War in Ukraine

Sad that the poster is forced to "unbelieve" all reports that show the glorious Russian military is failing. Bottom line Comrade: the two week special operation is over 9 months, the Black Sea fleet is underwater, the air force has no air control. the Army is retreating in multiple directions from the Ukraine, half the Ukraine military uses captured military arms and vehicles from the Russians, and NATO now ACTUALLY sits on the border. But you go on and spin total victory .... because... "Mutherland" ROTFLMAO

 

I’ve already dealt with spurious arguments like these. Ex: a Russian ship sank, therefore Russia is losing. Reminder that, in WWlI, Japan uses poorly-trained teenagers to sink 36 US warships, damage 346 others and kill or wound 10,000 US sailors. You should be embarrassed that you’re not embarrassed.

 

Concerning the oil workers it gets worse and I wonder how effective fining workers for not working will do any good.
Striking French refinery workers defy government threats

Having previously threatened to use emergency powers enabling them to order essential workers back to the job, the government announced Wednesday that it would put them into use as the strikes entered their third week.

Personnel at a fuel depot at the Gravenchon-Port-Jerome refinery in northwest France, owned by US giant ExxonMobil, would be the first to be requisitioned, an official at the energy ministry told AFP.

"Faced with the continuation of the strike by some of the personnel at Port-Jerome in Normandy, the government is launching the requisitioning of essential workers at the depot," the official said.

Workers who refuse the summons will risk fines or jail time.
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Every embarrassment projected on the Russkies is actually true of the Ukies. Endemic drunkenness in the ranks ...

 

Pathetic that you claim the Japanese were poorly trained. LOL How many mighty Russian ships sank? One, you claim? Wrong( nyet to you) . Try again. Why would I be embarrassed when you are the one making false claims? Now your contention is these poorly trained Russian conscripts are going to be a glorious fighting Army...... sure. Cannon fodder and bipedal bullet attractors. LOL

 

Just show up.

 

You’re trai

In a way, Ukrainian troops are like the Kamikaze pilots of their time. Key exception: they’re killing themselves to take cow pasture and abandoned villages.

 

SOMEBODY wants to play. Thanks! Question: how do they ‘just show up’ ?

 

It's pretty simple actually. The US Would have to call up probably 3 or 4 divisions. They currently have 10 active. These divisions would include at least one armored division.

These divisions would have not only HIMARS, but standard MLRS, something they have over 700 of. Between the HIMARS and MLRS, the US would also have access to their long range artillery ammunition, which is good to up to 300 KM.

These divisions would initially deploy to NATO countries in eastern Europe where Russia would be unlikely to fire on them until offensive operations began.
While that was happening, several fighter, bomber, and special operations wings of the USAF would move into eastern Europe.

At the start of offensive operations, which I assume would be the US forward positioning air defense systems into central and eastern ukraine, I assume the russians would start shooting then, troops would start moving forward and the USAF would begin a campaign to completely destroy russian air defense systems in the area. F35s and other stealth fighters would use missiles like the AARGM-ER to take out S-400 and S-300 batteries at over 60 miles, when most things I have read indicate they can't even be detected by those systems until they are within 20 miles. Once the best parts of the russian air defense were elimatined, the USAF would start an aggressive bombing campaign against artillery and logistics positions, supported by long range artillery fire from HIMARS and MLRS units. From there, I'm not sure what the army would do to advnace, but it would be in coordination with Ukraine and other western forces, so they would have not only air superiority, but also superior technology and numbers on the ground. I don't envision they would advance beyond Ukraines borders however, unless they had absolutely no choice.

The battle in the med and black sea would be more complicated. A US Air craft carrier does not want to go into the black sea. It would be a bad idea. Some of this would depend on what Turkey decides to do, but if they're in the fight too, the carrier in the Med, probably with another group coming in to support it, would use long range air strikes and missile strikes to decimate Russia's positions in syria, and to sink the ships that area already stationed in the black sea. THis becomes very easy with Turkey's assistance, but is doable on their own.

All of this assumes there are no nukes used. Obviously that changes everything.

But using just conventional weapons, this would be over in probably 4-6 weeks once it started. It would be costly for both sides, but there is literally no way the russians could win that.

 

Frankly, we wouldn’t even need the divisions for ground combat. I would use them to reinforce Eastern Europe and Finland to deter the Russians from reacting to a losing effort by escalating. Ukraine has the momentum at present by themselves; add U.S. air and sea power, and this is all over.

 

I might have misunderstood, but i thought the artillery was baked into the makeup of the infantry divisions - which is why I thought they would be there. But I guess the artillery groups could advance without the rest of the full division, especially since Ukraine is holding the eastern line already.

 

So it turns out there is actual albeit indirect evidence that the Russians are running low on missises.
Russia Using S-300 Air Defense Missiles To Attack Ground Targets In Ukraine; US Army Veteran Decodes The Strategy

If you're going to use an analogy to Kamikaze pilots a better example would be the minimally trained troops that Putin is sending to the front lines as cannon fodder.
'No Training'—Russia Recruits Say They're Being Rushed to Ukraine Frontline
The Kamikaze pilots were conditioned to give their lives for the Emperor and were given minimal flight training (essentially just enough to take off and then crash their planes) before they were deployed.

 

Yes, there is artillery organic to all divisions and brigades. I am saying that I think Ukraine’s ground forces could decisively defeat Russia inside Ukraine with NATO air and sea support and without the additional benefit of NATO land forces.

 

Oh, man, has the Battle of Okinawa metaphor come up again? Fact is, regardless of U.S. air and sea losses in that battle U.S. air and maritime superiority was never remotely threatened nor even seriously challenged. Not the case in the Black Sea or the airspace over Ukraine. Ukraine has not only challenged but to this point prevented Russian superiority in the air and sea domains despite an enormous resource and manpower advantage to the Russians. But if that needs to be explained, it is not worth your time to explain it.

 

I got you. Again, the discussion is pointless because Russia would be FORCED to use a nuclear deterrent to stop Nato from just rolling into Moscow if they had troops in the ground.
I guess if the US and NATO used only air and seapower they may avoid a nuclear reaction.

 

Scary stuff we are posting here. I enjoy posting on the Football board but.........this is real life, in fact, THE most important Geo-Political and Military reality that we have seen in many years.

Afganistan and iraq, with due respect to all those combatants involved, pales in comparsion to what this could become.

I agree 100% with slay and uftaipan and Flipcup.
"IF" we are talking "Conventional".

I listen to General Patrais quite a bit whom is a pretty good source.

Europe, despite the Balkan "squables / disentigration of Yugolslavia" had done pretty good since the end of WW2.

It is interesting to note the Geo-Political evolution of NATO since WW2, and it continued growth and expansion. When you add the resources of thirty nations together it carries alot of weight. Literally 4X everything the Russkies have if one believes the statistics.

While a few Russian Confederation "bots" continue to post arguments in support of the Russian Confederation some stark realities confront those that support Czar Putin, mainly, outside of a few prosperous enclaves, that country is incredibly economicaly depressed. The western European side, of course, with the energy sector and Moscow has been a bit more prosperous but it is a gigantic country.

I personally have talked to Russian immigrants that acknowledge
"shock" when they first came here, "shock" that one could go into a grocery store and see an "unbelievable" selection of food stuffs.

Of course capatalism is far from perfect, especially, the brand practiced in the USA and Western Europe but it's far superior to having a few Politicians, Oligarks, Police and Military Figures whom hoard the majority of the wealth with the the "quasi" totalitarian capatalism of the Russian Confederation.

 

You do make it seem simple. In sections ...

NOTE: it needs to be said that Russia has been fighting, this far, with one hand - and four fingers of the other hand - behind its back. Hundreds of thousands of US and NATO troops would naturally dramatically change the complexion of the conflict.

It would take more divisions than the US has to push Russia out of Russia. Being honest here. Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye are Russia now. Even partial-mobilization is just scratching the surface of Russia’s available forces.

Plus, no US soldier of fighting age has experienced anything like the overwhelming firepower they’d suffer from Russian artillery. US troops would be chewed up in massive numbers.

You also presume that Russia would sit pat, watch and wait the months it would likely take to park numerous divisions and all that that entails. There are no safe places, in Europe, from Russian missiles.

Bear in mind that Russia would be fighting out of its own backyard wherein troops could be regularly rotated and Russia would enjoy a quasi-unlimited supply of weaponry. Indeed, the collective West would run out of weapons before Russia would. And you don’t want to become mired, on a foreign battlefield, without weapons.

In short, Russia would be another Vietnam for the US.

Re: HIMARS, Russia possesses, in abundance, launching systems that are superior to HIMARS in terms of range and capacity. So the US has now wunderwaffwen that Russia is not already destroying.

And only Call of Duty warriors believe that the USAF would have a field day in Russia. To the contrary, the Russian best-in-class air defenses would shred attempted US/NATO airstrikes. It would be a stunning massacre, the results of which after even the first 48 hours would see wiser heads calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities.

Americans would not have the stomach to watch uber-expensive F-35’s falling flaming from the skies.

Now, you’re right in ruling out the US Navy venturing ANYWHERE close to theatre. Russia can just as easily sink aircraft carriers as disable NATO air bases where the USAF would have to park its aircraft.

In summary: the very attempt to concentrate US forces, in numbers thought sufficient, would expose the myth of American military invincibility, which is the reason why the Pentagon would likely never consent to such.

 

Just a reminder that the US military has not defeated a peer or even a near-peer military since WWII.

No, they did not win in Iraq.

 

Well this is interesting and it raises a lot of questions. The Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline carries crude oil and has sprung a leak in Poland. The pipeline was built as a joint affair from 1960 - 1964 and transports oil through the Slavic nations ending up in Germany for refinement. Of course there are other refineries along the way.

First it was natural gas pipelines now it is crude oil. Poland claims it to be an accident not sabotage and the story is still developing. None the less Germany still uses crude oil from Russia although at a reduced amount under the looming ban Germany will still need to make up 1.4 million barrels of crude which will most likely come from the US and Kazakhstan.

Another issue I find interesting in the article is talk of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. That pipeline is natural gas and has been disabled. The reference leads me to believe only one of the pipes has been compromised yet previous articles have claimed all pipes for Nord Stream 1 & 2 are compromised. The investigation of Nord Stream is ongoing by Swedish and other nation authorities. The US, Russia and Gazprom are not included in that investigation. Sweden has said they cannot stop Russia from conducting their own investigation as the leaks are not in territorial waters.

Druzhba pipeline leak reduces Russian oil flows to Germany

Germany said on Wednesday it was receiving less oil but still had adequate supplies, after Poland found a leak in the Druzhba pipeline that delivers crude from Russia to Europe that Warsaw said was probably caused by an accident rather than sabotage.

The discovery of the leak in the main route carrying oil to Germany, which operator PERN said it found on Tuesday evening, comes as Europe is on high alert over its energy security in the aftermath of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine which has cut supplies of gas.
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The Druzhba oil pipeline, whose name means "friendship" in Russian, is one of the world's largest, supplying Russian oil to much of central Europe including Germany, Poland, Belarus, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Austria.
.......
Berlin has rejected an offer from Russian President Vladimir Putin to supply gas to Europe via Nord Stream 2 this winter - the new pipeline which Germany refused to allow to be put into operation. If Russia wanted to send gas, it could do so via Nord Stream 1, a government spokesperson said.
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