22012

A forecast based on facts on the ground.

22013

Well I don’t want another fight here, just wanted to show another narrative which exists, youtube has em galore…

I don’t know sometimes what motives Scott Ritter or those people to be so in favor of Russia, but I guess they have economic motivations.

22014

It is true that Russia will never technically “run out of ammo”, but if they have to cut artillery fire by a large percentage, isn’t that just about the same thing? It’s been noted by both Russian and Ukrainian sources that the intensity of artillery barrages has been reduced over the past few weeks, and that front line units are not getting the quantity of ammunition that they wish.

This started to happen after US military intelligence noted that they believed Russia would not be able to sustain their current rate of artillery fire through the beginning of 2023 - both because of worn out tubes, and because of their stockpile of (usable) ammunition being exhausted.

BTW - US estimated that Russia was expending 20k+ shells a day in November. At the estimates of new shell production quoted above, they would need to reduce down to 5k-10k per day to match supply - a 50-75% reduction in volume of fire… which it seems is what is happening.

22015

I was thinking of the “someone is wrong on the internet” cartoon, directed at me. :)

I’ve had a couple nights of poor sleep and it probably shows!

22016

Comparing Russia’s bullshit 13,000 figure with Milley’s off-the-cuff 100,000 Ukrainians figure seems intentionally disingenuous, since Milley was just stating that he thought Ukrainian and Russian casualty figures would be comparable and he accepted the estimate of 100,000 Russian casualties.

22017

Oryx has the number at 1,605 tank losses, but a few things:

  • Oryx only lists items that they have visual confirmation of. I think it is likely that 100% of vehicles destroyed do not have visual confirmation.
  • Tanks and IFVs are constantly conflated in various reports and that’s probably especially true with translations. Oryx has confirmation of 1,605 tanks but also 750 armored fighting vehicles and 1,879 infantry fighting vehicles destroyed. If reporting is conflating those, that leaves you with 3-4000+
  • It would not be unreasonable to think that Ukraine’s government might be stating a number that is too high, as it’s something that has happened in other conflicts. Tank crew reports a blown up Russian tank plus Javelin crew reports they blew up the same Russian tank could equal two Russian tanks, if someone is not thorough and wants the number to be higher.
22018

Which they were correct about, here:

They were very clear that Russia had made military preparations for a wide-scale invasion. They just thought it was a bluff (which was also the belief of the Ukrainian government)

Basically I don’t really understand what your point is. Dunking on people for overestimating Russian capabilities or thinking Putin would play it smarter pre-war seems really empty, since almost noone called it accurately.

22019

As I get older I continue to be astounded at how badly a lack of sleep affects things like my emotional self-control and decision making. I wonder whether it’s always been this way and I was just less cognizant when I was younger or whether the effects are exaggerated with age. I guess there’s no reason it can’t be both.

Totally off topic, but I empathize.

22020

I hope we can agree that predictions about the future (things which have not happened) and estimates of casualties (things that have happened) are two different kinds of analyses, and that the risk inherent in the former is far higher than the latter, and that being wrong about the former doesn’t say anything at all about your analysis of the latter.

Honestly, I think people like e.g. the DOD make mistakes, but I can’t really follow the argument that says they’re on equal credibility footing with random wackos on YouTube.

22021

I mean, it is OK for ISW to predict things that are wrong, but Janster can’t?

These are all predictions we are making.

22022

I predict this dumpster fire will continue to be a waste of time! :)

22023

It’s okay for me to more stock into predictions from people who cite their sources and provide a good justification for their prediction vs somebody who predicts something with nothing more to back it up than a link to a video with only tangential relation to the prediction. Can you really not understand the difference?

Does me predicting that providing a single A-10 to Ukraine would end the war in 36 hours with Moscow surrendering and being renamed to Zelenskygrad(now the capital of the oblast of North Ukraine) have as much weight as a military expert predicting 100 A-10s would just lead to the death Ukrainan pilots and nothing more? What if I linked a random Youtube video about how cool the A-10 is as the evidence I cite?

22024

22025

You forgot the part where, as you’re declaring this, you accuse everyone else of being hopelessly biased and deluded for believing otherwise. That’s the part that keeps 'em coming back for more, after all.

I sincerely can’t believe we have someone here defending this behavior and dragging this thread further off track in the process.

22026

Like… what sources? Telegram messages? Tweets? Tik Toks?

I am confused over the need to “cite sources” where the reliability of any source in an active conflict is going to be suspect anyway.

We are having a discussion, this isn’t a dissertation.

22027

Who says he can’t?

22028

This weird obsession with “citing sources” in an active conflict is crazy to me.

My sources tell me that the USA has put hundreds of troops on the eastern shore of the UK, they must be crossing the channel into France from there!

We have proof! Check out these photographs! So many planes and trucks and troop carriers!

We must protect Calais!

There are obviously going to be more reliable sources than others, and third party journalism to trust. But obsession over sources is weird to me.

And, at least in terms of a Perun video, he does cite his sources, they are in the video description.

22029

I’ve never seen them just reference rando person on those platforms as “proof”. It’s more an aggregation of evidence from those posts. One of the frequent ones I’ve seen to try to track Ukrainian progress in an area is a flurry of videos from Russian soldiers about how things have gone to shit in that area and corresponding silence from Ukrainian officials on any updates in that area.

And even with something like ISW updates, I don’t really pay attention to a single one. But when day after day the sources they use are pointing to the same goings on, then it starts to seem likely that they are on to something.

Talking about artillery numbers, lots intelligence sources keep assessing the daily shells being fired by Russia as dropping, for months now. So that’s my evidence for why Russia really does have an artillery ammo supply problem. Theoretical talk about how many shells Russia produces isn’t going to override that for me. Show me the new factory Russia opened that is doubling their production, then I’ll start to think they are working on solving that problem for real.

22030

My understanding (from this thread and posts by @alekseivolchok in particular) is that the goal of Russian propaganda is not to make people believe in a particular fact, but to inject so much noise into the system that a person begins to doubt all facts from all sources. “We can never know, so I give up on knowing.”

Is this an adequate summary of how that works? (please correct me if I’m wrong!)

22031

This argument seems crazy to me.

Someone like the DoD has access to information about what is going on and what has happened and can use that in their analysis and tell you why they say what they say, e.g. where they got the information they’re using. Then you can try to judge for yourself how reliable it is.

You can do the same for random internet wacko, but only if they tell you where they got the information so you can try to judge how reliable it is.