Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

[UnderOpenSky]

Having soldiers fighting who are in their sixth decade, some with one leg just shows the failure of leadership.

It shows desperation to preserve your country.

 

[TopCat]

It shows desperation to preserve your country.

But never settle. Send your mum over the top. Never surrender.

 

[TopCat]

The only way it might be settled on Ukrainian terms is if the US throws all its might and troops at the fight. Might have a few disbenefits that thought.

Join up editor age won’t be a barrier.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

But never settle. Send your mum over the top. Never surrender.

Well yes. Much as I hate our government, if that was the alternative then I think that's what we'd have to do

 

[TopCat]

Well yes. Much as I hate our government, if that was the alternative then I think that's what we'd have to do

Scary

 

[TopCat]

Well yes. Much as I hate our government, if that was the alternative then I think that's what we'd have to do

This was the Wermacht attitude in 1945. It led directly to million plus dead. The soldiers, the refugees, slave labourers, concentration camp inmates. Insane.

 

[TopCat]

Send kids in, dads army.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

This was the Wermacht attitude in 1945.

Well the Russians aren't bringing a Marshal plan that's for sure.

 

[Chz]

Genuine question. Probably for kebabking? But does modern artillery strikes leave the same footprint. There's certainly no air power to deploy cluster bombs that way.

AIUI, having been told by someone who should know, the artillery rounds are just plain better for dealing with entrenchments. The West is not set up for this sort of protracted conflict and is running low on standard artillery rounds to supply them with. Against entrenchments, one cluster round is as good as a dozen regular 155mm rounds. Bonus that the dud rate of US kit is very low (~2%) and leaves much less UXO to clean up when all is done. The old Soviet stuff has a dud rate estimated over 30%.

They've also asked for cluster bombs, but the purpose of that is to take them apart and use the individual submunitions as drone weaponry.

 

[TopCat]

Well the Russians aren't bringing a Marshal plan that's for sure.

I don’t think it’s the same attitude as they pushed Germany back then. I don’t see similar vengeance.

 

[TopCat]

Well the Russians aren't bringing a Marshal plan that's for sure.

Marshal has a lot to answer for.

 

[TopCat]

AIUI, having been told by someone who should know, the artillery rounds are just plain better for dealing with entrenchments. The West is not set up for this sort of protracted conflict and is running low on standard artillery rounds to supply them with. Against entrenchments, one cluster round is as good as a dozen regular 155mm rounds. Bonus that the dud rate of US kit is very low (~2%) and leaves much less UXO to clean up when all is done. The old Soviet stuff has a dud rate estimated over 30%.

They've also asked for cluster bombs, but the purpose of that is to take them apart and use the individual submunitions as drone weaponry.

Fancy joining the International Brigade? Mums at the front.

The leadership of Ukraine are leading their people into the abyss

 

[Raheem]

They've also asked for cluster bombs, but the purpose of that is to take them apart and use the individual submunitions as drone weaponry.

So they may say.

 

[Chz]

So they may say.

How do you propose they use them, given that most of occupied Ukraine is basically a giant Russian SAM site?

Even if/when they get F-16s, they'll be in no position to drop gravity bombs on Russian heads. And that's a long way off still.

 

[planetgeli]

They've also asked for cluster bombs, but the purpose of that is to take them apart and use the individual submunitions as drone weaponry.

Willing to bet this is absolute bollocks.

As is the mapping bit.

Ukraine, in common with US and Russia have not signed up to the rules. They won't play by rules.

 

[Artaxerxes]

This was the Wermacht attitude in 1945. It led directly to million plus dead. The soldiers, the refugees, slave labourers, concentration camp inmates. Insane.

It was also the red army attitude in 41 so should they have just laid down arms and let Germany stroll through to Siberia?

If your going to use an analogy why not one with a closer precedent of a nation fighting for its survival against a genocidal regime backed up by international donations of hardware?

 

[Chz]

Willing to bet this is absolute bollocks.

As is the mapping bit.

Ukraine, in common with US and Russia have not signed up to the rules. They won't play by rules.

Actually, to damn them comprehensively, they are signed up to many international treaties - more than the US/Russia at least. Just not the cluster bomb one. Neither is Poland. I say to damn them because they totally signed the Ottawa Convention and have plopped down antipersonnel mines all over the place.

 

[kebabking]

Genuine question. Probably for kebabking? But does modern artillery strikes leave the same footprint. There's certainly no air power to deploy cluster bombs that way.

Can I get away with the answer 'it depends...'?

A 155mm unitary warhead will make a big hole, and if it hits you you're fucked, but if it's contact fused (it detonates when it hits something, rather than air-burst which goes off at X height above the ground) then you could be relatively close to the impact point and not be harmed - it's effect is very destructive, but within a relatively small area. It's great if you want to kill a tank, or to destroy heavily dug-un fortifications, but for troops in the open, or more lightly protected vehicles, it's quite inefficient - a bit like using a sledgehammer to kill all the ants in your garden. If you've got loads of gun tubes, and loads of ammunition then that inefficiency is something you can work around, but if not....

DPICM produces a much more even spread of effect - you could reasonably cover an area with anti-personnel and anti-lightish vehicle effects with perhaps 10/20% of the number of unitary warhead shells that you'd need to use to achieve the same effect. That means they can cover 5 to 10 times as much area with the same number of guns.

DPICM has a failure rate that no one is fabulously comfortable with (6% or so), but as far as the Ukrainians are concerned, unexploded munitions are next week's problem, while the Russian Army is today's problem.

As ever, the easiest way to determine how you really feel about an issue is to turn it around - if it was us, with the Russian army having flattened Liverpool and Newcastle, and kidnapping thousands of kids from Leeds, would we clutch pearls at using DPICM/whatever, or would we put anything we could get our hands on down the barrels till they melted?

 

[Raheem]

How do you propose they use them, given that most of occupied Ukraine is basically a giant Russian SAM site?

Even if/when they get F-16s, they'll be in no position to drop gravity bombs on Russian heads. And that's a long way off still.

I think that if the idea was for the cluster bombs to be taken apart to make conventional bombs, that would happen at the US end so they wouldn't have to announce that they are sending cluster bombs.

 

[Chz]

The vast majority of what the US has provided is out of reserve stock. Much of of it stuff that was to be disposed of in the nearish future. This is what's allowed them to send so much stuff without spending any "real" money. It's already spent. Basically, even if Ukraine asked them pretty please to take them apart for them, the answer would be no. We're happy to ship out this crap from our warehouses, but no extra effort is going into it. Deal with it yourselves. They know full well that Ukraine has no delivery system capable of using a Mk 20. You could pop them on a Mig, but said Mig wouldn't get within 50 miles of the frontline alive.

 

[planetgeli]

As ever, the easiest way to determine how you really feel about an issue is to turn it around - if it was us, with the Russian army having flattened Liverpool and Newcastle, and kidnapping thousands of kids from Leeds, would we clutch pearls at using DPICM/whatever, or would we put anything we could get our hands on down the barrels till they melted?

Can we clutch pearls at kidnapping their children too, raping their women etc etc? Genuine question. Do you have a line? Not all tools of war are munitions after all, and you said "anything".

Are we really so short in munitions that we've reached, er, G14 on the list. "What's G14 Hank? I dunno. Cluster something."

"Widely banned across the world for it's indiscriminate killing of civilians and leaving shit everywhere"

"Press the button. G15..."

 

[Chz]

As a signatory of the convention on cluster munitions, the UK shouldn't have any on hand to tempt them. Though as a practical matter, most nations when pressed will probably use what's being used against them. It's why gas and biological weapons weren't used in the Second World War - even the monsters didn't want them used against them. The Americans only nuked Japan safe in the knowledge that they didn't own such a weapon to retaliate with.

 

[TopCat]

Can I get away with the answer 'it depends...'?

A 155mm unitary warhead will make a big hole, and if it hits you you're fucked, but if it's contact fused (it detonates when it hits something, rather than air-burst which goes off at X height above the ground) then you could[/I

As ever, the easiest way to determine how you really feel about an issue is to turn it around - if it was us, with the Russian army having flattened Liverpool and Newcastle, and kidnapping thousands of kids from Leeds, would we clutch pearls at using DPICM/whatever, or would we put anything we could get our hands on down the barrels till they melted?

Great propaganda comparison.

 

[Yossarian]

Great propaganda comparison.

You brought in the Wehrmacht about five posts ago.

 

[Yossarian]

I don’t think it’s the same attitude as they pushed Germany back then. I don’t see similar vengeance.

You can't have been paying much attention, Putin has long been ranting about 'genocide' carried out by 'Nazis' against Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine and there's plenty of Kremlin propaganda about revenge for the 'children of the Donbas'

 

[tim]

.

Fancy joining the International Brigade? Mums at the front.

The leadership of Ukraine are leading their people into the abyss

The "Leadership" says and does what is expected of it by the people. I haven't met any Ukrainians who do not currently want to continue resisting. Zelinski and company would be putting their own lives on the line, even assuming that they could see the logic of signing up for a "Ukrainian Free State". Still maybe he has ambitions to be a Tweny-First Century Michael Collins.

 

[yield]

Can we clutch pearls at kidnapping their children too, raping their women etc etc? Genuine question. Do you have a line? Not all tools of war are munitions after all, and you said "anything".

Are we really so short in munitions that we've reached, er, G14 on the list. "What's G14 Hank? I dunno. Cluster something."

"Widely banned across the world for it's indiscriminate killing of civilians and leaving shit everywhere"

"Press the button. G15..."

Bill Hicks G12

 

[sleaterkinney]

Can we clutch pearls at kidnapping their children too, raping their women etc etc? Genuine question. Do you have a line? Not all tools of war are munitions after all, and you said "anything".

Are we really so short in munitions that we've reached, er, G14 on the list. "What's G14 Hank? I dunno. Cluster something."

"Widely banned across the world for it's indiscriminate killing of civilians and leaving shit everywhere"

"Press the button. G15..."

Russia sent a missile into an apartment building in Lviv a couple of days ago.

 

[xenon]

So in summary, war is fucking horrible, who knew. To avoid it when invaded give up, sue for peace.

 

[xenon]

The new battle lines are drawn. cluster munitions fans on one side. Sensible pragmatic negotiate your country away turn a blind eye to the war crimes, something on the other.