Comments by "Harry Mills" (@harrymills2770) on "Covert Cabal" channel.

  1. Pretty much my thinking. In many respects, tanks are now obsolete. I think the tank losses have a lot to do with the stand-off weapons like StormShadow. But I think that such munitions are in relatively short supply, which calls for a different approach from the Russian side. The meat-grinder strategy doesn't work when the Ukrainians can reach out and touch armor formations from long range, with precision-guided artillery. These tit-for-tat, low-level skirmishes are too close to even. Trade a couple-few tanks destroyed every day, and the losses slowly mount. The WORST tank in WW 2 was the Sherman, but it could be mass-produced with ease, and the farmers who manned them could fix a lot of what went wrong in the field. Their standard cannon was very weak, but if they could attack from the sides or rear, they could take out a Panzer IV or even a Tiger, and the Germans couldn't afford the losses. If Russia gears up and go all-out blitzkrieg with everything they've got, I don't think Ukrainian forces have enough ammo to take them all out. They may suffer serious losses, but between their air superiority and overwhelming armor and artillery advantage, they could swamp the trickle of advanced weapons NATO is able to provide. I think the dysfunction of Russian MoD is greatly exaggerated, but we are at a tipping point, where doctrine must change, because at the skirmish level, Ukraine's giving almost as good as it's taking. I think there is probably a big strategy debate taking place, with the advent of StormShadow and possibly ATACMs in the near future. The USA meanwhile, has a new-gen weapon beyond the ATACM. One of the dangers of introducing StormShadow and ATACM is it opens the door to the Russians and reverse-engineering Iranians to get their hands on these new systems. The Pentagon claims to not even know where a lot of the military aid is going. The Israelis refused Ukraine any Iron Dome air defense systems out of precisely that fear. There's also a fear that the Chinese will get their mitts on these systems. Who knows how much of that military aid is going elsewhere to line the pockets of Ukrainian oligarchs? Who can guarantee that none of these systems will be captured by the Russians? Anyway, good points made. I wonder if there will be a shift away from tanks and toward lighter, faster vehicles with lethal weapons systems on-board. Maybe the Bradley attack vehicles, themselves are too big and slow.
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  2. This isn't aging well.
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  3.  @vedahandayani5688  It's exactly the right word to use in exactly the way they used it. You're putting someone down for having a vocabulary and using it. That's kind of weird.
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  4.  @MeepChangeling  My dad used to call it "Beating the drums." It's important to know what legacy/government media are beating the drums for, to see the $hit rolling down the hill before you're buried in it.
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  5.  @wape1  In some ways, they're healthier and living a more balanced life than those of us who spend too much time observing and researching current events. A half-hour a day is probably enough time spent on world affairs. The problem with that strategy is that the low-energy approach of watching world affairs on legacy news networks is that legacy news networks are trash propaganda of, for and by the political class.
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  6. It turns out that millions of would-be reporters, each doing their own research, far outweighs anything traditional media can possibly provide. Back in the "old days," CNN or CBS might be the only outfit that could send a news crew to a place. Nowadays, there are thousands of civilians with smart phones already johnnie-on-the-spot, and thousands of civilians on separate channels sharing what the people on the ground are seeing, in real time. This is why the propaganda networks, who used to have a monopoly (or small oligopoly) on world news, are going under. I hope to see citizen journalism continue to grow and become more sophisticated. My biggest fear is that the establishment would rather burn it all down than lose control.
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  7. Does it mean they're running out or does it mean they're dispersing them? The old rules for concentration of forces may not hold any longer. It may be that both sides are so good at long- and intermediate-range attacks, that putting too many eggs in one basket is an invitation for a strike. It's not like WW II where you can mass for an attack and surprise anybody. This goes for ammo and fuel dumps well behind the front lines, but especially massed armor. What little we actually see from either side are small (solo runs and small convoys). Much is made of relatively little, it seems. I'm no expert, but I doubt that Russian tank losses have seriously cut into their tank lead or tank production, and near as I can tell, they're not sending many of their newer tanks to the front, but are sending older, refurbished tanks. And the way they're using them in probing/suicide runs seems more aimed at drawing out and using up the Ukrainian forces. Modern warfare isn't combined arms like the Germans used on the Eastern Front, with total air superiority (in 1941-2). The closest thing that might be U.S. forces in Iraq, after they obliterated Iraq's air defenses, after which, they coordinated attacks using AWACS, without fear, and with near-perfect intelligence from satellites against an enemy without satellites or air defenses. When both sides have satellite coverage and neither side can safely sortie manned aircraft over enemy territory, "traditional" tank strategy and tactics and combined-arms strategy and tactics are a thing of the past, unless you can overwhelm a 2nd- or 3rd-rate opponent, which neither NATO-backed Ukraine nor Russia are.
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  8.  @Erusean_pilot  They have a role and mission in combined arms, but that mission has definitely crept far from where it should be, imo. Tanks are great for picking on weak nations in combined armor, air and infantry assaults, but if you can't run ground support operations from the skies, modern munitions make them big, fat, expensive targets that a hill tribesman can defeat with very portable weapons. The Sherman's biggest advantage was it was more maneuverable and small enough to use narrower bridges and roads. It was also mass-produced in great numbers. Also, American farmers knew how to repair and maintain the big diesel engines and do other repairs. Great as the Panthers and Tigers were, they were still vulnerable to the side and rear, and with massive numbers and superior mobility, the Shermans could be positioned for kill shots. And field repairs on Nazi tanks were much more difficult, which was made worse by terrible supply chain. I just feel like if you're spending enormous sums to win tank-on-tank battles, you're probably doing it wrong. Everybody has satellites and drones, these days. You can't hide mass formations from the enemy, and those concentrations of forces make a nice big target for inexpensive and deadly countermeasures from long range.
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  9.  @artonline01  Yup. These comments and this video aren't aging well. Lots of hopium, that's being exposed as such, since the referenda in Donbass and official annexation. Now, attacking Donbass - whatever NATO says - will be treated as an attack on Mother Russia. Total game-changer. And the recent bombings and missile strikes one strategic and infrastructure targets put the lie to all the hopium. Western leaders behave as though it's 1947. But since 1947, the USA has started looking more fascist/socialist, every year, and since the fall of the USSR, Russian federation has been trending towards free markets and functional liberty. They're still authoritarian, but they're more democratic than they ever were under Soviet rule, and they've been stockpiling resources, gold and oil reserves, and have BALANCED THEIR BUDGETS, which the MORE socialist West can NOT do.
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  10.  @NJ-wb1cz  There's a lot of projection on the Ukraine side. Mountains out of molehills and molehills out of mountains. The same political class is gaslighting western people about many things, for instance, after years of conspicuous left-wing violence (riots, burning, looting, etc.), all they talk about is the threat of radical right-wing white supremacist violence.
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  11.  @NJ-wb1cz  Remember when you're Google-ing that you're getting the version of the story that Google and its masters want you to get.
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