Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "Ukraine: The Problem with Mine-Clearing Tanks" video.

  1. In an industrial war with half a million men on each side I don't think an air mobile division of 20.000 men would make any difference at all. Even if you managed to surpise the russians and lift over the entire division across the minefield without losing a single helicopter you will still have a hell on the other side of the minefield. You will fight heavily outnumbered. Your enemy got tanks and artillery and you don't. They can supply their units, while your own supplies are very limited at best as helicopters cannot carry much cargo - and especially artillery ammunition that you need the most cannot be lifted in any large amounts by helicopters that are too weak to carry much cargo. At to that that the russians will likely send SAMs, AA guns and air planes to the area to prevent any helicopters to fly in any supplies, reinforcements or evacuate any wonded. The ukrainian air mobile division will be massacred. So I do not believe this concept is that useful.
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  2. Russia economy is badly battered and ammunition production is likely to fall off a cliff next year. Already today is Ukraine firing more artillery shells than russia. And with ATACMS arriving and the last years horrible russian losses in artillery and MLRS will make the future even worse for russia. And North Korean artillery shells sent to russia is like putting a plaster on a guy who just had his entire leg chopped off. Its low quality junk in too small numbers to make any difference. The next year is likely getting horrible for russia. Its economy is going down, its artillery is disapearing, its missiles are going away, its helicopters are held far away by ATACMS, its black sea fleet cannot stay in Crimea, the country is running out of tanks. And now it is using 90 year old military trucks (GAZ AA), 70 year old tanks (T-55), 130 year old rifles (Mosin Nagant), and 70 year old armored personnel carriers (BTR-50). And I don't think russia would be using such old equipment and needlessly put their own soldiers lives at risk if better more modern equipment was available. And to me this is a sign that russia have suffered extremely heavy unsubstainable losses. And if russias professional army equipped with T-90 tanks couldn't defeat ukrainians back when russia had enormous superior in tanks and artillery that could fire 63.000 shots per day - then I don't think russia can win this war when it have fewer tanks than ukraine and firing less shots per day than Ukraine, and having artillery that is of a lower quality. And russias professional army is also dead. Its counter-battery radars are gone. And now are only badly equipped, poorly trained, and badly motivated troops all that russia is having left. So I likely think russia is heading towards a loss. And I think that even a Trump election win would be too little too late to save Putin from a loss. He have already lost too much men and equipment by then to turn the tables and win the war. And even without american artillery shells would the rest of the free world be able to provide enough shells for Ukraine to keep it fighting and making the final push needed to drive home victory against a totally exhausted enemy that have no tanks or artillery left, and only got lots of useless meat - men that gets blown up by ukrainian artillery before they get the chance to even fire upon any ukrainian infantry. And without artillery and tanks you cannot make any succesful offensive tanks. And russia lacks both, and its infantry lacks both training and weapons - so its combat value sucks, and especially so in offensive operations. This Avdiika offensive might be the last major offensive russia could pull off in this war. And it should be noted that this offensive is done with with BTR-50 and the last modern tanks russia got. And even unit in the russian army - VDV looklike complete rookies unsure how to act on a battlefield. So things do not look good for russia. The Ukrainian army might not be well trained professional soldiers according to western standards. Indeed they are far from it, and especially after all losses they have suffered. But Ukraine do on the other hand have lots of good kit, and artillery superiority both in quality and quantity and that is worth a lot.
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  3.  @jimmiller5600  I don't think it is a good idea to put an air mobile division on the other side of that minefield fence even if was the American 1st Cavalry division supported by US air power. This mission is too dangerous and will cost too many losses. A light division cannot fight tanks - because they will just be massacred and the offensive will end up like a failure like Operation Market Garden. And helicopters are light and cannot carry much weight - which means that they got no armor protection. And just a single rifle bullet hitting the hydralics system with a lucky shot could be enough to bring down an entire helicopter and everyone inside. And Vietnam era helicopters did often not know that they were under fire either until other helicopters told them that their helicopter was hit by small arms fire and started to smoke. And today is the threat against helicopters even more diverse with manpads hiding everywhere. American attack helicopters took heavy losses in the invasion of Laos because the enemy had strong air defences prepared. And I imagine fighting the russians would be costly as well. You could probably reduce losses with smarter tactics and use attack aircraft instead of attack helicopters that are slow flying and more vulnerable to enemy fire... and thus not suffer as heavy losses. However, I think that manpads would still pose a threat to low flying attack aircrafts such as A-10.
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  4. I guess that one can use any kind of sensor as a trigger. Only human imagination is the limit. A mine that explodes when someone press on it (like when you press a key on your mouse), or a sensor that makes the mine explode when it hear loud noises, or mines that explode from heat, or a mine that explodes from a smell of certain chemicals, from certain color, from heat, from magnetism, mines that explodes from a tripwire, mines that can explode when you crush the glass of a window, you can make mines that sends out a a laser beam towards a sensor and when someone moves between the two and interrupts this laser beam and blocks it - then the mine explodes. You can make mines that reacts to electricity, magnetism, air pressure, the speed of particles moving around in the air.
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