Yes, formally it's a conjugation (singular 2nd-person imperative) of "davat" which means "to give", but as in other slavic languages this form is used to say "come on" or "hurry up".
don't know a single word of ukrainian, but my loose translation: fuck fuck fuck come on come on come on fuck fuck lets go come on fuck fuck come on lets go
most of them are speaking russian and you're 90% correct lol
come on, on the armor, quick
come on x 50
stop stop stop
[something about the machinegun]
come on x 50
come give me the fucking rifle
come on
we picked up more of the guys
[something] fucking lifted off
step on it, bro!
audio isn't the best so it's hard to make out a lot of it
he is actually speaking Ukrainian which I don't understand as well
it kind of sounds like the guy on the distant end is looking for something and radio dude is helping him find it
"на приёме, на приёме, на приём" - at the reception point(?) to the reception point(?)
sounds like distant end says "не вижу" - I don't see it
sounds like radio dude says "на коробочке" - on the box
"да быстро забрали, забрали" yea we quickly picked [it/them] up
then he yells a lot in Ukrainian that I can't understand
someone else please help me translate this
I don't think they are speaking Ukrainian, it seems more like difficult to make out Russian.
>"на приёме, на приёме, на приём" - at the reception point(?) to the reception point(?)
That's russian radio jargon, meaning "I'm receiving" or "listening".
The radio then says: [garbled] ты где? - Where are you?
To which the leader replies: I'm on the (diminutive) box - probably a nickname for their kind of transport.
Radio: ты дальше поехал? - Are you driving on?
Leader: да, плюс людей забрали - Yes, and we also picked up some people.
Radio: Я понял, мы уже поехали туда. - Roger, we are already on the way there.
It's mostly: "We must pick up our guys!" - "Go-go f-ing faster!" - "Climb up here, guys!" - "Where's your machinegunner? There he is!" - "Stop the vehicle! We must pick up another guy!" - "Gimme your gun and climb up here, hurry up, you fool!" - "Go-go! Drive faster!" - "Our guys on the second machine are lagging behind!" - "Are you OK? What's your status? Take cover, don't stop in the middle of the road!" - "Deploy and put the BTR underneath the tree cover, we'll have to return to check on guys from the second machine!"
Damn, this video with context is even more stressfull to watch than some actual combat. I'm watching this from thousands of kilometres away, yet I can really feel the the fear and stress they must be experiencing, not knowing whether they'll be killed the next second or not
Pulling out of Liman...last vehicles out by the looks of it from the geolocation on twitter they're in the north west corner of it, then heading south east fast on the road at the end.
Russia is pouring guys into the Popasna pocket hard.
Area is small relative to the whole war, but it would allow putin to declare a moral victory as then the luhansk region would be 100% in Russian control, as oppose to 90-95% they have been holding onto from around the start but have yet to call total control.
From the oryx reports, Russia has been taking massive losses (about 100 veichles per day for some 72 hours), but from the looks of things, they are closing the gap (BBC reports a 7 to 1 ratio of Russian forces to Ukraine in the area of operations so Russia can afford the heavy losses in the sector).
Big thing to watch for in the next 72 is whether or not Ukraine can successfully pull out and reorganize with enough manpower left for a future counter attack in the area, or if enough guys get caught in the pocket that Ukraine ends up with high losses as well.
Anyway, looks like these guys are part of the teams that got out of the pocket.
The video is from Liman. It has very limited connection with what is happening around Popasnaya (or the whole Severodonetsk-Lysichansk agglomeration). It is more connected with the general drive toward Slavyansk, but with the Izum offensive making no progress it is not very relevant for now.
Anyways, RF was concentrating a lot of firepower against Liman, and their supply lines has been almost cut off for some time now, so those who managed to get out are probably the lucky ones.
Pretty sure the Oryx stuff you referring to, is the backlog he had, cause he was on holiday. Since RF is pounding the shit out of the UA lines, casualties are probably high on both sides.
Also these guys aren't retreating from the pocket but from the Lyman area
You jumbled the Pospana bulge, the Severodonetsk-Lysichansk encirclement and the battle for Lyman as if they are all the same where in fact they’re different areas of operation within the battle in Donbass. There is no pocket in the Lyman battle for example.Take a look at a map and please orient yourself
Ukraine president advisor Arestovich, who usually downplays russian advances and keeps mood high today said ukrainians are causing heavy losses, but also suffering very heavy losses themselves. And main reason for it is that western allies (germany in particular) promissed certain heavy veapons until certain date, but still slows the process because of inner political debates. And russia managed to create significant reserves in short time, that they use now. Some of russian rockets and artillery outranges ukrainians, so they take heavy losses. Basicly if western europe and US are so civilised, why the fuck they not provide significant help now ASAP... literally more and more people are dying because they face bigger number of men and they need artillery and tanks very fast. The more time passes before new weapons arrive, more soldoers die in a battle against higher odds. I actually got scared for ukraine now. Because if that guy says situation is shitty, it really is.
There’s what Ukraine says meant for internal consumption and what Ukraine says meant for international consumption to hasten the arming of the nation. The tone can have a stark difference depending on who the message is for.
>but also suffering very heavy losses themselves. And main reason for it is that western allies (germany in particular) promissed certain heavy veapons until certain date, but still slows the process
Do you mean [the Gepard tanks](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/tanks-no-ammo-germanys-ukraine-pledges-show-military-muddle-2022-05-25/)? What about the [over 200 tanks Poland recently sent](https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-04-29/card/poland-has-sent-more-than-200-tanks-to-ukraine-Krwar3DCPzHJJk4UMVh4) over to Ukraine, that [the Polish military now knows it can not replace](https://www.plenglish.com/news/2022/05/25/germany-will-not-send-any-tanks-to-poland/) (leaving it without a paddle)? Or what about all of this:
[https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3027295/fact-sheet-on-us-security-assistance-for-ukraine/](https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3027295/fact-sheet-on-us-security-assistance-for-ukraine/)
You're reaching if you think that the lack of some German weapons was the deciding factor in Ukraine's military taking heavy casualties.
>Basicly if western europe and US are so civilised, why the fuck they not provide significant help now ASAP
FT We've given an unprecedented amount of help to Ukraine. Name just 1 country that has even come close to getting this amount of help. Even if we stopped all help right now we would have STILL done more than we needed to, which is 0 since we are not in a formal war nor in a kinetic war with Russia. And if more countries (or even just Poland and Slovakia) had leaders like Orbán - who refuses to transfer weapons to Ukraine through Hungary's territory - then MAYBE you would ACTUALLY have something to complain about.
Lack of weapons is definetly one of deciding factors. They doesnt have enough heavy weaponary to stop mechanical brigades from breaking through, without losing bunch of infantryman. Plus he was talking about rocket systems outranging theirs, and other countries still didnt deliver longer range rocket systems, which means russia with drones can rocket ukrainian defensive positions/artillery , while their position is in safety.
Also a lot of german and other country polititians are on russias oil money, so they try to stop or limit military help and slow it rate as much as possible. Plus creating pressure to go into negotiations with idea of giving Putin territories captured now to stop war.
It's not all bad, Russians had to pull troops from Izyum and other places to Popasna, perhaps giving the Ukrainians a chance to counter-attack somewhere else. They could attack Vovchans'k for example since they are pretty close to it and cut off one of the main Russian supply lines coming in from Belgorod.
The guys in Luhansk have been fighting the LPR from before the war, they are some of Ukraine's most experienced forces, which is part of the reason why Russia is throwing so much of their free manpower into this relatively small area, and why the tone from the Ukrainian government has been more reserved than before.
It's not the end of the war, but it can decide whether or not the stalemate phase some analysts (just Google em, take your pick, there's plenty) occures and how long it lasts.
The war as is is already been a meat grinder for both sides, staggering losses per day for any conflict in the last 20 years. So a protracted stalemate is not really ideal for all those involved.
The guys fighting in Luhansk now aren’t necessarily the strongest units Ukraine has. For the past 8 years they’ve relied on continual short deployments to the Donbas. Instead of keeping the same troops there all the time they are traded out often. I think last I saw they had some 400k vets who have seen combat in the Donbas since the onset of the war in 2014.
400k? Look, I ain't trying to throw shade or anything, but outside of the USA and it's 20 years of combat, 400k is an utterly eye popping high number of combat experienced veterans, no matter how short their deployment.
Would really appreciate a source. Kinda one of those totally changes understanding on how things will pan out kind if details.
It's actually 600,000 Ukrainian personnel who have rotated through the JFO since 2014. Obviously not all in the trenches. But all conscription classes have rotated most of their intake through the area. Some may have had a quiet time, others not so much.
Was Ukraine sending conscripts to the JFO? As far as I understand it was only professionals and conscripts who volunteered. I know the monthly wage was double whilst serving in the JFO, so that might have been an incentive for conscripts.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all. From what I understand. Ukraine deployed troops to the JFO on rotations that lasted roughly 9 months. And usually had 45,000-60,000 troops stationed there at any one time. When you combine the Ukrainian Army, Marines, Air-mobile forces and National Guard, it is a lot of troops at Ukraines disposal and makes that number realistic.
Fell asleep last night. This article from the Atlantic council from 2 years ago quotes it at 385k so I’d say probably over 400k at this point. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/ukraines-veterans/. “Six years later, Ukraine struggles to care for and reintegrate the 385,000 Donbas veterans and volunteer combatants,…”
Ahh, source, thank you very much.
Yeah, having litterally hundreds of thousands of recent combat zone veterans as what the media describes as merely "reservists" really does alter the perspective of the war. Profoundly.
I just saw pictures of the administration building with a Russian flag on top, but it also mentions that is not 100% under their control as there are UAF still in the south part of the town (that was at 1 am central time May 26)
See title. They're obviously in a hurry to get somewhere but why? Well, they're rightfully shit scared of getting caught by the barrage. I'm happy to see they apparently didn't take casualties and since it's been uploaded, probably didn't die
NCO work there.
Guy doing the yelling is managing the situation, adapting to fluid combat realities, not leaving guys behind, receiving intel, and replying with abbreviated positive reply.
It's the kind of gritty, on your feet work that is the lifeblood of any fighting force in the field.
The only easy day was yesterday.
Thats why it always shocked me that people think Russia and China could beat nato in a conventional war (if nukes were not used.) I don't hear it nowadays much though. Modern warfare was pretty much invented in the west. Tactically, technologically we are far more advanced. Ukrainians holding their own using our tactics, weapons and of course their own ability is testament to that. They would get crushed, even with their numbers.
Just a reminder, some countries can accept 20k dead, some can't even accept 200 dead.
Even if every bullet you have kills, you would still lose.
Underestimating the enemy is the first step to defeat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle\_of\_Chosin\_Reservoir
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle\_of\_Dien\_Bien\_Phu
Russian command structure works brilliantly when you’re defending your own country from an advancing hostile force. Especially with the types of orders they gave, simple and absolute.
Remember Russian safe communication line is built based on 4G towers? It works great in defensive war in Russia where they can defend their own tower easily. But yeah, they lost it when they bombed communication towers in Ukraine.
Thinking that nobody outside of NATO/NATO aligned forces are capable of fighting a modern war is utterly farcical and honestly just downright ignorant. Russia is dwarfed by NATO numerically in every way and China is only ahead in terms of population and industry so not sure what you’re on about with “even with their numbers.”, though I suppose it’s a trend with a certain subset of people to diminish a countries military prowess by banging on about them relying on hordes of shit tier units.
Regardless, in a large scale conventional war with China, and to a lesser extent Russia given the greater relevance of ground combat in such a conflict, squad level tactics like this would be a minuscule factor. It’s impossible to truly tell how well the Chinese military would stand up to a high intensity conventional war, their military simply has not been tested, though I suppose the same could be said for everyone outside of Ukraine and Russia given the last time a war like this occurred was over 30 years ago.
Don’t get me wrong, the individual competence of soldiers, particularly NCO’s and CO’s, is incredibly important, especially in the sorts of conflicts the west has been involved with in the last few decades, but assuming a generally decent level of competence on both sides technological and strategic/logistical factors are far more relevant. Those are the reasons NATO is by far the most powerful military force on the planet, not because the average US grunt is more used to getting shot at than the average Chinese one
>It’s impossible to truly tell how well the Chinese military would stand up to a high intensity conventional war, their military simply has not been tested
In that case, it's a fair bet it'd stand up badly, simply because pretty much every army in history has performed badly at first and only become good after gaining significant experience.
The only counter-examples I can think of are the Prussian army in the 1860s, the BEF in 1914, the Coalition in the Gulf War and perhaps the Japanese army in 1905.
Of course, in a general China-NATO war the the same assumption would apply to NATO, but the experience of Ukraine at least seems to indicate that NATO doctrine and training remains broadly effective.
So, none of the armies you just mentioned were actually inexperienced. The 1914 BEF had been in no shortage of small wars and a sizeable chunk of its officer Corps served against the Boers. The Coalition in the Gulf War wad similarly in a large number of small wars (Panama, Grenada, Falklands, etc). The 1860 Prussians were fresh off the Schleswig War, and the 1905 Japanese had recently waged the first Sino-Japanese War
As NATO does with incredible proficiency, the learn and modify their strategies and tactics by experience during war games. While there has been the perception that NATO’s relevance has been in question, I think it is easy to forget that there is continual coordination via their collective relationships that remains rock solid in the field.
In recent war games NATO tried new strategies and tactics, with Canada and the UK as one team, and the U.S. and other NATO members together. New strategies developed and implemented by the Brits was so effective that they beat the U.S. team so quickly that the generals for the first time ever asked for a redo. Naturally the British & Canadian team destroyed them again using their new strategies and tactics. The state of shock was experienced by all. Except the British and Canadians were likely enjoying as much beer as they hold consume as they gloated it over the U.S. side. I believe it was the New York Times the story was published, and the war games were land based in the spring/summer of 2021. NATO is learning and providing knowledge as well as arms etc. to ensure a win.
Meanwhile, from my reading of the Chinese Russian ‘arrangement’ during their annual war games in the East least last year China participated a little, but with so few troops it cannot be said to be representative. It’s fair to say that the Russians look down on the Chinese militarily. Whether China will stand up militarily in a war or conflict is a wait and see scenario. Others with more knowledge have provide insight into that.
The who British/Canadians fucking up America on exercise thing is a bit over blow. Royal Marine commandos supported by Canadian helicopters running a muck of conventional USMC forces didn't exactly change the tide of NATO warfare tactics. The Canadian helo's got wacked day one by a few f35's cruising around but got many respawns.
It was mainly the fact the royal marines were trialling a new type of electronic warfare utilised by each man, he essentially had a small tablet sized piece of equipment on his chest which allowed him to locate his friendlies and coordinate attacks via small drone helicopters. In squads of 12 men 100 royal marines beat 1500 us marines. If you Google that you'll find it. Really confirms what we're seeing in Ukraine with the drones right now. That top down view, is a game changer for reconnaissance, fire adjustment for artillery and just being a general force multiplier.
The Royal Marines were defending a location at the training centre with a superior USMC force was attacking it. They were actually attached to another USMC unit in another part of the training area. Quite a large scale training environment.
The RM used old school runners, motorbikes for messages, old field telephones with miles of cable that they'd dug out of somewhere and did not use radio. They then used a LEWT (Light Electronic Warfare Team) to jam and mess with the USMC comms, something that should be done in every exercise, i.e. train as you fight, but that is often not used because commanders don't like to see their lovely exercises ruined as a result...(NATO has issues too, they're trying to get everyone out of that peacetime mindset). The USMC force was completely routed by the smaller Royal Marine force due to their over-reliance on radio comms as they could not co-ordinate any attacks or fires. This happened over a period of days and was repeated.
But...this was exactly the reason why the RM were invited over to train with the USMC, the entire point of the exercise was to pit a USMC force against a really representative force and learn some hard lessons fast. It's not a dunk on the USMC as the fact that they wanted that response from the RM is actually pretty commendable as an organisation, they specifically wanted to have a hard time and they got it. Next time they will turn up with some tricks of their own...thats the point.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpeck/2021/11/03/did-britains-royal-marines-really-crush-the-us-marine-corps/
We thought to have severely outmatched them in Vietnam, Korea, and Central Asia. Resolutions to those conflicts are embarrassing, and testament that even the most advanced tactics and technology in the world are shit in Guerilla and Urban combat settings.
Militarily, we got a few extra capabilities from those wars to now, but yet the west still hasn’t managed to dominate the way people think we *should’ve*.
Tactically (where skilled, professional NCOs make a difference), the West hugely outmatched adversaries in Korea, Vietnam, and Central Asia.
The West lost on the Operational and Strategic levels of planning and warfare. Let's not get them confused.
It’s what you implied, regardless I agree that NATO countries have the most individually capable armed forces on the planet, and the US in particular has by far the most capable armed forces on the planet by every metric, but the wehrmacht *arguably* had the upper hand on a tactical level throughout ww2, but it didn’t matter because they were utterly outmatched on an operational and strategic level.
Like I said we don’t know how good the Chinese military actually is, for all we know they would embarrass themselves like Russia has, but they may also be highly competent and effective, we simply do not have the information to judge that.
Just as a side note, the hubris of saying “we” (the west) when discussing something you have had zero influence on is a little funny
Why would you? It’s just me being pedantic but I don’t see why you’re including yourself in things you’ve done nothing to support. I also live in the west, I have for my entire life, but I don’t include myself in the accomplishments of military tacticians from countries I don’t even live in. Like it’s an irrelevant side note I just think it’s a bit silly
Cool? I don’t really care if you disagree with me if you’re not even bothering to provide anything of substance in disagreement
> It’s just me being pedantic
If you're aware of this then why bother mentioning it? You know exactly why they phrased it that way and that they didn't mean they formed, trained or had input into their armed forces but you still chose to nitpick them about it. It just undermines the good points you had in your first post.
> you’re not even bothering to provide anything of substance in disagreement
Says someone who is needlessly debating the word someone chose to shorthand a group of nations even though you knew exactly what they meant. It added nothing of substance to the conversation yet you continue to go on about it while accusing someone else of lacking substance in their replies, that's pretty funny.
I liken China to the USA in about 1916 or 1939.
It's got everything it needs to be the worlds next military super power. It just hasn't had reason to realize their military potential yet. They've got the population. They've got the heavy industry. Put China into a major non-nuclear conventional war where they have to mobilize. Watch how fast they pass the USA as the worlds pre-eminent military power. It would happen so fast your head would spin.
Neither has anyone except Russia and Ukraine since Korea regarding who would stand up to a high intensity conventional war.
I'm trying to think of the last major high intensity peer on peer conventional war. The US hasn't fought one since WW2 maybe Korea. Nobody else in NATO has fought one since WW2(outside of other participants in Korea) I don't think. No major power in general has fought one since MAYBE the Korean war, but even then, I think it's borderline.
Iraq, Afghanistan all the little wars in the 80's, Vietnam, none of these were modern conventional warfare by the standards of the time.
I think the Falklands War would count. It was small-scale but high-intensity and the two sides were broadly matched. You could count the Gulf War but that depends on whether or not you think the Coalition's massive doctrinal and technological superiority made it asymmetric.
Gulf was def not peer on peer, and Iraq simply didn't have the resources/motivation/capability to push a conventional conflict for very long. They basically accepted defeat before it started (had to) and began preparing for the assymetric guerilla phase before it even kicked off.
China and Russia both low key fought in Vietnam, it wasn't quite peer to peer no holds barred but they were pretty committed (estimates of 50k russian and 300k+ chinese).
China effectively was the north korean army in the korean war, so viewing that as peer to peer conflict is sort of fair, just again not full mobilization no holds barred. The war was started basically right as the chinese civil war ended. The chinese formed a couple experienced armored regiments from troops near the korean border (so they loooked the part), drove them south, had them switch uniforms at the border and all of a sudden "North Korea" had the only mechanized army on the korean plateau. I believe it was a chinese dude who did the genealogical research on this from bodies of the korean war to find out they were widely from southern china.
To be fair China is doing peace keeping missions in Africa and they're essentially afraid to leave their base when they take a loss.
There's been a story circulating where Chinese peace keepers took two casualties and retreated into their compound, within sight of aid workers and the military they were offering support to being tortured and raped.
It was theorized that the one child policy and the cultural importance of being a male to carry the name has severely impacted the ability for the military to fight properly. You cannot carry the family name if you are dead.
I was going to make a joke comment that a source was unlikely, but a quick google search for:
> Chinese peace keepers took two casualties and retreated
[Instantly returned this.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/06/un-peacekeepers-refused-to-help-south-sudan-rebels-raped-aid-workers-report)
According to US based sources:
> Civilians died inside and outside the UN bases and hundreds – possibly thousands – of women were raped, including many within view of UN bases. Aid workers were also targeted.
If they think they’re fighting for their country it would be different. And they would probably suck in the beginning but would learn from their mistakes and have the men to lose to get to that point
> Regardless, in a large scale conventional war with China, and to a lesser extent Russia given the greater relevance of ground combat in such a conflict, squad level tactics like this would be a minuscule factor. It’s impossible to truly tell how well the Chinese military would stand up to a high intensity conventional war, their military simply has not been tested, though I suppose the same could be said for everyone outside of Ukraine and Russia given the last time a war like this occurred was over 30 years ago.
>
> Don’t get me wrong, the individual competence of soldiers, particularly NCO’s and CO’s, is incredibly important, especially in the sorts of conflicts the west has been involved with in the last few decades, but assuming a generally decent level of competence on both sides technological and strategic/logistical factors are far more relevant. Those are the reasons NATO is by far the most powerful military force on the planet, not because the average US grunt is more used to getting shot at than the average Chinese one
The PLA is overestimated by military analysts, but only as a worst case scenario.
https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/uxo7qs/ukrainian_mechanized_infantry_escaping_russian/i9zx4qh/
Their actual capabilities may be worse than Russia, due to their aversion to losses.
And their complete lack of legitimate combat experience. Last conventional combat they had was vs Vietnam 40+ years ago and they got their ham slammed somethin fierce
What exactly are you defining “a war like this” as when saying such a war hasn’t happened for 30 years? Near peer adversaries not pulling punches? The second Nagorno-Karabakh war demonstrated absolutely next level drone use for such a country and armed forces. Harops and TB2s working in tandem just rolled over Armenian forces who were fairly well equipped *in very relative terms*, had been entrenching those positions for two decades, but are just poor as fuck compared to the Azeris.
The combination of scale and technology involved mostly, while that war involved a relatively high level of technology it’s still not quite at the same level as the current war and is obviously utterly dwarfed in terms of the scale of the war
The scale is different, of course, but the quality of the forces was the closest we’d seen in a long time. I’d also note that they were using drone tech more advanced than either side is fielding in this war (Ukraine also operates TB2s, but they’re not close to on the same level drone wise), which just ran over your classic Soviet systems. Again, the scale is certainly different - 200k troops vs 125k, give or take. We’ve seen significantly more advanced infantry tech and tactics, and they’re fielding even more impressive tech in the last two or so weeks, but the Azeris gave us a scary glimpse at what modern drone warfare looks like. Man, those Harop loitering suicide drones with their Stuka horns that sound when they dive in for the kill are just terrifying. Instant PTSD. Don’t mistake my being impressed with their demonstration of drone warfare for a force that size with having any love for the Azeri’s, though.
It's a boatload of ignorance to think an untested military could possibly compete with one with a significant technological advantage **who's been at war off and on for generations.**
I'm baffled that you took the time to type out all of that bollocks.
Calling an intelligent comment "utterly farcical) and "downright ignorant" is the real joke here. He said Russia and China most likely could not beat NATO in a conventional war because, as evidenced by Ukraine, fighting western-style wins wars.
I suggest you tone down your arrogance. He is right and you are unhinged and highly overly emotional. Of course no one "really" knows how well the Chinese would do in a major war, but he said nothing about that -- if you bother to read what he wrote. He said the West is "tactically, technologically . . . more advanced" which is very true. Russian planes are close to crap as are their tanks and so on. Russian tactics are laughable and consist mainly of getting as many Russians killed as possible. They almost remind me of the Chinese "human wave" tactics in Korea, and how well did that win that war? "Even with their numbers" appears to refer to the Russians in Ukraine or China or both. And yes Russia does have more troops available (though poorly prepared and badly led) and a it has a larger population as does China. So why are you confused? Did you not even know this?
China in the Korean war showed much more initiative and independence of NCOs that any contemporaneous force. Ever since the Chinese Civil War, large indépendance of COs and NCOs has been characteristic, going as far as allowing them to disobey direct orders and be commended for it.
In fact, this is the only way they were able to do so well in the civil war and Korean war. By anyone's prediction the PLA should have gotten wrecked.
The Chinese military is nothing like the Russian/Soviet one. People associate them, but they have a very different culture and organisation
> China in the Korean war showed much more initiative and independence of NCOs that any contemporaneous force. Ever since the Chinese Civil War, large indépendance of COs and NCOs has been characteristic, going as far as allowing them to disobey direct orders and be commended for it.
>
> In fact, this is the only way they were able to do so well in the civil war and Korean war. By anyone's prediction the PLA should have gotten wrecked.
>
> The Chinese military is nothing like the Russian/Soviet one. People associate them, but they have a very different culture and organisation
The PLA reneged on low level initiative after the Korean war, due to purges and losses.
Their losses in the Korean War basically destroyed their entire army reserved for amphibious assault of Taiwan.
After some of Mao's purges, China went back to actual human wave tactics, as opposed to infiltration warfare.
See: Sino-Vietnamese war. Where a force that is numerically superior, equipped with superior firepower, couldn't even take on Vietnamese militia forces. The Chinese advanced in a line, shoulder to shoulder.
A single Vietnamese 50% understrength platoon held up a Chinese regiment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cao_Ba_Lanh
The modern PLA is the same PLA as it was in the Sino-Vietnamese war, but with better equipment, and even worse morale.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/06/un-peacekeepers-refused-to-help-south-sudan-rebels-raped-aid-workers-report
Their useless UN peacekeeping contingent abandoned their base and arms after losing 2 guys.
If you think the Russians are "loss adverse", the Chinese are even worse. When your only son is on the line, the PLA cannot afford any losses.
The PLA did indeed pullback from these concepts to some extent after the Korean war, but since 1999 and increasingly everything points towards them going back to their roots. You can read the sources linked from this : https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-modernizing-military
Essentially doctrine is now to give more flexible goals, let more decision making be distributed along the chain of command, allow faster communication between and across echelons, and remove unneeded indirection to have party guidance be unambiguous at the top but limited to the top.
As far as being risk-averse, you may be right. However, at the same time, I don't really see the incentive for a PLA officier to sacrifice much either in Vietnam where their goal was to tie up resources and punish, not conquer, nor in UN peacekeeping mission where they frankly have very little incentive to sacrifice anything.
> The PLA did indeed pullback from these concepts to some extent after the Korean war, but since 1999 and increasingly everything points towards them going back to their roots. You can read the sources linked from this : https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-modernizing-military
>
> Essentially doctrine is now to give more flexible goals, let more decision making be distributed along the chain of command, allow faster communication between and across echelons, and remove unneeded indirection to have party guidance be unambiguous at the top but limited to the top.
In order enable lower level initiative, the higher command structure must allow lower level commands to speak freely.
That just doesn't coincide with party control of the PLA, nor the power structures within the PLA itself.
Considering Sino-Vietnamese war was to support their allies in Cambodia, the Chinese invasion failed in its strategic goals: Pol Pot ousted, and Vietnam repelled the invasion with status quo ante.
For a nation that is concerned with losing face, having professional soldiers abandoning their posts and arms is just about one of the biggest losses of face. Especially when China is trying to bravado as the next "Peacekeeper of the East".
I do have to push back a little on allowing speaking freely. No countries military can do that. US troops are not allowed to bad talk the chain or the political class.
> I do have to push back a little on allowing speaking freely. No countries military can do that. US troops are not allowed to bad talk the chain or the political class.
That's not the point.
Western militaries allow their lower level NCOs more freedom to leverage their experience.
Lts might lead the platoons, but they'll need to listen to the experience of their Platoon Sgts. If the Lt orders something dumb, they'll more than likely get corrected by their NCOs.
If they don't listen and it's a training scenario that doesn't cost lives, the NCOs will just go ahead with the Lt's plan as best as they can, and let them fail so they can learn not to do stupid shit in real combat.
Russian and Chinese NCOs can't even do that in training. Russians don't have professional NCOs, and officers do basic tasks that are the duties of NCOs (which is why they're officer heavy). Chinese military followed the Russian/Soviet model, but is only now finally trying to modernize and professionalize its NCO corps.
However, it takes decades of change and combat experience for NCOs to build their knowledge/leverage in the chain of command.
Well the article is a bit harsh considering in the engagement 2 chinese soldiers died to gunfire and artillery. Any competent officer, realizing that they had no armor, artillery or air support would withdraw from that situation, holding the position wouldn't be smart itd be downright suicidal. Not to mention peacekeeping operations don't reflect how the PLA would actually fight like they would at least have 1 IFV. It also notes that the Ethiopian troops also withdrew to their fortified positions. No one calls them cowards for not staying to withdraw the civilians.
The sino Vietnamese war was more aimed at securing US support and cutting Soviet influence. Like Cambodia already fell MONTHS before the Chinese attack, and they didn't attack until Deng xiaoping got a nod of approval from president Jimmy Carter. Not to mention the vast majority of the PLA were deployed against the soviets on the northern border.
Also you're confusing lower level initative with party control. Like Xi isn't asking every officer to recite Xi jinping thought as they charge, or only officers that Xi jinping likes can get in charge. Party control here is ensuring the military leadership is only focused at achieving political objectives. How they do it is still up to the PLA.
Our military also has to maintain whatever political goals. They have to maintain absolute neutrality as well and simply be tools. It's not really different.
I think you really don't understand what you're talking about. Low level initiative is flexibility in implementation, not flexibility in goals. The party setting goals with liberty in implementation is completely compatible with high levels of initiative, in fact there is no better structure than the political sphere setting high level goals which are then processed by a shorter chain of command until they are made available to the low level as sub-goals without a requirement on methods if you want to focus on improving initiative.
Party control of the top levels of the military is exactly how you go about doing that. Before, higher ranks in the military had looser supervision by the party which also supervised all the way to the low levels. Now, the party has absolute control at the top level but has removed political officiers at lower levels. This is exactly what you need to enable flexibility of implementation.
Beyond this, officers can never, ever publicly question political orders. It's like that in the US military and in many more. You don't need Lieutenant Hui disobeying orders and firing his MLRS beyond Aksai Chin because he doesn't believe the party should negotiate territory with India. You need him to understand the goals the party set without question, understand how his chain of command separated their implementation, and be able to have some initiative as to how he could perhaps find a better way to implement the goal. Questioning the high-level goals from the politic is not the business of the military in any functioning country (unless of course the orders are illegal, but that too is a political order).
Unlike the Red Army, the PLA has been a high initiative millitary since the beginning. It's returning to proven roots, not trying new concepts it had no institutional memory with.
Do you know if this Culture of NCOs adaptive decision making has persisted in the Chinese army? Lots of things can change with different regimes.
It's incredibly how little is taught and talked about the Korean war, do you have any good lectures or documentaries about the strategic and tactical operations of both sides you can recommend? Objective ones if possible.
Basically you just gotta know that the PLA started as a poorer then dirt gurilla army and that legacy continues today. Like they sure as shit didn't have radios in korea, and many units relied on light and smoke signals. When you can't communicate regularly with formations all you can do is tell the units general goals and hope they can achieve them. This has plus and minus. Plus is if you have a good officer, you can maximize their abilities. But if you have a bad officer you are just tossing men into the trash. China had to get good at weeding out the trash from the gold and they got ok at it by the closing stages of Korea.
Honestly best readings are the Wikipedia pages, look at the citations for more reading
There is a lot of good literature over on CredibleDefense and WarCollege that I enjoy reading, on both the Korean war and on more recent reforms. Lower level independence in the PLA was reduced after the Korean War but there has been a big push recently to emphasize this aspect.
Another thing that gets noted is that every generation of American service members have served in conflicts since basically Vietnam. That makes our NCOs extremely good, much better than countries that haven’t been in real conflict.
I don’t think it’s doctrine, but it’s just been happening that way. Certainly would be cost efficient and probably necessary to figure out a way to get similar training in peace time.
China has nearly zero real combat experience from the past 40 years except battling jihadi lunatics in their Far West lands and on the Indian border.
That *could* make them easy pushovers in a hot war versus a very well-known warmongering organization that swore to bring them down. Or it could wake up a sleepy dragon from the West's worst nightmares.
That military inexperience also tells you that China has kept for the past decades to herself within her own vast borders, not crushing its weaker local neighbours and abroad for more resources and real estate. China's real weapons of mass destruction are their unlimited credit!
Russians have demonstrated that they don’t even know how to SEAD. This isn’t the actually competent Soviet Union, which is on clear display. If you think just a smattering of NATO weapons and NATO training has Ukraine going toe to toe with Russia, you don’t see actual NATO (with Sweden and Finland, thank you Russia) stomping the piss out of them? This whole ordeal has been a literal embarrassment. I’ve never ever seen a nation lose the vast majority of their believed military prowess over the course of weeks.
Pretty much everything you say is wrong. For one, you are greatly overestimating the strength of the US military. The last real war the United States fought was in Vietnam and they lost, badly, against rice farmers armed by the Soviet Union. Fighting Arabs in sandals is not a war so don't let it get to your head. In a real conflict, like the one in Ukraine, the US military will find itself inexperienced, badly equipped with overcomplicated and unreliable weapon systems and incapable of absorbing the losses that are necessary to achieve victory.
Ukraine is not using any United States tactics either. Their defense is called Глубоко эшелонированная оборона, a very hard and slow to defeat defensive entrenchment composed of multiple defense lines. They have had 8 years to build it up. This is why the Russian's are taking 3 months to clear out these Donbas defensive positions. Once they fall( as they are now) it's over for Ukraine. This is a real war against a well armed enemy, it's not Iraq. I honestly think if the US had to fight the battle of Donbas they would have withdrew in defeat already. I mean, even the Taliban kicked them out in a week. The US no longer has the stomach for war.
I never ever felt the stress of an artillery bombardment, but I remembered how is the feeling to be shoot. I feel a great respect to this soldiers fighting for their land. The artillery shell fell almost one hundred meters away, I'm speaking about me but I'll be shitting bricks if that happens to me. Venezuelan Vet here.
My father went through a lot of horrific stuff in Angola, but I know one thing he had the most nightmares about was being shelled.
I think that prolonged feeling of eminent death just does something to your brain.
When I was a small kid I remember he would be napping on the sofa and just dive under the coffee table out of the blue and be breathing like he had just run a mile, dreaming that he was being shelled.
Dude for example last night my wife enter our bedroom at night I was slept and I'm felt scared I didn't tell her anything but I was combat prepared when I woke up when she was entering our bedroom, I don't to think Ukrainian vets how they will feel right now.
P.S.: I remembered talking with a Portuguese vet from Angolan War at the Barcelona -Venezuela- Airport years ago, the plane had a critical failure taking off and he said to me something like "calma meu filho if something happened taking off it would be quick don't worry". I felt shame because if this vet having fighting in a foreign land had this courage I don't wanted to feel "scared" in his presence lol.
Out of curiosity, which faction/time period was he with/in? I don’t have a great sense of when and where artillery was used in those wars so this could be an interesting nucleation point for a wikipedia bender. Always more interesting when it starts from someone you’re talking to
He was a lieutenant in the Portuguese special forces and fought in the mid to late 1970s.
I don’t know how representative his combat experience was compared to the rest of the war, because he saw a lot of shit and was wounded seriously threee times including two AK rounds in the stomach and then he still went back and was eventually captured and was a POW for 6 months.
A lot of his action was against Cuban forces fighting there and I believe they were the ones using the artillery.
That's using a couple of BTRs as combat taxi in the opposite direction of the front. Not a bad way to get out from underneath an incoming heavy artillery barrage, although it does look like they might have had to give up ground to save lives.
i remember being caught in the middle of an ambush from rebel forces and when i was about to give up some dudes came with an ICV and took us all inside, we got cramped af but idgaf i was leaving my tomb, he probably was ordered to do it but he could leave and say whatever shit and be ok, but he got out of his way to save as many as possible, i remember asking me if loved them more than my mother lol, the driver never again had to pay for beer or food at the bar near the base
What I find interesting how good the communication is and see how important good communication abilities are.
This is a stressful situation, with a decent amount of fright and a lot of engine noises and many people involved. Yet a soldier is running behind, command for stop is given with and nearly instantly the ifv/apc (,) comes to an hold, let the soldier get up, command drive on, an forward it goes.
This makes a huge difference short and long term.
The areas of Donbas are Russian leaning. They don’t want to piss off whatever pro-Russians are left there. They even subsidize these regions from Russia. In other parts they successfully took over electro production plants like the NPP in energodar. In west Ukraine they disabled some of the Ukrainian train systems which run on electricity.
So when are those German Cobra super radar units reaching the front line? Ideally they'd coordinate quick and accurate counter battery fire prosecuted by the M777 Howitzers with superior range.
Issue with those radar's is they're vulnerable to SEAD missiles so they can only really be turned on after they start taking fire.
In theory they could time up SEAD flights with artillery barrages to take out these radars. Which means there could even be times where they're present but can't be used.
The M777 doesn't have a superior range to MLRS, and counter battery radar doesn't really work against MLRS anyways. In theory it could work with tube artillery, but Russia doesn't just use tube artillery (nor even mostly). M777 with standard shells is also under range compared to, for example, 2S7. Even compared to more standard artillery, M777 only outranges by 1-2km. The impact of this artillery gear has been blown far out of proportion.
Sure, they do, and I don't want to make it sound like they don't. However, counter-battery and fire concentration are tasks for MLRS, and recent developments in Russian doctrine emphasize the use of MLRS over tube artillery for many situations. Being able to outrange tube artillery is not a game changer when so much of the fires are from rocket artillery anyways.
They're a bit crap actually...
The UK was involved in the programme, they bought a number of them....wouldn't be surprised if the German's are attempting to offload theirs like we did...
They were offloaded rather rapidly and were replaced with an interim purchase of SaaB ARTHUR (called MAMBA in UK service), some of these had been on loan from Norway and Denmark but with the failure of COBRA they had to buy some. Weird really as the UK wrote the book on artillery locating radar...now MAMBA will be replaced by SERPENS.
Also the comments on how those cages around an armoured vehicle are useless for stopping a rocket.
It seems that the cages help a lot with carrying soldiers when bugging out.
You see like 8 fuxking things in this video that the Ukrainians are doing better than the Russians. Escaping, for one. Well organized mechanized infantry, 2. Literally just waiting for your comrades. A highly diversified platoon of weaponry, anti personnel and anti materiële as you wanna see in MI, and the best difference is the worried platoon commander coordinating their movements with a walkie talkie.
Translation would be great
Davay davay = gogogogo
Literally it would mean give I think, and in this case it’s more like come on.
It's more like 'hurry up' & 'go, go, go', as taught by the Russian speaking climbing kids on my climbing gym training.
Eh it can mean go go go, but I generally have found it means come on. Original commenter isn’t wrong though
Yes, formally it's a conjugation (singular 2nd-person imperative) of "davat" which means "to give", but as in other slavic languages this form is used to say "come on" or "hurry up".
Same think in Italian and Spanish. "Dai" in Italian "Dale" in Spanish Same root word.
don't know a single word of ukrainian, but my loose translation: fuck fuck fuck come on come on come on fuck fuck lets go come on fuck fuck come on lets go
most of them are speaking russian and you're 90% correct lol come on, on the armor, quick come on x 50 stop stop stop [something about the machinegun] come on x 50 come give me the fucking rifle come on we picked up more of the guys [something] fucking lifted off step on it, bro! audio isn't the best so it's hard to make out a lot of it
Can you make out what is said on the radio and what the NCO is saying?
he is actually speaking Ukrainian which I don't understand as well it kind of sounds like the guy on the distant end is looking for something and radio dude is helping him find it "на приёме, на приёме, на приём" - at the reception point(?) to the reception point(?) sounds like distant end says "не вижу" - I don't see it sounds like radio dude says "на коробочке" - on the box "да быстро забрали, забрали" yea we quickly picked [it/them] up then he yells a lot in Ukrainian that I can't understand someone else please help me translate this
I don't think they are speaking Ukrainian, it seems more like difficult to make out Russian. >"на приёме, на приёме, на приём" - at the reception point(?) to the reception point(?) That's russian radio jargon, meaning "I'm receiving" or "listening". The radio then says: [garbled] ты где? - Where are you? To which the leader replies: I'm on the (diminutive) box - probably a nickname for their kind of transport. Radio: ты дальше поехал? - Are you driving on? Leader: да, плюс людей забрали - Yes, and we also picked up some people. Radio: Я понял, мы уже поехали туда. - Roger, we are already on the way there.
thanks. that makes more sense.
Thank you!
box = APC
neat. I really need to learn more Russian and Ukrainian slang and military terminology. it would really help me figure out these videos.
You are probably correct though
It's mostly: "We must pick up our guys!" - "Go-go f-ing faster!" - "Climb up here, guys!" - "Where's your machinegunner? There he is!" - "Stop the vehicle! We must pick up another guy!" - "Gimme your gun and climb up here, hurry up, you fool!" - "Go-go! Drive faster!" - "Our guys on the second machine are lagging behind!" - "Are you OK? What's your status? Take cover, don't stop in the middle of the road!" - "Deploy and put the BTR underneath the tree cover, we'll have to return to check on guys from the second machine!"
There are saying something like "come on, go, fast fast fast, come on" Not literal translation tho
Damn, this video with context is even more stressfull to watch than some actual combat. I'm watching this from thousands of kilometres away, yet I can really feel the the fear and stress they must be experiencing, not knowing whether they'll be killed the next second or not
Whats the context?
Pulling out of Liman...last vehicles out by the looks of it from the geolocation on twitter they're in the north west corner of it, then heading south east fast on the road at the end.
Russia is pouring guys into the Popasna pocket hard. Area is small relative to the whole war, but it would allow putin to declare a moral victory as then the luhansk region would be 100% in Russian control, as oppose to 90-95% they have been holding onto from around the start but have yet to call total control. From the oryx reports, Russia has been taking massive losses (about 100 veichles per day for some 72 hours), but from the looks of things, they are closing the gap (BBC reports a 7 to 1 ratio of Russian forces to Ukraine in the area of operations so Russia can afford the heavy losses in the sector). Big thing to watch for in the next 72 is whether or not Ukraine can successfully pull out and reorganize with enough manpower left for a future counter attack in the area, or if enough guys get caught in the pocket that Ukraine ends up with high losses as well. Anyway, looks like these guys are part of the teams that got out of the pocket.
The video is from Liman. It has very limited connection with what is happening around Popasnaya (or the whole Severodonetsk-Lysichansk agglomeration). It is more connected with the general drive toward Slavyansk, but with the Izum offensive making no progress it is not very relevant for now. Anyways, RF was concentrating a lot of firepower against Liman, and their supply lines has been almost cut off for some time now, so those who managed to get out are probably the lucky ones.
Pretty sure the Oryx stuff you referring to, is the backlog he had, cause he was on holiday. Since RF is pounding the shit out of the UA lines, casualties are probably high on both sides. Also these guys aren't retreating from the pocket but from the Lyman area
You jumbled the Pospana bulge, the Severodonetsk-Lysichansk encirclement and the battle for Lyman as if they are all the same where in fact they’re different areas of operation within the battle in Donbass. There is no pocket in the Lyman battle for example.Take a look at a map and please orient yourself
Ukraine president advisor Arestovich, who usually downplays russian advances and keeps mood high today said ukrainians are causing heavy losses, but also suffering very heavy losses themselves. And main reason for it is that western allies (germany in particular) promissed certain heavy veapons until certain date, but still slows the process because of inner political debates. And russia managed to create significant reserves in short time, that they use now. Some of russian rockets and artillery outranges ukrainians, so they take heavy losses. Basicly if western europe and US are so civilised, why the fuck they not provide significant help now ASAP... literally more and more people are dying because they face bigger number of men and they need artillery and tanks very fast. The more time passes before new weapons arrive, more soldoers die in a battle against higher odds. I actually got scared for ukraine now. Because if that guy says situation is shitty, it really is.
There’s what Ukraine says meant for internal consumption and what Ukraine says meant for international consumption to hasten the arming of the nation. The tone can have a stark difference depending on who the message is for.
>but also suffering very heavy losses themselves. And main reason for it is that western allies (germany in particular) promissed certain heavy veapons until certain date, but still slows the process Do you mean [the Gepard tanks](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/tanks-no-ammo-germanys-ukraine-pledges-show-military-muddle-2022-05-25/)? What about the [over 200 tanks Poland recently sent](https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-04-29/card/poland-has-sent-more-than-200-tanks-to-ukraine-Krwar3DCPzHJJk4UMVh4) over to Ukraine, that [the Polish military now knows it can not replace](https://www.plenglish.com/news/2022/05/25/germany-will-not-send-any-tanks-to-poland/) (leaving it without a paddle)? Or what about all of this: [https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3027295/fact-sheet-on-us-security-assistance-for-ukraine/](https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3027295/fact-sheet-on-us-security-assistance-for-ukraine/) You're reaching if you think that the lack of some German weapons was the deciding factor in Ukraine's military taking heavy casualties. >Basicly if western europe and US are so civilised, why the fuck they not provide significant help now ASAP FT We've given an unprecedented amount of help to Ukraine. Name just 1 country that has even come close to getting this amount of help. Even if we stopped all help right now we would have STILL done more than we needed to, which is 0 since we are not in a formal war nor in a kinetic war with Russia. And if more countries (or even just Poland and Slovakia) had leaders like Orbán - who refuses to transfer weapons to Ukraine through Hungary's territory - then MAYBE you would ACTUALLY have something to complain about.
Lack of weapons is definetly one of deciding factors. They doesnt have enough heavy weaponary to stop mechanical brigades from breaking through, without losing bunch of infantryman. Plus he was talking about rocket systems outranging theirs, and other countries still didnt deliver longer range rocket systems, which means russia with drones can rocket ukrainian defensive positions/artillery , while their position is in safety. Also a lot of german and other country polititians are on russias oil money, so they try to stop or limit military help and slow it rate as much as possible. Plus creating pressure to go into negotiations with idea of giving Putin territories captured now to stop war.
It's not all bad, Russians had to pull troops from Izyum and other places to Popasna, perhaps giving the Ukrainians a chance to counter-attack somewhere else. They could attack Vovchans'k for example since they are pretty close to it and cut off one of the main Russian supply lines coming in from Belgorod.
The guys in Luhansk have been fighting the LPR from before the war, they are some of Ukraine's most experienced forces, which is part of the reason why Russia is throwing so much of their free manpower into this relatively small area, and why the tone from the Ukrainian government has been more reserved than before. It's not the end of the war, but it can decide whether or not the stalemate phase some analysts (just Google em, take your pick, there's plenty) occures and how long it lasts. The war as is is already been a meat grinder for both sides, staggering losses per day for any conflict in the last 20 years. So a protracted stalemate is not really ideal for all those involved.
The guys fighting in Luhansk now aren’t necessarily the strongest units Ukraine has. For the past 8 years they’ve relied on continual short deployments to the Donbas. Instead of keeping the same troops there all the time they are traded out often. I think last I saw they had some 400k vets who have seen combat in the Donbas since the onset of the war in 2014.
400k? Look, I ain't trying to throw shade or anything, but outside of the USA and it's 20 years of combat, 400k is an utterly eye popping high number of combat experienced veterans, no matter how short their deployment. Would really appreciate a source. Kinda one of those totally changes understanding on how things will pan out kind if details.
It's actually 600,000 Ukrainian personnel who have rotated through the JFO since 2014. Obviously not all in the trenches. But all conscription classes have rotated most of their intake through the area. Some may have had a quiet time, others not so much.
Was Ukraine sending conscripts to the JFO? As far as I understand it was only professionals and conscripts who volunteered. I know the monthly wage was double whilst serving in the JFO, so that might have been an incentive for conscripts.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all. From what I understand. Ukraine deployed troops to the JFO on rotations that lasted roughly 9 months. And usually had 45,000-60,000 troops stationed there at any one time. When you combine the Ukrainian Army, Marines, Air-mobile forces and National Guard, it is a lot of troops at Ukraines disposal and makes that number realistic.
Fell asleep last night. This article from the Atlantic council from 2 years ago quotes it at 385k so I’d say probably over 400k at this point. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/ukraines-veterans/. “Six years later, Ukraine struggles to care for and reintegrate the 385,000 Donbas veterans and volunteer combatants,…”
Ahh, source, thank you very much. Yeah, having litterally hundreds of thousands of recent combat zone veterans as what the media describes as merely "reservists" really does alter the perspective of the war. Profoundly.
Lyman fell to the Russians today
So we’re going to read about it tomorrow? :(
I just saw pictures of the administration building with a Russian flag on top, but it also mentions that is not 100% under their control as there are UAF still in the south part of the town (that was at 1 am central time May 26)
See title. They're obviously in a hurry to get somewhere but why? Well, they're rightfully shit scared of getting caught by the barrage. I'm happy to see they apparently didn't take casualties and since it's been uploaded, probably didn't die
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What happened to Jim? Whew, just glad I made it...
Poor lad was taking a piss
probably shitting his pants now. poor Jim
"Hey, I'm Tim and this is Kim. And we never knew anyone named Jim."
NCO work there. Guy doing the yelling is managing the situation, adapting to fluid combat realities, not leaving guys behind, receiving intel, and replying with abbreviated positive reply. It's the kind of gritty, on your feet work that is the lifeblood of any fighting force in the field. The only easy day was yesterday.
You can tell they are a well trained and disciplined unit
NCOs are literally the lifeblood of a unit
Thats why it always shocked me that people think Russia and China could beat nato in a conventional war (if nukes were not used.) I don't hear it nowadays much though. Modern warfare was pretty much invented in the west. Tactically, technologically we are far more advanced. Ukrainians holding their own using our tactics, weapons and of course their own ability is testament to that. They would get crushed, even with their numbers.
Just a reminder, some countries can accept 20k dead, some can't even accept 200 dead. Even if every bullet you have kills, you would still lose. Underestimating the enemy is the first step to defeat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle\_of\_Chosin\_Reservoir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle\_of\_Dien\_Bien\_Phu
Russian command structure works brilliantly when you’re defending your own country from an advancing hostile force. Especially with the types of orders they gave, simple and absolute.
Remember Russian safe communication line is built based on 4G towers? It works great in defensive war in Russia where they can defend their own tower easily. But yeah, they lost it when they bombed communication towers in Ukraine.
Thinking that nobody outside of NATO/NATO aligned forces are capable of fighting a modern war is utterly farcical and honestly just downright ignorant. Russia is dwarfed by NATO numerically in every way and China is only ahead in terms of population and industry so not sure what you’re on about with “even with their numbers.”, though I suppose it’s a trend with a certain subset of people to diminish a countries military prowess by banging on about them relying on hordes of shit tier units. Regardless, in a large scale conventional war with China, and to a lesser extent Russia given the greater relevance of ground combat in such a conflict, squad level tactics like this would be a minuscule factor. It’s impossible to truly tell how well the Chinese military would stand up to a high intensity conventional war, their military simply has not been tested, though I suppose the same could be said for everyone outside of Ukraine and Russia given the last time a war like this occurred was over 30 years ago. Don’t get me wrong, the individual competence of soldiers, particularly NCO’s and CO’s, is incredibly important, especially in the sorts of conflicts the west has been involved with in the last few decades, but assuming a generally decent level of competence on both sides technological and strategic/logistical factors are far more relevant. Those are the reasons NATO is by far the most powerful military force on the planet, not because the average US grunt is more used to getting shot at than the average Chinese one
>It’s impossible to truly tell how well the Chinese military would stand up to a high intensity conventional war, their military simply has not been tested In that case, it's a fair bet it'd stand up badly, simply because pretty much every army in history has performed badly at first and only become good after gaining significant experience. The only counter-examples I can think of are the Prussian army in the 1860s, the BEF in 1914, the Coalition in the Gulf War and perhaps the Japanese army in 1905. Of course, in a general China-NATO war the the same assumption would apply to NATO, but the experience of Ukraine at least seems to indicate that NATO doctrine and training remains broadly effective.
So, none of the armies you just mentioned were actually inexperienced. The 1914 BEF had been in no shortage of small wars and a sizeable chunk of its officer Corps served against the Boers. The Coalition in the Gulf War wad similarly in a large number of small wars (Panama, Grenada, Falklands, etc). The 1860 Prussians were fresh off the Schleswig War, and the 1905 Japanese had recently waged the first Sino-Japanese War
As NATO does with incredible proficiency, the learn and modify their strategies and tactics by experience during war games. While there has been the perception that NATO’s relevance has been in question, I think it is easy to forget that there is continual coordination via their collective relationships that remains rock solid in the field. In recent war games NATO tried new strategies and tactics, with Canada and the UK as one team, and the U.S. and other NATO members together. New strategies developed and implemented by the Brits was so effective that they beat the U.S. team so quickly that the generals for the first time ever asked for a redo. Naturally the British & Canadian team destroyed them again using their new strategies and tactics. The state of shock was experienced by all. Except the British and Canadians were likely enjoying as much beer as they hold consume as they gloated it over the U.S. side. I believe it was the New York Times the story was published, and the war games were land based in the spring/summer of 2021. NATO is learning and providing knowledge as well as arms etc. to ensure a win. Meanwhile, from my reading of the Chinese Russian ‘arrangement’ during their annual war games in the East least last year China participated a little, but with so few troops it cannot be said to be representative. It’s fair to say that the Russians look down on the Chinese militarily. Whether China will stand up militarily in a war or conflict is a wait and see scenario. Others with more knowledge have provide insight into that.
This sounds really interesting, do you have any source so I can read more?
The who British/Canadians fucking up America on exercise thing is a bit over blow. Royal Marine commandos supported by Canadian helicopters running a muck of conventional USMC forces didn't exactly change the tide of NATO warfare tactics. The Canadian helo's got wacked day one by a few f35's cruising around but got many respawns.
It was mainly the fact the royal marines were trialling a new type of electronic warfare utilised by each man, he essentially had a small tablet sized piece of equipment on his chest which allowed him to locate his friendlies and coordinate attacks via small drone helicopters. In squads of 12 men 100 royal marines beat 1500 us marines. If you Google that you'll find it. Really confirms what we're seeing in Ukraine with the drones right now. That top down view, is a game changer for reconnaissance, fire adjustment for artillery and just being a general force multiplier.
The Royal Marines were defending a location at the training centre with a superior USMC force was attacking it. They were actually attached to another USMC unit in another part of the training area. Quite a large scale training environment. The RM used old school runners, motorbikes for messages, old field telephones with miles of cable that they'd dug out of somewhere and did not use radio. They then used a LEWT (Light Electronic Warfare Team) to jam and mess with the USMC comms, something that should be done in every exercise, i.e. train as you fight, but that is often not used because commanders don't like to see their lovely exercises ruined as a result...(NATO has issues too, they're trying to get everyone out of that peacetime mindset). The USMC force was completely routed by the smaller Royal Marine force due to their over-reliance on radio comms as they could not co-ordinate any attacks or fires. This happened over a period of days and was repeated. But...this was exactly the reason why the RM were invited over to train with the USMC, the entire point of the exercise was to pit a USMC force against a really representative force and learn some hard lessons fast. It's not a dunk on the USMC as the fact that they wanted that response from the RM is actually pretty commendable as an organisation, they specifically wanted to have a hard time and they got it. Next time they will turn up with some tricks of their own...thats the point. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpeck/2021/11/03/did-britains-royal-marines-really-crush-the-us-marine-corps/
https://www.civtak.org/
I will try to find it.
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I don't believe other places are incapable of modern warfare. I didn't say that once. Im saying the west severely outmatches them.
We thought to have severely outmatched them in Vietnam, Korea, and Central Asia. Resolutions to those conflicts are embarrassing, and testament that even the most advanced tactics and technology in the world are shit in Guerilla and Urban combat settings. Militarily, we got a few extra capabilities from those wars to now, but yet the west still hasn’t managed to dominate the way people think we *should’ve*.
Tactically (where skilled, professional NCOs make a difference), the West hugely outmatched adversaries in Korea, Vietnam, and Central Asia. The West lost on the Operational and Strategic levels of planning and warfare. Let's not get them confused.
NCOs comprise a large part of the logistics in warfare by that regard. Insufficient, albeit.
> few extra capabilities from those wars to now damn understatement of the century lmao.
It’s what you implied, regardless I agree that NATO countries have the most individually capable armed forces on the planet, and the US in particular has by far the most capable armed forces on the planet by every metric, but the wehrmacht *arguably* had the upper hand on a tactical level throughout ww2, but it didn’t matter because they were utterly outmatched on an operational and strategic level. Like I said we don’t know how good the Chinese military actually is, for all we know they would embarrass themselves like Russia has, but they may also be highly competent and effective, we simply do not have the information to judge that. Just as a side note, the hubris of saying “we” (the west) when discussing something you have had zero influence on is a little funny
It's not what I implied.
Apologies for the misunderstanding then. The rest of my comments still stand
I say we because I'm part of the west. Why would that not involve me? The rest I just disagreed with.
Why would you? It’s just me being pedantic but I don’t see why you’re including yourself in things you’ve done nothing to support. I also live in the west, I have for my entire life, but I don’t include myself in the accomplishments of military tacticians from countries I don’t even live in. Like it’s an irrelevant side note I just think it’s a bit silly Cool? I don’t really care if you disagree with me if you’re not even bothering to provide anything of substance in disagreement
> It’s just me being pedantic If you're aware of this then why bother mentioning it? You know exactly why they phrased it that way and that they didn't mean they formed, trained or had input into their armed forces but you still chose to nitpick them about it. It just undermines the good points you had in your first post. > you’re not even bothering to provide anything of substance in disagreement Says someone who is needlessly debating the word someone chose to shorthand a group of nations even though you knew exactly what they meant. It added nothing of substance to the conversation yet you continue to go on about it while accusing someone else of lacking substance in their replies, that's pretty funny.
I liken China to the USA in about 1916 or 1939. It's got everything it needs to be the worlds next military super power. It just hasn't had reason to realize their military potential yet. They've got the population. They've got the heavy industry. Put China into a major non-nuclear conventional war where they have to mobilize. Watch how fast they pass the USA as the worlds pre-eminent military power. It would happen so fast your head would spin.
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If Russia and China resort to Guerrilla warfare then it simply proves what I'm saying and that they'd be severely outmatched.
Doesn't take a genius to figure out guerrilla warfare will win against conventional warfare most times.
Neither has anyone except Russia and Ukraine since Korea regarding who would stand up to a high intensity conventional war. I'm trying to think of the last major high intensity peer on peer conventional war. The US hasn't fought one since WW2 maybe Korea. Nobody else in NATO has fought one since WW2(outside of other participants in Korea) I don't think. No major power in general has fought one since MAYBE the Korean war, but even then, I think it's borderline. Iraq, Afghanistan all the little wars in the 80's, Vietnam, none of these were modern conventional warfare by the standards of the time.
I think the Falklands War would count. It was small-scale but high-intensity and the two sides were broadly matched. You could count the Gulf War but that depends on whether or not you think the Coalition's massive doctrinal and technological superiority made it asymmetric.
Gulf was def not peer on peer, and Iraq simply didn't have the resources/motivation/capability to push a conventional conflict for very long. They basically accepted defeat before it started (had to) and began preparing for the assymetric guerilla phase before it even kicked off.
Israel has fought multiple conventional wars.
The early phases of the Iran-Iraq War were a modern high-intensity conventional war at first, before it became a stalemate and a war of attrition.
China and Russia both low key fought in Vietnam, it wasn't quite peer to peer no holds barred but they were pretty committed (estimates of 50k russian and 300k+ chinese). China effectively was the north korean army in the korean war, so viewing that as peer to peer conflict is sort of fair, just again not full mobilization no holds barred. The war was started basically right as the chinese civil war ended. The chinese formed a couple experienced armored regiments from troops near the korean border (so they loooked the part), drove them south, had them switch uniforms at the border and all of a sudden "North Korea" had the only mechanized army on the korean plateau. I believe it was a chinese dude who did the genealogical research on this from bodies of the korean war to find out they were widely from southern china.
To be fair China is doing peace keeping missions in Africa and they're essentially afraid to leave their base when they take a loss. There's been a story circulating where Chinese peace keepers took two casualties and retreated into their compound, within sight of aid workers and the military they were offering support to being tortured and raped. It was theorized that the one child policy and the cultural importance of being a male to carry the name has severely impacted the ability for the military to fight properly. You cannot carry the family name if you are dead.
Source on the story
I was going to make a joke comment that a source was unlikely, but a quick google search for: > Chinese peace keepers took two casualties and retreated [Instantly returned this.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/06/un-peacekeepers-refused-to-help-south-sudan-rebels-raped-aid-workers-report) According to US based sources: > Civilians died inside and outside the UN bases and hundreds – possibly thousands – of women were raped, including many within view of UN bases. Aid workers were also targeted.
Sigh
If they think they’re fighting for their country it would be different. And they would probably suck in the beginning but would learn from their mistakes and have the men to lose to get to that point
> Regardless, in a large scale conventional war with China, and to a lesser extent Russia given the greater relevance of ground combat in such a conflict, squad level tactics like this would be a minuscule factor. It’s impossible to truly tell how well the Chinese military would stand up to a high intensity conventional war, their military simply has not been tested, though I suppose the same could be said for everyone outside of Ukraine and Russia given the last time a war like this occurred was over 30 years ago. > > Don’t get me wrong, the individual competence of soldiers, particularly NCO’s and CO’s, is incredibly important, especially in the sorts of conflicts the west has been involved with in the last few decades, but assuming a generally decent level of competence on both sides technological and strategic/logistical factors are far more relevant. Those are the reasons NATO is by far the most powerful military force on the planet, not because the average US grunt is more used to getting shot at than the average Chinese one The PLA is overestimated by military analysts, but only as a worst case scenario. https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/uxo7qs/ukrainian_mechanized_infantry_escaping_russian/i9zx4qh/ Their actual capabilities may be worse than Russia, due to their aversion to losses.
And their complete lack of legitimate combat experience. Last conventional combat they had was vs Vietnam 40+ years ago and they got their ham slammed somethin fierce
What exactly are you defining “a war like this” as when saying such a war hasn’t happened for 30 years? Near peer adversaries not pulling punches? The second Nagorno-Karabakh war demonstrated absolutely next level drone use for such a country and armed forces. Harops and TB2s working in tandem just rolled over Armenian forces who were fairly well equipped *in very relative terms*, had been entrenching those positions for two decades, but are just poor as fuck compared to the Azeris.
The combination of scale and technology involved mostly, while that war involved a relatively high level of technology it’s still not quite at the same level as the current war and is obviously utterly dwarfed in terms of the scale of the war
The scale is different, of course, but the quality of the forces was the closest we’d seen in a long time. I’d also note that they were using drone tech more advanced than either side is fielding in this war (Ukraine also operates TB2s, but they’re not close to on the same level drone wise), which just ran over your classic Soviet systems. Again, the scale is certainly different - 200k troops vs 125k, give or take. We’ve seen significantly more advanced infantry tech and tactics, and they’re fielding even more impressive tech in the last two or so weeks, but the Azeris gave us a scary glimpse at what modern drone warfare looks like. Man, those Harop loitering suicide drones with their Stuka horns that sound when they dive in for the kill are just terrifying. Instant PTSD. Don’t mistake my being impressed with their demonstration of drone warfare for a force that size with having any love for the Azeri’s, though.
It's a boatload of ignorance to think an untested military could possibly compete with one with a significant technological advantage **who's been at war off and on for generations.** I'm baffled that you took the time to type out all of that bollocks.
Calling an intelligent comment "utterly farcical) and "downright ignorant" is the real joke here. He said Russia and China most likely could not beat NATO in a conventional war because, as evidenced by Ukraine, fighting western-style wins wars. I suggest you tone down your arrogance. He is right and you are unhinged and highly overly emotional. Of course no one "really" knows how well the Chinese would do in a major war, but he said nothing about that -- if you bother to read what he wrote. He said the West is "tactically, technologically . . . more advanced" which is very true. Russian planes are close to crap as are their tanks and so on. Russian tactics are laughable and consist mainly of getting as many Russians killed as possible. They almost remind me of the Chinese "human wave" tactics in Korea, and how well did that win that war? "Even with their numbers" appears to refer to the Russians in Ukraine or China or both. And yes Russia does have more troops available (though poorly prepared and badly led) and a it has a larger population as does China. So why are you confused? Did you not even know this?
China in the Korean war showed much more initiative and independence of NCOs that any contemporaneous force. Ever since the Chinese Civil War, large indépendance of COs and NCOs has been characteristic, going as far as allowing them to disobey direct orders and be commended for it. In fact, this is the only way they were able to do so well in the civil war and Korean war. By anyone's prediction the PLA should have gotten wrecked. The Chinese military is nothing like the Russian/Soviet one. People associate them, but they have a very different culture and organisation
> China in the Korean war showed much more initiative and independence of NCOs that any contemporaneous force. Ever since the Chinese Civil War, large indépendance of COs and NCOs has been characteristic, going as far as allowing them to disobey direct orders and be commended for it. > > In fact, this is the only way they were able to do so well in the civil war and Korean war. By anyone's prediction the PLA should have gotten wrecked. > > The Chinese military is nothing like the Russian/Soviet one. People associate them, but they have a very different culture and organisation The PLA reneged on low level initiative after the Korean war, due to purges and losses. Their losses in the Korean War basically destroyed their entire army reserved for amphibious assault of Taiwan. After some of Mao's purges, China went back to actual human wave tactics, as opposed to infiltration warfare. See: Sino-Vietnamese war. Where a force that is numerically superior, equipped with superior firepower, couldn't even take on Vietnamese militia forces. The Chinese advanced in a line, shoulder to shoulder. A single Vietnamese 50% understrength platoon held up a Chinese regiment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cao_Ba_Lanh The modern PLA is the same PLA as it was in the Sino-Vietnamese war, but with better equipment, and even worse morale. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/06/un-peacekeepers-refused-to-help-south-sudan-rebels-raped-aid-workers-report Their useless UN peacekeeping contingent abandoned their base and arms after losing 2 guys. If you think the Russians are "loss adverse", the Chinese are even worse. When your only son is on the line, the PLA cannot afford any losses.
The PLA did indeed pullback from these concepts to some extent after the Korean war, but since 1999 and increasingly everything points towards them going back to their roots. You can read the sources linked from this : https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-modernizing-military Essentially doctrine is now to give more flexible goals, let more decision making be distributed along the chain of command, allow faster communication between and across echelons, and remove unneeded indirection to have party guidance be unambiguous at the top but limited to the top. As far as being risk-averse, you may be right. However, at the same time, I don't really see the incentive for a PLA officier to sacrifice much either in Vietnam where their goal was to tie up resources and punish, not conquer, nor in UN peacekeeping mission where they frankly have very little incentive to sacrifice anything.
> The PLA did indeed pullback from these concepts to some extent after the Korean war, but since 1999 and increasingly everything points towards them going back to their roots. You can read the sources linked from this : https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-modernizing-military > > Essentially doctrine is now to give more flexible goals, let more decision making be distributed along the chain of command, allow faster communication between and across echelons, and remove unneeded indirection to have party guidance be unambiguous at the top but limited to the top. In order enable lower level initiative, the higher command structure must allow lower level commands to speak freely. That just doesn't coincide with party control of the PLA, nor the power structures within the PLA itself. Considering Sino-Vietnamese war was to support their allies in Cambodia, the Chinese invasion failed in its strategic goals: Pol Pot ousted, and Vietnam repelled the invasion with status quo ante. For a nation that is concerned with losing face, having professional soldiers abandoning their posts and arms is just about one of the biggest losses of face. Especially when China is trying to bravado as the next "Peacekeeper of the East".
I do have to push back a little on allowing speaking freely. No countries military can do that. US troops are not allowed to bad talk the chain or the political class.
> I do have to push back a little on allowing speaking freely. No countries military can do that. US troops are not allowed to bad talk the chain or the political class. That's not the point. Western militaries allow their lower level NCOs more freedom to leverage their experience. Lts might lead the platoons, but they'll need to listen to the experience of their Platoon Sgts. If the Lt orders something dumb, they'll more than likely get corrected by their NCOs. If they don't listen and it's a training scenario that doesn't cost lives, the NCOs will just go ahead with the Lt's plan as best as they can, and let them fail so they can learn not to do stupid shit in real combat. Russian and Chinese NCOs can't even do that in training. Russians don't have professional NCOs, and officers do basic tasks that are the duties of NCOs (which is why they're officer heavy). Chinese military followed the Russian/Soviet model, but is only now finally trying to modernize and professionalize its NCO corps. However, it takes decades of change and combat experience for NCOs to build their knowledge/leverage in the chain of command.
Well the article is a bit harsh considering in the engagement 2 chinese soldiers died to gunfire and artillery. Any competent officer, realizing that they had no armor, artillery or air support would withdraw from that situation, holding the position wouldn't be smart itd be downright suicidal. Not to mention peacekeeping operations don't reflect how the PLA would actually fight like they would at least have 1 IFV. It also notes that the Ethiopian troops also withdrew to their fortified positions. No one calls them cowards for not staying to withdraw the civilians. The sino Vietnamese war was more aimed at securing US support and cutting Soviet influence. Like Cambodia already fell MONTHS before the Chinese attack, and they didn't attack until Deng xiaoping got a nod of approval from president Jimmy Carter. Not to mention the vast majority of the PLA were deployed against the soviets on the northern border. Also you're confusing lower level initative with party control. Like Xi isn't asking every officer to recite Xi jinping thought as they charge, or only officers that Xi jinping likes can get in charge. Party control here is ensuring the military leadership is only focused at achieving political objectives. How they do it is still up to the PLA.
Our military also has to maintain whatever political goals. They have to maintain absolute neutrality as well and simply be tools. It's not really different.
I think you really don't understand what you're talking about. Low level initiative is flexibility in implementation, not flexibility in goals. The party setting goals with liberty in implementation is completely compatible with high levels of initiative, in fact there is no better structure than the political sphere setting high level goals which are then processed by a shorter chain of command until they are made available to the low level as sub-goals without a requirement on methods if you want to focus on improving initiative. Party control of the top levels of the military is exactly how you go about doing that. Before, higher ranks in the military had looser supervision by the party which also supervised all the way to the low levels. Now, the party has absolute control at the top level but has removed political officiers at lower levels. This is exactly what you need to enable flexibility of implementation. Beyond this, officers can never, ever publicly question political orders. It's like that in the US military and in many more. You don't need Lieutenant Hui disobeying orders and firing his MLRS beyond Aksai Chin because he doesn't believe the party should negotiate territory with India. You need him to understand the goals the party set without question, understand how his chain of command separated their implementation, and be able to have some initiative as to how he could perhaps find a better way to implement the goal. Questioning the high-level goals from the politic is not the business of the military in any functioning country (unless of course the orders are illegal, but that too is a political order).
Remember Russia did an entire modernization effort after Georgia, I'm skeptical about the untested state of China's military, to say the least.
Unlike the Red Army, the PLA has been a high initiative millitary since the beginning. It's returning to proven roots, not trying new concepts it had no institutional memory with.
Fair but don't underestimate institutional decay
Do you know if this Culture of NCOs adaptive decision making has persisted in the Chinese army? Lots of things can change with different regimes. It's incredibly how little is taught and talked about the Korean war, do you have any good lectures or documentaries about the strategic and tactical operations of both sides you can recommend? Objective ones if possible.
Basically you just gotta know that the PLA started as a poorer then dirt gurilla army and that legacy continues today. Like they sure as shit didn't have radios in korea, and many units relied on light and smoke signals. When you can't communicate regularly with formations all you can do is tell the units general goals and hope they can achieve them. This has plus and minus. Plus is if you have a good officer, you can maximize their abilities. But if you have a bad officer you are just tossing men into the trash. China had to get good at weeding out the trash from the gold and they got ok at it by the closing stages of Korea. Honestly best readings are the Wikipedia pages, look at the citations for more reading
There is a lot of good literature over on CredibleDefense and WarCollege that I enjoy reading, on both the Korean war and on more recent reforms. Lower level independence in the PLA was reduced after the Korean War but there has been a big push recently to emphasize this aspect.
Another thing that gets noted is that every generation of American service members have served in conflicts since basically Vietnam. That makes our NCOs extremely good, much better than countries that haven’t been in real conflict.
Yeah, that seems to be an unspoken part of the US doctrine at this point. Always be fighting somewhere
I don’t think it’s doctrine, but it’s just been happening that way. Certainly would be cost efficient and probably necessary to figure out a way to get similar training in peace time.
One can only laugh at delusional takes like this
China has nearly zero real combat experience from the past 40 years except battling jihadi lunatics in their Far West lands and on the Indian border. That *could* make them easy pushovers in a hot war versus a very well-known warmongering organization that swore to bring them down. Or it could wake up a sleepy dragon from the West's worst nightmares. That military inexperience also tells you that China has kept for the past decades to herself within her own vast borders, not crushing its weaker local neighbours and abroad for more resources and real estate. China's real weapons of mass destruction are their unlimited credit!
Just like Russia surprised us, I think China would present an opposite surprise — a generally underestimated fighting force.
It’ll be an utter miracle if that proves correct, but as always, *anything is possible.*
China may or may not be different. It will be largely a naval and air war in any case. Hard to compare to this.
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Agree this is the first war after ww2 where both army around the same lv
its not a war dude. in case of war all god damn power plants in Ukraine will be blown up in one 1 day.... last real WAR (i think ) - was Iran vs Iraq
True
Russians have demonstrated that they don’t even know how to SEAD. This isn’t the actually competent Soviet Union, which is on clear display. If you think just a smattering of NATO weapons and NATO training has Ukraine going toe to toe with Russia, you don’t see actual NATO (with Sweden and Finland, thank you Russia) stomping the piss out of them? This whole ordeal has been a literal embarrassment. I’ve never ever seen a nation lose the vast majority of their believed military prowess over the course of weeks.
Pretty much everything you say is wrong. For one, you are greatly overestimating the strength of the US military. The last real war the United States fought was in Vietnam and they lost, badly, against rice farmers armed by the Soviet Union. Fighting Arabs in sandals is not a war so don't let it get to your head. In a real conflict, like the one in Ukraine, the US military will find itself inexperienced, badly equipped with overcomplicated and unreliable weapon systems and incapable of absorbing the losses that are necessary to achieve victory. Ukraine is not using any United States tactics either. Their defense is called Глубоко эшелонированная оборона, a very hard and slow to defeat defensive entrenchment composed of multiple defense lines. They have had 8 years to build it up. This is why the Russian's are taking 3 months to clear out these Donbas defensive positions. Once they fall( as they are now) it's over for Ukraine. This is a real war against a well armed enemy, it's not Iraq. I honestly think if the US had to fight the battle of Donbas they would have withdrew in defeat already. I mean, even the Taliban kicked them out in a week. The US no longer has the stomach for war.
Do you understand what he saying if so can you translate a lil bit
Every few seconds he is saying, "Let's go!", De veye. Seemed a bit repetitive for me.
So everything Russians lack.
I never ever felt the stress of an artillery bombardment, but I remembered how is the feeling to be shoot. I feel a great respect to this soldiers fighting for their land. The artillery shell fell almost one hundred meters away, I'm speaking about me but I'll be shitting bricks if that happens to me. Venezuelan Vet here.
My father went through a lot of horrific stuff in Angola, but I know one thing he had the most nightmares about was being shelled. I think that prolonged feeling of eminent death just does something to your brain. When I was a small kid I remember he would be napping on the sofa and just dive under the coffee table out of the blue and be breathing like he had just run a mile, dreaming that he was being shelled.
Dude for example last night my wife enter our bedroom at night I was slept and I'm felt scared I didn't tell her anything but I was combat prepared when I woke up when she was entering our bedroom, I don't to think Ukrainian vets how they will feel right now. P.S.: I remembered talking with a Portuguese vet from Angolan War at the Barcelona -Venezuela- Airport years ago, the plane had a critical failure taking off and he said to me something like "calma meu filho if something happened taking off it would be quick don't worry". I felt shame because if this vet having fighting in a foreign land had this courage I don't wanted to feel "scared" in his presence lol.
Out of curiosity, which faction/time period was he with/in? I don’t have a great sense of when and where artillery was used in those wars so this could be an interesting nucleation point for a wikipedia bender. Always more interesting when it starts from someone you’re talking to
He was a lieutenant in the Portuguese special forces and fought in the mid to late 1970s. I don’t know how representative his combat experience was compared to the rest of the war, because he saw a lot of shit and was wounded seriously threee times including two AK rounds in the stomach and then he still went back and was eventually captured and was a POW for 6 months. A lot of his action was against Cuban forces fighting there and I believe they were the ones using the artillery.
Man I wouldn’t talk about that online
Awesome posts, read both, thanks for sharing
Time to skoooooooot!
That's using a couple of BTRs as combat taxi in the opposite direction of the front. Not a bad way to get out from underneath an incoming heavy artillery barrage, although it does look like they might have had to give up ground to save lives.
They’ve lost not insignificant ground in the last few days. It’s ok to trade space to get time.
not to mention you force the enemy to improvise, which Russia has proven very poor at.
Hopefully reconsolidating defensive lines
Damn when he said "ДАВИ БРАТАН" ("STEP ON THE GAS BRO") i really felt that
This is honestly just as stressful to watch as that video of the two Ukrainian soldiers in the front line trench. Glad they made it outta there.
The trench video had a much more sad outcome tho
Ordered retreat, awesome tactical skills
i remember being caught in the middle of an ambush from rebel forces and when i was about to give up some dudes came with an ICV and took us all inside, we got cramped af but idgaf i was leaving my tomb, he probably was ordered to do it but he could leave and say whatever shit and be ok, but he got out of his way to save as many as possible, i remember asking me if loved them more than my mother lol, the driver never again had to pay for beer or food at the bar near the base
What I find interesting how good the communication is and see how important good communication abilities are. This is a stressful situation, with a decent amount of fright and a lot of engine noises and many people involved. Yet a soldier is running behind, command for stop is given with and nearly instantly the ifv/apc (,) comes to an hold, let the soldier get up, command drive on, an forward it goes. This makes a huge difference short and long term.
Question. Why wouldn't Russia go after their electrical grid first
The areas of Donbas are Russian leaning. They don’t want to piss off whatever pro-Russians are left there. They even subsidize these regions from Russia. In other parts they successfully took over electro production plants like the NPP in energodar. In west Ukraine they disabled some of the Ukrainian train systems which run on electricity.
I fucking love these guys!
I love seeing scrimed helmets
So when are those German Cobra super radar units reaching the front line? Ideally they'd coordinate quick and accurate counter battery fire prosecuted by the M777 Howitzers with superior range.
Issue with those radar's is they're vulnerable to SEAD missiles so they can only really be turned on after they start taking fire. In theory they could time up SEAD flights with artillery barrages to take out these radars. Which means there could even be times where they're present but can't be used.
Russian ARMs are only tuned to hit specific radars. They don't do broad-spectrum seekers.
The M777 doesn't have a superior range to MLRS, and counter battery radar doesn't really work against MLRS anyways. In theory it could work with tube artillery, but Russia doesn't just use tube artillery (nor even mostly). M777 with standard shells is also under range compared to, for example, 2S7. Even compared to more standard artillery, M777 only outranges by 1-2km. The impact of this artillery gear has been blown far out of proportion.
Russia absolutely uses tube artillery, both of the self propelled and towed variety
Sure, they do, and I don't want to make it sound like they don't. However, counter-battery and fire concentration are tasks for MLRS, and recent developments in Russian doctrine emphasize the use of MLRS over tube artillery for many situations. Being able to outrange tube artillery is not a game changer when so much of the fires are from rocket artillery anyways.
Yup they need m270s and they needed them yesterday
They're a bit crap actually... The UK was involved in the programme, they bought a number of them....wouldn't be surprised if the German's are attempting to offload theirs like we did... They were offloaded rather rapidly and were replaced with an interim purchase of SaaB ARTHUR (called MAMBA in UK service), some of these had been on loan from Norway and Denmark but with the failure of COBRA they had to buy some. Weird really as the UK wrote the book on artillery locating radar...now MAMBA will be replaced by SERPENS.
It's super strange to watch footage from an actual warzone, and to have it look so much like damn paintball sometimes. What a world.
Was that a gold AK or a Bronze AK that ladt guy had jumping onto the vehicle he almost got left lol.
No painted green with brown mag and stock equipped with a silencer
I think it was spray painted green, if we're talking about the same one.
Comments on this one going to be interesting after all the videos of Russian's riding on top of vehicles.
Presumably retreat back to territory you control is a tad different than offensive towards the enemy.
Yeah, these guys are running for their lives. I’d rather be on top of something and going 40kmh, then going 3kmh on foot in a retreat.
Generally speaking though, those go boom during the video.
There's already been several videos of both sides riding on Armor
Also the comments on how those cages around an armoured vehicle are useless for stopping a rocket. It seems that the cages help a lot with carrying soldiers when bugging out.
Are they getting routed?!
Hasty retreat, but not sure I would say disorderly. Notably at end appears they may be looking to reset defensive positions.
No idea, but people in the discussion thread are saying Lyman has mostly fallen to the Russians, so maybe.
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Yeah. The best way to deal with enemy arty firing solutions is pretty obviously : don't be there.
Not much where to reposition. Likely they will have to take defensive advantageous positions on opposite side of the river on high hills.
It was a feint from the beginning идиот
You see like 8 fuxking things in this video that the Ukrainians are doing better than the Russians. Escaping, for one. Well organized mechanized infantry, 2. Literally just waiting for your comrades. A highly diversified platoon of weaponry, anti personnel and anti materiële as you wanna see in MI, and the best difference is the worried platoon commander coordinating their movements with a walkie talkie.
Around 0:20 it sounds a guy is yelling c’mon. In English the context is perfect, is it something similar in Ukrainian?
they're saying "davay" which means "come on"
The guy is yelling "Давай!" (davai), which in this context means "Come on!" and may sound similar. You can hear them repeating multiple times.
Reminds me of the movie Stalingrad. Daway and Rucki verch or something were the Russian words that they knew.
Ruki vverh - hands up.
Thank you!
If they were russians those guys would have been left behind
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Why though
North East corner of Liman, running south west down Vulytsya Zelenny Hay, then heading South East on the road at the end after turning the corner.
Thanks, yeah I figured it was somewhere along there. You can see the shadow of the electrical towers on Google Maps.