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Posted
16 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

I think the Russian fortification lines have nothing to do with the ultimate Russian territorial objectives in Ukraine.  They are strictly opportunistic and tactical in nature, built against the current (and future) Ukrainian offensives, after which the Russians will start to advance again.

To attrite and diminish stocks of the western war-winning game-changing wunder-waffen that would be essential to counter future Russian advances. 

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Posted
3 minutes ago, mkenny said:

To attrite and diminish stocks of the western war-winning game-changing wunder-waffen that would be essential to counter future Russian advances. 

Well, it certainly was war winning in that Ukraine likely would not be in the fight, or would be doing so from the other side of the Dnieper, without it. Perhaps we should call it war-not-losing game-changing wunder-waffen? 

Posted

I don't know if they're war-winning, but they have definitely been game-changing, as they changed the game from "when will Russia take Kiev" to "how much of its territory will Ukraine take back". 😋

Posted (edited)

Except the next gigantic Russian counteroffensive is inevitably coming, the Russians will take Lwów and reach Polish border. Ok, not this year, but 2024. Or maybe 2025. 2026 for sure.

Edited by urbanoid
Posted (edited)
36 minutes ago, BansheeOne said:

I don't know if they're war-winning, but they have definitely been game-changing, as they changed the game from "when will Russia take Kiev" to "how much of its territory will Ukraine take back". 😋

I thought the initial Russian set-backs were due to their poor preparation and massive over-confidence in their ability to deliver a knock-out blow.  The wunder-waffen did not kick in until the Russians pulled in their horns. 

The June 2023  'ssshhhh........' Ukrainian offensive is when they unleashed  the war-winning game-changing wunder-waffen   with a vengance to deliver a Russian rout/collapse  'within days'.

 

How did that work out?

 

Ggpoum.jpg

 

Edited by mkenny
Posted (edited)
14 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Except the next gigantic Russian counteroffensive is inevitably coming, the Russians will take Lwów and reach Polish border. Ok, not this year, but 2024. Or maybe 2025. 2026 for sure.

And The Ukrainians will be sunning themselves in the Crimea in the summer............for sure....maybe....soon....perhaps.........

 

I have the film of this claim so can provide more about  the  claims made. 

  N87efD.jpg

Edited by mkenny
Posted
1 minute ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Ukraine was supposed to collapse  in 3 days. How did that work out? :D

 

It didn't.

There you go.

 

Now tell us how the Ukrainian 'sshhhh.....' offensive worked out?

Posted

It can still go either way really. OTOH if it wasn't for Western assistance Ukraine wouldn't have been doing any offensives, even the unsuccessful ones, as it would have likely already fallen.

Posted

To be fair, it is a bit of a strawman argument to say that Russia was going to take Kiev in 3 days or that Ukraine was going to break through in weeks with western equipment. There were probably higher expectations for both operations, but we have no idea that the planners themselves were truly that optimistic. Most people here did not have such high hopes for western weapons, though it would be fair to say that a lot of Western media did. But if we're going to parade western media around as a talking point, then I think it only fair we take Russian media at face value as well.

Posted
28 minutes ago, mkenny said:

It didn't.

There you go.

 

Now tell us how the Ukrainian 'sshhhh.....' offensive worked out?

And the correct answer is 'we will let you know when it's done'.

Another Wehrmacht crew killed, poor NATO.

Posted
9 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

,...convinced we are going to launch a first strike, which of course is impossible for all kinds of reasons.

Could you name a few reasons

Posted
8 minutes ago, Perun said:

Could you name a few reasons

The only way America could do it is if it had a significant edge in stealth aircraft, say, with the 130 B21s it is planning to buy. If it had that kind of superiority,  why not use conventional PGMs instead of nuclear weapons?

Secondly, it couldn't work 40 years ago, when the Soviets couldn't hit a barn door and had massive availability problems. Why is it going to work now when they have seemingly solved those problems?

Thirdly, common sense. To be a successful politician in America, you need an electorate.

 

 

Posted
2 hours ago, mkenny said:

Now tell us how the Ukrainian 'sshhhh.....' offensive worked out?

It is advancing very slowly. We still don't know if it will be a defeat or a victory (yes, a little pyrrhic...)

Posted
4 hours ago, Josh said:

Can we not post ridiculously long twitter threads in the future? 

Hear hear!

Posted
4 hours ago, mkenny said:

To attrite and diminish stocks of the western war-winning game-changing wunder-waffen that would be essential to counter future Russian advances. 

You are likely right, attritional warfare, though I am always skeptical of giving your enemy enough chances to make a knock-out blow. The Ukrainians appear to be running out of weapons, I only say that as they are continually asking for more. The news and twitter feed of incoming western weapons belies this. My thought is the west has a different objective, only to keep the Ukrainians in the fight, not allow them to decidedly win and give the Russians a reason to escalate.  

It has been rather interesting. I myself have ran with it too, at times----announcements  of a new western weapon that will turn the tide is designed to raise hopes. Things have reverted to the mean. Any one weapon is usually not enough to turn tides. Though in history we look back and look for specific reasons why such and such happened---"they had this or that weapon!" Historians should take this to heart. They could learn from this. 

The newest advertisement campaign is F-16's. I think the west knows a 50 year old design is not going to be a game changer, especially with the numbers that will be committed; and the way the Ukrainian Air Force is employed. The war will grumble on to 2024.....

Posted (edited)
53 minutes ago, ex2cav said:

The newest advertisement campaign is F-16's. I think the west knows a 50 year old design is not going to be a game changer, especially with the numbers that will be committed; and the way the Ukrainian Air Force is employed. The war will grumble on to 2024.....

The Russians are having success recently using drones to hunt and destroy aircraft on the ground, no doubt as a result of doctrinal and industrial decisions taken last year.  I didn't rate the F-16's chances against Russian SAM and aircraft, now they also will have to dodge increasingly capable drone hunter-killer packs.

Edited by glenn239
Posted
25 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

The Russians are having success recently using drones to hunt and destroy aircraft on the ground, no doubt as a result of doctrinal and industrial decisions taken last year.  I didn't rate the F-16's chances against Russian SAM and aircraft, now they also will have to dodge increasingly capable drone hunter-killer packs.

It's plausible that MiGs hit on airfields were actually decoys (though second one at least seemed genuine). Any way, F-16 has longer range and probably doesn't need to use bases so close to the frontline.

Posted
12 minutes ago, Yama said:

It's plausible that MiGs hit on airfields were actually decoys (though second one at least seemed genuine). Any way, F-16 has longer range and probably doesn't need to use bases so close to the frontline.

The MiGs didn’t strictly need to use bases that forward either; I would bet that it was more a case of “this is far enough back” that ultimately ended up being not far enough back.

That said, F-16s are only going to be moderately more effective.

 

Posted
5 hours ago, mkenny said:

 

Still unable to face reality.

There are certainly rumors of high casualties among the Russians as well, including the several VDV units recently thrown in. Forward progress is as limited as the Russian Bakhmut offensive but the effort might still be achieving the desired level of attrition. We shall see.

Posted
7 hours ago, Josh said:

Can we not post ridiculously long twitter threads in the future? 

That was an accident. I didn't intend to post a wall. Just one tweet. The software demons took over. That is not the first time that has happened.

 

If mod wants to delete some, most, or all go ahead

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