Comments by "Anders Juel Jensen" (@andersjjensen) on "Anders Puck Nielsen"
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The F-16 has three advantages over every other air multi role fighter jet on the planet:
1) It is THE most produced plane in terms of raw numbers.
2) It has multiple manufacturers for many of it's components (engines, landing gear consumables, etc) and large stock piles exist in various countries.
3) It is the plane that is compatible with the largest number of NATO ordnance catalogue items. Basically, "if it is air delivered the F-16 can deliver it".
The F-16 is not the best in any single category (except versatility, which isn't "a single category") but it is pretty much always in top 5 or top 3 in every contest. Any plane that beats the F-16 in one category also loses to it in 3-5 others (Like the F-22 and F-15 are beating it in agility, but losing in carry capacity, operational range, mission pod expansion capability and weapons choice).
So if you have unlimited budget to run completely different training and logistics tails in each category you'd chose the F-22 as your point air superiority fighter and have it backed up by F-15s "to finish the job", and you'd run the F-35 as your point strike fighter and have it backed up by F/A-18 Super Hornet as "flying bomb trucks".
If, on the other hand, your hamstrung for cash, resources and infrastructure, and reliant on friends to keep you afloat, the F-16 is exactly what you want. It was, right from it's inception, designed to be a low cost, low maintenance do-it-all-pretty-well plane for NATO allies that couldn't afford to have a dedicated plane for every specific role. It is basically "the Swiss army knife" of air craft. A dedicated tool is better, but an army knife can do them all.
In short, it was designed to fight Russia on all Russia's weak points: Raw numbers, logistics and flexibility. So it's kinda befitting that here, 40 years later, the F-16 was chosen for Ukraine for the exact same reasons as it was produced to begin with.
Hope that helped get an idea of what exactly "the F-16 mentality" is.
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The arrogance of being a western military analyst, who always wears a "NATO style" thinking hat, is beyond your normal levels of idiocy. A former east block county, who literally has copies of the Russian fighting doctrine, and is running a massive internal "cleanup effort" within their own officer core to get rid of the inhuman, stupid and inefficient parts of that doctrine, will obviously always have a much better perspective on how to fight Russia with the resources they have available.
The situation in Ukraine looks like WWI but with almost real-time battle field intelligence. Neither part can move any significant amount of resources close to the front lines without the other one knowing about it. Drones are everywhere, both the flying eyes variety and the lethal variety, to make artillery driven trench warfare even more hazardous than it already was. It's a truly bizarre mix of high-tech/low-tech approaches, and no western military scholars have anything to offer but blatant speculation about how to fight such a war.
The old saying that "the army always fights the last war" depicts this situation well. In the west we think of either insurgency management or the first Gulf war. Insurgents don't have massive artillery parks and miles of mine fields, and Ukraine doesn't have enough air power to simply flatten anything that looks suspicious. For those two, rather obvious, reasons it's clear as daylight that everything needs a good re-thinking. This IS a war of attrition like Verdun. And yet it's also an intelligence war where precision strikes at just the right location at just the right time can seriously screw up weeks or months of operations for the other side.
As an old artilleryman my first thought obviously is that Ukraine needs ALL the artillery and ALL the counter battery radars and spotter drones we can possibly scrounge up for them. A flyboy might think we need to furnish them with the capability to carpet bomb Russia out of existence, and the naval folks might think Ukraine needs a 30 battle ships and 15 submarines. But ultimately all of us needs to shut up and ask them what THEY think they need.
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The sheer amount of heavy weaponry left behind in Kharkiv is practically "fatal losses". Sure, mothers won't grief right away, but Russia has just managed to arm Ukraine with about as much as they've been getting in aid. What has been photo documented so far, just from Iziym, includes 10 new and good T-80s, 15 T-72 of various upgrade levels, 4 GRADs, 14 152mm cannons (some drawn, some self propelled), 26 armoured personel carriers of various kinds and models, a multitude of different all-terrain heavy trucks, 2 TOR short range AA systems, 2 Artillery radar systems, 5 brand new drones (with instruction manuals), 3 large ammunition depots and many many smaller local caches, 7 full fuel trucks, several hundred RPG and small mortar systems and tens of thousands of rifle and machine gun rounds.... all of this will be turned into human losses for Russia in short order.
If Ukraine overruns Donbas, before the heavy rain sets in, with all this new reinforcement (they aren't short on man power, only equipment) the Russian morale will collapse entirely.... Both militarily and at home.
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@zachemny You are absolutely correct on the morale point, but "thousands" of (almost antiquated) pieces of hardware doesn't last long in a war. This war, so far, as been relatively minor, yet ORYX has visually confirmed 5907 pieces of heavy equipment loss for Russia. And they only go by videos and pictures uploaded online, which can be geo-located to avoid double-counting. The real losses are a lot higher than that. Even an absurd claim like saying "Russia had 20,000 perfectly working tanks prior to the war" needs to be put into the perspective of "But they have lost no less than 1089 of which no less than 391 fell into Ukrainian hands... in only 6 months". The truth is probably closer to double those numbers. If we take both at face value Russia has lost 10% of it's tanks, and it can't produce more, as it can't get optics systems and electronics outside of what they already had in inventory.... But the thing just is, every military analyst think that less than 30% of Russia's military equipment is in battle worthy condition. So much have just been left to rust in open fields. So much money for maintenance has gone into corrupt pockets. So much engine oil, nuts, bolts, copper from cables, etc, has gone into "self regulating salary". Observe that even by NATO standards, having 60-70% of your equipment park fully operational in peace time is considered a high number. So the 30% guess is not just some propaganda figure. It's probably set a bit high to not underestimate Russia.
So the most probable truth is that Russia has lost upward of 25% of their capabilities... in 6 months. That's why I maintain, that even if morale was good (which it is not) a general mobilization is going to be as useful as tits on a fish.
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What? Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary and all the former Yugoslavia countries are former Soviet block counties. And they're all NATO members now. We didn't "expand in to them"... they screamed "Heeelp! We're finally free, and we'd like it to STAY that way!" and joined NATO basically at any condition and any cost we demanded from them. So I think you should look into getting both your history and geography knowledge.. you know.. updated a little.
That former Soviet block countries didn't even blink before joining NATO, but Sweden and Finland needed an all out war in the middle of Europe to wake up, should tell you everything you need to know about the nature of Russia.
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With one key difference: because they do not share a common ideology they're merely "temporary bedfellows of convenience", and one would not hesitate to stab the other in the back if the geopolitical picture changes radically from what it is now.
Examples:
1) If the economy suddenly picks up again for China, and they eye executing "the debt trap" in middle eastern countries, like they've done in Pakistan and several South American countries, they might want Iran to back down from the trouble making. If Iran isn't too thrilled about this China might start actually abiding by the sanctions against Iran.
2) If the current power structure in Russia collapses, Iran might fuel "independence movements" in the muslim parts of Russia. And China might make a similar move on Outer Manchuria.
3) If Iran ends up "having democracy brought to their country" Russia might take the opportunity to actively take over the proxies Iran has created as a Wagner initiative much like their cleptocracy efforts in Africa.
When we normally think of "an alliance" we think of someone who will have each others back. And that's what Anders was shedding some light on here. If the US suddenly gets enough of Iran's BS and decides to gank them hard, Russia and China will at most cry foul in the UN. If Russia tries to invade Poland both China and Iran are going to do a face palm followed by vague statements about seeking peace negotiations as soon as possible.
The important take-away here is that this is not like Germany, Italy and Japan (and initially Russia, until Germany back-stabbed them) in WW2 who were working fairly tightly together, and had a vision on how "the world would be divided among them". When the Allies invaded Italy, Germany came to the rescue rather promptly. Japan fought fiercely to obtain rubber plantations that the Germans needed the output from.
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Option "1.5 which quickly leads to 2":
1) Ukraine keeps the pressure on to force the current "kinda stalemate" situation. They focus on minimizing their own losses while making life as hard as possible for the Russians. The "Punch where it hurts and duck when you can" approach so to speak. So they keep going after high value targets like ammo depots, fuel depots, the most expensive equipment and command centers.
2) While this is going on the intelligence branch focus on getting as much accurate info they can. Pester/barter/plead NATO to give them direct access to as much high-tech satellite live-feeds and AI target detection capability as possible. At the same time they wait for more supplies of, and training on, NATO equipment to build up strength for a series of well planned and coordinated counter offensives.
3) When the time is right they launch a series of spear-head counter offensives, breaking thorough the front lines with armour in multiple places, long range artillery strikes on anti-aircraft installations, air raids, and heavy shelling of any fortification/trench system they think they may have a good chance of piercing. The offensive will need to retreat after a few days to minimize own losses, but the point is to cause as much loss of life and injure as possible in as short amount of time as possible.
4) The Russians take heavy casualties in both personel and material in a short amount of time. The Ukrainians retreat the spear heads to the previous lines before Russia gets a chance to properly flank them or otherwise react to the development.
5) Russia is left wondering when this will happen again, while body-bag after body-bag is sent home.
6) Ukraine starts preparing to do it again, and make it blatantly obvious that they will continue with effective and coordinated hit'n'run until the Russians are sick and tired of it all.
7) Either 2 or 3 happens after one, two or three rounds of this treatment.
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@anderspuck Question for the defence analytic (anyone feel free to upvote if you want this answered): Ukraine has recently started playing "Petro Bingo" with the Russia's oil refinery distillation/fractionation towers, which are what turns crude oil into more valuable product. The quote "Armies run on food and fuel" is an adaptation of "Armies run on food and feed" from the horse-back days, so it makes sense Ukraine would do this, since it hurts both the Russian armed forces AND hurts the Russian economy.
So my question is: In defence planning and analysis, how much consideration, planning and maybe even procurement are we actually doing in the west when it comes to an adversary's military supporting infrastructure? Are we always planning to just fight their army? Or is it an active element of war to disrupt as many inputs to the enemy's army as possible, as quickly as possible?
I ask because there are "voices" "suggesting" that this is somehow a dick move, but during WWII an enormous effort was made, by all sides, to disrupt everything that the enemy's army could benefit from, in any way, what so ever. Not just weapons factories, but raw steel plants, dockyards, refineries, chemical plants, uniform factories, canned food factories, etc, etc.
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