.
- Russian forces continued defensive operations on the east (left) bank of the Dnipro River.
- Russian officials and occupation authorities may be preparing for the mass deportation of Ukrainian citizens from occupied territories to the Russian Federation.
- Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Defense Andrei Kartapolov announced that Russian military recruitment offices may increase the age of eligibility for conscription as early as this spring's conscription cycle.
- Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Ground Forces, Oleg Salyukov (who was appointed as one of Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov's three "deputies" as theater commander in Ukraine), arrived in Belarus to take control of combat coordination exercises for the joint Russian-Belarusian Regional Grouping of Forces (RGV).
Institute for the Study of War
This page collects ISW and CTP's updates on the conflict in Ukraine. In late February 2022, ISW began publishing daily synthetic products covering key events related to renewed Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Putler is a Czarist, not a Stalinist, but I get your point.
The RuZZians are very proud of their Z, its everywhere on display and worn now in RuZZia.
And yes, they walk like Nazis, talk like Nazis, they are the new Nazis
Admiral Beez
Major
Ah. It's about the Z symbol that they paint on their vehicles and include on their propaganda. Every dictatorship needs a sharp-looking, emotion-tying banner.
As for labeling, I'll not enact Godwin's law and instead assess and refer to Russia's atrocities as their own; as demonstrations of the Russian mindset, its people and its politics. It's not Nazis that Putin is emulating, but Stalin. We must remember that Russia had it own bad guy, it's own holly terror, one that murdered as many as 60 million people, including up to 10 million Ukrainians in the Holodomor.
Inside The Shocking Number Of People Killed By Stalin During His Decades In Power
In Ukraine alone between 1932 and 1933, more than 3 million people died as a result of famine caused by Stalin's collectivization policies.
allthatsinteresting.com
By referring to Russia's latest move into Ukraine as that of Nazis we are giving Stalin, Russian history and Moscow's record of brutal atrocities a free pass. Labeling them as Nazis suggests that today's Russian leadership is somehow infected by a foreign mindset from 1930's Berlin when in fact Russians have always been this way. This latest invasion and murder of Ukrainians is a direct reflection on what Russians are, not Nazis, but instead Russia's own homebrew of nastiness. Chechnya wasn't invaded by Nazis in 1991, nor Georgia in 2008, nor Syria in 2015, but by Stalinists. Let's call them what they are.
I also find wordplay like RuZZians asinine, reducing complex issues to cute emojis or leet-speak. But I'm no mod, so you do you.
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GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Hmmm...so for nearly a year now, I have been referring to Putin as Vladolph Putler because his delusional war is parallel to Hitler's Ost-war playbook.
Admiral Beez
Major
But Putin's war is not delusional. He's running the Russian playbook of exactly how to bring recalcitrant and separatist-minded provinces back in line. The Romanov Tsars, followed by Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, et al used violence and intimidation to keep the Ukrainians and any other seemingly rebellious ethnic groups in check. To Putin, Ukraine is not a country but a province of Russia that needs the same firm had from Moscow that his predecessors used. Hitler wanted to enslave and then eliminate the people of the East so he could achieve his autarky. Putin wants to bring Ukraine back into Moscow's control, not erase its people. In fact demographics is one of the big reasons, IMO for Putin's move on Ukraine, since in light of Russia's rapidly declining population Putin needs Ukraine's population to add to Russia's. Why Ukraine Matters to Russia: The Demographic Factor
My point above is to use a foreign moniker to label Russia is to suggest that Putin is somehow infected by a foreign, un-Russian influence. That's entirely unnecessary though, since Russia has plenty of its own brutal history to pull from.
