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Lessons (Already) Learned From The Ukraine War - Military, Political, Technical


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4 hours ago, Josh said:

Typically recreational dives are limited to 40 meters, but since the ship itself would have a certain amount of height just due to its beam, you should be able to at least go down and look at it externally. That would be considered an advanced dive. Anything deeper would requiring two tanks and ideally nitrox and a dive computer and the associated training with those kind of operations; those kind of depths require slow and careful ascent. I've never been below 35 meters myself.

Totally off topic, but hey, cool.  My brother cave dives, often down in Mexico.  You ever been to Truk Lagoon?  He loved it, diving there.

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7 hours ago, glenn239 said:

Totally off topic, but hey, cool.  My brother cave dives, often down in Mexico.  You ever been to Truk Lagoon?  He loved it, diving there.

Diving around truk or the canal is a personal bucket list item, but not something I’ve done yet. Done all the coral reefs but no good wrecks, just some wrecks intentionally sunk off Routan specifically for that purpose. Good for some training but lack luster tramp freighters of some kind scuttled when they were past their sell by date.

 

honesty if Moskva is shallow enough for an amateur dive (technically 40 meters; practically with the right equipment and dive group “40 meters” is just the dive book entry along with some hand waving) it is also on my bucket list. I’ve no intent to ever enter a wreck because of safety and also war grave considerations, but I’d love to see them from the outside.

Edited by Josh
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16 hours ago, bojan said:

This generally applies to all Slavic languages, but to add to confusion, some of those terms change gender depending on the Slavic language in question (In Russian shotgun is "3rd gender", in Serbian it is "female").

When I began learning English, I was so flabbergasted at the idea of gendered pronouns. Only much later I realized that English actually has only the 'easy mode' of it, some other IE languages have a whole lot of bizarre gendered grammar going on... :blink:

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On the subject of attack helicopter losses..

IRC, Kamov was promoting that their co-axial rotor layout was more survivable in combat than the traditional one like on the Mi-28.

There was a lot of question about that claim, since until now, most of the co-axial helicopters were being used mainly in naval applications.  But now we have some combat experiences

and I am wondering if that configuration was really that much more survivable, as the Mi-28s seem to be doing a bit better?

India seems they were not too keen on co-axial rotors

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Upward, with explosive bolts activated first to ditch rotors. IIRC early in the conflict there was an official report of one crew actually using that feature and surviving.

Edited by bojan
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4 hours ago, Yama said:

When I began learning English, I was so flabbergasted at the idea of gendered pronouns. Only much later I realized that English actually has only the 'easy mode' of it, some other IE languages have a whole lot of bizarre gendered grammar going on... :blink:

Ah, Serbian, so easy to learn to read and write, being phonemic, just like Finish. But there are 4 different accents that are not written, 7 grammatical cases that are actually used (way to fake local redneck accent is to omit some of those... :) ), everything has a gender and there are 3 (male, female and 3rd), change through grammatical cases depends on gender etc...

OTOH, we at least use some internationally recognized words. :D

Edited by bojan
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One of the lessons from Ukraine must be the involvement of civilian tech companies on the side of the Ukrainians and their impact on the war. They move much faster then the military of other countries and much more adept at solving problems. For a country not living on the fringes of a third world country (eg Astan) but instead fairly technologically advanced, its an incredible benefit.

Case in point is Elon Musk and his Starlink sets. WHat do you do when the Russians have cut off and jammed your cell comms and satellite access. Well, you call Elon and he sends you thousands of Starlink sets that circumvent the Russians and communicate with his own fleet of satellites. Then what happens if the Russians jam the Starlink sets. Well, you change one line of code on them and fix the problem in a couple of days. There is no way the military or govt of any country on earth could have fix this problem this fast.

And using these Starlink sets, the citizenry  track and provide intelligence on Russian troop movements, provide targetting information, set up ambushes, etc. I have no doubt that Elon is indirectly killing as many Russians as all the weapons send by say the UK. This is a great lesson for countries to learn.

 

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On 4/23/2022 at 7:45 PM, bojan said:

Ah, Serbian, so easy to learn to read and write, being phonemic, just like Finish. But there are 4 different accents that are not written, 7 grammatical cases that are actually used (way to fake local redneck accent is to omit some of those... :) ), everything has a gender and there are 3 (male, female and 3rd), change through grammatical cases depends on gender etc...

OTOH, we at least use some internationally recognized words. :D

Also, mindbogglingly, plurals are different for numbers 2-4 and 5+. Russian, if I'm not mistaken, is even more complicated when it comes to numbers.

Oh, and Serbian can be written using two different scripts (and variants thereof), so good luck with that too.

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Yandex-translated from  https://t.me/vysokygovorit/7868

I would like to talk a little about the Airborne Forces. The war revealed the shortcomings that have been repeatedly mentioned, but they were shelved. The problems began with the raid on Gostomel, when it turned out that with all the individual courage of the paratroopers, the lack of heavy armor and an acute shortage of artillery do not allow the airborne Forces to actively act against the enemy, who has such armor and a lot of artillery.

In the east of Ukraine, the main burden in the battles is borne by ordinary infantry – motorized infantry, as part of units without long regalia and beautiful berets. But they have tanks, they have firepower, and the ability to crush and break through the enemy's defenses, unlike the airborne forces, which simply do not have enough armor or the weight of a volley for this.

The fact that the airborne forces in their current form are already redundant with four divisions has already been said, especially considering that military transport aviation is simply not enough for them. No one who has seen the consequences of BMD falling under enemy fire doubts that specialized amphibious armor is not suitable in combined arms combat, where its protection is inferior even to our infantry fighting vehicles that are not heavily armored. In general, it is worth rewarding people only for the fact that they went on the attack on a "rabid flea", that is, a BMD, under enemy artillery fire.

What to do about it? Ideally, we should leave one paratruper division, which will include two brigades – a parachute and an landing assault, and distribute four more parachute assault brigades to military districts, except for the North, which has enough marines for its tasks, and transfer those released to motorized infantry.

To form specialized teams of rangers, elite motorized rifle units from them. In this case, we will have light infantry in the right amount, which is currently not enough. Reinforced with tanks and going into battle on infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, taking into account the high morale of the paratroopers, will be a decisive force in grinding the enemy and storming its fortified areas.

Because on the battlefield, as before, large battalions and the weight of the volley decide. And the vests, berets and jumps must be left to the fighters of the newly formed jaeger brigades. Loyalty to traditions is a great thing.

 

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2 hours ago, Perun said:

How, in Russian, is / or could be translated terms "jaeger" and "rangers"

In Russian "jaeger" (as type of troops) is "егерь" ( "eger")  - and this type of regiments existed in Rus Empire Army. "Ranger" is "ranger", usually associated with foreign ranger units  - newer existed in Rus Army. In context of above text, only "eger" word was used in Russian original, presence of "rangers" is translation fault i failed to notice, thank you for correction.

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1 hour ago, Roman Alymov said:

In Russian "jaeger" (as type of troops) is "егерь" ( "eger")  - and this type of regiments existed in Rus Empire Army. "Ranger" is "ranger", usually associated with foreign ranger units  - newer existed in Rus Army. In context of above text, only "eger" word was used in Russian original, presence of "rangers" is translation fault i failed to notice, thank you for correction.

Thanks

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5 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

Yandex-translated from  https://t.me/vysokygovorit/7868

I would like to talk a little about the Airborne Forces. The war revealed the shortcomings that have been repeatedly mentioned, but they were shelved. The problems began with the raid on Gostomel, when it turned out that with all the individual courage of the paratroopers, the lack of heavy armor and an acute shortage of artillery do not allow the airborne Forces to actively act against the enemy, who has such armor and a lot of artillery.

In the east of Ukraine, the main burden in the battles is borne by ordinary infantry – motorized infantry, as part of units without long regalia and beautiful berets. But they have tanks, they have firepower, and the ability to crush and break through the enemy's defenses, unlike the airborne forces, which simply do not have enough armor or the weight of a volley for this.

The fact that the airborne forces in their current form are already redundant with four divisions has already been said, especially considering that military transport aviation is simply not enough for them. No one who has seen the consequences of BMD falling under enemy fire doubts that specialized amphibious armor is not suitable in combined arms combat, where its protection is inferior even to our infantry fighting vehicles that are not heavily armored. In general, it is worth rewarding people only for the fact that they went on the attack on a "rabid flea", that is, a BMD, under enemy artillery fire.

What to do about it? Ideally, we should leave one paratruper division, which will include two brigades – a parachute and an landing assault, and distribute four more parachute assault brigades to military districts, except for the North, which has enough marines for its tasks, and transfer those released to motorized infantry.

To form specialized teams of rangers, elite motorized rifle units from them. In this case, we will have light infantry in the right amount, which is currently not enough. Reinforced with tanks and going into battle on infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, taking into account the high morale of the paratroopers, will be a decisive force in grinding the enemy and storming its fortified areas.

Because on the battlefield, as before, large battalions and the weight of the volley decide. And the vests, berets and jumps must be left to the fighters of the newly formed jaeger brigades. Loyalty to traditions is a great thing.

 

If you ask me, this is spot on, as mentioned elsewhere, the Soviet Union used light infantry to support a mechanised advance, and progressively made it "heavier" but not heavy enough, plus there was some lack of focus on what they were capable of doing vs whay they were expected to do. This put Spetnaz in the role of Rangers (mainly COIN light infantry), VDV in between mechanised troops and air landing troops (in the sense of deplying by helicopter) and air assault troops as air cavalry, so it's high time to separate paratroopers (troops that are deployed by air, be it helicopter or aircraft), light infantry (troops capable of fighting in rough terrain or cities) and Special forces proper.

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Imho this is a faulty analysis. It is like disbanding paratroopers after Market Garden. In the end the paratroopers took their target, what failed was the follow on support and the conventional forces took too long to link up with them. This is a planning and intelligence problem and not a problem of the paratroopers or their equipment.

Russia has a problem with the leadership, not with the performance of the troops.

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9 minutes ago, seahawk said:

Imho this is a faulty analysis. It is like disbanding paratroopers after Market Garden. In the end the paratroopers took their target, what failed was the follow on support and the conventional forces took too long to link up with them. This is a planning and intelligence problem and not a problem of the paratroopers or their equipment.

Russia has a problem with the leadership, not with the performance of the troops.

But the thing is that, apparently, they were expected to take the objective and move on to Kiev (which is a tall order anyway) which is why they needed vehicles, or, going by your Market Garden analogy, the mission of the 1st Airborne Division, which failed as much for its leadership as due to the Germans. From that point of view, it would have been better to have a force like the Rangers, specifically intended to take and hold just the airfield, enabling air transport to bring in heavier troops.

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Oh, all that has been seen.. Russia has problems on all levels.

Basic infantry skills are not there, not even with VDV. 

Total lack of ability and initiative from squad leader to battalion commander. 

Logistic nightmare, lack of moral, lack of support.

Great going.

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8 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

 

What to do about it? Ideally, we should leave one paratruper division, which will include two brigades – a parachute and an landing assault, and distribute four more parachute assault brigades to military districts, except for the North, which has enough marines for its tasks, and transfer those released to motorized infantry.

 

Any idea what  the parachute brigades doing at the moment?  Are they in Donbas fighting as regular infantry, or in reserve as airborne units?

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1 hour ago, RETAC21 said:

But the thing is that, apparently, they were expected to take the objective and move on to Kiev (which is a tall order anyway) which is why they needed vehicles, or, going by your Market Garden analogy, the mission of the 1st Airborne Division, which failed as much for its leadership as due to the Germans. From that point of view, it would have been better to have a force like the Rangers, specifically intended to take and hold just the airfield, enabling air transport to bring in heavier troops.

Which they would not have been able to, as they could not destroy the air defences of the Ukrainians and a lighter force would have been even more in danger of being pushed from the airfield by the local forces of the Ukrainians.

If the first lesson they Russians learned is, that they do need less paratroopers and should make them simple infantry, they learned nothing. And imho they are just returning to their old strategy thinking anyway.

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12 minutes ago, Perun said:

How do we know that Russian army has low moral? I didnt find any proof for that

Intact abandoned equipment galore doesn't point to a well disciplined and motivated force, more so if the abandoned equipment is the one of the "elite" VDV

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