Page 125 of 150
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2022 12:02 am
by EACLucifer
Jakub Janovsky on the issue of arms/ammunition production.
For me, this is one of the key quotes. "When you stop using useless numbers for individual countries and put together the production capacity of the West and its allies + production in countries that are willing to sell ammo to us, you likely get to ~800K/year. and production capacity is being increased everywhere."
Journalists are writing a lot of articles on the subject. They are getting a few numbers, and a few quotes from western officials but they generally aren't doing a good job of putting those numbers in context. "Big Number Scary" is common in journalism in all fields, but those numbers need to mean something. Very few of the articles Woodchopper's posted do much to compare what is being produced across all relevant countries on Ukraine's side, what Russia's producing, and so on.
Also, Woodchopper, if you do insist on constantly posting rehashed articles by Western journalists that prevent numbers largely devoid of context relating to the provision of military materiel, could you perhaps post them on the threat I created specifically for the technical/military aspects of the conflict?
ETA: Another major point that is touched on in the discussion beneath the post I linked, but I feel is a very important one: Which conflict will see the US/European nations/NATO requiring large reserves of artillery ammunition, able to use large quantities of artillery, but unable to compensate with airpower, which is their preferred approach anyway?
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2022 12:27 am
by Bird on a Fire
At 40k shells a month, or 480k annually, that's still over half of the production capacity of the West and its allies and countries that are willing to sell ammo to them. That's quite a lot.
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2022 12:30 am
by Bird on a Fire
Also, how come material gets spelled in French when it's military stuff?
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2022 8:03 am
by Woodchopper
Estimate of over 10 000 new graves at Mariupol
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... 0ea99b9ad9
How they made the estimate
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... 55f14931f2
That’ll be a minimum number. Bodies may well still be in the rubble and there may be more than one per grave.
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2022 8:34 am
by EACLucifer
Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Fri Dec 23, 2022 12:30 am
Also, how come material gets spelled in French when it's military stuff?
Military terms are often loanwords from the languages used by those considered be leaders in military matters at the time they were coined.
Materiel, as a term, was coined at a point people looked to the French for military influence, but there's also words like Colonel (from Spanish for leader of a column) and Admiral (from Arabic
Amīr al-Baḥr - Lord of the Sea, though Admiral only actually includes "Lord of The"), or Howitzer (from Czech
Houfnice, which refers to a crowd or throng, and derives from the Hussite use of short cannon to attack such crowds or throngs).
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2022 8:36 am
by EACLucifer
Sadly, ten thousand would be a low estimate considering how quickly Mariupol was cut off and the Russian conduct during the siege. Russia is also demolishing the Drama Theatre, which they infamously targetted with a precision munition despite the word "дети" - "Children" in Russian - being written in enormous letters beside it.
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2022 8:58 am
by EACLucifer
For those worrying about escalation and Russian responses to arms, please remember that every time something they insist must not be sent or they will be very cross and do things they do not have the ability to actually do if it is sent, this does not happen when it is then subsequently sent. HIMARS was a red line, but then when it was sent it became "HIMARS is less effective than Uragan and Smerch and is just backfilling destroyed Ukrainian materiel" - which isn't true, of course, but that was Russia's actual response to it being sent.
And it's happened again. Putin quoted as saying that the Patriot missile system is less effective than the S-300.
So rather than worrying too much about Russia escalating in ways they simply do not have the facilities for, the west should remember that the climbdown is so reliable you can set your watch to it, and behave in a way that causes Putin to give statements like "ATACMS isn't any more effective than the Tochka-Us Ukraine already has" "Leopard 2A7s are no more advanced than the T-64s Ukraine already has" "F-15s are no more effective than the MiG-29s Ukraine already has" etc.
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2022 10:30 am
by Imrael
Materiel, as a term, was coined at a point people looked to the French for military influence, but there's also words like Colonel (from Spanish for leader of a column) and Admiral (from Arabic Amīr al-Baḥr - Lord of the Sea, though Admiral only actually includes "Lord of The"), or Howitzer (from Czech Houfnice, which refers to a crowd or throng, and derives from the Hussite use of short cannon to attack such crowds or throngs).
I didnt know about Howitzer, despite having read a fair bit about the Hussites. See also Guerilla (spanish, adopted in Napoleonic times). Shrapnel is a variant - name of inventor, slightly mis-spelled. I think Petard (small bomb, never was a flag) might be from the French word for Fart.
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2022 10:33 am
by TopBadger
Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Fri Dec 23, 2022 12:27 am
At 40k shells a month, or 480k annually, that's still over half of the production capacity of the West and its allies and countries that are willing to sell ammo to them. That's quite a lot.
Yet still much less than would be likely to be used by the Allies when they have air supremacy.
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2022 10:34 am
by shpalman
French is also why e. g. Lieutenant Colonel and Major General are the noun-adjective way around.
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2022 10:35 am
by shpalman
TopBadger wrote: ↑Fri Dec 23, 2022 10:33 am
Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Fri Dec 23, 2022 12:27 am
At 40k shells a month, or 480k annually, that's still over half of the production capacity of the West and its allies and countries that are willing to sell ammo to them. That's quite a lot.
Yet still much less than would be likely to be used by the Allies when they have air supremacy.
And what are we using the other half for right now that's more important?
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2022 10:38 am
by TopBadger
EACLucifer wrote: ↑Fri Dec 23, 2022 8:58 am
So rather than worrying too much about Russia escalating in ways they simply do not have the facilities for, the west should remember that the climbdown is so reliable you can set your watch to it
Well put.
The Russian reply to each suggestion of the supply of a new armament to Ukraine has been along the lines of "you won't be able to imagine our response"... yeah, right.
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2022 3:10 pm
by shpalman
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2022 5:34 pm
by Woodchopper
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2022 9:17 pm
by EACLucifer
I see "let's let the hardened criminals out of jail and give them assault rifles" is going as well as one would expect.
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2022 10:52 pm
by jimbob
EACLucifer wrote: ↑Sat Dec 24, 2022 9:17 pm
I see "let's let the hardened criminals out of jail and give them assault rifles" is going as well as one would expect.
I had been thinking about separatist movements in ethnic groups and regions targeted for mobilisation, but hadn't thought too much about simple violent crime
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2022 9:22 pm
by bjn
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2022 11:52 pm
by jdc
bjn wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 9:23 pm
Can’t remember where I read it in the last few days, but I have seen reports that the intensity Russian of artillery fires in the Bakhmut offensive has slackened which was put down to shortage of shells.
Rumours that Russian units are using shells made in 2022 which are substandard compared to older batches and text in the next image claims Russia uses 6-7 times more ammo than Ukraine
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/statu ... 49/photo/1
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2022 2:55 pm
by EACLucifer
jdc wrote: ↑Mon Dec 26, 2022 11:52 pm
bjn wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 9:23 pm
Can’t remember where I read it in the last few days, but I have seen reports that the intensity Russian of artillery fires in the Bakhmut offensive has slackened which was put down to shortage of shells.
Rumours that Russian units are using shells made in 2022 which are substandard compared to older batches and text in the next image claims Russia uses 6-7 times more ammo than Ukraine
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/statu ... 49/photo/1
There's also things like this -
Wagner scum ranting about lack of shells. Please note this video contains strong language and homophobic slurs. Though it must be noted that a pinch of salt is needed when looking at Wagner Group types attacking Gerasimov and Shoigu, as it can also be a Prigozhin play for power.
There was also a rant by a Russia supporter (Murz) recently that included details about tanks filling in for artillery, as they have ammunition available. There are major problems with this, though, notably barrel wear. Modern tank guns differ from artillery guns in several ways. Tank guns are built to achieve much higher velocities, so that they can defeat armour with kinetic penetrators. That requires *much* higher chamber pressures, which results in much faster barrel wear. And most modern tank guns are smoothbores, both to achieve higher velocity, and to avoid disrupting the penetrator jet of a High Explosive Anti-Tank warhead. That means that they rely on fins for stabilisation, and may lose accuracy faster due to barrel wear than rifled guns.
One thing I keep trying to emphasise is that artillery power/effect is not just due to weight of shell. The shells need to hit their targets, and they need to be aimed at the right targets, and they need to be fired at the right time, and so on. There's lots of reports of Russian artillery hitting hundreds of metres off target, and hours long delays between the call for artillery support and the actual firing of the shells, sometimes resulting in empty fields being heavily shelled hours after the Ukrainians have left. Ukraine seems to be doing a much better job of communicating and coordinating their actions, which, combined with more accurate artillery from the west, enables them to achieve effectiveness with much less weight of shell. That is also important because high weight of shell fired = high burden on logistics, especially for weight-inefficient systems like rocket artillery. Russia could make it work when they could set up large depots to allow for easy ammunition handling with relative impunity, but GMLRS made that impossible, and saw a lot of supplies destroyed in the depots too.
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2022 5:30 pm
by TopBadger
Yet another Russian billionaire falls out of a window to their death...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64101437
Whats the body count of Russian billionaires?
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2022 6:41 pm
by Woodchopper
Ukraine’s foreign minister said Monday that his nation wants a summit to end the war but he doesn’t anticipate Russia taking part, a statement making it hard to foresee the devastating invasion ending soon.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told The Associated Press that his government wants a “peace” summit within two months at the United Nations with Secretary-General António Guterres as mediator.
The U.N. gave a very cautious response.
“As the secretary-general has said many times in the past, he can only mediate if all parties want him to mediate,” U.N. associate spokesperson Florencia Soto Nino-Martinez said Monday.
Kuleba said Russia must face a war-crimes tribunal before his country directly talks with Moscow. He said, however, that other nations should feel free to engage with Russians, as happened before a grain agreement between Turkey and Russia.
[…]
The AP interview offered a glimpse at Ukraine’s vision of how the war with Russia could one day end, although any peace talks would be months away and highly contingent on complex international negotiations.
[…]
Kuleba said during the interview at the Foreign Ministry that Ukraine will do whatever it can to win the war in 2023.
“Every war ends in a diplomatic way,” he said. “Every war ends as a result of the actions taken on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.”
[…]
Kuleba said the Ukrainian government would like to have the “peace” summit by the end of February.
“The United Nations could be the best venue for holding this summit, because this is not about making a favor to a certain country,” he said. “This is really about bringing everyone on board.”
At the Group of 20 summit in Bali in November, Zelenskyy made a long-distance presentation of a 10-point peace formula that includes the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the withdrawal of Russian troops, the release of all prisoners, a tribunal for those responsible for the aggression and security guarantees for Ukraine.
Asked about whether Ukraine would invite Russia to the summit, he said that Moscow would first need to face prosecution for war crimes at an international court.
“They can only be invited to this step in this way,” Kuleba said.
About the U.N. Secretary-General’s role, Kuleba said: “He has proven himself to be an efficient mediator and an efficient negotiator, and most importantly, as a man of principle and integrity. So we would welcome his active participation.”
The U.N. spokesman’s office had no immediate comment.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... 390fe70307
Still looks like they we are a long way from any agreement that would be acceptable to both.
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2022 4:43 pm
by TopBadger
restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the withdrawal of Russian troops, the release of all prisoners, a tribunal for those responsible for the aggression and security guarantees for Ukraine.
I can totally see why Ukraine wants these things... but they're not going to get them.
Even if Russia agreed in principle to these demands it wouldn't mean a thing because Russia simply can't be trusted to uphold its end of any bargain.
The only way this war ends that Ukrainian supporters have any direct control over is that Ukraine has to win on the battlefield. If Ukraine's supporters want this war to end, then the corollary is that those supporters need to supply the means for Ukraine to win.
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2022 4:51 pm
by shpalman
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2022 5:39 pm
by Opti
Strangely enough
there's a wiki page for that.
Just this years figures.
Re: The Invasion of Ukraine
Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2022 8:21 am
by jimbob
Good op-ed piece on CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/20/opinions ... index.html
The escalation game
Since well before February’s invasion, portentous but vague threats from Russia of unspecified but alarming responses have been sufficient to serve as a massive brake on Western support for Ukraine.
And for almost a year afterward, Western powers were careful not to give the Ukrainian armed forces weapons that could threaten Russia itself.
In doing so, the West has played along with the Kremlin’s pretense that it is not at war, only waging a “special military operation.” In effect, it has protected Russia from the consequences of its own aggression.