Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24
- Thread starter kebabking
- Start date
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
“wouldn’t go for a pint with Mick Lynch”Liked just for the term ‘Meldrewism’
We do a lot of that here!
Cid
Proper break this time
Look, I'm not going to buy an out-of-print book with a foreword by paleoconservative crank William S Lind. There's also almost no writing on his writing as far as I can see. Even on sodding reddit, where the mil types will run with pretty much anything. It's probably also worth noting that NCO reform has been a major focus of western militaries precisely because there was a need to build capability to operate independently. That didn't happen in Russia. It probably will happen to an extent organically, just because incompetent leaders have a habit of dying. But 4GW seems to a bit of a just-so story, post-rationalisation of things that are discussed in different ways in wider academic circles. Fill yer boots by all means, but I don't really see anything new here, and have better things to do today.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
TBF its questionable how much the Red Army was responsible for the excellence of some light infantry tactics used by Red Army troops in WW2; surviving a Darwinian process (at somewhere like Stalingrad or Leningrad, or being one of the left behinds and becoming a partisan) and/or experience of fighting the Finns probably did more in that respect. Certainly its hard to detect much institutional memory of it, even by the end of the war when the masses of tank, rocket and artillery were the focus and they threw hundreds of thousands of men at Berlin.
I do think the two biggest problems for the Russians in terms of light infantry / partisan type antics now is where they are trying to do it and against whom. The evacuation of the local population (or at least most of the people who would have at least acquiesced at being part of Russia) has removed most of the people who'd provide cover for the groups and who could promote more recruitment when the Ukrainians inevitably start to oppress them (in dealing with the partisans).
Cid
Proper break this time
My apologies; a book which he still self-publishes in its 2001 edition, with a foreword by paleoconservative crank and promoter of cultural marxism conspiracy theory, William S Lind.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
I don't suppose anyone here would agree politically with someone who wants American soldiers to be more lethal. But it seems perverse to me to assert as you appear to be doing that the political views of the foreword author detract from the military material that forms the core of the text.
Cid
Proper break this time
The total absence of anything on jstor or google scholar was more decisive tbh. That was just colour.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Yeh. Because academics write lots about military manuals. You're using the wrong metric. There's very little on scholar or in jstor about eg Scott Donellan's tactical tracking operations, hurth's book on combat tracking or rex applegate's work on scouting and patrolling but that doesn't speak to any lack of worth.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
In any case Cid I don't think it's beyond the bounds of possibility that the russian army isn't rethinking their war, and preparing to fight it rather differently perhaps along the lines I've suggested, perhaps on other lines. But very sad to say I think this war will yet surprise us in both its length and bloody death toll
Cid
Proper break this time
That, at least, we can agree on.
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Some crowd this
TopCat
Putin fanboy
Sky News and EU. Achieve the dream.
Kaka Tim
Half Arsed and Slapdash till I Die
well, when the alternative is ranting nazis on Russia Today and a brutal military occupation...
kebabking
Not a Girly Swot, but I like them....
Why can't these vacuous Ukrainians see the real ishoos....?
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
In the GDR near the border they’d watch West German TV and that was decades ago. Is it not possible to have watched Ukrainian tv from the Kherson region?
Cid
Proper break this time
Well there was a communications blackout (see that sky reporter), although what TV signal types that might apply to I do not know. The other kind of blackout is presumably also a regular occurrence that might get in the way of your viewing.
Dystopiary
putting up a hook to hang my hopes upon
Not if you valued your life.
tim
EXPLODED TIM! (Help me!!!)
The Russian authorities would find it difficult to monitor what people watched a home on TV.
Kevbad the Bad
Amiable Bowel Syndrome
Well yes. But shocked by the nasty, vindictive vandalism of the Russians before they left, and apprehensive as to what the fuckers might do next. So difficult to be too joyful.
Dogsauce
I’ve got Skol but I’m not a Scholar
You’d need a heart of stone not to be moved by some of the footage. Because the city was taken so quickly people didn’t have the chance to evacuate like in some of the other places, so many unwillingly trapped living under Russian occupation. Reportedly 80-100,000 were left behind in the area when Russia retreated.
I was expecting horrors and traps, things rigged to explode, but apart from destroying all the power and water systems and looting whatever they could Russia seems to have left it mostly intact. I’m expecting cruise missiles to start flying in fairly soon though.
How long until Zelensky pops down there? If he does, I’d suggest staying away from book depositaries. Sure there will be a few sleeper agents left behind for just such an occurrence…
nogojones
spelling is overrated
As a kid growing up in the midlands we'd get Welsh telly in the daytimes. I never thought I'd achieve the dream of living that lifestyle. What a world we live in.
Supine
Newt Member
I was in Kent last week and my phone switched itself to a French mobile phone company. That’s not what Brexit promised
Yossarian
⏭️
Excerpts from a 23 September report from United Nation's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine:
Witnesses provided us with consistent accounts of ill-treatment and torture, which were carried out during unlawful confinement. Some of the victims reported that after initial detention by Russian forces in Ukraine, they were transferred to the Russian Federation and held for weeks in prisons. Interlocutors described beatings, electric shocks, and forced nudity, as well as other types of violations in such facilities. After being reportedly transferred into detention in the Russian Federation, some victims have disappeared.
Investigating cases related to sexual and gender-based violence present specific challenges. The Commission has found that some Russian Federation soldiers committed such crimes. These acts amounted to different types of violations of rights, including sexual violence, torture, and cruel and inhuman treatment. There are examples of cases where relatives were forced to witness the crimes. In the cases we have investigated, the age of victims of sexual and gendered-based violence ranged from four to 82 years.
The Commission has documented cases in which children have been raped, tortured, and unlawfully confined. Children have also been killed and injured in indiscriminate attacks with explosive weapons. The exposure to repeated explosions, crimes, forced displacement and separation from family members deeply affected their well-being and mental health.
But at least they were temporarily spared from the horrors of Sky News, right?
kebabking
Not a Girly Swot, but I like them....
Apologies for the tweet dump - but a Russian T-62 tank, an actual unmodified one from the mid-60's, one that was almost certainly transferred to a Red Army C-type formation (mobilised age 30+ former conscripts, and obsolete equipment) before Ronald Reagan became President of the US...
Shit. The. Fucking. Bed.
Shit. The. Fucking. Bed.
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
After the Russian invasion, the local Kherson channel still ran but the Russians switched the transmitters to broadcast Russian channels from around May and also introduced a new channel for Kherson that was soft soap proganda espousing the benefits of Russian rule . There were blackouts due to shelling ( allegedly from the Ukrainian army) which apparently affected both TV and internet and internet servers were rerouted although it was possible to circumvent by VPN.
This Guardian article gives a little insight into aspects of life in Kherson under Russian occupation and TV.
‘Tavriya TV will promote happiness and love’: Russia opens station in occupied Kherson
As Moscow gears up to annex Kherson in a ‘referendum’, Tavriya shows Russia as liberator, saving citizens from Ukrainian Nazis
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