Comments by "Black Cat Dungeon Master\x27s Familiar" (@blackcatdungeonmastersfami5311) on "Weeb Union" channel.

  1. I struggle to believe the Palestinians started this without the guarantee of outside assistance.
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  2. Shovels? :)
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  3. The size of the population isn't too important, it's the size of the defending army which matters. And Ukraine is slowly but surely running out of men.
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  4.  @jamesgornall5731  Works really well if the enemy is weak and disorganised like in Iraq or during the Kharkov offensive where it was relatively easy to infiltrate through Russian lines and punch through with armour into the rear. A totally inappropriate strategy for dealing with a well defended, heavily fortified line protected by many layers of minefields.
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  5. Disagree, the big offensives will start as soon as Ukraine reaches the point that it doesn't have enough reserves to plug gaps when a position collapses. And that point seems to be approaching. Big offensives when the enemy is too strong is expensive and risky but positional warfare has an opportunity cost too when the enemy is weak enough that big offensives have a realistic prospect of success. The Kharkov offensive had a good pay off for Ukraine when the Russians were too weak in this sector, cutting off Russian forces and capturing territory. Ukrainian casualties were modest relative to the results achieved so far as we can tell. The balance of power is starting to favour Russia doing something like this.
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  6.  @kartikeyatiwari2502  Eventually Ukraine will run out of men who want to fight. There have already been videos of units refusing orders to attack and leaving their positions without orders.
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  7. See Defence Politics Asia's analysis from today at the demographic profile of Ukraine. When you could guys who have left, guys who are in the east on the Russian side, guys who are already in the army, there just aren't that many more Ukraine can mobilise. Anyone who was wiling to fight is already in the army or has become a casualty.
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  8. LOL, that's a really high bar
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  9. The Ukrainian military leadership isn't free from political interference. Zelensky never even wanted to attack through Zaporozhye according to rumour, he disappeared for ages at the start of the offensive. He didn't like the open terrain and the heavy Russian defences.
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  10.  @MarkNOTW  Except that Russian soldiers are dying too. I don't know what numbers, I'm sure Ukrainian losses are higher but Russia won't be low either. And escalation is dangerous for everyone including Russia.
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  11. Both sides hit a lot of ammo dumps. Russia hits battalion and brigade ammo dumps with artillery but also big strategic stores of ammunition all over Ukraine with missiles. I don't think we can assume one side is hitting logistics more successfully than the other.
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  12.  @santhosh4474  Offensives against defended positions are difficult and expensive. The Russian strategy seems to be to do the bare minimum of attacking to keep the line they want and wait for the Ukrainians to waste their strength battering against good Russian defences. Once the Ukrainians have burned their reserves Russia can start taking ground at an acceptable cost. That's why judging the progress of the war merely by looking at the map is misleading. You also have to try to estimate casualties.
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  13. Part of it could be active defence of the israeli tanks (Trophy system) makes it too dangerous for infantry to be in close support.
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  14.  @Bombeatomics  Even back to the First World War, tunnels were hugely important for transferring men and supplies safely between front lines and rear lines.
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  15. The political point you make about not panicking the West is valid but the military pay off of a big offensive is too big to ignore. Russia doesn't want the war to drag on forever either. I think the big offensives will start as soon as Ukraine reaches the point that it doesn't have enough reserves to plug gaps when a position collapses. And that point seems to be approaching. Big offensives when the enemy is too strong is expensive and risky but positional warfare has an opportunity cost too when the enemy is weak enough that big offensives have a realistic prospect of success. The Kharkov offensive had a good pay off for Ukraine when the Russians were too weak in this sector, cutting off Russian forces and capturing territory. Ukrainian casualties were modest relative to the results achieved so far as we can tell. The balance of power is starting to favour Russia doing something like this.
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  16.  @youareliedtobythemedia  I agree that more shells fired doesn't necessarily equate to more damage done but I don't think you can assume better Ukrainian precision than the Russians and I totally disagree with greater Ukrainian range. Russia can hit high priority targets anywhere in Ukraine. Just yesterday they hit Odessa and maybe two days ago they hit a training facility in Lviv. There have been some huge explosions from Ukrainian ammo dumps.
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  17. Generally, yes. The Surovikhin line in particular has fairly deep concrete bunkers.
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  18.  @kleinenboese395  Too complicated. The Ukrainian war aim is keep the aid grift going as long as possible, drag NATO into the war to bail them out or if that fails hope for a collapse or change in leadership in Russia. Nothing very likely but now they're in this difficult situation the only alternative is making peace and the regime wouldn't survive that.
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  19. Gaining a square kilometre of farmland but losing dozens of armoured vehicles and hundreds of men is not a good trade. And over the past couple of days, Russia is winning more territory than Ukraine is anyway.
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  20. Ridiculous click bait title
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  21. I reckon sooner, the Russians look to be entrenched now and can fly drones over the supply roads. They probably need a pause to consolidate and to expand the flanks which might take weeks but I'll be surprised if it's not taken by end of winter.
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  22.  @clone3_7  Sorry that's not right. If EITHER player is unable to do a legal move, that's stalemate. I'm not a chess expert but I played club chess, I'm totally sure about that.
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  23. Except that the Ukrainian army is declining because of attrition whereas the Russian army is still growing. This stalemate narrative reminds me of Douglas Haig in mid 1918, pessimistic after the difficulties of surviving the Germany March/April offensives whereas he'd been overly optimistic all throughout 1916-1917. What he wasn't accounting for was the rapidly weakening state of the Germany army AND the German home front. Rapid allied advances followed. I suspect 2024 will be similar. Even if the West keeps arming Ukraine at the same rate and that's a big if, the best Ukrainian manpower has been wasted.
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  24. I think that's the most likely outcome but I think the timeline will be much longer. One of the lessons of watching this war is things always take much longer than expected :)
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  25. Disagree, it's just much harder to concentrate large forces now. There is satellite reconnaissance and either side can destroy large concentrations of vehicles and supply dumps and vehicles at long range, easier than sending a fleet of bombers in WWII. Also, modern equipment is vastly more expensive than in WWII, even if you account for the huge economic growth since then. Tens of millions of dollars for a single aircraft is nothing unusual. Apparently it took 4000 man hours to build a Bf109 and 16000 to build a Spitfire for about $1 million in modern money. A Ka52 costs ten times as much and a F22 Raptor is well over a hundred million. We're looking at over a hundred thousand man hours for modern military aircraft and much of that cost is avionics. You're not going to be seeing hundreds of Ka52s or Su35s in a single battle.
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  26.  @drgat6953  It might be partially successful but most likely there'll be pressure doors because these tunnels have been built over years and Hamas would be aware of this risk.
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  27. Subscribe now, unsubscribe later, what's the problem?
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  28. There will definitely be good underground fortifications under and around Kharkov by now.
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  29. Unsurprising since everyone knows the primary weapon of the Russian army is shovels.
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  30. The only place more dangerous to be on a battlefield than inside a tank is outside a tank. They're not disappearing any time soon. People have been anticipating tanks becoming obsolete for a hundred years now.
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  31.  @MarkNOTW  Do you mean if Russian losses were high, we'd be seeing Ukrainian breakthroughs? Two things I'd say to that, firstly, the Ukrainians certainly are making gains. They're modest and they're at high price but they are taking ground. Secondly, it could be the Russians are just feeding reserves in as they need to, to keep things under control so lack of Ukrainian breakthroughs doesn't necessarily mean Russian losses are light, just that the Russians are able to replace losses quickly enough. Nobody knows how large the Russian reserves are but I agree with Weeb that they're probably pretty huge. Anyway I've seen plenty of Ukrainian footage showing Russian losses, if I had to guess, I'd guess they're around half the Ukrainian losses.
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  32. Hamas can't win military but doesn't need to. To win, they just need to survive longer than Netanyahu's political capital. The world is turning against Israel because of this war. Biden hates Netanyahu and his continued support is dangerous to his own election chances.
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  33.  @wedgeantilles8575  Every day Ukraine gets weaker, every day the Russian economy grows and the Russian army is gradually getting stronger too. That's not a stalemate. A stalemate is where neither side has a path to victory.
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  34.  @exat87  Hitler actually wanted an alliance with Poland against the Soviet Union :) He wanted the Danzig corridor and Danzig city (which wasn't part of Poland anyway) and offered to compensate Poland with territory annexed from the Soviet Union. It's not as far fetched as it sounds. Germany and Poland collaborated to dismember Czechoslovakia (and Poland got a city called Teschen out of it). So your analogy is a bit more complex than you assume.
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  35. They should have seen that from the start and negotiated a peace.
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  36. Totally agree, also modern equipment is vastly more expensive than in WWII, even if you account for the huge economic growth since then. Tens of millions of dollars for a single aircraft is nothing unusual. Apparently it took 4000 man hours to build a Bf109 and 16000 to build a Spitfire for about $1 million in modern money. A Ka52 costs ten times as much and a F22 Raptor is well over a hundred million. We're looking at over a hundred thousand man hours for modern military aircraft and much of that cost is avionics.
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  37.  @Guvnor100  Yes definitely higher conscription in the least Ukrainian parts of Ukraine - the Carpathians too apparently. But the actual volunteers and pre-war regulars? Those are the storm troopers and the fire fighters. Heavy casualties in those kind of formations. Case in point - 47th brigade - pretty elite, best equipment but now mainly destroyed over the past two months (so I understand)
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  38. Military Summary Channel is pretty good and so is DPA
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  39.  @thethinkingman-  In some cases there definitely are tunnels between different strong points, they were constructed over the winter by large construction contractors. It turned out the Ukrainians were able to keep Bakhmut so long because they had a supply tunnel between there are Chasiv Yar.
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  40.  @mybad2603  Two differences, in Serbia, the Serbs were fighting for their own land, in Gaza, the Israelis are fighting for someone else's. Other difference, the USA supports Israel, the USA bombed Serbia.
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  41.  @joostdriesens3984  He's right, that's a stalemate. The king is not in check but must move and there's nowhere to move which is not check,
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  42.  @joostdriesens3984  How can it be hard to understand what I'm saying? I wrote "The king is not in check"
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  43.  @Malcolm.Y  LOL oh really? That's obvious to anyone who has ever played chess!
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  44.  @rosomak8244  Tiny quadcopter drones, yes. But larger drones like Lancets seem to be fine in the rain.
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  45.  @zebradun7407  I doubt it, US losses in WWII were over 400k killed, Russian losses are probably around 50k killed. Ukrainian losses will be much higher but nowhere near 400k killed. Probably much less than 200k. Obviously that's still a lot. And before the war casualties will continue to climb.
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  46.  @mickg7299  I'm not convinced by that, the radical Left and the Muslims in Britain definitely support Palestine, most people don't care. And a lot support Israel.
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  47.  @theinternetdude8599  Ukraine had a huge, battle hardened army at the start of the war and had received tens of billions in Western armaments. So the comparison isn't that bad. Israel is demographically falling behind its neighbours, its technological edge is attenuating.
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  48. I doubt elevation matters so much inside a city. Plenty of cover and you have elevation at the top of a building anyway.
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  49. Any NATO soldiers in Ukraine get targeted by missiles. What's NATO going to do then? Explain to the voters why their men are dying in Ukraine? It's not going to happen. It's such an obviously stupid thing to do even NATO won't be that dumb.
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  50.  @Jim-Tuner  So what happens then is the Russians strike those soldiers in Western Ukraine and they have to the option of fighting the Russians or fleeing. I can't see even the Polish population supporting a war with the Russians in Ukraine. Certainly not the American population. Maybe only the Baltic leaders would be dumb enough to do that and their armies are too small to matter. It's not going to happen. The Americans would be forced to negotiate.
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