Russia has depleted its tank stocks: the industry is not covering combat losses
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There's been very little damage to Russia so far though.
That's true, if you listen to Russian media exclusively.
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I don't know what to think anymore. I feel like every week for the last 4 years it's been "China's economy is going collapse any day now" and "Russia is losing to many people and resources in this war. They might as well give all of Russia to Ukraine"
I don't take any news written in English with any seriousness for these two countries.
Russia has spent up enough of of their mainline modern vehicles like T-90Ms to a point where the refurbishments have long ago stopped keeping up. Similarly IFVs are lost, especially many of their airborne models which were misused early in the war.
The war has become much more static, with Russian vehicle losses slowing them down. The final on Avdiivka for example was completely brutal, lasting a month and consisting of a lot of unsupported infantry charges over an open field. The Russians did eventually win, taking the fortified position they were assaulting, but the tactics used and amount of losses to do them are not something that would have happened if they'd had the vehicles to spare.
The shear scale of the war has had Russia brute force it from being a maneuver fight to an attrition fight, and Russia is banking on having the higher population to win.
Also, pretty sure modern warfare has learned heavily that tanks are completely obsolete against drones. Or even less modern warfare tells us how useless they are in cities against [guerrilla] fighters.
Tanks are one tool in the box, and like any other tool they are adapting to drones. Drones are not a silver bullet, and they especially are not as useful in supporting or spearheading fast moving offensives, which is still an important role tanks will fill.
As for cities, tanks have always had trouble in cities. This isn't a revelation of this war. Militaries tend to be skiddish of putting tanks in city fights unless they really have to. Russia particularly still has memories of Chechnya in this regard.
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Interesting to note that since 2022, he lost under 1% of his population to the war... Meat attacks could go on for years on end and it would barely move him.
You got to get him out of the picture to have this war end.
Not long ago, a Russian politician was asking women to dress "less modestly" in order to have more kids, so they know they can't keep it going that long
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Interesting to note that since 2022, he lost under 1% of his population to the war... Meat attacks could go on for years on end and it would barely move him.
You got to get him out of the picture to have this war end.
he lost under 1% of his population to the war
This is not entirely accurate figure. The 1% is only the number of people confirmed dead by the independent sources like Mediazona. The number of people who are "missing in action" but just can't be confirmed dead is staggeringly more than that. Also don't forget that that's mostly people of productive age and demographic, which skews the metrics a little. Also add to it all the people who left the country, which are also of the most productive demographics.
That being said, Russia is big, and meat attacks could indeed go on for years. It will be devastating for Russia, but not for Putin.
there’s probably worse than him coming next
That's the scary scenario, but there is also a bunch of boring technocrats that might be put in place by the oligarchy, which sounds great in comparison.
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It never really existed in production, of course. It is like the early builds of the AK-12 where one offs were made and shown off as if they were going into full scale production soon.
The more real BMPT was at least fielded in double digit numbers, although conceptually it seems more suited to being a terror weapon supporting a shock & awe type advance rather than something used in a prolonged war.
definitely sounds ridiculous -- but -- maybe i listen to a lot of knowledge fight -- could be a psy-op? can you prove to me that beans growing with corn is not a psy-op?
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Interesting to note that since 2022, he lost under 1% of his population to the war... Meat attacks could go on for years on end and it would barely move him.
You got to get him out of the picture to have this war end.
Interesting to note that since 2022, he lost under 1% of his population to the war... Meat attacks could go on for years on end and it would barely move him.
If that "1% of his population" refers to the general population, I would note that the total includes many people who could never fight, such as:
- all those involved, whether directly or indirectly, in the development and production of military hardware,
- all those involved, whether directly or indirectly, in the extraction and trade of natural resources, without which the Russian economy would collapse, and
- all those physically unable to fight, such as children, the elderly and disabled people, and all those who care for them in one way or another.
As much as Putin's tyranny may yet squeeze out of the general population, 1% in three years is already devastating, in my view.
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I hope this hits Russia hard, but I wonder how much Russia needs tanks at this stage of the war vs a breadth and depth of infantry and artillery reserves.
Main battle tanks are for punching through enemy defenses and making a run on enclosing enemy forces/enemy territory.
Once you capture that territory tanks are still very much useful, especially because of their mobility and ability to reposition quickly, but they aren't necessary in the same way that you need some kind of tank or something behaving like a tank in the maneuver portion of the war. Even if Ukraine counterattacks with main battle tanks, the most effective counters in that case are artillery, entrenched infantry, and mechanized infantry with effective AT that can respond and reposition to slow down armored columns attempting to break through their front lines. Don't get me wrong, tanks would absolutely decisively help too, but if I had to choose between depriving Russia of artillery and depriving Russia of tanks, I would choose artillery. I mean... obviously but especially at this stage of the war.
Who knows though, I hope Ukraine can get a steady supply of main battle tanks from someone (do they currently?), if Russia can't field main battle tanks even if it doesn't immediately affect the strategic balance of the war, the immediate psychological impact and tactical efficiency of tanks chewing through emplaced machine gun nests and enemy positions will be huge. No matter where you are on the battlefield you know that if Ukranians show up with an actual main battle tank, you are fucked as a Russian unless you have a whole lot of artillery/air support at the ready.
155mm, and the U.S. has about 1500 of its M109 self propelled guns in service.
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Elsewhere on Lemmy today;
Germany warns Russia may be preparing attack on NATO
Both of these cannot be true.
Not with tanks. Probably with hypersonic nukes instead.
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Elsewhere on Lemmy today;
Germany warns Russia may be preparing attack on NATO
Both of these cannot be true.
Everything written about this conflict (by anyone) is propaganda. The enemy is a powerful and maximally oppressive force we all need to fear, but is also so weak it's losing equipment fast and its final defeat is only a matter of time.
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Elsewhere on Lemmy today;
Germany warns Russia may be preparing attack on NATO
Both of these cannot be true.
Both things can be true because Germany is talking about risks in the upcoming 5 to 10 years, while this issue is relevant today.
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It very much did. From the looks of it, it would've been "ok", except a notoriously unreliable srivetrain, and electronics that are almost on par with the rest of the world. However, it couldn't be built without western components, it was ridiculously expensive, couldn't be built at a high enough rate, and not combat proven.
As easy as it is to make fun of russian tanks these days, it does make a lot more sense to focus on T-90 or the likes instead. Hell, t-72m is also a reasonable choice given the circumstances.
I don't think there was a good option that was also realistic.
The T-90M is itself a long in the tooth design that hasn't gotten the kinds of modernizations that tanks like the Abrams have to keep it relevant (and even then the Abrams is already being retired by the U.S.) Russian tanks needed an overhaul from the T-90M.The T-14 on paper had a lot of good upgrades. The problem of course being that it's much easier to draw something than make it work.
What Russian tanks needed was an overhaul to their fire control and ideally their protection to keep up and shift into active protection. The ancient curtain system is not cutting it.
Part of my wonders if maybe they should have invested in something scaled back and novel. Make a lightweight vehicle like the totally-not-a-tank-we-swear M10 Booker. Something lightweight, with a smaller caliber main gun to focus on taking out structures and infantry targets. Stick some active protection on it, and some missiles and you've got a vehicle that bridges that gap between IFV and MBT.
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i don't mean this in a dickish way, but I do love that concept of "just say something incorrect or incomplete" about war and someone will be happy to bring clarification
Can you clarify.
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Everything written about this conflict (by anyone) is propaganda. The enemy is a powerful and maximally oppressive force we all need to fear, but is also so weak it's losing equipment fast and its final defeat is only a matter of time.
I was told that russia was bankrupt and the war would be over in 3 months. And then when that wagner guy revolted, it was the final nail in the coffin
Yet here we are and the war is still on.
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I was told that russia was bankrupt and the war would be over in 3 months. And then when that wagner guy revolted, it was the final nail in the coffin
Yet here we are and the war is still on.
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Can you clarify.
so basically the histories whole WW2 genocide forget to mention all the advancements the Nazis made, the bicycle? nazis. nuclear power, the microwave mounted about your stove, power steering and automatic transmissions, and just love between two people. fucking nazis
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The idea is that after some kind of cease fire, russia will churn out stuff for 3-4-5 years (so mebbe 1.000 tanks?) and then not go full frontal against NATO but say take a bite out of Lithuania, just to see what the response will be.
Like they have been doing since forever (Chechnya, Moldavia, Georgia, Ukraine and so on).
Correct. The issue with Ukraine though is they fought back and didn't give any land to Russia. Now Putin needs to save face and how many people put through the meat grinder to do that is irrelevant.
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Then move troops there. The European NATO members already outspend Russia in terms of military investments. Russia can't even take over Ukraine, a country that's not even in NATO and hasn't even had any modern military equipment for a very long time. Hell, they're getting hand me downs from countries like Germany, equipment that's decades old, isn't state of the art, and needs repairs, and they're still keeping Russia at bay. Now there's articles about Russia depleting its own tank stocks and shit, not being able to sustain even a war with Ukraine, and we're supposed to believe that Russia will somehow attack Germany or Poland (which is to be fair probably better armed than Germany).
So there's only two options here: either the western press is lying about Russia depleting its stocks and they're actually holding back instead of fully invading Ukraine (God knows why they fought in Ukraine for three years now then instead of just releasing their full "military might" from the get go). Or, the western press is fear mongering about Russia actually being able to invade NATO so the military industrial complex can make a quick buck off of our tax money.
My two cents: there's no chance in hell Russia can invade any NATO country, they can barely function in Ukraine lmao. Just send troops to the baltic and you're gonna be fine. No need for trillions of euros in new guns.
one thing that i keep needing to bring up as well, with what troops? Russia has been losing a lot of people in Ukraine. Even if we ignore all the numbers being thrown about how many they really lost, they have lost troops. Invading Europe? Even if they would make start churning out vehicles at a breakneck speed now, where do they get the people to operate them? How will they hold the regions they would get?
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Elsewhere on Lemmy today;
Germany warns Russia may be preparing attack on NATO
Both of these cannot be true.
They absolutely can.
Russia has thousands of men willing to fight in horrendous conditions.
A few thousand soldiers that are very well equipped might lose to 10x as many badly equipped enemies.
I think they would lose, but they might not think so.
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Correct. The issue with Ukraine though is they fought back and didn't give any land to Russia. Now Putin needs to save face and how many people put through the meat grinder to do that is irrelevant.
Irrelevant to Putin. It matters a lot to Europe and Ukraine.
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one thing that i keep needing to bring up as well, with what troops? Russia has been losing a lot of people in Ukraine. Even if we ignore all the numbers being thrown about how many they really lost, they have lost troops. Invading Europe? Even if they would make start churning out vehicles at a breakneck speed now, where do they get the people to operate them? How will they hold the regions they would get?
Russia has a larger army than any European country. Only Ukraine comes close, and they have veterancy only rivaled by the US and Ukraine.
(Ukraine probably wins on veterancy)
Sure, if Europe acts with Unity, they can roflstomp Russia, but Moscow would be looking for a moment of crisis to exploit.
