Russian Invasion of Ukraine Megathread

[Getting tard comed]

Behold, the most vile conspiracy theorist in existence, threatening world peace with his harmful blood libel and his antisemitic canards:

Oh, wait a minute. Literally every word he just said was true.

How come these "dictators" always seem to make so much more sense than everyone else?

Meanwhile, our supposed leaders are mumbling bizarre mantras to themselves like they belong in an insane asylum.

Is this the real world, or are we all in hell? What the fuck is all this?

Being ruled by foreigners, children, and women is a curse God puts on a nation who stops following him.

 

[Jump]

Doesn’t Baja California have large palladium deposits?

California had all sorts of mines.
Good luck reopening one there, ever.

Go to the California EPA and tell them you want to start strip mining and processing palladium there. See how that goes
Stuff like that is like steel mills. Once they are closed they are closed for ever. Modern US environmental laws make them impossible to rebuild.

 

[Shovelbird]

That is a total win right there.

Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia.

Iran and Russia yes.

Saudi Arabia no, it is USA's bitch dog.

 

[Mr Bunny]

Iran and Russia yes.

Saudi Arabia is USA's bitch dog.

They'll use China to mess with US if the US doesn't give it what it wants.

 

[Scale Smerch]

Reading some arm chair generals here and i'll just say it plainly, unless we invent something that does everything a tank does but better then tanks will continue to stay relevant.

Simply because it's always going to be useful to have a highly moble system that can provide protection and high fire power.

Failures in armored warfare are failures of crew training and failures of doctrine. Misuse and misunderstanding of their capabilities.

Like Javelins for example, they have a range of 2000 meters, most tanks can accurately engage targets at over 3000 meters, iirc longest range tank kill was somewhere between 6000 and 7000 meters. So if that extended reach isn't taken advantage of, it's not exactly the tanks fault.

If you just sit in an open field to get picked off by artillery instead of minizing your heat signature, camouflaging and entrenching your tank, that's not exactly the tanks fault.

If you engage targets from the same static position, not even bothering to disguise your sillouete, then its not exactly the tanks fault if you get acquired and blown up.

Countermeasures are like first-aid kits, you should absolutely have them and know how to use them, but you shouldn't need to use them if you know what you're doing. I'll also add that ERA is overrated and APS is a scam but that's beyond the point.

My last point is there has never been a debate between armor and infantry. Armor has always been in support of infantry, even in WW1 with armored cars.

It's been hilarious watching this slapfight play out because it proves how short some memories are. There was a similar debate over the tank's efficacy during Afghanistan and Iraq, especially among the minor NATO members. Why pay for something that expensive and complex if it can be beaten by infantry? Why bother sending it half a world away when IFVs or faux-TDs like the STRYKER or Zhalo can do everything it does? Funny how that debate turned out, especially in Canada's case when the Canadian Army went from scrapping its entire MBT fleet to upgrading it to Leopard 2s.

The tank isn't going anywhere, the level of protection, mobility and firepower it provides are too important for any military to pass up. While the Javelin and other weapons beat most countermeasures (that we know of), it won't last; just like the advent of ERA and composite armour to deal with HEAT something else will come along which nullifies current anti-tank systems and begins the arms race all over again.

 

[Hell on Earth]

Which is why I have always been on team light infantry. Tanks are imposing, but even the US found out to its detriment they are useless without a swarm of light infantry around them to keep the enemy away from them. Which sort of defeats their advantages. Which is the whole mechanized advance thing. The idea of the armored spearhead is nice and all, but IMO, all Tanks offer is artillery support. Which would be better served by, well, actual artillery. Mechanized (and Armored) artillery behind the infantry line that is capable of responding to fire requests from the front. That is where any expensive Armored unit needs to be.

The advent of the Javeline and the NLAW pretty much ends the argument. The idea that any retard grunt holding a 50,000 dollar missile can destroy a multimillion dollar tank should send shivers through any procurement officers spine. Its being done wholesale in this war.

A bullet or a shell is cheaper than a soldier full of gear, ah, based on your logic now infantry is obsolete.

Nah fam, infantry based armies haven't worked since WW1. (machine guns and artillery make short work of infantry)

And unless you have transformers then your planes and rocket launchers lack the capacity to take cities, let alone deep fortifications.

Your ground offensive power decreases a lot because your means of movement like trucks or armored cars are vulnerable to bullets, rockets, artillery, air strikes and are illsuited in offensive operations.

Unless the average infantryman is Ironman in terms of offensive power and protection then you need armored mechanized elements to have the necessary offensive power to emulate what cavalry did in ancient times.

You can't rely on air power or Infantry to do the dirty work of taking cities or crushing armies in the open fields, your infantry will just get slaughtered by strong defensive positions and armies will rely on air defense systems to make shure the enemy doesn't have air superiority.

Also, maintaining a very strong airforce is expensive as fuck and not many countries can afford a decent airforce.

 

[Abdul Alhazred]

Behold, the most vile conspiracy theorist in existence, threatening world peace with his harmful blood libel and his antisemitic canards:

Oh, wait a minute. Literally every word he just said was true.

How come these "dictators" always seem to make so much more sense than everyone else?

Meanwhile, our supposed leaders are mumbling bizarre mantras to themselves like they belong in an insane asylum.

Is this the real world, or are we all in hell? What the fuck is all this?

Assad is a king, Though he's wrong about America supporting Nazis completely, because look at the treatment Nazis receive in America vs communists, but he's dead on about everything else. The regime has no morals. !مرگ بر آمريكا! جاوید اسدمرگ بر آمريكا! جاوید اسد

 

[Smug Freiza]

Russia in the same boat USA is in now.
View attachment 3098679View attachment 3098681
Chip fab's need lots of neon. Now China is going to end up having full control over the world's neon gas supply because Ukraine's neon refineries are fucked. Ukraine is where the rest of the world went for neon. Guess what, China refines their own and will still buy Russia's while the rest of the world wont.

You know what else is needed for chip manufacturing? Palladium.
View attachment 3098744
You know who has been making big moves in Africa to buy up all the mining companies? Ill give you all a hint. It rhymes with CHYNA.

So the USA is finally starting to talk about re-shoring chip manufacturing. Orange Man was right. We will build some fabs here again, great. But we can't make the basic raw materials anymore needed to feed that fab. And we don't make simple low profit components like capacitors and resistors anymore. We off shored all that to china because profit. Those factories all knocked down, superfund sites declared. Now we can't make the rest of the parts needed to populate that circuit board. Sad.

The USA spent 40 years gutting its manufacturing capability. I really don't think it has the will to reverse any of that.

China has also been busy cornering the global market on rare earth metals, in 2019 China was responsible for 80% of rare earth imports. When the Orange Man first spoke about the US reliance on China's rare earth monopoly, we were treated with articles like this: Trump Has Exaggerated the Threat of China's Monopoly on Rare Earths (2019). Since Biden was elected, looks like the Orange Man wasn't wrong: U.S looks to ease China's monopoly on rare earths (2021), Chinas Rare Earth Metals and Consolidation (2022) and How the United States Handed China Its Rare Earth Monopoly (2020).

The rare metal of most concern is Dysprosium, which has various military applications.

Their names sound as if they are part of some science fiction universe: yttrium, dysprosium, samarium, neodymium. They are rare-earth elements (REEs)—little-known but crucial ingredients in much modern US military aerospace technology.

In recent decades China has become the source of 90 to 95 percent of world rare-earth oxides and the producer of a majority of the globe’s strongest rare-earth magnets.

Quote from Airforcemag.com Source | Archive
​

China had previously blocked vital rare earth metals to Japan back during 2010 over their Senkaku / Diaoyu Islands dispute.

Sharply raising the stakes in a dispute over Japan’s detention of a Chinese fishing trawler captain, the Chinese government has blocked exports to Japan of a crucial category of minerals used in products like hybrid cars, wind turbines and guided missiles.
China mines 93 percent of the world’s rare earth minerals, and more than 99 percent of the world’s supply of some of the most prized rare earths, which sell for several hundred dollars a pound.​

Quote from NYtimes Source | Archive​

 

[kim foxx]

It's been hilarious watching this slapfight play out because it proves how short some memories are. There was a similar debate over the tank's efficacy during Afghanistan and Iraq, especially among the minor NATO members. Why pay for something that expensive and complex if it can be beaten by infantry? Why bother sending it half a world away when IFVs or faux-TDs like the STRYKER or Zhalo can do everything it does? Funny how that debate turned out, especially in Canada's case when the Canadian Army went from scrapping its entire MBT fleet to upgrading it to Leopard 2s.

The tank isn't going anywhere, the level of protection, mobility and firepower it provides are too important for any military to pass up. While the Javelin and other weapons beat most countermeasures (that we know of), it won't last; just like the advent of ERA and composite armour to deal with HEAT something else will come along which nullifies current anti-tank systems and begins the arms race all over again.

they'll show you the knocked out tank but won't show you what happened to the AT team responsible for the knockout. remember: firing a javelin or NLAW leaves a nice smoke trail right back to your position for the rest of the column.

this video shows you the aftermath of one encounter between TDF and a russian column in kherson early in the war:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qArC01rONkA

 

[Smity Werbenjagermanjensen]

While the Javelin and other weapons beat most countermeasures (that we know of), it won't last; just like the advent of ERA and composite armour to deal with HEAT something else will come along which nullifies current anti-tank systems and begins the arms race all over again.

Active Protection Systems are the way to go, and they're pretty good right now, issue for Russia is most of their modernized tanks still use Arena, an APS from the early 90s.

 

[khaine]

https://www.tiktok.com/video/7078083190556085506

 

[Echo_Ender]

You want to develop stomach ulcers from utter rage?
Read what the bolsheviks did to the royal children after they survived the initial execution volley that killed their parents.
Or better yet, don't

Wow. I knew what happened but never looked into the details.

Leave it to the goddamn commies to botch an execution that badly.

And even though they were proud enough to brag about it later, they had to do it secretly in a soundproofed basement and hide the bodies.

 

[Jump]

Assad is the DarkSydePhil of global politics, change my mind.

Mr Assad! You can't just send old T72's in to urban areas with out infantry!

 

[Autopsy]

They did lots of reckless funding moves to get where they are now that will fuck them eventually. But that doesn't change the fact that the USA can't build a microwave oven let alone a F35 with out some part of the supply chain going though Chan. The world locking out Russia's raw material exports just cemented that fact forever.

My schizo theory is China is going to start making bold moves to grow CIPS and make the petroyuan a real thing. Getting the Yuan to reserve currency status so they can mimic the US Fed and just print their way out of trouble.
I'll take my big red X on this but I think it is their long term goal and plan to fix the bubble.

For a few years now, China has been visibly mobilizing their stand-off capability with the US and making threats over Taiwan to try and muscle together a new second world and US concessions. If that sounds childish, it really isn't, the Chinese have a dire need to be seen as a military competitor to the US if it wants to swallow Southeast Asia into a NATO-like alliance before the Quad becomes the Quint and so on, while simultaneously pushing its territorial claims. If it is not viewed as a competitor, China can only achieve one or the other.
Now that the West's version of asymmetrical warfare is proven to be both resilient and effective, and therefore it doesn't even matter if China could compete militarily (still can't), China would probably be right to take a step back and brace through their imminent economic issues.

Deng made a shitload of good calls (ironically keeping the one-child policy was one of his few big mistakes) and Xi has to eat his ego and admit he was wrong about nearly everything if he wants the best outcome. A return to Chinese "panda politics" and foreign investor safety would go a long way to sliding a petroyuan and an, ahem, diplomatic annexation of Taiwan under the NWO's nose.
Just because that's the obvious correct answer, don't expect anyone to take it, in case recent events hasn't made that clear enough... China has deliberately fostered a complex about disrespect and China's rightful place in the world in their youth, that will guide their politics until this generation leaves the military, or until these views are shocked right out of them, Japan-style.

It's been hilarious watching this slapfight play out because it proves how short some memories are. There was a similar debate over the tank's efficacy during Afghanistan and Iraq, especially among the minor NATO members. Why pay for something that expensive and complex if it can be beaten by infantry? Why bother sending it half a world away when IFVs or faux-TDs like the STRYKER or Zhalo can do everything it does? Funny how that debate turned out, especially in Canada's case when the Canadian Army went from scrapping its entire MBT fleet to upgrading it to Leopard 2s.

The tank isn't going anywhere, the level of protection, mobility and firepower it provides are too important for any military to pass up. While the Javelin and other weapons beat most countermeasures (that we know of), it won't last; just like the advent of ERA and composite armour to deal with HEAT something else will come along which nullifies current anti-tank systems and begins the arms race all over again.

To be fair to Russian armor, the Kremlin made the blindingly obvious mistake of invading Ukraine in the middle of their thaw. Combined with some clever abuse of dams and locks near Kyiv to flood nearly the entire stretch between the city and Chernobyl, and heavy equipment can't really get anywhere without sucking up three feet of mud. Ukraine is not representative of what every post-MANPADS war will look like, or even most.
It is also the case that Coalition doctrine on armor is now provably radically superior to Russian doctrine because it includes infantry screening if you don't have air cover, while Russian guardsmen seem terrified to so much as leave their APCs. Between better terrain, air superiority, and better doctrine, it's not clear that Coalition forces would hurt that much more in either Iraq war even if the Iraqi troops had MANPADS.

The scenario these weapons would do the most damage in, against a competent military, would be long after the fighting. Eventually the doctrines, the air superiority, and the readiness all fall away- during the occupation.
Russia, in this war, hasn't even gotten to the stage where Javelins and RPGs start popping out of windows, which absolutely would happen, because Ukraine has no doubt already hidden stockpiles of various anti-armor weaponry around the country. There are decent odds that farmers will be finding these weapons in unmarked boxes for decades to come.

 

[Feline Supremacist]

"All this is to say that democracy and the West may well look back on this as a pivotal strengthening moment"

lmao this DC swamp boomer is in for a shock; we have people opening stating they find National Socialism more appealing than US Democracy™ and I don't mean their little Jewish oligarch/glowie funded Azov either. More like we'll look back on it as the time the US fucked itself by rigging their elections to prop up the US version of Chernenko, and precipitated a similar collapse.

How fucking dumb does the media think people are? You'd have to be eating glue to buy into Ukrainian propaganda.

Eating and sniffing.

Jeff Cassman, businessman and Catholic blogger polled business contacts in Ukraine. He is at pains to emphasise that the 49 responses cannot be scientific, 43% Orthodox, 39% nothing, but responses were got every every oblast. Close to two thirds (62.5%) know someone have perished, and overwhelming they favour NATO entry. 98% want European involvement. 89.8% believe Russia was not provoked. Obviously his contacts are Ukrainian, but it is good to get things without the usual filter.

I don't care what they think of course they want us to come into this shit show but fuck that and fuck them too. WW3 is not worth a single blade of Ukrainian grass, not worth the life of a single US soldier and not worth destroying our economy. Should have come to terms with Russia long before this came to pass and kicked the American grifters out.

OH FUCKING NOES! The Donbas and Lugansk might use rubles!

TIME TO FUCKING GLASS THE PLANET IN WORLD WAR III

No shit Sherlock. That’s why we’ve been warning you idiots about not escalating this into a war in the first place. But no. Zelensky and his Nazi pals had to jerk each other off, bragging about joining NATO and getting nuclear weapons stationed in country while leaching off those sweet Oligarch and NGO dollars.
What did the Ukrainians think would happen? Oh we’ll just outlaw the Russian language and bomb Russian civilians in the breakaway Republics and Putin would just sit around holding a limp cock?
These imbeciles really believed it.
Well they fucked around and found out. And they’re trying to drag the US into their mess.
FUCK THAT.
Russia can have everything East of the Dnieper and I could give a tinkers damn.
To quote General Rundstedt,
Make Peace You Fools!

Marry me. In Minecraft.

Its been 30 days. And I would not call the Russian advance halted. Stopped dead in its tracks would be a more accurate statement. Russia had strategic surprise in the opening weeks of this war. That is going to change as the spring thaw sets in and it becomes easier to move about the country. Russia may have the larger army, but it does not have the larger force in theater. And that is the key caveat here. The way they prosecuted this war meant they had 30 days to win it. Now Russia has another 30-60 days to hang on to what its taken, and hopefully massively reinforce. If the battle lines have not meaningfully shifted by June, Ukraine is almost certainly going to counter attack.

The Russian Army is three sheets to the wind right now, and it seems nobody is daring to tell Putin this fundamental truth. Russia needs to initiate general mobilization now, and begin massively reinforcing its fronts in Ukraine with reserves and conscripts. If they don't the troops engaged are going to break. Its as simple as that. Even the best units cannot sustain 3 months of conventional warfare without rest, refit and reinforcement. All the units currently getting kicked in the teeth are going to need to be cycled to the rear and replaced with fresh units soon.

I am glad the infantrymen of the WW II United States Army/Marines are all mostly dead and spared the sight of the soft and spineless cucks our men have become. My grandfather hunted with men who survived months of war in various theaters before coming home. When one of them came back he went hunting and got ambushed by a bear. He not only survived without major injuries, he killed it in the process.

I'm not even gong to tell you about the guy that survived the Bataan Death March, escaped, joined the Flip partisans, went back to the US and demanded to be transferred to the Marines to fight the Japs in Iwo Jima. And he did before coming home.

Would take 6-9 months from the time the first draftees were inducted until combat-ready infantry replacements would get to their units. While the draft machinery is in place, not as sure about the Army's ability to train large numbers of draftees at one time. Would there be enough bed spaces in barracks? Where would the additional drill sergeants/support personnel come from? Would there be any problems providing the additional uniforms/individual equipment? Would medical/dental treatment facilities be able to meet the surge? Could training/support facilities be used on a two-shift, six-day-a-week basis? Would there be any problems running dining halls basically on a 24/7 schedule? A great deal of planning is needed to be able to accommodate thousands of draftees coming in over a rather short period of time, followed by additional groups. Like to think the Army has some sort of plan in place.

While we're at it, while the Air Force/Navy/Marines would most likely not draft anyone, they could also need to deal with rapid expansion. The AF has only one basic training base. Believe the Navy and Marines each have two bases where basic training is conducted. Like to think these services, like the Army, have some sort of plan to accommodate a large, rapid influx of recruits.

Dude, look at the average zoomer. They cry when you take their smart phones away.

 

[mindlessobserver]

According to a Russian press report, after 1 month of war Russias casualties are as follows.

Wounded: 16,153
Killed" 9,861

 

[Chinggis Khan]

I think all the hot "Russia is losing" takes are predicated on the France 1940/Iraq 2003 operational strategic model where you capture the enemy capital and this results in the enemy army surrendering wholesale and thus organised resistance ending, so Russian success would be as per France/Iraq the rapid gain of territory culminating in the capture of the capital

Per Col. MacGregor's analysis the Russians may not believe the capture of Kiev would result in Ukranian capitulation (seems correct) and so they need to eliminate the Ukranian army by actually destroying it in the field, which is harder to measure as it requires accurate casualty estimates of the Ukrainian forces which we do not have

I think another goal of the campaign is to depopulate these regions of the pro-Ukranianian elements and these humanitarian corridors are serving that purpose. I would expect Kiev to be encircled last, with the government getting pushed out West and perhaps an unresolved border akin to the Israel/Palestine situation that Russia could make periodic incursions into. People talking about the "insurgency" are nuts, those people who would fall into that demographic profile will be relocated, either by choice or coercion, into Free Ukraine, while these areas are repopulated by loyalists and those who contributed to the war effort. A longer protracted campaign suits these purposes just fine.

Not trying to be a stan for Russia, but realists tend to have a better grasp on these things than liberals and neocons.

"Now grateful descendants have demolished monuments to Lenin in Ukraine. This is what they call de-communization. Do you want de-communization? Well, this quite suits us. But you must not stop halfway. We are ready to show you what genuine de-communization means for Ukraine"

 

[Smity Werbenjagermanjensen]

According to a Russian press report, after 1 month of war Russias casualties are as follows.

Wounded: 16,153
Killed" 9,861

If I had to guess, if those numbers are accurate the fatalities are so skewed because of the shitty logistics preventing wounded from being transported to Field Hospitals, and Russia lacking Air Superiority makes CASEVAC impossible (if it's even a part of their doctrine), usually injuries to deaths ratio should be in the realm of 3:1.

 

[RodgerDodger]

Mr Assad! You can't just send old T72's in to urban areas with out infantry!
View attachment 3099091

It kind of helped that after Bengazi the CIA and State departments were temporarily a bit gunshy about handing out Man Portable Missiles to Middle Eastern Revolutionary's... yet again.

 

[SneedEyeMitch]

It kind of helped that after Bengazi the CIA and State departments were temporarily a bit gunshy about handing out Man Portable Missiles to Middle Eastern Revolutionary's... yet again.

They then tried to get directly involved with a false flag chemical attack as a pretext.