23772

We should start by reading the whole article?

In that article:

Kyiv’s top general said missiles also flew above Romania - a claim denied by Romania, but later repeated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Mr Zelensky said the missiles represented a “challenge” to Nato, of which Romania is a member country.
For its part, Romania insisted that Russian missiles had not strayed into its airspace “at any time”.

But Mr Zelensky doubled down on the Ukrainian military’s Romanian claim, writing that the Russian missiles posed questions for “collective security”.

Seems more like Zelensky baiting NATO into action which has been par for the course. I mean I get it but much like the Russian missile that hit Poland its best to take a deep breath and gather facts.

23773

I did not have Putin butt plug on my bingo card.

23774

Oryx reckon they have independently verified that Russia has lost over half it’s operational tanks

Oryx, an open source intelligence website, has been collecting visual evidence of military equipment losses in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began on February 24, 2022.

The group said this week it has verified 1,000 distinct Russian tank losses in the war. It said a further 544 Russian tanks had been captured by Ukrainian forces, 79 damaged and 65 abandoned.

That toll does not include losses Oryx has not been able to visually confirm, said Jakub Janovsky, a military analyst who contributes to the Oryx blog. He estimated the actual toll could be nearer 2,000 tanks.

At least 1,000 Russian tanks destroyed in the Ukraine war, Oryx says | CNN.

23775

Just kind of shocking. Putting aside whatever the outcome of the war ends up being for a moment, the losses the Russians have suffered are staggering. Losing half their operational tanks, when many of these tanks have been stockpiled from the 80s and 90s onward.

I wonder how long it will take the Russian military to rebuild from these losses, their industrial capacity isn’t what it used to be. And given their existing demographic problems, I have to imagine chewing up over a hundred thousand working age males probably isn’t going to help.

23776

The thing is, in the abstract, they don’t have to rebuild all those tank stockpiles. You don’t need tank stockpiles unless you intend to invade someone, or unless you need to stave off an invasion from someone. Nobody has invaded Russia! Not in several generations! They could have Nice Things in Russia, instead of tanks. But of course they won’t.

23777

Very true. My thinking was along the lines of “if Russia wants to continue on this path”. Given the losses of manpower and equipment, even if Russia were to occupy Ukraine by the end of the year (unlikely as it would be), it’s hard to imagine them pivoting and invading another neighbor anytime soon.

23778

They do have nice things in Russia – just very unevenly distributed.

23779

No one is arguing differently, though! We end up conflating a bunch of different metrics. I doubt anyone (well, maybe Roger Waters) would rather live in the USSR than in the USA.

But only if it’s a one-time thing. Try being a skimpy tipper at a place you frequent. There will be a difference in the service you get.

23780

I have a game I play every time I go to the US, which is called “Why does the American hate me”.

It’s usually either because I just fired off an extreme sequence of profanity, or because I forgot to tip them.

23781

Hard to tell, could be immobilized due to damage and abandoned. Either way, it’s a loss, and if abandoned, it’s a new AFV/tank for Ukraine.

23782

Pre-war the Russians were producing about 250 tanks/month and about 150 aircraft. So they have lost 4 to 6 years of tank production and about a year’s worth of aircraft production. They could increase shifts to produce more, but machinery will start to breakdown, and parts from the West for both tanks and machinery will be hard to get, so going to more shifts may not be a long term solution. Already we are seeing new tanks coming off the line with prior generation equipment (and that’s just what we can see) presumably because those more up to date options can’t be sourced from the West any longer.

Edit, production numbers should be per year, not per month.

23783

Only at a small local place that you frequent regularly. In a chain, no one’s going to be able to place if you go in once month.

23784

Another take on Hersch:

23785

I noticed that Hersh’s underwater demolitions expert is Theodore Postol, who was also his missile expert in the Syria chemical weapons story. He can be an expert in more than one thing, but the coincidence is interesting.

23786

That’s per year not per month correct? Otherwise your math doesn’t add up (at least based on my understanding of Russian losses) and it seems like at Russia producing 250 tanks/month and 150 aircraft/month Ukraine would be in big trouble no matter how many tanks they got from the West.

Also these are tank numbers only not including AFVs such as BMPs and Russian SPGs (I can’t remember their names)?

23787

Probably; I haven’t eaten at a chain in ages, though mostly that’s because I don’t eat out much and, well, it’s not like we have them on every corner here. We don’t even have corners!

23788

You would think that, but I have seen any number of videos of Russian tanks maneuvering and ending up in such clusters. What happens is one vehicle gets hit, the others try to maneuver around it, another gets hit, more maneuvering and so on, until you look like bad pathfinding AI in an RTS. They don’t maneuver in a group that way, it’s just how they end in a domino effect.

23789

Yeah, my bad, per year. And yes, just tanks.

23790

Poor training and low situational awareness tends to make these things happen as well.

Imagine 3 tanks driving down a road. Lead tank takes a hit. Odds are the other 2 tanks have no idea what happened, the lead tank just stopped and maybe there was an explosion. So they stop/swerve. If it was a mine, possibly one of them hits another mine, so you have 2 tanks next to each other with one right behind.

Or maybe it was a projectile. So now the other two tanks stop to try to acquire a target. So you have a tank with 2 tanks right behind it or next to it.

The more tanks you have the more chaotic it’s going to get and they try to get out of each other’s way and try to see what is going on. Soviet tanks historically aren’t that great at seeing as it is and Russian doctrine was to stay buttoned up when under attack, which means even less awareness.

Edit: Historically ATG/tank destroyers would do the rear > lead > middle, but with the level of accuracy we’ve seen out of some Ukrainian artillery, they might just be using that instead. Drop a shell on the lead tank, stop the column, drop a shell on the rear tank, start dropping them on rest of column with a drone spotter, until everything is dead or abandoned.

23791

An interesting article about Russian military manufacturing problems per a supposed insider:

Don’t know how much is true but we do see some of the things he mentions, like Russian SAMs being used in a surface to surface role, and their general inaccuracies. Much seems very plausible, even likely.

Funniest thing is that Russian helicopter engines were made in Ukraine, so that arm is headed for inevitable decline.

Note, the article is in English despite the appearance of the link.