Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[TheAuthority]

1 minute ago, sidcow said:

Have you not been in a on topic lately? 

FTFY

[romavillan]

11 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

A good thread and well worth a read. 

Yeah read that this morning, some colourful language, not sure I'd go as far as her in calling it the Great Information War etc. but it's pretty bang on.

[OutByEaster?]

Just now, hippo said:

He needs a face saver to survive on the home front though. The west won't drop those sanctions quickly. 

Oh absolutely, it's hard to see an ending to this that Putin makes it through - he's misjudged it I think and left himself completely exposed at home - but it does at least look like he might not see any sense in massive civilian casualties.

What will be interesting in terms of opportunism once the initial conflict is over is how the US and China use the damage this will cause Russia going forward - in a couple of years time Russia will likely be an economic ruin and we might see a cold war of sorts where the US and China try to divide it up for their own ends (by placement of friendly regime rather than occupation).

 

 

[The Fun Factory]

34 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

I did hear from a friend of a friend that Geoffrey Palmer had advised Putin to stick  2 pencils up his nose and pretend to be mad 

Wibble

[sidcow]

So Chamberlain, no sorry, Macron has apparently received assurances from Putin that he will protect Civilians and not destroy Civilian Air infrastructure or Roads. 

So we can all now breath a sigh of relief on the worry about indescriminate bombing. 

Thanks Manny, good to know you're still on the case. 

Edited February 28, 2022 by sidcow

[Awol]

22 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Ah, perhaps I'm confused, I'd read that we'd used thermobaric adapted hellfire bombs during the initial shock and awe attack on Baghdad - surely the very definition of rocket artillery fired indiscriminately against a city?

Regardless, it's exactly what I really hope we don't see in Kyiv.

 

 

Hellfire missiles do use a thermobaric explosive that’s true, but they are pretty small, guided missiles normally used against armoured vehicles. Tank killers. But yes, the Russian version would have horrific consequences against civilians. I’m mildly confident this is why he started waving the nuclear around yesterday, warning off the west from getting involved if he does.

[Awol]

31 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

A good thread and well worth a read. 

I swear that woman must have more money than Bill Gates. Does she never tire of getting sued for lying?

[hippo]

6 minutes ago, sidcow said:

So Chamberlain, no sorry, Macron has apparently received assurances from Putin that he will protect Civilians and not destroy Civilian Air infrastructure or Roads. 

So we can all now breath a sigh of relief on the worry about indescriminate bombing. 

Thanks Manny, good to know you're still on the case. 

Wot a load of bllx - dont start a war if you want to protect civilians - end of. 

[LondonLax]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

In case people aren't familiar with the thermobaric launcher (I wasn't and I was a happier man), here's one being moved around the countryside:

And here's what it does:

 

They also make quite a pop when you blow one up. That one seems to be trundling around by itself in the countryside. 

[sidcow]

Apparently Russians are unable to renew Netflix and Spotify because their cards are being rejected. 

This will be Putins downfall. 

[Delphinho123]

5 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Apparently Russians are unable to renew Netflix and Spotify because their cards are being rejected. 

This will be Putins downfall. 

Hopefully the likes of Valve, Microsoft and PS follow suit. 

Taking away all the entertainment will mobilise their young (as well as old!) against Putin. Can you imagine living in a society where the money in your pocket is pretty much worthless, you can't even use your bank card and even if you did have money, you can't spend it on the things you usually do. Oh, and your army is butchering a load of innocent people next door for absolutely no reason. 

The scariest thing for me is, Putin probably would have known about these sanctions and he STILL went ahead with the invasion. It's beyond comprehension really. 

[sparrow1988]

11 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Apparently Russians are unable to renew Netflix and Spotify because their cards are being rejected. 

This will be Putins downfall. 

Kirstie Allsopp has an article in The Telegraph about how at least Russian millenials will be able to afford to buy a house now

EDIT: allegedly

Edited February 28, 2022 by sparrow1988

[chrisp65]

Always good to see Kirstie Allsopp and thermobaric explosion in the same thread.

 

[Panto_Villan]

1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said:

We used them on civilian areas in Iraq.

This is the big fear for me, if Ukrainian resistance to the current Russian tactics continue to have some success, he'll resort to the methods that have worked elsewhere in the past. If there are people in the towns with 'super modern Dutch LAW tank killers', then at some point he'll just say no more tanks, bomb the towns to the ground from here. It worked for them in Chechnya and at Grozny, it worked for us in Baghdad - it's horrific and it will be awful here.

Although Putin could certainly inflict horrific damage on Ukraine, it is worth considering the size of the place when you make these comparisons.

I’m not one of those people who casually dismisses the Russian forces as a joke (and who are likely to look increasingly misguided if those war continues for several more weeks), but it’ll take an awful lot of very bulky rockets to flatten multiple large cities. Grozny was only one city, and not a particularly large one at that.

I think we’ll probably see a few selected cities of strategic importance get smashed to pieces with huge loss of life, but I don’t think it’s a tactic that can be used everywhere.

[maqroll]

1 hour ago, Chindie said:

Thermobaric weapons were used in Afghanistan, because the way they work is particularly enhanced in enclosed environments.

They're particularly nasty weapons. They kill through 2 methods - the explosion creates a particularly powerful pressure wave (that can reverberate in enclosed spaces), and the aftermath of the pressure wave is a massive drop in pressure. So you get all the damage you get from a typical explosive, plus you get the effects of a brief near-vacuum. The common cause of death is from the lungs popping.

Imagine dedicating your life to developing these weapons. What a sad existence, even though you're probably very rich.

[LondonLax]

Just now, maqroll said:

Imagine dedicating your life to developing these weapons. What a sad existence, even though you're probably very rich.

They were invented by the US to use in Vietnam apparently. 

[maqroll]

Just now, LondonLax said:

They were invented by the US to use in Vietnam apparently. 

Naturally. 

[Panto_Villan]

2 hours ago, magnkarl said:

Danes and Dutch sending over 4000 M72 LAW, an even more high tech version of the javelin. Putin won't have any tanks left soon if this continues..

I know I said I’d leave you alone but reading this sort of thing is so painful I have to make an exception:

The M72 LAW isn’t high tech version of the Javelin at all, it’a a smaller and lighter missile launcher with a smaller warhead and much less range than the Javelin. It’s not even a guided projectile, let alone a top-attack weapon. It’s just the modern equivalent of a WW2 bazooka.

Where do you get your information from?

[OutByEaster?]

13 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

I think we’ll probably see a few selected cities of strategic importance get smashed to pieces with huge loss of life, but I don’t think it’s a tactic that can be used everywhere.

I'm hoping we won't see any cities smashed to pieces. I think it could be quite an effective tactic for the Russians in Ukraine - destroy a major city and kill a couple of hundred thousand people and the levels of resistance would drop, but I don't think the Russians want to do that. I think they were hoping for something much more processional than they've got, but that they've not really got the desire to escalate it to the point where there are large numbers of civilian casualties. I still think they see it as them liberating their Ukrainian brothers - and thankfully for the most part, that's keeping them from concentrating what they're doing on the civilian population.

[avfc1982am]

6 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

Although Putin could certainly inflict horrific damage on Ukraine, it is worth considering the size of the place when you make these comparisons.

I’m not one of those people who casually dismisses the Russian forces as a joke (and who are likely to look increasingly misguided if those war continues for several more weeks), but it’ll take an awful lot of very bulky rockets to flatten multiple large cities. Grozny was only one city, and not a particularly large one at that.

I think we’ll probably see a few selected cities of strategic importance get smashed to pieces with huge loss of life, but I don’t think it’s a tactic that can be used everywhere.

I agree with this. I also think Russian forces will at least try to create a buffer zone around the border with Ukraine and claim it. This will potentially see severe loss of life and land around the border areas before its over.