Cont: The Russian invasion of Ukraine part 7

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Russia attacking Ukraine was a total trap game.

If they lose, they look incompetent militarily and politically.
If they win, the world says 'oooh big deal you beat a non-nuclear country without a highly ranked military.'

it will go down in history with:

  • The US invading Vietnam,
  • Michigan Football playing Appalachian State at home
  • The Romans attacking Hannibal at Cannae
others?
 
Drewbot said:
Russia attacking Ukraine was a total trap game.

If they lose, they look incompetent militarily and politically.
If they win, the world says 'oooh big deal you beat a non-nuclear country without a highly ranked military.'

it will go down in history with:

  • The US invading Vietnam,
  • Michigan Football playing Appalachian State at home
  • The Romans attacking Hannibal at Cannae
others?
Click to expand...

I'm guessing the motivation was less about showing off on the global stage and more about making sure a buffer state remains within their sphere of influence.

They've really made a mess of it though
 
Craig4 said:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/26/europe/kalashnikov-ak-12-ukraine-upgrade-intl-hnk/index.html

The orcs designed the AK-12, the "main" infantry fighting rifle. I put main in scare quotes because we've seen from plenty of orc social media that conscripts often get rifles made decades ago.

The new feature that caught my eye was the removal of the two-round burst. I have to wonder if that's a response to ammunition expenditure rates and the fact that orc logicians continue to completely **** the neighbor's dog.
Click to expand...

Burst trigger mechanisms are more complicated than your normal semi/full auto trigger pack and are mostly a crutch for not training soldiers how to properly do controlled bursts with a regular auto trigger. Often these burst triggers also result is significantly worse trigger pull generally, hurting the practical accuracy potential of the weapon. Dropping this is probably a cost-savings measure for the rifle and isn't really something that will not be missed. A low hanging fruit for war-time manufacturing efficiency.

The US also dabbled with such mechanisms on the M16/M4 rifles and have mostly ditched them again for regular full auto.
 
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Drewbot said:
Russia attacking Ukraine was a total trap game.

If they lose, they look incompetent militarily and politically.
If they win, the world says 'oooh big deal you beat a non-nuclear country without a highly ranked military.'

it will go down in history with:

  • The US invading Vietnam,
  • Michigan Football playing Appalachian State at home
  • The Romans attacking Hannibal at Cannae
others?
Click to expand...
  • Russia invading Afghanistan
  • Egypt invading Israel
  • Napoleon invading Russia
But I'm with Turkey about their motivation.
TurkeysGhost said:
I'm guessing the motivation was less about showing off on the global stage and more about making sure a buffer state remains within their sphere of influence.

They've really made a mess of it though
Click to expand...
I think this was about keeping Ukraine as a buffer, rather than having (another) NATO nation on their doorstep.

And I think it was about keeping Ukraine's economy and industry under Moscow's thumb, instead of seeing it join the European market.

Moscow would have assumed that the West would quietly accept the fait accompli. And of course Moscow could spin it any way they want back home.
 
TurkeysGhost said:
I'm guessing the motivation was less about showing off on the global stage and more about making sure a buffer state remains within their sphere of influence.
Click to expand...
I don’t think it was about a buffer state, but about making Russia great again. Ukraine was on a trajectory towards Europe, and would be lost if something was not done.
 
I hope it's not true that Ukraine has been launching these drone attacks on Moscow. This should purely be a defensive war and attacking the capital city of the invading country is not a defensive act.

I think Ukraine should do whatever possible to maintain the moral high ground.
 
Hercules56 said:
I think Ukraine should do whatever possible to maintain the moral high ground.
Click to expand...

I don't fully disagree, but it kind of sucks, then. It leaves them fighting with one arm tied behind their back. Further, with no direct consequences to Putin, it gives Russia room to carry on being beligerent.
 
Hercules56 said:
I hope it's not true that Ukraine has been launching these drone attacks on Moscow. This should purely be a defensive war and attacking the capital city of the invading country is not a defensive act.

I think Ukraine should do whatever possible to maintain the moral high ground.
Click to expand...

It would be mind boggling difficult for Ukraine to stoop lower than anything Russia has done to date.
 
Hercules56 said:
I hope it's not true that Ukraine has been launching these drone attacks on Moscow. This should purely be a defensive war and attacking the capital city of the invading country is not a defensive act.

I think Ukraine should do whatever possible to maintain the moral high ground.
Click to expand...

I think it's extremely unlikely that Ukraine launched these drones, for many reasons I won't belabor here.

I think the most likely explanation is that Moscow has decided to respond to growing outrage at its nightly attacks on Kyiv, not by ending the attacks but by pretending they're being bullied too.

I think the attached image does a pretty good job of examining the relative likelihood of the "Ukraine did it" vs "Moscow did it" scenarios.

Image source
 

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Mike! said:
It would be mind boggling difficult for Ukraine to stoop lower than anything Russia has done to date.
Click to expand...

But it wouldn't be difficult at all for Ukraine to stoop below the line that westerners are generally willing to tolerate in their allies. Ukraine is probably never going to be able to kidnap tens of thousands of Russian children. And they're probably never going to conscript convicts into PMCs to use as fodder. But Ukraine could easily put a Storm Shadow into a hospital, no problem. And that would already be bad enough, even if it's nowhere near as far as Moscow has gone.
 
theprestige said:
But it wouldn't be difficult at all for Ukraine to stoop below the line that westerners are generally willing to tolerate in their allies. Ukraine is probably never going to be able to kidnap tens of thousands of Russian children. And they're probably never going to conscript convicts into PMCs to use as fodder. But Ukraine could easily put a Storm Shadow into a hospital, no problem. And that would already be bad enough, even if it's nowhere near as far as Moscow has gone.
Click to expand...

Also depends on what you mean by "Ukraine". I imagine Ukraine won't ever claim these attacks whether they were behind them or not. It easily could be some spooks and/or their proxies, or even some paramilitaries acting under their own initiative with little to no authorization or even knowledge from above.

The border between Ukraine and Russia was rather porous before the war, and Russia has no shortage of domestic enemies who might decide to take action. These suicide drones are rather cheap and easy to use and lord knows explosives aren't hard to come by in a war zone.
 
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theprestige said:
I think the attached image does a pretty good job of examining the relative likelihood of the "Ukraine did it" vs "Moscow did it" scenarios.
Click to expand...

That, or it's partisans, or incompetence, or something. Nobody flew a drone all the way from Ukraine, much less multiples.

It would be appropriate for a false flag. You need to convince your citizens they're in an existential conflict while not damaging too much of your infrastructure.
 
Drewbot said:
Russia attacking Ukraine was a total trap game.

If they lose, they look incompetent militarily and politically.
If they win, the world says 'oooh big deal you beat a non-nuclear country without a highly ranked military.'

it will go down in history with:

  • The US invading Vietnam,
  • Michigan Football playing Appalachian State at home
  • The Romans attacking Hannibal at Cannae
others?
Click to expand...

If you want to go with sports... a bunch of US college kids beating the USSR's Olympic (and fully professional) hockey team in 1980.
Upset beating Man O' War in 1919.
The Miami Dolphins beating the Chicago Bears in early December 1985.
The Oakland A's beating the Atlanta Braves last night.
 
TurkeysGhost said:
Burst trigger mechanisms are more complicated than your normal semi/full auto trigger pack and are mostly a crutch for not training soldiers how to properly do controlled bursts with a regular auto trigger. Often these burst triggers also result is significantly worse trigger pull generally, hurting the practical accuracy potential of the weapon. Dropping this is probably a cost-savings measure for the rifle and isn't really something that will not be missed. A low hanging fruit for war-time manufacturing efficiency.

The US also dabbled with such mechanisms on the M16/M4 rifles and have mostly ditched them again for regular full auto.
Click to expand...

Russia doesn't do a good job of training it's soldiers so they are probably better off with burst mode then full auto.
 
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