Russian Special Military Operation in the Ukraine - Mark IV: The Partitioning of Discussion

[Givi]

The collapse of the French grasp on Africa started some years before the Ukraine Russian conflict. French forces for some (most likely political) reason stopped actively engaging Jihadist forces in many former French colonies that relied on their support. Which forced local governments to invite groups such as Wagner to handle the situation since the local forces in typical African fashion are incapable.

There was an interesting Vice documentary (back when they actually did some on the ground reporting) showing both the ineptitude of the local African forces at fighting against the Jihadis and the efficiency of the French forces, but after Vice scrubbed Internet from all the 'problematic' content they produced, mostly meme clips are left. You might be able to find the first half of this documentary, but the second half with the Frenchies is presumed lost.

View attachment 5645984

Here's the full video (part 1). I'm pretty sure part 2 is gone, it was hosted on Vice's website (dead bodies).

The video is fucking hilarious but let's be real here, that's more than enough to fight the typical insurgent groups that pop up around the region. African armies' biggest problem has always been morale, rebel groups tend to shatter the second they face any actually organized resistance so you don't need a super professional army if you're willing to take some losses. But African armies tend to have a lot of tribal fuckery, huge issues with corruption, even bigger issues with command, and major problems with discipline/morale.

If anything the video's a GOOD example for most African armies. Yeah they're shooting with their eyes closed and vaguely in the direction of the enemy (which most tend to do anyway trained or not) but the soldiers are clearly taking orders, more or less understand what they have to do, and aren't running away the second they get shot at, the Major is literally giving orders under fire (which eventually gets him shot) and has the good sense to send people up a building where he thinks they might be taking fire from and gets his men up top with a great vantage point, etc etc. At the end of the day they're fighting rebels with even worse training and equipment than they have, they'd get slaughtered in a real war, sure, but it's good enough for their conflict.

At the end of the day the place was breached by the French eventually and they discovered it was being held by like 13 guys, it might sound embarrassing but considering the lack of artillery or even mortars, 13 people could probably hold a place like that for days against a force that isn't particularly willing to fight close quarters.

 

[Male Idiot]

I could imagine Russia possessing a sphere of influence within Europe.

However I suspect conquering a place is rather difficult. Perhaps Europeans are ruled over so terribly that a foreign invader would actually have popular support. It happened to Rome in the very end.

But I don't think this time period is really a time Russia goes on massive conquests and military adventures. I suspect this is a time Russia rebuilds itself while being strong enough to maintain its interests near to it.

There are interesting development in regards to Russian Demographics and I'd say Russia is one of the places that is the closest to solving the urbanization problem which all countries face.

Agreed. Never said they should, just that they could. Russia's best interests now are making it seem like a good alternative to the US. Which would include not invading eastern Europe. Russia wants to be the reasonable alternative, after all.

Do they need to?
View attachment 5645522
Something about hohols being hohols etc

That looks like good old 2000s Hungarian fun times. The Skull head decors are spot on. The flag looks just overly busy, what's wrong with the good old hook cross? They could have just done the old flag with a corner having an american eagle. Keep your memes simple folks.

Best trolling music a young Kiwi could ask for.

 

[Corn Syrup Connoisseur]

the Major is literally giving orders under fire (which eventually gets him shot) and has the good sense to send people up a building where he thinks they might be taking fire from and gets his men up top with a great vantage point

Did you miss the part where they get on the roof and the commentary says "confusion rained as friendly fire threw us to the floor"
And I'm somehow highly suspicious any enemy conveniently hit the Major after the commanders had an argument if you know what I mean.

Thanks for the full video though.

 

[The Punished Mitch]

Unfortunately, current Russian leadership does not understand how to do that.
Because if they did, they would have already done that.
Something about their old Soviet brains just can't comprehend how a successful propaganda campaign is supposed to work.

No propaganda campaign could top actual Western government policy.

 

[ConsentAccidentVictimNo98]

The British Military seemingly shrinks every decade and just recently the Royal Navy is seriously considering scraping or mothballing two frigates because they can't man them..... The UK has NEVER had a higher population and seemingly can't man a Navy with 19 Frontline warships....the British SF are excellent as are the Royal Marines and most of the British army

The truth with Britain is that the entirety of the country is in institutional tatters. It has been rotting for a long time now even before austerity (hence this issue isn't new) and with large class divide what is happening is what has been happening for a long time. People are simply inwardly focused For those in the upper class, what is the point in a military career when you could just go to a high end uni, do economics, finance or business and work in the services and make a lot of money? With less love for the country, and more love for the neo-liberal god of greed those in the middle class and upper class won't serve. The lower class won't care, the military does not offer what it use to. If they want to progress socially they'll go to uni' in the hopes of a decent job. Or, they may just accept the idea of living off of the doll and not having to work with the promise of just having an easy life. People are inwardly focused and the cares of the state are not of their own. The familial culture surrounding things like the navy has diminished.

The Royal Navy right now is underequipped and underfunded. For example, we only have two carriers. The golden rule with carrier fleets for a while has been to have 3 so you can have one deployed, one being prepared and one in maintenance. This means the carriers that we have are over stretched. There has been talk of acquiring a third Queen Elizabeth Class (which are fitting for our country despite being essentially just upgraded versions of the invincible class). The problem concurrently with the royal navy is that it is trying to accomplish a great deal of things with a very limited budget.

There is an almost irony to the Royal Navy concurrently. The new ships entering service with programs that Britain lead are actually being built in relatively significant numbers. For the Type 26 frigate, there are 32 planned. A quarter of these being British with Canada planning to have 15 and Australia 9. They both have more than the Royal Navy. Type 31 frigate? 10 are planned, 5 for britian 3 for Poland and 2 for Indonesia. We may end up with 5 extra type 32s but these are a class that don't have any partnerships meaning it will be easy for them to be scrapped. They would essentially allow us to get to 24 surface escort ships (so there's an 8/8/8 split).

There is also the funding dilemma that exists also because of the economic distribution of this country where we face huge difficulty in actually accumulating funds for services all across the country. If let's say an extra 0.4% of gdp was granted to the military then there would be a massive backlash in relation to stressed services like education. There is not enough money to go places, and in spite of taxes being as they are the funding for military e. Things will only get worse as more people will need the state pension and the government has to fund it (the pension fund at the concurrent rate is going to run out somewhere in the 2030s) and the government concurrently is in it to get rich then leave. Like, you can't convince me the Pajeet Minister hasn't used the job primarily to get him and some friends an extra bit of money for them to later jump ship. It's why it was an easy choice for him to cancel HS2 north of Birmingham. Land that could be sold and bought for cheap after the scamming of the tax payer on a useless endeavour.

 

[Givi]

Did you miss the part where they get on the roof and the commentary says "confusion rained as friendly fire threw us to the floor"

Friendly fire is way more common than any army would have you believe. The Ukrainians shot at themselves constantly in 2014, and every day we get a new story from the front about how Russians or Ukrainians shot at each other for a while before figuring it who they were. Shit gets hectic quickly in a firefight, they hashed it out, nobody died, it was a good enough day for all concerned lol.

Like I said, nobody there is a military genius but even the basic shit of taking orders from somebody with a higher rank instead of running away is already a big step for an African army.

 

[Betonhaus]

Friendly fire is way more common than any army would have you believe. The Ukrainians shot at themselves constantly in 2014, and every day we get a new story from the front about how Russians or Ukrainians shot at each other for a while before figuring it who they were. Shit gets hectic quickly in a firefight, they hashed it out, nobody died, it was a good enough day for all concerned lol.

Like I said, nobody there is a military genius but even the basic shit of taking orders from somebody with a higher rank instead of running away is already a big step for an African army.

With thermal imaging and everything does camo even work anymore? Should we go back to the brightly colored fashions of earlier wars?

It seems all camo does is give the soldier false confidence that he cannot be seen. If he had garish colours on he might try harder to not be spotted.

 

[Fried-Rice12]

Friendly fire is way more common than any army would have you believe. The Ukrainians shot at themselves constantly in 2014, and every day we get a new story from the front about how Russians or Ukrainians shot at each other for a while before figuring it who they were. Shit gets hectic quickly in a firefight, they hashed it out, nobody died, it was a good enough day for all concerned lol.

I recall a story earlier in the war (Summer/Fall 2022) where a western merc that managed to come home in one piece told a terrifying story of another merc (from some elite western unit, don't remember which) who got misidentified by a ukrop BTR and cut to pieces by it's autocannon.

The worst is when the enemy uses captured equipment in a offensive.
There's that well known case early in the war where some ukrops got annihilated at blank point range by the Russians using a captured ukrop tank. I believe the blank point range shot was because the Russian commander wanted to confirm that the group were ukrops before opening up.

 

[The Hardest R]

How many Europeans does it take to change a light bulb?

Three. One to change the lightbulb, one to seethe about how Americans are too dumb to change lightbulbs and another to make a tired joke about Wal-Mart and school shootings.

I am most amused at how their stereotypes of Americans are frozen in time at the year 2005. Every time. It’s like those Moldovan night clubs that still think it’s 1989.

 

[Feline Supremacist]

I am most amused at how their stereotypes of Americans are frozen in time at the year 2005. Every time. It’s like those Moldovan night clubs that still think it’s 1989.

For the boomers running the US its still 1969

What am I looking at here?

Spoiler: Not for the squeamish-possibly NSFW

If they can't treat and sew it up right then and there they should have left it alone; instead that piggerina is sticking her fingers inside and moving them around wtf that hohol can bleed out at any moment before he gets to a real doctor.

Maybe their high casualty rate is due to their absolutely retarded hohol tik tok whores larping as medics.

 

[Corn Syrup Connoisseur]

What am I looking at here?

Spoiler: Not for the squeamish-possibly NSFW

If they can't treat and sew it up right then and there they should have left it alone; instead that piggerina is sticking her fingers inside and moving them around wtf that hohol can bleed out at any moment before he gets to a real doctor.
View attachment 5646375
Maybe their high casualty rate is due to their absolutely retarded hohol tik tok whores larping as medics.

To me it looks like they are packing the wound with packing gauze. A lot of gun and shrapnel wound treatment includes you sticking your fingers in there. Gladly those guys aren't in battlefield conditions and have medical gloves. They are basically just providing the patient extended care until they get him to a surgeon who decides on the best course of action. Biggest miracle in that video is how much they have been able to control the bleeding, almost makes it seem fake, guy had extreme luck.

This instance is them acting like proper combat medics. The Santa hats are in really bad taste though.

 

[Screamer_2]

The video is fucking hilarious but let's be real here, that's more than enough to fight the typical insurgent groups that pop up around the region. African armies' biggest problem has always been morale, rebel groups tend to shatter the second they face any actually organized resistance so you don't need a super professional army if you're willing to take some losses. But African armies tend to have a lot of tribal fuckery, huge issues with corruption, even bigger issues with command, and major problems with discipline/morale.

Having spent some time in Africa, one of the oddest things to observe is how there's a level of modernity placed on them that doesn't seem to really make sense to them. So there, no combat training or thought. Yet it's reminiscent to me of watching locals trying to use a checkout in a supermarket or an atm.

 

[Napoleon III]

I know it's a little off-topic but could you elaborate on that? I know Russia and the rest of the developed world is facing a major demographic crisis, so I'm curious how they've been facing it.

Sorry this is so damn long I tried to make it as short as possible.

I should clarify what I mean, Russia still has demographic problems and will for a decade or more but the solution to demographic issues is slowly being born in Russia.

This could be controversial but the reason all the world is having demographic issues is because everywhere is incredibly urbanized. People in cities have a much harder time forming families and in general people in cities seem to focus on other things in comparison to people who live in a suburban or rural area. Some people might think it is due to other problems like economic opportunity or social issues. Other explanations either don't hold up with plenty of counter-examples of when poor people had a lot of children or the other explanations is an effect of living in a city. The one other explanation that has some merit is that women being in the workforce contributes because raising children while also working is incredibly difficult. But this too results from cities.

But the thing that has happened in Russia is not from the state but just from the decisions of people is a weird sort of rural communities that are developing. These rural communities are different from the small isolated rural villages. These communities still have people engaging in agriculture but they are also close enough to major infrastructure to allow the people who live in them to be somewhat connected to the urban networks. This lets people have enough of the benefits of living in a city while still being rural places. This isn't a suburb as they are small and still grow food and raise livestock. I know what a dacha is and I'm not confusing dachas with these communities they are new and growing. These places are not as much of a conscious thing either unlike the homesteading movement in the US. It is simply people who have made a choice based on what is available to them and what they want.

There are other somewhat similar things in the US like the homesteading movement and a sort of similar thing in Japan about trying to get people to move to suburbs. These are also kind of similar to Israel's rural religious communities, but Israel is currently dying and what made those communities work is unique to Israel within a certain set of conditions. Russia is probably the furthest along in developing this and just about everywhere else is extremely unstable, short on land or both. The countries that figure this out are going to be the ones that inherit the earth.

I wrote a giant wall of text and I feel like I barely scratched the surface. I cut out a discussion of all the different approaches states including the Russian government have made to fix demographics issues. I cut an explanation of what cities do and why, and even though they hurt long term demographics they can't be simply abandoned. I cut out analogies to very similar processes to the one we are experiencing now happening in history. This topic is absolutely massive with just an unbelievable amount of things to consider in regard to it.

 

[Strix454]

It seems all camo does is give the soldier false confidence that he cannot be seen. If he had garish colours on he might try harder to not be spotted.

Its already started happening to a degree in Ukraine. There are plenty of videos which feature Ukrainians covering their camo with bright blue tape stripes and wearing very large very clear badges on their uniforms.
Its difficult to determine if this is a Ukrainian answer to a Ukrainian problem of friendly fire and poor battlefield coordination due to low quality soldiers. Or if this is the way modern warfare is going. The effectiveness of camo is definately on the decline.

 

[Betonhaus]

Its already started happening to a degree in Ukraine. There are plenty of videos which feature Ukrainians covering their camo with bright blue tape stripes and wearing very large very clear badges on their uniforms.
Its difficult to determine if this is a Ukrainian answer to a Ukrainian problem of friendly fire and poor battlefield coordination due to low quality soldiers. Or if this is the way modern warfare is going. The effectiveness of camo is definately on the decline.

Hopefully soon we can go back to classy uniforms. Camo really only works for low-tech gurella warfare.

Maybe we could have fancy hats again

 

[Sir Joahim Browinson III]

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Hopefully soon we can go back to classy uniforms. Camo really only works for low-tech gurella warfare

Would hillarious if melee makes a comback too while we have it.

 

[ZMOT]

This topic is absolutely massive with just an unbelievable amount of things to consider in regard to it.

you could always make a thread in deep thoughts if you want

 

[Feline Supremacist]

To me it looks like they are packing the wound with packing gauze. A lot of gun and shrapnel wound treatment includes you sticking your fingers in there. Gladly those guys aren't in battlefield conditions and have medical gloves. They are basically just providing the patient extended care until they get him to a surgeon who decides on the best course of action. Biggest miracle in that video is how much they have been able to control the bleeding, almost makes it seem fake, guy had extreme luck.

This instance is them acting like proper combat medics. The Santa hats are in really bad taste though.

I don't what happened to that guy but he seemed to have already been treated well to begin with (that includes fingers looking for shrapnel), and while I don't know how far away he was from a surgery, at most the dressings could have been changed and he could have been injected with broad spectrum antibiotics-the less you mess with wounds like that the better the outcome. You can literally see the blood flowing through arteries in the top thigh wound-aaaaaaa just leave it alone until a surgeon gets to it, I hope he keeps his leg. Infection spreads very quickly in Ukraine conditions.

 

[Corn Syrup Connoisseur]

I don't what happened to that guy but he seemed to have already been treated well to begin with (that includes fingers looking for shrapnel), and while I don't know how far away he was from a surgery, at most the dressings could have been changed and he could have been injected with broad spectrum antibiotics-the less you mess with wounds like that the better the outcome. You can literally see the blood flowing through arteries in the top thigh wound-aaaaaaa just leave it alone until a surgeon gets to it, I hope he keeps his leg. Infection spreads very quickly in Ukraine conditions.

There was really nothing wrong done in the earlier video, you have some large misconceptions how battlefield first aid works.
If you want to point out some actual medical misconduct, the Azovstal basement rotward videos would be on point. They condemned most of those men to die.

Spoiler: Found one of the Azovstal rothole videos

 

[Fried-Rice12]

There was really nothing wrong done in the earlier video, you have some large misconceptions how battlefield first aid works.
If you want to point out some actual medical misconduct, the Azovstal basement rotward videos would be on point. They condemned most of those men to die.

And they killed the survivors in the POW camp with a missile attack.