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  • thegreatdivide
    thegreatdivide Posts: 5,803
    edited February 2022
    ‘Peak ice’ is due this week, so that’s got to be of concern to the West. As you say, mud season is March, but the modern Russian army trains all year round, so with the exception of the heavy tanks they’re pretty mobile regardless of ground conditions.

  • surrey_commuter
    surrey_commuter Posts: 18,866
    TheBigBean said:

    I don't see what Putin has to gain. If invaded, Ukraine will no doubt engage in gorilla warfare. Russians will then wonder the point is when the Russian bodies start adding up.

    Think of the psychological damage you could inflict if you could implement gorilla warfare
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 20,596
    surrey_commuter said:

    TheBigBean said:

    I don't see what Putin has to gain. If invaded, Ukraine will no doubt engage in gorilla warfare. Russians will then wonder the point is when the Russian bodies start adding up.

    Think of the psychological damage you could inflict if you could implement gorilla warfare
    As you know, I am no student of war, but how could you stop it? Russia just lack a clear objective beyond making noise.
  • surrey_commuter
    surrey_commuter Posts: 18,866
    TheBigBean said:

    surrey_commuter said:

    TheBigBean said:

    I don't see what Putin has to gain. If invaded, Ukraine will no doubt engage in gorilla warfare. Russians will then wonder the point is when the Russian bodies start adding up.

    Think of the psychological damage you could inflict if you could implement gorilla warfare
    As you know, I am no student of war, but how could you stop it? Russia just lack a clear objective beyond making noise.
    I was trying and failing to be funny over you having the wrong sort of guerilla/gorilla

    As he can invade from Belarus as well then I think that they are stuffed and that Putin will achieve his military gains. Guerilla warfare will only inflict a cost on hlding what they capture.
    If i was Ukraine I would make the cost of success too high and probablythe best way would be to buy a lot of hand held missiles to take out tanks/planes/helicopters. Other than that your only hope is to destroy your own country ie blow up every bridge over the Dnieper which might persuade him to only invade and hold half of your country.

    The other option would be a suicidal counter-attack on Russia and actually get your tanks on their land.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,615
    edited February 2022
    So I'd say the Afgan war is instructive on how to beat a massively more powerful force on home turf.

    Azerbaijan v Armenia is relevant too but I think the comparison is less valid as I suspect the Russians are as forward thinking re drone and modern technologies as Ukraine if not more so, so it won't play out that way.

    There is a reason Eastern Europe has seen a lot of war over the centuries - no obvious geography to keep enemies out or in.
    _
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 20,596
    surrey_commuter said:

    TheBigBean said:

    surrey_commuter said:

    TheBigBean said:

    I don't see what Putin has to gain. If invaded, Ukraine will no doubt engage in gorilla warfare. Russians will then wonder the point is when the Russian bodies start adding up.

    Think of the psychological damage you could inflict if you could implement gorilla warfare
    As you know, I am no student of war, but how could you stop it? Russia just lack a clear objective beyond making noise.
    I was trying and failing to be funny over you having the wrong sort of guerilla/gorilla

    As he can invade from Belarus as well then I think that they are stuffed and that Putin will achieve his military gains. Guerilla warfare will only inflict a cost on hlding what they capture.
    If i was Ukraine I would make the cost of success too high and probablythe best way would be to buy a lot of hand held missiles to take out tanks/planes/helicopters. Other than that your only hope is to destroy your own country ie blow up every bridge over the Dnieper which might persuade him to only invade and hold half of your country.

    The other option would be a suicidal counter-attack on Russia and actually get your tanks on their land.
    I'll blame that howler on post covid brain fog or something.

    Anyway, my point was that Russia's 100,000 soldiers can walk into Ukraine, annex it and get themselves a much sought after border with NATO, but I'm not sure they get much else. Meanwhile, some of those soldiers will die in guerilla attacks which won't be popular back in Russia. How many Russian deaths will be tolerated?
  • surrey_commuter
    surrey_commuter Posts: 18,866
    TheBigBean said:

    surrey_commuter said:

    TheBigBean said:

    surrey_commuter said:

    TheBigBean said:

    I don't see what Putin has to gain. If invaded, Ukraine will no doubt engage in gorilla warfare. Russians will then wonder the point is when the Russian bodies start adding up.

    Think of the psychological damage you could inflict if you could implement gorilla warfare
    As you know, I am no student of war, but how could you stop it? Russia just lack a clear objective beyond making noise.
    I was trying and failing to be funny over you having the wrong sort of guerilla/gorilla

    As he can invade from Belarus as well then I think that they are stuffed and that Putin will achieve his military gains. Guerilla warfare will only inflict a cost on hlding what they capture.
    If i was Ukraine I would make the cost of success too high and probablythe best way would be to buy a lot of hand held missiles to take out tanks/planes/helicopters. Other than that your only hope is to destroy your own country ie blow up every bridge over the Dnieper which might persuade him to only invade and hold half of your country.

    The other option would be a suicidal counter-attack on Russia and actually get your tanks on their land.
    I'll blame that howler on post covid brain fog or something.

    Anyway, my point was that Russia's 100,000 soldiers can walk into Ukraine, annex it and get themselves a much sought after border with NATO, but I'm not sure they get much else. Meanwhile, some of those soldiers will die in guerilla attacks which won't be popular back in Russia. How many Russian deaths will be tolerated?
    I agree but for Ukraine it will not feel like winning.

    I imagine he will do what he has done before and invade to protect ethnic Russians, he can then (officially) pull the army out and leave a puppet govt behind
  • surrey_commuter
    surrey_commuter Posts: 18,866
    rick_chasey said:

    So I'd say the Afgan war is instructive on how to beat a massively more powerful force on home turf.

    Azerbaijan v Armenia is relevant too but I think the comparison is less valid as I suspect the Russians are as forward thinking re drone and modern technologies as Ukraine if not more so, so it won't play out that way.

    There is a reason Eastern Europe has seen a lot of war over the centuries - no obvious geography to keep enemies out or in.

    not being pedantic but did the Afghans "beat" anybody? I heard a wonderful Taliban expression "you have the watches but we have the time" . In this instance vicyory looks like a 20 year occupation, countless deaths and the country ruined.

    Everybody knows the Afghans can not be defeated but still people keep invading so a policy of "never surrender" does not seem to work.

    Don't know about Armenia but check out Chechnya - now there is a place not to invade
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 20,596
    surrey_commuter said:

    TheBigBean said:

    surrey_commuter said:

    TheBigBean said:

    surrey_commuter said:

    TheBigBean said:

    I don't see what Putin has to gain. If invaded, Ukraine will no doubt engage in gorilla warfare. Russians will then wonder the point is when the Russian bodies start adding up.

    Think of the psychological damage you could inflict if you could implement gorilla warfare
    As you know, I am no student of war, but how could you stop it? Russia just lack a clear objective beyond making noise.
    I was trying and failing to be funny over you having the wrong sort of guerilla/gorilla

    As he can invade from Belarus as well then I think that they are stuffed and that Putin will achieve his military gains. Guerilla warfare will only inflict a cost on hlding what they capture.
    If i was Ukraine I would make the cost of success too high and probablythe best way would be to buy a lot of hand held missiles to take out tanks/planes/helicopters. Other than that your only hope is to destroy your own country ie blow up every bridge over the Dnieper which might persuade him to only invade and hold half of your country.

    The other option would be a suicidal counter-attack on Russia and actually get your tanks on their land.
    I'll blame that howler on post covid brain fog or something.

    Anyway, my point was that Russia's 100,000 soldiers can walk into Ukraine, annex it and get themselves a much sought after border with NATO, but I'm not sure they get much else. Meanwhile, some of those soldiers will die in guerilla attacks which won't be popular back in Russia. How many Russian deaths will be tolerated?
    I agree but for Ukraine it will not feel like winning.

    I imagine he will do what he has done before and invade to protect ethnic Russians, he can then (officially) pull the army out and leave a puppet govt behind
    In the short term, no, but in the long term it will be like Kutuzov and Napoleon.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,615
    edited February 2022
    surrey_commuter said:

    rick_chasey said:

    So I'd say the Afgan war is instructive on how to beat a massively more powerful force on home turf.

    Azerbaijan v Armenia is relevant too but I think the comparison is less valid as I suspect the Russians are as forward thinking re drone and modern technologies as Ukraine if not more so, so it won't play out that way.

    There is a reason Eastern Europe has seen a lot of war over the centuries - no obvious geography to keep enemies out or in.

    not being pedantic but did the Afghans "beat" anybody? I heard a wonderful Taliban expression "you have the watches but we have the time" . In this instance vicyory looks like a 20 year occupation, countless deaths and the country ruined.

    Everybody knows the Afghans can not be defeated but still people keep invading so a policy of "never surrender" does not seem to work.

    Don't know about Armenia but check out Chechnya - now there is a place not to invade
    I don't want to be too flippant but the location of where a war is fought is going to take a beating.

    Taliban did win the war though. They're a bad lot so it's hard to prise apart how much they're to blame for making their situation extra bad.

    The Azerbaijan is really interesting. Basically they had a lot of very out of-date Soviet kit, but they also happened to have had a fleet of drones, and the Armenians were only operating with more conventional tanks etc.

    Anyway, the drones obliterated the entre Armenian armour and artillery, and the Azerbaijanis won in 44 days.

    (it's a bit more complicated - you need the infrastructure to make the drones work etc, but you get the idea).

    _
  • focuszing723
    focuszing723 Posts: 7,202
    The thing is right, War? What is it good for? You know what I mean.
  • focuszing723
    focuszing723 Posts: 7,202
    We could have already landed on Mars, if it wasn't for Wars n stuff.
  • focuszing723
    focuszing723 Posts: 7,202
    I don't think Putin is interested in Mars.
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 20,596
    surrey_commuter said:

    rick_chasey said:

    So I'd say the Afgan war is instructive on how to beat a massively more powerful force on home turf.

    Azerbaijan v Armenia is relevant too but I think the comparison is less valid as I suspect the Russians are as forward thinking re drone and modern technologies as Ukraine if not more so, so it won't play out that way.

    There is a reason Eastern Europe has seen a lot of war over the centuries - no obvious geography to keep enemies out or in.

    not being pedantic but did the Afghans "beat" anybody? I heard a wonderful Taliban expression "you have the watches but we have the time" . In this instance vicyory looks like a 20 year occupation, countless deaths and the country ruined.

    Everybody knows the Afghans can not be defeated but still people keep invading so a policy of "never surrender" does not seem to work.

    Don't know about Armenia but check out Chechnya - now there is a place not to invade
    Ho Chi Minh

    You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win.


    I think the maths was actually 20 to 1.

    How many successful occupations have there been recently? Palestine? Tibet? Both of those are 50+ years in the making.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,615
    TheBigBean said:

    surrey_commuter said:

    rick_chasey said:

    So I'd say the Afgan war is instructive on how to beat a massively more powerful force on home turf.

    Azerbaijan v Armenia is relevant too but I think the comparison is less valid as I suspect the Russians are as forward thinking re drone and modern technologies as Ukraine if not more so, so it won't play out that way.

    There is a reason Eastern Europe has seen a lot of war over the centuries - no obvious geography to keep enemies out or in.

    not being pedantic but did the Afghans "beat" anybody? I heard a wonderful Taliban expression "you have the watches but we have the time" . In this instance vicyory looks like a 20 year occupation, countless deaths and the country ruined.

    Everybody knows the Afghans can not be defeated but still people keep invading so a policy of "never surrender" does not seem to work.

    Don't know about Armenia but check out Chechnya - now there is a place not to invade
    Ho Chi Minh

    You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win.


    I think the maths was actually 20 to 1.

    How many successful occupations have there been recently? Palestine? Tibet? Both of those are 50+ years in the making.
    Northern Ireland?

    *runs*

    Lots in Africa and the Nagorno-Karabakh wars.

    Congo wars, Ethopia vs Somalia, etc.
    _
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 20,596
    rick_chasey said:

    TheBigBean said:

    surrey_commuter said:

    rick_chasey said:

    So I'd say the Afgan war is instructive on how to beat a massively more powerful force on home turf.

    Azerbaijan v Armenia is relevant too but I think the comparison is less valid as I suspect the Russians are as forward thinking re drone and modern technologies as Ukraine if not more so, so it won't play out that way.

    There is a reason Eastern Europe has seen a lot of war over the centuries - no obvious geography to keep enemies out or in.

    not being pedantic but did the Afghans "beat" anybody? I heard a wonderful Taliban expression "you have the watches but we have the time" . In this instance vicyory looks like a 20 year occupation, countless deaths and the country ruined.

    Everybody knows the Afghans can not be defeated but still people keep invading so a policy of "never surrender" does not seem to work.

    Don't know about Armenia but check out Chechnya - now there is a place not to invade
    Ho Chi Minh

    You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win.


    I think the maths was actually 20 to 1.

    How many successful occupations have there been recently? Palestine? Tibet? Both of those are 50+ years in the making.
    Northern Ireland?

    *runs*

    Lots in Africa and the Nagorno-Karabakh wars.

    Congo wars, Ethopia vs Somalia, etc.
    Not sure the borders changed in either of those cases in Africa. I can think of lots of civil wars, but not many invasions.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,615
    edited February 2022
    I am quite irritated by the threat of cutting off the funding etc to Russian oligarchs.

    Shouldn't this be done as matter of course anyway?

    Various Western financial centres, and certainly the City of London, do help these tyrants hide their money and keep the wealth stolen from the countries, and it is implicit in the threat.
    _
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,615
    Yeah BB if you're talking annexations, we have what, Crimea in 2014, Israel in the early 80.
    _
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 20,596
    Crimea being mostly Russian makes it an easier occupation for Russia.
  • surrey_commuter
    surrey_commuter Posts: 18,866
    TheBigBean said:

    surrey_commuter said:

    rick_chasey said:

    So I'd say the Afgan war is instructive on how to beat a massively more powerful force on home turf.

    Azerbaijan v Armenia is relevant too but I think the comparison is less valid as I suspect the Russians are as forward thinking re drone and modern technologies as Ukraine if not more so, so it won't play out that way.

    There is a reason Eastern Europe has seen a lot of war over the centuries - no obvious geography to keep enemies out or in.

    not being pedantic but did the Afghans "beat" anybody? I heard a wonderful Taliban expression "you have the watches but we have the time" . In this instance vicyory looks like a 20 year occupation, countless deaths and the country ruined.

    Everybody knows the Afghans can not be defeated but still people keep invading so a policy of "never surrender" does not seem to work.

    Don't know about Armenia but check out Chechnya - now there is a place not to invade
    Ho Chi Minh

    You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win.


    I think the maths was actually 20 to 1.

    How many successful occupations have there been recently? Palestine? Tibet? Both of those are 50+ years in the making.
    an interesting question as if it is 50years ago do we see it as ancient history and ie USA successfully occupied large parts of Mexico or so recent like Serbia or Russia that we see it as ongoing.

    Anyway Google tells me that Germany lost some Eastern regions in 1945 so that could be seen as a successful occupation by Poland.

    I don't know much about Turkey and Austro-Hungaria but they are considerably smaller than they once were
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 25,750
    surrey_commuter said:


    Anyway Google tells me that Germany lost some Eastern regions in 1945 so that could be seen as a successful occupation by Poland.

    Payback for 1939 plus interest.
    Seem fair.
    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
    PB is the most sensible person on here.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,615
    So latest reports on the military build up suggest:
    The order of battle suggests a thrust from Belarus to threaten Kyiv, and an effort to encircle Ukraine’s best troops, currently deployed in the east of the country against separatist militias that control two enclaves, around the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk.
    _
  • surrey_commuter
    surrey_commuter Posts: 18,866
    pblakeney said:

    surrey_commuter said:


    Anyway Google tells me that Germany lost some Eastern regions in 1945 so that could be seen as a successful occupation by Poland.

    Payback for 1939 plus interest.
    Seem fair.
    I was using it as an example of a successful occupation
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 25,750
    surrey_commuter said:

    pblakeney said:

    surrey_commuter said:


    Anyway Google tells me that Germany lost some Eastern regions in 1945 so that could be seen as a successful occupation by Poland.

    Payback for 1939 plus interest.
    Seem fair.
    I was using it as an example of a successful occupation
    Wasn't really a Polish invasion though was it?
    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
    PB is the most sensible person on here.
  • focuszing723
    focuszing723 Posts: 7,202
    I wonder if the same issues would happen on Mars? Border disputes, mineral resources and things.
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 25,750
    focuszing723 said:

    I wonder if the same issues would happen on Mars? Border disputes, mineral resources and things.

    Obviously. That's why the USA wants to plant it's flag first.
    This was the whole premise of For All Mankind, except the Moon instead of Mars.
    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
    PB is the most sensible person on here.
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 25,750
    "The UK should "not believe anything that's coming out of Moscow", the chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has said."

    While I cannot disagree with the summary it is a bit of pot and kettle given recent events.
    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
    PB is the most sensible person on here.
  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 17,866
    What is it with right-wingers and Russia?

    https://www.facebook.com/unanglaisendiois
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,638
    edited February 2022
    briantrumpet said:

    What is it with right-wingers and Russia?

    Oh there idiots across the spectrum.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • mully79
    mully79 Posts: 904
    It wouldnt surprise me if Russia invades the Ukraine and when the response kicks off, there will be some bs nonsense, like the forces that invaded werent authorised by Russia and Putin will claim it never happened in the first place.
    No one will argue because they dont really want to fight with Russia and that will be that.

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