Comments on: Why NATO hasn’t established a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

By: podrock

podrock — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 01:57:14 +0000

A way to siphon money. A kleptocracy. With poor young men freezing and going hungry sitting on a road not knowing what the hell is going on.

They should just walk away.

By: RL

RL — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 01:36:30 +0000

But come on, you have got to admit this is WAY beyond the normal ineptitude…

By: podrock

podrock — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 00:16:33 +0000

A front more than a thousand miles long? Stupid. Frankly, I don’t see a plan at all. “Everybody go long” is not a plan.

By: podrock

podrock — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 00:10:32 +0000

It has mostly always been inept, but they made up for it with numbers and brutality. There is an old quote from Finland staving off the Soviets, something like, “They are big, we are small, where will we bury them all?”

While our Military Industrial Complex is certainly profit driven, I suspect theirs is even more so, and that most of the money does not go to the military. I’ve seen (again: unverified) that the soldiers’ rations expired years ago.

If Russia didn’t have nukes they’d be a third world country. Just hoping they are as poorly maintained as the rest of it.

By: ER

ER — Sat, 05 Mar 2022 23:30:26 +0000

The lifers at the top may be hyper-competent, but they are more concerned with their careers than with their duty. But the rank and file are just conscripts who don’t want to be there.

There’s nothing wrong with their battle plan, but executing it depends on the non-coms and the grunts.
And if the infantry is not motivated, it doesn’t matter how good the sargents are.

This dysfunction may be bad on the battlefield, but it is really deadly when you look at logistics, communications, supply, maintenance, support. There are some excellent units in the Russian armed forces, but the overall standard is abysmal.

I saw the same thing in my Navy service, although not quite as bad. But the US military learned from Vietnam and by the time Desert Storm came around we had our shit together.

By: RL

RL — Sat, 05 Mar 2022 22:12:12 +0000

Did Putin assign his chef to plan the invasion?

This really is bizarre, the stupidity of the initial concept and the unrealistic assumptions, followed by the stunning incompetence in execution…. what the hell is going on over there?

Was the planning and execution carried out by a disloyal mole that wants Putin humiliated?

This clusterfuck just boggles the mind…

By: podrock

podrock — Sat, 05 Mar 2022 19:24:40 +0000

Your observation of support crews / Maintenace is important. I’ve seen some remarks on Twitter about how poorly the RU vehicles have been maintained. They note how the tires have been going flat or falling off and the gaskets have failed from dry rot. And separated from supply chains, they become useless.

A comment on Putin being smart. Sure, maybe he is, but he is only the head of the dragon. It really appears that he, like the former guy, surrounded himself with people who told him what he wanted to hear. Obviously, the strength and skill of this invading army was misrepresented, the opposition discounted, and the will of the world dismissed. There are stories of RU soldiers disabling their own vehicles by punching hole in gas tanks. Looting stores for food. Asking locals where to get gas. Stories that sympathetic individuals in the FSB have been sharing intel with Ukraine. Now I recognize that these reports may be propaganda. But if true, this is bad for Putin. Motivation is on the Ukrainian side not the invaders.

And the west is feeding Ukraine with tons of advanced intel.

Been reading on the role of satellites in this conflict – especially Radar and radio coms. This is something I don’t think Putin counted on. He’s using tactics that are decades old.

I’m just a geologist and cartographer. But in my opinion, Putin’s strategic plan was stupid, failing in both tactics and logistics.

By: ER

ER — Sat, 05 Mar 2022 18:54:33 +0000

You don’t have to just train the pilots, you have to train the ground crews that service the aircraft and the equipment used to service them. Most people don’t realize that most modern jets spend most of their time in the hangar, not up in the air. Less complex equipment, like tanks, also have much servicing and maintenance requirements. Tanks, especially, don’t even move into battle, they are hauled there by special carrier vehicles or railroad cars.

By: podrock

podrock — Sat, 05 Mar 2022 16:06:35 +0000

Much has been said about supplying new aircraft to Ukraine. But that is also complicated. The pilots have to have some training in different aircraft (unlike the movies, it is not easy just jumping into an unfamiliar aircraft and flying it.) The planes would have to be painted to remove evidence of where it came from. The countries contributing the aircraft are not going to want to degrade their air strength, so planes would need to be replaced. And the planes can’t just fly in from Poland or other NATO bases. Russia would see that. Somehow, they have to get to a Ukrainian base, along with spare parts, and support.